Political Studies Books

POLITICAL THEORY

In a crowded field, Ayelet Shachar offers a fresh theoretical perspective on multi-culturalism. Political theorists have much debated whether or upon which principles cultural recognition may be justified. Shachar – a lawyer – takes it as given that the individual, the state and the cultural group each have legitimate sets of political claims. The real challenge, she contends, is how a multicultural state might be institutionally structured so that the ‘paradox of multicultural vulnerability’ is avoided. This paradox occurs where the state's effort to accommodate cultural groups results in vulnerable members of these groups, typically women, being further harmed. Existing theories and institutional designs are criticised for either ruling out cultural recognition altogether or granting extensive latitude to group authorities and attaching too little importance to the vulnerability of in-group members. What is needed is a ‘radically new architecture for dividing and sharing authority in the multicultural state’ (p. 88). Shachar's solution is a particular version of this ‘joint governance’ approach – ‘transformative accommodation’. She insightfully notes that jurisdictional arenas, such as family law, immigration law, criminal justice, etc., typically harbour distinct ‘sub-matters’. For example, family law (her chief example) entails both a demarcation dimension, involving the definition of who is and is not a group member, and a distribution dimension, involving the determination of property rights. Transformative accommodation turns on three ensuing principles. First, the legal authority over these different sub-matters should be divided between the state and cultural groups (e.g. the group has authority over ‘demarcation’, and the state over distributive matters). Second, neither the state nor the group should be allowed to monopolise control over a contested arena in which common citizenship rights and cultural attachments are both at stake. Third, individuals should have clearly delineated choice options regarding which authority will govern them on the particular sub-matter. Such choice is considered crucial because the prospect of group members opting for state authority ensures that group authorities will check their worst impulses. Although Shachar dubs transformative accommodation a ‘radically new architecture’ for the multicultural state, much of the interest and force of her argument comes from her rich case studies (a special appendix covers various jurisdictional arenas), many of which show how this approach has long been implicitly employed in various countries. Some also will find her dismissal of political theorists' focus on first principles too quick, especially as many of her own positions on acceptable cultural accommodation seem to be informed by just these kinds of principles. Nevertheless, this immensely thought-provoking book repays serious consideration.

This elegant volume develops a new view of the Enlightenment to match a new reading of Smith and Condorcet. Enlightenment is distinguished here from Darntonian and Pocockian typologies, and is instead understood as a disposition towards critical conversation and as the difference it makes. As such, it suggests no particular respect for professional boundaries (including those which did not exist in the eighteenth century), and indeed Economic Sentiments treats the political economy of its main cast as a way of looking at the predicaments of people in the society of their day, and ours, rather than as a narrowly delimited study of production and distribution. The chapter on ‘Economic Dispositions' therefore delivers much more than it promises in revising Smith and Condorcet, especially in its remarkable treatment of fear. Chapters two to seven discuss the pair in a way that extricates Condorcet from caricatures of the ‘cold’ Enlightenment and extracts Smith from his role as spokesman for laissez-faire. The more complicated picture of their identities which is substituted here highlights the ambiguities of liberalism, and there is a suggestion in parting that the end of the twentieth century may be remembered not only for the demise of communism but also for the incipient separation of political conservatism from laissez-faire. Dr Rothschild discreetly sketches the prospects of a more active imagination and a suitable equality. The book, fittingly, presents itself as a continuing discussion rather than as a ponderous disquisition, and the author's intellectual labour is at least half concealed by ease of manner, by relegating an Actonian range of refences to the back of the book, and by speaking throughout in the accents of the sympathetic spectator of an unquiet world.

Women, Political Philosophy and Politics is an ambitious volume, a compact but sweeping survey of major figures in the history of political philosophy on the question of women's role in politics and society. Professor Sperling states at the outset: ‘The longevity of ideas about women and their relation to politics, the fact that arguments used by Aristotle are still sincerely held and articulated by people who stalk the corridors of power in ivory towers, is a fascinating and horrific phenomenon. I wanted to impress on the students the very origins of women's exclusion from politics; the history as told through mainstream political philosophy, and why it is so hard to make progress against such deeply entrenched ideas.’ With a wry wit that characterises her writing, she notes, ‘My objective has been to demonstrate that the arguments of political philosophers, and the politicians who venerate them, are about as rational as they accuse women of being.’ (p. vii)

With that clearly articulated goal, Professor Sperling offers a compendium of major concepts in political theory and their authors, demonstrating the sources, both ancient and modern, of the exclusion of women from citizenship and political legitimacy. After an introduction, three chapters are organised according to concepts – the State of Nature, The State, and Citizenship and Representation –containing descriptions of how major theorists have utilised those ideas to exclude women from participation in political life. There follow five chapters organised historically by groups of theorists – Plato and Aristotle, Hobbes and Locke, Mill, Marx and Engels, Rawls and Nozick, again, providing a general survey of the exclusion of women from the very structure of their political ideas.

The book is intelligent and well written, but nevertheless contains problems. It attempts too much, with the result that there is little unity to the discussions of either the concepts or the theorists, save that they all marginalise women. The author's lack of focus is evident when, for example, she observes rather offhandedly, ‘The debate about whether or not Plato and Aristotle are misogynists is both interesting and diverting’ (p. 82), but fails to pursue the issue, much less take a coherent stand.

The book has potential as a teaching tool for advanced undergraduates, or graduate students in political theory who have had little exposure to feminist scholarship. The book's strength is as a critical feminist recapitulation of major figures in the western tradition, rather than as a path-breaking work. But still, there remains a major and puzzling omission. Existing feminist scholarship is referred to parenthetically, but not engaged. Contemporary feminist political theorists Okin, Pateman, Hartsock, Elshtain, Annas, Saxonhouse, MacKinnon and Dietz (and others) have all written about the topics in this volume with sophistication and detailed insight. Failure to engage their work leaves Sperling's book insufficiently grounded: as though she believes she is reinventing a feminist critique of western political theory. It undermines the usefulness of this volume both for teaching purposes and as a scholarly resource.

Liberal political theorists have always been enthusiastic about choice. But while liberals are generally happy to talk about autonomous individuals and to justify institutional arrangements in a way that presupposes that those living under them are autonomous in the way they require, they are rather more reticent in discussing the ways in which autonomy might be encouraged in people who are not yet autonomous. The most strident of liberals will often shrug and become quiet when asked how their views impact upon children. Given that people will be autonomous, they say, and presupposing that people can make meaningful choices about their lives and the rightful character of the state, liberal institutions are the most appropriate and just structures under which persons might pursue a life which they believe is valuable.

Harry Brighouse eschews this strategy and tackles the issue head-on. He argues that education policy should be geared primarily toward the interests of the child and, most importantly, the fundamental interest of the child to become an autonomous adult. Brighouse therefore constructs a programme of school choice that encourages individual autonomy and equality of opportunity. In doing so, He presents a persuasive and lucid case that holds concrete implications for the formation of public policy in liberal democratic states. The book raises more questions than it answers, however. For example, a crucial part of his argument rests on his distinction between ‘autonomy-promoting’ and ‘autonomy-facilitating’ education. States, he believes, should support schools that allow people to be autonomous if they wish. But this begs the question. For persons to be given the ‘opportunity’ to be autonomous (and hence, to choose to be autonomous if they so desire) they must be provided with the resources necessary to make such a decision among the options available. That is, in order to choose to be autonomous, individuals must already be autonomous. Admittedly, this is a problem that Brighouse acknowledges. But in doing so, he is surely forced to admit that his distinction is rendered questionable and, consequently, that his programme of education is much less hospitable to ‘non-autonomous' ways of life than he believes.

School Choice and Social Justice is a robust defence of liberal egalitarianism as rooted in individual autonomy and equality of opportunity. It therefore represents a welcome and timely addition to the literature on liberal political theory and a real attempt to tackle a fundamental issue which is too often conveniently ignored by many other liberals.

Mill has been conscripted as a libertarian, utilitarian, conservative and proto-socialist, and in this book he becomes a political sociologist and deliberative democrat. Baum's sociological reading of Mill turns his liberal strictures against social coercion into a preoccupation, also, with the social conditions involved in the exercise of power. A more radical Mill is now worried by some individuals' and institutions' abilities to acquire power over others. Freedom and autonomy, for the many not the few, require a redistribution of the sources of social power. The state is charged with regulating marital, social and economic relations so as to secure the preconditions for each person's autonomous self-development. Allied to an egalitarian reading of Mill's views on property, industrial relations and distributive justice, the result is an arresting and original reading which combines socialist with liberal strands in his thought to produce a twentieth-century Mill, prescient of the situatedness of liberty in social and economic circumstances. Baum even comes close to linking Mill with the republican argument that citizens engaged in collective self-government are freer than those acting alone.

The book is impressively researched and draws on the whole corpus of Mill's writings. Unfortunately, knowledge of the substance of Mill's thought is not matched by an interpretive sophistication. Mill is criticised for his neglect of corporate power and social movements, and ignorance of symbolic and cultural media of power. Those of an analytic mind might also criticise him for insufficient definition of freedom and power (which become almost indistinct). Despite the dense and detailed mapping of the Millian terrain in what is a fairly lengthy book, I could not help thinking that this was really a contemporary manifesto for a radical liberalism struggling to get out. Overall, though, this is an engaging, provocative and scholarly text that all those exercised by Mill's work and thought would profit greatly from reading.

Joseph Raz is as striking and original a philosopher as any the twentieth century has produced, and this book carries his reflections to the heart of value and the end of life, as rewardingly as ever, albeit more briefly. Raz's pattern has been to use one book to develop a line of argument with great rigour and at a relatively high level of abstraction, and to use subsequent work to pursue the practical implications of that line of argument. His approach here, as befits a contribution to a distinguished lecture series, departs from that pattern. This time, Raz has chosen to take his thought in new directions by means that are exploratory and suggestive, rather than elaborately worked out, and to that end has invoked four classic puzzles about value as a means of dramatising what he has to say. The effect is to meet old questions and concerns in ways that convert them, entirely refreshingly, into questions and concerns of his own.

What is at issue is the relationship between universal and contingent understandings of value, and Raz takes another step in a personal journey toward the contingent, not by departing from the universal, but by offering a more subtle account of it. Does the Little Prince have reason to remain attached to his rose, once he has discovered it is not unique? Quite possibly, for attachment is capable of enhancing the value of an object, so making it unique for someone. How can such a personal value be understood as universal? And how can a notion of universality thin enough to embrace such a value be thick enough to generate a proper respect for people and for life itself? Careful attention to Raz's liberating answers will leave the reader knowing more and knowing less.

There is a common complaint in environmental politics, which is that work in environmental ethics remains far removed from the world of policy. This book constitutes an admirable attempt to bridge that gap by providing a systematic set of ethical principles to govern policy choice. The author adopts an explicitly Kantian approach, rooted in practical reason, in order to explore the demands of justice as they relate to social choice. There are two elements here. First, Kantian moral reasoning is used to demolish the ethical foundations of the current (market) paradigm of social choice. Second, a new paradigm for policy choice is presented. This is ‘Justice from Autonomy’, under which ‘ecosystem policy argument’ replaces ‘economic policy argument’. Here the intrinsic functional value of the environment becomes the regulative principle that governs policy choice. The final chapter is devoted to case studies exploring the implications of Justice from Autonomy.

This is an ambitious book, and this has both advantages and risks. It provides a comprehensive overview of the fundamental nature of policy argument, and a timely reminder that environmental ethics does not have to retreat to the ad hoc instrumentalism of pragmatism in order to be policy relevant. The risk is that it will not satisfy either environmental ethicists or policy practitioners. With regard to the former, Gillroy takes certain principles for granted that remain contested, in particular ‘intrinsic value’ in nature. This has the benefit of allowing Gillroy to get on with the job of applying the principle, but at the disadvantage of leaving behind those who remain unconvinced by the claims of intrinsic value.

This is an important addition to the literature, particularly in its focus on policy relevance in environmental ethics. Even those who disagree with the author's conclusions will find much here to think about.

