Abstract
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 257, £16.95/$23.00, ISBN 0 521 01212 0
Readership: Postgraduates, academic/research
Rating: ***
Reviewer: BEN O'LOUGHLIN (New College, University of Oxford)
Beginning with Benjamin Franklin's assertion that ‘nothing in this world is certain but death and taxes’, this book makes a useful case for bringing uncertainty into studies of US politics and political science generally. Quite simply, uncertainty is at the very origin of political life – along with basic ideological differences, uncertainty is present at the root of all disputes, making who gets what, when, where and how (in Lasswell's words) so very contentious. Bureaucrats do not know whether their budgets will allow them to implement policies decided by governments unsure of what their (rationally) ignorant citizens want. Politics is a mess, and the measure of this book is whether it succeeds in demonstrating how that mess can be rendered more intelligible by operationalising the concept of uncertainty.
The book makes a solid start. Like ‘ideas’, uncertainty is such a ubiquitous phenomenon, inbuilt somehow into preference formation, that analytical precision is required. Of nine chapters focusing on institutional and electoral politics, perhaps the most successful (by Matthew Dickinson) shows how the White House staff has multiplied as a response to rising uncertainty – not uncertainty as a single variable, but as a set of changing conditions. With less control of nomination processes and elections, social fragmentation and media domination, presidents need greater expertise to manage greater uncertainty.
The moment we concede that governments, parties and voters are not certain, politics suddenly becomes a much richer field of study. This was the lesson of Down's Economic Theory of Democracy. If nobody is certain of much, then leadership, persuasion and ideology enter our horizon of interest; yet in an era of unprecedented information and opinion polls, decision-making becomes even more contentious, and leadership, persuasion and ideology more important. This book fills an important gap, then – and in the process, points us to more fertile ground.
Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. 240, £17.95, ISBN 0 7425 1906 6
Readership: Advanced undergraduates
Rating: *****
Reviewer: DAVID DENEMARK (University of Western Australia)
Using detailed content analyses of television news coverage of the 1988, 1992, 1996 and 2000 US presidential election campaigns, the authors of this book present a compelling, though occasionally overly prescriptive, case for network television as an increasingly unsatisfactory informational channel between voters and the candidates from whom they must choose. Carefully and regularly setting an analytic framework in the literature on media effects and media coverage of politics, they show that these four elections are merely the most recent in the networks’ ever-worsening trend of briefer overall coverage, more abbreviated sound-bites, deepening preoccupation on the ‘horse-race’, not issues, and increasing reliance on ‘mediated’ accounts by reporters while all but ignoring candidates’ direct campaign statements.
Though the three main commercial TV networks (CBS, NBC and ABC) continue to represent political information vehicles for significant numbers of voters and, thus, remain vital reference points for candidates’ campaigns, the authors show that voters are increasingly turning to cable-based news media and informal, talk-oriented shows for their election cues, and a small but growing minority have turned to the web. The result is an increasingly marginalized network television medium that nonetheless continues to produce trivialized coverage, despite many voters’ desires for more detailed, issue-based and unbiased reporting and candidate messages that are often far more informative than the network TV reports convey. As Public Broadcasting's NewsHour, major newspapers and even CNN's Prime News are argued to present fairer, more satisfying campaign coverage, the solution for network TV, the authors contend, is hour-long news programs, with detailed segments devoted to election issues. The trick, though, which they don't address, is how to entice low-informed, swinging voters – who hold the key to election outcomes – to avail themselves of in-depth coverage of a political process they tend to view with disdain.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. 240, £17.99, ISBN 0 19 515277 8
Readership: Advanced undergraduates
Rating: ****
Reviewer: DAVID DENEMARK (University of Western Australia)
This book use extensive, if occasionally wordy, case studies of press coverage during the 2000 American presidential election and of the terrorist attacks in September 2001 to evaluate the press in its roles as framers of politics for the benefit of the public and as ‘custodians of fact’ in a world of political deception. Overall, the authors contend, the press regularly succumbs to unsubstantiated reporting, to acricital patriotism, to unwarranted electoral soothsaying and to a focus on candidate character assessment rather than critical analysis of the candidates’ issue stances. Perhaps most compelling of their contentions, the rise of TV is argued to have propelled an ‘amateur psychologist’ orientation for campaign coverage, in which journalists assess the ‘real’ person behind the candidate's performance. This has freed the press from the onus of factual accuracy, since personality, not issues and policy, become the basis of analysis, and it has prompted increasingly image-conscious politicians to emphasize their ‘sincerity’ and ‘authenticity’ at the expense of substance.
