Abstract
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003, 240, £15.99, ISBN 0 7190 6477 5
Readership: Advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research, professional
Rating: **
Reviewer: EDWIN GRIGGS (Coventry University)
This book provides a breathless survey of current debates about the future of social democracy. The general impression is one of immense self-confidence and ambition, as the author takes on a host of writers and theorists past and present, invents new concepts and advances prescriptions.
A short review hardly begins to do justice to the author's project. In Part 1 there are chapters on the politics of New Labour and the ‘Third Way’, what the author calls the New Social Democracy, social justice, New Labour criminology, and a comparative chapter on European welfare states. In Part 2, in which the author develops his own prescriptions, there are chapters (5 and 6) on environmentalism and ‘post-productive? (or ‘ecosocial’) welfare, inter-generational welfare, the socio-political implications of the new genetics and a final substantive chapter on democratising welfare. The author has read a great deal and wants to convey his reactions to what he has read. The author has little interest in dissecting the New Labour record; he is more concerned with developing and advancing ‘alternatives’.
London: Pluto Press, 2003, 301, £15.99, ISBN 0 7453 2041 4
Readership: Postgraduates, academic/research, professional
Rating: **
Reviewer: DAVID J. GALBREATH (University of Sheffield)
The scope and ambition are admirable, and the author succeeds in conveying a sense of enthusiasm and engagement with his subject. If nothing else, the book is a useful source of references to a lot of recent literature as well as a guide to some recent headline concepts, ideas and topics in social and political theory.
It is generally well-written and one can only salute the author's energy, enthusiasm and commitment in assembling his materials and advancing his case. The overall impression, however, is simply that the arguments are too undeveloped to be really convincing. The author sometimes tries to have it both ways, as when he employs the concept of ‘path dependency’ to counter the ultra-globalisers while at the same time denying its relevance for the possibility of social-democratic transformation (p. 92).
This edited collection looks at the time between breakdown and the ‘normalisation’ of politics. Gready puts together authors from many different fields of social research. The variation of different approaches comes through in the different methodologies and writing styles. The book consists of four sections entitled: the politics of memory; identities; remaking space; and testimony and voices. The chapters focus on specific case studies such as Zimbabwe, South America, Northern Ireland and South Africa. The sections and sometimes even chapters are not self-contained and there are significant overlaps. Citing the book in context, Gready states that ‘this book attempts to capture something of the dialectic between the global and the local, top down and bottom up, official and unofficial’ (p. 2).
While the wide-ranging approaches and case studies are the book's strengths, they also represent its greatest weakness. In many cases, nothing ties the case studies together other than nominal and ambiguous section headings. This may have been different if the chapters engaged with the theoretical approaches discussed in the introduction. So, what can be taken from the volume? Individually, the chapters are often successful discussions of Chile, the Roma, the evolution of East German identities, etc. Together, however, there is a lack of coherence. Finally, the title is misleading as the majority of the chapters focus little on politics but rather more on culture and society. This is not a problem necessarily, but a reader should not expect a greater understanding of political transitions.
Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003, 336, £25.00, ISBN 1 403 903115
Readership: Undergraduates, advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research, professional
Rating: ***
Reviewer: WILLIAM DINAN (Glasgow Caledonian University)
The editors of this collection straddle the boundary between the academic study of interest representation – or corporate political activism – and its practice. Both are lobbying consultants in a public affairs unit of a multinational corporate law firm, and both have undertaken applied and academic research on lobbying. This volume offers a snapshot of current thinking on anti-corporate activism and corporate strategy with chapters from several leading academic commentators and consultants. Regrettably, the editors were not as successful in soliciting contributions from the new activists (a key subject for the collection) as they were from those more familiar with the corporate response: as such the book is somewhat diminished. Nevertheless, the range of topics addressed gives a good sense of the issues and agendas facing corporate strategists in formulating responses to the contemporary ‘generational shift in how governments, businesses, interest groups and citizens interact’ (p. 1).
