From political parties to environmental organisations, citizens join a host of associations in order to influence policymaking and political agendas. Yet why in some western democracies do citizens join political organisations much more than in others? Drawing on a large number of cross-national surveys and data sets, Morales shows that huge cross-national variations in political membership are not so much related to social or attitudinal differences between these countries' citizens, but are explained to a great extent by the structure of the political system of each nation.

The study of political discussion has been broken into sub-categories including deliberative democracy, discursive studies, dynamics of interpersonal communication, and discussion network analyses, with substantial numbers of books and articles covering each. However, these areas are often treated distinctly and not brought together in a comprehensive and systematic way.

Political Discussion in Modern Democracies: a comparative perspective reviews the breadth of the different literatures on political science and provides original comparative analyses of the nature...