This work aims to bring the critical force of Michel Foucault's genealogical approach to bear on dominant themes in Anglo-American political philosophy. Specifically, it seeks to provide a genealogy of the conception of political subjectivity that traverses the contemporary political spectrum. This conception is the ideal of rugged individualism – what Clifford calls ‘savage nobility’, in contradistinction to the noble savage against which European and colonial ‘civilisation’ has defined itself. Drawing on key texts in modern political theory, Clifford shows how the autonomous individual constitutes a norm that is intimately bound up with forms of knowledge, power and techniques of self-constitution in contemporary liberal societies. Exposing the contingency of this norm effects a dis-aggregation of narratives and standards of normality that continue to subject us, opening space for a new kind of freedom that allows us to move beyond our identities.

The most disappointing aspect of this book is that it spends its energies primarily retreading old ground. It seems content to outline Foucault's methods and insights and to connect these to analyses of the ideas of Hobbes, Rousseau, J. S. Mill, Rawls, Nozick and others. The much more interesting project – a genealogy of the ideal of rugged individualism and how it underpins American political theory and cultural narratives – is barely touched. Ironically, what Political Genealogy After Foucault lacks is any kind of genealogical analysis: it argues for the use of Foucauldian genealogy to political theory, but refuses to do the very sort of genealogy it argues is required after Foucault.

Nevertheless, this book will be of pedagogic value to readers interested in how Foucauldian thought can relate to contemporary political theory. Its clear and concise language will appeal to advanced undergraduates and likely some postgraduates and academics as well.

BRITAIN AND IRELAND

The Nuffield volume on the 2001 British general election is the latest in the postwar series. All governments come and (eventually) go, but six months after every general election, as spring follows winter, out pops the Nuffield volume. This one follows the familiar model: an overview of events from 1997 to 2001; chapters on each of the major parties; analysis of the polls, news media, parliamentary candidates and constituency campaigns; an overview of the outcome, and the final coda, the always excellent analysis of the constituency results in the appendix by John Curtice and Michael Steed. This book shares all the many virtues of previous volumes: strongest is thick description, providing an invaluable historical record by capturing the day-to-day ephemera of the campaign. Like the core questions carried in the BES, the continuity of format allows cumulative comparisons over successive contests. The series provides a unique historical record of national elections in the post-war era that is unrivalled elsewhere.

Yet this very continuity also preserves certain familiar features that perhaps deserve rethinking after more than fifty years. When the series was first started it was THE election campaign study in Britain. Nowadays there are multiple competitors jostling in the market (including, in the interests of full and fair disclosure, one edited by myself). This makes it tougher for the volume to say anything very original on the key issues raised by the election, like turnout, the bias of the electoral system, or patterns of party competitions, which are analysed in greater depth elsewhere. Moreover, the literature in this area has expanded by leaps and bounds in recent decades, improving in breadth and sophistication. The short bibliography at the end of each volume lists some of this work. Despite this, there is almost no use of this scholarly literature in the book (except in the appendix), even when covering highly controversial topics. It could only strengthen the Nuffield volume to include references gently guiding readers towards the relevant literature, pointing out claims in the text where there remains considerable controversy in scholarly research, indicating data sources for further research, and in general encouraging undergraduates to adopt a critical and reflective understanding.

This relates closely to another aspect of the series that urgently requires a fresh perspective. The basic approach of the Nuffield series remains: ‘Facts, just the facts, Ma'am.’ As mentioned earlier, the historical approach of thick description piled on thick description remains one of the core strengths of the series. Nevertheless, the introduction or conclusion could offer a broader theoretical discussion of the frameworks available to interpret both patterns of voting behaviour and the outcome. Controversies in voting behaviour will not go away and we cannot pretend that they do not exist, rather like pointedly ignoring an annoying aunt at Christmas. The book is, as always, a must-buy. It is a British tradition, like M&S, the Queen Mum and Harrods. But like many such traditions, through the eyes of overseas visitors, sometimes the old ways could do with some refurbishments and renovations.

Dr Cunningham's book seeks to provide an account of British government policy in Northern Ireland. Five of the seven chapters take a historical approach, starting with the Direct Rule and ending with the Labour government of 1997. Each of these chapters is organised around four related policy areas, namely constitutional, security, economic and social policy. Thus any one of these chapters looks at how policy in each of these policy areas was developed by a particular UK government. In addition there is an opening chapter which sets the background and a concluding chapter which seeks to offer some broad conclusions.

I think this a useful book. It is written clearly and without fuss in what one would describe as the critical-descriptive public administration tradition. The book is especially valuable to students and academics who want a sense of the sweep of British government policy in Northern Ireland: the blurb on the book claims (rightly I think) that it would be invaluable as a reference source. Hence it would be a useful adjunct to books that focus more on the internal nature of politics and society in Northern Ireland. The concluding chapter raises some interesting points about the character of British governments' policy. Issues such as the consistency of such policy and bipartisanship are examined albeit in a brief fashion. The book is directed towards undergraduates and the level of debate is appropriate. Nonetheless I was left looking for more. I am not, for example, sure that that the argument, as presented in the book, over the extent to which British policy is consistent could not be reconciled. But that might mean a different kind of book. This one is certainly valuable as it stands.

This book carefully scrutinises the relationship between intellectual and nation in modern Britain. It focuses attention on the strong sense of English/British national identity which many British intellectuals have felt: from late-nineteenth-century figures with a sense of educative mission to late-twentieth-century thinkers striving to identify the sources of national identity in the role of the public servant. Ably, Julia Stapleton thus examines what might be termed Britain's national intellectuals, public thinkers enjoying a positive relationship with English/British nationhood. She has gathered much interesting material on the later Victorians but, as she lucidly points out, her subject extends well beyond those years: ‘A broad and deeply felt patriotism is [a] marked characteristic of English intellectuals after 1850, one which lasted up until 1914 and, although subject to increased challenge thereafter, retained much of its former buoyancy well into the twentieth century.’ (p. 24) Among those studied are people as diverse as Enoch Powell, John Betjeman, G. M. Trevelyan, A. L. Rowse and Herbert Butterfield. The book gives appropriate prominence to the role played by Christianity among intellectuals sympathetic, rather than hostile, to their inherited nation; it questions the supposedly diminishing impact of intellectuals on British public life during the twentieth century; and it compellingly maps out –for student and specialist scholar alike – the valuable territory of the British national intellectual.

This timely publication of the first full-length study of its kind is an engaging account of the emergence of Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales – as a political party. The dynamics shaping the gradual metamorphosis of the party from a ‘disparate association of campaigners' to a ‘fully functioning political machine’ are the main focus of the book. The author adopts a multi-faceted and fresh approach in an attempt to combine a political history of Plaid Cymru with a more thematic and analytical evaluation of its political growth and of its philosophical and ideological development. While part one tells the story of Plaid Cymru by offering the reader ‘hard, factual information’, part two attempts to reassess this story by adopting a more thematic approach. The highlight of the book is an evaluation of the story from the perspective of the role of women in Plaid Cymru, and is indeed the ‘groundbreaking and unique perspective’ that the author claims – providing an intellectual challenge to the reader to pursue these themes in the context of Welsh politics.

The author provides a coherent and authoritative argument, based on an extensive period of research and personal experience, that is both accessible to the general reader and of interest to the more specialist reader: party activist and political scientist alike. While the author successfully achieves the central aim of the book, the theoretical evaluation of Plaid Cymru's nationalist ideology could have been developed in greater depth, especially in the conclusion. Having said that, this is an invaluable contribution, not only to the somewhat scarce academic literature on Plaid Cymru, but also in facilitating further academic debate about political parties and politics in Wales.

This book focuses on ‘what keeps Scotland together and what keeps it linked to the rest of the UK’. It begins by posing a number of questions, including whether the Scottish Parliament has achieved anything from the voters' perception and whether it is regarded as the body that would lead Scotland in the future. More particularly it considers just how distinct Scots are from the English and the extent to which their policy preferences differ. Based on Scottish Social Surveys during 2000, the book contains a considerable body of data on subjects ranging from homosexuality and cohabitation to attitudes towards the EU and regional variations within Scotland. Some of the tables are a little difficult to follow at times, but they do provide fascinating insights into Scottish attitudes towards morality, devolution and Scotland's future governance. It will be particularly of interest to academics and politicians, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students in sociology and territorial politics. Although it is of value because it is a follow-up to a study which predated legislative devolution and so is a comparative work, some of its tentative conclusions merit further investigation – namely ‘the social basis of nationalism being on the left’. It would be interesting to understand why nationalism also appears to enjoy some support from those who may have voted for the Conservatives in rural and fishing communities in the east and north of Scotland.

This book charts how an array of public relations intermediaries address the media and, in doing so, impinge upon the political process – at the level of decision-making, policy development and pressure group behaviour. The impact that the PR culture has on the news production process is also a central feature. The book focuses in on business and trade union activities and uses interviews with public relations practitioners and journalists, primary sources from the PR field, as well as content analysis of the press, to chart the actions of PR agents and their impact on coverage.

The exploration of cases and examples tends to suggest that, in a competitive media environment, PR practitioners (through ‘information subsidies’) have been able to exploit the inexorable pressure to fill the ‘news hole’ that journalists now face. But it also suggests that we would be wrong to think that the business community, with its PR resources, is universally effective in steering the mainstream media. Rather, corporate PR is deployed in a battle between business elites to the exclusion of all other sources, but this in itself is significant, as decision-making in this domain is now dominated by market imperatives and neo-liberal thinking prevails. On the other hand, the book looks at trade union PR activity and concludes that this is far from insignificant in terms of influencing the media and decision-makers.

The arguments in the book are well supported empirically, quite convincing and should be of interest to advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and academics. This book is a timely reminder that the world of public relations, image management and ‘spin doctors' extends beyond the party-political domain into the realm outside Westminster. The book is to be applauded for its micro-level assessment of the role, actions and impact of PR, and for its movement outward to locating this activity within the context of radical and liberal understandings of the mediapower relations.

This edited volume represents some of the findings culminating from the (UK) ESRC's research programme on local governance. (A sister volume, The New Management of British Local Governance, was published earlier, in 1999.) Viewed against the main objectives of the programme –including the shift from local government to local governance and a critical appreciation of its theorisation – the researchers, and this book, amply justify the Research Council's investment. The purpose of this volume is to examine the ways in which this shift towards local governance has impacted on local politics. It is a story of fragmentation and co-ordination; of the centrality of networking and partnership; of the need to match the ability of local governance structures to address successfully the imperative of place competitiveness (where it has!) with the need to be more politically inclusive and accountable and of, perhaps above all, the increasing complexity of the worlds in which local politics operates.

The chapters reflect these different themes, moving from broader questions as to the changing nature of local governance/politics to chapters dealing with participation, and inclusion. Jessop traces the reasons behind the (apparently inevitable) failure of the mechanisms of governance to address local economic development; Painter and Goodwin draw the conclusion that the shift towards a truly post-Fordist system of local governance has yet to emerge (just a case of a research question posed too early?); Harding usefully positions the experience of Manchester and Edinburgh against the background of the ubiquitous urban regime theory. Later chapters focus on research projects which – as in the case of the opinion survey of councillors, quango members and the public, and participation in the plan-making process – have become the subject of separately published volumes in their own right.

No doubt because of the sea change in British local politics, this book meets an important purpose. In some ways, it might be argued, the research on which the book is based already has a dated feel (the research programme was completed a month before the May 1997 election). The new agenda of Labour since 1997, devolution and the slower, (but inevitable?) move to regional assemblies in England, modernisation, Best Value, Neighbourhood Renewal, has accelerated change. But the thrust of such changes has, if anything, added emphasis to the arguments in this book; indeed, on more than one occasion they are alluded to by the authors.

This is a lively and readable collection drawn from the eleventh EPOP Conference. Bartle shows that the party identification question used since the 1960s is biased towards identification and against non-identification. We always knew that weak identification was weak, but it may in large part simply misrepresent non-identification. Consequently British elections may be won or lost without winning any votes from those who identify with other parties. Norris confronts the problem of explaining why Gore won the US election so narrowly (though he did win) against a background of ‘peace abroad and prosperity at home’ – a paradox that foreshadowed the current popularity of Bush against a background of ‘war and recession’. And there are three chapters on bias in Britain's electoral system and the way it increases when FPTP is combined (in local government elections) with multi-member wards – even if these are not taken to the extreme of a FPTP ‘at-large’ election in an undivided council district.

