William A. Maloney, Sigrid Rossteutscher (Eds.)
	Social Capital and Associations in European Democracies
	A Comparative Analysis
	Routledge Research in Comparative Politics
	308 p., Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York: Routledge, 2007
	ISBN 0-415-41053-3

Abstract

This unique book offers an empirical assessment of how social and political involvement relates to theories of citizenship and democracy, providing a detailed comparative assessment of the potential that voluntary organizations offer citizens for social and political participation in several European countries.
The coherent chapters, written by leading European researchers, examine the participatory opportunities offered by a wide and diverse variety of voluntary associations and provides a comparative perspective on the role, structure and functions of associations in six medium-sized European cities – Aalborg (Denmark), Aberdeen (UK), Bern (Switzerland), Enschede (the Netherlands), Mannheim (Germany) and Sabadell (Spain).
This book has a companion volume entitled Citizenship and Involvement in European Democracies edited by Jan van Deth, José Ramón Montero and Anders Westholm (Routledge, 2006). Both volumes will be of great interest to students and researchers of European politics, comparative politics and sociology.

Contents

Notes on Contributors

Javier Astudillo Ruiz is Lecturer in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona) and doctoral-member of the Juan March Institute of Studies and Research (Madrid, Spain). Between 1998 and 2000 he was Fulbright Scholar in the Center for European Studies (University of Harvard). He works in comparative politics with special emphasis on the role of interest groups in the political processes, multilevel governance and political parties in Western Europe.

Marina Berton was a researcher in the Mannheim organizational project and mainly responsible for data collection and project organization. Currently she holds a research position at the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, an academically orientated survey institute in Mannheim (Germany).

Bas Denters is Professor of Urban Policy and Politics and Director of Studies of the School for Public Administration at the University of Twente (Enschede, the Netherlands). His research interest is urban politics/urban democracy. He received the Annual Award of the Dutch Political Science Association (NKWP) for the best publication in Dutch political science in 1987. He has published in Quantity & Quality, European Journal for Political Research, Public Administration and Government and Policy. He is convener of the Standing Group for Local Government and Politics (LOGOPOL) of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR).

Manuela Caiani is research assistant at the European University Institute of Florence. She is currently working with Donatella della Porta on a project examining the radicalization of the violence – ‘Veto’ (violent extremist terrorist organizations). She is a member of the group ‘Grace’ research group which is examining collective action in Europe. Among her publications is “Quale Europa? Europeizzazione identità e conflitti”, with Donatella della Porta, 2006, Il Mulino.

Mariona Ferrer-Fons is Associate Lecturer at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain). She has her PhD from the European University Institute and a Diploma in Social Science Data Analysis from the University of Essex. Her research interest are political behaviour (in particular, political consumerism and protest mobilisation), and the effect of public policies fostering citizen political participation. Her most recent publication is: “Explaining the determinants of public support for cuts in unemployment benefits spending across OECD countries”, International Sociology 20(4): 459-481, 2005 (with M.Fraile).

Joan Font Fàbregas is lecturer in Political Science at the Department of Political Science of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain) and Research Director at the largest Spanish Survey Research Center (CIS). His main research interests are turnout, new mechanisms of citizen participation and associations in political life. He coordinates the Spanish CID research on associations and political activists and participates in the EU funded project “Democratic participation and political communication in systems of multilevel governance”. His recent publications include (ed): Public participation and local governance, Barcelona: ICPS, 2003, and “Dangerous coalitions for small parties: the electoral consequences of government”, South European Society & Politics 6 (2), 2001, 71-96.

Peter A. Geurts is Associate Professor of Research Methods at the School of Business, Public Administration and Technology of the University of Twente (Enschede, the Netherlands) department of Political Science and Research Methods (POLMT). He specialises in survey methods (design and analysis).

Hanspeter Kriesi is Professor of Comparative Politics at the Department of Political Science of the University of Zurich (Switzerland). His main research interests are in the comparative analysis of political mobilization and democratic decision-making. He has published widely in the area of Swiss politics, social movements, and direct-democratic decision-making. Currently he is the director of the Swiss NCCR "Challenges to democracy in the 21st century". His most recent book is "Direct democratic choice. The Swiss experience", published by Lexington Press. For further information see:

Herman Lelieveldt is assistant professor of political science at Roosevelt Academy in Middelburg (the Netherlands). His current research project, which is carried in collaboration with the Department of Sociology/ICS at Utrecht University involves an empirical study that critically examines the “plebiscitarian turn” in Dutch neighbourhood policies and its impact on the contribution of both voluntary associations and the non-profit sector to the quality of neighbourhoods.

