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Purpose: This article critically examines the interplay between individualism and collectivism in legal systems. It argues that the law remains disproportionately focused on individual rights and duties, even though group dynamics demonstrably shape behaviour. The paper therefore calls for the formal recognition of informal groups and the integration of collective responsibility to reflect current social realities more accurately.Methodology: Employing a historical-legal and interdisciplinary lens, the study traces the evolution of individualism from Roman law to modern legal frameworks. It combines comparative legal analysis, theoretical critique, and normative analysis to propose legal reforms that reconcile individual autonomy with collective accountability.Findings: Historically, legal systems have privileged individualism and underestimated the influence of groups. As a result, informal collectives often lack protection and meaningful participation in legal processes. This over-emphasis on the individual hampers effective responses to systemic discrimination, environmental harm, and labour rights violations. Although certain branches—such as corporate and environmental law—implicitly recognise collective responsibility, explicit mechanisms to balanceindividual and group interests are still required. Flexible legal models can integrate group accountability without eroding personal rights.Practical implications: Conferring limited legal personality on informal groups would enable them to assert rights without full formalisation. A calibrated balance between individual and collective liability would enhance the law’s capacity to address problems that demand shared responsibility. Strengthening collective legal tools—such as class actions, trade unions, and community governance—would improve legal representation, while the use of AI-enabled digital platforms could foster participatorylaw-making and deliver fairer legal structures. Namen: Članek kritično obravnava preplet individualizma in kolektivizma v pravnih sistemih. Avtor trdi, da je pravo nesorazmerno osredotočeno na individualne pravice in dolžnosti, čeprav skupinska dinamika dokazano oblikuje vedenje. Zato poziva k formalnemu priznanju neformalnih skupin in vključitvi kolektivne odgovornosti, s čimer bi pravo natančneje odražalo sodobno družbeno stvarnost.Metodologija: S historično-pravnim in interdisciplinarnim pristopom študija sledi razvoju individualizma od rimskega prava do sodobnih pravnih okvirov. Združuje primerjalnopravno analizo, teoretsko kritiko in normativno analizo ter predlaga reforme, ki usklajujejo individualno avtonomijo s kolektivno odgovornostjo.Ugotovitve: Zgodovinsko gledano so pravni sistemi privilegirali individualizem in podcenjevali vpliv skupin. Posledično neformalne skupine ne uživajo ustrezne zaščite in smiselne udeležbe v pravnih postopkih. To pretirano poudarjanje posameznika ovira učinkovite odzive na sistemsko diskriminacijo, okoljsko škodo in kršitve delavskih pravic. Čeprav nekatera področja – na primer korporacijsko in okoljsko pravo – implicitno priznavajokolektivno odgovornost, so za uravnoteženje interesov posameznika in skupnosti še vedno potrebni izrecni mehanizmi. Prilagodljivi pravni modeli lahko vključijo skupinsko odgovornost, ne da bi pri tem razvrednotiliosebne pravice.Praktične posledice: Podelitev omejene pravne subjektivitete neformalnim skupinam bi jim omogočila uveljavljanje pravic brez popolne formalizacije. Uravnoteženo razmerje med individualno in kolektivno odgovornostjo bi okrepilo sposobnost prava za reševanje problemov, ki zahtevajo deljeno odgovornost. Krepitev kolektivnih pravnih orodij – kot so skupinske tožbe, sindikati in skupnostno upravljanje – bi izboljšala pravno zastopanje, uporaba digitalnih platform z umetno inteligenco pa bi lahko spodbujala participativno oblikovanje prava in pravičnejše pravne strukture.

This article is concerned with three key ethical issues that arise from the use in military combat of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS). The first issue concerns the unpredictability of LAWS in respect of the requirement of Meaningful Human Control (MHC) – as opposed to machine control - in theatres of war. It is argued that the unpredictability of (especially) ‘self-learning’ LAWS is not necessarily a barrier to their morally acceptable use under some restricted conditions. The second issue concerns a normative framework for ascribing moral and, potentially, legal responsibility in respect of LAWS, i.e., the so-called responsibility gap. It is argued that the notion of collective responsibility is potentially helpful here. The third issue concerns human on-the-loop LAWS. It is argued that whereas human out-of-the loop weapons should be prohibited, nevertheless, under certain restrictive conditions some human on-the-loop LAWSs (as well as human in-the-loop LAWSs) may be morally acceptable.

In diesem Artikel erörtere ich eine Reihe ethischer Fragen im Zusammenhang mit dem von den USA in Auftrag gegebenen Belmont-Bericht (NATIONAL COMMISSION FOR THE PROTECTION OF HUMAN SUBJECTS OF BIOMEDICAL AND BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH 1979), wobei ich als Ausgangspunkt eine postqualitative Untersuchung mit zehn (schwarzen) Kindern im Alter von 14 bis 15 Jahren in einer südafrikanischen Schule nutze. Ich bat die Kinder, Gruppen zu bilden, um gemeinsam über die mögliche Relevanz bestimmter, in Australien entwickelter Szenarien zu Klimawandel für Südafrika nachzudenken. Die \"Szenario-Aktivität\" sollte das aktive gemeinsame Lernen der Teilnehmer_innen anregen. Sie sollte auch bewusst \"performativ\" sein, da die in den vorgestellten Szenarien verwendeten Worte Einfluss auf die (gemeinsamen) Überlegungen der Kinder haben würden, für die ich eine gewisse Verantwortung übernommen hatte. Vor dem Hintergrund dieser Untersuchung und mit Blick auf laufende ethische Debatten über den Zweck sozialwissenschaftlicher Forschung stelle ich Überlegungen vor, die in eine radikale Überarbeitung der Leitlinien des Belmont-Berichts (der für Ethik-Ausschüsse weltweit relevant ist) münden, um ein performatives Verständnis von Sozialforschung zu integrieren. Obwohl ich mich auf ethische Fragen der Forschungsinteraktion mit Kindern/Jugendlichen konzentriere, dürften meine Überlegungen auch Auswirkungen auf die partizipative Forschung mit Erwachsenen haben.

