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Many of our seminars and public events this year will continue as in person or as hybrid (online and in person) events.

Please check our website listings and social media feeds @STICERD_LSE at X and @LSE-STICERD-CASE at Bluesky for updates.

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Unless otherwise specified, in-person seminars are open to the public. Please ensure you have informed the event contact as early as possible.

Those unable to join the seminars in-person are welcome to participate via zoom if the event is hybrid.

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About this event

Why do some protest movements escalate from peaceful demonstrations to violent confrontation while others never change tactics? I develop a dynamic model in which an organizer chooses between tactics that differ in how they convert participation into political power. Failed protests reveal information about regime strength, reducing subsequent mobilization. Optimal tactical sequencing reflects not only how powerful each tactic is today, but how valuable it may be in a lower-mobilization environment tomorrow. I show that movements preserve tactics that remain effective after demobilization, generating path-dependent patterns of tactical persistence or learning-motivating switching. Extending the model to repression, I show that state intervention can redirect movements across tactics and, by changing the informational content of failures, partly or even fully undermine the benefits of repression. As a technical contribution, I introduce a cost-signals structure which resolves equilibrium multiplicity in a dynamic global game with public learning.