Biographical note

Steven Lukes is Professor of Sociology at New York University. He has previously held posts in politics and sociology at Balliol College, Oxford, in political and social theory at the European University Institute in Florence, in moral philosophy at the University of Sienna and in sociology at the London School of Economics. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and an editor of the European Journal of Sociology. His writing and teaching have ranged over political science, political and moral philosophy, sociology, anthropology and the philosophy of the social sciences. He has published widely on these subjects, most recently Moral Relativism. Nadia Urbinati is Professor of Political Theory at Columbia University. She studied philosophy and political science at the University of Bologna (her Alma Mater) and the European University Institute, where she obtained her doctorate. She is the winner of the 2008–2009 Lenfest/Columbia Distinguished Faculty Award and in 2004 her book Mill on Democracy: From the Athenian Polis to Representative Government (2002) received the David and Elaine Spitz Prize. She has published widely on her research interests in both English and Italian.