The final chapter collects and reviews several proposals that can help preserve public protest and dissent for future generations. The reform agenda for the law of public protest includes strengthening rights to assemble and petition governments, preserving breathing space in public for dissent and contention, reforming protest policing, amending public disorder laws, protecting and encouraging campus protest, disarming public protests, and reigning in governmental emergency powers as they affect public protest.

This chapter grounds the manuscript’s argument in debates about persisting inequalities in participation and representation. It starts with an overview of collective action in the United States. It describes how American colonists united in collective action events like the Boston Tea Party to demand representation in the British Parliament and how those efforts led to the Declaration of Independence and the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which proclaim the legitimacy and right of protest.

Next, the chapter provides definitions for protest, collective action, resource disparities, and protest costs. The chapter also describes differences in protest costs for groups of different resource capacities. It discusses why legislators might be responsive to protest efforts, particularly those by lower-resource groups. Finally, the chapter describes how the book will develop the central argument that legislators are most likely to support the protest demands of politically marginalized groups.

This chapter presents a theory of costly protest and legislative behavior. The theory contributes to a growing literature on legislators’ responsiveness to collective action demands. It answers an open question: are the groups with the most to gain from representation the most likely to benefit legislatively from protest efforts?

The theory suggests that it is not only likely but strategic for legislators to more frequently support the interests of protesters than non-protesters. The strategic representation of protest goals is especially likely when protesters have fewer resources to engage in collective action. Legislators’ greater support of low-resource groups relative to high-resource groups occurs because costly protest is a stronger indication of protesters’ intense desire for representation. Groups with lower resources can only protest when issue salience is high. Conversely, high-resource groups can protest regardless of their issue salience. Any legislator who ignores salient collective action demands risks electoral participation that could jeopardize their reelection.