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

abstract

• 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 strikes stimulate other strikes, net of objective bargaining conditions, unionization increases the rate of strike imitation, successful strikes generate more imitation than unsuccessful strikes, unionization changes the locus of strike imitation from strike beginnings to endings, and long average strike length changes the locus of imitation from endings to beginnings. These predictions are supported by evidence on Third Republic French coal mine strikes. -Authors

authors

• Cohn, Samuel

published proceedings

• American Journal of Sociology

author list (cited authors)

• Conell, C., & Cohn, S

citation count

• 71

complete list of authors

• Conell, Carol||Cohn, Samuel

publication date

• September 1995

publisher

• University Of Chicago Press  Publisher

published in

• American Journal of Sociology  Journal

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1086/230728

URI

• https://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/182831

start page

• 366

end page

• 403

volume

• 101

issue

• 2

URL

• http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/230728