The authors also take the press to task for its rising preoccupation with electoral prediction – ‘projections as truth’ that came back to haunt the American media in the 2000 presidential election, when erroneous exit-poll data led to a succession of embarrassing reversals, given the knife-edge result. Then, in the weeks that followed election day, as the Florida recount was taken up in the courts, the press widely conveyed the Republicans’ contention that Bush had won the election – virtually universally trumpeted late on election night – and that Gore and the Democrats would do anything to ‘overturn the election’. The result, the authors argue perhaps ambitiously, was the creation of public opinion that freed the US Supreme Court's conservative majority to pursue its agenda by declaring an end to the election, with Bush the victor.
Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003. 171, £22.95, ISBN 0 691 11416 1
Readership: Advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research
Rating: ****
Reviewer: PAT LYONS (Charles University, Prague)
The key question addressed in this book is why do politicians worry about their voting records if most of their constituents are unaware of their legislative activities? The simple answer given here is that politicians ensure that voters do not need to pay attention to politics by being responsive to their policy preferences.
Looking at the 1992 Senate elections, the author finds that voters who had particular policy preferences were more aware of their incumbent senator's legislative record in such domains. Also, citizens with specific policy interests (for example, race, labour, defense or abortion) tended to be more attentive to such issues if raised in a campaign. Although some voters do express preferences on the basis of issues they care about, this relationship is context dependent. Citizens with intense issue preferences will vote on the basis of such preferences regardless of whether an issue is raised in a campaign. For citizens with a moderate interest in an issue, the very presence or absence of this issue in a campaign will determine whether they issue-vote or default to habit. Significantly, if policies that voters care about are raised in an election, this may not lead to higher turnout. Participation will decline if voters are faced with contests where the candidate and party they prefer support an anathema policy position. In sum, democratic representation works when voters, media and elites all see the same issues as being important.
This book is clearly written where the empirical evidence is marshalled in a succinct and logical way. Although one might quibble about limitations in the data used, and consequently some of the generality of the thesis presented, the innovative use of attitudinal and contextual data makes this a very useful starting point for future research in the fields of public opinion and electoral behaviour.
London: I. B. Tauris, 2003. 421, £24.95, ISBN 1 86064 889 4
Reviewer: IRENE GENDZIER (Boston University)
In a work that covers close to six decades in the history of US involvement in the Middle East, the author aims to provide readers with an introduction to the main themes that have dominated US policy in the region. In doing so, he offers a cultural as well as political and economic analysis of US policy, one that reviews the commercial expansion of US oil interests and the accompanying extension of US power, against a background of Arab and Iranian nationalist, reformist and radical movements of the 1950s through the present.
Blunt in his description of the American response to post-Second World War transformations in North Africa and the Middle East, which resulted in overt and covert US intervention across the region in an attempt to secure its interests, the author echoes Alexis de Tocqueville's views regarding the antipathy of Americans toward social revolution as an explanation. It is one that his own interpretation amplifies with accounts of US policies, including those that relied on regional powers, such as Israel, to contain Arab radicalism.
The author introduces his wide-ranging account in terms of ‘Orientalism, American Style’. Borrowing the term from Edward Said's critique of deeply rooted and self-serving stereotypes of the Arab and Islamic worlds used to justify imperialism, he points to the continued reproduction of such stereotypes in the mainstream US media and Hollywood. The impact of such distortion for the legitimation of US policy at the domestic as well as foreign policy levels since 9/11 persists. Among its latest manifestations, as of summer–fall 2003, is an effort to win congressional approval to legislate control over the use government funds for the study of the Middle East. HR 3077 promises to promote ‘Orientalism, American Style’.
Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. 178, £18.95, ISBN 0 7425 2553 8
Reviewer: MADS H. QVORTRUP (Robert Gordon University)
Combining the insights of the practical world of election campaigns (in America) with insights of political science literature, the author succeeds in combining scholarly curiosity with strategic advise for would-be successful electoral candidates. The book presents an overview of how political candidates (and in particular, their henchmen) use and, occasionally, abuse the arts of polling to gauge the voters’ views in order to shape their policies in ways that appeal to the views of the electorate. This is a useful overview – though one could perhaps have wished that the author spent more time considering the ethical issues that follow from ‘designer-politics’.
