Creative Participation: Responsibility-taking in the Political World

Creative Participation: Responsibility-Taking in a Political Worldpresents the theory and practice of innovative forms of political participation. Citizens as consumers engage in political shopping; capitalists can build green developments; UK Muslim youth search the internet; Sicilian housewives take on the Mafia; young evangelical ministers become concerned with social chan≥ vegetarians make a political statement; individuals may swarm like honeybees. It "s all part of a new politics of participation; citizens cooperate in public action to achieve a common good.

Alexandra Segerberg John S. Watson Michele Micheletti is the Lars Hierta Professor of Political Science at Stockholm University in Sweden. She has published on corporatism, civil society and democracy, democratic auditing, multiculturalism, political consumerism, and sustainable citizenship. Her publications include Political Virtue and Shopping: Individuals, Consumerism, and Collective Action (2003) and the co-edited Politics, Products, and Markets: Exploring Political Consumerism Past and Present (2006). Andrew S. McFarland is Professor of Political Science and a Fellow of the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His main research interest is theorizing and empirically exploring the involvement of interest groups and social movements in politics. He has published several books in this field including Common Cause: Lobbying in the Public Interest (1984), Neopluralism: The Evolution of Political Process Theory (2004), and the co-edited Social Movements and American Political Institutions (1998)