The research series discusses perspectives and challenges of the political in contemporary societies. It presents contributions from the various fields of Political Theory, Political Philosophy, Social Philosophy, Sociology and Cultural Sciences. Without being determined to a certain school of thought, the volumes explore the different paths of anti-essentialist, pluralist and radical democratic attempts of thinking the political which had been established in theoretical debates since the early 1980ies mainly in France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The range of topics comprises deconstructive, genealogical and agonistic approaches, discourse and hegemony theories as well as Gouvernementality, Gender and Postcolonial Studies. The research series initiates a constructive dispute on the discourses on the political and is at the same time open for future trends and further developments of these debates.