Appropriately for a conference held in Edinburgh, there are six chapters on devolution or ethnic representation. Journalist Brian Taylor (unlike most Scots) enthusiastically defends the record of the Scottish Parliament. Berrie et al show that the ‘new’ parliament is largely composed of old familiar types – even old familiar faces. And Cowley shows, despite first impressions, that the new parliamentarians are scarcely any more rebellious than the old. Evans and Tonge show how, in Northern Ireland, devolution entrenches sectarianism and squeezes the cross-sectarian Alliance. All timely, all interesting, and mostly convincing.

NORTH AMERICA

This edited volume of twenty-five chapters by ‘intellectuals and scholar activists representing genuine racial, ethnic and ideological diversity’ examines the centrality of race to American political culture. In assessing how race has been employed to inform discussions of power, prejudice and inequality, the volume deals in four parts with, respectively, the idea of race, the relationship of race and culture, race and public policy, and strategies to achieve a ‘more democratic and just’ America.

The book inadvertently illustrates how and why the study of race is often treated dismissively in the academy as a mixture of politicised ‘real-time’ commentary and an offshoot of cultural studies rather than political science. Several chapters here offer little more than polemic, speculation and jargon, liberally punctuated by personal anecdotage. One chapter, on anti-Arab bias in American media, seems especially dated by deriding the ‘dubious and unsubstantiated thesis' that there existed extensive fund-raising networks in America for ‘Middle East terrorists' (p. 124).

While the volume includes several leading ‘names' (William Julius Wilson, Gerald Horne, Urvashi Vaid), it is rather disingenuous in claiming ideological diversity. Nathan Glazer merits six pages on the future of race and Dinesh D'Souza is credited with eight, for example, while the FBI's ‘secret war’ against the Black Panthers merits thirty. A few chapters –notably Horne's on affirmative action and Robert Weissberg's analysis of ‘White Studies' – are well crafted and sharply observed, but the volume will be of little use in most politics courses.

In the introduction, Alan Grant points out that the volume wants to provide a detailed analysis of some of the key themes affecting the functioning of the American political system at the start of the new century. To accomplish this task, he has collected eleven articles from experts in the field.

With regard to institutional developments, the Congress is treated in terms of the partisan conflicts that have become even more visible in the aftermath of the ‘revolutionary’ elections in 1994. The presidency is examined agounst the background of the most important public policies, and so the Clinton years are assessed. The Supreme Court is tackled with a close look into its prominent rulings of the 1990s. Around these three obligatory topics, the reader finds contributions on issues that attracted not only scientific but also public attention in the last decade. Accordingly, one article asks whether American society is in a process of ‘Balkanisation’. Another discusses the changes in American foreign policy after the Cold War. In terms of domestic matters, the influence of the Christian right on American politics and especially on the Republican Party is analysed, and consequently the Republicans' policy agenda earns an extra chapter. Another two chapters deal with elections, one with voting and campaigning in general, the other concentrating on the reform of campaign finance. The articles on the Independent Counsel and on devolutionary American federalism are especially recommendable.

All articles are well structured and written to the point. The volume particularly addresses readers who already have a solid knowledge and understanding of the American political system.

This book depicts a series of studies examining selected topics related to e-government, and provides an overview of current e-government initiatives and some insights to government leaders for moving forward. Each chapter is written by a different author and covers a specific issue, describing models of good practice learned by the US private sector and their applications to the US public sector. The authors use a wealth of empirical research material and case studies to document and illustrate their arguments and to draw lessons and recommendations for implementing successful e-government initiatives. The areas of focus cover the use of the internet and e-commerce applications in service delivery and communications, the advantage of an auction-based model and the privacy challenges facing governments. The book provides a good overview for readers interested in the potential benefits of technological innovations and their applications, for government-to-business implementations to be successful. The book is a valuable source for keeping policy-makers updated with the development of e-commerce applications within government.

The main drawback is the lack of geographic breadth and international analysis, as it only reflects initiatives from the US private and public sector. The practical approach of the book makes it a well documented, researched and illustrated manual rather than an academic volume. The summaries of identified lessons learned and suggested recommendations provided to implement appropriate government initiatives remain nevertheless broad and not prescriptive enough for an action plan. Also, the extent of references without systematic analytical relevance causes the reader to deflect from the core message. This is one of the few books which illustrate well the government-to-business relationship while presenting a good framework and raising open issues that governments are and will be facing in the future.

Michelle Brattain has written an engaging and detailed history of the white textile workers of Rome, Georgia. The main thrust of her argument is that ‘whiteness' determined much of the political activism of union members between the 1930s and the 1970s. Their support for candidates standing for office in local, state and federal elections was determined not only by how far they were understood to be ‘pro-labour’, but also by how far they would defend the interest of southern whites in an era of black civil rights activism. Such views were not always to be found in one candidate – those who were pro-labour were often those most sympathetic to civil rights, but ultimately those willing to defend whiteness, and the privileges of white workers in particular, usually garnered the most support.

Brattain's book is well written and well researched, utilising not only the manuscript records of labour organisations, but also a number of face-to-face interviews with surviving textile workers. By stressing the ambiguous nature of the relationship between race and class in the mid-twentieth-century mind, she has reminded us that political views are formed from a variety of impulses. Indeed, one might take this argument further and state that race, class and gender (which is not particularly well represented in this book) combine in a multitude of ways to shape personal political beliefs in ways that historians are only now starting to interpret.

Andrew Busch sets out to evaluate the presidency of Ronald Reagan according to the criterion the man himself used – the expansion of freedom defined as limited government, free markets, and reinvigo-rated civil society and a strong national defence. After analysing Reagan's record in both domestic and foreign policy, Busch pronounces him overwhelmingly successful. However, while the case is well made in places, in others the evidence will simply not bear the load Busch requires it to. More importantly, in evaluating Reagan on the man's own terms, Busch abandons ninety per cent of the possible avenues of criticism. The result is a vigorous defence of Reagan, but one that veers perilously close to hagiography.

Alex Wadden's evaluation of Bill Clinton's effort to implement a ‘New Democrat’ strategy of governance could hardly be more different. While scrupulous in assigning credit where it is due, Wadden is quite clear that Clinton failed to institutionalise a viable strategy of governance for the Democratic Party in the post-New Deal era. On virtually every major issue, Clinton divided rather than united his party; he failed to establish a stable coalition in either Congress or the country; and he repeatedly ended up abandoning genuine efforts to find ‘Third Way’ solutions in favour of a watered-down version of whatever the Republicans were proposing. While it would have been nice to have a more extended discussion of the reasons for Clinton's failure and its implications, this is an excellent and even-handed account of Clinton's domestic record.

Molloy analyses the emergence of ‘low intensity conflict’ (LIC) as a ‘de facto national security strategy’ in the United States during the Reagan administration. This strategy was used to ‘roll back’ usually Marxist revolutionary forces in the Third World using low-profile, often covert methods with limited costs and risks as an alternative to direct military intervention. LIC was ‘multidimensional’ but, unlike earlier US counterinsurgency efforts, it was mostly political and psychological, rather than military, in nature.

The strategy developed partly in response to the constraints placed on the use of US military force by the Vietnam syndrome and also relative US economic decline. Molloy argues that strategy was not intentionally formulated but gradually gained coherence as a result of the administration's ad hoc attempts to confront revolutionary nationalism in places such as Nicaragua and the Philippines, which he uses as detailed case studies.

Molloy clearly sets LIC in its historical and political context, and argues convincingly that it had emerged as a recognisable strategy by the latter stages of Reagan's presidency. He admits LIC is a wideranging strategy that lacks definitional clarity. His own attempts to place it within a conceptual framework retain a degree of broadness and flexibility. Greater clarity is achieved, however, through his highly readable and insightful case studies. Making extensive use of primary sources from Nicaragua and the Philippines, he demonstrates clearly how LIC emerged in practice. This is an important work on the nature of US interventions under the constraints of the Vietnam syndrome.

EUROPE

Both books under review attempt to engage in debates concerning Britain's membership of the European Union and thus act as a challenging counterpoint to one another.

In The Pro-European Reader, the editors seek to present the ‘case for Europe’. To this end, the book is divided into four parts. The first two parts deal with the historical development of the pro-European argument from 1945 until the present day as set out in the speeches of politicians such as, for example, Winston Churchill, Edward Heath, Jacques Delors and Neil Kinnock. Through these excerpts are conveyed the dynamism of the history of the EU and the complexity of the circumstances it has faced, and is facing. Yet this is not a eulogy of the EU but, instead, shows the indecisions, mistakes and pragmatic acceptance that accompanied Britain's route to EU membership as revealed by those involved on all sides of the party-political divide. Part three incorporates essays that explore potential futures for the EU, and the final part deals with social and cultural issues. Including contributions from writers, journalists, professionals and academics – such as Milan Kundera, Hugo Young, Robert Cooper and Anthony Giddens – these short essays are more reflective in tone as the authors explore the complexities and problematics of European membership. The Eurosceptical Reader 2 presents an alternative case, which expresses the contributors' ‘disapproval and doubt about the integration process’. Based on essays written by academics, politicians, professionals and diplomats, the book tackles ‘both the economic and political objections to Britain's ever closer union with the EU’. To this end, the book is divided into two parts: the first covering economic issues, such as the Euro, trade, the European Central Bank and regional inequalities across the EU, while the latter deals with the political arguments concerning matters such as continued membership or withdrawal from the Union.

Both collections are well written and present convincing cases for their particular position which draw upon key voices in the ongoing debates. Clearly, it is beyond the scope of either book to cover all areas concerning the European Union, yet the selections that are made deal with the major areas under discussion and thus provide a good, all-round general examination. In the main, both volumes are easily accessible to academics and interested professionals, and they would also provide good back-up material for students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. However, students may need to use both books in conjunction with mainstream academic texts in order to gain either a broader or a more objective insight into the topics under discussion.

The strength of both books lies in drawing together collections which amply demonstrate the commitment of the authors to the case they present and, for this reason, both books are a valuable addition to literature on Europe. Indeed, by so often agreeing on particulars, yet differing wildly about where these particulars take us, these books provide good evidence of how distant agreement over Europe remains.

The tenth anniversary of the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe has resulted in a plethora of meetings, seminars and publications evaluating the unprecedented democratic change in the region. Not only pro-democracy campaigners had reason for celebration, but so did academics. Due to the changes in Eastern Europe, studies of democratic transitions became extremely popular among students, foundations and publishers. These studies brought together theorists of transitions and specialists in the politics of individual countries and regions. They also brought together scholars from both sides of the former East-West divide. The co-operation between these very diversified groups of researchers was at times uneasy, but it was certainly enlightening and productive. The two books reviewed here are a very good example of this positive development. They both evaluate ten years of transition in the region. They offer the right balance of theoretical conceptualisation and empirical evidence. They look at Eastern Europe in sound comparative terms. And they include contributions from both Western and Eastern European scholars (although the asymmetry in favour of the former is still striking).

Analysis of the impact of international factors on democracy-building is especially strong in the book edited by Geoffrey Pridham and Atilla Ágh. In particular, Pridham's effort to conceptualise the complex relationship between regime change and international factors deserves careful reading. However, the ambition of Pridham (as well as other authors in this book) is not only to analyse patterns over the last decade, but also to project patterns for the next decade. Such exercises are often very risky. For instance, one can argue that the events of September 11 have already put into question one of Pridham's major conclusions suggesting that international organisations, rather than nation states or loose (i.e. non-institutionalised and non-governmental) transnational actors, are crucial in shaping democratic developments.

Pridham and Ágh's book also devotes a lot of space to the analysis of political parties in the region, the main topic of the second book reviewed here. The editor of the latter book, Paul Lewis, considers democratic change to be largely a function of party politics. As he puts it: ‘It is hardly possible, in practice if not in theory, to conceive of a functioning representative democracy without some kind of competitive party system.’ And since parties in post-communist Eastern Europe are not the greatest success story of the last decade, he has reasons to conclude that democratisation in the region has merely ‘made patchy progress’. This contrasts with a more positive overall evaluation of democratic progress presented by the book of Pridham and Ágh. However, Lewis's book is not limited to only one and probably the most difficult democratic aspect – political parties; it also analyses a broader range of countries in the region than the book of Pridham and Ágh. Indeed, one of the strongest features of Lewis's book is the fact that not only well-researched parties from the Visegrad countries fall under scrutiny, but also the rather unknown parties from the Baltic states, Slovenia, and even Belarus. In addition to analyses of individual countries, the book contains several interesting theoretical and comparative chapters, supported by detailed tables with interesting statistical evidence.

