Governance by consent is extremely demanding of both governments and their citizens, but it is less costly and less dangerous than governance by coercion. While there is a strong coercive element to all governments, whatever the regime form, democracy's maintenance requires, as well, a significant degree of voluntary and active compliance. This is not the once-and-forever consent to a social contract that Hobbes elaborated, nor is it the generational and large-scale contract renewal of Locke. It is, instead, the felt and activated obligation to cooperate with the demands of government in those domains that are constitutive of citizenship and citizenship rights.

These are among the lessons of the historical events and struggles recounted here. The model of contingent consent has been endangered by observations and alternative explanations. It survives the test of plausibility and sheds considerable light on compliance and consent in democracies.