Coordinating Demands for Social Change

Mass protest movements resemble assurance games, in which individual decisions to contribute are contingent on the aggregate level of participation. While participation in ineffective movements carries high costs and returns few collective and selective benefits, participation in successful social movements can be more advantageous than abstention. Supporters of a movement therefore try to coordinate their decisions with those of other activists, participating when it appears that the movement has sufficient popular support to be politically effective, but not otherwise. Such decisions, however, typically have to be made with considerable uncertainty about both the intentions of other individuals and the prospects of the movement as it develops. Given this individual calculus, a number of deductions can be drawn about the resources, strategies, goals, and political conditions that will be required to coordinate and organize mass social protest.