Contrary to abundant predictions in the 1990s that welfare states will retrench in a common direction and converge, European welfare states have proven resilient to contemporary pressures for change. Moreover, welfare states remain distinct, national phenomena. These are the common findings of two books which otherwise take very different approaches and perspectives.

Kleinman reaches his conclusion by reviewing and rejecting the range of theories on welfare state convergence. He finds little evidence that either globalisation or EU policy-making is eroding the national traditions of European welfare states and that European welfare states are being forced to converge to a common regime. Clearly, as Kleinman rightly shows, EU-level policy-making does have an impact on welfare states both directly, through the EU's social policy agenda and indirectly, through European economic policy. However, this is an interactive rather than convergent process. The EU regulates and co-ordinates the social policy of member states, but has long abandoned the ambition to create EU welfare institutions. Thus, for Kleinman, ‘national states, national institutions and national attitudes remain the key’ (p. 220).

Similarly, the research carried out for Welfare States Under Pressure finds that European welfare states have been more resilient to the pressures of the 1990s (globalisation and the imperative of competitiveness, Europeanisation, the rising demand for welfare and shifting welfare discourses) than had been expected. The book outlines and compares recent developments in pensions policy, the treatment of the unemployed and the financing of welfare in seven European states. Its findings are significant: reform has rarely meant a fundamental shift in the features of the welfare state. In other words, welfare states have remained ‘loyal’ to the welfare regime (Esping-Anderson) to which they belong. The degree of change in each state has, however, has varied and this has to do with the type of political regime (Lijphart). Reform and transformation in welfare states that are majoritarian is easier and quicker than in states which are consensual and include social partners in decision making. These trends are illustrated well by the seven country case studies that cover the range of welfare and political regimes –Sweden, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.

Having demonstrated resilience in the 1990s, Taylor-Gooby is careful to make the point in his conclusion that this is by no means an indicator of future trends. Rather there are signs that minor changes to political and institutional arrangements (such as policy centralisation in the UK, the exclusion of social partners from social fund management in France or the inclusion of women and immigrants into the labour market in Switzerland) as well as shifts in the ideological positions of social democratic parties (especially in the UK and Germany) will enable more fundamental reform in the future.

These are two worthwhile books which offer both thorough reviews of significant recent trends and substantial case study material on policy developments at EU level (Kleinman) and at the level of the nation state (Taylor-Gooby ed.). In this sense they are perfect books to recommend to advanced undergraduates who need persuading that the national welfare state is not (yet!) dead.

A casual glance at the title of this book, with its promise of yet another ‘rethink’ of European welfare provision, might justifiably result in a sigh were the contributions not so genuinely original and insightful. Far from offering another threadbare neoliberal consideration of its ‘problems' (usually the charge that European welfare systems are less competitive than rivals such as those of the USA and Japan), the contributors to this volume explore the manifold national and EU level expressions of the European social model of welfare provision through the conceptual lenses of post-structuralist, gender, race and class focused approaches, thereby widening the parameters of debate beyond the customary reflection on the welfare state as either an impediment to national competitiveness or a compensator of social exclusion/inequality to that of a central institutional source of the latter power asymmetries: in the spirit of constructivist and critical theory approaches, the contributors argue that dominant, unquestioned, welfare ‘discourses' (such as the tendency to categorise female welfare recipients from certain immigrant groups as wives and mothers rather than as citizens) are a means by which traditional notions of ‘otherness' are further reified. In particular, attention is paid to the ways in which social policy has contributed to the consolidation of postwar national identities, with their particularist and inherently exclusionary ramifications for social membership, a process that has only recently begun to abate under the influence of processes such as globalisation and European integration. This is an important and timely book, not least in considering the EU's inchoate social regime alongside established national systems, that draws attention to the subtle, yet often neglected, ways in which welfare systems unwittingly distort the lives of their beneficiaries.

The heart of this legal cornucopia (around 900 pages) consists of 32 essays, each assessing the impact of the European Convention on Human Rights in one of its contracting states (out of the current total of 41). Their length naturally varies according to the time since each state ratified and the degree to which each has been targeted by applications. They mostly conform to the model: Introduction (or National Constitutional Oddities), Status in Domestic Law, Regard Paid by National Legislature, Domestic Case-Law on the Convention, National Involvement in Strasbourg Cases and Assessments of the Prospects. Preceding this feast of information are four more general chapters by the editors. Blackburn begins with a general introduction to the Convention and its institutions – a bit unnecessary, one might think, for an audience ready and willing to tackle the depth of detail presented in the national reports. Polakiewicz follows with an assessment of the Convention's status in the domestic law of the contracting states and then gives an interesting account of national practice in enforcing court judgements. Finally, Blackburn stands back and takes a look at large-scale problems and long-term problems.

On the positive side the book contains a colossal amount of information totally unavailable elsewhere in English. On the other hand, it is to a great extent raw information crying out for exegesis and synthesis, possibly following a conference. No doubt the indefatigable Professor Blackburn is working on it!

With the final transcendence in recent years of the moribund neofunctionalist/intergovernmentalist struggle for explanatory supremacy in the study of European integration, institutionalist approaches to the subject have increasingly gained ground. With an abstract definition of institutions as, in the broadest sense, sets of formal rules and practices, this approach rests on the previously controversial notion that EU institutions themselves directly affect political preferences and outcomes within their purview.

Yet the particular novelty of this volume is in including contributions from the often conflictual rational choice, historical and sociological institutionalist approaches, a strategy aimed at encouraging dialogue and the search for common ground, as well as clarifying the distinctions, between the three schools. An effort is also made to map institutionalist approaches on to the positions that have recently arisen in the field of international relations theory: the rational choice and sociological institutionalist positions correspond to the furthest points on the continuum between rationalism and constructivism, while historical institutionalism falls somewhere in between. With contributions such as a constitutionalist analysis of the Amsterdam Treaty, an examination of the ‘Europeanisation’ of Germany and the UK's central governments, and an analysis of the preferences of top commission officials, as well as constructive commentaries on each chapter by scholars of differing theoretical backgrounds, this is a valuable contribution to the corpus of institutionalist scholarship.

This volume gathers several Marxist scholars ostensibly to examine monetary union in Europe. In fact, two chapters (Bonefeld, Carchedi) do just that. But, despite the title, several chapters cover other topics, including Britain's relationship with the EU, the ‘myth of social Europe’, and the peripheral regions. Alex Callinicos provides a good review and critique of EMU but, like many contributions, veers off into non-monetary areas. One has to admire Marxists for their tenacity in holding fast to a deeply unpopular approach in the face of all that has happened to theory and reality in recent years.

But the book's problems are deeper. In hewing to the all-important class cleavage, the authors are unable to address – and indeed seem unaware of – nuanced distinctions within ‘classes' over monetary integration. Monetary integration benefits international capital and skilled labour, while it harms domestic, uncompetitive, low-tech capital and their employees. As Susan Strange said of countries, the important difference is not between the strong and the weak, but between the sleepy and the shrewd (or the skilled and the unskilled in this case).

The editor turns his attention to the troublesome case of the British in the last chapter. But instead of answering what seems to be the obvious question (if monetary integration is in the interests of capital, why have Tory governments consistently refused to support it?), he gives us a leftist critique of British economic and European policy, treading over much familiar ground. In the end he sides with so many (non-Marxist) scholars: Britain is just plain different. Inter-imperialist conflict is the term he prefers for Britain's disagreement with EU partners. On balance, this is an idiosyncratic, and somewhat quaint, approach to thinking about monetary integration, with much meandering and not a great deal of cohesion.

This book argues that ‘the relative bargaining power of both weak and strong currency countries has shaped an enduring pattern of negotiations' on exchange rate co-operation in Europe. Why is this significant? The author notices patterns in the negotiations leading to monetary co-operation, which he claims are not fully explained by approaches which focus on interests, ideas, institutions, regimes dynamics, and the like. The combination of a strong balance of payments position and leadership adds explanatory value.

Kaelberer sets out his theoretical stall in chapters two and three, and then reviews several cases of monetary co-operation, beginning in the 1960s and ending with the negotiations leading to the present EMU. The book is a cogent and insightful analysis, with the advantage of a clear theoretical framework and relevant case studies.

However, one problem with the cases, as the author recognises, is that the 1962 effort to achieve monetary co-operation was undermined by the Bretton Woods System. In addition, the author does little to counter Moravcsik's powerful and highly regarded argument concerning the important role of domestic interests, which is especially glaring because of the level of empirical detail Moravcsik provides. Finally, the fairly short conclusion could have devoted more attention to what this all means for global monetary co-operation, given that globalising tendencies have made currency co-ordination more pressing for all states, not just those in the EU.

Although predominantly white and loosely Christian in orientation, a significant minority population in the European Union does not belong to either of the above. How do these non-whites and non-Christians feel about a new political structure where there is a constant demand to ascribe to a European identity? Do they share the same spirit of belonging as their counterparts who could trace their ancestry back hundreds of years? If the answer to the last question is negative: should the European identity be restricted to those who can racially identify their origin within its geographical confines?

This is something that has escaped the attention of mandarins in Brussels. Perhaps they have simply preferred to ignore this issue. Unfortunately, the EU's official discourse and policy on the question of European identity, Kostakopoulou writes, is quite ambiguous. Despite the official rhetoric and bonhomie on citizenship and aspirations ‘to move towards a civic inclusive mode of identity, the EU adheres to a civic but exclusionary mode of identity’. How does one explain policies that exclude third-country nationals residing legally and permanently in the Union from the free-movement provisions and other benefits of EU citizenship, for instance? The logic of exclusion exists everywhere. The catalogue of discrimination is very thick indeed.

A very sensitive issue is handled with cool detachment. And the result is a theoretically rigorous and legally compelling body of arguments. Kostakopoulou argues in favour of a principled and non-restricted European migration policy, which would be not only theoretically consistent but also practical in meeting policy concerns and compatible with norms underpinning the European Union's constitutional orders. Is Brussels listening?

That finally Europe is beginning to look like a single entity is reflected in two key areas: first, the absence of border control within the European Union; second, the introduction of a new single currency. But does this imply that Europeans now think of themselves as part of a single monolithic nation sharing one unifying identity – not only in the political or economic domain, but in the areas of culture?

The underlying question that perturbs many non-European observers is the relative ease with which a community of nations known for their history of internecine rivalry and habitual warmongering has moved forward to forge a grand coalition where each individual actor has substituted his or her primary identity for a unifying one. As one of the essays in this collected volume points out, the idea of being at one in diversity is irrelevant to the Europeans in question.

European sense of diversity is marked by the difference between an extended family. Europeans have negotiated their new identity not with others but among themselves. By contrast, elsewhere, diversity exists in the form of us and them, the in-group and outsider categories, as is the case with the United States. Free of this malaise Europeans have been able to move in the direction of a singular identity celebrating Europeanness.

But the logic of convenience outweighs the spirit of togetherness. The majority of contributors to this edited book agree: the new European identity, whether it is political, economic or cultural, is a functional response to the requirements of modernity. European states may have their origins in ethno-nationalist identities but they have since evolved and embraced a unifying identity that is dependent on economic and political factors, which in turn has led to cultural convergence.

This book is a timely, fascinating and thought-provoking review of the new eastern German states some ten years after unification. It is an edited collection with contributions covering the political, social and economic transformation that has been forged during that time. The broad scope of the text ranges over such areas as welfare, social policy, education and training, gender issues in employment and the social experiences of change which are so fundamental to the evolution of a post-unification civil society. Beyond dispute is the fact that the eastern German states have been through a ‘calamitous' change in terms of their self-recognition and socio-political identity. What is interesting, though, is that the contributions all indicate that some of eastern Germany's distinctiveness is still visible ten years after unification, and that the region as a whole is adapting to a western German framework, albeit with difficulties along the way. The authors are keen to point out that such distinctiveness can have negative as well as positive implications in terms of economic, social and political ‘normalisation’.

