James Cairns is Associate Professor, Social and Environmental Justice, at Wilfrid Laurier University, Brantford. He is the author (with Alan Sears) of A Good Book, In Theory: Making Sense Through Inquiry (2015) and The Democratic Imagination: Envisioning Popular Power in the Twenty-First Century (2012). Alan Sears is Professor of Sociology at Ryerson University. He is the author of The New Left: A History of the Future (2014) and co-author with James Cairns of The Democratic Imagination: Envisioning Popular Power in the Twenty-First Century (2012).

Those who read this book will come away with their own thoughts on official democracy and democracy from below, especially since the authors engage on so many different topics. The goal is to cause readers to think deeply about these issues, and the book does this quite well. It can certainly be integrated into a wide variety of political science and sociology courses, too, because of the effectiveness of the book's overarching frame. - American Review of Canadian Studies

• List of Exercising Your Democratic Imagination TextboxesAcknowledgements 1. Democracy as an Open Question 2. Political, Social, and Economic Democracy 3. Citizenship and Inequality 4. There and Not There: Representation and Participation 5. Red Tape: Bureaucracy, Democracy, and the State 6. The Power of Knowing 7. Democracy and Body Politics 8. The Struggle Continues GlossaryReferencesIndex