The chapters dealing with the interrelated phenomena of governance, social dialogue, corporate-activist engagement, and the new globalised communications environment provide a useful set of ideas and questions about the possibilities of the ‘new activism’. These should be read in conjunction with Charles Miller's grounded account of the evolution of the (UK) business lobby which neatly captures an important tension within this book (and indeed in wider debates): namely the problematic distinction between the public and private in ‘public’ affairs and ‘public’ relations.
The volume is well written and will appeal to readers across business and social science disciplines. Though primarily Anglo-American and European in focus (i.e. a western-centric take on political activism and globalisation), the book is accessible and grounded in contemporary public affairs. This should recommend it to those interested in conceptually and empirically coming to grips with the dynamics of governance, protest and corporate political action in advanced political economies.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, 292, £45.00, ISBN 019 9258716
Readership: Advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research, professional
Rating: ****
Reviewer: COSTAS LAOUTIDES (University of Wales, Aberystwyth)
The main aim of this volume is made up of two parts. First, it endeavours to expand the normative debate about secession by examining the question of the use of force in achieving independent statehood. Therefore, the book attempts to associate two ethical traditions that were entirely separated in scholarship until now: the ethics of war and the ethics of secession. Second, the debate on secession is contextualised as each contribution explores the various normative aspects of one particular case. The authors examine the strengths and weaknesses of the different normative approaches that exist in the relevant literature. Contributions look into a number of case studies such as the Lega Nord, Corsica, Cyprus, Northern Ireland, former Yugoslavia, Tatarstan, Chechnya, Abkhazia, Quebec and Taiwan. An analysis of the conflict dynamics is coupled with an assessment of the feasibility of alternatives to independence. The contributors are concerned with the extent to which the claims of political movements striving for independence refer to forms of injustice and what remedies may lead to their resolution.
The book proved to be successful in its two main goals. By employing the framework of Just War Theory the volume manages to raise and discuss the question of violence in secessionist conflicts. This is not achieved through a deductive discussion of hypothetical cases but rather by examining real case studies through the lenses of the Just War tradition. In addition, the contextualisation of existing normative theories offers a very useful framework of analysis to scholars and students of the secessionist phenomenon. Having said that, the book does not sufficiently support its suggestion that all the existing theories of secession see territorial partition as the last resort. In addition, throughout the volume there is an inherent acceptance of the nation as the only legitimate group to claim secession; however, the moral stance of nation is not discussed by the authors.
Lanham MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004, 429, £43.00, ISBN 0 8018 7385 1
Readership: Academic/research
Rating: ***
Reviewer: JAMES G. MELLON (University of Nova Scotia, Canada)
Composing Urban History and the Constitution of Civic Identities has many of the strengths and weaknesses associated with edited collections. It encompasses a range of interesting discussions on a diverse set of issues in varied contexts, all held together by a shared concern with spatial representations of culture and ethnicity. On the other hand, the contributions are so different that some have only a limited commonality with others. Many of the cities examined are cities where the end of Communism permitted for the first time in many years the expression in architecture and city planning of the respective cities’ pre-Communist histories. In Riga, this meant that the historic core could be reconstructed, including the Town Hall and the House of the Black Heads, in a manner that viewed the city's pre-Communist past as something to be celebrated. Even in a city like Kaliningrad, formerly Konigsberg, where population relocations brought about by war and shifting boundaries meant an almost complete turnover of people from before World War II, Soviet efforts to replace signs of the past with Soviet architecture, a style that sought to distance itself from the pre-revolutionary past, inspired resentment. In Prague, a city where statues in the Old Town Square became an issue as two statues, one associated with the Catholic and imperial past and one associated with the Protestant and Czech past, co-existed until the destruction of the former in 1918 at the beginning of an independent Czechoslovakia, the fall of Communism revived competing