DISSIDENT GROUPS, PERSONAL NETWORKS, AND SPONTANEOUS COOPERATION - THE EAST-GERMAN REVOLUTION OF 1989

We focus on the roles of groups and personal networks in demonstration s in the repressive setting of East Germany between May and October 19 89. We first propose a micro-model specifying a broad set of individua l incentives to participate; then we contend that political events and changes in the social context together with existing coordinating mec hanisms produced the large-scale demonstrations in 1989. Most of our h ypotheses are tested using a representative survey of Leipzig's popula tion 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 demons trations. The expectation of repression was irrelevant. Opposition gro ups were unable to shape the incentives of the population, and incenti ves for their members to participate were weak, whereas negative incen tives prevailed for members of the Socialist Party. Incentives to part icipate were concentrated in personal networks of friends. Thus, perso nal networks were the most important contexts for mobilizing citizens. A ''spontaneous coordination model'' explains how discontented citize ns met at particular times and places, and why few incentives were nec essary to prompt participation in the demonstrations.