Information Gaps and Unintended Outcomes of Social Movements: The 1989 Chinese Student Movement

Abstract

Under what conditions will threats made by a state hinder social movements? And under what conditions will intended or unintended outcomes occur as a result? This article addresses these questions by applying a dynamic model that depicts the 1989 Chinese student movement as a three-iteration game with incomplete information. In this model, the Chinese government is willing ultimately to suppress the student resistance by force, but since it is playing a two-level game, it conceals its preferences as private information while initially choosing not to use force. In the end, many demonstrators died believing that the People's Liberation Army would never harm the Chinese people. This model suggests how an information gap can lead to unintended and undesirable outcomes, even when actors behave rationally.