visions of the city's identity and past. Three cities that have not experienced a Communist past are examined. In Barcelona, the end of the Franco regime unleashed a strategy of exploiting international events and emphasizing culture as a means of redeveloping a city. Three contributions focus on Washington's African-American heritage and the ways in which the local past competes for expression with the national past in a capital city. Vienna, too, has witnessed competition among visions focussing on different aspects of local, national and imperial history. This collection, which raises such issues as the way in which controversies over housing and over the preservation of historic architecture contributed to the evolution of civil society groups and the fall of Communism, encompasses a good deal, and is recommended for a broad audience.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, 229, £30.00, ISBN 0 19 926843 6
Reviewer: MARC HOOGHE (University of Leuven, Belgium)
An important conclusion from the comparative Citizens and the State book series (1995) was that while institutional trust and trust in politicians are declining in the United States, the same trend could not be observed for western Europe. Explanations for this trend, therefore, should also be specific for the situation in the US. Dalton draws on a wide range of data sources and trends to substantiate the claim that in most OECD countries political trust declines significantly since the 1960s. The data assembled in this volume are quite convincing, and they shed new light on the ongoing discussion about the repercussion of value change on the stability of democratic systems. Dalton builds on previous work by authors like Ron Inglehart and Pippa Norris, by demonstrating the emergence of a new generation of ‘critical citizens’: strongly committed to democratic norms, but simultaneously highly critical about the actual functioning of political institutions. Dalton, however, is much more pessimistic about the consequences of these trends. He convincingly demonstrates that political distrust makes it harder for governments to function, for example, because of lower levels of law compliance. Declining institutional trust, therefore, is something to worry about, and in this respect Dalton is less sanguine about the democratic potential of these new, ‘postmodern’ citizens. What is especially troubling is that the loss of confidence is concentrated among the young and well-educated, i.e., the groups that have benefited most from the expansion of the scope of government intervention since World War II. Dalton suggests that this might be a phenomenon of rising, and apparently, too high expectations. Dalton does not join the chorus of authors predicting that democracy will not survive this critical mood, as he is convinced that this ‘democratic challenge’, too, can be met. He offers few suggestions, however, on how this might happen.
New York: Routledge, 2003, 329, £16.99, ISBN 0 415 94719 7
Readership: Undergraduates, advanced undergraduates, postgraduates
Rating: ***
Reviewer: SIMON DALFERTH (Charles University Prague)
Framing Terrorism explores the frames for terrorism and their effects on public opinion. The editors define terrorism as ‘systematic use of coercive intimidation against civilians for political goals’ (p. 6). In the introduction the editors lay out the theoretical basis for the book. They assume that ‘terrorist events are commonly understood through new “frames” that simplify, prioritise, and structure the narrative flow of events’ (p. 10). The editors then develop a framing model, which gives ‘societal culture’, i.e. general underlying norms and values, a prominent role in the construction of frames.
The book proceeds in three parts. Part 1 looks at the way frames are established and the problems that arise when established frames need to be revised. Doris Graber shows that democratic systems influence the content of the media coverage by restrictive measures. The problems she addresses became public in the New York Times self-critique of the Iraq war coverage (May 26, 2004).
The second part compares different frames. Most chapters look at the media coverage of terrorist attacks on US institutions in Africa and America, whereas Nacos and Torres-Reyna compare the way media frames Muslim-Americans over time. Interestingly the latter find that the presentation of Muslims post-9/11 is more balanced than before.
The third part focuses on public opinion. Norris and Inlgehart compare public opinion in Western and Muslim countries. Traugott and Hader and Huddy et al. focus on the impact on the psyche and the cognitive effects the US attacks had. Brewer, Aday and Gross point to the missed opportunity of political leaders to capitalize on increased system support shortly after the attacks. Overall the book contains a very interesting collection of articles, which provide insights on how terrorism is framed. The style of the articles makes them interesting not only for academics, but also for the interested public.
