Joining Political Organisations

This is a very impressive volume in several respects. Its approach connects fields of research which usually do not take note of each other and more specifically, it introduces concepts and ideas of social movement research and of comparative politics into the study of political participation. Also, and most importantly, the author has adopted what one could call a 'comparative contextual approach' to the study of political participation, which proves to be very effective in throwing new light on this subject. -- Hanspeter Kriesi

This is a major and ambitious study. Laura Morales manages to effect a broad ranging cross-national comparison, as well as an over-time analysis, yielding a host of valuable insights into the causes and implications of political membership. -- Peter Mair

Laura Morales is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Change, University of Manchester. She previously taught Political Science and Research Methods at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (2001-2003), Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2003), and the Universidad de Murcia (2003-2007). She was awarded the ECPR and Spanish Political Science Association prizes for best PhD thesis in 2004. Her interests lie especially in electoral behaviour, political participation, and comparative politics. She has published extensively on associational involvement, political participation, and political parties.