Popular uprisings continually surprise us with their suddenness and impact. In order to have an accurate understanding of the structure of popular protest we need systematic investigation of the specific conditions under which sustained collective action emerges. Do opportunities to exit an unfavorable regime through flight influence collective action aimed to reform or replace it? The East German revolution of 1989-1990 where popular protest seems to have been spurred by an emigration crisis provides an excellent case study in the dynamics of spontaneous mobilization.

Drawing on Hirschman's (1970) classic theory of exit and voice as responses to organizational decline, we develop a theory of exit-voice dynamics and use it to analyze collective action in the East German revolution of 1989-1990. We posit that high volumes of exit may actually undercut voice. The importance of exit may be to trigger voice, but when it is a readily available option exit may drain away the social capital necessary to sustain voice.

Based on a unique data set covering the whole of the GDR, we analyze county-level variations in exit and voice. We also evaluate the effects of indicators of political loyalty, social movement organization, and objective social and economic conditions alongside emigration. Our analysis finds strong support for our reformulated exit-voice model. Under certain conditions, as in the GDR's exiting crisis, emigration can be a trigger for loosely-organized collective action by signaling discontent and activating loyalty but in greater magnitudes appears to undermine the local capacity for voice.