Abstract
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POLITICAL THEORY
Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 2002. 277, $23.95, ISBN 0 7914 5498 3
Readership: Advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research
Rating: *****
Reviewer: SHIVDEEP SINGH GREWAL (University of Essex)
Published in the original German in 1992 and in English in 1996, Jürgen Habermas's Between Facts and Norms (BFN) immediately caused a stir, not least in the extent to which it captured the post-Cold War zeitgeist and anticipated many of the major themes that would arise in legal and political studies in the decade to come. The prescience of this magisterial work was particularly apparent in its attempt to develop a thoroughly deliberative, post-metaphysical, inter-subjective and communication-theoretic account of law and the operation of developed welfare state democracies, tasks vital in the 1990s with the decreasing levels of legitimacy enjoyed by these polities through developments such as the absence of the Soviet Union as a shared source of threat and solidarity, the growth of multiculturalism and declining electoral participation.
With the benefit of a decade's hindsight, the contributors to Discourse and Democracy offer an illuminating, often critical, series of commentaries on BFN, placing particular emphasis on the deliberative approach to democracy that it puts forward. The essays in the first section offer an initial assessment of BFN, dealing in some depth with the issues of deliberation, discourse, liberalism and legitimacy. Subsequent contributions provide more historical and comparative accounts, such as Buchwalter's reflection on Habermasian legal thought in relation to Hegel, a thinker conspicuous by his absence from BFN. The third section consists of a set of wider reflections on the implications of BFN, such as the insightful section by von Schomberg on the dangers of an erosion of value spheres in the event of ecological and technological risks. Concluding with an interview in which Habermas reflects on issues of contemporary relevance to political theory, this is a stimulating and insightful volume that will be of interest both to readers of BFN and to those new to Habermas's oeuvre.
London: Arnold, 2002. 221, £15.99, ISBN 0 340 75955 0
Reviewer: COLIN FLINT (Pennsylvania State University)
This is a wonderful little book, written with force and theoretical weight coupled with clarity and brevity. It is one of a series designed to place particular avenues of geographic research within the context of disciplinary, intellectual and socio-economic changes. This particular goal is achieved with distinction. Making Political Geography, within the goals of the series, is designed to fill a niche between the survey of a textbook and the focus of a research monograph. This is a hard position to fill, especially when the target audience is defined as that problematic combination of students and academics.
Organized chronologically, from the end of the nineteenth century to some modest crystal-ball gazing, a description of the geopolitical context sets the stage for an outline of the intellectual paradigms of the day. Within these twin contexts, political geography arguments and debates of specific and key individuals are detailed, aided by a series of vignettes appealing to an undergraduate audience. In essence, Agnew shows how political geography is made by the interaction of individual intellectuals and geopolitical situations, a combination of structure and agency. The only concern over the book is not its content, but its potential usage. It would indeed be possible to use this book in a senior-level undergraduate class, as long as the instructor was willing to supplement the text with more material than would be necessary if a textbook was adopted. But perhaps this is the book's strength, allowing for greater flexibility than the constraining structure of a textbook. On the other hand, all beginning graduate students, and many undergraduates, interested in studying political geography should be assigned this book to understand both the historic burden and research potential of political geography.
Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. 396, £16.99, ISBN 0 631 22679 6
Reviewer: COLIN FLINT (Pennsylvania State University)
Kevin Cox's contribution to a recent surge in political geography textbooks is written with the student in mind, though it still manages to argue for a particular approach to political geography. The intellectual debt, and contribution, is to historical materialism. The ostensible focus upon territory and territoriality frames the real agenda, to emphasize the role of the state in defining, enabling and constraining political processes and shaping their spatiality. The book is clever in achieving this agenda while talking to students and not fellow academics. It is a student-friendly book, laced with numerous short ‘Think and Learn’ boxes, each of which could spark discussion for the remainder of the course. In addition, the instructor is aided by detailed case studies, precluding the need for supplemental materials.
The book is divided into three main sections. The first examines the ‘politico-economic’ – or, more specifically, the intervention of governments in the economic process. The usual geographic scale of place is invoked, but so is the important and often forgotten scale of the workplace. The second section revolves around the concept of difference, or the examination of political-cultural processes, specifically nationalism, race and gender. The final section is an explicit insertion of the state into the topics of the first two sections, via geographies of uneven development and globalization. The final chapter, on globalization, illustrates both the major strength and key weakness of the book. The critical, even jaundiced, view of globalization is welcome and provides an important counterpoint to the pervasiveness of this term in current education and research. But such an argument does not provide room for global geopolitical processes that will currently be fuelling much undergraduate interest in political geography.
New York: New York Review of Books, 2001. 230, $24.95, ISBN 0940322765
Readership: Academic/research, professional
Rating: **
Reviewer: MARY WALSH (University of Canberra, Australia)
Lilla begins with the question of why so many intellectuals in Europe (the birthplace of communism and fascism) apparently endorse tyrannical forms of politics, openly disavowing and criticizing liberal democracies as the real place of tyranny. He profiles Heidegger, Arendt, Jaspers, Schmitt, Benjamin, Kojeve, Foucault and Derrida, lumping them all together as ‘reckless’ European intellectuals, asking the questions of how these minds operate and what they seek in politics (p. xi). The emergence of this ‘new social type – the philotyrannical intellectual’ (p. 197) – represents both sides of the ideological divide, as Lilla wants to emphasize that the phenomenon is not limited to particular countries or political persuasions. The various profiles, along with the concluding essay, ‘The Lure of Syracuse’, demonstrate that the nexus of the relations between politics and philosophy continues to merit contemporary attention.
While the poor political judgement of Heidegger and Schmitt or the broader theme of the political irresponsibility of the work of some post-structuralist thinkers is certainly not disputed, the discussion of Arendt, even though it engages with some of her key works, displays some glaring anomalies, the least of which is the excessive attention paid to her personal life. Is Lilla seriously suggesting that Arendt can be understood in the same manner as the other various profiles? Arendt was well aware of the pitfalls of ‘the life of the mind’ amounting to a withdrawal from lived reality, criticizing philosophers for thinking everything and doing nothing, well aware that speechless and actionless contemplation turned away from actual human affairs. She strove to distinguish what she did as political theory, not philosophy. Overall, Lilla's concluding claim that Plato's sense of the self-awareness of how the mind handles ideas (as cognition separate from the senses) distinguishes Plato from so many modern intellectuals (p. 214) is singularly unconvincing and does little to explicate the complex interplays between actual events, politics, political theory and philosophy that presumably led to his inquiry in the first place.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 415, £19.95, ISBN 0 521 01155 8
Readership: Academic/research
Rating: *****
Reviewer: GORDON BABST (Chapman University, California)
This well-argued, comprehensive response to and critique of the arguments of liberalism's defenders who would discourage religious believers from participation in public discourse is very much worthy of a close read, as it accomplishes several important objectives, clarifying and advancing a discussion central to the theory and practice of democracy. Extensive critical attention is focused on the works of Audi, Gaus, Gutmann, Larmore, Macedo, Rawls and Solum, each of whom somewhat or completely filters out purely religious views on the basis of criteria such as irrationality, inaccessibility or partiality.
Religious Conviction in Liberal Politics argues that the religious believer is not to withdraw from politics, but to live up to the Ideal of Conscientious Engagement, proposed as the best approach to avoid two evils (violation of duty to religious principles, and violation of obligation to respect fellow citizens) when there appears to be no public, secular rationale available for her to support, or refuse to support, the policy or law at issue.
The author's own objective is to defend and find a place for the religious believer who would rely on religious convictions alone in making a political determination, such as the book's running example of Bill McCartney, who led the successful campaign to pass Colorado's Amendment Two, overturning so-called gay rights provisions in that state. Many supporters of Amendment Two relied exclusively on their religiously grounded understanding that homosexuality is immoral; they may well have had no other supporting rationale for this ballot measure, and the author indicates that there probably is none. That Amendment Two was overturned for reason of its lacking any rational basis, and found based solely in prejudice against an identifiable group of American citizens, might have suggested to the author that respect for one's fellow citizens and conscientious engagement with them take as their touchstone our public, secular values, and not one or other set of religious principles which may not be reasonable, accessible or impartial.
London: Sage, 2002. 253, £17.99, ISBN 0 7619 6769 9
Readership: Undergraduates, advanced undergraduates
Rating: **
Reviewer: HOWARD JACOB KARGER (University of Houston)
Understanding State Welfare comprises eight chapters. In chapter one, Lund looks at state welfare and distributive principles by examining Rawls, Hayek and Nozick. Also examined is the concept of social exclusion. In chapter two, he examines the market and the welfare state by focusing on classical economic thinkers. Chapter three explores the rise of collectivism and its impact on the welfare state. Chapter four looks at the containment of collectivism. Chapter five examines the welfare state and social justice. Chapter six investigates the redistributive functions (or lack thereof) of the welfare state. Chapter seven examines the relationship of the state to the market and the market to the state. Lastly, chapter eight explores the topics of New Labour, social exclusion and social justice.
Lund obviously knows the subject well. The range of resources used and the breadth of social and economic thinkers drawn upon are immense and impressive. However, at first I thought I was reading a post-modern attempt to redefine established conventions of book publishing. Understanding State Welfare contains no preface or introduction. Nowhere does the author lay out the contents of the book, his theoretical orientation or framework, what the reader can expect or the overall direction of the work. Instead, Lund just jumps in to the first chapter. There is no road map for the reader and I felt as though I had entered a four-act play in the middle of the third act. Moreover, there are few transitions between ideas, chapters or section headings. Information just appears, often disconnected from the previous section. The book has the feel of a compilation of lecture notes. Even the concluding chapter fails to tie in to the preceding chapters and does not contain a summary of the book or its salient ideas. Lund lays out important theorists and ideas much like a buffet. It is indeed a rich feast of ideas, but it is difficult to see what holds it all together. Instead, the book is more encyclopaedic than an integrated thesis. On the other hand, it forms a good platform for exposing undergraduates to the ideas of the great thinkers. Lund's book would have greatly benefited from a good developmental editor.
London: Sage, 2002. 220, £17.99, ISBN 0 7619 6418 5
Readership: Undergraduates, advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research, professional
Rating: ***
Reviewer: HOWARD JACOB KARGER (University of Houston)
Rethinking Welfare is an interesting and timely book suitable for a wide audience ranging from undergraduates to academics. The book is divided into three parts. Part one examines the relevance of Marx to modern trends in social policy. Chapter one asks the question: ‘Was he [Marx] right all along?’ Chapter two outlines a Marxian approach to studying social welfare and welfare statism. Part two explores Marxian concepts useful for developing an analysis of welfare. Chapter three examines class. Rejecting post-industrialism, post-Fordism and the expansion of the white-collar or service-based middle class, the authors opt for a Marxian class-based analysis. Chapter four investigates the class struggle, an idea that has almost disappeared from academic discourse. Chapter five explores alienation, an important Marxian concept relevant to welfare. Chapter six looks at oppression and its location within the social relations of production. Chapter seven explores capitalism and the family. Part three examines the globally based neoliberal assault on welfare, including its implications for developing nations. Chapter nine examines the evolution of the British welfare state from Beveridge to Blair. Chapter ten explores future welfare scenarios.
