The influential articles collected in this volume are a record of how political sociologists since the 1970s have framed questions about the range and limits of democratic political engagement, and developed concepts and methodologies in order to research the answers to those questions.

Kate Nash is Reader in Sociology, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK, Alan Scott is Professor of Sociology, University of Innsbruck, Austria and Anna Marie Smith is Professor of Government at Cornell University, USA.