Coltan by Michael Nest. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011. 220pp., £12.99, ISBN 9780745649320

Book Reviews

Political Theory

Recognition Theory and Contemporary French

Moral and Political Philosophy: Reopening the

Dialogue by Miriam Bankovsky and Alice

Le Goff (eds). Manchester: Manchester University

Press, 2012. 248pp., £70.00, ISBN 978 0 7190 8356 3

This collection will interest anyone involved in

ongoing debates about the development of theories of

recognition. Each chapter is of exemplary theoretical

and rhetorical quality; collectively they constitute a

valuable intervention across those areas of moral and

political philosophy, social theory and anthropology

that converge under this interdisciplinary banner.

Unfortunately, some of book’s guiding assumptions

will prevent it from enlisting new members to its cause

or from persuading those sceptical that such issues

amount to more than a parochial concern.

The editors seek to elucidate a hitherto unrecog-

nised dialogue between theories of recognition and

contemporary French philosophy along two inter-

related axes. First, by uncovering the multiple ways in

which French theory was utilised by theorists of rec-

ognition in the late twentieth century (overwhelmingly

focused on Axel Honneth); and second, by providing a

platform for those French thinkers who continue to

explore the concept of recognition today. In both of

these endeavours, the book is a resounding success.

Introducing a distinction between a German and a

French tradition of recognition theory begs the ques-

tion: What, exactly, is peculiarly ‘French’ here, when

the ‘tradition’ is supposed to have been inaugurated by

Rousseau, who was Swiss? If the answer is ‘those

thinkers who wrote in French’, then a litany of can-

didates is duly presented: Merleau-Ponty, Derrida,

Levinas, Foucault and Bourdieu – among many others.

But then one might ask, how ‘French’ are these sup-

posedly ‘French’ thinkers? Insofar as each is unthink-

able without Husserl or Heidegger, one is immediately

confronted with the problem of infinite regress. This

seemingly superficial concern reveals a more funda-

mental problem. The editors hope to question the

supposedly popular view ‘that contemporary French

philosophy has little to offer the tradition of moral and

political philosophy’ (p. 10), but this goal is intelligible

only on the assumed coincidence of ‘recognition

theory’ and ‘political philosophy’. Indeed, the question

of whether recognition itself has anything more to offer

to political philosophy goes unanswered.

This seems precisely the question that such a volume

should ask. Much recent Anglophone political think-

ing, for instance, is concerned to problematise claims

that any ethic – of recognition or otherwise – can be

helpfully applied politically. And this tendency is moti-

vated by a concern that this volume shares: the

problem of theory and practice, or the ‘gap between

the “actual” and the “possible” ’ (p. 21). That a dia-

logue between contemporary theorists of both recog-

nition and such ‘realism’ could be a fruitful one is clear;

it is an unintended benefit of this collection to help us

recognise it.

Jared Holley(University of Chicago)

Does the Richness of the Few Benefit Us All? by

Zygmunt Bauman. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013.

101pp., £9.99, ISBN 978 0 7456 7109 3

In this short and timely book Zygmunt Bauman sets

out to refute the basic argument that ‘the pursuit of

individual profit also provides the best mechanism for

the pursuit of the common good’ (p. 3). According to

Bauman, this widespread belief underpinning the

so-called ‘trickle-down theory’ has for the last three to

four decades provided the main moral justification for

free market economics. While this powerful argument

has served to legitimate market-conforming policies

POLITICAL STUDIES REVIEW: 2014 VOL 12, 402–483

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since the early 1980s, this same period, we now know,

has seen a marked increase in income inequality across

the OECD. For Bauman, a long-time sociological

observer of the mystifications of marketisation, this

discrepancy calls for a critical examination of the natu-

ralised presumptions underpinning the belief that ‘the

richness of the few benefits us all’.

Besides the introduction and the closing ‘after-

thought’, the book’s mere 101 pages are split into three

main parts: the first chapter surveys the recent evidence

detailing the post-1980s increase in inequality, while

the second and third chapters disentangle the legitimat-

ing logic behind the trickle-down argument. In par-

ticular, Chapter 3 challenges the following four tacitly

accepted premises (‘musts’) shaping our understanding

of the world: (1) economic growth is the be-all and

end-all of socio-political organisation; (2) perpetuallyrising consumption facilitates the pursuit of happiness;

(3) inequality of humans is natural; and (4) rivalry is a

condition of social justice.

As usual, Bauman’s writing style is engaging and

shows him working comfortably and eruditely in the

tradition of critical social theory. However, this short

book is evidently less analytically ambitious than some

of his earlier notable works. Many of the arguments of

the book have been treated more extensively elsewhere

– for example, his analysis of consumerism. But the

novelty lies in Bauman’s attempt to weave together

these arguments in one short thematically demar-

cated book. Also, the section on economic growth is

insightful and refreshingly critical in its discussion of

the negative externalities of the capitalist growth

imperative.

Naturally, critics of Bauman will criticise the book

for its polemical prose and relatively casual argumen-

tative style. Readers familiar with his wide-ranging

scholarship, on the other hand, may calmly and effort-

lessly read this book to gain insights into the moral and

structural logic underpinning the contemporary legiti-

mation of market society and inequality. Despite it

being unusually short, Bauman’s book largely succeeds

in his main aim: to intellectually upset the naturalised

perspective that a linear connection exists between the

maximisation of individual economic gains and the

maximisation of the welfare of the broader society.

Tim Holst Celik(Copenhagen Business School)

The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political

Thought by Gerhard Bowering (ed.). Princeton,

NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013. 656pp., £52.00,

ISBN 978 0 691 13484 0

More than one hundred well-known scholars contrib-

uted to this enormous project, which covers different

issues related to Islam and its politics. The encycl-

opedia’s central themes support the framework of

Islamic political thought through the introduction of

key elements such as ‘caliph’, ‘jihad’, ‘Muhammad’,

‘Qur’an’, ‘Shari’a’, ‘modernity’, and so on. The ency-

clopedia has been masterly developed to inform readers

about the different reigns and dynasties (e.g. Abbasid),

schools (e.g. Murji’is), regions (e.g. Karbala) and coun-

tries (e.g. Palestine, Malaysia, Iran) in the Muslim

world that have influenced the orientation of Islamic

movements from the past to the present. Modern con-

cepts are also a component of the main topical lists of

entries, in which contributors introduce modern con-

troversial issues raised by young Muslim scholars, such

as ‘democracy’, ‘liberalism’, ‘Islamic Jihad’, or the

current fundamentalist movements such as the Taliban.

Special sections are aptly allocated for Muslim

thinkers, personalities and statesmen. Thus the politi-

cal influence of so-called ‘religious’ figures like

Husayn b. Ali is considered when the Qutbuddin

writes in this entry: ‘Retribution for Husayn’s killing

continued to be cited in religiopolitical uprisings of

the next few centuries, as in the revolts of the

Abbasids and the Fatimids’ (p. 228). Similarly, the

Muslim polymath Nasir al-Din Tusi and his role

in Alamut and his relationship with Isma’ilis is also

discussed.

However, I do think it would have been appro-

priate to have an entry for Tantawi Jawhari, who

was known as a reformist in Egypt alongside both

Abduh and Rida. He published several books and

essays in which he clarified the significance of Islamic

movements in the lands of the Muslims. Some

famous influential figures who would have benefited

from being given their own specific entry are

Reza Shah Pahlavi, who brought Western cultural

products to Persia and banned the veil for Iranian

females; Morteza Mutahhari, with his anti-Marxist

ideas; and Naquib Al-Attas in Malaysia. None-

theless, this work is a fully developed research project

that is able to meet the expectations of enthusiastic

BOOK REVIEWS 403

© 2014 The Authors. Political Studies Review © 2014 Political Studies AssociationPolitical Studies Review: 2014, 12(3)

scholars of Islamic studies, politics and modern

history.

Majid Daneshgar(University of Malaya)

Rawlsian Political Analysis: Rethinking the

Microfoundations of Social Science by Paul

Clements. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre

Dame Press, 2012. 231pp., £30.95, ISBN 978 0 268

02371 3

At the moment America is buzzing with debates about

moral foundationalism. What is it that makes us think

rationally about some things and not about others? Why

do we sometimes shoot from the hip whereas at other

times we think long and hard about issues? Social psy-

chology has provided a wealth of empirical material on

these questions and scientists are currently in theory

design mode.

Paul Clements bravely steps right into this debate,

but approaches it from another angle. He argues that

rational choice theory – i.e. the long-suffering utility-

maximising straw man – produces impoverished analy-

ses of the social world. Instead, the Rawlsian

framework of justice may offer a more nuanced take

on reality. In addition, Clements argues that the

Rawlsian conception of social justice can act as an

analytical framework to make sense of the world.

There have been few applications of Rawls in the real

world, yet Clements admirably exemplifies his meth-

odological claim in three chapters discussing the

Grameen bank in Bangladesh, the (sorry) state of Bihar

in India and the politics of climate change.

I wonder, though, if he favours a Rawlsian concep-

tion of social justice simply because the conclusions of

Rawls’ conception appeal to him. This is significant

since Clements wants to see the Rawlsian conception as

an analytical framework that can explain the social

world. I can see two problems with juxtaposing Rawls

to rational choice as a methodological device in applied

political science. First, there is Sandel’s criticism that

Rawls’ original position uses a notion of the unencum-

bered individual that comes pretty close to the interest-

led utility-maximising person that Clements wants to

get away from. Second, and crucially, Rawls’ concep-

tion of justice has a strong normative thrust which we

have to accept in order to come to the right judgement

in the first place. In other words, Rawls does not offer

us an analytical device to interpret the world but rather

a normative mechanism that can guide us in building a

better one.

Clements’ book is a welcome and thoughtful addi-

tion to the debate on how to analyse social agency, yet

I cannot help thinking that the choice between rational

choice and a Rawlsian conception of social justice in

applied political science may compare apples with

oranges. However, this thought-provoking book will

undoubtedly spark lively discussions in postgraduate

politics seminars.

Axel Kaehne(Edge Hill University)

Animal Rights without Liberation: Applied

Ethics and Human Obligations by Alasdair

Cochrane. New York: Columbia University Press,

2012. 246pp., £20.50, ISBN 978 0 231 15827 5

Alasdair Cochrane’s study aims to challenge the

entrenched dichotomy within animal ethics between a

welfare approach set out by Peter Singer and an animal

rights position influenced by Tom Regan. Cochrane

establishes an interest-based rights approach ‘where

rights serve to protect certain of the most important

aspects of an entity’s well-being’ (p. 204). Cochrane

suggests that whereas animals have a prima facie right to

life, alongside an interest in avoiding suffering, they do

not have a general right not to be used, owned or

exploited by humans. This is because animals do not

have an interest in liberty as they ‘are not autonomous,

self-governing agents with the power to frame, revise,

and pursue their own conceptions’ (p. 210). Cochrane’s

approach is to assess existing animal practices using his

interest-based criteria. The standards may sound radi-

cally permissive compared to existing rights literature.

The use of animals in genetic engineering and enter-

tainment is not entirely prohibited; however, Cochrane

suggests that fundamental changes are needed in the

practice of animal experimentation and agriculture. The

book aims to become part of a ‘democratic under-

labouring’ in which citizens, politicians and policy

makers are made aware of our obligations towards

animals.

The author successfully evaluates existing practices

using his interest-based framework. His assertion that

certain animal experiments are permissible may shock

404 POLITICAL THEORY


adherents of the Regan-influenced approach; however,

this criterion would still exclude experiments that

resulted in the suffering or death of animals. Cochrane’s

discussion of the moral equivalence of human and non-

human animals relies on the statement that ‘people with

mental disabilities’ have distinct interests from ‘adult

humans’ (p. 144), and even allowing for the author’s

brief disclaimer regarding the complexities of mental

illness, the discussion remains objectionable. Much of

Cochrane’s theory is convincing, but where this trans-

lates into practice activists may find the imperfect labels

of ‘animal liberation’ (or ‘animal rights’) more conveni-

ent than the sophisticated approach outlined here.

Cochrane is convinced that a legislative solution to the

infringement of animal rights is possible; he believes that

states could make their citizens comply with the duties

proposed in the book. Perhaps it is only the widespread

changing of individual attitudes that will result in the

recognition of animal rights. It is difficult to imagine

that this change will coexist with the continued use,

exploitation and ownership of animals. Nevertheless,

one way for citizens to increase their awareness of

animal issues is by reading this well-argued book.

Will Boisseau(Loughborough University)

Liberal World Orders by Tim Dunne and Trine

Flockhart (eds). Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2013. 304pp., £60.00, ISBN 978 0197265529

This accomplished volume opens by observing that

liberalism – once lauded as ‘the final form of human

government’ (Francis Fukuyama) and as the ‘default

setting’ of international society (Chris Brown) – is now

under increasingly sceptical scrutiny in international

theory (p. 1). As an entrée – and a foil – to the

arguments presented by its well-credentialed contribu-

tors, the book opens with the 2009 essay by G. John

Ikenberry entitled ‘Liberal Internationalism 3.0’, which

articulates the end of liberal internationalism as prac-

tised since the mid-twentieth century. The themes

raised here are revisited throughout the volume, but

from contrasting intellectual perspectives.

Several of the essays explicitly address contradictions

within liberalism (and its theorisation), including the

way in which classical liberalisms have been turned

into neoliberalisms, in the process being ‘shorn of ...

critical and normative potential’ (p. 3). Rather than

shying away from the history of liberal ideas, forms and

institutions, they are actively engaged. Contestations in

all three are elaborated and interpreted as the history of

the liberal practices that constitute our current inter-

national political order.

It is ‘the practices of liberal ordering – the patterns

of activities, institutions and performances that sustain

world order’ (p. 8) – that are the focus of this volume.

The editors argue that these practices are not – as

standard liberal internationalist accounts variously claim

– the result of rational design, or of bargaining with a

hegemon, or the application of liberal political norms

of freedom, democracy, the rule of law and so on.

‘Instead ... liberal ordering has a long and contested

history in which institutionalised patterns of behaviour

are both regulated and constituted’ (p. 8). It is this

concern with the ‘doing’ of ‘liberal world ordering’

that animates the sociological institutionalist orientation

of the book. This ‘doing’ encompasses a wide range of

practices, from the balance of power to empire, from

‘normative power Europe’ to democracy promotion,

from nuclear disarmament to the Responsibility to

Protect (R2P), and more.