Relatively few powerful social-welfare related theories have emerged in the past few decades. While post-modern theory may help clarify the direction of social policy, its detachment, arcane language and inherent passivity do little to promote an activist social policy agenda. Without viable social theories, the welfare state is rudderless in a rapidly changing political milieu. This may partly explain why public officials are able to deconstruct welfare states with so little opposition. The authors deserve applause for the courage to reintroduce Marx into social policy, especially since it has long been abandoned by most academics. Given the absence of alternative theories, Marxism continues to have powerful explanatory properties and remains relevant in policy discourse. Rethinking Welfare is not a ground-breaking book that reflects an innovative approach to social policy or an imaginative reinterpretation of Marx. In fact, the book could have been tightened in parts and the focus made sharper. However, it does represent an important step in reintroducing social theory into social policy.
Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press, 2001. 368, £11.50, ISBN 0 226 35647 7
Readership: Postgraduates, academic/research, professional
Rating: ****
Reviewer: HOWARD JACOB KARGER (University of Houston)
Development and Crisis of the Welfare State is a complex book geared towards an academic audience. It highlights the development of the welfare state in in-dustrial democracies by examining two distinct periods in modern social welfare history: the golden years of welfare statism (the first three post-war decades) and the crisis faced by welfare states since the 1980s. The authors integrate historical research with quantitative data.
This book has eight chapters. Chapter one outlines the book, its arguments and its methodological and theoretical contributions. Chapter two outlines the book's theoretical and methodological approach. Chapter three provides a quantitative analysis of the development of the welfare state. Chapter four uses quantitative analysis to examine the interrelationship between welfare states and production regimes (that is, patterns of relationships between banks, labour and government). Chapter five examines the empirical associations of the earlier chapters within the context of a comparative historical analysis. Chapter six examines the welfare state during retrenchment (from the 1980s onwards) through the lens of statistical analysis. Chapter seven provides a historical analysis of welfare state retrenchment, with particular emphasis on the role of unemployment. In conclusion, the authors reflect on the ability of welfare states successfully to adapt to changing economic realities. They also provide suggestions for accomplishing that adaptation.
The book owes an important debt to the work of Gøsta Esping Andersen, which the authors acknowledge. It contains several important arguments, most of which cannot be condensed in a short review. However, one of the central arguments is the importance of political choice in the formation of welfare states. This is an important book in many ways. For one, it provides empirical evidence for the legitimacy of using typologies in understanding modern welfare states, and it is exhaustive in its treatment of the development of the modern welfare state. It ranks as one of the most comprehensive treatments of the post-war welfare state. The authors' arguments and research approach are original and should serve as a model for other treatments of the welfare state. One criticism is that the book seems forced in parts. The arguments could also have been made more succinctly. Nevertheless, this book is a must-read for policy analysts, academic theoreticians and anyone interested in the state of the welfare state.
Cheshum: Acumen, 2002. 224, £12.95, ISBN 1 902683 13 7
Readership: Advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research
Rating: *****
Reviewer: MICHAEL BACON (London School of Economics)
Alan Malachowski's Richard Rorty is a spirited and subtle overview of its subject. Any book of this type faces the difficulty of condensing the writings of its subject at the same time as doing justice to them, and in this case the task is heightened by the range of Rorty's interests. Malachowski therefore wisely starts out by making it clear exactly what he will and will not examine, and makes good on his promise by presenting excellent accounts of Rorty's philosophical development, his vision of pragmatism, and his views of liberalism and contingency.
The book is unusual in offering a full-blooded defence of Rorty. A sympathetic approach of this kind is well suited for an overview of any thinker, let alone one as controversial as Rorty, whose critics, as Malachowski shows, often miss his point. Particularly good are the sections of the book that engage in some detail with critics including Alasdair MacIntyre, Thomas Nagel and Bernard Williams. Malachowski examines their criticisms by considering Rorty's views, and by adding his own ‘Rortyan’ responses. Malachowski's conviction is that such critics tend to misconstrue both Rorty's position and his intentions, and his discussion alternates between answering their objections and showing where and how they rest on misunderstandings. Whether or not one agrees with Malachowski's interpretation, and despite his occasional (though perhaps inevitable) passing over of important criticisms, such as those of Williams, rather too quickly, the result is an engaging and often persuasive account.
Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001. 216, £20.95, ISBN 0 7425 0906 0
Readership: Postgraduates, academic/research
Rating: **
Reviewer: MICHAEL BACON (London School of Economics)
This is a collection of nine essays that take up a variety of themes, including Rorty's account of Dewey, Foucault and Marx, his political liberalism, his relation to post-modernism and his views on the philosophy of education.
Several of the essays in the book show only incidental interest in Rorty. Peter McLaren, Ramin Farahmandpur and Juha Suoranta offer a Marxist critique of liberalism and capitalism, but make little attempt to engage with Rorty's position on these subjects. He is attacked as an uncritical defender of American capitalism, but this sits uneasily with the position taken in Achieving Our Country. They fare no better when summarizing his philosophical views. Rorty is said to believe that different vocabularies are incommensurable (p. 147), an idea that he in fact regards – following Donald Davidson – as incoherent. It is also a shame that the authors tend to trade in (frequently inane) assertion. Rorty is described, for example, as a proponent of ‘Jacuzzi populism’ (p. 160), and reference is made to ‘the pathetic nature of his angry white man on the left position’ (p. 147).
Jim Garrison criticizes Rorty's interpretation of Dewey, while James D. Marshall argues that Rorty is mistaken in claiming there to be little philosophical difference between Dewey and Foucault. Both offer interesting discussions but, again, both seem to use Rorty mainly as a springboard for their own views rather than providing a detailed consideration of his. Thus, when Marshall writes that Rorty ‘appears to downplay less hopeful, if not pessimistic, messages, that are to be found in the European tradition’ (p. 79), since Rorty is clear that such downplaying is precisely what he intends, it is unclear how far this counts as a meaningful criticism.
More positively, Bjørn Ramberg's piece on Rorty's views of rationality and philosophical argument makes the convincing case that Rorty, sometimes despite his own assertions, is doing something much more subtle than calling for an end of philosophy. In so doing, it rebuts some of the claims levelled against Rorty (for example, as giving up on rational argument and as an ‘anti-philosopher’) elsewhere in the volume.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. 656, £40.00, ISBN 0 19 924714 5
Readership: Postgraduates, academic/research, professional
Rating: *****
Reviewer: IAN HARRIS (University of Leicester)
The great Earl of Hardwicke, commending Lord Dirleton's Law Doubts, is said to have remarked that ‘HIS Doubts are better than most people's Certainties’. The fourteen essays collected here, of which seven are newly published, arise from Malcolm's larger projects of writing Hobbes's biography and editing Leviathan; and, like Dirleton's Doubts, they shed far more light than many volumes hailed as ‘truly great works of the decade’ and so forth. This is due partly to the choice of subject matter: though 117 years have elapsed since Croom Robertson noted that ‘it can be said of Hobbes that the key to a right understanding of his thought is to be found in his personal circumstances and the events of his time’, curiously little has been done to good effect in investigating the philosopher's life.
Here are essays on Hobbes and the Virginia Company, on his contemporary Robert Payne, on Charles Cotton as Hobbes's translator and on Pierre de Cardonnel as a reader of Hobbes, as well as on the second edition of Leviathan. The illuminating quality of these pieces derives, too, from a pertinacity that causes the author to explore relentlessly the byways as well as the highways of Hobbes's era, and to bring back many unexpected treats for the reader. More especially, the essay on the title page of Leviathan is important as well as ingenious. Few, indeed, of these essays are intended for students, though ‘Hobbes's Theory of International Relations’ will instruct them as well as their teachers. Scholars will learn from ‘Hobbes, Ezra and the Bible’ and from ‘Hobbes and the European Republic of Letters’; for while the earliest essays reprinted here never fall below a high level, the more recent ones join maturity of judgement to breadth of learning. Paradoxically, Malcolm can only lose by this volume, for it will make readers impatient for the completion of the projects that it heralds, and keen to hear more from him about Hobbes's ideas. Thus, as ever, scholarship makes more work for itself.
London: Routledge, 2002. 255, £50.00, ISBN 0 415 23458 1
Readership: Advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research
Rating: ***
Reviewer: LASSE THOMASSEN (University of Essex)
Habermas and Pragmatism aims to show the affinities and differences between, on the one hand, the thought of Jürgen Habermas and, on the other hand, the American pragmatist tradition from Peirce and Dewey to the present. Both sides put emphasis on intersubjectivity, dialogue, fallibilism and democracy. Where they differ is on the role of transcendental and contextual arguments. Whereas Habermas aims to uncover quasi-transcendental structures of communication and constitutional democracy, pragmatism largely remains committed to a more contextualist and, hence, relativist position.
The volume contains essays in philosophy, legal theory, developmental psychology and aesthetics comparing Habermas's thought to pragmatism. In addition, the volume contains a postscript where Habermas clarifies his relationship to pragmatism. The contributors to the volume are all pragmatists or sympathetic to the concerns of pragmatism. The most interesting contributions for political theorists are the ones by Frank Michelman and David Ingram on Habermas's theory of law. Here the issue of contestation between Habermas and pragmatism is to what extent law can claim to embody universal rationality and legitimacy. As in other respects, pragmatists insist that, for instance, constitutional struggles can only be piecemeal and are always provisional. Thus, for instance, no final or rational consensus is possible. The quality of the contributions is generally good, and the volume shows the affinities as well as the differences between Habermas and pragmatism across a number of different disciplines. This is so even if the volume will be of limited immediate interest to political scientists and theorists. In addition, it would have been useful if the volume had contained some more general and comparative accounts of the relationship between Habermas and exponents of pragmatism. In this respect, it also seems peculiar that the volume does not have contributions from leading contemporary pragmatists such as Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam and Richard Bernstein.
Cambridge: Polity, 2002. 240, £15.99, ISBN 0 7456 1813 8
Readership: Advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research
Rating: ****
Reviewer: DUNCAN KELLY (University of Sheffield)
Max Weber's methodological writings have probably had at least an equal influence on students of politics as his own explicitly ‘political writings’. Indeed, the heuristic value of his ‘ideal-type’ construction as a device capable of providing some analytical purchase on the complexities of historical phenomena is broadly accepted. However, the origins, context and philosophical subtleties of the account are less well examined in most English-language literature.
Sven Eliaeson has here provided students of Weber in particular, and social science in general, with a sure-footed and synthetic guide to Weber's approach. Particularly valuable is the discussion of Heinrich Rickert's conception of a ‘value-relation’ and its impact on Weber's formulations that attempted to downgrade the psychological component of historical explanation while nevertheless maintaining an awareness of the importance of ‘empathy’. The author sensibly refuses to commit himself to delineating the ‘one’ true Weber, or to an approach that tries to say ‘what Weber would have’ if he had really got to grips with his subject matter. Eliaeson contextualizes certain of the key debates over Weber's methodologies during the twentieth century, while equally well linking the interest in Weber to the consistent attempts of social theorists to explore and explain the ambiguities of ‘modernity’. It is written in a student-friendly manner, and will doubtless appeal to serious undergraduates exploring some of these issues for the first time. There is enough synthesis for experts to be able to gauge where Eliaeson is coming from too, and some intriguing and unusual attempts to link Weber to the ‘world famous in Sweden’ Axel Hägerström and Scandinavian legal realism, alongside Gunnar Myrdal. The book is a good starting point for deeper investigation of these issues for those interested in the philosophy of social science, and will be welcomed by scholars interested in Weber.
