The Participation Gap Social Status and Political Inequality

In this excellent book, Russell Dalton uses data from twenty established democracies to assess systematically the multiple individual attributes and contextual factors that influence levels of political activity and to investigate the extent to which participation is characterized by a class based gap. In so doing, he provides a tremendous service for students of citizen political behavior -- especially those who, like me, study a single democracy often cited as an outlier when it comes to the way its democracy works. Kay L. Schlozman, J. Joseph Moakley Professor, Boston College