Among the practices explored – in what I took to be

an exemplary collection of essays, bound together by a

shared intellectual project of great merit – there was one

key lacuna: those practices associated with climate

change. The future of liberal ordering is going to be

fundamentally tested by its capacity to manage environ-

mental change, yet engagement with this crucial and

theoretically fertile issue was conspicuous by its absence.

The proof of many of the book’s theses will be found

in how we digest this particular pudding.

Anthony J. Langlois(Flinders University)

Autonomy: Capitalism, Class and Politics by

David Eden. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012. 283pp.,

£60.00, ISBN 978 1 4094 1174 1

In this book, David Eden critically studies the concepts

of operaismo (workerism) and autonomia (autonomy)

through different groups of so-called ‘Autonomist

Marxists’ – represented by Antonio Negri and Paolo

Virno, the Midnight Notes Collective (MNC) and

John Holloway – in order to deal with questions about

BOOK REVIEWS 405


class, class struggles and emancipation. The author

critically examines three categories of radical Marxism

with the aim of constructing a better understanding of

emancipatory politics in contemporary capitalism. His

analysis of each theorist is split into three sets of

chapter themes – beyond, outside and against capital –

through which he outlines and evaluates each theorist’s

concepts of autonomy and workerism.

The first theme, discussed in Chapters 2 to 4, deals

with the political theories of Negri and Virno – both

of whom, Eden argues, go ‘beyond’ the traditional

focus of class struggle through the concept of multi-

tude. Chapters 5 to 7 are devoted to the theory of

class struggle expounded by the MNC, which con-

centrates on the politics of ‘non-wage labour’ in

factories, as seen in the reproductive labour of

housework and prostitution, for example. Here, the

author argues that emancipatory struggles of social

groups can take place ‘outside’ the sphere of produc-

tion. Finally, in Chapters 8 to 10, Eden focuses on

the well-known Autonomist Marxist and prominent

‘Open Marxist’, John Holloway. In these final three

chapters, he presents Holloway’s radical conception of

class struggle as being ‘against’ capital, in the sense of

representing a rebellious negation of capital’s social

relations.

This book provides a very good contribution

towards our understanding of the politics of emanci-

pation. Through his discussion and analysis of the

three groups of theorists, the author raises critical

awareness about radical politics and urges the reader

to re-think and re-read their conceptions of labour,

class, class struggles and emancipation in contempo-

rary politics. Although this work does not present

itself as a theoretical textbook in Marxist and radical

leftist literature, it draws together three different areas

of radical literature and provides a valuable critique

on each perspective. The most crucial element of

political analysis in a Marxist position is to consider

‘theory and practice’ together, which this book

achieves, as well as providing a grounded theoretical

manual for the left to pursue a genuine form of

communism. In short, this book is highly recom-

mended for the reader who is interested in Marxism

and radical politics at all levels.

Watcharabon Buddharaksa(University of York)

Changing Perceptions of the Public Sphere by

Christian J. Emden and David Midgley (eds).

Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2012. 208pp., £40.00,

ISBN 978 0 85745 500 0

This collection of essays provides a sampling of recent

work on the use and validity of Jürgen Habermas’

conception of the public sphere. Primarily written by

historians and for historians, they largely examine

Habermas’ public sphere theory in isolation from a

consideration of the remainder of his theoretical works.

This selection is somewhat miscellaneous as most of

these essays consider the relevance of public sphere

theory to disparate historical case studies, and the way

these case studies affect the chronology and the

characterisation of the public sphere. Thus there are

contributions by Sarah Westphal on pamphlets and

gender in fifteenth-century Bavaria; Joachim Whaley

on the particular characteristics of the crystallising

public sphere in early modern Germany; Peter Burke on

the early modern European ‘secret history’; Martina

Lauster on the writings of Edward Bulwer-Lytton and

Karl Gutzkow; Edward Timms on Karl Kraus’ Vienna;

and David Midgley on contemporary German literary

controversies. Nicholas Boyle, meanwhile, provides a

critique of the validity of public sphere theory, and

John H. Zammito’s contribution is a study of the recent

varying uses of public sphere theory within different

disciplines. Save for Boyle’s essay, the collection aims at

emendation of and commentary upon Habermas’

public sphere theory rather than deep critique.

The most interesting theme to emerge from these

studies – especially prominent in Whaley’s and Boyle’s

essays – is the extent to which Habermas’ public sphere

theory is both a response to peculiarly German historical

conditions and a continuation of an equally German

line of historical and philosophical inquiry. This

reminder of the German-ness of the conception of

public sphere can argue to the theorist its limits as a

transhistorical work and to the historian its limited

applicability to the world beyond Germany. Alterna-

tively, it indicates that the conception of the public

sphere, if it is to be used more broadly as either theory

or historical description, requires careful translation (so

to speak) from the German. Although it is not explicitly

stated in these works, a corollary would be that theorists

who use Habermas’ later work should be equally

attentive both to Habermas’ German context and, for



example, to the no less particular context of the various

Anglo-American thinkers (Austin, Dworkin, Parsons)

upon whose work he also constructs his theoretical

edifice. This volume may serve as a model for such a

parallel contextualisation of Habermas’ later thought –

which we should not trust to be any more universal than

his earlier work on the public sphere.

David Randall(New York Studio School)

Imagined Democracies: Necessary Political Fic-

tions by Yaron Ezrahi. New York: Cambridge Uni-

versity Press, 2012. 325pp., £60.00, ISBN 978 1,107

02575 2

Looking beyond mainstream democratic theories of the

day, Yaron Ezrahi’s Imagined Democracies examines the

constitutive role that collective popular political imagi-

naries play in democratic and non-democratic regimes.

His purpose is ‘to show that in the transition from

modernity to post-modernity, contemporary democ-

racy must reinvent the cultural and political grounds of

governmental power and authority’ through pragmati-

cally and ethically grounded choices regarding which

political fictions are best able to further the always

evolving ideals of a just, democratic society (p. xi). This

book offers an original revisionist, theoretically eclectic

approach that takes on the postmodern problemati-

sations of contemporary democracy. In the vein of

other contemporary theorists of social imaginaries like

Charles Taylor and Benedict Anderson, Ezrahi’s book,

which is primarily aimed at well-read academics, moves

beyond these thinkers to offer a unique approach.

Part genealogy, part phenomenology, part conven-

tional descriptive and normative theorising, ImaginedDemocracies (even though it contains a few sections that

are somewhat tangential and distracted, – typically in

the author’s other areas of expertise – that are not

always flawlessly weaved into the thesis of this book)

should be considered successful in achieving its

expressed aim: to express the central importance of

imaginaries to political systems and to show how and

why, based on the recent past and the impending future,

democratic populations should consciously choose

which imaginaries, which political fictions they want to

live under.

Ezrahi does this by engaging with a plethora of

diverse theorists, from the modern social contract theo-

rists (Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau) to the less well-

known Giambattista Vico, from whom much of the

theoretical work on political imagination is drawn, to

Heidegger and Derrida to Foucault. The author situ-

ates his nuanced, reconstructed theory of political

imaginaries within the never-quite-concluded liberal-

communitarian debate. Ezrahi problematises both sides

of the debate, and while eventually siding more or less

with the liberals, he does show that the intellectual

obsession with foundational ontologies and ‘Truths’ is

misplaced and detrimental to the cultivation of a more

publically useful political theory discipline.

However, it is also in this very strong and well-

written section that I would say the greatest gap in this

text lies since it does not engage at all substantially

with Habermas’ work on communicative rationality,

especially in the space between liberalism and

communitarianism/republicanism or with the ‘post-

modern turn’. That being said, the omission is periph-

eral to the overall argument and thus ImaginedDemocracies remains a substantial and important contri-

bution to democratic theory.

Bryant W. Sculos(Florida International University)

Sharing Democracy by Michaele L. Ferguson.

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. 208pp.,

£17.99, ISBN 978 0 19 992160 7

Sharing Democracy challenges the prevalent assumption

that commonality is a necessary ingredient for demo-

cratic unity. Writing in the aftermath of the Arab

Spring, Michaele Ferguson promotes Hannah Arendt’s

notion of ‘world-building’ through which we

intersubjectively interpret and communicate about our

world. She argues that world-building, and not com-

monality, is essential to the three requirements of

democracy: shared identity, affective ties and collective

agency. Drawing on Linda Zerilli’s critique of feminist

theory, Ferguson deems identities as products of human

imagination rather than objective, knowable common-

alities. Then, critiquing the focus that Charles Taylor,

David Miller and Jürgen Habermas place on trust, she

states that affective ties arise through our beliefs – not

knowledge – of people. Ferguson subsequently chal-

lenges Taylor’s understanding of agency, promoting

instead ‘democratic interagency’; dialogue about how to

BOOK REVIEWS 407


imagine our world. Interagency, according to Ferguson,

enables citizens to shape their world together, trans-

forming politics beyond state institutions and into the

demos. Ferguson then relates her argument back to the

2006 immigrant rights protests, exposing their disagree-

ment, dissent and counter protest. Rather than uniting

citizens through commonality, Ferguson demonstrates

how protests help citizens realise that agency is exercised

by intersubjectively shaping the world, that they can

realise another world, and that we all have the capacity

for world-building freedom.

Sharing Democracy makes a strong case for replacing

commonality with world-building in the search for

democratic unity. Ferguson provides a systematic explo-

ration of shared identity, affective ties and collective

agency. Her approach is innovative in its combined

analysis of theoretical and empirical events. References

to topical events alert the reader to the significance of

rethinking commonality, making Sharing Democracy a

relevant and stimulating read. Ferguson’s argument

could, however, be enriched through engagement with

others who also reject commonality, including agonistic

democrats William Connolly, James Tully and David

Owen. Like Ferguson, they perceive democratic dis-

agreement as inevitable and desirable, thereby promot-

ing unity through intersubjective freedom rather than

commonality. Tully’s work draws extensively on

Arendt and Ludwig Wittgenstein, rendering his work

particularly significant to Ferguson. Moreover,

Connolly and Tully’s respective tools of ‘agonistic

respect’ and ‘mutual recognition’ appear compatible

with Ferguson’s calls to cultivate responsibility for rela-

tionships between citizens. If Ferguson were to engage

with these thinkers, she could perhaps suggest which

types of interrelationship might encourage solidarity.

Nevertheless, Sharing Democracy provides a strong, sys-

tematic and innovative account of why we should

abandon the search for commonality and focus instead

upon world-building.

Marie Paxton(University of Nottingham)

We welcome short reviews of books in all areas of

politics and international relations. For guidelines

on submitting reviews, and to see an up-to-date

listing of books available for review, please visit

http://www.politicalstudiesreview.org/.

On Settling by Robert E. Goodin. Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press, 2012. 114pp., £16.95,

ISBN 978 0 691 14845 8

Robert Goodin provides a provocative account of

the under-explored practice of settling. Goodin

takes settling as a counterpoint to striving: while

the practice of settling relates to the quest for

fixity, striving is an unending quest for further and

further goals. In setting up this dichotomy, Goodin

takes care to stress that settling and striving are

not at odds, but are instead complementary to each

other.

The first two chapters of the book outline and

defend the practice of settling. Goodin employs ordi-

nary language analysis to uncover the various features

of settling. We can ‘settle down’, ‘settle in’, ‘settle

up’, ‘settle for’, ‘settle one’s affairs’ and (what Goodin

calls the master notion) ‘settle on’. Furthermore, set-

tling occurs in a variety of contexts: geographical,

political, personal and so on. The common thread,

Goodin argues, is ‘fixity’ – keeping an aspect of our

lives stable over a period of time. The value of

settling is in facilitating effective agency. Settling

some things provides the background against which

we can attain other things. Being unsettled, on the

other hand, potentially debilitates all of our projects.

The third chapter distinguishes settling from three

other practices: compromise, conservativism and res-

ignation. In the final chapter, Goodin makes his case

for why striving needs settling in two ways: we need

to settle on what we are striving for; and we need to

settle some projects in order to make our striving for

others more effective.

I found this book highly rewarding. Due to its use

of history and ordinary language, it is accessible to

specialists and non-specialists alike. My main com-

plaint is the book’s length. It is too short, which

means that some discussions end far too quickly. For

example, Goodin closes his final chapter asking if

settling is irrational in light of Bayesian rationality

(one of the very few technical discussions in the

book). Goodin concludes that settling must be irra-

tional, but I believe he gives up the fight too early.

This is a rich topic that deserves more than two pages

to explore. Why not use the value of settling as a

critique of or corrective to this model of rationality?

Regardless, Goodin gives readers a well-grounded



starting point for a conversation on settling – one that

I hope is continued.

Harrison P. Frye(University of Virginia)

Habermas and European Integration: Social and

Cultural Modernity beyond the Nation-state by

Shivdeep Singh Grewal. Manchester: Manchester

University Press, 2012. 129pp., £60.00, ISBN 978 0

7190 7870 5

The author of this monograph promises the reader a

systematic analysis of both politico-scientific works and

journalistic interventions on European integration

authored by Jürgen Habermas (despite the fact that

Habermas himself has tended to establish a wall of

separation between these two components of his

oeuvre), thus elucidating the ways in which his ‘grand’

theoretical choices have influenced his critical analysis of

European integration, and vice versa (pp. 5, 6 and 7).

The structure of the book is highly chaotic and

makes it a collection of disconnected arguments rather

than a coherent set supporting a thesis. Part I comprises

four chapters in which the author: reconstructs

Habermas’ journalistic contributions on European

integration (reminding the reader of the Frankfurt

philosopher’s Eurosceptic past); interprets European

integration as the continuation of the process of

‘juridification’ that resulted in the post-war Social and

Democratic Rechtsstaat; considers the main theories of

European integration, which are then contrasted with

Habermas’ analysis of the European Union; and intro-

duces and defines the two key models of democracy to

be found in Habermas’ thought – the defensive (or

‘siege model’) and the constructive model (the so-called

‘sluice gate’ model). Part II consists in a rather unorigi-

nal (and a trifle pedantic) summary of Habermas’

thought on modernity and neo-conservativism as a

reaction against modernity. Part III, which is said to

contain ‘empirical research’, consists of an idiosyncratic

reconstruction of a series of interviews conducted in

2002 among political and institutional actors on their

conception and views on European integration. The

conclusion is not only sketchy (the reader is likely to be

left with the impression that the author was beating a

very tight deadline when writing it), but highly incon-

clusive. Continuing with the unusual cut of the book,

the main text is followed by an interesting though

somehow quite unrelated text in the form of an Epi-

logue by John Goff.