DeKalb IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2002. 504, $55.00, ISBN 0 87580 288 5
Rating: *****
Reviewer: MADS QVORTRUP (London School of Economics)
Una estraordinaria et estrema malignità di fortuna – an extreme and extraordinary misfortune. This was how Niccolo Machiavelli described the fate of Cesare Borgia (the main character in Machiavelli's best-known work, The Prince of 1513). It is ironical that the same words apply to Machiavelli's own fate. Paradoxically, Machiavelli was anything but a Machiavellian thinker. He was rather a republican constitutionalist with a preference for democratic government (indeed, he was imprisoned for this when the Medici oligarchs regained power in the early sixteenth century). The Prince has established Machiavelli as one of the classics in Western political thought. Machiavelli himself regarded the much more scholarly – and much longer – Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy (often known as Discoursi) as his chief work. Using the Roman historian's chronicle of the early Rome, the Florentine wrote eloquently about (what he saw as) the eternal struggle between rich and poor, powerful and powerless. In Discoursi, Machiavelli defended a system of government very much like that defended by Rousseau in The Origin of Inequality, namely one where the people have to give their active consent to the laws enacted by their elected rulers.
It is a curious fact that it was the losers of the Renaissance power struggles who wrote the Italian history books. Machiavelli wrote for the republicans, while Francesco Guicciardini wrote for the aristocrats (after they were ousted). The main recommendation of The Sweetness of Power is that both Machiavelli's and Guicciardini's contributions are contained in the same volume. This is a very good book. And very much one that drives home the point that the great debate between democrats and autocrats was once fought with arguments that surpass those of the present day.
Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002. 327, £16.99, ISBN 0 333 75003 9
Readership: Advanced undergraduates, postgraduates
Rating: ***
Reviewer: JOHN WILTON (University of Plymouth)
The major strengths of this book are its range within the subject and its theoretical detail. The reader is led systematically through what is referred to as ‘the map of political science and international relations mainstream analysis’. In this way, a comprehensive examination of the relevant theoretical perspectives and debates within both disciplines is provided. Although, in places, the author employs empirical examples as cases to good effect in order to illustrate theories and debates – for example, the use of the rise of fascism in Germany in the 1930s in relation to the structure and agency question – more use could have been made of that approach. As a result, what are undoubtedly interesting debates sometimes appear abstract, and their importance is lost within the theoretical density of the text. Consequently, as the ‘critical introduction’ to political analysis designated in the title of the book, the text appears somewhat intense in language and terminology for first-year undergraduates and is probably better suited to second-year students.
More could have been devoted within the text to the role, merits and demerits of comparative method, especially in respect of the structure and agency debate and the use of case studies within that debate. Considerable analytical examples exist concerning case studies of regime change and revolutions, and of debates within those studies on structure and agency approaches. The author's argument that ‘disciplinary parochialism will no longer suffice’, and that conventional boundaries and divisions should give way to ‘post-disciplinary political analysis’, has resonance, how-ever, and is well made. The notion of, and effect of, globalization is promoted as a key example of the need for a more hybrid analytical approach.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 169, £13.95, ISBN 0 521 00425 X
Readership: Academic/research
Rating: ***
Reviewer: NENAD DIMITRIJEVIC (Central European University, Budapest)
This book offers an unconventional approach to the question of legitimate rule. Barker's focus is on the process of legitimation rather than on legitimacy understood as a quality of government. His main argument is that legitimation is always self-legitimation. Legitimation is essentially an endogenous, self-referential, inward-oriented process. When rulers engage in justificatory activities, they are addressing themselves, not subjects. Legitimation is at the same time the process of self-identification, in which rulers give an account of who they are. The same holds good for subjects, who in the processes of self-legitimation identify themselves as citizens. This approach is not undemocratic, claims Barker. It is only that democratic legitimation needs to be re-conceptualized and understood as a communicative action between two self-legitimizing identities. This communication is supposed to result in ‘congruence and affinity’, stability of which would depend not on specific policies, but rather on mutual recognition of self-assigned identities.
The book provides for an interesting and challenging reading. Although Barker aims at merely highlighting an additional, relatively neglected aspect of legitimation, his arguments effectively question many of the existing theories of legitimacy. Barker hopes to demonstrate the viability of his theoretical construct by referring to a wide range of examples from different times and cultures. However, he does not consider important differences between pre-modern and modern, and between democratic and non-democratic modes of legitimation. Besides, some readers may find contestable the way he distinguishes between legitimacy and legitimation, and the way his account on democracy ensues. Finally, it could be argued that self-legitimation is, contrary to Barker's claim, a relational concept, designed by rulers with the specific purpose of communication with ruled. While Barker uses self-legitimation of communist rule to demonstrate his thesis, a different approach could actually show that self-justificatory rituals of communist rulers were principally addressed to subjects. Nonetheless, highly recommended reading.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. 231, £25.00, ISBN 0 19 924343 3
Readership: Undergraduates, advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research
Reviewer: ANDREW MASON (University of Southampton)
Rather than analysing the concept of equality of opportunity, Matt Cavanagh addresses the question: what is the fair way of allocating jobs? He argues against (in his view) the two main approaches to this question employed by those who purport to defend equality of opportunity: first, meritocratic arguments, which maintain that employers should be required to appoint the best qualified candidates; second, egalitarian proposals, such as the idea that people should have an equal chance of obtaining a job. In opposition to these approaches, Cavanagh defends a less demanding principle of non-discrimination, grounded in the idea that employers can legitimately be required not to express unwarranted contempt in their selection decisions. He supplements this with a further principle that also has implications for the allocation of jobs, namely, that people should have some control over their lives.
This is a clearly written book that repays careful attention. The distinction Cavanagh draws between the meritocratic approach and the principle of non-discrimination is important and often neglected (even though I had some reservations about his defence of the latter). The book does have shortcomings, however. Cavanagh generally proceeds by identifying a position and then raising problems for it without close scrutiny of the relevant literature. Sometimes this does not matter, because he has good philosophical instincts, but on occasions it seemed to me that further progress could have been made by engaging directly with other contributions to these debates. For example, the chapter on meritocracy would have benefited from considering the arguments of David Miller and George Sher. The chapter on egalitarianism also struck me as weak in some respects: it considers positions which few, if any, would defend (for example, the idea that people should have an equal chance of obtaining a job), alongside more familiar forms of egalitarianism, such as luck egalitarianism, whose implications for the particular issue of how jobs should be allocated are inadequately explored.
Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 2001. 224, $39.95, ISBN 0 8014 3810 1
London: Routledge, 2002. 215, £13.99, ISBN 0 415 27856 2
Reviewer: ANDREW SCHAAP (University of Melbourne)
Following the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, there has been a revival of interest in the role of forgiveness in politics. Yet it is perhaps testament to the strangeness of the concept of forgiveness within political philosophy that neither Peter Digeser nor Trudy Govier articulates a wholly satisfying account of political forgiveness. Digeser ascribes forgiveness only a modest place in politics because his liberal presuppositions make him as uneasy about its potential to circumvent justice as he is suspicious of politics itself. While Govier accords forgiveness a more ambitious political role, she does not really square up to the dilemmas of public life to which Digeser draws our attention.
In order that forgiveness be compatible with the demands and limits of liberal citizenship, Digeser argues that it is irrelevant whether a forgiver continues privately to harbour resentment. Rather, what counts is the public performance by which he relieves his wrongdoer of a ‘moral debt’. Moreover, forgiveness is warranted in politics only when the ‘limits of justice are reached’ (when imperfect institutions fall short of the ideals they are supposed to realize) and is never an appropriate response to ‘dirty hands’ situations. When rights have been violated, justice demands retribution. Failing this, it requires, at the very least, that forgiveness is contingent on establishing a shared moral account between victim and perpetrator of the nature of the wrong. Finally, forgiveness cannot be justified in terms of a ‘thick’ ideal of reconciliation as ‘social harmony’. But it may help to contribute to a more limited state of reconciliation (compatible with plurality) to the extent that it involves relinquishing grievances over past wrongs as a basis for future political claims.
Govier contrasts forgiveness against the desire for revenge, which she understands to undermine the possibility of politics between antagonists. Against Digeser, she thinks that forgiveness is important in politics precisely because it involves overcoming resentment for the sake of social and personal healing. Moreover, she insists that it is sometimes appropriate for political forgiveness to be ‘unilateral’. It need not always depend on acknowledgement and remorse, but may be offered in advance as a way of inviting one's transgressor into community. More controversially, Govier argues that, just as it is meaningful to speak of collective resentment (and, thus, to attribute moral sentiments to groups), so it is meaningful to speak of groups ‘forgiving’ other groups in politics.
In order to render forgiveness commensurable with the moral economy of liberal justice, Digeser represents forgiveness in terms of relieving a debt. Yet this involves a reduction that seems both to contain unduly the possibility of forgiveness in politics (since forgiveness becomes political to the extent that it calls into question what justice requires) and to depoliticize the terms within which it might be enacted (since presupposing that moral debts can and should be settled seems to require that the forgiver relinquish her prerogative to call into question the terms of her political association with the wrongdoer in the light of their ‘shared’ history).
If Digeser's liberal commitments lead him to accord forgiveness a subsidiary role in politics, however, Govier fails to take seriously the peculiar challenges that political life presents to would-be forgivers. She gives passing consideration to (and rejects) the possibility that ‘Realpolitik allows no room for morality in politics’. But, in doing so, she fails to address what realists (and, indeed, liberals such as Digeser) actually claim: that the demands of public life often call for a moral re-sponse that is distinct from that which might be appropriate to other aspects of our lives.
Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 2002. 232, $22.95, ISBN 0 7914 5410 X
Readership: Advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research
Rating: **
Reviewer: LASSE THOMASSEN (University of Essex)
David S. Owen examines the role and validity of the notions of progress, evolution and development in the work of Jürgen Habermas. Owen argues that, without an idea of progressive change, critical theory, as Habermas pursues it, would not be possible. A notion of progress provides yardsticks for measuring concrete societies – for instance, in terms of justice. According to Owen, Habermas's notion of progress involves two distinctions. The first is between material and moral progress, where the latter cannot be reduced to the former. Hence, progress cannot be reduced to only material progress. The second distinction is between a developmental logic and the contingent content of social change. The developmental logic refers to formal and invariant structures and to the teleological unfolding of an inherent potential of history and society. This takes place through the progressive rationalization of structures of consciousness understood as the enhancement of learning capacities. The developmental logic provides the space of possibility for contingent historical change, but does not determine it in a strict sense.
