ABSTRACT
Much theorizing about politics is an attempt to answer the question 'Who gets mobilized?' Or who, that is, what groups, communities or social categories, succeed in creating and maintaining collective resources used for political ends? This chapter tries to answer these questions with reference to actual societies than to show that an exceedingly wide and disparate range of theorizing about politics, both old and new, can be interpreted as an effort to answer them. It aims to apply general sociological theory to the problem of political mobilization, nor even to advance a particular theory of the formation of conflict or power-seeking groups. The non-political group structure of society is also relevant in a variety of ways to the possibilities of politics and the uses of political power. Groups mobilize politically in order to gain access to the decisionmaking agencies of the state. The distinction between state and society lies at the root of modern political thought.
