The Advantage of Disadvantage
Costly Protest and Political Representation for Marginalized Groups

The Advantage of Disadvantage provides insights for scholars and activists into how marginalized groups gain representation through protest.

LaGina Gause (Author)

9781316513576, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 February 2022

220 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 2.3 cm, 0.59 kg

'In this important book, Gause uses multiple methods and data to understand how collective action shapes American politics. She shows that who protests matters, and legislators are more responsive to low-resource protesters. Yet while protest can be a force for equality, Gause also reveals the lengths to which resource-poor groups must go to be represented. This book is a must-read for scholars of political representation and inequality.' Kris Miler, University of Maryland, and author of Poor Representation: Congress and the Politics of Poverty in the United States

Does protest influence political representation? If so, which groups are most likely to benefit from collective action? The Advantage of Disadvantage makes a provocative claim: protests are most effective for disadvantaged groups. According to author LaGina Gause, legislators are more responsive to protesters than non-protesters, and after protesting, racial and ethnic minorities, people with low incomes, and other low-resource groups are more likely than white and affluent protesters to gain representation. Gause also demonstrates that online protests are less effective than in-person protests. Drawing on literature from across the social sciences as well as formal theory, a survey of policymakers, quantitative data, and vivid examples of protests throughout U.S. history, The Advantage of Disadvantage provides invaluable insights for scholars and activists seeking to understand how groups gain representation through protesting.

1. The Promise of Protest
2. Costly Protest and political representation
3. How Legislators perceive collective Action
4. How the average Legislator responds
5. The limits of costly Protest
6. Costly protest in a digitized World
7. The democratic value of costly Protest
8. Appendices.

Subject Areas: Demonstrations & protest movements [JPWF], Political structures: democracy [JPHV], Sociology [JHB], History of the Americas [HBJK]