ABSTRACT
In their study of the protests in East Germany in 1989, which would finally bring down the Berlin Wall, Opp, Voss, and Gern (1995) argued that the first protests were a result of individual citizens’ spontaneous cooperation or coordination. There was no central organization calling for a demonstration. The micro-mobilization processes through which information was transmitted and shared were weak. Rather, the protests were the result of identical behavioral decisions made by a large number of individuals, who might have been isolated from each other and yet were located within very similar social and political situations. In other words, there was very little organizational or mobilizational effort behind the protests. Individual citizens just made their own decisions to act based on their attitudes, perceptions, and rational calculations of possible rewards and risks.