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004, 322, £18.99, ISBN 0 7190 6479 1
Readership: Advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, academic/research
Rating: ****
Reviewer: RACHEL TURNER (University of Sheffield)
Stone and Denham's important new book, Think Tanks: Policy Research and the Politics of Ideas, examines the impact of think tanks on national and transnational policy processes. The book builds on their previous comparative study, Think Tanks Across Nations (Manchester, 1998). It highlights the ubiquity of think-tanks from case studies of their role and influence in the national policy arenas of Germany, Italy, France, Russia, and central and eastern Europe, China, Japan, Malaysia and Argentina. The book reflects on the role that think tanks play in national politics and policy regimes and assesses their impact on processes of economic liberalisation and democratisation. The book also addresses the significance of think-tank activity beyond the nation-state, in particular in the European Union and in diplomatic and foreign relations.
The contributors to this volume, however, remain sceptical about the influence of think tanks on policy outcomes. They acknowledge that the number of think tanks may have vastly increased since 1990, but contend that their impact on policy-making should not be overstated. The contributors instead seek to develop a more ‘nuanced understanding’ of the role of think-tanks that captures their contribution to agenda-setting and policy advising (p. 11).
What is impressive about this book is the breadth of the case studies it presents, which move beyond previous national studies by providing an analysis of think-tank activities at regional and international levels. The contributors to the volume are relatively consistent in their quality and analysis, and adhere to the general framework set by the editors of the volume. Wide-ranging and well written, this book will provide a valuable contribution to what has recently become a burgeoning academic literature on think tanks and the role of ideas in politics.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 260, £17.99, ISBN 0 333 98599 0
Readership: Undergraduates, advanced undergraduates, postgraduates
Rating: ****
Reviewer: EDWIN GRIGGS (Coventry University)
This is an excellent introductory textbook on advanced country comparative health systems and policy, which would provide a valuable teaching resource for courses in comparative public policy or more specifically in health policy. The material is well-organised, and there are plenty of useful tables and figures, text-boxes, a chapter-by-chapter guide to further reading, a valuable appendix listing websites, as well as a bibliography and index.
The authors deal very well with the important issues, never forgetting that their book is an introduction to comparative analysis as well as an introduction to health policy. It is a genuinely comparative text, not simply, like many, a country-by-country collection of case studies. They utilise a remarkable number of countries to exemplify their points, including Australia, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Sweden, Singapore, UK, USA, France and Italy. The material is organised thematically, with chapters on ‘Political, Historical and Cultural Contexts’, ‘Funding, Provision and Governance’, ‘Setting Priorities and Allocating Resources’, ‘The Medical Profession’, ‘Health care in the Home’, and ‘Public Health’. A final chapter provides a resume of some problematical issues – the value of typologies, ‘embeddedness’, ‘path dependency’, cross-national learning, and problems of inter-country evaluation and ranking. The authors are sceptical about the claims of biomedicine and favour a more social model of health. The treatment of the political dimension is good and the authors convey a sense of how varying political systems and regimes shape health policy making.
One missing feature which the authors might consider including for future editions is a glossary. Health policy is full of technical terms which the student would find it helpful to have explained in one place; some of these terms are explained, but the authors have a tendency to assume a degree of familiarity with terms not all of which are defined (e.g. ‘copayment’; ‘extra-billing’).
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, 309, £30.00, ISBN 019 9264996
Readership: Postgraduates, academic/research
Rating: ***
Reviewer: MAREK RYBAR (Comenius University Bratislava, Slovakia)
This major book is an empirically rich and theoretically grounded contribution to our understanding of the transformation of democracy in eighteen OECD countries in the late 20th century. The book examines contemporary pressures for democratic reform in three interrelated arenas of democracy: representative democracy; direct democracy; and advocacy democracy (citizens’ participation in decision-making and influencing policy). The starting point of the volume is that demands for more democracy and more access points to decision-making are fundamentally transforming modern democratic polities. While the extent of this transformation varies across countries as well as political institutions, the consequences of this democratic change may have mixed results, as they not only widen spheres of democratic participation but also exacerbate well-known problems of inequality and imperfect information.
