Coordination in the Shadow of Repression

• In Event: Why Citizens Engage in Protest and Activism

Abstract

Better communication technology can help protesters coordinate, but also helps the government monitor and repress protesters. We study this tradeoff in a model that blends components of a coordination model (protesters want to show up at the same time/location) and a 'Colonel Blotto' model (protesters want to avoid government forces). If leaders of the protest movement can send messages observed by other protesters but not the government, they can successfully coordinate on a variety of sites and force the government to spread resources thin, lowering expected levels of repression and helping the success of the movement. If the government observes the messages as well, protesters can do no better than always going to a 'focal site' knowing the government will send their all of their forces there as well. By studying cases in-between these ideal types, we explain puzzling protest tactics observed in recent prominent cases like publicizing the time but not location of all protests, and having smaller 'parallel'' protests at the same time but different location of the main gathering.

Authors

• Tak-Huen Chau, UC Berkeley

• Mai Hassan

• Andrew Little, University of California-Berkeley