The traumas of the decade since unification are cogently documented and sympathetically presented in this text. The tone of the collection is reflective and this prompts the readers to challenge their own preconceptions and views on the process of unification. That an edited collection can produce such self-examination from its readers is testimony to the skill with which this collection has been edited. It is strongly recommended for all who take an interest in the process of transition generally and eastern German adjustment in particular.

Cardini has written a detailed, if at times dense, history of the interaction between ‘Europe’ and ‘Islam’ in the Mediterranean. The narrative spans from the invasion of the Iberian peninsular by Berber Arabs, through the Crusades, the reconquest of Spain and the fall of Constantinople, to the rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire. He finishes with a brief mention of the Arab-Israeli wars of the late twentieth century and the growing role of Islam in contemporary Europe.

A main theme of the book is the complexity of the interaction between Islam and Europe. That is, Cardini sets out to adjust the popular perception that a united Christian Europe faced a united monolithic Muslim threat. He does this through skilful presentation of historical sources. Cardini adeptly describes the web of common interests and alliances between rulers of both Christian and Muslim faiths that combined and recombined to shape the history of the region. This makes for an extremely interesting and illuminating investigation.

On the negative side I do not think that Cardini has dealt adequately with the problem of writing about ‘Europe’ and ‘Islam’ as somehow unified entities. Indeed the title of the book is a bit misleading since what becomes clear is that these two entities dealt with each other not as ‘Cold War blocks' but as loose religion-based groupings with many cross-religious alliances and common interests. As an extension of this problem I think Cardini should have addressed the issue of comparing a continent with a religion in greater depth than he does. Finally, I think it would have been interesting to pursue the question of European Muslims further than he does. However, despite this Cardini has written an interesting and original book which should be of interest to scholars and students of Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

Interpersonal relations and social networks are critical in situations of great organisational uncertainty and political change. This Hedin demonstrates in a highly interesting account of how the SED, the former East German state party, adapted itself to the radically different political environment of a democratic state. Teams behind the new leadership and trust relationships between individuals of the party were key in transforming the party to new circumstances while things were in turmoil. However, Hedin also has a strong theoretical message: personal networks are inadequately recognised in central bodies of literature including the policy network approach and March and Olson's New Institutionalism. Social networks should be inserted between the individual and institutional levels of analysis to strengthen their capacity to explain institutional and political change. Networks of people formed before or during ‘entrepreneurial events' explain how some order emerges under unsettled political circumstances. Logics of ‘interpersonal trust’ and the ‘strength of similarity’ (self-selection on gender, as it were) of political elites turn out to be particularly important when an organisation ventures into unknown territory. The logic of interpersonal trust is about whom I know, what they can do to help me, and having open deliberations with trusted people. These are points not lost on students of the European Commission where interpersonal relationships across departmental boundaries are clearly recognised in ‘intra-mural’ stories, if heavily under-theorised. The policy network approach will not do, says Hedin. It is too preoccupied with static and structural features, overlooking the crucial trust relationships among informal networks in institutional surroundings. With The Politics of Social Networks we all have a stronger theoretical base for dealing with the undeniable significance of trust and personal networks in political life.

For anyone interested in the European legal past and the possibility of a common European law of the future, this book is an ideal starting point. As Professor van Caenegem states, it is not an attempt at a general survey but a selection of topics of particular interest and relevance to the law for the European future and, by extension, the world. Historical themes (for example, the rise of nation states which led to a multitude of national codes of law) and present day concerns are examined, compared and contrasted. This book concludes with an examination of the future of European law – is a truly common legal science possible in a united, twenty-first-century Europe?

This extremely well written book is concise but manages to be quite comprehensive in its exploration of its themes, in particular the influence of politics on the development of European law. The conclusion is particularly apt as to the future. The writer acknowledges that it is difficult to predict and examines the different approaches the different nations have traditionally taken on the issue. Very plausible arguments are put forward as to the possibility of a federal constitution for Europe and, in relation to the UK, the consignment of the pure doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty to the past.

It is to the credit of the writers that they manage to penetrate the complexity called ‘the Mediterranean’ – historically a crossing point of conflict and co-operation, unity and diversity – and to describe its most important features so succinctly. While amply referring to the various sub-regions and their constellations making up this complexity, the writers do not fall into the trap of failing to perceive the region as a single system, a totality, even if it may only be an ‘emerging system’. They focus on the main challenges it faces, which in their eyes make it the volatile region par excellence. The economic and developmental north-south divide and the contrasting security perceptions, as well as the negative effects of the Middle East problem on the stability of the whole region are dissected and analysed in a balanced manner. So are the links of interdependence and the stabilising role and importance of the Barcelona Process with all its achievements and failures. The process is rapidly establishing a regional regime albeit under the EU's hegemony, which may not be a desirable long-term goal. It would be stronger if it had to be constructed on mutualism and reciprocity. The question of good governance in the region is crucial, but the building of the rules and institutions of a working market economy calls for tenacious and continual political action given the absence of a cultural environment that can facilitate such a development, as is the case in central and eastern Europe. The writers do not neglect the other big player in the Mediterranean region apart from the EU, namely the USA. There is no scope in either ‘power’ trying to displace the other but there are many reasons why the USA and the EU need to combine their efforts when confronting the region's problems. Last but not least, particularly in the light of the events of September 11 and the images conjured of a ‘clash of civilisations’, the writers analyse the role of the three main religions of the region, stressing that they have mutually enriched each other. Ultimately, as Xenakis and Chrysso-choou rightly put it, ‘the search for a new legitimacy in Euro-Mediterranean relations depends on the partners' capacity to resist the forces of polarisation and segmentation …’

ASIA-PACIFIC

Let it be stated at the outset: all three books are well worth reading – they convey key reflection on current North and South Korean affairs by applying relevant political science tools. They cover domestic and some international aspects of developments at the Korean peninsula.

The volume edited by Samuel S. Kim deals with the paradox of the post-Cold War survival of North Korea's political system – in spite of increasing medium- to long-term threats against it. A systems approach is used. The preface launches this anthology as ‘the first focused analysis of the structures, processes and outcomes of the North Korean system’ (p. xvi). The objective is ‘to illuminate how the system works – or doesn't work – especially in coping with the great challenge of moving from system-maintaining strategies to a system-reforming direction’.

The individual authors and chapters cover issues like the origins of the North Korean state, its types of legitimacy, and women. The latter happen to be the prime victims of the North Korean famine and hence an indicator of the depth of the current crisis. The author of this chapter, Yinhay Ahn, sees a destruction of family structures in this – leading to the unintended movement of peoples and exchange of uncensored information inside North Korea. Victor D. Cha clarifies three possible motivations behind North Korea's nuclear policy, one quite chilling. Chung in-Moon and Youngho Kim come up with a prognosis for North Korea, namely incremental adaptation. They recommend that North Korea's political leadership explicitly commits itself to China's model of reform.

In this I sense a certain naivety. Thus, there are weaknesses – such as the way the editor communicates his idea of system collapse. But they are counterbalanced by insights like ‘… North Korea displays all the trappings of fundamentalist theocracy’ (p. 13), citing the introduction of the Juche dynastic calendar – i.e. a new Yi era! – as evidence. Though not really a textbook for newcomers to the field, the volume is very good in the sense of providing interesting reading and data.

The second volume to be briefly reviewed is a high-quality comparative political science analysis of democratic consolidation in South Korea. It is an anthology co-edited by a veteran on democratisation theory, Larry Diamond. The general conclusion one can draw from this collection of analyses is one of optimism concerning the endurance of South Korea's democratic political system. Nevertheless, the book's mostly Korean authors have quite different views on this and employ dissimilar approaches, possibly an advantage for a publication covering the difficult topic of democratic consolidation in the empirical context of an Asian political culture.

Both maximalist notions of democratic consolidation, emphasising among other things full civil control over the military and minimalist notions of democratic electoral procedures are represented in this anthology. The peculiar features of South Korean political culture – the irrelevance of religious and class cleavage compared to regional cleavages and urban/rural cleavages, resulting in corrupt patron-client relationships between politicians and voters and a perplexing landscape of political parties – are recurrently addressed. In the formal sense, South Korea's democracy is sound and sustainable, but this book rightly stresses the problems and contradictions at the level of political culture/institutionalisation, and civil society. At the same time, one senses dynamic developments underpinning democracy taking place at the latter level. The publication is mainly suited to students of political science with some advance knowledge of Korea.

The last volume in this book note, the single-authored work by Robert J. Myers, will probably turn out to be the most helpful and policy-relevant for nonexperts on Korean affairs, e.g. policymakers in the US Myers is a former employee of the CIA. His knowledge of Korea dates back to 1944 when he was dispatched to China as part of the OSS ‘EAGLE project’ recruiting anti-Japanese agents among Koreans in the China-based Korean Independence Army. His unique wartime and Cold War experience and personal knowledge of important Korean actors thus form his point of departure.

The analytical venture is to pin down what is important to know about Korea's turbulent twentieth-century political history in the light of today's reunification drama. This historical approach is fruitful due to the author's keen sense of relevance when selecting topics and making his points. His only pre-1900 chapter is aptly titled ‘Korea and the Chinese Tributary System: will the past resemble the future?’. Extrapolating from this, one could convincingly argue that a future unified Korea will be pro-China – definitely not pro-Japan given the present poor state of Japan's Vergangenheitsbewältigung – unless the USA plays its cards very wisely. This is so because the Japan part of Korea's twentieth century history – described in chapter 3 – was one of brutal colonial totalitarianism. It left a legacy of political underdevelopment (p. 41). In his Cold War chapter Myers pulls the carpet from under the notoriously revisionist writings of Bruce Cumings on the Korean War. Concerning today's situation in North Korea, Myers made an interview with Hwang Jangyop, the famous defector and architect of the Juche doctrine (pp. 140–4).

Although journalistic and lively, bordering on superficial at times, this book relates to a lot of substantial works on Korea and itself contributes to the field.

This book seeks to explain rapid rural industrialisation in four counties in coastal China in the 1980s and 1990s. The astonishing growth of ‘township and village industries’, which by the late 1980s accounted for a substantial proportion of total industrial output, has elicited much scholarly attention. Whiting's book is a welcome and important contribution to this literature. It covers both collective and private industry, the former meaning ownership by the township and village governments. She shows that three sets of incentives motivated Communist Party and government leaders of the townships to promote local industrial growth: the national policy of revenue sharing put into place in the early 1980s; the requirement that townships provide their own public goods; and the evaluation and promotion systems. Whiting disagrees with the well-known characterisation of the townships as ‘corporations' put forth by Jean Oi and others. She emphasises a byproduct of the incentive system, namely the under reporting of taxes, resulting in a serious decline in tax collection as a proportion of GDP. This led to centralising national fiscal reforms in the 1990s, which motivated local officials to privatise many of the collectively owned industries. The book employs an institutionalist framework, skilfully applying concepts such as credible commitment and property rights.

The book deals only with a part of China. In central and western China the same incentives did not work nearly as well because developmental conditions differed significantly. In those regions, pressure on local officials to supply public goods prompted them forcibly to extract funds from ordinary peasants, arousing widespread protest and instability. The book is a major contribution to the political economy literature on China. Specialists on rural development in the Third World will also find it of great interest.

This book investigates the emergence of Chinese business groups (qiye jituan), the structure and impact of inter-firm relations in China during the 1980s. It is based on an impressive ethnographic (qualitative) account of the business groups and quantitative survey data, mainly based on 40 largest core firms (and their 535 member firms) located in 18 provinces and municipalities. The two interesting case studies presented in chapter six are illustrative of the experience of Chinese business groups. The author argues that environmental uncertainty, firm power and the previous connections of the firms' managers combine to determine the structure of the inter-firm exchanges and relations within the business groups.

The out-of-date primary data and methodological ambiguity are probably the greatest drawbacks of this book. Only on reading Appendix A do readers discover that the statistics are largely based on a national survey of Chinese enterprises in 1990. The author supplements this database with 1988 firm-level data from her field surveys conducted in 1995 and 1996. Obviously, this information is rather dated for a book published in 2000. With no clear chronology of fieldwork or the sample composition in the preface and overview (pp. 17–19), the repetitive but clumsy description in subsequent paragraphs and chapters only confuses the readers as to the methodology used. For instance, readers have no idea which industrial sectors are included in the surveys even after reading the whole book. Despite its drawbacks, this book is useful for researchers who are interested in enterprise reform in China during the 1980s.