The book is chronologically organised. It outlines the different phases of campaigns, from so-called benchmark polls to last-minute polling on election day. Referring to the empirical literature on political science and spiced with case studies and examples, this is a good read, and one that dispels some of the myths conjured up by the media's obsession with spin. The weakness of the book is that it makes a rather selective use of psehological literature. There are no references to, say, VP-functions, let alone other paradigms of electoral choice – for example, issue voting, class analysis or the Michigan school.
The book presents essentially an activist approach to elections, one in which successful campaigning is key to winning an election. This might well be the case, yet it would have been useful – and more scholarly – had the author compared his approach to the more structural theories. Michael S. Lewis Beck and David Sanders have shown that elections in America, Britain and France tend to be referendums on the macro-economy. It is difficult to square this view with this book's analysis. They can't both be right, or can they?
Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 2002. 365, $22.95, ISBN 0 8157 0631 6
Reviewer: NIALL PALMER (Brunel University)
This report makes fascinating reading for those with deep concerns about the state of the American electoral process. It provides useful data, clear summaries and recommendations and ‘concurring’ and ‘dissenting’ opinions as clues to philosophical divisions within the commission itself. A broad range of issues are tackled here, including, for example, the need to ensure that convicted felons who have served their sentences are re-enfranchised. Failure to do so, it is suggested, may become a tool for reducing minority group influence at the polls. The report also recommends a national holiday to coincide with the November election as a measure to increase turnout. With a touching regard for corporate profit margins, the commission suggests the Veterans’ Day holiday for this purpose.
Commendably, the authors swim against the tide of fashionable opinion in its negative views on internet and early voting. Though higher turnout is the goal of reformers in this area, the ‘civic significance’ of Election Day, it is argued, should not be diluted by spreading voting times over weeks or months, particularly when the reform is, in fact, a simple cost-cutting exercise. This is a fair point. ‘Vote Now, Don't Wait Till November’ would become, inevitably, the slogan for candidates anxious to secure a mandate before the delayed release of bad economic news, a disastrous gaffe or before an ‘October Surprise’ turns voters’ heads. Significantly, a clear warning over the dangers of internet fraud is issued here. Although current practices are far from perfect, the centralisation of vote-counting in the hands of state and local officials provides a degree of accountability that may be lost if counting is conducted by computer systems vulnerable to hackers and controlled by corporations that make donations to one, or both, parties. Computer voting, the report warns, is ‘an idea whose time most certainly has not yet come’ (p. 44).
In one area, the commission disappoints. Although it offers clear reasons for avoiding the issue of reform or abolition of the Electoral College, such a fundamental concern must be addressed by a ‘national’ commission. The authors should really have bitten the bullet on this one, even if only to explore options. Failure to do so reduces the clout of the enquiry and, inevitably, dulls the impact of the report for politicians and voters alike.
Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. 217, £12.99, ISBN 0 631 2289 50
Readership: Undergraduates, advanced undergraduates
Rating: *****
Reviewer: STEPHEN WELCH (University of Durham)
This textbook, designed as a companion volume to McKay's American Politics and Society (though certainly usable on its own), adds effectively to the resources of the teacher of American politics, as it expressly sets out to tackle many of the topics that make American politics fascinating and attractive to students. This is especially true of the second of its two parts (‘Policies’), where live political and ethical debates such as gun control and abortion are examined. The first part (‘Institutions and processes’), which discusses topics such as the imperial presidency and the recent politics of the Supreme Court, is somewhat less distinctive, though its chapters are informative and offer cogent introductory summaries.
The book as a whole does a good job of capturing the peculiarities of American politics – the ways in which, despite outward similarities, its ongoing conduct and specific foci of attention surprise and puzzle the non-American, particularly European, observer. It does not concern itself much with the explanation of that distinctiveness, the historical summaries contained in many of the chapters being fairly brief. If political theory and its study of ideologies offer any clues to America's political peculiarities, these are not very thoroughly addressed here. But the book's focus is on description, and in place of historical or theoretical depth it offers a very comprehensive survey of issues and debates, an excellent starting point for students progressing beyond knowledge of the basic institutional framework.