This article investigates the collective responsibility organizations among boatmen in nineteenth-century Chongqing, when the city became one of the most important metropolises on the southwest Qing frontier. It also introduces two successive turning points in self-organization that were associated with two different classes of boatmen – skippers and sailors. First, in 1803, skippers gained the authority to institutionalize their organizations through their negotiations with the local state regarding official services and service fees. Second, when similar service and fiscal tensions emerged between skippers and sailors in the mid-nineteenth century, the skippers facilitated and supervised the institutionalization of collective responsibility organizations that were run by the sailors themselves. By contextualizing this expansion of collective responsibility organizations within the multilayered interactions between skippers and sailors, this article proposes that the perspective of interclass networks is crucial for deepening the study of state−society interactions, the capital−labor relationship, as well as the tension between imperial integration and regional diversity in early modern China.

Community gardening has become an important urban sustainability initiative that integrates ecological restoration with social participation. However, little is known about the psychological and social mechanisms that drive citizens’ willingness to engage in such activities, particularly in densely populated cities with limited green space. This study develops and empirically tests an integrative behavioral model combining environmental psychology, social cognitive theory, and environmental identity theory to explain citizens’ participation in community gardening in Tehran, Iran. Using survey data from 416 residents and analyzing results through structural equation modeling, the study evaluates the effects of six key predictors, including childhood nature experience, connectedness to nature, self-efficacy, outcome expectancy, psychological restoration, and collective environmental responsibility, on willingness to participate. The model explained 54% of the variance in participation, indicating high explanatory power. Five predictors significantly influenced willingness to participate: childhood nature experience, connectedness to nature, outcome expectancy, psychological restoration, and collective environmental responsibility, while self-efficacy was not significant. The findings reveal that engagement in community gardening is shaped more by emotional, restorative, and moral motivations than by perceived capability alone. Theoretically, this research advances understanding of pro-environmental participation by integrating memory-based, affective, and normative dimensions of behavior. Practically, it provides actionable insights for urban planners and policymakers to design inclusive, emotionally restorative, and collectively managed green initiatives that strengthen citizen participation and enhance urban resilience.

The coupling of mana moana is grounded in inspiration from and through Indigeneity and Moana sense-making (intimate understanding through our sensibilities within Oceania). Tongan meaning-making is centred on talanoa-va, a framework that begins theorisation and analytical unpacking from an Indigenous Moana relational vantage point. We employ talatalanoa (ongoing conversations) to story and capture our conceptualisations of fakakoloa (purposefully sharing and imparting knowledge) and mana moana across interdisciplinary intersections as Tongan male educators and researchers working across the social sciences and health sciences. Our unpacking of mana moana as collective agency and responsibility is a feature of being located in tu'atonga (outside of Tonga; also relates to the Tongan diaspora). Fronting and centring Tongan thought and concepts is our way of grounding relational sense-making in Aotearoa/New Zealand whenua (places). Sociological inquiry through decoloniality within the postcolonial era from a Moana vantage point relies on approaches like talanoa-va and talatalanoa to disrupt the normalised conditions and traditions of thinking and theorising within Euro-American-centric academe.

Systems change requires complex interventions. Cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) face the daunting task of addressing complex societal problems by aligning different backgrounds, values, ideas and resources. A major challenge for CSPs is how to link the type of partnership to the intervention needed to drive change. Intervention strategies are thereby increasingly based on Theories of Change (ToCs). Applying ToCs is often a donor requirement, but it also reflects the ambition of a partnership to enhance its transformative potential. The current use of ToCs in partnering efforts varies greatly. There is a tendency for a linear and relatively simple use of ToCs that does limited justice to the complexity of the problems partnerships aim to address. Since partnership dynamics are already complex and challenging themselves, confusion and disagreement over the appropriate application of ToCs is likely to hamper rather than enhance the transformative potential of partnerships. We develop a complexity alignment framework and a diagnostic tool that enables partnerships to better appreciate the complexity of the context in which they operate, allowing them to adjust their learning strategy. This paper applies recent insights into how to deal with complexity from both the evaluation and theory of change fields to studies investigating the transformative capacity of partnerships. This can (1) serve as a check to define the challenges of partnering projects and (2) can help delineate the societal sources and layers of complexity that cross-sector partnerships deal with such as failure, insufficient responsibility taking and collective action problems at four phases of partnering.

Which kinds of responsibility can we attribute to which kinds of collective, and why? In contrast, which kinds of collective responsibility can we not attribute—which kinds are 'gappy'? This study provides a framework for answering these questions. It begins by distinguishing between three kinds of collective (diffuse, teleological, and agential) and three kinds of responsibility (causal, moral, and prospective). It then explains how gaps—i.e. cases where we cannot attribute the responsibility we might want to—appear to arise within each type of collective responsibility. It argues some of these gaps do not exist on closer inspection, at least for some collectives and some of the time.

Scientists have the epistemic responsibility of producing knowledge. They also have the social responsibility of aligning their research with the needs and values of various societal stakeholders. Individual scientists may be left with no guidance on how to prioritize and carry these different responsibilities. As I will argue, however, the responsibilities of science can be harmonized at the collective level. Drawing from debates in moral philosophy, I will propose a theory of the collective responsibilities of science that accounts for the internal diversity of research groups and for their different responsibilities.