Accounts of social change are stories of pressure politics from the bottom up. In both Hank Johnston's deft overview of the relationship between states and social movements and Elke Zuern's account of the politics of necessity, we are presented with evidence that the ways in which ordinary people experience the circumstances of their lives, as well as articulate the impetus and scope of the problems they face and the repertoires they use to press for redress, are the essential components in moving both state and society toward changes in the status quo distribution of rights, power, and privilege. While Zuern uses process tracing and comparative case studies to give a picture of the “production and critique of democracy as it is fought for, established and institutionalized” (p. xiii) in South Africa and Johnston provides us instead with a wide-ranging and masterfully rendered synthesis of the literature on social movements, both scholars chronicle the street-level messiness of politics, as actors with limited access to formal political power vie for the influence to shape their world. In addition, each scholar builds on an insight about social movements that often gets lost in accounts of their effects: Social movements are not only phenomenal but also developmental occurrences—for individual participants, communities, states, and even on a global scale.

The accomplishment of movement goals is only one of a wide variety of changes that movements may engender during the political process that underlies their genesis, mobilization, repertoire deployment, professionalization, abeyance, or decline. As Zuern illustrates in The Politics of Necessity, not only do participants in South Africa's township Civics disrupt and destabilize authority, but through their organization and mobilization they also “delineate, implicitly and explicitly, their ideal system of rights and their understanding of what democracy should be” (p. 4; emphasis added). In States and Social Movements, Johnston shows that the normative redefinition of rights and responsibilities that takes place in the contentious yet reciprocal relationship between movements and states is not only indispensable for creating more just societies but also a fundamental aspect of the way the modern state is constituted.

Zuern emphasizes the relationship between community organizing and democracy by showing the ways that participation in local politics can shape demands for democracy on a national level. In particular, she focuses on the divergence between what she dubs “the politics of necessity,” the popular, needs-based organizing that takes place in poor townships, and the more abstract, rights-based politics that is the domain of elites—both government officials and challenger groups—at the national level. The politics of necessity, as Zuern describes it, is not only a politics motivated by felt socioeconomic needs but also a politics anchored by the development of effective “voice.” This development of effective voice animates the Civics that, she argues, played a vital role in the organization, mobilization, and articulation of claims in the indigenous South African anti-apartheid movement. And it is rooted not only in the experience of poverty and lack of services but just as importantly in the connections that poor people draw about the opportunities and threats they are presented within the wider political environment. Calls for democracy made in this “popular” voice are less calls for procedural inclusion than they are practical demands for representation, accountability, and economic justice. However, it is not only that claims for socioeconomic justice beyond formal rights are embedded in community articulations of democratization; it is also that the process of claims making itself expands the potential meaning and practical scope of the substantive measures that constitute democracy in a given context.

The trouble with democracy, as Zuern points out, is that while ordinary citizens cry out for it as they see the connection between the circumstances of their everyday lives and a rights discourse that gives citizens standing to make demands, elites often answer that cry by disaggregating rights from needs, codifying the former and ignoring the later. In addition, the author observes that gaining concessions on rights claims can actually demobilize organizations that originally formed to address socioeconomic concerns, meaning that formal political rights are granted, while the deprivation in everyday lived experience persists. This demobilization occurs in tandem with a process of “disciplining” (p. 98) that attempts to redirect contentious energy toward formal political processes that yield little in the way of results, leaving the mass of people to suffer under unchanging substantive conditions, even as their legal being is transformed.

Zuern does important work in highlighting the fundamental problem of durable inequality for democracies in general, and newly emerging democracies in particular. Often overlooked in the celebration of the transition to a procedurally democratic system are the ways that formal protections can be fatally undermined by a lack of substantive change in regular people's access to power and by low levels of government responsiveness and accountability. Contention, she argues, is not only an appropriate but also a necessary response when democratic procedures are not enough to support a democratic society. The author demonstrates that democracy is desirable not only or primarily as a set of rights-granting or rights-protecting institutions but also and more importantly as a lens through which collective actors see themselves. This process allows them to begin to articulate the justice of needs, as well as to demand a response to their concerns under the powerful aegis of democratic accountability.