The book is additionally hampered by two major

flaws. First, it has been written as if the thought of

Habermas would be reconstructed in contrast to that of

his dialectical rivals. The fact of the matter is that

quotations presenting the thought of key authors such

as Niklas Luhmann or Jacques Derrida tend to be

second-hand quotations from Habermas’ own work (or

from the secondary literature on Habermas). Second,

both the date of the interviews (2002) and of most of

the bibliography reveals the dated character of the

work, which largely accounts for the surprising lack of

consideration of the existential crisis of the European

Union unleashed in 2007 that actually provides a

superb context in which to test the relevance and

acuity of Habermas’ ideas on European integration.

Agustín José Menéndez(University of León)

The Importance of Being Civil: The Struggle

for Political Decency by John A. Hall. Princeton,

NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013. 266pp., £19.95,

ISBN 978 0 691 15326 1

‘Civility’ is a much used and little understood term.

John Hall seeks to address the problem by providing a

clear definition of the idea and mounting a defence of

it against its enemies. The strategy is reflected in the

structure of the book, the first half of which explores

the composite elements of civility. To the fore is a

stress on the importance of individualism and the

accommodation of difference and disagreement in

societies that promote tolerance and inclusion. In the

second half of the book, this understanding of civility

is further developed through a critical examination of

ideas opposed to it – namely forms of romanticism that

promote the idea of an ‘authentic’ self, reconciled to a

unified human community, and the pessimistic con-

strual of human nature as driven by destructive envy

and the instinctual desire for domination. Throughout,

Hall couches his analysis in terms of the economic,

social and geopolitical factors that have promoted,

inhibited and destroyed civility in the modern world.

As would be expected from an intellect of such

standing, this is a masterful work. It is rich in ideas, and

Hall’s readings of authors such as Adam Smith, Alexis

BOOK REVIEWS 409


de Tocqueville, Raymond Aron, Erving Goffman and

Daniel Bell are profoundly insightful. There is little

question that the book makes a major contribution to

contemporary debates on civility and civil society.

Hall’s most significant move, however, is to distinguish

these two terms and draw our attention away from

seemingly interminable and often sterile discussions of

civil society ‘design’. Here instead we have a redrawing

of civility as the attitude of the civilised, and the

presentation of what to many will be an attractive

picture of civil societies as ones that encourage diver-

sity and creative independence in their citizens

by fostering critical and sceptical dispositions. Yet

while this is Hall’s most ‘political’ book to date, the

comparative historical sociologist is never far from

the front in reminding us, forcefully and rightly, that

civility arises more by accident than design, and that

such a fragile condition will always be a struggle to

promote and maintain. That makes the task of

improving our understanding of it all the more impor-

tant. Still, there are those who with some justification

will find Hall’s defence of liberal individualism, civil

nationalism, economic growth and the beneficent

power of science and technological progress uncon-

vincing and fundamentally at odds with the tenor of

the times.

Jason Edwards(Birkbeck, University of London)

Inventing the Market: Smith, Hegel and Politi-

cal Theory by Lisa Herzog. Oxford: Oxford Uni-

versity Press, 2013. 184pp., £50.00, ISBN 978 0 19

967417 6

Lisa Herzog’s new book builds upon the well-

founded intuition that markets are just too important

to be left to economists. Building upon the related

judgement that political philosophy over the past

thirty years has had comparatively little to say about

markets in particular, rather than about social justice

more generally, Herzog encourages us to return to a

reconsideration of the market in the company of two

of its most insightful interpreters: Adam Smith and

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. As we do so, in the

substantial second and third chapters of her study,

Herzog invites us to see in Smith and Hegel some-

thing other than the outright champion and arch-

critic sometimes presented in secondary accounts.

While it is true that Smith ends up with a much

more admiring account of the role of the market,

both thinkers recognise that alongside the increment

to freedom and economic growth which it delivers,

the market has a dangerous underside which it is the

legitimate function of the state to counteract (if it

can). This is brought out more fully in Chapter 4.

The remaining three chapters focus upon the

elements of (bourgeois) virtue, freedom and historic-

ity in markets as these emerge from the respective

accounts of Smith and Hegel. Herzog’s claim in

closing is both that we can continue to learn lessons

(including philosophical lessons) from what these two

great theorists of the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-

turies had to say about the nature of the markets in

their own societies, and that one of these lessons is

precisely that markets are always embedded in their

own and very particular time and place.

This is a lot of ground to cover and one suspects

that anyone who has attended at all closely to what

Smith and Hegel actually had to say should already be

well aware of much of what is reported here. Some

may regret that Herzog chose, perhaps for good

reasons, substantially to ignore Marx. He was, after all,

and whatever the vicissitudes of his own journey, one

of the first and most acute of the admiring critics of

both Smith and Hegel. The author also makes some

very big assumptions – about the nature of individual

property rights, for example – that one might expect a

philosophical interrogation of the market to explore

further. Still, this is a well-written and thoughtful

account, perhaps best read alongside Frank Ruda’s

forensic investigation of Hegel’s Rabble (Continuum,

2011).

Chris Pierson(University of Nottingham)

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Social

Science by Harold Kincaid (ed.). Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2012. 696pp., £90.00, ISBN

9780195392753

In this volume, editor Harold Kincaid has produced

an extensive, if somewhat narrowly conceived, over-

view of the field. The guiding thread of the text is

clearly summarised in the introduction. Essentially, the

volume aims to provide a definitive overview of how



the philosophies of social science, and social science

more generally, have moved away from simplistic posi-

tivist conceptions of social change to draw upon post-

positivist ontologies and epistemologies.

This aim is pursued throughout the twenty-odd

chapters, totaling almost 700 pages, with reference to

five main themes, grouped into discrete though over-

lapping parts. The first part covers issues of causality,

including ‘mechanisms’, ‘process-tracing’ and ‘com-

plexity’. All these discussions avoid the traditional posi-

tivist position of there being an eternal law of causality

which science can ‘discover’. The second part discusses

issues surrounding ‘evidence’. This includes ‘Duhem’s

view’ ‘of there being multiple ways to measure aspects

of theories’ (p. 12), the use of ‘Bayesian statistics’,

‘randomised control tests’ and the role of ‘computa-

tional models’. All these attempt to move away from

the contention that it is only possible to achieve an

evidential basis for research through pure logical con-

sistency. The third part moves to discussions of

‘culture, norms, and sociality’, including ‘methodologi-

cal individualism’, ‘behavioural regularities’, ‘human

intelligence’ linked with the ‘evolutionary programme’

and the ‘biological notion of race’. These aim to dem-

onstrate how philosophy and science are intimately

linked, and how there is no objective position from

which to produce knowledge. The fourth part focuses

on the ‘sociology of knowledge’, which includes

‘feminist comparative politics’, ‘mental illness’ and

the use of sociological factors in assessing ‘scientific

standards’ of various research outputs. The final part

focuses on ‘normative issues’, including discussions on

‘political philosophy’, ‘mental health outcomes’ and

‘well-being’.

While this volume presents an extensive range of

topics, they are narrowly conceived in their approach.

For instance, the discussion of feminism goes to great

lengths to deny the virtues of a constructivist version,

let alone with any reference to more politically radical

versions, de-limiting the parameters of what is taken to

be acceptable philosophy of social science. It is hard

then to consider this book to be pursuing a post-

positivist direction, as advertised; rather it is one more

concerned with tracing the developments away from a

vulgar to a more nuanced positivism.

Jamie Jordan(University of Nottingham)

Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelli-

gence and the Rule of the Many by Hélène

Landemore. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press, 2013. 279pp., £27.95, ISBN 978 0 691 15565 4

Pluralism, Democracy and Political Knowledge:

Robert A. Dahl and His Critics on Modern

Politics by Hans Blokland. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011.

374pp., £65.00, ISBN 978 1 4094 2931 9

Hélène Landemore’s book contests the widespread view

according to which small groups and/or a single expert

are supposed to make wiser decisions than large groups.

On the contrary, she argues that, under conditions of

appropriate deliberation and through a sound use of

majority rule, democratic decision procedures are likely

to achieve more efficient outcomes than any other kind

of undemocratic decision procedure. Not only does

Landemore defend the applicability of the ‘collective

intelligence’ hypothesis to contemporary mass democ-

racies, she also supports ‘a strong version of the

epistemic argument’ for democratic regimes (p. 3). Her

main argument is that democracy tends to be

‘epistemically smarter’ (p. 2) than the rule either of the

few or of a paternalistic dictator. She clearly makes the

point that traditional and recently advanced arguments

against majority rule and collective intelligence derive

from the pre-commitment to methodological individu-

alism that is typical of mainstream political science and

its notion of reason as autonomy. At the same time, she

pinpoints the procedural view of democracy that

grounds the common diffidence towards any form of

citizens’ expertise (à la Dewey): in the vein of David

Estlund’s work on democratic authority, Landemore

aims at rehabilitating the idea that, for democratic deci-

sions to be fully legitimate and justified, their descend-

ing from a set of supposedly neutral and a prioriestablished procedures is not enough.

According to Landemore, democracy must also rely

upon citizens’ deliberation in order to make the

process of decision making more respectful towards

those who are directly affected by it and also to get the

most out of the different skills inevitably pertaining to

large groups. This is exactly what she means by ‘demo-

cratic reason’ – a kind of intelligence that goes beyond

the mere aggregation of individual expertise. After

having outlined the common prejudice of philosophers

and theorists against ‘the rule of the dumb many’ (p.

24), Landemore first traces a historical and selective

BOOK REVIEWS 411


genealogy of the epistemic argument for democracy

(from Protagoras to Hayek). She then examines two

complementary mechanisms of democratic reasons

(inclusive deliberation and majority rule) and their

respective fallacies, both empirical and theoretical.

Finally, she offers a defence of ‘political cognitivism’ –

i.e. the belief in a procedure-independent standard of

correctness in political decision-making – and develops

a conceptualisation of institutions and norms as ‘cog-

nitive artifacts’ embodying the collective intelligence of

the people distributed across space and time. This fas-

cinating book discloses path-breaking perspectives for

democratic theorists as it develops James Surowiecki’s

argument for the ‘wisdom of crowds’ by combining

political theory with the outcomes of recent research

in evolutionary psychology and applying the apprecia-

tion for the role of cognitive diversity to the case of

democratic decision making.

Hans Blokland’s book provides a highly needed

critical and chronological reassessment of the develop-

ment of the political theory of pluralism. Moving from

a systematic analysis of the work by Robert Dahl (and

partially by Charles E. Lindblom) between the 1930s

and the 1970s, the author offers a historical account of

one of the most dominant paradigms in twentieth-

century post-war political science. Yet Blokland’s

narrative relies upon two closely interconnected argu-

ments: on the one hand, he argues that pluralism is a

pre-eminent articulation of the threefold process of

modernisation (differentiation, individualisation and

rationalisation) that has shaped Western political orders

in the second half of the last century; on the other, he

urges contemporary democratic theorists to engage

critically with the core assumptions of the theory of

pluralism in order properly to understand power

relations shaping existing social orders and the subse-

quent lack of ‘positive political freedom’ (p. 1) in

contemporary mass democracies. In particular, this

book draws on Max Weber, Karl Mannheim and

Joseph Schumpeter’s accounts of modernity, which

Blokland analysed in his 2006 work Modernization andIts Political Consequences, to highlight the limitation of

personal autonomy and shared ‘substantial’ rational

action as opposed to ‘functional’: whereas functional

rationality aims at goals that are set beforehand, sub-

stantial rationality grounds action on a careful assess-

ment of the costs, benefits and values that are at stake

in a specific situation.

Stemming from this distinction, Blokland points to

the thick dimension of individual freedom as well as the

absence of shared conceptions of the public good that

beset current democratic societies vis-à-vis the ‘iron

cages’ of bureaucracies and markets. Therefore, his

genealogy of the theory of pluralism up to the 1970s

and the decline of such a paradigm in the following

decades is significantly inspired by the conceptualisation

of political science as a cumulative knowledge against

the behaviouralistic idea of the study of politics as a

monolithic knowledge based on the social/natural sci-

ences analogy. By re-exploring the foundations of the

conception of polyarchy and the diverging epistemo-

logical premises grounding the debate between pluralists

and elitists, Blokland conveys an accurate and ambitious

reading of Dahl’s evolving thought throughout the last

century and its legacy for ‘rehabilitating politics’ (p. xiii)

– i.e. for coping with the malaise that typifies contem-

porary democracies at the individual and societal levels,

inside and outside political institutions.

David Ragazzoni(Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy)

On Complicity and Compromise by Chiara

Lepora and Robert E. Goodin. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2013. 192pp., £50.00, ISBN: 978

0199677900

On Complicity and Compromise is the product of an

innovative collaboration between a philosophical

theory (in the person of Robert E. Goodin) and

humanitarian practice (represented by Chiara Lepora, a

doctor and a programme director for Médecins sansFrontières). Opening with a dialogue between the two

authors in which they talk through the demands and

methods of their respective fields, the book then

unfolds a meticulous and illuminating analysis of diffi-

cult terrain in practical ethics.

Those who wish to do some good in the world

often face the problem not simply of opposition from

those engaged in perpetrating great wrongs. Often, in

order to have any chance of success, they must also rub

shoulders with those who perpetrated the very evils

they seek to remedy, enjoining them to do less wrong

or enlisting their protection or service in programmes

to mitigate the effects of their actions. The case with

which Lepora provokes the discussion at the outset is a

powerful one: asked by a soldier whether he ought to



wear condoms when engaged in the rape his army is

systematically inflicting on the population, what should

she have said? To ignore the question or to state

directly that he simply ought not to do it at all has the

virtue of keeping her hands clean but arguably at the

expense of future rape victims who are more likely to

suffer infection with HIV in addition to the immediate

crime itself. But if she answers that he should [wear a

condom], doesn’t she become complicit in the crime?

