According to the social movement literature, democracies provide a number of protections, rights, and institutions that incentivize certain forms of contentious action and organization over others. So why might we see similar forms of protest across vastly different regime types? I argue that across the three cases in this study, one can note, over time, a composite of newer forms of participation “layered” on top of established, popular practices. One might expect a phasing out of the unruly forms of protest developed under autocratic regimes. Instead, communities that have experienced increasing democratic institutions have combined established repertoires with newer, contrasting ones. To capture this ad hoc, layering of different practices I use the metaphor of autoconstruction, that describes the do-it-yourself (DIY) process that urban residents across the global south rely on to build homes in informal settlements such as shacks, favelas, and barriadas. Similarly, I use autoconstruction to describe how communities have built on popular contentious practices of citizenship over time.