This major reference work offers a systematic and highly reliable presentation, not only of the results of all direct national elections and referendums in 61 Asian-Pacific countries since independence, but also of the legal framework for these elections and referendums. In addition, each country chapter provides a historical overview, an overview of the development of the electoral provisions, pertinent comments on the electoral statistics situation, and a bibliography of official sources and books, articles and electoral reports. The authors of the country chapters appear to have been chosen very well, many of them being among the best (country) experts available.

Each of the two volumes covers the countries of three regions (I: The Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia; II: South East Asia, East Asia, and the South Pacific) and includes an opening comparative chapter on elections and electoral systems, particularly in the regions covered in that volume. These introductions provide a good overview of the rich material, but the main purpose is apparently to demonstrate the richness of the material in order to further stimulate the study of elections and electoral systems in Asian and Pacific countries.

This authoritative publication will greatly facilitate the comparative study of elections and electoral systems in these regions – as well as studies of individual countries – and it should therefore be acquired by all serious academic libraries serving all sorts of students of elections and electoral systems. The publication of this handbook – which is part of a series of similar works covering Africa (1999), the Americas (forthcoming 2002), and Europe (forthcoming) – is a major event and of lasting value for the serious study of elections and electoral systems. Both the editors and the publisher should be highly commended for their achievement.

This book aims to investigate the applicability of the rent-seeking paradigm to Asian countries and proposes an amended version to the existing theoretical framework. This book is divided into two major sections: (1) a critical review of the existing paradigm and a description of the proposed new paradigm; (2) six chapters of detailed and interesting case studies of four countries to highlight the deficiencies in the current rent-seeking framework, i.e. Thailand, Malaysia (two chapters each), the Philippines and Indonesia. The editors argue that the present rent-seeking paradigm used in mainstream economic analysis is inadequate and needs to incorporate political science, institutional economics and political economy before it is able to justify its aim of explaining aspects of development in Asian countries.

The editors quite logically focus on four countries which suffered from the Asian crisis as case studies in this book. However, it can be argued that the investigation into rent-seeking is incomplete without the incorporation of two of the largest economies in Asia, i.e. Japan and China, to answer questions like: to what extent is the decade-long recession experienced in Japan due to the dominance of specific type(s) of growth-retarding rent-seeking? Or to what extent is the rapid economic growth experienced in China due to the dominance of specific type(s) of growth-enhancing rent-seeking? All the terms used in the book are carefully defined with the exception of crony capitalism (only defined indirectly on p. 140).

This well-written book is a valuable source of reference for postgraduate students and researchers into development economics, development studies, political science or those with a strong interest in the rent-seeking on Asian development.

This set of short papers seeks to provide a sort of status report on the current state of Asia-Pacific economic, political, and security issues in the aftermath of the Asian Financial crisis (AFC). The ten chapters run the gamut from economic analysis of reform to a sector-specific business study to discussions of ‘Asian Values' and corruption to examination of military spending and regional cooperation. Since there is no single clear line of argumentation that runs through the volume, it is somewhat difficult to characterise in a short review. A few themes are common to several chapters, however. One is that the AFC was the result not only of currency arrangements or fickle investors, but primarily of political economies that were not efficient or robust in their ability to handle change. A second theme is the importance of the Japanese economy for the region, and the sad likelihood that its stagnation is unlikely to end soon. Finally, although the authors are often dismissive of the effectiveness of regional institutions of co-operation, most seem to agree that continuing US presence and declining regional tensions make major conflict unlikely in the near term.

While some of the essays in the book are quite thought-provoking – particularly the introduction (Gerald Segal and David Goodman), a disquisition on ‘Asian Values' (Anthony Milner) and an examination of regionalism (Michael Leifer) –the quality is quite uneven, in terms of both structure and argumentation. This may be because some authors have concentrated on summarising what they see to be key issues rather than mounting new arguments.

The book State-Society Relations in Singapore by editors Gillian Koh and Ooi Giok Ling is based a collection of essays first presented in Singapore in May 1998. This anthology explores important issues such as: the role of civic traditions in the development of civil society; problems and prospects of specific arenas of civic activity; and macro- and micro-level responses to social diversity in developing civil society.

It is a very well written book, it is different and stimulating, because the field is viewed from many angles and across various sectors. It is important and a valuable contribution to the ongoing statesociety discussion not only in Singapore, but in other countries as well. This is especially true because it offers views on both the abstract, generalised issues of state-society relations and grounded practical issues in specific arenas of civic activity. This book is theoretical as well as empirical and it also recommends readings for future trends and directions. That is why students as well as professionals would benefit from reading this book.

Dialogue, discussions and critical open debate are of course very important, especially at the beginning of a process where change is desirable. This book is therefore an important first step. I am looking forward to the authors' next book where some of these ideas are put into action and where other issues concerning socio-political development and governance in Singapore are included.

Rapprochement between the USA and China seems to have been secured by President Bush's visit to Beijing in February 2002, during which there was very little attention paid to rights issues. Nevertheless human rights was one of the main areas of contention between these two countries from the mid-1980s and especially since 1989. Wan shows that while ideas such as human rights play an important role in contemporary international relations, they only do so in a dynamic interplay with power. He makes his case through a series of chapters which start with a summary of the current Chinese government's view of human rights before looking in more detail at the role played by human rights in China's relations with the USA, Japan, Europe and the United Nations. The final chapter is a particularly effective account of how China approached its membership of the UN cautiously in the 1970s but was later able to manipulate UN procedure to ward off attempts by the USA to censure China's domestic human rights record. While not doubting the desirability of human rights in China, Wan suggests that it will not be easy for it to democratise, as human rights implementation threatens the Communist Party. Pressure that threatens the legitimacy of the party state is likely to be ineffective or counter-productive. Nevertheless, he remains cautiously optimistic that western initiatives made through the international human rights regime may encourage China to gradually modify its behaviour.

The East Asian financial crisis of 1997–98 caused plenty of confusion among those who studied the countries formerly known as ‘high-performing Asian economies' (HPAEs). Did the crisis prove that there was no such thing as an Asian miracle, as some economists had already argued? Did government intervention in industry contribute to pre-crisis growth, or did it pave the way for the crash?

Such are the questions addressed by the contributors to this volume. No, there was nothing fictitious about the economic miracle. Even if, as the critics suggested, the HPAEs only grew fast because they invested so much of their GDP, that still represents outstanding performance compared to other countries. Ito argues that if ‘crony capitalism’ were so serious as to bring about the crisis, it would surely have prevented the HPAEs from growing so fast in the first place. The causes of the crisis lie elsewhere: underdeveloped financial markets (Ito); massive firm indebtedness (Woo-Cumings); over-hasty financial deregulation (Stiglitz).

Contributors' views about developmental-state-style government intervention in industry range from the broadly positive (Qian, Jomo) to the negative (Lawrence and Weinstein). Woo-Cumings argues that the crisis led to more rather than less intervention in Korea as the government sought to restructure large firms while staving off an industrial meltdown.

Joseph Stiglitz, one of the co-editors, became well known for publicly criticising the response of international financial institutions to the Asian crisis when he was chief economist at the World Bank. That will gain this book attention. Will it be merited? Not all chapters are of the same quality, and non-economists (such as this reviewer) will find a few of them impenetrable. But the book is worth the time of readers who want a better understanding of East Asia in the wake of the crisis.

This book describes the relationship between the governments of Japan and China through the 1990s. The principal sources, which are extensive, are government reports, news media and the secondary academic literature. Chapter one argues that each country is committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes and is seeking increased recognition as a great power through participation in existing international institutions. Other chapters examine public opinion in each country and the legacy of Japan's wartime invasion; each government's perceptions of the other's strategic capacities and intentions; the impact of Taiwan; the extent and effect of Japan's foreign aid; each government's approach to Japanese investment in China and the extent and effect of this investment; the obstacles to China's efforts to obtain advanced technology and the political impact of trade; and the future of Asian regionalism. The book concludes that present relations between the two countries are good but that China's outward turn, the weakening of the Japanese economy and the end of the Cold War are cause for much uncertainty in Japan.

The book is not for those with a taste for international relations theory, or for students of foreign policy decision making, or for those with little knowledge of the area's recent history. Its strength lies in its wealth of factual detail. Its weakness lies in the narration of this detail and in the authors' penchant for off-the-cuff commentary that is often less penetrating than irrelevant, repetitive, or unremarkable. More generally, the book is not well written. Key terms are inadequately defined; various ‘incidents' are given shorthand names but are not described; the book lacks a much-needed table of abbreviations; and apparent contradictions are scattered throughout.

OTHER AREAS

Tolkien once said of his Lord of the Rings trilogy, ‘the tale grew in the telling’. Catherine Merridale must understand better than most authors what he meant, for this is very definitely not the book she set out to write. As Merridale herself explains, the project that grew into Night of Stone was conceived as a study of the rituals surrounding death and bereavement before and after the Revolution. An examination of ‘the disruption and reinvention of ritual’ would provide the ‘test case’ for ‘a study of ideology, propaganda and mentalities’. The book she wrote in the end was something far bigger – a history both sweeping and intimate of ordinary Russians' experience of death and mourning through the turbulent twentieth century.

On the face of it, death in Russia hardly seems an original subject. Hundreds of thousands of pages have been written on the famines, the wars, the revolutions and the other violent upheavals that punctuated Russia's twentieth century. However, Merridale's focus is not on the political or demographic aspects of Russia's experience of mass mortality, nor is her work another contribution to the ‘black book’ literature cataloguing the horrors of totalitarianism. Rather, she has combined oral history and archival research to produce a highly original investigation of how Russians experienced, and came to terms with, death and bereavement in a time of frequent catastrophic mortality crises.

The result is a masterpiece, the conclusions of which are as surprising to the reader as they seem to have been to the author. Having begun her investigations with a close reading of western literature on the Holocaust and the themes associated with it, Merridale, on her own account, approached the topic with a set of hypotheses about brutalisation, trauma and the importance of testimony that were powerfully influenced by the western psychoanalytic tradition. The dominant metaphors in this literature are medical: ‘it talks of wounds and healing; sees silence, often, as a sign of damage; talking, where it is structured and directed, as therapy; and testimony, though painful, as rebirth’ (pp. 414–15).

This is not what she found. It is difficult to summarise what Merridale did find, because she resists the temptation to impose clear categories or simple hypotheses on the wealth of complex and often contradictory evidence she has gathered. But one thing was constant: the Russians she encountered invariably rejected attempts to characterise them as the damaged victims of state-directed violence. What she presents instead is a nuanced, sensitively written account of the many ways Russians have coped with death and bereavement. Often, the strategies employed combine rituals and belief systems rooted in different periods and regimes, sometimes drawing on elements of larger social and political narratives to give shape and meaning to private grief.

It is to Merridale's credit that the book's central arguments are so elusive, so tentative and fuzzy. It would have been easy enough, given a suitable theoretical framework, to find the evidence and the answers needed to make it ‘work’, to impose, say, a psychoanalytic reading on Russians' experience of their history. It would also have been patronising. Merridale has instead allowed her witnesses, living and dead, to speak for themselves, scrupulously questioning her own assumptions and turning every argument over and over, so as to view it from as many angles as possible.

The horror of many of the events the book recounts, the power of the voices that speak from its pages and the unusual combination of sensitivity, intellectual rigour and passion with which Merridale handles her material all combine to ensure that Night of Stone is as gripping as it is grim. What lingers in the mind after reading it is not a testable hypothesis to be falsified or confirmed, but a sense of humility and emotional exhaustion.

Although one can find considerable research on the social and economical effects of market reforms that have swept the region of Latin America during the past two decades, not much has been produced on the political nature and implication of these reforms. Judith Teichman's The Politics of Freeing Markets in Latin America and Maria Murillo's Labour Unions contribute not only to the closing of this research gap, but also to the contemporary body of research on the quality of democratic regimes established in Latin America.

