Across four seminars, this workshop challenges one of the most cherished assumptions of political thought: that a dense network of associations, clubs and civic groups is democracy's best defence. You will begin with Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation and Nancy Fraser's update of it, exploring how societies react when markets tear apart the social fabric. You will then examine the provocative argument, advanced by Dylan Riley and Sheri Berman, that interwar fascism grew out of vibrant civil societies rather than weak ones, before turning to Marx's account of how Louis Bonaparte rose to power on the back of a fractured society. The workshop ends in the United States, tracing the roots of Trumpism from the "Middle American Radicals" of the 1970s through the upheavals of the early 1990s to today's realignment of voters and money. Throughout, you will learn to connect economic crisis, civic life and political reaction.