Dissident Groups, Personal Networks, and Spontaneous Cooperation: The East German Revolution of 1989

We focus on the roles of groups and personal networks in demonstrations in the repressive setting of East Germany between May and October 1989. We first propose a micro-model specifying a broad set of individual incentives to participate; then we contend that political events and changes in the social context together with existing coordinating mechanisms produced the large-scale demonstrations in 1989. Most of our hypotheses are tested using a representative survey of Leipzig's population in the fall of 1990 that focuses on the 1989 protests. Among the incentives, only political discontent, weighted by perceived personal political influence, has a major impact on participation in the demonstrations. The expectation of repression was irrelevant. Opposition groups were unable to shape the incentives of the population, and incentives for their members to participate were weak, whereas negative incentives prevailed for members of the Socialist Party. Incentives to participate were concentrated in personal networks of friends. Thus, personal networks were the most important contexts for mobilizing citizens. A "spontaneous coordination model" explains how discontented citizens met at particular times and places, and why few incentives were necessary to prompt participation in the demonstrations.