Introduction -- The study of comparative political thought -- On the historicity of "the political": Rajaniti and politics in modern Indian thought / Sudipta Kaviraj -- Latin American approaches to "the political" / Laurence Whitehead -- Communism, Confucianism, and charisma: the political in modern China / Rana Mitter -- Lineages of political society / Partha Chatterjee -- Acting and acting out: conceptions of political participation in the Middle East / Charles Tripp -- Citizenship after Orientalism / Engin F. Isin -- Forms of participation in Muslim political heritage / Abdulaziz Sachedina -- On vernacular cosmopolitanisms, multiple modernities and the task of comparative political thought / Olivier Remaud -- When is comparative political thought (not) comparative? dialogues, (dis)continuities, creativity, and radical difference in Heidegger and Nishida / Chris Goto-Jones.