Why do people take an interest in politics? What do they hope to gain from voting? Why support one political "party" rather than another? To what extent is political behavior rooted in "class" or community? Although these are all questions which might be asked of emerging Third World countries, the focus in this study is on nineteenth-century Europe and, in particular, the aftermath of the 1848 Revolution in France. It covers responses to the counter-revolutionary policies of the imperial regime of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte following his coup d"état and the subsequent emergence of democracy in that country.