William A. Maloney is Professor of Politics in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, University of Newcastle (UK). His main research interests are in the areas of interest group politics (internal and external dynamics), social capital, political involvement and nonparticipation. He has published extensively in these areas and is currently completing a volume with Grant Jordan entitled – Interest Groups and the Democratic Process: Enhancing Participation? (Palgrave, 2006).

Lucía Esther Medina Lindo is a socio-political analyst at the Institute of Political and Social Sciences of Barcelona and a PhD candidate of the Department of Political Sciences and Public Law from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain). Her main research interest is the formation of political identities and how these influence the electoral behaviour. Political participation as a broad social phenomenon constitutes another issue of interest. She has published various articles and book chapters on ideological affiliation and citizen participation. At the moment she is working on the European Social Survey, as a researcher from the Spanish team, studying the formation of political identities.

Laura Morales is assistant professor of Political Science at the Universidad de Murcia (Spain). Her interests lie, especially, in the areas of electoral behaviour and political participation. She is a member of the Spanish National Coordination team of the European Social Survey, and she currently coordinates the project LOCALMULTIDEM (funded by the 6^th Framework Programme) on immigrants’ participation and integration at the local level. Her book Nations of Political Joiners? (a revised version of her Ph.D. thesis, which was awarded the ECPR and the Spanish Political Science Association prizes for the best Ph.D. thesis in 2004) will be published by ECPR Press in 2007.

Kenneth Newton is Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Southampton (UK). His main research interests are comparative government and politics, especially the role of the mass media, mass attitudes and behaviour, and the social basis of operations of democracy. Recent publications include, The New British Politics (Longmans, 2004, 4^th Edition) and Foundations of Comparative Government (Cambridge University Press, 2005) (with Jan van Deth).

Sigrid Roßteutscher is a Reader in Politics at the University of Mannheim (Germany) and project director at the Mannheim Centre for European Research (MZES). Her main interest is in political, social and religious participation, values and social inequality, and in concepts of democracy, in particular recent theories about associations’ and religion’s role in contemporary democracy. She obtained her Ph.D. at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy.

Per Selle is professor in the Department of Comparative Politics, University of Bergen and Senior Researcher at the Stein Rokkan Centre, Bergen (Norway). His research interests include, voluntary organizations, environmental movements, political culture and democratic theory. Among his latest publications (in English) are Investigating Social Capital (Sage, 2004), Unique Environmentalism (Springer, 2006) and ‘State and Citizens in Norway: Organizational Society and State-Municipal Relations’ (West European Politics, no.4, 2005).

Linda Stevenson is a Research Director for a UK wide market research company. At the time of the study she was a Research Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Aberdeen (UK).

Lars Torpe is Associate Professor in Political Sociology at the Department of Economics, Politics and Public Administration, Aalborg University (Denmark). His main research interests are democracy, political participation and social capital. He has coordinated a project on e-participation in Denmark and his recent publications include: “Social Capital in Denmark: A Deviant Case?”, Scandinavian Political Studies 26 (1), 2003; “Democracy and Associations in Denmark: Changing Relationships Between Individuals and Associations?”, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 32 (3), 2003; and “The state we are in: E-democracy in Denmark”, Information Policy Vol. 8, no. 1-2, pp. 49-66, 2004 (with Jens Hoff and Karl Löfgren).

Angelika Vetter is Associate Professor at the Department of Social Science at the University of Stuttgart (Germany). Her main research interests are the comparative study of local politics, of local and national political culture and political behaviour. She is speaker of the German Political Science Association’s Workgroup on “Local Politics”. Recent Publications are “Local Political Competence in Europe: A Resource of Legitimacy for Higher Levels of Government?”. International Journal of Public Opinion Research 14: 3-18, 2002, and “Reforming Local Government in Europe: Closing the Gap Between Efficiency and Democracy?” Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 2003 (ed. with Norbert Kersting). For further information see:

Melanie Walter-Rogg is assistant professor of political science at the University of Stuttgart (Germany) with regular teaching activities and the management of social science projects. Her main research fields are political elites, political responsiveness and political culture in a comparative perspective and on different levels of politics. Recent publications cover questions of trust in political actors and institutions as well as the use of local referenda after extensive reforms in the last decades. She is a member of the International Metropolitan Observatory Project. One aim of this project is to study the relationship of context to the construction of both general-purpose metropolitan associations and co-operation around specific policy questions. Since 2005 she has been a member of the board of experts in the series “Comparative Local Politics”.

Sonja Zmerli is a Teaching and Research Assistant at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Technology Darmstadt (Germany). Her main research interests are social capital and its political consequences as well as political involvement in comparative perspective. Recent publications “Politisches Vertrauen und Unterstützung” (2004), in Jan van Deth (ed.), Deutschland in Europa (Verlag Sozialwissenschaften), and “Applying the concepts of bonding and bridging social capital to empirical research", European Political Science 2 (3), 2003.