This book introduces relational thinking to political analysis. Instead of merely providing an overview of possible trajectories for articulating a relational political analysis, Peeter Selg and Andreas Ventsel put forth a concrete relational theory of the political, which has implications for research methodology, culminating in a concrete method they call political form analysis. In addition, they sketch out several applications of this theory, methodology and method. They call their approach political semiotics and argue that it is a fruitful way of conducting research on power, governance and democracy the core dimensions of the political in a manner that is envisioned in numerous discussions of the relational turn in the social sciences. It is the first monograph that attempts to outline an approach to the political that would be relational throughout, from its meta theoretical and theoretical premises through to its methodological implications, methods and empirical applications. 

Peeter Selg is Professor of Political Theory at Tallinn University, Estonia.

Andreas Ventsel is a Senior Research Fellow in Semiotics at Tartu University, Estonia.

Introduction: political semiotics as a theory, methodology and method of relational political analysis.- Chapter 1: The Relational Turn in the Social Sciences.- Chapter 2: Relational approach to the political: power, governance, and democracy.- Chapter 3: Three concepts of semiotics.- Chapter 4: A framework of political semiotics: political logic of the semiosphere.- Chapter 5: Political semiotics and the study of the political: power, governance and democracy.- Chapter 6: Political semiotics as a constitutive explanation and abductive research logic.- Chapter 7: From methodology to methods and applications: introducing political form analysis.- Chapter 8: Application of relational political analysis: political semiotic explanation of the constitution of digital threats.- Conclusion: The Subject and Agenda for Relational Political Analysis.