Goodin and Lepora offer a systematic, detailed analy-

sis of the moral issues facing professionals forced to

negotiate such complex dilemmas. They distinguish

carefully between a wide range of concepts that are

often confused when scholars speak of complicity and

compromise, and differentiate between a spectrum of

types and degrees of involvement by which well-

intentioned actors may find themselves implicated as

‘secondary agents’ in the crimes of principals. An

important chapter then offers a formula for assessing the

degrees of responsibility that must be ascribed to indi-

viduals who allow themselves to become implicated in

wrongdoing in some indirect way as a lesser evil com-

pared with doing nothing and missing the chance of

softening its effects. Finally, the book closes with

insightful case studies on Rwanda and on the involve-

ment of medical professionals in torture, respectively.

This book is essential reading not only for philoso-

phers who will find in it a rich, original and revealing

contribution to ethics and political theory, but also for

practitioners. Its marriage of theory and practice is

path-breaking.

Chrisopher Finlay(University of Birmingham)

Hobbes Today: Insights for the 21st Century by

S. A. Lloyd (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2012. 375pp., £17.99, ISBN 978 0521169783

Ever since the publication of the works of, among

others, Quentin Skinner, it has been repeated more

than once that the history of political philosophy is not

about perennial questions, let alone perennial answers.

Just as the answers are changing over time, so too are

the questions. For that reason it is appropriate to turn

to an early modern author and engage with him in a

dialogue as if he were still present.

Nothing is wrong with such an approach a priori as

long as one is aware of the fact that the questions he

raised are not the same as the ones we ask ourselves

today. Taking that precaution into account, such a

point of departure might engender fruitful insights.

And that is exactly what Sharon Lloyd provides in

her edited book on Hobbes Today. All the contribu-

tors reflect on ‘the relevance of Hobbesian theory to

the problems we confront today’ (p. xi). A produc-

tive collaboration has been set up in the sense that

talented Hobbes scholars have extended their knowl-

edge into contemporary issues and political philoso-

phers, legal theorists and political scientists have

applied their expertise on Hobbes. The result is a

sparkling book full of insightful results and some

surprising readings.

The book is divided into three sections. The first

concentrates on the application to governmental

power with discussions on Hobbes’ theory of rights,

the notion of equality and the representation of sov-

ereignty. In the second part, on the application to

civil society and domestic institutions, such issues are

raised as fiscal policy, punishment and the duty to

fight for one’s country. In the last section the authors

investigate how Hobbes’ ideas apply to problems of

global scope with interesting expositions on global

justice, just war theory and human rights. These con-

tributions, which are all of high quality, show that

certain (aspects of ) questions remain appealing today

and, even, that certain answers from the past are still

relevant in some respects. This gives rise to more

fundamental thought: What is the underlying theo-

retical framework of the approach for applying

Hobbesian insights to contemporary challenges and,

maybe even more importantly, what are the conse-

quences for our understanding of Hobbes and con-

temporary problems and events? Indeed, this might

even have been the subject of an additional chapter –

maybe one written by Skinner himself, who is a true

Hobbes specialist with broad experience in political

philosophy.

Erik De Bom(University of Leuven)






BOOK REVIEWS 413


Democracy and Democratization in Compara-

tive Perspective: Conceptions, Conjunctures,

Causes and Consequences by Jørgen Møller and

Svend-Erik Skaaning. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012.

242pp., £90.00, ISBN 978 0 415 63350 5

Jørgen Møller and Svend-Erik Skaaning remind the

reader that democracy’s roots and meaning are much

deeper than one may initially realise. The authors’

objective is to cover democratic theory, empirical

dynamics of democratisation, explanations of this

development and the consequences of democracy. In a

nutshell, the novelty of the book is in its presenting

the reader with a much broader spectrum of democ-

racy and democratisation than its predecessors, showing

what democracy and democratisation are, when,

where, why and how they happen.

The book is an excellent reference for any student of

democracy and democratisation since it is essentially a

well-researched and well-written review and aggrega-

tion of the most significant literature on the subject.

The title and the sequence of questions also guide the

design of the book. The authors have divided the

volume into four parts: conceptions, conjunctures,

causes and consequences. The first part traces the evo-

lution of the concept of democracy since its conception

in ancient Greece and Rome to modern times, con-

cluding with the typology of democratic and autocratic

regimes that have emerged in the late twentieth and

early twenty-first centuries. This part underlines the

importance of disaggregating the subcomponents of

democracy and engages in the debate on defining and

measuring democracy. The next part, on conjunctures,

follows a similar structure, discussing the medieval foun-

dations of democracy and proceeding to the waves of

democratisation. In the part on causes, the authors bring

together longstanding debates on the factors that

encourage democratisation. Presenting the arguments of

modernisation theory, social forces, transitology, inter-

national factors and the agency/structure debate, the

authors demonstrate when and why some approaches

have stronger explanatory power than others. The final

part of the book on consequences discusses an often

neglected part of democracy studies, which sometimes

treat democracy as the end game. This part discusses

what happens after the establishment of democracy and

how democracy can facilitate the resolution of ongoing

problems.

The book may not offer groundbreaking revelations

for scholars of democracy, yet it should be included in

the curriculum of any graduate course on democracy

and democratisation. The book pinpoints the gaps

within current scholarship, underlines the explanatory

value of existing approaches and suggests the path of

future research. Finally, the authors skilfully guide the

reader through the vast scholarship on the matter and

prompt more careful consideration of the concepts that

may often be juggled without nuanced analysis.

Nelli Babayan(Freie Universität Berlin)

Our Bodies: Whose Property? by Anne Phillips.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012.

202pp., £19.95, ISBN 9780 691 15086 4

In this collection of five elegant essays, Anne Phillips

worries away at the question of how best to under-

stand the relationship between our bodies and our

selves. It’s certainly right, she thinks, that I don’t

belong to anyone else. But does that mean that I own

myself? And would owning myself mean that I could

sell or rent myself or bits of myself to someone else?

And should anyone be in a position to tell me that I

can’t – especially if it’s true that ‘It’s My Body and I’ll

Do What I Like with It’? The book explores these

issues through a series of case studies of ‘property-in-

bodies’ talk. These focus upon rape, the sale of organs

and, between these, the case of surrogacy.

The argument throughout is rigorous but unclut-

tered, at times conversational. And also with moments

of humour: you may regret having to pay your reluctant

teenager to mow the lawn but it doesn’t mean you’re

creating a labour market! Rather than arriving at a

normative position and then applying it to the several

cases, Phillips’ method is to consider why, in each

instance, she feels that, sometimes only in the end, the

claims made by advocates of a ‘property model’ should

be resisted. Overall, her judgement is that we do best

not to treat the body as property – above all, because

this encourages us to see ‘it’ as available for commodi-

fication. This, in its turn, distracts us from recognising

the essential equality that resides in our all being embod-

ied, within bodies that are both vulnerable and imper-

fect. Given a context in which ‘property’ is widely

understood to mean ‘absolute dominion’ (even if this

has given way in most legal discourse to the idea of pro-



perty as a ‘bundle of rights’), the policy consequences of

opting for ‘bodies as property’ are likely to be worst for

those whose bodies most need to be protected.

This is a skilful and thoughtful engagement with a

‘real’ ethical/policy issue and from which the author is

not too shy to draw ‘real’ policy conclusions. Its open-

ended and consequentialist reasoning will distress some

who see property as the last bastion of protection for

the individual against those who want to tell them

what they can and can’t do with and to themselves.

But Phillips is not likely to be unduly worried by that.

Chris Pierson(University of Nottingham)

Enduring Injustice by Jeff Spinner-Halev. Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 236pp.,

£18.99, ISBN 9781107603073

All enduring injustice is historical, but not all historical

injustice is enduring. In this highly readable and

thought-provoking book, Jeff Spinner-Halev explains

the difference between historical injustice and enduring

injustice as follows: historical injustice is an injustice that

took place in the past, while enduring injustice is an

injustice that has both an historical and a contemporary

component, to the extent that the injustice that took

place sometime in the past still persists today.

This book is about enduring injustice, not historical

injustice. The distinction is crucial, and according to

Spinner-Havel the failure to recognise it has created

much confusion in the vast and growing literature on

reparation of past wrongdoing. It is on the basis of this

distinction that Spinner-Havel makes the controversial

and counter-intuitive claim that ‘the idea of reparations

for past injustices is mistaken ... many apologies for

enduring injustices are often misguided and not very

meaningful, since the injustice is in fact ongoing’ (p. 6).

This makes sense, and Spinner-Havel has a valid point.

The theoretical framework presented in this study is

accompanied by many detailed empirical examples –

another aspect of the book which deserves to be

applauded. The enduring injustice suffered by Native

Americans and African Americans in the United States,

the predicament of Israeli and Indian Muslims, the

plight of the Tatars in Ukraine and the discrimination

against Roma gypsies all feature in this book, as well as

other examples from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China,

Japan, New Zealand and Tibet.

Spinner-Havel tells us that there are two kinds of

injustice, although the relationship between the two is

left unexplored: first there is the systemic oppression

exercised by certain regimes which makes it impossible

for certain standard visions of justice to be realised,

while the second kind of injustice deals specifically

with people not being able to direct their collective

lives, or, as Spinner-Havel says, ‘not being at home in

the world’. This second kind of injustice, or radical

injustice, takes centre stage in this book. The main

focus of radical injustice is geographical. And yet

‘home’ is more than a metaphor; I remain to be per-

suaded that some groups have a fundamental, inalien-

able claim over a certain piece of land they call ‘home’

– is this a case of ‘first-come-first-served’? But these

are minor issues that do not detract from the merits of

a book that deserves to be widely read.

Vittorio Bufacchi(University College Cork, Ireland)

Uncontrollable Societies of Disaffected Individ-

uals: Disbelief and Discredit (Volume 2) by

Bernard Stiegler. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012.

200pp., £16.99, ISBN 978-0745648125

Classical economic theorists have long pointed out the

centrality of trust and confidence to the functioning of

the capitalist system. Beginning from the early twentieth

century, critical theorists have emphasised the role of

desire in the perpetuation of a system of consumption,

arguing that for capitalism to function it must always

renew and re-invent its venues of desire and gratifica-

tion. In the second volume of Disbelief and Discredit,Bernard Stiegler investigates the contemporary stage of

capitalism where not only trust and confidence is

exhausted, but also individual desire is liquidated. Fol-

lowing his exposé of the state of the human psyche in

the age of ‘hyperindustrialism’ that appeared in the first

volume, Stiegler now directs his attention to the

destructive tendencies abounding in contemporary daily

life. From suicidal acts (such as bombings and shootings)

to the spread of attention deficit disorder in today’s

youth, we witness the rise of destructive behaviour.

Stiegler argues that such diverse acts of self-

destruction (or ‘acting out’) point to a larger phenom-

enon than one that could be explained by individual

psychopathology. We are in the midst of a serious

sociopathology caused by an obsolete social and indus-

BOOK REVIEWS 415


trial order. It is an order which reduces individuals to

consumers that are calculable and brainwashed entities

and hence which de-valorises the singularity of indi-

vidual desires. The resulting ‘loss of the feeling of

existing’ (p. 121) leads to these acts of destruction and,

eventually, to the destruction of society.

For Stiegler, it is a matter of fighting against this

destructive tendency of capitalism rather than letting it

run its course because the self-destruction of capitalism

is intrinsically tied to the destruction of the human

psyche. He does not discuss it at length, but he suggests

that art might be one way of overcoming this crisis in

the individual and social psyche (perhaps we could

expect more on this in the following volumes). While

contemporary Marxists prefer to focus on the alterna-

tive (and revolutionary) social relations, alliances and

imaginaries that are born out of the decaying capitalist

order, Stiegler seems to turn his attention to discord,

de-valorisation, violence and blockages. Perhaps his

despairing vision is a consequence of the urgency of

the situation, but it is of the utmost philosophical and

political concern whether it will be reform or revolu-

tion that leads the way out of our dire existential

condition under contemporary capitalism.

Irmak Ertuna-Howison(Beykent University, Istanbul)

International Relations

Fighting for Rights: From Holy Wars to

Humanitarian Military Inventions by Tal Dingott

Alkopher. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. 208pp., £55.00,

ISBN 978 1 4094 4539 5

In this book Tal Alkopher discusses the evolution of

rights as a source of conflict from medieval to modern

times. He does this by examining three case studies

in particular. First, he looks at the Crusades by Euro-

pean kings in an effort to recapture Jerusalem –

demonstrating rights as being once divine and part of

religious discourse. Following this, Alkopher consid-

ers the nature of the right of the state in the

Westphalian system with particular focus on the War

of Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War.

The final case study relates to NATO’s war in

Kosovo and the role of rights – particularly human

rights – in undermining the territorial integrity of the

state. The book argues that the latter case study has

started a precedent and we are now seeing a new

shift in rights discourse and the resulting violence

born of it. The right of the state is now being

diluted from above by international organisations such

as NATO and from below through the emphasis on

human rights, as well as that of human solidarity and

the idea that governments are responsible for human

rights across artificial borders. With the language used

being relatively accessible and with the undoubted

salience of the topic – the current debate around

possible intervention in Syria, for example, matches

the dissonance Alkopher discusses – I would argue

that this work is accessible to a lay reader.

The author raises a couple of noteworthy theories in

the book. First, he argues that the dualistic nature of

rights as a contract between two actors in a political

community involving rights and duties makes conflict

far more likely when these same rights are violated since

this is seen as an attack on the identity of the commu-

nity itself. It is also refreshing to read about a theory of

international conflict other than that of realism and

geopolitics. Alkopher uses examples from the Crusades

and Kosovo case study to demonstrate how rights

played a significant role in each of these wars, rather

than the focus being simple materialism. And while the

territorial conflicts of the eighteenth century are clothed

in realism, Alkopher pulls back the curtain to show that

it is the primacy of the right of the state above all others

which provided the legitimacy to partake in such con-

flicts in the first place. Although occasionally the book

invokes obscure historical details too much, it is a very

engaging and informative read.

Aminul Hassan(Open University)

Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibil-

ity to Protect: Security and Human Rights by

Cristina Badescu. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012.

212pp., £24.95, ISBN 978 0 415 53244 0

There have been several attempts to theoretically

frame, understand and explain the concept of

‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P), without agreement

in academic circles. It is noteworthy that in this book

Cristina Badescu pinpoints the previous debates around

the concept and brings to the fore the very controver-

sial aspect of the norm of sovereignty/control versus

416 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS


that of sovereignty/ responsibility by focusing on

R2P’s third pillar: the use of force.

This element of the R2P encompasses the right of

the international community to take timely and deci-

sive action to intervene in a state that is unable or

failing to protect its own citizens from genocide, war

crimes, ethnic cleansing or crimes against humanity.