Between Reason and History gives a fair overview of these central questions of Habermas's philosophy and critical theory. It is not entirely convincing, though. I shall emphasize two points here. First, Owen does not adequately consider the relationships between material and moral progress and between developmental logic and contingent content. The exact nature of these relationships is central to the validity of the whole argument, but it does not receive the in-depth and nuanced consideration it deserves. Second, Owen does not convince one that the subject of the book deserves the attention of a book-length monograph. For instance, the notions of progress and evolution seem more relevant to Habermas's earlier work than to his recent work in legal and political theory.
London: Routledge, 2001. 255, £13.99, ISBN 0 415 228794
Rating:**
Reviewer: KENNEDY STEWART (Simon Fraser University)
As someone who studies democracy, I was pleased to discover that the noted theorist Frank Cunningham had decided to write a comprehensive text about the subject. The goal of Theories of Democracy: a critical introduction is to provide students or the general reader with a map outlining the major features of the contemporary democratic landscape. To do so, Cunningham discusses a number of different and sometimes competing concepts of democracy, and then uses a set of ‘democratic problems’ to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each idea. Major concepts include liberal democracy, classic pluralism, catallaxy (related to social choice theory), participatory democracy and deliberative democracy. Drawn from the work of Aristotle, de Tocqueville and Schumpeter, the evaluatory problems consist of majority tyranny, massification of culture and morals, in-effective government, conflicts, demagogy, oppressive rule and irrationality. The final chapter shifts from evaluation and attempts to link the various theories to globalization.
There are lots of good ideas in this book. For example, a short section exploring the relationship between liberal democracy and capitalism raises important questions that would undoubtedly spur plenty of discussion in class or around the dinner table. In addition, Cunningham's knowledge of the democratic literature is impressive, as are his often penetrating criticisms. However, the book largely fails as a guide – or, to be more kind, is not as clearly organized as other books in the democratic theory text market. Where Robert Dahl's Democracy and Its Critics, David Held's Models of Democracy and James Hyland's Democratic Theory all follow well-explained, easily understood frameworks that provide students with the structure they need to understand a complex subject that is as much philosophical as empirical, Cunningham's framework is slightly confusing and inconsistently applied. While I would definitely include Theories of Democracy on my reading list for upper-level undergraduate/graduate courses, it would serve only to supplement a more student-friendly text such as those listed above.
London: Sage, 2002. 202, £17.99, ISBN 0 7619 5123 7
Reviewer: ROSIE CAMPBELL (University College London)
Feminist Methodology is a critical reflection on the most fundamental dilemma facing feminist researchers: where to place themselves on the ‘slippery pole’ between relativism and essentialism – or, rather, how to negotiate feminism's internal contradiction between the application of reason and a radical critique of the scientific method. The main focus of the book is on the interrelation between these competing methodologies. Ramazanoglu and Holland carefully outline the different feminist approaches to epistemology and highlight both the positive and the negative impacts that post-modern and post-structural theorists have had upon the feminist project. Readers are led through a comprehensive and insightful introduction to feminist methodology and are finally delivered some prescriptions for ‘doing a feminist research project’.
The fundamental argument of the book is that it is possible to conduct feminist research ‘in a reasonable, logical and systematic manner’, while resisting the temptation to make essentialist claims about the category of women and attempting to develop a better story of gendered social relations by promoting reflexivity in the research process.
The book is aimed at feminist postgraduate researchers and junior academics. It is intended to enable readers to identify their own epistemological positions and to situate their research within the wider frame of feminist methodology. The book is successful in summarizing highly complex theoretical debates and making them accessible to a novice researcher. However, it might have been useful to include some more concrete examples in the last chapter on conducting feminist research.
Malden MA: Blackwell, 2003. 272, £16.99, ISBN 0 631 22917 5
Readership: Undergraduates, advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research
Rating: ****
Reviewer: FLAVIA MONCERI (University of Pisa)
This book collects fifteen previously published works in the field of queer studies, organizing them in four parts: ‘Practices, Identities, Communities’; ‘The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality’; ‘Sexual Citizenship and the Nation-State’; and ‘Transnationalizing Sexualities’. The interdisciplinary character and the variety of topics and cases presented are the major strengths of the text, which can effectively work either as an introductory text to the field (also for an undergraduate readership) or as a scholarly resource.
The editors' introduction succeeds in synthesizing both historically and theoretically the framework in which the contributions can be meaningfully inserted. Queer studies are rightly presented as that field of study whose core feature lies in refusing to understand sexual identity, and ‘identity’ in general, as a stable notion, being instead interested in the variety of ‘non-normative forms of identity, or forms in which sex, gender, and sexuality do not line up in the socially prescribed way’, as it is the case with ‘sadomasochism, transvestitism and hermaproditism that cannot be reduced to the categories of either homosexuality or heterosexuality’ (p. 1). They are less a unitary ‘academic discipline’ than a general label to indicate a plurality of methodological attitudes towards the practices of sexuality, so differentiating from gay and lesbian studies that mainly focus on sexual identity. The contributors seem not to share common theoretical assumptions, if not the claim that ‘sexual identity’ should be considered as something dynamic, probably changing even in the course of an individual's life. The novice reader might be puzzled or discomforted by the difficulty of finding a ‘proper’ collocation for each contribution within a stable theoretical framework, but this too is to be considered an achieved goal of the book, which succeeds namely in demonstrating that one of the most interesting features of queer studies is that of queering themselves.
London: Routledge, 2001. 182, £50.00, ISBN 0 415 25577 5
Readership: Advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research
Rating: ***
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. 301, £30.00, ISBN 0 19 924076 0
Readership: Advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research
Rating: ****
Reviewer: ROBERT BIDELEUX (University of Wales, Swansea)
These books discuss ethnic minority rights and the growing need to recognize and accommodate cultural and ethnic pluralism in liberal democracies. In the book edited by Ferran Requejo, Will Kymlicka provides a characteristically lucid, incisive, provocative and glib account of four main phases through which the latter-day debates on minority rights have passed, and of his own significant contributions to those debates. He rather exultantly concludes that the champions of the group rights of ethnic and cultural minorities have so decisively established the justness of their claims that the defenders of liberal universalism and cosmopolitanism can only fall back on (in his view) somewhat disingenuous concerns regarding the potential negative effects that formal recognition of such rights might have for ‘political stability’ and ‘the sorts of civic virtues and citizenship practices which sustain a healthy democracy’ (pp. 30–1). He dismisses too lightly the real grounds for concern that are being voiced regarding the growing cultural and political segmentation (even ‘Balkanization’) of the demos in many old, as well as recently established, liberal democracies, and the problems this poses for the future viability of liberal democracy.
Michael Keating's chapter offers a much more empirical and circumspect treatment of such issues, albeit adding little to what he has eloquently argued elsewhere. Wayne Norman, the third ‘Anglo-Saxon’ contributor, rehearses the arguments for and against constitutional provision of a ‘right of secession’ for ethnic minorities in democratic states, and comes down (not very convincingly) in its favour (p. 98). Of the other contributors, Ferran Requejo, Enric Fossas and Ricard Zapata are from Cataluña, and Carlos Closa is from Zaragoza. The book's overriding aim, in Requejo's words, is to replace the ‘“monist” conception of the democratic demos with one that is more “pluralist”’ (p. 4), partly a reflection of the increasingly ‘plurinational’ character of Spain's ‘state of autonomies’ and of the imperative to accommodate ethno-linguistic diversity as the key to its long-term viability. Zapata, in treating the challenges posed by large-scale immigration, and Closa, in his discussion of EU citizenship (a chapter in which, unfortunately, quite a bit appears to have been ‘lost in translation’), emphasize the need increasingly to go beyond the framework of the nation state and decouple citizenship from ‘nationality’. Fossas's chapter on ‘national plurality and equality’ contends that federalism is not automatically or ipso facto the perfect means of accommodating cultural and ethnic diversity (pp. 68–71) and that such a goal ‘demands the revision of the postulates of the nation-state, of the principles of federalism, and of the very idea of equality’ (p. 80). Unfortunately, these contributors do not adequately convey or draw upon the extraordinary vigour and richness of the debates on nationalism and ethno-cultural justice in contemporary Spain.
Rather more is achieved in this regard in Michael Keating's Plurinational Democracy, which offers a magisterial ‘completion’ of arguments he has been developing in numerous publications over the past 15 years, mainly with reference to Spain, the UK, Belgium and Canada – each of which is interestingly discussed vis-à-vis his various sub-themes. His main arguments are that the roles of the (national) state are merely changing rather than becoming redundant, and that ‘we cannot resolve nationality issues by giving each nation its own state, but neither can, nor should, we seek to eliminate nationality as a basis for political order’ (p. ix). ‘Nor can we resolve the problem by deterritorializing nationality’ (p. 161). However, the emerging ‘post-sovereign order’ offers stateless nations expanding opportunities for autonomy and self-realization that nevertheless stop short of full statehood, and he seems to think that most members of European stateless nations will probably be satisfied with this, although many nationalists and some specialists on these matters will disagree.
London: Sage, 2001. 196, £18.99, ISBN 0 7619 5422 8
Readership: Postgraduates, academic/research
Rating: ***
Reviewer: AMALENDU MISRA (Queen's University, Belfast)
This edited volume of ten chapters by anthropologists, historians, political scientists and cultural theorists examines the centrality of Islam in the Western imagination. In exploring the dimensions of Islam through the ages and its treatment in contemporary politics, this volume seeks to study its current image in a non-Western context. The overall picture that emerges following this investigation is that, in spite of Islam's rich, varied and colourful past, the non-Islamic understanding of this religion is very slender indeed. Moreover, whatever little knowledge exists in this domain in the West, it is largely prejudicial. In sum, the West indulges in what could be termed as self-imposed ignorance that favours the perpetuation of negative stereotyping of this religion.
Unfortunately, as some of the authors in this volume highlight, demonization of Islam is strictly not confined to the general mass, but a significant constituency of journalists, academics, researchers, leaders and politicians regularly engage in what could be described as forms of cultural bigotry. Given the fact that Islam is one of the fastest-growing religions in the West, such levels of ignorance are certainly not helpful in the domain of cultural interaction. By highlighting the richness of Islam in both religious and cultural contexts, the current volume tries to dispel a part of that pervading prejudice.
While some essays in this volume are analytically rigorous, thought-provoking and extremely illuminating – particularly ‘Interpreting Interpretations of Islam’ by Hastings Donnan and Martin Stokes; Bryan S. Turner's ‘Orientalism, or the Politics of Text’; Beverley Milton-Edwards's ‘Researching the Radical’; Malise Ruthven's ‘Islam in the Media’; and Ilyas Ba-Yunus's ‘Ideological Dimensions of Islam’ – the quality is quite uneven in terms of structure, cogency and focus. To some extent, one could attribute this failing to the interdisciplinary aspect of the volume. Overall this is an interesting edited work, which would interest a wide range of readers.
Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001. 317, £45.00, ISBN 0 7546 1220 1
Readership: Advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research, professional
Rating: ****
Reviewer: STAMATOULA PANAGAKOU (University of York)
This volume is a tribute to the work of the Canadian idealist philosopher Leslie Armour, author of The Rational and the Real, The Concept of Truth, Logic and Reality, The Conceptualization of the Inner Life, The Faces of Reason (with E. Trott), The Idea of Canada and the Crisis of Community and Being and Idea. Armour's contribution to philosophy covers a variety of disciplines (from metaphysics to politics and from religion to economics), hence the kaleidoscopic character of Idealism, Metaphysics and Community.
