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"Steven Pfaff offers a bold sociological explanation of the collapse of Communism in East Germany. On the basis of detailed protest data, he explores the dynamics of 'exit' and 'voice' in eroding popular 'loyalty' to the Marxist dictatorship."--Konrad H. Jarausch, editor of "Dictatorship as Experience: Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the GDR"

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Exit-Voice Dynamics and the Collapse of East Germany

Duke University Press

Contents

Illustrations.............................................................................................................ixPreface and Acknowledgments...............................................................................................xiIntroduction..............................................................................................................11. Exit-Voice Dynamics and Collective Action..............................................................................142. Blocked Voice, Demobilization, and the Crisis of East German Communism.................................................313. No Exit: The Niche Society and the Limits of Coercive Surveillance.....................................................614. Dona Nobis Pacem: Political Subcultures, the Church, and the Birth of Dissident Voice..................................815. Triggering Insurgent Voice: The Exiting Crisis and the Rebellion against Communism.....................................1076. Fight or Flight? A Statistical Evaluation of Exit-Voice Dynamics in the East German Revolution.........................1427. Why Was There No "Chinese Solution" in the GDR?........................................................................1658. Activists of the First Hour: New Forum and the Mobilization of Reformist Voice.........................................1909. Reunification as the Collective Exit from Socialism....................................................................224Conclusion................................................................................................................254Appendix: Quantitative Data and the Statistical Analysis of County-Level Exit and Voice Relationships.....................267Notes.....................................................................................................................275Bibliography..............................................................................................................299Index.....................................................................................................................325

Chapter One

When I do an analysis myself I never think of economics as a whole and of sociology as a whole and how the two can meet; where are the interfaces; and so on. I do it in connection with specific phenomena. And almost inevitably I find ways in which it is the intermingling that explains. -ALBERT O. HIRSCHMAN, QTD. IN R. SWEDBERG, ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY

The events of 1989-90 in East Germany reveal a remarkable coincidence of emigration and protest. The archives of the GDR Interior Ministry indicate that more than fifteen hundred public protest events occurred between September 1989, when the crisis began, and March 1990, when parliamentary elections voted in a pro-unification government. Demographic reports show that in the period between the first anti-regime protests and the parliamentary elections that voted for German unity more than four hundred thousand GDR citizens (nearly 3 percent of the population) abandoned the country and fled to West Germany. (See figure 1.)

All accounts are united in seeing emigration as playing an important part in the East German revolution (see Pollack 1994; Oe 1994, 1997; Zapf 1993; Naimark 1992; Mueller 1999). The apparent correlation between exit (emigration) and voice (protest) has been widely noted, with many scholars drawing on the insights of economist Albert O. Hirschman's pioneering essay Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (1970) to explain it. Indeed, Hirschman's thinking profoundly influenced our understanding of 1989, as reflected in a number of scholarly treatments of the subject applying his theory, not least his own conceptual essay (Hirschman 1993; see also Brubaker 1990; Pollack 1990; Goldstone 1994b; Lohmann 1994; Mueller 1999). Yet these studies have generally only considered one side of the relationship between exit and voice, such as how emigration to West Germany before 1989 stunted the development of an opposition movement in comparison with developments in Poland or Czechoslovakia (Torpey 1995; Joppke 1995; also see Huntington 1968: 310-11) or provided "exit repertoires" that were an alternative to social movements (Mueller 1999).

In fact, nearly all perspectives in the collective action literature concur that an exit option should suppress voice by providing the rational actor with a typically low-cost alternative to protest that avoids collective action problems (MacDonald 1963; Barry 1974; Adas 1986; Blair and Jost 2003). This interpretation is reinforced by previous studies of the GDR. As John Torpey (1995: 9) says with regard to the East German intellectuals, "For their part, those who chose to leave the GDR rather than suffer the travails of the struggle for a better society naturally reduced the direct pressures on the regime to change and, perhaps equally significantly, demoralized those who wished to stay and fight the battle." In his study of the dissident movement, Christian Joppke (1995: 29) argues that "in East Germany, the equivalent to the dissident quest for the open society was exit to West Germany, where everyone who managed to cross the Wall could pick up automatic citizenship. The exit option, which could be taken only individually, neutralized the appearance of antipolitical dissidence as political claim."

The implication is evident: as the availability of exit increases, collective action should decrease. In this scenario, mass emigration would prevent a revolution. On the other hand, if the costs of collective action fall, emigration should decrease as the balance of incentives shifts from exit to voice as a means of redressing grievances. In this scenario, revolution prevents emigration (Lichbach 1994: 106). Although both of these theoretical scenarios are plausible, neither seems to capture the dynamic driving the East German revolution. Lichbach's (1994: 105) discussion of the implications of exit for the Rebel's Dilemma suggests an ambiguous role for emigration: "Without the safety valve of exit, voice is the only resort left for changing one's situation. Voice will thus be wielded by those with literally no place else to go. Moreover, as the possibility of exit increases, the best and brightest (i.e., the most motivated and best able) leave, taking the clearest voices out of the picture." When the exit option presents itself in the study of collective action, it appears as safety valve, as a factor depleting social capital, and as a last resort. But are there other possibilities?

However important emigration was for its ultimate political fate, emigration alone was unlikely to have led to the capitulation of an intransigent, orthodox Leninist regime like the GDR. During the period that emigration shook the GDR, mass mobilization went on concurrently. The historical evidence shows that, despite the importance of the emigration crisis in triggering protest and weakening the regime's grip, the East German state collapsed because of the direct pressure of the people in the streets. The great breakthroughs in the democratic revolution-the fall of Honecker in mid-October, the fall of the Berlin Wall in early November, the January 1990 announcement...