This means that the international community bears the

responsibility to stop any of these four categories of

crimes from happening, and must not turn a blind eye

when they occur.

Nonetheless, this norm still lacks constancy, congru-

ence and consistency, and Badescu demonstrates this

through some case studies discussed in Chapter 6 that

show misinterpretations of the R2P norm. This

approach makes it easy for students and scholars of

international studies to have a comprehensive insight

into the debate. The cases covered include the 2003

invasion of Iraq, the Darfur crisis in Sudan, the 2007

post-election violence in Kenya, the effect of Cyclone

Nargis in Myanmar, the 2008 Russian military inter-

vention in South Ossetia and the 2008 violence in

Zimbabwe.

Badescu takes the debate further by attempting to

analyse different point of view in the debate on the

principle, and to propose a rational understanding and

explanation of the concept. Her account, which

favours R2P as the best framework for offering oppor-

tunities of success for humanitarian intervention and

institutional mechanisms, considers the persistent ques-

tions over the validity of the norm. At the same time,

she recognises the need for such a norm to fill in the

theoretical, normative and practical gaps with regard to

mass atrocities.

Badescu successfully builds on previous literature

and addresses the current debate by presenting the main

challenges to the norm, whether conceptual, political,

institutional or operational. Her analysis of the concept

brings conceptual clarity by suggesting that R2P should

be limited to a specific category of cases and not used

more broadly. She proposes collaboration and coher-

ence in action between the UN, regional organisations,

governments and civil society for the R2P to be a

success. This book, written in clear language, is a pre-

cious tool to bring to this most necessary debate on R2P

and its relation to human rights.

Didier Ibwilakwingi-Ekom(Swansea University)

Providing Peacekeepers: The Politics, Chal-

lenges and Future of United Nations Peace-

keeping Contributions by Alex J. Bellamy and

Paul D. Williams (eds). Oxford: Oxford Univer-

sity Press, 2013. 459pp., £65.00, ISBN 978 0 19

967282 0

There are publications where it is clear from the outset

that they will become major works of reference and

this is one of them. Edited by Alex Bellamy and Paul

Williams, this volume explores the factors that encour-

age or discourage states from contributing troops to

UN peacekeeping projects.

The first part sets the scene. It introduces the

research focus from a theoretical point of view and

outlines the structure of the volume (Introduction). It

also provides an overview of the main challenges to

the UN’s force generation efforts (Chapters 1 and 2).

Firmly grounded in new research, the next set of

chapters presents empirical material from case studies

of sixteen countries (Chapters 3 to 18). These coun-

tries are clustered into three groups: the five perma-

nent members of the UN Security Council (United

States, United Kingdom, France, People’s Republic of

China, Russian Federation); the top contributors

(Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Nigeria, Ghana, Nepal,

Uruguay); and the emerging powers (Brazil, Turkey,

South Africa, Japan). Building upon the evidence pre-

sented by these cases, the final two chapters develop a

framework for analysing national contributions to UN

peacekeeping (Chapter 19) and formulate recommen-

dations with the aim of addressing the challenges it

faces (Chapter 20).

The editors conclude that a country’s decision to

contribute peacekeepers is a complex and ad hoc one,

which is defined by a combination of culture, insti-

tutions and policies, and often complicated by politi-

cal factors like the adoption of alternative priorities

or the perception of exceptionalism (Chapter 19). As

a result, fine-tuning of national practice is more

likely to occur than fundamental change. A realist

approach is also palpable in the recommendation for

the UN to develop a force generation strategy

because of the editors’ frank discussion of the three

main challenges associated with such a strategy: the

global financial crisis, the prevalence of token con-

tributions and the complex nature of certain missions

(Chapter 20).

BOOK REVIEWS 417


The book’s timely and topical focus – the volume’s

publication coincides with increased concern about the

safety and security of UN peacekeepers, particularly

following negative experiences in the Golan and

Darfur – coupled with the collective authority of the

contributors and the empirical depth of their analyses

will make both scholars and practitioners return to this

volume time and time again. Presumably, it will also

make them look forward to the future activities of the

Providing for Peacekeeping project, for which this volume

has laid the foundations (see http://www.providingfor

peacekeeping.org).

Edith Drieskens(University of Leuven)

Class, States and International Relations: A Criti-

cal Appraisal of Robert Cox and Neo-Gramscian

Theory by Adrian Budd. Abingdon: Routledge,

2013. 224pp., £80.00, ISBN 9780415681865

The history of International Relations as a discipline

provides us with one certainty: your particular theory

relies upon your own perspective of the world.

Among the manifold aspects of IR, Robert Cox’s

theory, which is an attempt to re-read Gramsci’s

concepts of hegemony, civil and political societies,

historical blocs and so on and apply them to the con-

temporary world, has become an easy target for criti-

cism among theorists around the globe.

In this sense, Class, States and International Relationsby Adrian Budd attempts to appraise Robert Cox’s

theory critically along with neo-Gramscian theories. In

order to do so, the book is divided into two distinctive

parts, each containing six chapters. The first part

assesses Robert Cox and the neo-Gramscian theories

from their origins, thereby passing through the

operationalisation of Gramsci’s theory in the work of

Cox and the transnationalisation of those theories. The

author then provides his own critique of such inter-

pretations, assessing the core of social constructions

made by this line of thought. The author advocates the

importance of Cox’s re-interpretation of the interna-

tional system, stressing the fact that: ‘Three decades

since their publication Robert Cox’s essays “Social

Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International

Relations Theory” (1981) and “Gramsci, Hegemony

and International Relations: An Essay in Method”

(1983) retain much of their freshness’ (p. 15). He

continues by attesting that: ‘Cox’s application of the

method of historical structures to the study of world

orders enables him to develop a rich analysis of the

international system that articulates changes at the

levels of production, states and the inter-state system’

(p. 35). However, Budd also presents the flaws and

weakness where, according to him, Cox’s 1987 book

Production, Power and World Order leaves a gap between

its purpose and solid evidence, therefore being, in

some parts, too generalist (p. 59).

Regarding the global perspective of the neo-

Gramscian theory, Budd points out: ‘Thus, where

transnationalist theory emphasizes increased economic

interdependence, we might equally argue that eco-

nomic competition has been intensified. Since coopera-

tion operates not only at the level of exchange relations

but also in the relations of non-exchange that are their

necessary counterpart, it entails the persistence of

greater state power, including military force, that many

transnationalists are prepared to acknowledge’ (p. 170).

In conclusion, the book is well organised and presents

some important issues regarding the formulation of

Robert Cox’s neo-Gramscian understanding of the

world as well as the neo-Gramscian mainstream in IR.

Fernando Jose Ludwig(University of Coimbra)

Development Aid Confronts Politics: The

Almost Revolution by Thomas Carothers and

Diane de Gramont. Washington, DC: Carnegie

Endowment for International Peace, 2013. vii+346pp.,

£13.99, ISBN 978-0-87003-400-8

How to Manage an Aid Exit Strategy: The

Future of Development Aid by Derek Fee.

London: Zed Books, 2012. v+256pp., £18.99, ISBN

978-1-78032-029-8

Debates on international development aid are not new;

some have supported aid, some have opposed it. In his

bestselling 2005 book, The End of Poverty, Jeffrey Sachs

urged rich nations to increase foreign aid to poor

countries not just to end their ‘poverty trap’, but also

to kick-start development. In contrast, William East-

erly and Dambisa Moyo have strongly argued against

aid and noted that it does more bad than good – ‘it

prevents people from searching for their own solutions,

while corrupting and undermining local institutions



http://www.providingforpeacekeeping.org

http://www.providingforpeacekeeping.org

and creating a self-perpetuating lobby of aid agencies’.1

The question here, however, is not about whether we

should have aid or not; it is rather about what kind of

aid we should have, how we should implement it and

how aid can be made more effective in achieving its

objectives. In Development Aid Confronts Politics,Thomas Carothers and Diane de Gramont heavily

criticise the governance-oriented, technocratic and

depoliticised approach to aid practised to date and insist

instead on bringing politics to the centre of aid distri-

bution and management.

Exploring the history of politics in development aid,

Carothers and de Gramont note that although aid was

intimately related to Cold War politics, aid agencies in

the formative years shied away from adopting explicitly

political goals for they believed that socio-economic

assistance would create domestic conditions conducive

for political development and the spread of democracy.

It was, however, observed that economic develop-

ment, instead of bringing democratisation, ‘heightened

political conflict, violence, and repression’, leading to

authoritarianism (p. 29). The aid community did not

have much choice: ‘[D]evelopmentalists on the ground

stayed clear of “playing politics” in order to gain cred-

ibility with host governments and aid receiving soci-

eties’ (p. 50). Such apolitical and technocratic

approaches to developmental planning, which often

resulted in over-centralised power structures, were

heavily criticised. As a result, aid organisations began to

rethink their beliefs about the role of politics in the

development process. Carothers and de Gramont seem

happy that, today, most of the aid organisations have

adopted and are actively pursuing political goals either

directly with governments or indirectly with political

parties and civil society organisations. Emphasising the

indispensability of politics in understanding and craft-

ing social change, the authors conclude that ‘aid pro-

grams should grow out of the local context and focus

on feasible rather than best-practice solutions, that

technical assistance should feed into indigenous pro-

cesses of change, that projects should think about

their place within the broader political systems, and

that aid providers must focus closely on understand-

ing how political and institutional change occurs’

(pp. 192–3).

Although Derek Fee would agree with Carothers

and de Gramont on how to make aid more effective,

in How to Manage an Aid Exit Strategy he asks a

different question: ‘why development aid is alive and

kicking despite calls from both Africa (the continent

demanding the highest level of aid) and donor

country leaders to bring the business to a logical

conclusion’ (p. xi). He further asks ‘why an activity

that was supposed to be time-bound has expanded

way beyond its initial remit’ (p. xi). Integrating aca-

demic knowledge and a practitioner’s experience, Fee

addresses these questions quite innovatively. He

argues that it is not just aid dependency that has had

many negative effects, but that the aid business itself

is now in crisis and cannot continue indefinitely. It is

thus necessary for both donors and recipients to

rethink the development aid model and devise clear

exit strategies. Fee suggests several initiatives (e.g.

domestic resource mobilisation, trade liberalisation,

regional integration, microfinance, remittances and

non-governmental organisations, and philanthropic

institutions), which he believes could act as policy

options for replacing development aid and making

countries sustainable. He concludes that although an

aid exit strategy is important, it ‘should not punish

people’ who have suffered poverty and deprivation. It

‘must be applied with compassion or it will be inef-

fective. It must [also] be time-bound but the time

given to each country should be related to their base

line of aid dependency’ (p. 232).

While Carothers and de Gramont have successfully

brought politics to the heart of the aid business, Fee

has convincingly argued for a time-bound and com-

passionate aid exit strategy. Both books are filled with

rich historical analysis and empirical examples and the

authors exhibit immense awareness of and sensitivity to

the political context. Though some may criticise these

books for lacking theoretical rigour, they nonetheless

represent excellent contributions to understanding the

modern aid industry and the way it has evolved over

time. Both books are lucidly written and well-argued

and should be recommended not just to students of

sociology and international relations, but also to aid

practitioners, civil society activists and public policy

officials.

Note1 Quoted in A. Banerjee and E. Duflo, Poor Economics

(Public Affairs, 2011), pp. 3–4.

Sarbeswar Sahoo(Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi)

BOOK REVIEWS 419


Freedom vs Necessity in International Relations:

Human-centred Approaches to Security and

Development by David Chandler. London: Zed

Books, 2013. 190pp., £21.99, ISBN 978 1 78032

483 8

In Freedom vs Necessity in International Relations, David

Chandler argues that instead of constructing ourselves as

rational agents who can collectively master a world of

meaningful structures and laws – which is freedom – we

have lost the capacity to choose our ends and have

succumbed to a complex and unpredictable world of

necessity in response to which we can only cope and

adapt. Thus, from discourses of security to strategies of

development, Chandler critically analyses the tendency

to transform the problems of the external world (which

need to be dealt with in the public sphere) into tech-

niques of governance that focus on the inner qualities of

individuals (i.e. the private sphere) to build resilient

communities. In conclusion, and following the insights

of Immanuel Kant and Hannah Arendt, Chandler

demands that we ‘counter the truths of power with

those of our own’ (p. 150) in an attempt to recover the

human as a political subject in contra-distinction to the

‘post-liberal’ world we live in, in which we have wit-

nessed the death of politics as a public activity.

Superficially, Chandler could be accused of being an

Orientalist, Western-centric liberal, whose argument is

blind to the dangerous consequences of the Enlight-

enment, grand narratives and reason. Yet one is

tempted to use these unfair labels against Chandler

precisely because he has a counter-intuitive approach.

He manoeuvres against conventional wisdom to criti-

cise a consented flow towards the celebration of the

human, which is inherently deficient for resolving the

crises of world politics. Chandler reasserts human

freedom and demonstrates that international relations

(and its ‘critics’) is losing the possibility of critique,

of designing artificial structures that could transform

the social and economic processes of injustice and

inequality.

However, Freedom vs Necessity has a significant flaw

in that it refuses to discuss the reasons as to why there

has been a move away from rationalism and universal-

ism. Contemporary theories – from constructivism,

new institutionalism and post-isms – and policy-

making strategies have all deliberately embraced

human-centred perspectives, probably as a solution to

the dangers and risks of ‘modernity’ and in order to

remedy the limits of universal-rationalist approaches.

The crucial point is that the book seems only to

describe a present-day tendency to defend human-

centred perspectives, without explaining that this shift

is an intentional (and perhaps even logical) reaction to

the Kantian conclusions which Chandler defends in the

last chapter: ‘the human project of active and practical

engagement with the world’ (p. 156). Chandler needs

to engage more substantially with the social and global

problems that led everyone to be more attentive to

pluralism if the tragedy of human approaches is to be

reversed.

Pol Bargués(University of Westminster)

Global Crises and the Crisis of Global Leader-

ship by Stephen Gill (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2012. 299pp., £18.99, ISBN 978

1,107 67496 7

In this edited collection, Stephen Gill and his

co-contributors argue that the resilience of ‘discipli-

nary neoliberalism’ has been in large part due to the

effective leadership of elites at the international level.

