It Matters Who You Can Talk With: Conversational Networks and Activists’ Group Division in China’s Democracy Wall Movement, 1978-1981

Qindian Chen, University of California, Irvine

This study employs social network analysis to investigate the division of student and worker activist groups during China’s Democracy Wall Movement (1978-1981). By analyzing conversational ties among political elites, activists, foreign journalists, diplomats, and state media journalists, the research explores how activists’ emerging political status, mediated by their positions and properties in conversational networks, contributes to group divisions. The findings reveal that student activists benefit from both formal and informal conversational ties with reformist political elites, facilitating their co-optation. Conversely, worker activists face repression due to weaker and transient conver-sational ties, resulting in increased radicalization and further divisions within their groups. This study enhances our understanding of the micro-foundations of status group formation and division during political movements, providing novel insights into the interactions between activists and multiple social actors, state-movement dynamics, conversational ties, and the application of social network analysis in the study of social movements.

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 Presented in Session 157. Sources and Social Networks