Revolutionary origins and conditional mobilization

Abstract We examine the role played by popular expectations in the process of political mobilization and the dilemma this poses for nascent revolutionary organizations. In any target population, we argue, there will be a small ‘hard core’ minority of unconditional supporters of each side. The large majority of individuals (though they may have definite sympathies toward one of the two sides) can be influenced to support either side depending upon their predictions of others' behavior and their related estimates of each side's prospects. The conditional nature of such support, we argue, poses an early mobilization problem for revolutionary challengers. The revolutionary opposition begins the struggle from a position of weakness. The expected returns to membership are, therefore, quite low and the expected costs of association are correspondingly high. Why would anyone join such a high risk enterprise in the first place? Revolutionary groups attempt to overcome this challenge through the use of symbolic violence. Group violence is used as a surrogate variable by would-be supporters to estimate the size and relative prospects of the armed opposition. This process, if properly managed, can result in a situation in which agent expectations eventually become self-confirming, permitting the group to ‘jump start’ the mobilization process and achieve a self-sustaining level of revolutionary activity.