The Political

This is an ambitious book that engages fundamental issues in the study of politics. Bartolini's conception of political action as a search for compliance lays the basis for an analytical framework that is original, comprehensive, ingenious, and profound. -- Gary Marks, UNC-Chapel Hill

This book marks a return to the basics, a recovery of the general vision. It is a provocative reflection on the core of the political. When the horizontality of politics is celebrated everywhere, Bartolini re-emphasizes the centrality of its vertical dimension; in a time in which everything is political it may be that nothing is really political. A work of such precision is urgent and necessary. -- Daniel Innerarity, Globernance: Institute for Democratic Governance

Bartolini's provocative work challenges contemporary political theory by proposing the search for compliance as the motivational micro-foundation of politics and the production of generalized and stabilized compliance as its non-substitutable societal function. Combining the distinctions of confined/open and monopolistic/plural fields of political interactions, the book also provides a powerful conceptual framework for analyzing the effectiveness and vulnerability of political rule in historical and contemporary empirical contexts. -- Fritz W. Scharpf, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies

Stefano Bartolini was born in 1952 and graduated in political science from the University of Florence. From 2006 to 2013 he was Director of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute. Previous to his directorship he was assistant professor at the University of Bologna (1976) and at the European University Institute (1979), associate professor at the University of Florence (1985), full professor at the University of Trieste (1990), the University of Geneva (1991), the European University Institute (1994) and the University of Bologna (2004). He is a member of the editorial board of the Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, and a member of the scientific board of West European Politics, Swiss Review of Political Science, Acta Politica, Electoral Studies, Journal of Theoretical Politics, and Comparative Political Studies. He has been awarded the best book prize of the European Politics section at APSA (2002), the Gregory Luebbert APSA Prize in Comparative Politics (2001), and the UNESCO Stein Rokkan Prize for the Social Sciences (1990). Professor Bartolini's present academic interests are the relationships between the process of European integration and the key features of the European nation-state experience. His research interests have focused on Western Europe political development, comparative methodology, political institutions and European integration.