Hahrie Han's review asks how the argument I develop in my book—that social movements can provide a form of democratic representation for marginalized groups—might be applied to movements other than women's movements and issues other than women's issues. In the book, I develop some distinctions between types of groups and types of issues as a way of answering these questions, arguing that social movements are especially important for social change issues (called “progressive” policy issues in more recent work) and for giving voice to systematically disadvantaged (or marginalized) groups. I explain each of these ideas in turn.

Social movements are especially important for marginalized groups, those for whom exclusion (including informal exclusion) from political institutions makes representation a special challenge. Protest is not as important for the articulation of issues pressed by groups that are not marginalized, or for issues that are universal or that are mainly relevant to advantaged groups. And we can even make distinctions among the issues of importance to marginalized groups: Social movements are more important for advancing the discussion of policy issues that require social transformation than they are for advancing discussion of issues that are more technical or incremental. For example, even for women's movements, the book shows that descriptive representation can be more effective as a tool of substantive representation on those issues that do not challenge core principles of social organization or that are more incremental (e.g., adding a week to an already existing maternity leave). Descriptive representatives can also defend against rollbacks in rights better than they can advance new areas of policy (which can be very important, in some cases). When policies seem to do more than advance incremental change, when they are perceived as challenging core principles of social organization, however, social movements are more important.

Even if social movements are less critical for universal issues or issues of importance to advantaged groups, such mobilization can be very important for pursuing even these issues when they are the type of issue that requires not just incremental or minor policy change but also social transformation. For these issue areas, social movements play a critical role in articulating and diffusing new ideas, frames, and visions. Recent work with Mala Htun (forthcoming in the American Political Science Review) makes explicit that such “progressive” policy issues would include mobilization on subjects such as environmental issues, civil rights, or labor rights.

If these movements are so critical for democracy, then problems of representativeness, and of inclusion and exclusion within these movements, take on new importance. Han notes that the Civil Rights movement was male dominated, but the broader point is that all social movements are exclusionary to some degree, just as all political parties, legislatures, and other forms of organization exclude some people. Usually, the same people are excluded or disadvantaged across all of these avenues of representation: the poor, women, marginalized ethnic and racial groups, noncitizens and indigenous peoples, and so on. In my case study of Chicago, I argue that even if social movements are beset by problems of exclusion, they are no different from every other avenue of representation in modern democracies, and at least in the case I examined, are actually less exclusionary, and less unrepresentative than, say, political parties and legislatures (as one might expect, since the barriers to entry are lower).

This is not to say that exclusion and domination within social movements are unimportant. On the contrary, because of the important democratic role that social movements play, these exclusions and inequalities in civil society are very important and are an underaddressed source of political inequality. It is for these reasons that I suggest policies for leveling the playing field in civil society, providing resources for organizing by those who are left out.

It is worth noting that both states and movements can act to address these inequalities. In other work (“Inclusion, Solidarity, and Social Movements: The Global Movement on Gender Violence,” Perspectives on Politics 4, no. 1 [2006]: 55–74), I also suggest movement and organizational strategies to advance inclusion. I identify three important organizational norms that advance inclusion: 1) descriptive representation, 2) institutuionalized dissent, and 3) self-organization of marginalized groups. Movements adopting these norms, I argue in When Protest Makes Policy, will be more representative and more effective. (For example, I apply this argument in the chapter of the book considering self-organization of women of color and violence against women.) I would then expect more inclusive movements to be more effective democratic representatives, speaking for a wider range of people and having more impact on the political process.