This volume focusses on the interplay of civic engagement and institutionalised politics and its role in both the erosion and retrieval of intermediate capabilities and procedures. Rather than discussing democracy as a relationship between citizens as individual voters and state power, the book studies the relationship between citizens engaged in or through organisations, movements and networks in civil society, and their impact in the context of institutionalised politics, be that through representative institutions and political parties or participation in administrative governance. The aim of this volume is to renew the scholarly discussion on the prospects of liberal democracy by looking for opportunities to curb antagonisms and instead strengthen intermediary capabilities.

The book will therefore be of interest to students in relevant disciplines as political science, civil society research, sociology, and research on social movements.

Chapter 1 and Chapter 10 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.