The precise selection of topics in a book such as this depends, as the authors admit, on the accidents of their own expertise. As it happens, coverage is quite thorough. Through no fault of their own, they have been overtaken by events that make parts of the foreign-policy-oriented chapters seem questionable: this area will clearly be the main focus of revision should a second edition become possible. Overall, although not a complete guide to American political controversy, it is a very useful introduction to it, its high level of readability and somewhat distinctive subject matter making it a strong recommendation for undergraduate teaching.
Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2003. 556, £22.95, ISBN 0 262 54147 5
Readership: Undergraduates, advanced undergraduates
Rating: ****
Reviewer: YVES LABERGE (University of Laval, Quebec)
This book is composed of 74 excerpts from books, articles and documents related to democracy – from historical, political and sociological perspectives. It is divided into nine sections: definitions; sources; culture; constitutionalism; presidentialism versus parliamentalism; representation; interest groups; democracy's effects; and global order.
Texts selected include classic figures by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Alexis de Tocqueville, Joseph Schumpeter and Marquis de Condorcet and many pieces from The Federalist. But there are also recent and accurate analysis on these founding essays: a piece by Rogers Smith that goes beyond Tocqueville to find the multiple traditions in the US; and another essay by A. S. Tangian looks at Condorcet's paradox in a large society. Among the most represented authors selected here are Adam Przeworski and co-editor Robert Dahl. One of the best examples of an accurate chapter would be Jennifer Hochschild's essay (from her 1995 book) on ‘The American dream: race, class, and the soul of the nation’, which compares the symbolic meanings of an ideology with current data on stratification in the US.
The older texts are not presented with much detail: there is no mention anywhere about when some selected passages, such as Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Condorcet's piece on elections and Rousseau's Social Contract, were written or first published, which is a major flaw in a book for undergraduates. Even worse, presentations only indicate the copyright years for those translations from the twentieth century, which could mislead some unaware students. Nonetheless, I believe this is one of the best collections of scholarship on democracy currently available in the US. This important anthology will be instructive for undergraduate students, not only in political science and international relations, but also in American studies, ethics, political thought and citizenship studies.
North America
New books received
Henry J. Aaron, James M. Lindsay and Pietro S. Nivola (eds) (2003) Agenda for the Nation. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 575, ISBN 0 8157 0127 6
R. Michael Alvarez and Thad E. Hall (2004) Point, Click and Vote: the future of internet voting. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 204, £34.00, ISBN 0 8157 0369 4
Paul Apostilidis and Juliet A. Williams (2004) Public Affairs: politics in the age of sex scandals. Durham NC: Duke University Press, 280, £17.50, ISBN 0 8223 3265 5
Robert J. Art (2003) A Grand Strategy for America. New York: Cornell University Press, 344, $29.95, ISBN 0 8014 4139 0
Greg Barns (2003) What's Wrong with the Liberal Party? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 168, ISBN 0 521 54288 x
Bruce Bimber and Richard Davis (2003) Campaigning Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 224, ISBN 0 19 515156 9
Sarah A. Binder (2003) Stalemate: causes and consequences of legislative gridlock. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 218, £12.50, ISBN 0 8157 0911 0
Lael Brainard, Carol Graham, Nigel Purvis, Steven Radelet and Gayle E. Smith (2003) The Other War: global poverty and the millennium challenge account. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 265, ISBN 0 8157 1115 8
Paul O. Carrese (2003) The Cloaking of Power: Montesquieu, Blackstone, and the rise of judicial activism. Chicago IL: Chicago University Press, 349, $39.00, ISBN 0 226 09482 0
Ted Galen Carpenter (2003) Bad Neighbour Policy: Washington's futile war on drugs in Latin America. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 282, £19.99, ISBN 1 4039 6137 9
Ann N. Crigler, Marion R. Just and Edward J. McCaffery (2003) Rethinking the Vote: the politics and prospects of American election reform. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 265, £15.99, ISBN 0 19 5159853