The book is in three parts. The first analyses electoral change in terms of amount of electing (frequency of voting, number of elected offices, etc.), the expansion of direct democracy and democratisation within as well as between political parties. The second part focuses on non-electoral institutions: it traces and evaluates the expansion of freedom of information laws on citizen politics. Changes in decentralisation and administrative reforms of the state and the role of courts as arenas of policy innovation are also included. The third part assesses the impact of these changes on the overall character of contemporary democracy.
Even though individual chapters present high quality research and successfully blend empirical and theoretical features, the main strength of the book rests in its coherence and robust conceptual and research framework. The concluding chapter written by the editors is particularly successful in illustrating the ambiguous (and sometimes conflicting) consequences of contemporary pressures for more democracy. One should add that these democratising pressures may also be in conflict with new national security measures, as the introduction of various anti-terrorist instruments is also affecting the nature of the modern democratic polity. Democracy Transformed? will undoubtedly set the tone in discussions of contemporary democratic transformation.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, 245, £16.95, ISBN 0 521 00953 7
Readership: Postgraduates, academic/research
Rating: ****
Reviewer: ACHIM GOERRES (London School of Economics)
Erik Bleich undertakes a comparative analysis of post-war race policies in the United Kingdom and France. He disentangles the puzzle of why race policies evolved so differently in the two countries that are similar in many ways and face the same policy issue of dealing with (post)-colonial immigrants. The United Kingdom recognised the categories of race as meaningful concepts in policy-making and started to manage race relations via quasi-governmental institutions and tools of civil law. France, by contrast, refused to acknowledge the concept of race and embarked on a colour-blind approach by using nongovernmental groups and criminal law to counter discrimination.
The author introduces the concept of a ‘frame,’ which he defines as ‘a set of cognitive and moral maps that orient an actor within a policy sphere’ (p. 26). The role played by frames within the sphere of race policy is twofold. Actors – individually or as a group – can draw on existing race frames to advance their interests. But frames can also shape actors’ perceptions of race and thereby influence policy outcomes. Bleich succeeds in tracing the origins and evolution of frames because he founds his argument on a variety of empirical data: public speeches, governmental documents, diary notes and interviews. The analysis of public and private statements permits Bleich to dismiss the notion that frames are only used strategically to pursue personal interests. Instead they can also represent a separate dynamic in the policy-making process through their independent influence on policy-makers’ belief systems.
The author might have elaborated on the similarities of his approach to historical institutionalism because a given era's dominant race frames will be enshrined in policy decisions that limit future options. Nevertheless, this is a well-written empirical analysis that usefully emphasises the power of beliefs and ideas in policy-making.
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003, 340, £9.99, ISBN 0 7190 6721 9
Readership: Undergraduates
Rating: ***
Reviewer: TERRENCE CASEY (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, USA)
This book offers a comparative introduction to American and British politics. It follows a fairly standard structure, with chapters on the cultural and constitutional contexts, examination of the core institutions (legislature, executive, judiciary, and bureaucracy), and explorations of political behavior (voting, elections, the media). The final chapter delves into the nature of democracy and takes a critical look at the successes and failures of democracy in both countries. The format is student-friendly, with definition boxes scattered throughout (if anything, perhaps too infrequently), comparative tables summarizing the key points of each chapter, sample essay questions, and web resources. Understanding US/UK Government and Politics is written clearly and accessibly and Watts does well at presenting all sides of controversial issues (i.e., proportional representation versus first past the post elections). The text is part of a series for A-level examinations, but it could also work in introductory undergraduate courses. All told, this is a solid, straightforward text.
There are some shortcomings, however. Watts’ work lacks an overarching theme or approach that might tie these topics together or justify the transatlantic comparison. (Although obviously driven by the criteria of examination boards, a more thoughtful rationale would have been helpful.) It is also not as up-to-date as one would expect – something of an unavoidable problem for current politics texts. Yet there is no reason for a book published in November 2003 to have discussions that clearly do not take the May 2001 general election into account (see p. 62 on freedom of information legislation, for example). Finally, its rather drab format pales in comparison to the many glossy, graphically rich textbooks devoted specifically to US or UK politics. None the less, this book serves its narrower niche well.
