Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgments
- 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
- Bibliography
- Index
- Books in the Series
3 - How Legislators Perceive Collective Action
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2022
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgments
- 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
- Bibliography
- Index
- Books in the Series
Summary
Chapter 3 presents the results from a survey of local, state, and national elected officials and their staffers. Gause created the survey to empower the people who determine whether collective action demands influence legislative behavior to describe their views on collective action. Notably, the survey responses provide insights into several conditions that must be present for the book’s argument to be accurate. First, legislators must be aware of collective action. If not, then collective action cannot reasonably influence legislative behavior. Second, legislators must believe protest has value for their legislative behavior. Otherwise, legislators will simply ignore the collective action they observe. Third, (any) collective action must influence legislative behavior. Fourth, legislators must be strategic actors who respond to some collective action events more than others. Finally, legislators must observe and act upon differences in protest costs. The survey responses provide meaning, context, and understanding to the book’s central claim. They suggest that the people who determine legislative behavior think they act in ways that align with the theoretical argument.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Advantage of DisadvantageCostly Protest and Political Representation for Marginalized Groups, pp. 49 - 82Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022