Conditional Participation and First-Mover Obstruction: Why a Group That Wants to Act Together Can Fail to Begin

This conceptual paper introduces Conditional Participation and First-Mover Obstruction, a causal mechanism in which participation depends on others joining, leaving no safe initial move that satisfies those conditions. A group can therefore prefer joint action while lacking a feasible way to begin. The account assesses the feasibility of a coordinated path by examining participation rules, first-mover costs, and available assurances. Shared preference alone does not establish that such a path exists. Credible commitments or guarantees can change the conditions, while inaction alone does not show that participants lacked interest. The discussion connects the mechanism to Granovetter’s threshold models and examines Mackie’s account of natural-foot societies in China. On his account, families faced marriage risks if they abandoned footbinding alone. Linked pledges to leave daughters’ feet unbound and have sons marry women with unbound feet offered a coordinated route. The paper does not treat these pledges as the sole cause of footbinding’s decline. Part of the Coordination and Dependence series within On Human Modeling, the paper examines how conditional willingness can obstruct collective action. Its framework can inform human–AI research on representing participation conditions, coordinating commitments, and distinguishing unwillingness from a lack of feasible coordination.