Eighteen scholars discuss Armour's project, assess the hermeneutic pathways he inaugurated and relate his philosophy to current debates. Some contributors adopt a wider perspective and focus either on hot topics in Anglo-American idealism or on the contemporary significance of an idealist philosophy. Sweet, in his introduction and afterword, unravels the complexity of Armour's thought, demonstrates his contribution to post-analytic philosophy and reflects on the future of philosophical idealism. A complete bibliography of Armour's writings to 2000 is also provided. Each essay has its own merits, but some contributions clearly stand out. The discussions of F. H. Bradley on feeling and relations (James Bradley), the act/rule dispute (Fox), Canadian political philosophy (Lea), Bradley and Green on relations (Mander), Canadian nationalism and philosophy (Mathews), universal liberation (Sullivan), religious belief and community (Sweet), Armour, Spinoza and rational psychology (Thomas), the metaphysics of community (Trott) and the conceptualization of community (Wirkus) deserve particular attention.
Idealism, Metaphysics and Community provides both some engaging analyses in philosophy and politics and a rich theoretical background for further research on such issues as: dialectical logic and society; an idealist view of community; individuality and freedom; community, rationality and dialectical individuality; cultural diversity and national identity; ecumenism as the Christian community-building model that encourages dialogue and diversity; and the content, context and nature of Canadian philosophy. This book informs and challenges the reader by offering an alternative to the mainstream discussions of individuality, community and culture.
Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. 367, £20.95, ISBN 0 7425 1523 0
Readership: Postgraduates, academic/research, professional
Rating: *****
Reviewer: STEWART DAVIDSON (University of Strathcylde)
J. Baird Callicott accurately describes the burgeoning literature dealing with the relationship between democracy and environmentalism as ‘a veritable cottage industry’. It is therefore a testament to the innovation shown by the contributors that this volume exhibits such a high degree of originality.
The book successfully traverses environmental ethics, democratic theory and environmental movements. The opening section deals with the tensions between democracy and morally monistic approaches to environmental ethics. The argument for a more pragmatic approach to environmental ethics is advocated by Norton, through a Quinean attack on fundamentalism, and by Minteer, through a paleo-pragmatic reading of Deweyan democracy. This is countered by Eckersley's defence of ecocentrism, and Callicott's reply to his pragmatist critics. Section two concentrates on how environmental considerations can inform democratic citizenship. Highlights include Barry's call for the greening of democracy according to an ecological stewardship ethic sensitive to the vulnerability of human relations with nature, with democracy acting to render this vulnerability more transparent, and Taylor's presentation of Aldo Leopold as an exemplar of a political or civil educator of democratic citizens. The third section deals with the problem of ensuring the inclusion of human and non-human interests in the process of democratic deliberation over environmental policy. Here, Vivanco's case study of the undemocratic nature of conservational land purchases in Costa Rica provides a needed contrast to the more theoretical orientation of the book. The final section examines the relationship between democracy and environmental movements, with the conclusion of this section, and the book as a whole, being Rubin's advocacy of civic environmentalism.
This eclectic mix of essays attains a high educational and heuristic value, and a balanced editorial ensures that things to love and hate are found in equal measure; it is a valuable contribution to an important area of green political theory.
Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2003. 375, £18.50, ISBN 0 262 70089 1
Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2003. 278, £16.50, ISBN 0 262 54139 4
Readership: Advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research
Rating: ****
Reviewer: BRIAN J. COOK (Clark University)
A desire to understand the institutional incentives that can inhibit or advance the design and implementation of effective environmental policy animates these valuable new additions to the environmental law and policy literature. Driesen's book is more conceptual in nature and more encompassing, offering an extended critique of the existing environmental regulatory reform tradition meant to stimulate fundamental change in environmental law. Although the author is careful to use non-technical language in introducing, explaining and applying key concepts, it is likely that students in graduate study and scholars in economics, law and policy studies will benefit most from this work. Thomas's book is more empirically based and narrowly focused on one area of environmental policy, and does not promote a reform agenda. It is a worthwhile addition to the case-study literature on environmental policy-making, and is accessible to students at the upper end of undergraduate level.
Driesen offers an alternative way of thinking about the reform of environmental regulation by introducing the concept of economic dynamics. He argues that the ‘free market’ actually operates in distinctive ways that call into question the utility of ‘static efficiency’ models that are employed to assess, critique and promote more efficient alternative environmental regulations. He contends that the structure and operation of the free market, with its myriad private decisions made over time, generate two distinct sets of incentives. First, the market encourages firms to create innovations that will increase the material well-being of consumers at the expense of the environment. Second, the free market, in combination with the incentives generated by the structure and operation of representative democracy, encourages firm and policy-maker behaviour producing a regulatory process that is too hidebound to innovate or to take advantage of the dynamics of private decision-making. From these two analytical results, Driesen explores the opportunity for reform grounded in economic dynamics in three areas: privatizing environmental law, improving the fairness and effectiveness of public environmental decision-making, and redesigning regulation to encourage environment-improving market innovations.
Although Driesen offers a number of lively and provocative ideas for reform grounded in economic dynamics, his principal aim is to highlight the important conceptual and empirical questions that must be asked about current environmental law and policy-making. He succeeds admirably in this respect, offering in a relatively compact volume a wide-ranging, stimulating analysis and argument written in a matter-of-fact style. One can expect considerable scholarly debate about many of the ideas the author promotes, but the most serious question Driesen may confront is how he expects his reform orientation to be adopted when so many of the existing institutional incentives are arrayed against it.
The institutional incentives influencing administrative agency cooperation to protect biodiversity is Thomas's concern. His empirical base is a set of five multi-method case studies of attempts to preserve species diversity by overcoming fragmented land management structures in California. Developments in the science of environmental management increasingly stressing habitat conservation drove cooperation among private and especially public land managers, with leadership surprisingly coming from the US Bureau of Land Management, not particularly noted for its environmental stewardship. The new source of scientific legitimacy created an incentive for cross-jurisdictional efforts. The threat of litigation also pushed cooperation by creating the incentive to avoid interminable, contentious lawsuits through pre-emptive habitat plans. Two of the cases overlap, to some extent, case studies already in the published literature, and Thomas's findings are not altogether surprising. Yet he contributes valuable knowledge with his summary assessment of the interplay of institutional incentives, and his impressive synthesis and application of the organizational theory and institutional design literature.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. 280, £45.00, ISBN 0 19 829393 3
Reviewer: TERESA REES (Cardiff University)
This book draws upon 420 references to map feminist comparative policy (FCP) in Western post-industrial democracies. There is a growing body of literature in FCP from different disciplines and countries that scrutinizes the activities of governments trying to respond to the women's movement through policy. Political science, Mazur argues, has traditionally paid scant attention to gender, whereas it should be drawing upon FCP in theory-building. By the same token, the sources drawn upon by the author include examples of non-feminist scholarship.
The book offers a complex framework for analysing FCP. Eight sub-sections of feminist government action are identified: ‘blueprint’ (overarching policy), political representation, equal employment, ‘reconciliation’ (work/life balance), family law, reproductive rights, sexuality and violence, and public service delivery. Thirteen countries are categorized into four ‘feminist families of Nations’: Late Female Mobilizing, Protestant Social Democrat, Advanced Christian Democrat and Protestant Liberal (which includes the UK and the USA).
The book describes FCP in each of these sub-sections by each of the countries, organized into the four groups. The final chapter offers some analysis and suggestions for further work. The sheer wealth of material drawn upon is staggering and the book is clearly invaluable as a guide to what is going on in the different countries under the various policy headings.
The framework does not appear forced on the basis of the evidence provided: indeed, it is helpful in getting to grips with the mass of material. However, the exercise is so ambitious, and the level of detail for each policy area by each country so restricted by space, that questions are begged about whether the fit and indeed the numerical scores afforded to the different policies by country may be somewhat egging the pudding. Evidence is not provided on the outcome of the policies. Nevertheless, an extraordinary resource and a highly imaginative approach.
London: Sage, 2002. 221, £17.99, ISBN 0 7619 6988 8
Readership: Advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research
Rating: ****
Reviewer: ROSIE CAMPBELL (University College London)
Christina Hughes traces the divergent meanings of the core terms utilized in feminist theory and research. She traces the use and meaning of concepts such as equality, difference and care through differing feminist perspectives, and provides the reader with a comprehensive and thoughtful account of the development of feminist theory. Hughes shows how different feminisms are constructed by foregrounding individual concepts and backgrounding others, while illustrating the internal conflicts regarding the meaning of terms. Case studies are used throughout the book to illustrate how concepts are defined, utilized and interpreted from different feminist and epistemological positions. This use of case studies is a great strength and will give students access to highly complex debates.
The major concern of the book is to encourage the development of ‘conceptual literacy’, whereby readers are provided with a path through the ‘multitude of meanings’ ascribed to terms and can develop a frame through which they might examine other concepts. The book could be used as a practical guide to direct the first-time feminist researcher to the essential relevant readings and to the development of usable terms. Alternatively, it could be used by advanced undergraduate or postgraduate students as an introduction to feminist theory. The author succeeds in presenting dense and interwoven information in a readable and accessible manner.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. 304, £40.00, ISBN 0 19 924268 2
Readership: Advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research, professional
Rating: *****
Reviewer: MATTHEW CLAYTON (University of Warwick)
The chapters in this collection are grouped into three parts. Part one addresses issues concerning children and rights, and its principal focus concerns the debate between choice and interest conceptions of general moral rights. Griffin defends the former, Brighouse develops the latter, and Brennan and, later, Vallentyne articulate a hybrid view. Arneil offers a critique of right-based theorizing of children's interests premised on an ethic of care. Part two offers four papers on autonomy and education. It includes a carefully argued Rawlsian account of parental authority by Noggle, Callan's cautionary insistence that our interest in personal autonomy requires the capacity to adhere to, as well as to revise, our ethical conceptions, Archard's articulation of an ideal of family life on the basis of which children may come to share their parents' ethical doctrines, and Coleman's respect-based argument for a participation-based approach to citizenship education. Part three address issues of distributive justice and the place of parents, families and children. Steiner assesses how the genetic revolution will affect entitlements within a left-libertarian conception. Vallentyne offers an imaginative conception of the various duties procreators have to their children and others. The final three chapters address the so-called ‘new familist’ concerns about family structure (Burtt) and the familiar tension between liberal justice and family practices (Macleod and Munoz-Dardé).
The moral and political status of children and the rights and duties of parents are subjects that have enjoyed renewed political and philosophical interest in recent years, and this collection addresses the principal questions with admirable clarity and subtlety. Some readers will judge that the important topic of citizen education warrants more space than is devoted to it here. Nevertheless, anyone interested in tackling the philosophical issues concerning children and parents would do well to consult this book.