Roger. H. Davidson (ed.) (2003) Workways of Governance: Monitoring Our Government's Health. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 177, ISBN 0 8157 1753 9
E. J. Dionne Jr, Kayla Meltzer Drogosz and Robert E. Litan (2003) United We Serve: national service and the future of citizenship. 327, £13.50, ISBN 0 8157 1865 9
George C. Edwards III (2003) On Deaf Ears: the limits of the bully pulpit. New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 320, $35.00, ISBN 0 300 10009 4
Jean Bethke Elshtain (2003) Just War against Terror. New York: Basic Books, 239, $23.00, ISBN 0 465 01910 2
Amitai Etzioni and Jason H. Marsh (ed.) (2003) Rights vs. Public Safety after 9/11: America in the age of terrorism. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 179, £14.95, ISBN 0 7425 2755 7
Lance D. Fusarelli (2003) The Political Dynamics of School Choice: negotiating contested terrain. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, £18.99, 225, ISBN 1 4039 6047 x
Owen Fiss [edited by Joshua Cohen, Jefferson Decker and Joel Rogers] (2003) A Way Out: America's ghettos and the legacy of racism. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 140, £13.95, ISBN 0 691 08881 0
Herbert J. Gans (2003) Democracy and the News. New York: Oxford University Press, 182, £14.99, ISBN 0 19 515132 1
James M. Goldgeier and Michael McFaul (2003) Power and Purpose: US policy toward Russia after the cold war. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 467, £14.50, ISBN 0 8157 3173 6
Lewis L. Gould [forward by Richard Norton Smith] (2003) The Modern American Presidency. Lawrence KS: University Press of Kansas, 317, $29.95, ISBN 0 7006 1252 1
Gary L. Gregg II and Mark J. Rozell (eds) (2004) Considering the Bush Presidency. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 221, £17.99, ISBN 0 19 5166809
John G. Gunnell (2004) Imagining the American Polity. Philadelphia PA: Penn State University Press, 289, ISBN 0 271 02352 x
Patrick Hayden, Tom Lansford and Robert P. Watson (eds) (2003) America's War on Terror. Aldershot: Ashgate, £17.00, 166, ISBN 0 7546 3799 9
James J. Heckman and Alan B. Krueger (2004) Inequality in America: what role for human capital policies? Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 370, ISBN 0 262 08328 0
David C. Hendrickson (2003) Peace Pact: the lost world of the American founding. Lawrence KS: University Press of Kansas, 416, $29.95, ISBN 0 7006 1237 8
Godfrey Hodgson (2004) More Equal Than Others: America from Nixon to the new century. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 379, £19.95, ISBN 0 691 11788 8
William G. Howell (2003) Power without Persuasion: the politics of direct presidential action. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 240, £12.95, ISBN 0 691 10270 8
Dennis S. Ippolito (2003) Why Budgets Matter: budget policy and American politics. Philadelphia PA: Penn State University Press, 329, $55.00, ISBN 0 271 02259 0
Meg Jacobs, William J. Novak and Julian E. Zelizer (eds) (2003) The Democratic Experiment. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 421, £12.95, ISBN 0 691 11377 7
Laura Jensen (2003) Patriot Settlers, and the Origins of American Social Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 244, ISBN 0 521 52426 1
Lynda Lee Kaid, John C. Tedesco, Dianne G. Bystrom and Mitchell S. Mckinney (2003) The Millennium Election: communication in the 2000 campaign. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, £22.95, ISBN 0 7425 2510 4
Douglas Kellner (2003) From 9/11 to Terror War: the dangers of the Bush legacy. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 325, £16.95, ISBN 0 7425 2638 0
Timo Kivimaki (2003) US–Indonesian Hegemonic Bargaining. Aldershot: Ashgate, 308, £49.95, ISBN 0 7546 3686 0
Thomas S. Langston (2003) Uneasy Balance: civil–military relations in peacetime America since 1783. Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 198, £29.50, ISBN 0 8018 7421 1
Tom Lansford (2003) A Bitter Harvest: US foreign policy and Afghanistan. Aldershot: Ashgate, 212, £42.50, ISBN 0 7546 3615 1
Nelson Lichtenstein (2003) State of the Union: a century of American labor. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 338, £12.95, ISBN 0 691 11654 7
George I. Lovell (2003) Legislative Deferrals: statutory ambiguity, judicial power and American democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 290, ISBN 0 521 82415 X
William R. Lowry (2003) Dam Politics: restoring America's rivers. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 320, £15.75, ISBN 0 87840 390 6
L. Sandy Maisel and Ira N. Forman (eds) (2004) Jews In American Politics: essays. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 350, £22.95, ISBN 0 7425 2880 4
