If popular political movements attract the attention of a wide range of political scientists, this is the case, to no small degree, because they seem to bridge an impossible chasm. They seem to bridge—or at least to begin to build a bridge between—on the one hand, the lofty aspirations of democrats who invoke a language of government “by the people,” and on the other, the reality of modern democracies in which elites govern, while citizens judge their performances. When people vote, they affirm—or they reject—the leaders who make and enforce collective decisions. When people participate in popular movements, by contrast, they act in public to articulate and press claims about collective norms. When ordinary citizens participate in mass political movements, that is to say, they act collectively to exercise political power.

In Disarmed: The Missing Movement for Gun Control in America, Kristin Goss asks, “What prompts them to do that?” What conditions make it likely (or unlikely) that ordinary citizens who share some set(s) of preferences, or who share some set(s) of potential political claims, will mobilize around those preferences and claims and act in concert to advance them? The book's principal interlocutors, then, are participants in the literature on social movements. The author proceeds, however, by examining not a full-fledged movement, but rather what she identifies as a nonmovement. The “missing movement for gun control,” she suggests, on the face of things seems as if it should have happened. But it did not.

Goss begins by explaining why one might expect a gun control movement in the contemporary United States. Public opinion surveys in this country consistently show widespread and strong support for gun control. Key political elites are in favor, as well. Since the 1970s, what is more, the United States has seen the development of both state- and national-level organizations that are devoted to pressing for government regulation of firearms. In addition, the country suffers from high levels of gun violence, including periodic dramatic, widely publicized incidents (such as political assassinations and mass killings), which presumably could serve as catalysts for a popular gun control movement. Yet Americans have not mobilized in any sustained way to press political claims for state regulation of firearms. Why not?

Goss's principal explanation is that gun control supporters in this country have failed to solve the free rider problem that plagues every would-be movement, by shaping, in salutary ways, how people calculate the difference between participation's individualized benefits and costs. Specifically, they have failed to recruit institutional patrons—such as state agencies, private associations, and philanthropic organizations—to “socialize the costs of participation” (p. 51) by providing resources like capital, labor, and expert advice. They have failed to develop and to circulate narratives about gun violence that frame it as a problem that personally affects potential movement participants, rather than a problem of law enforcement: the proper province of experts. And they have failed to adopt the kinds of political strategies that might encourage potential participants to understand their personal involvement as linked to immediate, concrete gains.

Of these three failures, it is the third that receives the most attention. Goss argues that it is crucial for popular political movements to proceed incrementally, targeting relatively modest, local win, before they undertake bold legislative initiatives at higher levels of government. Incremental approaches to political change, according to her claim, are best suited to the federal structure of the American system of government. What is more, they appeal to a relatively broad segment of the population, thus attracting greater numbers of participants, and they reinforce participation with the near-immediate gratification of small and local victories. In addition, incremental strategies enable movements to gather steam by encouraging a gradual shift in social norms, while signaling to elected officials and to would-be officials the relevant preferences of the public. Although it is understandable that movement leaders are tempted by what Goss terms the “rational national” alternative to incrementalism (p. 66)—a strategy of aiming for comprehensive change at the highest possible level of government—the pursuit of such a strategy, she argues, is the biggest mistake advocates of gun control in the United States have made. The National Rifle Association, a mass-membership group organized at the national, state, and local levels, nimbly shifts its attention—and its resources—to fight gun control efforts when and where they arise. Gun control groups, by contrast—expert-led, and focused almost exclusively on Washington—lack both the flexibility and the manpower to respond.

In advancing these claims, Goss builds a compelling case. She amasses a wide array of evidence—from personal interviews to newspaper and organizational archival data—which she employs to induce an intelligent theory of movement (in)effectiveness. Faced with the daunting methodological challenge of studying something that did not happen, she adopts a strategy similar to John Gaventa's (in Power and Powerlessness, 1982): She uses multiple methods to arrive at her argument. Goss employs comparative case studies, contrasting the American nonmovement for gun control with mass movements against smoking, alcohol abuse, and abortion: popular movements that faced challenges similar to those faced by gun control advocates, but overcame them by solving the free rider problem. She performs in-depth historical analyses of the “missing movement” for gun control, as well, tracing gun control's failures through a series of “movement moments” (p. 34) during which the structural preconditions for mass mobilization typically stressed by social movement theorists were in place, and yet no mass movement arose. Finally, Goss studies the results of what she characterizes as a natural experiment: the Million Mom March of the year 2000, which, by building a grassroots movement based in local chapters, began to rectify the strategic mistakes she posits as key obstacles to mass mobilization for gun control.

This study is an exemplar of the use of qualitative methods to generate explanatory theory. Substantively, its most significant contribution is to posit a trade-off between, on the one hand, aiming for large, consequential changes in laws and policies and on the other, effectively mobilizing citizens to participate in mass political movements.

If, at times, it seems like devastating news for democracy (“If you want to change anything, change very little, and very slowly!”), the case Goss builds for incremental movement making is not entirely pessimistic. At least with respect to some political problems and some proposed policies, she suggests, the wants and the claims of nonelites in modern democracies make a difference. If you want to change policy, you may need to go through—rather than around—ordinary citizens. You may need to find ways not just to win people's affirmation but also to motivate them to participate in collective political action.