This timely book updates, and takes stock of, Lipset and Rokkan’s classic work Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives, an influential work since its publication in 1967. With an introduction by the original author, Seymour Martin Lipset, it examines the significance of the original volume for the history of political sociology, and assesses its theoretical and empirical relevance for the study of elections, voters and parties now at the beginning of the 21st century. Most importantly this volume gives scope to new areas such as consociational democracies, small island states, and newly democratising Eastern and Central European and Third World countries. Lauri Karvonen and Stein Kuhnle reveal both the continued relevance of the Lipset/Rokkan approach and the problems related to structural change in the West, with further focus on conditions particular to cases outside the West. This book will be of great importance to all those working in politics or international relations, and anyone interested in the conditions of parties and electoral politics in the contemporary world. Erik Allardt University of Helsinki Dag Anckar Abo Akademi Kris Deschouwer Vrije Universiteit Mattei Dogan Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Lauri Karvonen