William G. Mayer and Andrew E. Busch (2004) The Front-Loading Problem in Presidential Nominations. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 227, $22.95, ISBN 0 8157 5519 8
Trevor B. McCrisken (2003) American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam: US foreign policy since 1974. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 237, £50.00, ISBN 0 333 97014 4
Laughlin McDonald (2003) A Voting Rights Odyssey: black enfranchisement in Georgia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 262, £16.95, ISBN 0 521 01179 5
Manindra Mohapatra, Amiya Mohanty, Josna Mishra, Usha Rout, Pramod Mishra and Ruchi Tyagi (2003) Beyond September 11, 2001: political attitudes of the Indian immigrants in America. Delhi: Authorspress, 157, Rs 400, ISBN 81 7273 120 5
Robert T. Nakamura and Thomas W. Church (2003) Taming Regulation: Superfund and the challenge of regulatory reform. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 141, £13.50, ISBN 0 8157 5943 6
Greg Palast, Jerrold Oppenheim and Theo MacGregor (2003) Democracy and Regulation: how the public can govern essential services. London: Pluto Press, 253, £16.99, ISBN 0 7453 1942 4
Judith Rodin and Stephen P. Steinberg (eds) (2003) Public Discourse In America. Philadelphia PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 346, £21.00, ISBN 0 8122 3741 2
Pauline Vaillancourt Rosenau (2003) The Competition Paradigm: America's romance with conflict, contest and commerce. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 235, £16.95, ISBN 0 7425 2038 2
Mark J. Rozell (2003) Media Power, Media Politics. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 341, ISBN 0 7425 1158 8
Judith Russell (2004) Economics, Bureaucracy and Race: how Keynesians misguided the war on poverty. New York: Columbia University Press, 244, $24.50, ISBN 0 231 11253 X
Mark Satin (2004) Radical Middle: the politics we need now. Boulder CO: Westview Press, 220, £15.50, ISBN 0 8133 4190 6
Dante J. Scala (2003) Stormy Weather: the New Hampshire primary and presidential politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 218, £19.99, ISBN 0312296223
Alan Schroeder (2004) Celebrity-in-Chief: how show business took over the White House. Boulder CO: Westview Press, 354, £19.99, ISBN 0 8133 4137 x
Peter H. Schuck (2003) Diversity in America: keeping government at a safe distance. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 444, £23.00, ISBN 0 674 01053 1
Sibyl A. Schwarzenbach and Patricia Smith (eds) (2004) Women and the United States Constitution. New York: Columbia University Press, 394, £16.50, ISBN 0 231 12893 2
Max Shachtman [edited and introduced by Christopher Phelps] (2003) Race and Revolution. London: Verso, 171, £14.00, ISBN 1 85984 512 6
Daniel Shaviro (2004) Who Should Pay for Medicare? Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press, 169, £17.50, ISBN 0 226 75076 0
Robert Shogan (2004) Constant Conflict: politics, culture and the struggle for America's future. Boulder CO: Westview Press, 362, £13.50, ISBN 0 8133 4221
Robert Singh (2003) Governing America: the politics of a divided democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 529, £19.99, ISBN 0 19 925049 9
William Sites (2003) Remaking New York: primitive globalisation and the politics of urban community. Minneapolis MN: University of Minnesota Press, $19.95, 256, ISBN 0 8166 4156 0
Paul Teske (2004) Regulation in the States. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 275, £16.95, ISBN 0 8157 8313 2
Tevi Troy (2003) Intellectuals and the American Presidency: philosophers, jesters or technicians? Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 255, £14.95, ISBN 0 7425 0826 9
Mark Tushnet (2003) The New Constitutional Order. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 277, £19.95, ISBN 0 691 11299 1
Edward P. Weber (2003) Bringing Society Back In: grassroots ecosystem management, accountability, and sustainable communities. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 333, £17.95, ISBN 0 262 73151 7
Linda Faye Williams (2003) The Constraint of Race: legacies of white skin privilege in America. University Park PA: Penn State University Press, 429, $35.00, ISBN 0 271 02253 1
Loring Wirbel (2003) Star Wars: US tools of space supremacy. London: Pluto Press, 174, £11.99, ISBN 0 7453 2114 3
Daniel Wirls and Stephen Wirls (2004) The Invention of the United States Senate. Baltimore MD: John Hopkins University, 274, £14.00, ISBN 0 8018 7439 4
David Wooton (ed.) (2003) The Essential Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers. Indianapolis IN: Hackett, 343, £5.95, ISBN 0 87220 655 6
Fareed Zakaria (2003) The Future of Freedom: illiberal democracy at home and abroad. New York: Norton, 286, $24.95, ISBN 0 393 04764 4