Exit‐Voice Dynamics in Collective Action: An Analysis of Emigration and Protest in the East German Revolution

What triggers protest in a highly repressive regime? Do opportunities to exit an unfavorable regime through flight spur collective action aimed to reform or replace it? Drawing on Hirschman’s microeconomic theory of exit and voice as responses to organizational decline, this article offers a sociological theory of exit‐voice dynamics that considers the implications of social embeddedness for collective action. A unique data set on migration and protest in the East German revolution of 1989–90 is used to analyze county‐level variations in exit and voice alongside indicators of political loyalty, social movement organization, and social and economic conditions. The analysis finds strong support for the reformulated exit‐voice model and its prediction of an inverted‐U‐curve relationship between emigration and protest.