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Spontaneous Collective Action: Peripheral Mobilization During the Arab Spring

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  • STEINERT-THRELKELD, ZACHARY C.
Abstract
Who is responsible for protest mobilization? Models of disease and information diffusion suggest that those central to a social network (the core) should have a greater ability to mobilize others than those who are less well-connected. To the contrary, this article argues that those not central to a network (the periphery) can generate collective action, especially in the context of large-scale protests in authoritarian regimes. To show that those in the core of a social network have no effect on levels of protest, this article develops a dataset of daily protests across 16 countries in the Middle East and North Africa over 14 months from 2010 through 2011. It combines that dataset with geocoded, individual-level communication from the same period and measures the number of connections of each person. Those on the periphery are shown to be responsible for changing levels of protest, with some evidence suggesting that the core’s mobilization efforts lead to fewer protests. These results have implications for a wide range of social choices that rely on interdependent decision making.

Suggested Citation

  • Steinert-Threlkeld, Zachary C., 2017. "Spontaneous Collective Action: Peripheral Mobilization During the Arab Spring," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 111(2), pages 379-403, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:111:y:2017:i:02:p:379-403_00
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    Cited by:

    1. Andrea Tesei & Filipe Campante & Ruben Durante, 2022. "Media and Social Capital," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 69-91, August.
    2. Bouke Klein Teeselink & Georgios Melios, 2022. "Weather to Protest: The Effect of Black Lives Matter Protests on the 2020 Presidential Election," Working Papers CEB 22-007, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    3. Alt, James E. & Jensen, Amalie & Larreguy, Horacio & Lassen, David D. & Marshall, John, 2022. "Diffusing Political Concerns: How Unemployment Information passed between social Ties Influence Danish Voters," TSE Working Papers 22-1292, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    4. Rudolf, Robert & Wang, Shun & Wu, Fengyu, 2023. "The Arab Spring, a setback for gender equality? Evidence from the Gallup World Poll," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    5. Kurt Weyland, 2019. "Why Some Democracy Protests Do Diffuse," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 63(10), pages 2390-2401, November.
    6. Thomas Zeitzoff, 2017. "How Social Media Is Changing Conflict," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 61(9), pages 1970-1991, October.
    7. Stephen A Meserve & Daniel Pemstein, 2020. "Terrorism and internet censorship," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(6), pages 752-763, November.
    8. Cottiero, Christina & Hafner-Burton, Emily & Haggard, Stephan & Prather, Lauren & Schneider, Christina J, 2024. "Illiberal Regimes and International Organizations," Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, Working Paper Series qt2bx6b98g, Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California.
    9. Anita R. Gohdes, 2018. "Studying the Internet and Violent conflict," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 35(1), pages 89-106, January.
    10. Hirofumi Takesue, 2020. "From defection to ingroup favoritism to cooperation: simulation analysis of the social dilemma in dynamic networks," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 189-207, April.
    11. Balán, Pablo & Dodyk, Juan & Puente, Ignacio, 2023. "Kin in the game: How family ties help firms overcome campaign finance regulation," Working Papers 330, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    12. Thomas Zeitzoff & Grace Gold, 2024. "Cyber and contentious politics: Evidence from the US radical environmental movement," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 61(1), pages 134-149, January.
    13. Beacham, Austin & Hafner-Burton, Emilie M & Schneider, Christina J, 2024. "The Weaponization of Information Technologies and Democratic Resilience," Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, Working Paper Series qt6f24q81x, Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California.
    14. Yannis Theocharis & Pablo Barberá & Zoltán Fazekas & Sebastian Adrian Popa, 2020. "The Dynamics of Political Incivility on Twitter," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(2), pages 21582440209, May.
    15. Ming-Hung Wang & Nhut-Lam Nguyen & Shih-chan Dai & Po-Wen Chi & Chyi-Ren Dow, 2020. "Understanding Potential Cyber-Armies in Elections: A Study of Taiwan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-18, March.
    16. Dagaev, Dmitry & Lamberova, Natalia & Sobolev, Anton, 2019. "Stability of revolutionary governments in the face of mass protest," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    17. Nicholas Francis Havey, 2020. "Partisan public health: how does political ideology influence support for COVID-19 related misinformation?," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 319-342, November.
    18. Kubinec, Robert & Owen, John, 2018. "When Groups Fall Apart: Identifying Transnational Polarization with Twitter from the Arab Uprisings," SocArXiv wykmj, Center for Open Science.
    19. Desai, Raj M. & Olofsgård, Anders & Yousef, Tarik, 2018. "Signaling Dissent: Political Behavior in the Arab World," SITE Working Paper Series 45, Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics.

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