Learning from Other People's Actions: Environmental Variation and Diffusion in French Coal Mining Strikes, 1890-1935

This study shows the role of imitation in producing social protests. Resource mobilization theories tend to underestimate workers' need for information. The fact that conditions are right for striking needs to be communicated through news of other strikes. Thus (a) strikes stimulate other strikes, net of objective bargaining conditions, (b) unionization increases the rate of strike imitation, (c) successful strikes generate more imitation than unsuccessful strikes, (d) unionization changes the locus of strike imitation from strike beginnings to endings, and (e) long average strike length changes the locus of imitation from endings to beginnings. These predictions are supported by evidence on Third Rupublic French coal mine strikes.