While Zuern's argument is well thought out and reasonably rendered, it is unclear how what she calls the “comparative method” helps her to make his case. In four of six chapters, she compares aspects of the South African case to a wide variety of other countries, including Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Spain, and Nigeria. These brief comparisons come at the end of chapters that are focused largely on South Africa, and it is unclear to what extent the cases are comparable given the distinct political histories of each country and region. In addition, Zuern's discussion of South Africa in each chapter moves back and forth in time quite frequently and can leave the reader confused as to both the course and cause of events. The book might have benefited from a more chronological organization. Also, it is unclear what part of the evidence presented comes from the author's original research. It is also the case that at times, she makes vague generalizations when specific data would make a stronger case. For example, she states: “Most civics became less participatory and less democratic at the same time that the state became a formal democracy” (p. 118). Since this contradiction is a key part of her argument, the reader expects a bit more detail. Lastly, since the book's professed focus is on what popular democracy means to ordinary but organized people, it is curious that we do not get to hear their voices very often. The overall story of this bottom-up mobilization for popular democracy both before and after apartheid is so compelling that one does miss the context, color, and detail that more firsthand quotations interwoven throughout might have yielded.

Johnston's insightful, readable, and surprisingly comprehensive tour of the social movements literature also hinges on the principle of democratic accountability and is enhanced by the coherent and convincing historical lens through which he shows that “social movements are politics by another means,” a “people's politics” (p. 2) that is both inherently messy and completely normal, providing an avenue to influence governance for those who do not already have access to power and privilege. Johnston's bold claim that “we cannot fully understand the shape of the modern state without considering the role of social movements and protest” (p. 2) has the virtue of being both intuitively resonant and well demonstrated in his text.

Since social movements always occur within the context of the state, Johnston proposes that assessments of movements must always take into account important characteristics of the state. Citizenship, equality, responsiveness, and protection (CERP), in addition to state capacity, are the variables that, he contends, are essential for analysts interested in understanding which configurations of the modern state are most conducive to movement.

In addition, the author makes a simple, clear, yet nuanced case for why movements are necessary under all kinds of regimes. Namely, oligarchic tendencies are very strong, regardless of the values professed by leaders and principles enshrined in constitutions. As new groups make claims or long-standing groups agitate to extend their rights, giving those formal rules substance, pressure from the bottom is the only impetus for the slow, step-by-step social change that makes polities more inclusive and, eventually, more just. In other words, social movements militate against strong undemocratic tendencies in the nation-state, both during the initial development of the form and today.

It is in this way that modern democratic states are increasingly “social movement societies”—societies in which an increasing number and diversity of sectors have developed the ability to make claims on the state. More and more particular groups are able to make claims as legal restrictions on gathering and protest are relaxed, mass media becomes more deeply entrenched in everyday life, and organization and mobilization become essential parts of political culture and process (p. 94).

Importantly, Johnston does not limit his analysis to democratic regimes. In addition to “social movement societies,” there are “repressive societies” in which the ruler's mandate and state tactics aim to “channel, monitor and control” the political behavior of citizens (p. 97). While he makes a clear distinction between these two types of societies, he avoids an oversimplifying dichotomy by acknowledging that there is a wide variance in the willingness of all states, no matter how they might be categorized, to entertain criticism, protest, and political challenges. Given that both historical evidence and compelling contemporary examples of the “Arab Spring” show that protest can erupt even under phenomenally repressive regimes, the author offers a useful typology of “free spaces” where analysts can look to piece together the genesis of mobilizations that shake the power of authoritarian regimes and boldly assert demands for reform, sometimes even instigating revolution.

Johnston's book is a needed addition to the literature on social movements. He deals gracefully with a wide variety of literature, while managing to elucidate the key variables that contribute to protest in different kinds of states. As with Zuern, the reader may find themselves hungering for Johnston to more explicitly showcase his original research; several times he refers to his “research on opposition in authoritarian regimes” somewhat obliquely (p. 117). More pointed reference to both the research itself and its results would have strengthened this already formidable work.

Both of these works draw scholarly attention to the transformative power of ordinary, organized citizens as they attempt to improve their life chances. Zuern's most important contribution is to emphasize the fragility of democracy in name only. Theoretical commitments and institutional arrangements are necessary but insufficient characteristics of functioning democratic governance. New democracies, in particular, must develop functional meaning for the people who have cried out for the right to govern themselves and hold their leaders accountable. However, it is not only newly democratized societies that must wrestle with the lack of congruence between democratic theory and practice. Johnston reminds us that this struggle, which gives rise to bottom-up contestation, is built into democratic society from its inception onward. Further, this inevitable contestation is a feature of social movement societies, not a bug. Bottom-up challenges to status quo arrangements of power and privilege help to guard against oligarchy and push politics toward accommodating greater plurality and more equality. Even more powerfully, Johnston drives home the simple yet profound point that there is no form of government and no arrangement of power that can indefinitely prevent regular people from demanding to be treated justly.