A Model of Protests, Revolution, and Information

Matthew Jackson and Salvador Barberà ()

No 951, Working Papers from Barcelona School of Economics

Abstract: A collective action or revolt succeeds only if sufficiently many people participate. We study how potential revolutionaries' ability to coordinate is affected by what they learn from different sources. We first examine how people learn about the likelihood of a revolution's success by talking to those around themselves, which can either work in favor or against the success of an uprising, depending on the prior beliefs of the agents, the homogeneity of preferences in the population, and the number of contacts. We extend the analysis by examining the effects of homophily on learning: people are more likely to meet others who have similar preferences, undercutting learning. We introduce variants of our model to discuss other ways of learning about the support for a revolution. We discuss why holding mass protests before a revolt provides more informative signals of peoples willingness to actively participate than other less costly forms of communication (e.g., via social media). We also show how outcomes of revolutions in one region can inform citizens of another region and thus trigger (or discourage) neighboring revolutions. We also discuss the role of governments in avoiding revolutions and learning about their citizens' concerns; in particular, by observing the strength of protests and counter-protests.

Keywords: strike; revolution; demonstration; protests; revolt; rebellion; Arab Spring; homphily (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D71 D72 D74 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-mic and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: A Model of Protests, Revolution, and Information (2020)
Working Paper: A Model of Protests, Revolution, and Information (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bge:wpaper:951

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