This volume is one of seven books to grow out of the Yale Political Science Department's initiative on Rethinking Political Order. It emerged from a conference on “Representation and Popular Rule” that was held at Yale in October of 2006. The other volumes in the series are Problems and Methods in the Study of Politics, edited by Ian Shapiro, Rogers Smith, and Tarek Masoud (Cambridge University Press, 2004); Rethinking Political Institutions: The Art of the State, edited by Ian Shapiro, Steven Skowronek, and Daniel Galvin (New York University Press, 2006); Identities, Affiliations, and Allegiances, edited by Seyla Benhabib, Ian Shapiro, and Danilo Petranovich (Cambridge University Press, 2007); Political Contingency: Studying the Unexpected, the Accidental, and the Unforeseen, edited by Ian Shapiro and Sonu Bedi (New York University Press, 2007); Divide and Deal: The Politics of Distribution in Democracies, edited by Ian Shapiro, Peter Swenson, and Daniela Donno (New York University Press, 2008); and Order, Conflict, and Violence, edited by Stathis Kalyvas, Ian Shapiro, and Tarek Masoud (Cambridge University Press, 2008).

We are pleased to record our gratitude to Yale University for the financial support that made this initiative possible. Thanks are also due to two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions, and to John Haslam of Cambridge University Press for shepherding the volume into print.