ABSTRACT
The research and fi ndings of the PIDOP project offer an important opportunity to refl ect on the way participation takes place and can be studied today. The issue is of the utmost importance, because participation is at the centre of the deep and swift changes that the confi guration of democracy is currently experiencing. The work of researchers refl ects these changes, as well as having the diffi cult task of analysing them. Studying participation today, indeed, implies dealing with new and in part unexpected social, cultural and political phenomena that call for a general rearrangement of the way in which we think about the relationship between citizens and politics.