Comparative
New books received
Alberto Alesina and Edward L. Glaeser (2004) Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 249, £25.00, ISBN 0 19 926766 9
Richard Bellamy, Dario Castiglione and Emilio Santoro (2004) Lineages of European Citizenship: rights, belonging and participation in eleven nation-states. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 235, £50.00, ISBN 0 333 98683 0
Pierre Boyer, Linda Cardinal and David Headon (2004) From Subjects to Citizens: a hundred years of citizenship in Australia and Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 328, £20.00, ISBN 0776605534
Pradeep K. Chhibber and Ken Kollman (2004) The Formation of National Party Systems: federalism and party competition in Canada, Great Britain, India and the United States. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 276, £15.95, ISBN 0 691 11932 5
Gerard Dumenil and Dominique Levy (2004) Capital Resurgent: roots of the neoliberal revolution. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 249, £35.95, ISBN 0 674 01158 9
Mark N. Franklin (2004) Voter Turnout and the Dynamics of Electoral Competition in Established Democracies Since 1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 277, £45.00, ISBN 0 521 83566 6
Herman Galperin (2004) New Television, Old Politics: the transition to digital TV in the United States and Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 311, £50.00, ISBN 0 521 82399 4
Mathew J. Gibney (2004) The Ethics of Political Asylum: liberal democracy and the response to refugees. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 287, $15.99, ISBN 0 521 00937 5
Edward L. Gibson (ed) (2004) Federalism and Democracy in Latin America. Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 377, £14.00, ISBN 0 8018 7424 6
Joseph Henrich, Robert Boyd, Samuel Bowles, Colin Camerer, Ernst Fehr and Herbert Gintis (2004) Foundations of Human Sociality: economic experiments and ethnographic evidence from fifteen small-scale societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 451, £55.00, ISBN 0 19 926204 7
Peter Hodkinson and William A. Schabas (2004) Capital Punishment: strategies for abolition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 374, £50.00, ISBN 0 521 81590 8
John Hudson and Stuart Lowe (2004) Understanding the Policy Process: analysing welfare policy and practice. Bristol: University of Bristol, 282, £17.99, ISBN 1 86134 540 2
James G. Kellas (2004) Nationalist Politics In Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 261, £50.00, ISBN 0 333 62046 1
Robert Legvold and Celeste A. Wallander (eds) (2004) Swords and Sustenance: the economics of security in Belarus and Ukraine. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 266, £15.95, ISBN 0 262 62182 7
Iftikhar H. Malik (2004) Islam and Modernity: Muslims in Europe and the United States. London: Pluto Press, 239, £14.99, ISBN 0 7453 1611 5
Henry Milner (2004) (ed) Steps Towards Making Every Vote Count: electoral system reform in Canada and its provinces. Toronto: Broadview Press, 319, £16.99, ISBN 1 55111 648 0
Alfred P. Montero and David J. Samuels (2004) Decentralization and Democracy in Latin America. Indiana IN: Indiana Press University, 309, ISBN 0 268 02559 2
Scott Morgenstern (2004) Patterns of Legislative Politics: roll-call voting in Latin America and the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 224, £45.00, ISBN 0 521 82056 1
Stephen L. Newman (2004) Constitutional Politics in Canada and the United States. New York: State University of New York, 282, $55.00, ISBN 0 7914 5937 3
Jeremy Rifkin (2004) The European Dream: how Europe's vision of the future is quietly eclipsing the American dream. New York: Penguin, 425, $16.35, ISBN 1 58542 345 9
Lars Trägårdh (ed) (2004) After National Democracy: rights, law and power in America and the new Europe. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 169, £25.00, ISBN 1 84113 329 9
Norman J. Vig and Michael G. Faure (2004) Green Giants?: environmental policies of the United States and the European Union. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 398, £17.95, ISBN 0 262 72044 2