In The Politics of Freeing Markets, Teichman carries a comparative examination of market reform processes and their relation to political practices in Chile, Argentina and Mexico, without missing some of the contextual difference between them. The main argument of the book is that authoritative political processes were the predominant basis from which market reform was undertaken from its first phase during the 1980s, with reduction of public spending, devaluation, etc, through its second phase during the 1990s, with wide privatisation programmes, and regulatory and labour legislation reforms. In this sense, she demonstrates the continuation of authoritarian practices that include patron clientelism, discretionary decision making and patrimonialism, in the present Latin American democratic regimes.

At times, Teichman seems to give too much centrality to the region's historical Iberian political heritage, such as personalism and caudillismo, as an axiom from which political processes were taken to establish market reforms. However, she correctly balances it with international factors, such as pressure from international agencies and training of Latin Americans abroad; and the domestic historical development of each case study. Heavily backed by interviews with ‘senior officials’, she successfully demonstrates how market reforms were associated with non-democratic political practices and, in this sense, how, although electoral procedures are solid in Latin America, one still finds limited substantive democratic features.

One of the political implications that one can draw from the market reforms in Latin America is the strategic relation that a government maintains with a sector of society, such as with the unions. In Labour Unions, Murillo gives a realistic account of the political role that unions have had, either by supporting or by opposing, in the process of market reforms. She takes Argentina, Mexico and Venezuela as empirical cases and analyses political strategic relations between unions and labour-based government.

One important, and interesting, aspect of the book is how it methodologically establishes different levels of analysis. In her ‘multilevel approach’, Murillo carries comparison not only between the country cases, but also between sectors (automobile, oil, education and electricity) within countries. Through her examination, she successfully demonstrates how partisan loyalty, leadership competition and union competition shape possible interactions between unions and governments. The book is well written and provides insights into how political actors were able to construct political coalitions, changing their past ideologies, in the face of economic reforms.

With a heavy load of primary sources and extensive analysis, both books are a welcome contribution to understanding the political dimension of market reforms that have been made throughout the region of Latin America in the past three decades.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

This book examines the effects of terrorism and state repression on democratic stability in three selected cases: Uruguay, Peru and Spain. The first part of the book elaborates a conceptual framework based upon Aristotle's political philosophy and contemporary proponents hereof. This quite innovative framework provides a new concept of citizen support to examine the consequences of terrorism and repression and to evaluate the state and the political community in this respect.

The second part consists of a comparative analysis of the three cases. The central hypothesis is that both terrorist violence and state repression lead to the unfulfilment of two basic purposes of the state: security and integration. Citizen confidence declines as a consequence, whereas democratic instability increases.

Holmes's book is clearly written, well structured, informative and rigidly focused on the initial research question. She presents a convincing argumentation in support of her hypothesis. Her operationalisation and quantitative measurement of different concepts such as ‘violence’ or ‘confidence’ is, however, less convincing because not applied in a uniform way throughout the different cases. But due to the overall qualitative approach of the study, such weakness in the methodological approach does not mortgage the validity of the author's arguments, which are sufficiently documented by other data in this respect. In short: a readable book that will be of interest to all students and scholars who study political violence.

Christine Sylvester's Feminist International Relations: an unfinished journey brings together her own journey and the feminist one in the field of IR. The book is a genealogical exploration of the work of feminists in IR and it aims to ‘make the stories behind feminist IR visible’ (p. 17). To set the context, Sylvester focuses on the works of three major theorists: Jean Elshtain, Cynthia Enloe and Ann Tickner. She not only analyses their work but also embodies them: presents them as living human beings in particular (Anglo-American) contexts. Anecdotes about their lives make the beginning of the book very readable. The rest of the collection consists of three sections: ‘Sightings’, ‘Sitings' and ‘Citings’, which reveal respectively the effects, locations and possible futures of gender and IR. Sylvester's work from the past 15 years on such diverse places as Zimbabwe, Australia and the Netherlands is incorporated into these sections. Sylvester reads IR through fiction. For example, her use of Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale is fascinating, especially when it is read alongside Richard Reeves's account of J. F. Kennedy (1993). Such analysis reveals the meanings and intersections of bodies, sexuality and power. Sylvester's approach is explicitly and consistently postmodern. Her theoretical frame combines the work of such feminist philosophers as Judith Butler, Elizabeth Grosz and Rosi Braidotti. She is also inspired by the literature on post-colonialism. It is the use of this theoretical frame that I found particularly welcome, innovative and desirable, as it brings new perspectives not only to IR, but also to feminist journeys in the field.

This book attests to present a balanced view of the debate on globalisation and its environmental consequences, transcending the chasm between environmentalist pessimism and neo-liberalist trivialisation. The first two chapters are dedicated to unpacking the concept of ‘globalisation’, distinguishing between continuist and discontinuist perspectives. While carefully drawing analytic differentiation between neo-liberalism, global capitalism, internationalisation and globalisation, these distinctions do not prevail in the later analysis. Both the positive and negative consequences of ‘globalisation’ (usually implying neo-liberalisation) are analysed, yet the careful reader will note that the former are subtly exulted while the latter are downplayed. The central argument is that ‘globalisation’ may well be the key to positive global environmental reform through incremental homogenisation of environmental standards. Mol assesses the relevance of Eurocentric ecological modernisation theory to the global situation using case studies of the dominant economic triad comprising the EU, NAFTA and Japan; the relationship between triad and developing countries; and the industrialising economies of Vietnam, an Antilles Island and Kenya. On the whole, the prospects for global ecological modernisation are presented as positive and potentially achievable with national responses taking variable shape and form due to domestic situations. While the anti-globalisation camp might receive the text with scepticism, for the open-minded scholar, the book is a refreshing alternative to the usual doomsday rhetoric of globalisation.

Edited by Paul F. Diehl (political science professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and Nils P. Gleditsch (research professor, International Peace Research Institute in Oslo, Environmental Conflict consists of thirteen essays focusing on the relationship between environmental factors and armed conflict throughout the world. Diehl and Gleditsch claim that ‘despite the conventional wisdom that environmental factors may be critical in the outbreak of civil and interstate war, research on this interconnection has lagged behind the polemics' (p. 2). The book contains three parts. The first part provides evidence on the influence of environmental factors on both intrastate and interstate conflict. In the first essay in this part, for example, authors Percival and Homer-Dixon trace changes in South Africa during the later apartheid period and conclude that many of the conflicts resulted from scarce resources (e.g. water, electricity, housing, etc.). Lonergan, on the other hand, concludes in his essay ‘Water and Conflict: rhetoric and reality’ that doomsday predictions about environmental deterioration are overblown. The second part ponders the question of how to reduce environmental conflict. Finally, the third part focuses on the future of environmental security research. Given the dearth of books exploring the nexus between the environment and security (as compared to the link between power distribution and the outbreak of war), this book represents a valuable collection of the latest methodological and topical debates on the subject. Readers may have a hard time locating key conclusions in the text. One can aptly describe the book as a compilation of contradictory essays with summaries of vast bodies of literature, often containing overly sophisticated terminology. This would make it useful for a graduate student beginning a dissertation on the topic, but inappropriate for undergraduate students.

In his book Smokestack Diplomacy, Robert Darst (assistant professor of political science at the University of Oregon) investigates environmental politics between the Soviet successor states and the West in the 1960–2000 period. He singles out three key issues: nuclear power safety, transboundary air pollution, and Baltic Sea pollution. These three cases are comparable, because in each of them: 1) East-West interaction began in the 1960s; 2) one or more Western states was directly affected by the pollution; and 3) the pollution also affected the Soviet successor states directly. During the Cold War, negotiations to decrease environmental pollution were impeded by hostility and secrecy. One would think that such negotiations would bring more concrete results in the post-Cold War period. Paradoxically, as Darst tells us, ‘the 1990s were characterised by a much more confrontational ‘smokestack diplomacy’ (p. 3). Instead of taking direct responsibility to improve nuclear power safety and the purity of air and water, states such as Russia and Ukraine actually threatened to expose their Western neighbours to more danger and pollution. In October 1993, for example, Ukraine threatened to prolong operation of the moribund Chernobyl nuclear power plant unless the West paid to have it closed (p. 6). At the same time (October 1993), Russia threatened to resume radioactive waste dumping in the ocean if the Western states did not pay for alternative methods of disposing of the waste. Darst is one of the first scholars to examine this unique form of ‘environmental blackmail’ in international politics. He has conducted over 150 interviews with officials and activists while living in the former Soviet Union from 1990–92. His book contributes to the field and should be added to the reading lists for graduate students in international environmental politics.

In his book, T. V. Paul (associate professor in the Department of Political Science at McGill University) seeks to explain why some nation states decide not to acquire nuclear weapons even when they have the technological capability (or potential capability) to do so. Likewise, Paul tries to explain why other nation states (like South Africa, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine) abjure nuclear weapons that they already possess. This is an important question to raise, because ‘non-proliferation goals can be achieved only if we understand what causes states to acquire or forgo nuclear weapons' (p. 3). Paul challenges the ‘hard realist’ theory which predicts that, in an international system that is fundamentally anarchic, all nation states will try to acquire nuclear weapons in an effort to protect themselves. Paul concludes that a nation state will prudently opt not to obtain nuclear weapons if its leaders perceive that the possession of such weapons will simply prompt its neighbours to take counter-measures. Paul reminds the reader that the decision to acquire or forgo nuclear weapons is determined largely by the level and type of security threats a particular state faces and the nature of its relations with neighbouring states. States that face nuclear enemies or that do not have a great power protector are more likely to acquire nuclear weapons as a method of deterrence. This book would fit nicely in a graduate or undergraduate course on international relations theory.

In Marx on Globalisation, Dave Renton has assembled twenty-one selections from Marx and Engels's writings that pertain to the contemporary debates on globalisation. The selections are organised thematically; to wit, these are: the world economy, progress, development, imperialism, technological determinism, commodities and consumerism, capital (money, wages and trade), capital (finance and profit) and labour.

In his brief but useful introduction to the collection, Renton makes a strong case for the value of Marx to the globalisation debates. He offers a framework for managing the debates about globalisation, distinguishing among cultural, social and economic approaches to the discussion, as well as classifying optimists and pessimists, sceptics and believers, in the debate. He also takes issue with some of the more ready arguments that are used to dispense with Marx's work. He resists summarising Marx's contribution, leaving the complexity of that discussion to the reading selections.

The selections themselves are short, very readable, and well chosen. Introductions to each section serve to establish context; Renton quickly summarises events and debates in which Marx was engaged when he wrote, thereby establishing the analytical significance of each piece. The relevance of those debates to contemporary ones is assumed, however, rather than argued. The thematic organisation of the book and the clarity of its design make it a very useful resource for teaching purposes as well as for the curious browser. In developing a text that readily engages Marx's for our times, Renton has done the debate on globalisation a great service.

This is an ambitious project, which brings together over sixty brief essays from a wide range of authors on topics to do with the Kosovo crisis and NATO's intervention in 1999. The book is divided into seven sections. The first chapter includes a selection of the personal recollections of refugees from Kosovo. This provides a way into understanding the scale and nature of the human tragedy, which is the context for the more analytical pieces that follow. In the second chapter, Balkan historians provide the historical and cultural background to the conflict. The third, fourth, fifth and sixth chapters rehearse the debate over NATO's intervention from a variety of different perspectives. Chapter three includes contributions from Kosovar and Serbian intellectuals, chapter four brings together conflicting accounts of what occurred from world leaders, including an interview with Slobodan Milosevic and contributions from Javier Solana, Kofi Annan and Vaclav Havel. In chapter five the debate on the legality and appropriateness of NATO's intervention is from an intellectual distance, including contributions from Kissinger, Habermas, Brzezinski, and Walzer. Michael Ignatieff and Robert Skidelsky's insightful exchange in Prospect magazine is also reproduced here. Chapter six contains a selection of contributions that provide ethical and religious scrutiny of NATO's justification for intervention. Finally, in chapter seven, the question of what the future holds for Kosovo and the region is addressed, including the prospects and potential impact of the trials currently being conducted in the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague. The book also includes a number of special features, such as maps, a time line, brief histories and a guide to on-line resources, which make it a useful source of information. Its main contribution, however, is its wonderfully diverse selection of personal, political, theological and theoretical perspectives on Kosovo. As such, it is a valuable resource for someone wishing to learn more about the history and context of the NATO intervention and wishing to engage with the debates that are systematically presented here.

