Water as a Commons: An Exploratory Study on the Motives for Collective Action Among Italian Water Movement Activists DAVIDE MAZZONI * and ELVIRA CICOGNANI Department of Education Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy ABSTRACT In many communities, supplying water and sanitation is a huge task, and the fact that these essential services can be carried out by the private sector is a debated issue. This article presents an exploratory study aimed to identify the range of motives for collective action shared by activists of the Italian Movement for ‘Public Water’. In-depth interviews were conducted with 28 activists and were qualitatively analysed. Five main motivational categories emerged: defending the right to water, preserving community ties, opposing to the Government and ‘water sellers’, preserving the environ- ment and money interests. Each motive is based on a specific representation of the issue of water and privatization process. Findings provide further support for the importance of moral convictions and sense of community in collective action development and suggest a critical reconsideration of the role played by collective efficacy. The results are discussed in the framework of the psychosocial literature on collective action and community psychology perspectives on participatory processes. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key words: collective action; right to water; sense of community; commons; participation First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. (Mahatma Gandhi) 1 INTRODUCTION: THE ITALIAN WATER MOVEMENT Water is a commons, a natural resource, and has been recognized as a universal human right even if hundreds of millions of people do not have access to safe, clean water *Correspondence to: Davide Mazzoni, Department of Education Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy. E-mail: davide.mazzoni@unibo.it 1 Cited in the webpage of the Italian Forum of Water Movements. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 23: 314–330 (2013) Published online 13 July 2012 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/casp.2123 Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 29 May 2012