Political Science and Changing Politics

This introduction to political science provides a good basis for understanding the major changes in contemporary politics.New political currents, new movements and new ideas are playing an increasingly important role, traditional centres of political power are crumbling, and new powers are on the rise. We can understand some of the changes with the insights and theories we have, but now and again we need to modify our theories in the light of the latest developments. An important feature of Political Science and Changing Politics is that it looks at these political developments from a strongly comparative, and also a historical perspective. The first part deals with a number of important current issues. It comes to such topics as political inequality; the growing importance of collective identity and nationalist sentiment; the future of the welfare state and the Dutch consensus democracy. The second part deals with the role that citizens, groups and organisations play in contemporary politics. It looks, among other things, at the political views and behaviour of citizens and at their changing party preferences, but also at the ways in which political parties cope with these. It considers the growing importance of interest groups, as well as the power of the media in politics today