COMPARATIVE

Despite its continued political marginalisation, labour has at least been making an academic comeback in recent times, and this is confirmed by two impressive contributions from critical social scientists based in the USA. Although they emanate from different disciplines and have radically different foci to their shared subject – Herod is an economic geographer examining how organised labour shapes, and is shaped by, the ‘geography of capitalism’, while the various contributors to Candland and Sil's book are generally comparative political scientists evaluating how a range of economic and political factors are transforming labour institutions – both share the general conclusion that globalisation may have weakened the political power of organised labour, but workers are not passively accepting their fate. Consequently, both books are of direct relevance to all scholars interested in the nature of capitalist globalisation and contemporary social struggle.

Candland and Sil's edited collection is not simply a timely contribution to understanding how, and to what extent, labour institutions are being transformed by globalisation and political reforms. It also provides desperately needed research into both late-industrialising (Mexico, India, Pakistan, Brazil, Ireland, Japan) and post-socialist economies (China, Russia, East Germany, Central Europe), and thus makes another small step to rebalancing scholarship away from the advanced capitalist world; and it also demonstrates how outcomes for labour institutions are not determined by top-down, outside-in processes, but instead result from the dialectical interplay between competing social forces and their interaction with existing social structures, norms and institutional arrangements. One glaring weakness of the book as a whole, however, is its failure to sufficiently theorise how all these factors interrelate under the overarching imperatives and logic of global capitalism.

This is certainly not a problem in Herod's Labor Geographies, which is an outstanding achievement of clarity and insight. Rooted in the Western Marxist tradition, the book argues that while geographers have tended only to see the role of capitalists and their managers in shaping the ‘geography of capitalism’, industrial relations scholars, as well as labour and social historians, have failed to appreciate how geographical space and spatial relations can serve as sources of power and objects of class struggle. Instead, by offering empirical examples of organised labour's activities at local, regional and global scales in pursuit of their social, economic and political goals, Herod shows how workers (and their organisations) can play important roles in shaping landscapes, and that such landscapes in turn influence the structuring of workers' lives. In doing so, he successfully proves that, contrary to the political rhetoric of most trade union leaderships, workers are not powerless in the face of globalisation, and can often adopt different strategies and responses depending on the specific geographical relations of their particular struggle. He also conclusively proves, contrary to recent contributions by international labour theorists, that globalisation is a highly uneven and contradictory set of processes that does not automatically require an internationalist response. However, if one criticism is to be made, it is that Herod, in recognising the importance of the agency of labour in both the construction of capitalism's geography and class struggle, tends to overplay its determining role and underplay its inherently defensive nature. While labour does play a fundamental part in shaping the geography of capitalism, this is more often out of adversity than design. The same can virtually never be said of capital.

These two books are rather different both in approach and in intended readership. Approaches and Dilemmas in Economic Regulation, provides a number of chapters by different authors from the disciplines of economics, economic sociology and politics, all addressing different aspects of the interaction between economic concepts of regulation and the institutional and political context within which it takes place. The book includes reviews of schools of thought – the public interest, Chicago and Austrian schools –and, on the institutional side, a review of the French approach to regulation, the importance of negotiation in Dutch regulation, and political discussion of regulation itself, deregulation and reregulation and regulatory reform. The reader has the sense of hearing a report of an excellent and stimulating discussion between open minded analysts from a variety of discipline approaches, seeking to transcend the limits imposed by any one narrowly based single discipline approach. Perhaps such a discussion did indeed form part of the book's evolution. However, while such a multi-disciplinary approach is important in understanding the deeper issues of regulation, as the book itself maintains, it is not entirely clear for whom the book itself (rather than the process of producing it) is intended. The style will appeal more to academics than policy makers. But academics involved in the regulation debate themselves are likely to be either narrowly focused on their own discipline or only too painfully aware of the limits of such an approach. For those coming new to the subject, the chapters vary considerably in accessibility (for example one chapter includes a lot of mathematical notation, and readers who are comfortable with this approach may be less familiar with the more detailed institutional analysis). By and large the book provides a (generally excellent) survey of thinking, rather than a great deal of new material or findings – its novelty is in the context in which individual chapters are presented and in their juxtaposition in the same volume. But any individual seeking to deepen his or her own understanding is unlikely to find this book useful except as a background and starting point. As such a ‘starter’ and in providing a research agenda, it raises some important and interesting questions.

Many of the themes in the Midttun-Svindland collection are developed in a more practical and focused context by Virginia Haufler, a scholar of government and international affairs. Her book, A Public Role for the Private Sector, is more popular in both its approach and presentation. It focuses on self-regulation by businesses, rather than on imposed external regulation. As her subtitle, Industry Self-Regulation in a Global Economy, implies, Haufler's book focuses particularly on international standards, the relationship between developed and developing countries in setting and maintaining these standards, and the role of multinational companies in developing codes of conduct to regulate their own behaviour. The book itself consists of two overview chapters, one setting out the issues and the other drawing some general conclusions on evolution of global rules from three case studies on international environmental protection, labour standards and information privacy. Haufler examines why companies should develop standards which limit their own behaviour, and what effects these changes in corporate behaviour have on broader social and political conditions. However, while focusing on the role of corporate business, the book concludes that governments retain an important role in resolving problems in a democratic and accountable manner, which needs to be exercised together with industry self-regulation.

Rosa Mulé makes a convincing case that changes in the pattern of cash transfers under the welfare state cannot be fully explained by the links between party and class emphasised in the political sociology literature, by the interest of the median voter as emphasised in some rational choice accounts, nor by the desire to time cuts so as to avoid electoral fallout as emphasised in the political business cycle literature. Drawing on the recent literature on intra-party politics, she argues that these changes are often linked to infighting within parties, the attempt to create a new brand-image for a newly dominant faction, and the manipulation of social cleavages, relative deprivation, and voter preferences so as to create new electoral support groups for the new-style politics of the party. Problematising the common views in rational choice theory that parties are unified teams responding to exogenously given voter preferences, Mulé constructs analytical narratives drawing on simple game-theoretic models of intra-party and legislative politics to explain the dynamics of transfer payments in the UK, Canada, Australia and the USA during the 1980s and 1990s. Using detailed calculations on the income distribution of these countries, she shows that, although the underlying trend driven by market forces was towards greater income inequality, government transfers reversed this in some countries in some time periods, while reinforcing the underlying trend at other times and places. By bringing intra party politics, institutional factors, and the degree of autonomy afforded to party leaders by the weakness of the opposition and by party rules and norms in, she illuminates differences between countries chosen on the basis of similarity in a number of important background factors, does much to explain the dynamics within particular countries, and clarifies the underlying logic of the complex pattern of changes she found. This book will be of considerable interest to scholars interested in institutional rational choice theory, party politics, and the politics of the welfare state.

Like most collections of essays deriving from a conference, the quality of the contributions in this volume is mixed. However, the book benefits greatly from being organised around a common theme – the effect of federal institutional arrangements on political performance. As a result the editors can make sensible comparisons between countries. Four of the contributions stand out. Subrata Mitra's chapter on India is a pleasing blend of the theoretical and empirical, as is Mireia Grau Creus's piece on Spain. Klaus Armingeon's account of Swiss federalism in comparative context challenges the accepted wisdom by pointing out how, in contrast to the German system, Swiss federalism is superior because it encourages co-operation and coalition-building while preserving regional distinctiveness. Hans Keman conducts a sophisticated analysis of the relationship between institutional structures and policy performance in a number of democracies. His sensible conclusion is that what matters is not so much the constitutional status of political systems but the relationship between institutional variables and the context of decision making. His claim that we should not therefore be studying federalism as such but decentralisation and decision making appears to sit uncomfortably in a book devoted to federalism. But then neither Keman nor the other contributors address what is the most theoretically challenging aspect of the subject – what is it that sustains some federal systems while others break up or transmute into unitary states?

This is a student text concerning the ‘third wave’ democracies of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East since transition. It assesses the degree to which consolidation has taken place or whether the states have frozen as ‘limited democracies’. Following a discussion on the nature and causes of consolidation, it examines each region in terms of key factors such as political culture, political participation, political institutions and economic/international factors. Each section also provides two detailed case studies that illustrate the argument, though strangely four of the ten are not of ‘new’ democracies. Haynes writes clearly and informatively within the well-established tradition of Dahl's minimalist definition of democracy, Zakaria's evaluation of ‘illiberal democracy’ and the combination of structure and agency to explain change. The success of the measurement of the change that has taken place among the new democracies stands or falls on the reader's evaluation of the methodology of the Freedom House (FH) ratings, on which Haynes leans heavily. If their 1999 scores of political rights and civil liberties is high enough to warrant their classification, ‘free’, then the book takes it that there is ‘consolidation’. For some, the quantitative approach of FH loses sight of the contradictions within the multilayered phenomenon of democracy that furnish very different experiences of popular control and political accountability, though identical overall scores may be achieved. Nevertheless, for the wealth of information that is summarised, this is an excellent place for a student to start to gain an overall view of an important phenomenon.

This edited collection of twelve original contributions focuses on the recent struggles of social democratic parties in government to contain unemployment, maintain the welfare state and regulate capital. Given the diversity of national experiences as documented therein, the book does not advance a fundamental argument, but suggests there have been two processes at work, in the sense both of tendencies and of interpretations, neither of which has become dominant. The first is the proposition that social democracy adapted reasonably well to much increased levels of unemployment, capital mobility and inflation in the 1980s and early 1990s, ensuring the continuation of the welfare state and little significant increase in poverty and inequality. The clear exceptions, as the book documents, are the UK and New Zealand, where neo-liberalism was let off the leash most. The second proposition is that, nevertheless, social democratic parties have shifted significantly towards neoliberal thinking, not least in limiting tax burdens, ending social expenditure growth and deregulating labour markets. The book offers a weighty amount of new data and discussion around these propositions, with specialist chapters on Sweden, Austria, Australia/New Zealand, France, Greece, Spain, Britain and Poland. These are framed by four distinct overviews, whose authors take refreshingly contrasting approaches to the challenge of offering cross-national comparison. The book is possibly aimed at advanced undergraduates, but is most likely to find a readership among postgraduates and researchers. It is accessibly written and makes a significant and well-informed contribution to debate about the ‘new’, or not so new, social democracy.

This volume contains two plenary addresses and a selection of papers that were delivered at the PSA conference in London in 2000. Robert Dahl's address deals eloquently with the links that run ‘ever deeper’ between political equality, democracy and fundamental rights, liberties and opportunities. In her plenary address, Elinor Ostrom discusses issues of decentralisation by applying common pool arguments to natural resource systems. The remaining thirteen chapters range from Jonathan Wolf's tentative acceptance of ‘levelling down’ consequences of certain arguments in favour of egalitarianism to a reconsideration of turnout at (British) general elections by R. Johnston and Ch. Pattie, and, more broadly, the usefulness of the concept of ‘social capital’ for explaining differences in voter turnout by Henry Milner. The ‘model’ of deliberative democracy is scrutinised to see how it holds up ‘empirically’ when applied to Swiss referenda (John Parkinson) and local politics in Barcelona (Georgina Blakeley). Tim Jordan looks at new forms of political activism using Internet and new technologies (‘hacktivism’); and Pippa Norris revisits some debates on the impact of political communications in post-industrial democracies. G. Pridham looks at the impact transnational party co-operation has on party development in post-communist Europe, while P. Burnell discusses the possible effect that the ‘international community’ may have on parties and party systems in ‘new democracies’. Policies of regulatory reform and liberalisation are analysed from a comparative perspective by M. Lodge; and Perri 6 discusses the effect of e-government on bureaucracy.

Every reader will have her or his own list of the challenges that face democracy in the 21st century, from racism, sexism, ‘fundamentalism’ and ecological crisis to immigration, the European Union and ‘globalisation’. Such challenges are defined in the OECD world differently from outside of it; and what is perceived as a challenge also depends on how we define democracy. None of these issues is addressed in the book, however. As a PSA Yearbook, the volume reflects poorly the diverse, high-quality research that is conducted in Britain on these issues.