Networks of central bank technocrats, free-market

think tanks, financial experts and state managers have

been crucial in legitimising the core institutional

underpinnings of the neoliberal global order. The nor-

mative task set by the collection is to offer an alterna-

tive account of global leadership that is at once

democratic and capable of challenging the dominance

of market liberalism.

The first section offers a critical conceptualisation of

global leadership within which the rest of the book can

be situated. Following Machiavelli, Gill emphasises the

need to ‘de-mystify’ global power relations. This

theme recurs throughout the text as authors seek to

unveil the social forces and class interests that lie

behind the predominant market liberal ‘common

sense’. Following this Gramscian perspective, Nicola

Short applies some of the Italian Marxist’s core con-

cepts – in particular that of hegemony – to the period

of neoliberal governance (Chapter 2), while another

chapter interrogates the role of the financial and legal

services sectors in presenting the private interests of

capital as representative of a general ‘public good’

(Chapter 3).



Part II tackles more substantive issues regarding the

politics of oil (Chapter 4), environmental governance

and democracy (Chapter 5) and the private interests

that are increasingly pushing to commodify the water

supply (Chapter 6). In each case the colonisation of the

public sphere by neoliberal rationality is identified as

being the main obstacle to a more progressive political

settlement. The concluding sections, true to the critical

intent of the work, seek to think through what an

alternative paradigm of global governance might look

like and which political strategy should be adopted in

order to get there (Chapter 12).

Ultimately, Gill’s recommendation is that the Left

should develop what he terms the ‘post-modern

Prince’ (Chapter 13): an anti-vanguardist association of

civic institutions, social movements and political

groups, which could pursue an alternative model of

democratic leadership at the global level. The specific

programme he offers, however, is as vague as it is

utopian. Nevertheless, while the collection’s strength

lies in its critique of an increasingly disciplinarian inter-

national political economy, the path taken out of the

‘global organic crisis’ may well depend on whether the

Left can turn Gill’s utopia of collective self-

determination into a reality.

Scott Lavery(University of Sheffield)

International Mediation by J. Michael Greig and

Paul F. Diehl. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012.

224pp., £13.99, ISBN 978 0 7456 5331 0

This is a very informative work on the subject of

international mediation – a topic that has been exten-

sively researched, analysed and reviewed to the extent

that one might feel we already know too much about

it. Yet the dynamics and complexities of modern day

conflicts, more often than not call for not only a mix

of mediation efforts, but also unconventional media-

tion tactics, strategies and approaches of which we are

not aware. This book combines past studies on media-

tion with new invaluable insights on such tactics, strat-

egies and approaches, and it considers issues of the

application of mediation to violent conflicts, providers

of mediation, determination of the success or failure of

a mediation effort and why some conflicts resist media-

tion, to mention but a few.

Researchers and students especially would find the

book very handy as it provides much-needed data on

mediated conflicts for the period 1945–99, showing

the frequency of mediation and conflicts by region, in

which Africa and Europe are presented as the two most

frequently mediated regions (pp. 41–4). A more useful

tool for practitioners is the extensive references to

several past mediated conflicts from the Oslo Accords,

the Beagle Channel Dispute and the Iran-Iraq War to

the Bosnian War, the Burundi Civil War and the

Cyprus Conflict.

While reading this book, I felt unfortunate not to

have read it much earlier, particularly when I was strug-

gling to evaluate the ‘success’ or ‘failure’ of the Burundi

and Zimbabwe mediation processes. The questions that

kept coming back to me were on how to delineate the

final outcome of the mediation process (success or

failure) and who actually deserve accolades for the

resultant agreements: should it be the initial mediators,

such as Presidents Nyerere and Mbeki, or successor

mediators like Presidents Mandela and Zuma? I feel I

now have firm answers to these questions.

One of the striking findings of the book is that:

‘Some regions with fewer conflicts attract substantially

more third-party conflict management efforts than

regions with more violence. Interstate conflicts con-

tinue to attract substantially more mediation attention

than civil conflicts, although this gap has narrowed

over time’ (p. 61). Unfortunately, over-reliance on one

work (An African Peace Process: Mandela, South Africaand Burundi by Kristina Bentley and Roger Southall,

HSRC Press, 2005) in the sub-section on mediation in

the Burundi Civil War is partly to blame for the

insufficient account of the role and achievements of

the first mediator in the Burundi conflict, former Tan-

zanian President Julius Nyerere (pp. 93–9).

Rasul Ahmed Minja(University of Dar es Salaam)

The Politics of Energy and Memory between

the Baltic States and Russia by Agnia Grigas.

Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. 206pp., £55.00, ISBN 978 1

4094 4653 8

The Politics of Energy and Memory seeks to clarify the

drivers of Baltic foreign policy towards Russia. Given

the similar starting positions of Estonia, Latvia and

Lithuania, what factors contributed to Baltic policy

BOOK REVIEWS 421


divergence? Apart from the often discussed difference in

ethnic composition, the book also considers political

orientation, diverging business interests, and EU and

NATO membership, as well Moscow’s own policies.

Concerning the dependent variable, Agnia Grigas

develops an analytical framework consisting of two

axes: cooperative to adversarial and pragmatic to prin-

cipled. Whereas cooperative foreign policy coordinates

with the actual or anticipated preferences of another

actor; adversarial foreign policy challenges those prefer-

ences. Pragmatic foreign policy makes a cost-benefit

analysis, whereas a principled foreign policy is explicitly

driven by left/right partisan preferences. This frame-

work is subsequently applied to four cases, two of

which deal with energy (oil and gas) while the remain-

ing cases compare Baltic policies in the domain of his-

torical memory.

The author compellingly casts doubt on the tradi-

tional image of Lithuania being the most cooperative

partner of Russia. Based on several interviews with

stakeholders from the region, the analysis convincingly

demonstrates that it is precisely the absence of a Russian

minority in Lithuania that enabled political forces to

engage in provocative rhetoric on Baltic-Russian

energy relations. Moreover, Grigas pays close attention

to other variables, such as local business interests, which

are often linked with Russia’s largest gas producer,

Gazprom. A full range of Baltic actors is discussed: not

only national gas companies and distributors, but also

gas-consuming enterprises that are fully dependent on

Russian supplies and lobby for cooperation with Russia.

The book succeeds in highlighting the reasons for

diverging attitudes towards historical memory. Why

did Latvian President Vı̄ķe-Freiberga decide to attend

the Victory Day celebrations in 2005, while Lithuania

and Estonia stubbornly declined? A thorough analysis

of domestic policy debates provides the answer. With

great detail, Grigas solves the puzzle of Lithuania’s

adversarial demands of Soviet occupation damages,

while in contrast Latvia calculated the costs and Estonia

merely collected historical records of Soviet crimes,

thereby explicitly refraining from damage claims. The

influence of EU and NATO membership is, however,

less extensively developed than domestic factors.

Overall, this book is a worthy contribution to

debates over the often tense Baltic relationship vis-à-visRussia in the field of energy and historical heritage,

and it will be of interest to scholars of foreign policy

analysis, energy security, memory studies and post-

Soviet studies.

Niels Smeets(University of Leuven)

Explaining the Iraq War: Counterfactual

Theory, Logic and Evidence by Frank P.

Harvey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2012. 349pp., £18.99, ISBN 9781107676589

Explaining the Iraq War presents an innovative alterna-

tive to the predominant explanation of the 2003 Iraq

invasion that it was the neo-conservative ideology and

agenda of the Bush administration that led to the Iraq

War. Frank Harvey challenges this theory by using a

wealth of evidence to make the counterfactual case

that had Al Gore been elected President then the Iraq

War would still have taken place. Among the justifi-

cations he gives for adopting this position, the most

notable are the claims that Gore himself was a foreign

policy hawk who in public statements displayed similar

views to neo-conservatives, and that Saddam Hussein’s

own actions and mis-reading of American threats

fuelled the flames of the invasion.

Counterfactuals have for some time occupied a con-

troversial position in the study of political science.

Despite this, there has been a growing interest within

international relations in the philosophy and methods

that underpin their use. While some scholarship on the

utility of counterfactuals has challenged prevailing atti-

tudes, there has been a noticeable lack of in-depth

empirical studies that have utilised counterfactual

methods. Harvey’s book is thus a welcome addition to

the literature as it employs counterfactual methods

creatively, while achieving the aim of making the

reader question the theories that inform their assump-

tions regarding important historical events. However,

in making its central argument, the book runs counter

to many of the stated aims of other counterfactual

research. Whereas authors such as Richard Ned Lebow

have used counterfactuals to test existing theoretical

claims by showing how contingent many paradigm

shifting events actually are, Harvey instead challenges a

theoretical explanation by arguing that the Iraq War

had little contingency and was largely inevitable.

Through this method the author provides a compel-

ling account for why Gore may have attacked Iraq, but



fails to convince the reader that the Gore legacy in Iraq

would have resembled that left by the Bush administra-

tion. For many, the legacy of neo-conservatism that has

been etched into history is not simply the invasion itself,

but the character of the subsequent regime change and

occupation. The question of whether these perhaps

more historically critical events were the result of neo-

conservatism, or alternatively whether a Gore adminis-

tration would have acted similarly, goes unanswered.

Nevertheless, Harvey has produced a thought-

provoking book that should be read widely for its inno-

vative use of counterfactual methods and its original

perspective on a defining policy issue.

Josh Baker(University of Birmingham)

New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a

Global Era by Mary Kaldor. Cambridge: Polity

Press, 2012. 268pp., £17.99, ISBN 978 0 7456 5563 5

Mary Kaldor’s book New and Old Wars has opened one

of the most prolific debates in the study of interna-

tional relations, and thus represents a cornerstone text

with an extraordinary intellectual impact. However, it

also marks the beginning of a new direction in conflict

research by implementing a conceptualisation that fails

to capture the reality of contemporary warfare, and

that falls short of understanding the transformative pro-

cesses within conflict.

The essence of the book lies with the notion of

‘new wars’. The argument is built by contrasting the

idea of ‘new wars’ with that of ‘old wars’ – a concept

which, according to Kaldor, has now acquired a

limited explanatory capacity in terms of translating

the true nature of war. The first problem with the

argument rests with the concept itself. To begin

with, ‘new’ is very vague. Throughout the book, the

temporal framework oscillates between an unclear

‘before the world wars’ and the aftermath of the Cold

War. Moreover, the chosen case studies confuse the

chronological development of the thesis, since apart

from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iraq and Afghanistan, the

book does not exhibit any great variation of time or

geography.

The second problem is that the word ‘new’ directs

us toward the term’s capacity to introduce the unprec-

edented. A claim that war has changed, that the world

is facing the challenges of a new type of conflict

requires a comprehensive examination of the process

of change, and it is at this level that the book is most

misleading. For Kaldor, war has changed ontologically.

While in itself this assumption represents a very inter-

esting thesis, the argumentation reflects the changes in

the character of war, rather than in its nature. War is

still Clausewitzian and has remained an act of violence

used to compel the enemy to one’s will. The idea of

‘identity politics’ placed at the core of ‘new wars’

disregards centuries of warfare and reduces them to

insignificant episodes. Changes such as the use of

modern technology and increased levels of severity

and duration, as well as the reduction of warfare for-

malism, amount to a transformation of the modalities

of war.

Kaldor’s book jumps through terminological hoops

with the purpose of embedding a certain degree of

change in a semantically powerful word. However,

the incompatibility between the signifier and the sig-

nified surrounding ‘new wars’ is the result of an

attempt to over-represent this transformation at the

wrong level of war. Overall, despite clarifying the

relationship between globalisation, cosmopolitanism

and conflict, Kaldor’s book achieves a disjointed

result whose main fault is trying to put forward

the case for a paradigmatic change without a clear

historical background.

Vladimir Rauta(University of Nottingham)

International Relations since the End of the

Cold War: New and Old Dimensions by Geir

Lundestad (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2013. 318pp., £55.00, ISBN 978 0 19 966643 0

International Relations since the End of the Cold War is

a collection of essays examining the new and old

dimensions of international politics since the estab-

lishment of the new world order after the Cold War.

The book begins with an introduction by the editor,

in which the period that preceded the post-Cold War

era (the past) is examined. The collection contains

fourteen essays, written by well-established and highly

competent historians and political scientists of inter-

national relations, covering diverse and interesting

topics related to international power, structure and

system.

BOOK REVIEWS 423


In any collection of essays a reader’s attention will

naturally be drawn to certain themes over others.

International Relations since the End of the Cold War is

no exception to that rule. However, anyone inter-

ested in international relations will find the essays

stimulating and insightful. Stewart Patrick’s essay on

the evolving structure of world politics since the end

of the Cold War is a case in point, as is the study by

Michael Cox on the new international system after

decades of domination by the West. In both of these

essays, and others in the book, it is evident that the

key dimensions of post-Cold War international rela-

tions are covered. For instance, John Muller examines

democracy’s rise and war’s decline since the end of

the Cold War; David Holloway covers nuclear

weapons and international relations since 1991; and

Chen Jian examines China’s rise in the new era, and

how the Asian ‘mammoth’ has now found itself at a

crossroads.

In the concluding essay, Geir Lundestad speculates

on what might become the key dimensions in IR

in the years to come (the future). According to

Lundestad, China is likely to overtake the US in terms

of the size of its production, but China will remain

relatively poor and isolated internationally. As the

editor puts it, nation statehood and sovereignty will

remain the defining dimensions not only for the US

and China as we move forward, but also for the entire

international system. Lundestad concludes the book in

an optimistic fashion, portraying the future of IR as

one with fewer wars, more democracy and less

poverty.

The set of essays found in this book are well

written and useful to anyone interested in the history

as well as the future of international relations. The

book is a valuable contribution to the debate on

post-Cold War international relations, first and fore-

most as it relates to the future of the international

system.

Perparim Gutaj(University of Utah)






Hybrid Warfare: Fighting Complex Opponents

from the Ancient World to the Present by Wil-

liamson Murray and Peter R. Mansoor (eds).

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

329pp., £18.99, ISBN 978-1107643338

Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla

Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present by

Max Boot. London: W.W. Norton, 2013. 784pp.,

£25.00, ISBN 978-0871404244

Irregular warfare ascribes different terminologies: ‘low-

intensity conflict’, ‘wars of national liberation’, ‘hybrid

warfare’, ‘guerrilla warfare’ and, more recently, in the

language of General Rupert Smith, ‘war amongst the

people’. For the media, these act like buzzwords. For

the academic, these represent concept traps whose

meanings often eschew the mundane academic debate.

