ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects on the histories of some compelling political engagement, with an emphasis on the US A and Western Europe, from the 1960s and moving forward to today. It charts the re-emergence of widespread political engagement in the 1990s, such as World Social Forum, and at the end of the first decade of the millennium, such as the Arab Spring, Occupy and the environmental movement. While popular culture could diffusely feed into political engagement during these years of intense activism, most societal communication took place via the mass media. The chapter offers a brief overview in broad brushstrokes of Western democratic politics and civil society movements in order to understand varying vectors of political engagement over time. In the USA and Western Europe, more sustained engagement could be observed in movements that carried on for several years in the 1960s and into the early 1970s.
