Pfaff, Steven. Exit-Voice Dynamics and the Collapse of East Germany: The Crisis of Leninism and the Revolution of 1989.

• Author: Cox, John K.
• Position: Book review

Pfaff, Steven. Exit-Voice Dynamics and the Collapse of East Germany: The Crisis of Leninism and the Revolution of 1989. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006. 333 pages. Paperback, $23.95.

A popular consensus is emerging that the collapse of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) in 1989-90 was not simply a prelude to German reunification. The tens of thousands of subjects of the state who finally took to the streets in defiance of a heavily authoritarian government, and who poured into West Germany across the Wall (i.e., the border between the two Germanys), via third countries, and through embassy transports, were not following a sacred, long-nourished nationalist agenda. East German dissatisfaction had many causes, but the domestic scene had been mostly quiet for decades. This work of sociology by Steven Pfaff adds to our understanding of why East Germans became so suddenly, so forcefully, and so effectively oppositionist in the autumn of 1989.

Pfaff elaborates on the theories of political scientist Albert Hirschman, who, in the decades since 1970, has studied the relationship between exit (emigration), voice (protest), and loyalty. The basic premise of these theories is that, in a society, the higher the degree of loyalty or the higher the incidence of exit, the smaller the amount of voice. The GDR is exciting terrain on which to try out collective-action theory, since it was a mono-organizational dictatorship with a very effective repressive equilibrium where, nonetheless, in a few months between September 1989 and March 1990, 1,500 demonstrations took place and over 400,000 people emigrated. Pfaff labels the GDR a case of "exit-driven spontaneous rebellion" (p. 2). His work is made possible by the existence of voluminous records in the various archives of the GDR's party and government. In addition to archival work, Pfaff draws on excellent studies by historians Konrad Jarausch and Dirk Philipsen, and many others. This work is important because the fall of this Communist regime, itself related to earlier events in other countries such as Hungary and the USSR, was influential in determining the fate of hardline parties in Czechoslovakia and Romania.

Readers will revel in the detailed descriptions of political and social phenomena. These include, for instance, the ideas and subversive publications of various political oppositional groups, including the Lutheran churches and environmental movements. These groups ranged...