Nathan Manning, Political Disengagement and the White Working Class

Last week the first SPS seminar for 2014 was held with a joint presentation from Mary Holmes (University of Edinburgh) and Nathan Manning (University of York). They discussed their research on the political dissatisfaction and disengagement amongst members of the white working classes in a talk called: 'I'm not bothered: researching political disengagement'.

They argued that while political science has mapped the contours of electoral disengagement using quantitative methods a more sociological approach using qualitative methods can reveal new and important insights about how people make sense of their socio-political worlds. They called for sociologists to contribute to debates about contemporary democracy.