London: Athlone Press, 2001. 260, £16.99, ISBN 0 485 00632 4
Reviewer: MICHELLE BOULOUS WALKER (University of Queensland)
Caroline Williams's study engages with what is arguably one of the most persistent problems in contemporary European philosophy – the question of the subject. The strength of her approach lies in the emphasis she places upon the paradox of subjectivity. For Williams, this paradox concerns the manner in which the very repetition of the question of the subject (re)confirms its structure and existence – a kind of circle of referentiality that leaves the subject intact despite its multiple denials. Any approach to the subject carries with it an array of philosophical and political assumptions that structure the very possibility of thought. Williams's strength is to engage reflexively with this problem and, indeed, to make it the focus of her own study. She does this not in order somehow magically to exempt her approach from the risks inherent in the paradox, but rather to engage with the subject in ways that might reframe and transform it as a question.
Despite various protestations, the subject persists within French philosophical discourse and Williams traces a (partial) history of this persistence through the work of Althusser, Lacan, Derrida and Foucault. While Althusser's quasi-structuralist approach is usually characterized in terms of the subject's disappearance, Williams contends that what he really does is to reconfigure and reposition the subject in relation to structure. This is, she says, part of the paradox of the subject – that it persists despite intentions to the contrary. Althusser does not escape the paradox; however, in his later writings he engages with the philosophical knot of subjectivity in a more reflexive way, thus setting the scene for others – notably Derrida and Foucault – to follow. Ultimately, for Williams, it is Derrida who engages most productively with the paradox itself. Deconstruction gestures toward the futility of hoping to break with the metaphysics of subjectivity and thus is able to engage with what the persistence of the subject might actually mean.
Williams has produced a scholarly and convincing account of the paradox of the subject. However, given the title (Contemporary French Philosophy), we might wonder what permutations might have occurred had philosophers such as Levinas and Irigaray been included. Williams is certainly not unaware of the effects of exclusion (see p. 6). Nonetheless, her ability to frame the paradox in the way she does rests – at least partially – in what remains unaddressed.
London: Frank Cass, 2002. 193, £42.50, ISBN 0 7146 5301 2
Readership: Undergraduates
Rating:***
Reviewer: BERNT HAGTVET (University of Oslo)
The present volume derives its strength from its focus, albeit somewhat vague, on the foreign policies of classical Italian fascism. A common thread is the view that Italian fascism at heart was a revolutionary creed also in its foreign policies.
The centrepiece of the book is an interesting analysis of Raymond Aron's contribution to the theory of totalitarianism by Trine M. Kjeldahl. She reveals a rather forgotten aspect of the great French sociologist's work, made more timely now that this approach can be viewed without its Cold War associations. Aron is right in stressing the quasi-religious character of the inter-war totalitarian movements. Adam Holm charts the uneasy Danish waters between traditional conservatism and anti-democratic right-wing activism in the 1930s, a piece that invites more systematic comparative analysis, not least with the other Nordic countries. Much material is now available and a new project on Swedish conservatism is under way, which ought to lead to an English-language publication on this fascinating topic at the junctures between totalitarian and traditionalist thought.
In an article on the Metaxas dictatorship in Greece (1936–41), Moges Pelt brings to light new material on this variant of inter-war fascism in a clear style. In his article on ‘the Dual State’, Gert Sørensen discusses competently the reintroduction of Ernst Fraenkel's classic study from 1941. In articles on Italian intervention in the Spanish Civil War, the reclamation of the Pontine Marshes, the papacy in two world wars and the export of fascism to Mexico, Morten Heiberg, S. B. Frandsen, John Pollard and Franco Savariono add fresh insight into particular aspects of fascist foreign policies. The book suffers, though, from a lack of general focus beyond the foreign policies of fascism, and would have benefited from an attempt to sum up its core arguments at the end. Nonetheless, it is worth reading and may serve well in undergraduate courses on inter-war fascist Europe.
London: Routledge, 2002. 320, £65.00, ISBN 0 415 26373 5
Readership: Postgraduates, academic/research
Rating: ****
Reviewer: DEJAN GUZINA (Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo)
In the first book-length treatment of Walker Connor's ideas on nationalism, the editor Daniele Conversi persuasively argues that, to a lesser or greater extent, we are all Connorian in our approaches to the study of nationalism. When we dismiss dogma of economism in explaining nationalism, or insist that nationalism is inseparably linked to the rise of modernity, or when we recognize the non-rational side of nationalism – we do so on Connorian grounds. Hence, Connor is not only a great iconoclast of common approaches to nationalism, but also a very influential theorist of nationalism in his own right. This insight is shared by other authors in this deftly edited collection of essays on Walker Connor and the study of nationalism. They all agree that Walker Connor's ideas remain highly relevant, and that we may disagree with Connor, but only at the peril of misinterpreting the phenomenon of nationalism.
The essays are divided into four sections. In part one, Anthony Smith, Donald Horowitz and Joshua Fishman explore modernist and primordialist bases of nationalism. Part two examines Basque, South African and Canadian nationalisms from a Connorian point of view (William Douglass, John Stone, John Edwards). Part three discusses the issues of federalism and management of nations, ethnic conflict and third-party mediation, and religion and nationalism in the First World (Brendan O'Leary, William Safran, John Coakley). The last section deals with wider implications of the territorialization of national identity and reviews the conceptual links between ethnicity and nationalism (Robert Kaiser, Thomas Spira).
The concluding chapter is written by Conversi in a true Connorian fashion. It represents a methodological plea against primordialism and other isms in the study of nationalism. This stimulating collection of essays is in-deed beneficial to both graduate students and researchers. Regardless whether they accept Connor's argument or not, they will certainly gain a much clearer understanding of the implications of various concepts and theories of nationalism.
Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003. 305, £12.95, ISBN 0 691 09625 2
Readership: Postgraduates, academic/research
Rating: *****
Reviewer: CLARE CHAMBERS (London School of Economics)
The Subject of Liberty offers a feminist account of freedom. Its fundamental claim is that liberal theories of freedom do not take adequate account of the fact of social construction, and therefore that such theories have an impoverished understanding of the free subject. Hirschmann argues that, instead, social construction constrains freedom, especially women's freedom, in two ways: by creating the structures of patriarchy that restrict women's options, and by shaping women's ‘inner selves’. These effects are illustrated by chapters focusing on three issues of particular relevance to women's freedom: domestic violence, welfare payments in the USA, and what Hirschmann terms ‘Eastern veiling’. Hirschmann concludes that we need to reconceptualize freedom as a combination of negative and positive liberty, facing both internal and external constraints. Choice remains fundamental, but the limits on choice must be recognized.
Overall, the book is extremely well written and well argued, and its fundamental thesis is compelling. More attention could be paid, though, to the role of men: sometimes they appear equally subject to (although advantaged by) patriarchal social construction, whereas at other times men appear as the conscious, unconstructed perpetrators of patriarchy.
One of the book's great strengths is its combination of liberal, feminist and post-modern thought. Its fundamental concerns are basically liberal: it is, in the end, a theory of freedom, and Hirschmann devotes significant space to analysing classical liberal theories of freedom, ranging from Locke, Rousseau, Kant and Mill to contemporary theorists such as Pettit and Sen via Berlin. However, her concept of social construction introduces theorists such as Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard and Spivak, and deftly shows how the post-modern approach need not represent the Dark Side of political philosophy – as many liberals seem to think – but can in fact illuminate liberal thought. Moreover, Hirschmann deals with many feminist theorists and arguments, and the book will be of great interest to those interested in contemporary feminist theory. Finally, Hirschmann's case studies, and her approach in general, are of key relevance to the multiculturalism debate. In short, this book deserves to be widely read.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 255, £15.95, ISBN 0 521 79404 8
Readership: Undergraduates, advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research professional
Rating: ****
Reviewer: STAMATOULA PANAGAKOU (University of York)
This edited volume contains rigorous arguments for the revitalisation of liberalism by its own unjustifiably neglected resources. In drawing on the philosophy of Bosanquet, Dewey, Green, Hobhouse, Hobson and Ritchie, the contributors emphasise the narrowness of contemporary analytic liberal philosophy and endeavour to strengthen liberalism by reintroducing the new liberalism discourse. The reconciliation of liberty and community achieved by the new liberals can instruct and enrich contemporary liberalism.
In their introduction, Simhony and Weinstein outline the aims of the book and explain the merits of the new liberalism. Freeden attacks the ahistorical perspective of contemporary liberalism and argues that the new liberals developed sophisticated versions of community and anticipated recent liberal theorising. Gaus explores the relation between a non-individualistic social metaphysic and economic individualism in Bosanquet's philosophy, and claims that Bosanquet offers a sound justificatory basis for a communitarian liberalism which is economically individualistic. Martin argues that Green's notion of individual rights is compatible with the common good and structures his analysis around the idea of an institutionally justified right of each and all found in a democratic society. Morrow shows that the new liberals' defence of property rights refers to a common good affirming the social nature of the individual's self-realisation. Property relates to the individual's puruit of a personal good understood in association with a common good. Simhony argues that Green's complex notion of common good transcends the liberal-communitarian debate and conceptualises an authentic synthesis that extends liberalism. Weinstein holds that Green, Hobhouse and Ritchie were perfectionist consequentialist liberals and demonstrates how, in contrast to contemporary liberals, the new liberals accommodated communitarian and utilitarian principles in their theorisation. Meadowcroft, Ryan and Vincent complete the list of contributors.
This book addresses serious issues concerning the present and future of liberalism and warns scholars of the dangers involved in adopting a monolithic approach to the study of liberal thought. The analytic perspective has impoverished the understanding of liberalism and made it vulnerable to the communitarian attack. The new liberalism represents both a theory and a method stemming from the liberal tradition itself which can revitalise contemporary liberalism. The New Liberalism successfully challenges received views and asks for a comprehensive retrieval of the unfairly neglected resources of liberal thought.
Baltimore MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2001. 416, $19.95 ISBN 0 8018 6842 4
Reviewer: HANS KEMAN (Virje Universiteit Amsterdam)
The editors of this volume claim that, ten years after the so-called ‘third wave’ of democratisation, the expanse of democracy is characterized by stability and variations in terms of qualitative consolidation. This observation is supported by data that show the electoral features are prevalent across all democracies but less as regards the establishment of political and civil rights in the new democracies. The issue at stake is therefore how and in what way the qualitative process of democratisation can be enhanced in the direction of fully fledged democratic performance.
Part one contains political philosophical chapters by Sen, Fukuyama and Sartori. The basic idea is that the liberal values enshrined in most democratic constitutions are compatible with, or at least not by definition contradictory to, Confucianism, Buddhism or Islam. Sartori is more sceptical and stresses the condition that basic human rights should be adequately respected. These essays are thought-provoking at best, wishful thinking at worst. Part two is a report of the ongoing debate on ‘consolidation’ as an essentially contested concept. The core of this part is a debate between Stepan and Linz and O'Donnell. Schedler advocates a simple solution: consolidation is present where there is no breakdown or erosion. Whether this is analytically helpful remains to be seen.
Part three focuses on the foundations of successful democracies. Przeworski, Alvarez, Cheibub and Limongi elaborate on the everlasting hypothesis of Lipset as regards democracy and economic development. Other chapters address institutional features and related performances. Mainwaring discusses the stabilising impact of party systems, whereas Elklit and Svensson argue that the quality of (free and fair) elections enhances participation. The remainder of part three is devoted to institutionalising politics under problematic conditions. Part four begins with Pharr, Putnam and Dalton on the role of social capital and trust, while Diamond finishes the volume by asking to what extent ‘swinging states’ – swinging between democratic and authoritarian rule – matter. Obviously they do, and the swing toward democracy depends largely on the states' capacities to control corruption, foster a market economy and manage cleavage-related divisions. As with other contributions, this is hardly analytical.