However, the two books under review provide an

extraordinary account of the idea and evolution of

‘hybrid warfare’ and ‘guerrilla warfare’, respectively.

Both books provide an historical account of non-

conventional warfare and they start from the assump-

tion that guerrilla and hybrid warfare represent the real

forms of conventional warfare. Although an under-

lying feature in Murray and Mansoor’s book, it is Boot

who makes this very clear: ‘[G]uerrilla warfare is as old

as mankind. Conventional warfare is, by contrast, a

relatively recent invention’ (p. 9). His argument ties

together the relatively recent development of nation-

states and the equally historically novel use of armies.

With these clarifications, the books move on to defin-

ing their subject of analysis.

It is important to note that neither book develops a

novel theory of irregular warfare. Rather, this is under-

stood as having at its centre the main goal of achieving

political change through the use of force. The aim of

irregular warfare is to obtain total control of the armed

forces, population and territory, as well as to erode the

opponent’s power, strength, influence and will. As a

struggle between state and non-state actors for legiti-

macy and control over particular geographical regions,

irregular warfare is analysed as being, in essence, a pro-

tracted insurrectional act carried out through the use of

limited resources. For Boot, irregular warfare assumes

various asymmetric strategies and tactics that range from

tribal engagement in combat and various criminal activ-

ities to the use of locally manufactured explosives, sub-

version, coercion, attrition and exhaustion. This is why



Invisible Armies ‘covers both terrorists and guerrillas;

leaving either one out would present a distorted

picture’ (p. xxii). Against the background of increased

interdependence and globalisation, these threats have

become flexible, adaptable and networked, especially

through the use of the internet, which represents a

particular and significantly intricate form of warfare in

itself, and as a result, the twenty-first-century security

environment has added to the list of irregular threats the

phenomenon of cyber-warfare.

Murray and Mansoor address irregular warfare in the

light of the concept of ‘hybrid warfare’. Their starting

point is taking a stand in the ‘unsuccessful’ new wars

debate, made in a quiet and extremely elegant manner:

‘[W]ar in the twenty-first century has been and will

remain a complex phenomenon, but its essence has not

and will not change’ (p. 1). And it is this sense of

clarity, precision and conciseness that follows all the

cases throughout the book. Hybridisation is a process

by which the warring activity is carried out by a joint

conventional and non-conventional effort. There is

significant emphasis on the fact that ‘hybrid war does

not change the nature of war; it merely changes the

way forces engage in its conflict’ (p. 3).

The cases used to instruct on the evolution of

guerrilla and hybrid warfare provide a panoramic

view of war narratives. They are pluri-vocal, engag-

ing and, more importantly, demonstrate a culturally

educational function that highlights the historicism of

irregular warfare. The use of ‘epic’ in the title of

Boot’s book is representative. Because the examples

walk the reader through the historical maze of con-

flict irregularity, both books seem to bear the mark

of Boccaccian storytelling. Truly remarkable is

Richard Hart Sinnreich’s account of the Peninsular

War. In the form of a drama with five acts, the

confrontation between the Spanish, the French, the

Portuguese and the British comes to life just like

Goya’s painting ‘Dos de Mayo’ (‘The Second of May

1808’). The use of irregularity is presented analyti-

cally and comprehensively with a clear emphasis on

the strategic and tactical implications of irregular

troops. Boot also examines this case with a stronger

accent of the events surrounding Zaragoza. His

accounts are shorter and less detailed than is the case

with Murray and Mansoor’s edited volume. This is

because one is a rich gathering of episodes of hybrid

warfare, whereas the other is an all-encompassing

chronicle of irregular warfare. Both subjects,

however, are considered at length and treated in an

in-depth manner.

From Cestius Gallus’ defeat against the lightly armed

Jewish fighters, to the struggles of the Athenians

against the Aetolians, to the miscalculations of Napo-

leon, to the many encounters of the British Army with

various irregular combatants, to Vietman and to

Castro’s comeback, both books stand as masterfully

written accounts of irregular warfare that assumes, as

demonstrated, a combination of effective use of space,

time and popular support.

Vladimir Rauta(University of Nottingham)

Coltan by Michael Nest. Cambridge: Polity Press,

2011. 220pp., £12.99, ISBN 9780745649320

Michael Nest’s well-written book provides a very

accessible overview on the interplay between the trade

in coltan, the conflict in the Congo and advocacy

campaigns. Coltan (or tantalum) is a key component

for electronic devices like mobile phones or note-

books. The book is of use for students of conflict

studies, IR and business, but also for practitioners

working in electronic industries, trade in minerals or

non-governmental organisations.

The first two chapters explain the importance of

coltan for electronic industries and the organisation of

production and markets. While Nest describes the

human suffering in the Congo, he clearly disagrees

with many popular myths about coltan. According

to Nest, there is neither a global shortage of tantalum

nor are 80 per cent of global tantalum reserves

located in the Congo. Instead, he explains that the

global demand for electronic products, price booms,

long-term extraction contracts and price speculat-

ions determine the availability of coltan. It is avail-

able around the globe and only 7–8 per cent of

global reserves are located in the Congo. The world’s

largest producer of tantalum is Australia – not the

Congo.

Nest continues to bust popular myths on the linkage

between coltan and the conflict in the Congo. He

elaborates on the many layers of the conflict, admitting

that some armed groups clearly benefited from the

production of coltan. Yet the trade in coltan was not

the driving force behind the violence in the Congo.

BOOK REVIEWS 425


For example, according to estimates, the conflict-

ridden province of South Kivu exported more gold

and tin than coltan.

The final sections of the book assess advocacy cam-

paigns and the future of coltan politics. Nest welcomes

initiatives to regulate the trade in coltan, yet he rightly

refers to the challenges of establishing measures to trace

coltan from the Congo. China and emerging markets

constitute alternative destinations for coltan from the

Congo, even though initiatives usually target Western

governments and Western-based companies. In

summary, it might be very sobering for students of

conflict studies or activists to read this book because

Nest refutes one-dimensional approaches to the issue

of coltan and conflict. The book’s internal analysis of

the complexity of the trade in coltan, war and inter-

national initiatives is exactly what makes it worth

reading.

Tome Sandevski(Goethe University Frankfurt)

Joy and International Relations: A New Meth-

odology (War, Politics and Experience) by Elina

Penttinen. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013. 152pp.,

£80.00, ISBN 978 0415616324

Joy and International Relations seeks ways to develop a

new methodology for the study of international rela-

tions beyond the Newtonian model, which perceives

the world as independent fragments. The book’s pro-

posal to examine IR based on joy builds on positive

psychology and the scientific study of mindfulness and

recognition of human capacities for resilience.

It starts by describing Fredrickson’s theoretical

framework of positive emotions, meaning that we can

turn around and practise love even in difficult cir-

cumstances. Drawing upon a number of case studies,

the book then discusses various ways in which posi-

tive emotions and experiences can be found in cir-

cumstances such as war and genocide. For example,

the experience of Finnish female police officers

(Chapter 4) suggests that despite the masculinist struc-

ture of the European Security and Defence Policy,

they were able to maintain their competency and

approached the situation open-heartedly and posi-

tively. In the following empirical chapters (Chapters

5, 6 and 7) the same theme is reiterated by arguing

that there is more to life in the midst of war than

suffering trauma. For example, Chapter 6 discusses the

women who served in the Lotta Svärd organisation in

Finland during the Second World War and the way

in which they experienced joy even during the hard

times of the war. Chapter 7 moves the discussion to

the world of humour through the examples of two

Finnish films that use humour and amusement to

show the war situation; thus humour provides insights

about joy.

The concluding discussion links back to the practice

of IR scholarship by discussing how IR research can

change if emotion, humour and amusement are culti-

vated. The book explains the framework clearly and

applies it to important Western case studies, but not to

any non-Western cases with severe militarised situa-

tions such as the 2003 Iraq War. Moreover, other than

the concluding remarks such as ‘love-kindness as an

academic practice’, an opportunity to show the deep

level of results is not provided. One would expect that

the book could provide more specific findings in rela-

tion to joy if it introduces itself as a ‘new’ methodol-

ogy for IR.

With its novel approach to the study of IR this

book will benefit academics, researchers and students

of gender studies, peace and conflict studies, and inter-

national relations.

Fatemeh Shayan(University of Tampere, Finland)

Image Warfare in the War on Terror by Nathan

Roger. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

190pp., £55.00, ISBN 978 0 230 36388 5

In this book Nathan Roger sets out a framework for

understanding the role of images in contemporary

conflict and applies this to the War on Terror. Rec-

ognising that images and warfare have had a

longstanding relationship, Roger addresses how images

circulate in the contemporary era and what impact this

has on the conduct of conflict.

He draws upon work that has explored the revolution

in military affairs and introduces literature from the

fields of media studies and visual culture to assert that

images are an important part of modern conflict. His

conceptual framework rests on the notion that images

have become weaponised as conflict has shifted from



techno-war towards image warfare. To understand

image warfare, Roger provides three conceptual terms.

‘Image munitions’ refers to images that are deployed as

part of a strategic arsenal by political actors with the

intention of achieving a strategic advantage over the

enemy. These are responded to with ‘counter-image

munitions’ that are used in order to shift attention away

from, and replace, an opponent’s message. In turn, these

munitions are reused and redeployed by actors who

adapt their meaning for different political purposes in

‘remediation battles’. This conceptual framework is

then explored in relation to four thematic case studies of

political communications, suicides, executions and

abuses in the War on Terror.

This book is successful in providing an innovative

analysis of images in the War on Terror. Particularly

intuitive is Roger’s drawing together insights from

visual culture and media studies to the field of security

studies. Unlike other work that addresses issues of

aesthetics and security, Roger’s conceptual framework

is clear and easily applicable to themes, events and

issues beyond those in his book.

Roger’s argument that image warfare has replaced

techno-war as the main paradigm of contemporary

conflict will inevitably be contested. However, even if

this isn’t the case, he persuasively highlights how

images have been incredibly important in the War on

Terror. By exploring a diverse range of images such as

the official political communications of George W.

Bush and Tony Blair, the 7/7 suicide attack video-wills

and the abuse images of Abu Ghraib, this book pro-

vides an insightful analysis of the War on Terror that

helps make sense of the impact of images in an age of

rhizomatic media. This book will be interesting and,

indeed, useful for students and researchers at all levels

who are interested in the intersections of global poli-

tics, media, security and foreign policy.

Rhys Crilley(University of Birmingham)

The Ashgate Research Companion to Regional-

isms by Timothy M. Shaw, J. Andrew Grant and

Scarlett Cornelissen (eds). Farnham: Ashgate, 2012.

404pp., £85.00, ISBN 978 0 7546 7762 8

This edited volume neatly fits within the current focus

on new regionalism by emphasising the need for

extending the traditional approaches. Building upon a

variety of cases the authors convincingly argue that the

field of regionalism is in urgent need of broadening its

scope to include both non-European cases and more

informal regionalisms, in addition to the required com-

parison over time.

The volume falls into three parts. The first part gives

an extensive overview of the various meanings and

readings of the concept of new regionalism. It under-

scores the need to broaden the focus to both formal

and informal forms of regionalism. In the second part,

the ‘usual suspects’ of regionalism (i.e. the EU,

NAFTA, ASEAN, SAARC, OAS, Mercosur, AU,

ECOWAS and SADC) are dealt with in a geographi-

cally structured manner by explaining their relevance

in the new regionalism approach. In the third part, the

contributors aim to leave the beaten path of traditional,

often EU-centred regionalism, and focus on regions

that cannot easily be fitted into the most commonly

used classifications or definitions (including Oceania,

the Middle East, BRIC/SAM, the Commonwealth(s),

and even transnational gangs).

While this volume is not the first to emphasise the

need for a new regionalism approach, its second and

third parts clearly add to the current state of the art by

offering the reader a number of new potential research

agendas. Macdonald (Chapter 6), for instance, indicates

that the new regionalism approach might be valuable

in classifying more indefinite regions like North

America. Likewise, Tieku (Chapter 11) points at the

relevance of the bureaucratic backbone of regional

organisations by explaining the evolution of the

African Union. Antkiewizc and Cooper’s (Chapter 16)

classification of the BRIC/SAM countries as a region

is remarkable in this context.

Rather unfortunately, the analyses conducted both

with regard to the usual suspects and for the new

regionalisms are not always very empirically detailed.

One might also have expected an overarching conclud-

ing chapter bringing together the main findings and

recommendations. Perhaps a chance was missed by not

finishing the volume with such a synthesis as this would

have given the main argument a more convincing

touch. That being said, this volume definitely serves as

a valuable starting point for further efforts in theory

generation and development on regionalism.

Yf Reykers(University of Leuven)

BOOK REVIEWS 427


Power in the Changing Global Order by Martin

A. Smith. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012. 230pp.,

£16.99, ISBN 978 0 7456 3472 2

Power is an over-exploited subject in the fields of

political science and IR. However, scholars often do

not define what ‘power’ actually means. Hence,

Martin A. Smith’s book aims to fill this important gap

via a conceptual construct that is theoretically based

and delimited within sociological and philosophical

approaches.

From an abstract understanding to a material conceiv-

ing, the author treats his main object of investigation as

a social and relational construct, arguing that power is a

product of interactions between actors and actions in a

determined sociological environment. The strength of

his argument is precisely that it shifts the notion of

power from being an assumption of a tangible and

pre-existent issue to a conscious human endeavour.

A remarkable point of Smith’s insight is his accuracy

in strictly defining all the concepts used in the book.

Concepts such as ‘power’, ‘soft power’ and ‘hegemony’,

among others, have often been used misleadingly or

even incorrectly. In this book, however, they receive a

thoughtful discussion between authors who have coined

the terms and their best interpreters, blending classical

authors such as Hobbes, Weber and Gramsci with

avant-garde researchers such as Nye, Slaughter and

Strange.

To demonstrate the plasticity of power in the

international arena during the ‘changing global order’,

Smith examines three ‘significant powers’ as case

studies (the United States, Russia and China). The

United States represents the key feature for testing

Smith’s argument, which considers the distribution of

power (i.e., unipolarity and multipolarity) as the

method for assessing power in a relational under-

standing. In other words, the Russian and Chinese

perspectives are linked to the prominence of the US

as an international power at the same time. Thus,

while Russia is concerned with its domestic consoli-

dation and the Near Abroad, China is considered as

a responsible stakeholder that is self-constrained by its

Maoist legacy, causing China to become an un-

involved and passive international actor in response to

crises. Ultimately, contradictions can be found in

Smith’s argument once it is seen that his ‘changing

global order’ is fashioned by accommodation and

continuity rather than by de facto changes in the

possession of power between the actors.

