S. Laurel Weldon, “When Protest Makes Policy: How Social Movements Represent Disadvantaged Groups”

Summary: S. Laurel Weldon is Professor of Political Science, Purdue University, and Director of the Center for Research on Diversity and Inclusion. She is the author of When Protest Makes Policy: How Social Movements Represent Disadvantaged Groups (University of Michigan Press, 2011). The book provides a theoretical and empirical case for the relationship between women’s movements and social change. In a manner similar to Clifford Bob’s work on the Global Right Wing, Weldon’s expands the conversation about social movements to the international arena. She weaves together both cross-national and 50-state data to argue for ways to think about social movements that move beyond narrow studies of interest groups. The dot-connecting effort to bridge her strong theoretical arguments with these data, make the book a major contribution to the field of public policy. Weldon’s incorporation of social movement literature also is a contribution to political science literature, which has tended to shy away from engaging deeply in social movements.