Tis volume contains a number of interesting essays on democratisation. Some are analytically strong, others are certainly interesting, but tend to be rather prescriptive in their argument. This is perhaps the collection's main problem: it considers liberal democracy, often simply defined as polyarchy, as the only possible and correct measure of the third wave of democratisation.
Political Theory
New books received
Eve Adler (2003) Vergil's Empire: political thought in the Aeneid. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 367, £22.95, ISBN 0 7425 2167 2
John Agnew, Katharyne Mitchell and Gerard Toal (eds) (2003) A Companion to Political Geography. Oxford: Blackwell, 508, £60.00, ISBN 0 631 22031 3
Michael Albert (2003) Parecon: life after capitalism. London: Verso, 311, £16.00, ISBN 1 85984 698 X
Gabriel A. Almond (2002) Ventures in Political Science: narratives and reflections. Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner, 245, £16.50, ISBN 1 58826 080 1
Robert J. Antonio (ed.) (2003) Marx and Modernity: key readings and commentary. Oxford: Blackwell, 418, £15.99, ISBN 0 631 22550 1
Barrie Axford, Gary K. Browning, Richard Huggins and Ben Rosamond (2002) Politics: an introduction. Second edition. London: Routledge, 619, £18.99, ISBN 0 415 22642 2
Roland Axtmann (ed.) (2003) Understanding Democratic Politics: an introduction. London: Sage, 350, £19.99, ISBN 0 7619 7183 1
Gary Banham (2003) Kant's Practical Philosophy: from critique to doctrine. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 280, £50.00, ISBN 0 333 99399 3
Bat-Ami Bar On (2002) The Subject of Violence: Arendtean exercises in understanding. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 216, £18.95, ISBN 0 8476 9771 1
Robert J. Barro (2002) Nothing is Sacred: economic ideas for the new millennium. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 200, £16.50, ISBN 0 262 02526 4
Richard Bellamy and Andrew Mason (eds) (2003) Political Concepts. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 253, £14.99, ISBN 0 7190 5909 7
Robin Blackburn (2002) Banking on Death. Or, Investing in Life: the history and future of pensions. London: Verso, 560, £25.00, ISBN 1 85984 795 1
Paul Blackledge and Graeme Kirkpatrick (eds) (2002) Historical Materialism and Social Evolution. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 252, £47.50, ISBN 0 333 99562 7
Georgina Blakeley and Valerie Bryson (eds) (2002) Contemporary Political Concepts: a critical introduction. London: Pluto, 236, £13.99, ISBN 0 7453 1796 0
Sophie Body-Gendrot and Marilyn Gittell (eds) (2003) Social Capital and Social Citizenship. Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 204, £50.00, ISBN 0 7391 0523 X
David Boucher and Paul Kelly (eds) (2003) Political Thinkers: from Socrates to the present. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 564, £19.99, ISBN 0 19 878194 6
Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur (eds) (2003) Theorizing Diaspora: a reader. Malden MA: Blackwell, 355, £16.99, ISBN 0 631 23392 X
Neil Brenner, Bob Jessop, Martin Jones and Gordon MacLeod (eds) (2003) State/Space: a reader. Oxford: Blackwell, 365, £17.99, ISBN 0 631 23034 3
Albert Breton, Gianluigi Galeotti, Pierre Salmon and Ronald Wintrobe (eds) (2002) Political Extremism and Rationality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 261, £45.00, ISBN 0 521 80441 8
Peter Bull (2003) The Microanalysis of Political Communication: claptrap and ambiguity. London: Routledge, 234, £58.00, ISBN 0 415 27382 X
David Carvounas (2002) Diverging Time: the politics of modernity in Kant, Hegel, and Marx. Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 136, £16.95, ISBN 0 7391 0373 3
Cornelius Castoriadis [translated by David Ames Curtis] (2002) On Plato's Statesman. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 255, £42.95, ISBN 0 8047 4145 X
Carlo Cattaneo [edited with an afterword by Marco Vitale and translated by Ruggero di Palma Castiglione] (2003) Intelligence as a Principle of Public Economy. Second language edition. Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 158, £46.00, ISBN 0 7391 0487 X
Tony Coady and Michael O'Keefe (eds) (2002) Terrorism and Justice: moral argument in a threatened world. Carlton South: Melbourne University Press, 160, $24.95, ISBN 0 522 85049 9
David Coates (ed.) (2002) Models of Capitalism: debating strengths and weaknesses. 3 volumes. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1,680, £365.00, ISBN 1 84064 440 0
Daniel Cohen (2003) Our Modern Times: the new nature of capitalism in the information age. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 126, £16.50, ISBN 0 262 03302 X
Jean-Marc Coicaud [translated by David Ames Curtis] (2002) Legitimacy and Politics: a contribution to the study of political right and political responsibility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 287, £18.95, ISBN 0 521 78782 3
William E. Connolly (2002) Identity/Difference: democratic negotiations of political paradox. Expanded edition. Minneapolis MN: University of Minnesota Press, 276, £16.50, ISBN 0 8166 4086 6
William E. Connolly (2002) Neuropolitics: thinking, culture, speed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 234, £16.50, ISBN 0 8166 4022 X
Rosemary Cowan (2003) Cornel West: the politics of redemption. Cambridge: Polity, 216, ISBN 0 7456 2493 6
Justin Cruickshank (ed.) (2003) Critical Realism: the difference that it makes. London: Routledge, 258, £60.00, ISBN 0 415 30598 5
Pamela Davies, Peter Francis and Victor Jupp (eds) (2003) Victimisation: theory, research and policy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 197, £45.00, ISBN 0 333 92501 7
Peter Davies and Derek Lynch (2002) The Routledge Companion to Fascism and the Far Right. London: Routledge, 440, £14.99, ISBN 0 415 21495 5
Steve Davis, Larry Elin and Grant Reeher (2002) Click on Democracy: the internet's power to change political apathy into civic action. Boulder CO: Westview, 317, £19.99, ISBN 0 8133 4005 5
Jacques Derrida [translated, edited and with commentary by Peter Pericles Trifonas] (2002) Ethics, Institutions, and the Right to Philosophy. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 124, £12.95, ISBN 0 7425 0903 6
James A. Dewar (2002) Assumption-based Planning: a tool for reducing avoidable surprises. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 266, £16.95, ISBN 0 521 00126 9
Betty A. Dobratz, Timothy Buzzell and Lisa K. Waldner (eds) (2002) Theoretical Directions in Political Sociology for the 21st Century. Oxford: Elsevier Science, 250, €86.00, ISBN 0 7623 0865 6
Douglas Dowd (ed.) (2002) Understanding Capitalism: critical analysis from Karl Marx to Amartya Sen. London: Pluto, 183, £15.99, ISBN 0 7453 1782 0
Alistair Edwards and Jules Townshend (eds) (2002) Interpreting Modern Political Philosophy: from Machiavelli to Marx. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 249, £15.99, ISBN 0 333 77242 3
Eldon J. Eisenach (2002) Narrative Power and Liberal Truth: Hobbes, Locke, Bentham, and Mill. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 245, £18.95, ISBN 0 7425 0791 2
Greg Elmer (ed.) (2002) Critical Perspectives on the Internet. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 230, £20.95, ISBN 0 7425 1132 4
John Burt Foster Jr and Wayne J. Froman (2002) Thresholds of Western Culture: identity, postcoloniality, transnationalism. London: Continuum, 282, £19.99, ISBN 0 8264 6001 1
Antonio Franceschet (2002) Kant and Liberal Internationalism: sovereignty, justice, and global reform. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 176, £35.00, ISBN 0 312 29617 7
Michael Freeman (2002) Human Rights: an interdisciplinary approach. Cambridge: Polity, 211, £14.99, ISBN 0 7456 2356 5
Chaim Gans (2003) The Limits of Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 202, £15.95, ISBN 0 521 00467 5
Graeme Garrard (2003) Rousseau's Counter-Enlightenment: a republican critique of the Philosophes. Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 206, $20.95, ISBN 0 7914 5604 8
Marius de Geus (2003) The End of Over-consumption: towards a lifestyle of moderation and self-restraint. Utrecht: International Books, 222, £13.95, ISBN 90 5727 046 3
Ananta Kumar Giri [with an introduction by Fred Dallmayr] (2002) Conversations and Transformations: toward a new ethics of self and society. Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 373, £20.95, ISBN 0 7391 0322 9
Gary Goertz and Harvey Starr (eds) (2003) Necessary Conditions: theory, methodology, and applications. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 356, £24.95, ISBN 0 7425 1926 0
Jeff Goodwin and James M. Jasper (eds) (2003) The Social Movements Reader: cases and concepts. Oxford: Blackwell, 406, £16.99, ISBN 0 631 22196 4
Trudy Govier (2002) A Delicate Balance: what philosophy can tell us about terrorism. Boulder CO: Westview, 186, £14.99, ISBN 0 8133 6585 6
Gordon Graham (2002) The Case against the Democratic State. Thorverton: Imprint Academic, 98, £8.95, ISBN 0 90784538 X
Robin Hahnel (2002) The ABCs of Political Economy: a modern approach. London: Pluto, 320, ISBN 0 7453 1857 6
Joseph Harper and Thom Yantek (eds) (2003) Media, Profit, and Politics: competing priorities in an open society. Kent OH: Kent State University Press, 310, $22.00, ISBN 0 87338 754 6
Martin Heidegger [translated by Ted Sadler] (2002) The Essence of Human Freedom: an introduction to philosophy. London: Continuum, 230, £16.99, ISBN 0 8264 5924 2
Ludger Helms (2002) Politische Opposition: Theorie und Praxis in westlichen Regierungssystemen. Opladen: Leske & Budrich, EUR 9.90, 212, ISBN 3 8252 2242 X
Andrew Herod and Melissa W. Wright (eds) (2002) Geographies of Power: placing scale. Oxford: Blackwell, 327, £16.99, ISBN 0 6312 2558 7
Andrew Heywood (2003) Political Ideologies: an introduction. Third edition. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 400, £17.50, ISBN 0 333 96178 1
John P. Hittinger (2002) Liberty, Wisdom, and Grace: Thomism and democratic political theory. Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 340, £19.95, ISBN 0 7391 0412 8
Barry Holden (2002) Democracy and Global Warming. London: Continuum, 194, £25.00, ISBN 0 8264 5070 9
Bonnie Honig (2003) Democracy and the Foreigner. Paperback edition. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 222, £11.95, ISBN 0 691 11476 5
Bonnie Honig and David R. Mapel (eds) (2002) Skepticism, Individuality, and Freedom: the reluctant liberalism of Richard Flathman. Minneapolis MN: University of Minnesota Press, 293, £19.00, ISBN 0 8166 3970 1
John D. Huber and Charles R. Shipan (2002) Deliberate Discretion? The institutional foundations of bureaucratic autonomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 300, £17.95, ISBN 0 521 52070 3
Owen E. Hughes (2003) Public Management and Administration: an introduction. Third edition. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 311, £18.99, ISBN 0 333 96188 9
Mathew Humphrey (2002) Preservation versus the People? Nature, humanity, and political philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 224, £40.00, ISBN 0 19 924267 4
