Because social movements exist to challenge entrenched power structures or change prevailing social practices, they claim to represent marginalized or excluded constituencies. Yet as eloquently argued by E. E. Schattschneider, “the flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent” (The Semisovereign People, 1960, 35). Lacking formal mechanisms of democratic accountability, social movements, like other organized interests, can fall prey to the trap of overrepresenting the privileged. In addition, some scholars have challenged the idea that movements have any durable influence. Even if we believe that movements represent the excluded, what value do they have if their influence is fleeting? These questions problematize the democratic value of social movements and raise questions about the value of protest in shaping policy that affects marginalized interests. Are movements effective pathways to greater democratic inclusiveness, or do they reinforce existing power structures?

In When Protest Makes Policy, S. Laurel Weldon skillfully investigates these questions by doing what few other scholars have done: She considers democracy as a “dependent variable” in the study of social movements (p. 3). In particular, she moves beyond scholarship that examines the role that movements play in building a participatory democracy and examines the role they play in representative democracy. Do movements facilitate representation and inclusion for marginalized constituencies and, if so, how? In six thoroughly researched chapters, Weldon provides theoretical and empirical justification for the idea that movements are, in fact, effective pathways for greater inclusiveness. Using women's movements as her primary case, she shows that movements are more effective pathways for policy influence than electing women to political office (descriptive representation), relying on traditional lobby groups, or working through political parties.

Weldon argues that more so than other, more institutionalized, means of representing organized interests, social movements facilitate representation in three primary ways. First, they help disadvantaged groups develop collective identities and cultivate a sense of group consciousness. This process develops an actual constituency that can articulate a set of interests to realize in the political process. Second, they alter public deliberation about relevant issues by expressing and spreading the views of the marginalized constituency. These views often provide alternative perspectives on ongoing debates, can bring to the surface the voices of those who are generally unheard, and encourage the development of counterpublics. Finally, movements enhance the effectiveness of other representative institutions (such as elections, political parties, and alternate democratic organizations) by bringing people who are generally left out of those processes into the political dialogue. Because entry costs for movements are generally lower than they are for more formal institutions, movements have the potential for greater inclusion than do other democratic institutions.

Weldon's argument unfolds through five empirical chapters. The first three broadly consider the question of whether social movements actually have any lasting policy influence. Instead of focusing on questions of descriptive representation, as much of the literature does, these chapters examine substantive representation and ask what the best ways are to generate policies responsive to women's interests.

In Chapter 1, Weldon conducts a cross-national analysis of the relationship between a strong, autonomous women's movement and policy responsiveness on issues related to violence against women. She finds that women's movements that work with public agencies dedicated to women's issues are the most effective means of representing those interests in the policy process and generating greater government responsiveness. Movements can work with public agencies and provide a forum through which women's interests can be articulated more effectively than mechanisms of descriptive representation, wherein individual women are elected into political institutions governed and structured by historically dominant groups.

Chapter 2 continues the analysis, showing that extra-legislative movements are more effective in promoting policies that challenge entrenched hierarchies. In this chapter, Weldon examines policies related to maternity and paternity leave, as well as antidiscrimination policy, to show that having more women in the legislature can produce more generous leave policies, but that these policies are often criticized for reinforcing or even exacerbating existing gender hierarchies. More transformative policies challenging existing gender or class hierarchies have emerged only in the presence of a strong women's or labor movement, respectively. She argues that movements are more effective in representing women's interests because they help develop the oppositional consciousness that is necessary for imagining transformative policy change.

Chapter 3 examines the intersection of gender and class to evaluate the mechanisms that are most effective for representing the interests of working women. Using a cross-state analysis of labor policy in the United States, she finds that the presence of civic organizations and women's organizations can be a better predictor of policy responsiveness to the concerns of intersectional populations than unions or political parties alone. Taken together, these three chapters challenge the notion that the best avenue for representation of women's interests is the election of more women to public office. Instead, she finds, women's views are more likely to be enacted into policy in the presence of extralegislative women's organizations and movements.

Chapters 4 and 5 focus more on the question of whether social movements represent the privileged elements of their constituency, still leaving out those who are most marginalized. Chapter 4 examines the role of women's movements in advancing the interests of women of color. Weldon extends her analysis of governmental responsiveness on issues related to violence against women and finds a relationship between states where women of color organize separately and the strength of the women's movement and, consequently, governmental policy responsiveness. Chapter 5 examines the extent to which women's organizations can represent the diverse interests of particular subgroups of women (women of color, working-class women, lesbians, etc.) relative to formal representative organizations. By means of an empirical analysis of women's organizations in Chicago, Weldon finds that while women's organizations as a set better represent certain privileged voices, they are more effective than alternative representative institutions at representing the interests and views of more marginalized groups of women. Putting these analyses together, she argues that while movements are not perfect in the way they represent marginalized interests, they are an effective—but underrecognized—source of policy representation for those who are commonly excluded from the policymaking process.

The book thus represents a sweeping analysis of the representative function of women's movements. The sheer scope of the empirical analysis alone is enough to exhaust a reader imagining the work Weldon put into it, but the book is all the more impressive because it also engages thoughtfully with conceptual debates about democratic theory. The breadth of what the author covers naturally adds a great deal to her analysis, but it also leaves the reader wanting more depth in certain places. For instance, are there ways to empirically examine the mechanisms through which women's movements and organizations are able to achieve policy representation? The richest parts of Weldon's empirical story were the in-depth case studies of particular countries and policy initiatives. Having a more textured empirical picture of the mechanisms through which the women's movement influenced policy outcomes could have buttressed the correlational relationships demonstrated through the quantitative analyses. In her conceptual analysis, she argues that providing a forum for the development of group consciousness, articulating women's interests in the broader public arena, and developing counterpublics and group perspectives is critical to the ways in which social movements represent their constituents. I was so persuaded by this conceptually that I wanted to see more empirical examples of how it operated.

Weldon uses women's movements as the case study throughout her analysis, but I found myself wondering how her findings might differ if she examined other kinds of movements. What if she did an intersectional analysis of the labor movement, for instance, which she finds less effective in generating policy responsiveness around transformative gender policy? What about the Civil Rights movement in the United States, which was notoriously male-centric in its leadership? Or, what if we consider movements that are not oriented around identity politics, such as the environmental movement? The environmental justice movement is often considered separate from the broader movement as a whole because it does such a poor job of representing the interests of those concerned. Do her findings challenge the overall view of social movements as poor substantive representatives of their constituents' interests, or is the women's movement an exception to the rule? Weldon persuasively notes in her introduction that we should focus more on the question of what “types of movement organizations or institutions provide which democratic functions” (p. 3). A more thorough analysis of the external validity of her case might give us a better sense of the conditions under which social movements are likely to be effective representatives of marginalized voices.

These questions are, in many ways, a sign of the compelling nature of Weldon's book. Because she raises such incisive questions and builds thoughtful arguments around them, the reader is pushed to think beyond the normal boundaries that divide our discipline and, consequently, wants more. No one book can do everything, however, and When Protest Makes Policy is an impressive text that will surely lay the foundation for much research on the representative and democratic functions of social movements for years to come.