In recent years the ability of holistic social theories to account for the rights, duties, even the reality, of the individual have been called into question more and more. At the same time, interest in individualism in a whole variety of forms has been gaining ground, both as an object of study and as a methodology in itself. Individualism brings together essays by eminent social scientists from many countries. They discuss the question of individualism from a historical, methodological, hermeneutical, political, and sociological point of view and try to reconcile methodological individualism with the classical approach of sociological theory, based on collective identity. The contributors are: Bertrand Badie, Pierre Birnbaum, Raymond Boudon, Francois Chazel, Jon Elster, Ernest Gellner, Guy Hermet, Georges Lavau, Jean Leca, Alessandro Pizzorno, Adam Przeworski, and Charles Tilly.

The themes of citizenship and community are today at the center of a fierce debate as both left and right try to mobilize them for their cause. For the left such notions are crucial in all the current attempts to redefine political struggle through extending and deepening democracy. But, argue the contributors to this volume, these concepts need to be made compatible with the pluralism that marks modern democracy. Rather than reject the liberal tradition, they argue, the aim should be to radicalize it. These essays set out to examine what types of "citizen" and "community" might be required by such a radical and plural democracy. From a range of disciplines and a fruitful diversity of theoretical perspectives, the contributors help us to address the following challenge: how to defend the greatest possible pluralism without destroying the very framework of the democratic political community. Despite their differences, a vision emerges from these essays which is sharply at odds both with the universalistic and rationalistic conception to be found in the work of Habermas, and with postmodern celebrations of absolute heterogeneity. For this book is an exploration of politics-of a politics where power, conflict and antagonism will always play a central role.