New Political Sociology

Thomas Janoski is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Kentucky after having served for 30 years. He has also taught at the University of California-Berkeley and Duke University. He was the lead editor of The Handbook of Political Sociology (2005) and The New Handbook of Political Sociology (2020). He has multiple books, including The Political Economy of Unemployment (1990), The Ironies of Citizenship (2010), Citizenship and Civil Society (1998), and Rethinking Symbolic Interactionism (2025). While following Max Weber on class, status, and power, he focuses on an optimistic approach, stressing citizen participation and collegiality.

"This book offers a thorough rethinking and regrounding of political sociology. The presentation of symbolic interactionist and cultural perspectives is quite a boost, and frankly often missing from structuralist analyses of state power. State theorists have long talked past each other without considering the possible validity of competing models, as if each theorist is looking at one piece of a jigsaw puzzle and believing they have completed the picture; few have considered that each might be working on one corner of the puzzle and how each corner might actually be part of a much bigger picture. The inclusion here of an important missing perspective from the more structuralist treatments is certainly quite welcome."Davita Glasberg, Professor of Sociology, University of Connecticut"This book offers a fresh rethinking of political sociology that synthesizes political economy and cultural approaches, as a well as process-oriented approach based on bargaining. The book presents the five major political sectors by focusing on their interactions (what the book calls bargaining) with other actors both within and among the sectors. For each sector, the book presents very insightful commentary on how those interactions work. The book also presents analyses on the effects of culture, in various ways, on these interactions. That combination marks a real step forward in our understanding of how politics works. This will be an important resource for instructors and students in political sociology."Jeffrey Broadbent, Professor of Sociology, University of Minnesota"This is an interesting and sophisticated work that promotes a new approach to political sociology. It offers a rethinking of political sociology that combines political economy, cultural conditions, and a process-oriented perspective based on bargaining. This novel approach to political processes will be of interest to political sociologists, and a welcome text for instructors and students studying political sociology."Simon Gottschalk, Professor of Sociology, University of Nevada Las Vegas

• 1. Introduction: A Synthetic Approach to Political Sociology, Part I. Bargaining and Cultural Theory, 2. The Theory of Bargaining Alternatives in Political and Cultural Context, Part II. The Actors in Political Bargaining, 3. The State. Retheorizing the Arena of Bargaining over Alternatives, 4. Class-based Interest Groups and Social Movements, 5. Status-based Interest Groups and Social Movements in Bargaining, 6. Political Parties. Direct Bargainers but in Decline, 7. The Media as Full-Fledged Bargainers, Part III. Disruptive Politics, 8. Disruptions in National Politics. Exploitation, Humiliation and Ressentiment, 9. The External Disruptions Impacting Bargaining. Empire, War, and Globalization, 10. Conclusion: Synthesizing a Political Economy and Cultural Theory of Political Sociology, Epilogue