Michael Humphrey (2002) The Politics of Atrocity and Reconciliation: from terror to trauma. London: Routledge, 190, £55.00, ISBN 0 415 27413 3
David Hurst (2003) On Westernism: an ideology's bid for world dominion. Reading: Hartley, 508, £24.00, ISBN 0 9511164 2 8
Luce Irigaray [translated by Heidi Bostic and Stephen Pluháček] (2002) The Way of Love. London: Continuum, 196, £16.99, ISBN 0 8264 5982 X
Engin F. Isin and Bryan S. Turner (eds) (2002) Handbook of Citizenship Studies. London: Sage, 352, £75.00, ISBN 0 7619 6858 X
Bob Jessop (2002) The Future of the Capitalist State. Cambridge: Polity, 343, £17.99, ISBN 0 7456 2273 9
Hans Joas [translated by Rodney Livingstone] (2003) War and Modernity. Cambridge: Polity, 256, £15.99, ISBN 0 7456 2645 9
Bernd Kasemir, Jill Jäger, Carlo C. Jaeger and Matthew T. Gardner [forewords by William C. Clark and Alexander Wokaun] (2003) Public Participation in Sustainability Science: a handbook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 311, £17.95, ISBN 0 521 52144 0
Edward Keene (2002) Beyond the Anarchical Society: Grotius, colonialism and order in world politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 179, £15.95, ISBN 0 521 00801 8
Paul Kelly (ed.) (2002) Multiculturalism Reconsidered: Culture and Equality and its critics. Cambridge: Polity, 253, ISBN 0 7456 2794 3
Gavin Kitching and Nigel Pleasants (eds) (2002) Marx and Wittgenstein: knowledge, morality and politics. London: Routledge, 317, £65.00, ISBN 0 415 24775 6
George Klosko (2003) Jacobins and Utopians: the political theory of fundamental moral reform. Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 212, $17.00, ISBN 0 268 03258 0
Dudley Knowles (2002) Hegel and the Philosophy of Right. London: Routledge, 400, £8.99, ISBN 0 415 16578 4
Jan Kooiman (2003) Governing as Governance. London: Sage, 261, £22.00, ISBN 0 7619 4036 7
Stathis Kouvelakis [preface by Fredric Jameson and translated by G. M. Goshgarian] (2003) Philosophy and Revolution: from Kant to Marx. London: Verso, 448, £17.00, ISBN 1 85984 471 5
James H. Kuklinski (ed.) (2002) Thinking about Political Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 364, £45.00, ISBN 0 521 59377 8
Andrew Levine (2003) A Future for Marxism? Althusser, the analytical turn and the revival of socialist theory. London: Pluto, 200, £15.99, ISBN 0 7453 1987 4
Andrew Light and Avner De-Shalit (eds) (2003) Moral and Political Reasoning in Environmental Practice. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 365, £18.50, ISBN 0 262 62164 9
Ruth Lister (2003) Citizenship: feminist perspectives. Second edition. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 335, £18.99, ISBN 0 333 94820 3
I. M. D. Little (2002) Ethics, Economics, and Politics: principles of public policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 178, £18.99, ISBN 0 19 925704 3
J. Harvey Lomax (2003) The Paradox of Philosophical Education: Nietzsche's new nobility and the eternal recurrence in Beyond Good and Evil. Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 145, £14.95, ISBN 0 7391 0477 2
George E. McCarthy (2003) Classical Horizons: the origins of sociology in ancient Greece. Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 212, $21.95, ISBN 0 7914 5564 5
John P. McCormick (ed.) (2002) Confronting Mass Democracy and Industrial Technology: political and social theory from Nietzsche to Habermas. Durham NC: Duke University Press, 368, £16.95, ISBN 0 8223 2788 0
Colm McKeogh (2002) Innocent Civilians: the morality of killing in war. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 209, £45.00, ISBN 0 333 97237 6
Catriona McKinnon (2002) Liberalism and the Defence of Political Constructivism. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 201, £45.00, ISBN 0 333 96507 8
Catriona McKinnon and Dario Castiglione (eds) (2003) The Culture of Toleration in Diverse Societies: reasonable tolerance. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 222, £45.00, ISBN 0 7190 6232 2
Philippe J. Maarek and Gadi Wolfsfeld (eds) (2003) Political Communication in a New Era: a cross-national perspective. London: Routledge, 208, £55.00, ISBN 0 415 28953 X
John Hope Mason (2003) The Value of Creativity: the origins and emergence of a modern belief. Aldershot: Ashgate, 316, £47.50, ISBN 0 7546 0760 7
John Stuart Mill [edited by David Bromwich and George Kateb] (2003) On Liberty. New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 259, £7.50, ISBN 0 3000 09610 0
Martha Minow [introduced and with commentaries edited by Nancy L. Rosenblum] (2003) Breaking the Cycles of Hatred: memory, law, and repair. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 302, £11.95, ISBN 0 691 09663 5
Michael Mintrom (2003) People Skills for Policy Analysts. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 280, £17.95, ISBN 0 87840 900 9
Antonio Negri [translated by Matteo Mandarini] (2003) Time for Revolution. London: Continuum, 304, £16.99, ISBN 0 8264 5931 5
Lars Osberg (ed.) The Economic Implications of Social Cohesion. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 250, £42.00, ISBN 0 8020 3736 4
Peter Osborne and Stella Sandford (eds) (2002) Philosophies of Race and Ethnicity. London: Continuum, 230, £16.99, ISBN 0 8264 5994 3
Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred D. Miller Jr and Jeffrey Paul (eds) (2002) Should Differences in Income and Wealth Matter? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 371, £15.95, ISBN 0 521 00535 3
Huib Pellikaan and Robert J. van der Veen (2002) Environmental Dilemmas and Policy Design. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 261, £16.95, ISBN 0 521 62764 8
Jiří Přibáň (2002) Dissidents of Law: on the 1989 velvet revolutions, legitimations, fictions of legality and contemporary version of the social contract. Aldershot: Ashgate Dartmouth, 244, £50.00, ISBN 0 7546 2284 3
Monroe E. Price (2002) Media and Sovereignty: the global information revolution and its challenge to state power. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 327, £19.95, ISBN 0 262 16211 3
Thomas Princen, Michael Maniates and Ken Conca (eds) (2002) Confronting Consumption. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 392, £18.50, ISBN 0 262 66128 4
Andrew Reynolds (ed.) (2002) The Architecture of Democracy: constitutional design, conflict management, and democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 529, £47.50, ISBN 0 19 924645 9
Henry S. Richardson (2002) Democratic Autonomy: public reasoning about the ends of policy. New York: Oxford University Press, 326, £19.99, ISBN 0 19 515090 2
Chris Rojek (2003) Stuart Hall. Cambridge: Polity, 244, £14.99, ISBN 0 7456 2481 2
David Rose and David J. Pevalin (eds) (2003) A Researcher's Guide to the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification. London: Sage, 296, £55.00, ISBN 0 7619 7322 2
Alfredo Saad-Filho (ed.) (2003) Anti-Capitalism: a Marxist introduction. London: Pluto, 276, £14.99, ISBN 0 7453 1893 2
Susan E. Scarrow (ed.) (2002) Perspectives on Political Parties: classic readings. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 276, £13.99, ISBN 0 312 29523 5
John Schwarzmantel (2003) Citizenship and Identity: towards a new republic. London: Routledge, 196, £50.00, ISBN 0 415 24413 7
David Schweickart (2002) After Capitalism. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 216, £17.95, ISBN 0 7425 1300 9
Quentin Skinner (2002) Visions of Politics. Three volume set. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, £47.95, ISBN 0 521 89075 6
B. C. Smith (2003) Understanding Third World Politics: theories of political change and development. Second edition. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 331, £17.99, ISBN 0 333 98654 7
T. Alexander Smith and Raymond Tatalovich (2003) Cultures at War: moral conflicts in Western democracies. Ontario: Broadview, 302, £14.99, ISBN 1 55111 334 1
Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood (2003) Tragedy and Athenian Religion. Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 565, £20.95, ISBN 0 7391 0400 4
Thomas Sowell (2002) A Conflict of Visions: ideological origins of political struggles. New York: Basic, 304, £12.99, ISBN 0 465 08142 8
Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern (2002) Violence: theory and ethnography. London: Continuum, 202, £19.99, ISBN 0 8264 6008 9
John W. Storey and Glenn H. Utter (2002) Religion and Politics: a reference handbook. Santa Barbara CA: ABC-CLIO, 355, £29.95, ISBN 1 57607 218 5
Karen Struening (2002) New Family Values: liberty, equality, diversity. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 237, £17.95, ISBN 0 7425 1231 2
William D. Sunderlin (2003) Ideology, Social Theory, and the Environment. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 271, £20.95, ISBN 0 7425 1970 8
Marilyn Taylor (2003) Public Policy in the Community. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 279, £16.99, ISBN 0 333 75425 5
Nicholas Thoburn (2003) Deleuze, Marx and Politics. London: Routledge, 223, £55.00, ISBN 0 415 28275 6
Charles Tilly (2002) Stories, Identities, and Political Change. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 273, £22.95, ISBN 0 7425 1882 5
Mark Timmons (2002) Moral Theory: an introduction. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 301, ISBN 0 8476 9768 1
Cris E. Toffolo (ed.) (2003) Emancipating Cultural Pluralism. Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 292, $25.95, ISBN 0 7914 5598 X
George Tsebelis (2002) Veto Players: how political institutions work. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 334, £13.95, ISBN 0 691 09989 8
Roy Tseng (2003) The Sceptical Idealist: Michael Oakeshott as a critic of the Enlightenment. Thorverton: Imprint Academic, 312, £25.00, ISBN 0 90784522 3
J. P. S. Uberoi (2002) The European Modernity: science, truth and method. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 143, £15.99, ISBN 0 19 565547 8
Eric M. Uslaner (2002) The Moral Foundations of Trust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 311, £16.95, ISBN 0 521 01103 5
Thomas J. Edward Walker (ed.) (2002) Illusive Identity: the blurring of working-class consciousness in modern Western culture. 210, £18.95, ISBN 0 7391 0348 2
Frederick S. Weaver (2002) Economic Literacy: basic economics with an attitude. Lanham MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 256, £14.95, ISBN 0 7425 1667 9
Carol Weisbrod (2002) Emblems of Pluralism: cultural differences and the state. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 232, £12.95, ISBN 0 691 08925 6
Kerry H. Whiteside (2002) Divided Natures: French contributions to political ecology. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press, 333, £16.95, ISBN 0 262 73147 9
Muhammad Qasim Zaman (2002) The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: custodians of change. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 308, £19.95, ISBN 0 691 09680 5
Michael P. Zuckert (2002) Launching Liberalism: on Lockean political philosophy. Lawrence KS: University Press of Kansas, 386, $19.95, ISBN 0 7006 1174 6