Crises, Catharses, and Boiling Frogs: Path Dependence in Collective Action

Abstract

We show a strong form of path-dependence in collective action. For a given distribution of anti-regime grievances and sentiments in the society, the size of the protest is larger when this distribution of grievances is the result of a sudden large change rather than a series of smaller unexpected changes. Society as a whole behaves like the legendary boiling frog, even though each individual does not. Large grievance shocks (crises) coordinate behavior far more effectively into revolts than a sequence of small shocks that generate the same final distribution of grievances. Our analysis applies advances in incomplete information coordination games (Morris and Yildiz 2019), deviating from the literature by relying only on the notion of rationalizability (as opposed to Nash equilibrium) and assuming heavy-tailed distributions of grievance shocks. We explore the unexpected link between this theory and Davies's (1962) classic J-curve theory of revolution.