A consistent theoretical interpretation of power

gives the book unity and Smith’s contribution

undoubtedly brings a fresh view to a topic that has lost

some of its vitality in research agendas around the

world during the last twenty years. With a deep con-

ceptual basis, this book is a safe guide to those who

wish to go beyond the discussions of traditional back-

ground texts about power.

Fabrício H. Chagas Bastos(University of São Paulo)

What’s Wrong with the United Nations and

How to Fix It by Thomas G. Weiss. Cambridge:

Polity Press, 2012. 292pp., £15.99, ISBN 978 0 7456

5983 1

Comparing the United Nations to a sick patient,

Thomas Weiss identifies four problems that the organi-

sation faces today: the emphasis on state sovereignty

(Chapter 1); the North-South confrontation (Chapter

2); the decentralisation of the UN system (Chapter 3);

and the bureaucracy and lack of leadership plaguing

the Secretariat (Chapter 4). As a good doctor would

do, he also advises on how to deal with these prob-

lems. Suggested medicines are: redefining national

interests (Chapter 5); moving beyond North-South

relations (Chapter 6); consolidating and centralising

international efforts (Chapter 7); and reinvigorating the

Secretariat (Chapter 8).

Before becoming Director of the Ralph Bunche

Institute for International Studies, Weiss worked as a

Senior Economic Affairs Officer at the UN Confer-

ence on Trade and Development in Geneva. This

experience seems to have inspired his problem-

solving approach, but also his overarching view on

the international community more generally. Indeed,

Weiss does not limit himself to writing a prescription

for the UN, he also reflects on the role of academics

in international relations. In his view, they must

advocate a world government because ‘without such

a vision, we risk accepting and strengthening the

contours of the current unacceptable internat-

ional system, including the feeble United Nations’

(pp. 233–4).

Although a range of topics is thoroughly discussed,

the volume is well organised and structured. Weiss



organises each chapter on the basis of three topics:

international peace and security, human rights, and

sustainable development. This structure has its merits,

but also comes with the risk of over-emphasising

certain dimensions while shedding insufficient light on

others. Weiss offers a welcome distraction from the

traditional focus on the reform of the Security

Council, but unfortunately other reforms, such as the

revitalisation of the General Assembly, are not covered

by the book. It would certainly have been interesting

to learn more about Weiss’ conception of a world

government, and also to see whether his diagnosis is

similarly applicable to other international organisations,

and how general the proposed prescription is. That

being said, this is a stimulating read for both practi-

tioners and students of IR. Indeed, it not only gives a

substantial overview of the current hot topics in the

UN, it also inspires its readers to visionary thinking.

Laura Van Dievel(KU Leuven – University of Leuven)

The Millennium Development Goals and

Beyond: Global Development after 2015 by

Rorden Wilkinson and David Hulme (eds).

Abingdon: Routledge, 2012. 264pp., £26.99, ISBN

978 0 415 62164 9

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have

been at the centre of the global development agenda

for the past decade. In this edited volume, emerging

from the 2011 Johannesburg Global Poverty Summit,

Rorden Wilkinson and David Hulme bring together

leading development scholars and practitioners to

evaluate the successes and failures of the MDGs,

and to discuss what should replace them after 2015

when the current set of goals expires. In doing so,

the book provides an important and timely contribu-

tion to the debate already underway on what the

international development agenda should look like

beyond 2015.

The book is divided into two sections. The first

considers the MDGs in a global context from a

number of different approaches and issue areas, while

the second focuses on Africa. The first three chapters

of the first section consider the MDGs in a broader

context, analysing the goals in a historical perspective,

looking at the narrative of the MDGs and examining

the governance of the goals. The next three chapters

analyse the more specific issues of gender, religion and

the role of the Economic and Social Council in the

MDGs. The second part of the book focuses on the

MDGs in Africa based on it ‘being the continent with

the greatest need’, and importantly, ‘as a place where

proclamations of general “poor progress” hide great

variations’ (p. 9). The first three chapters in this section

provide in-depth analyses of Africa’s progress towards

the goals, drawing on available data, and consider the

obstacles confronting the achievement of the MDGs

on that continent. The next three chapters deal more

specifically with the issues of HIV/AIDs, poverty, and

higher education in Africa.

A key strength of the book is the manner in which

the detailed analysis of the MDGs undertaken in each

of the chapters is used by the contributors to provide

informed proposals for what a set of post-2015 Global

Development Goals should include. The book does

not, however, shed much light on the question of howa new set of goals should be decided upon – an

important issue given criticisms of the manner in

which the original goals were conceived. Overall,

though, this is an excellent book, which provides an

important critical overview of the MDGs and links this

well to the current debates on the post-2015 develop-

ment framework. As such, it will be extremely useful

for scholars, students and practitioners of international

development.

Niheer Dasandi(University College London)

Comparative

Religion and Democracy: A Worldwide Com-

parison by Carsten Anckar. Routledge: Abingdon,

2011. 210pp., £24.95, ISBN 978-0-415-83023-2

This book challenges Samuel Huntington’s argument

that Western Christianity is an essential requisite for

democracy by examining the influence of religious

affiliation on democratic values in a wide cross-national

comparative analysis (p. 1). It empirically assesses the

relationship between religions – Christianity, Islam,

Buddhism, Hinduism, Chinese folk religions and

Judaism – and democracy during the ‘third wave of

democratisation’. The study is solidly based on the

BOOK REVIEWS 429


academic literature and quantitative data from a range

of sources, such as the World Values Survey. In order

to adapt the main concepts and data for quantitative

analysis it applies an approach similar to Steven

Hofmann’s 2004 work ‘Islam and Democracy: Micro-

level Indications of Compatibility’, where he com-

pared attitudes of Muslims and Christians to

democracy. ‘Religion’ and ‘democracy’ are

operationalised as ‘religious affiliation’ and ‘democratic

values’, and the analysis is conducted in the institu-

tional rather than spiritual setting. This simplification

reduces the explanatory potential of the research, while

widening its scope and ensuring reliability of the find-

ings. However, controls developed for the state-level

data have limited applicability to individual-level data

and might produce questionable results.

The empirical findings are striking. The analysis

shows linear relations between the proportion of the

religious and the degree of democracy. They confirm

that Christianity is important for democratic develop-

ment, though with variations between countries domi-

nated by Protestantism and Catholicism, on the one

hand, and Orthodox Christianity, on the other.

Muslim countries, by contrast, show lower degrees of

democracy, but the relationship between Islam and

authoritarianism is by no means deterministic. Further-

more, Buddhism, which was thought to be compatible

with democratic values, in practice is not. The level of

democracy in Buddhist countries is as low as in Muslim

countries.

While the political system is influenced by the

dominant religion of the state, the individual-level

analysis suggests that the attitude towards democratic

values is not. For instance, despite Muslim countries

demonstrating lower levels of democracy than Chris-

tian countries, Muslims do not have a more negative

view of democracy than Christians. The political and

cultural contexts appear to be more important than

religious affiliation for explaining attitudes towards

democracy. The author provides impressive empirical

evidence in support of this argument, although it

would be more compelling if it was presented in a

concise and interpretable way (pp. 142–3, 145–6 and

149–52).

Overall, the book convincingly proves that religion

is less significant as a predictor of democracy than the

political and cultural contexts of the state. In demon-

strating this, the author partly rejects Huntington’s

argument that the dominance of Western Christianity

and its values are vital requirements for democracy, and

paints a more hopeful picture for the future of democ-

racy that can be developed in multi-faith societies.

Ekaterina Kolpinskaya(University of Nottingham)

Fragile States by Lothar Brock, Hans-Henrik

Holm, Georg Sørensen and Michael Stohl. Cam-

bridge: Polity Press, 2012. 194pp., £13.99, ISBN 978

0 7456 4942 9

This study focuses on fragile states and seeks to under-

stand what generates and shapes war and conflict,

clarify the concept of fragile states and explain how

they emerge. True to its objectives, the study mea-

sures fragile states against the Weberian ideal type

(pp. 16–17). Beyond the criteria of ‘structure and

actors’ (p. 18), the study’s concept of a fragile state

relies on operational indicators in the failed state index

produced by the Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy.

The authors add the caveat that they are representing

an objective overview of what is a fragile state. The

Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti and

Afghanistan all point to the dynamics of fragile states.

Both internal and external factors are accounted for in

ways that relegate the over-arching externality as causal

factor to second place.

Ethnic plurality and cleavages exist and are central to

violent conflict. They are largely passive unless politi-

cised by the elite who are largely state actors. External

intervention fuels violence and constrains the prospects

of internal evolution towards a social order. Thus,

outsiders become part of the problem rather than the

solution. Scrutiny of the Cold War type of interven-

tion, the humanitarian discourse woven around the

‘Responsibility to Protect’, and the post-9/11

securitisation of intervention and development assis-

tance shows they have had little success in stabilising

fragile states. In other words, entrenched cleavages and

the dynamic mix of outsiders’ interests only serve to

compound the intervention.

Botswana and Costa Rica are presented as flipsides

of the fragile state paradigm. The reason for this is that

elite and state interests overlap with a legacy of fewer

cleavages, enabling a system of consensus building in

Botswana and a delicate balance among classes in the

case of Costa Rica. The study further re-problematises

430 COMPARATIVE


the options for engaging with fragile states, and a

few creative suggestions are made, such as the

‘professionalisation of peace missions’ (p. 171) and

humanitarian consideration with regard to governance

of the global economy (p. 172).

The study, more or less, achieves its aim; it reads

well and would be priceless to global governance

actors. However, there is an abiding tension between

internal and external causes and diffidence on the part

of the authors to follow through the weight of evi-

dence – external meddlesomeness as the cause of state

fragility. An economic rationale is central and funda-

mental to the creation and manipulation of cleavages

by both internal and external forces. Also, in account-

ing for the formation of fragile states, there are sloppy

assumptions about African history such as the absence

of competition among African rulers for territorial

control (p. 28), segmented political systems and

dependence on the slave trade (p. 29).

Sylvester Odion Akhaine(Lagos State University, Nigeria)

In Search of the Federal Spirit: New Theoretical

and Empirical Perspectives in Comparative Fed-

eralism by Michael Burgess. Oxford: Oxford Uni-

versity Press, 2012. 352pp., £55.00, ISBN 978

0199606238

Michael Burgess’ book focuses on the examination of

‘the federal spirit’ in federal political systems, with a

special focus on new models of federalism and federa-

tion. He defines ‘the federal spirit’ as ‘the existence of

a particular mindset: a political predisposition to nego-

tiate and bargain among equals’ (p. 3). He discusses his

conception of this by analysing the main works of five

authors in the field of federal theory and comparative

federalism: Kenneth C. Wheare, William S.

Livingston, William H. Riker, Carl J. Friedrich and

Daniel J. Elazar. The first six chapters focus on the

works of these authors.

In the second part, Burgess focuses on the condi-

tions of success and failure of federations, discussing

some of the classic works in the field (such as Ursula

Hicks and Thomas Franck), before extending the

analysis to federal democracy and federal political

culture as key elements of stability in federal states.

In Chapter 9 he applies his findings to three case

studies – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iraq, and Ethiopia –

and explains why these could be classified as new

federal models. He argues that these are evolving fed-

erations, in which neither a federal political culture nor

democracy is fully operational, yet constitutionally they

function as federations. He continues by explaining

how federalism is an essential element of statebuilding

and democratisation in these countries.

The main strength of this work lies in its first and

second parts. Burgess’ analysis of the five classic

authors of federal theory is very detailed, clear and

offers a major contribution. Additionally, he develops

further his ideas on the importance of federal democ-

racy and federal political culture. While the three

case studies are well presented and analysed in depth,

not all the facts presented are up-to-date, and the

reader would want to learn more about the different

ethnic and political groups in each country, their

vision of the state, and the resulting contested nature

of the state and of federalism as an ideology. It

would have been interesting to learn more about

Burgess’ opinions on how to make these ‘imposed

federal systems’ viable – i.e. how can federal democ-

racy and a federal political culture evolve and

develop, and what is the role of internal and external

actors in this process.

Overall, this is a very interesting book and a major

contribution to the literature, which will be of interest

for students working on comparative federalism and

conflict resolution alike.

Soeren Keil(University of Canterbury)

Global Empowerment of Women: Responses to

Globalization and Politicized Religions by

Carolyn M. Elliott (ed.). Abingdon: Routledge,

2012. 415pp., £26.00, ISBN 9780415541343

This book advances a discourse-theoretic and narra-

tive conception of women empowerment intended

to be philosophically more sophisticated and politi-

cally more ambitious than the currently influential

alternative approaches. The scholars’ work is rooted

in many different spaces – village, prisons, health

clinics and the International Criminal Court, among

others. This collection of articles on global empow-

erment of women illuminates the current intellectual

predicament in the discipline under the influence of

BOOK REVIEWS 431


neoliberal policies over the last 25 years, where alterna-

tive frameworks now compete with each other more

than ever before. The book is the outcome of a col-

laborative endeavour of nineteen distinguished experts,

scholars and practitioners from an array of disciplines.

The volume is divided into four sections: globalisation

and neoliberal governance; politicised religions and citi-

zenship; gender violence and masculinities; and sexual

autonomy and global politics. The seventeen chapters

along with the introductory and theoretical sections in

this edited book cover the extensive spectrum of

women’s empowerment issues in almost every region of

the globe. With a few exceptions, all the chapters in this

book are refreshingly short (approximately 5,000

words), which is an ideal length for reading and teaching

purposes.

The book is very much worth reading by students,

scholars and practitioners pursuing women studies who

wish to understand the different approaches, methods

and level of analysis applied to the issues of global

empowerment of women across different continents.

The interdisciplinary nature of the book reflects a com-

mitment to theoretical, empirical and epistemological

pluralism.

The academic level of all of the contributions is

very high. The authors are mostly experienced schol-

ars, and their contributions are fresh, well structured,

and fit into the current discussions around the myriad

facets of global as well as local issues of women’s

empowerment. The strongest point of the book is the

diversity of up-to-date case studies. The examples

show the variety of ways and issues arising from the

participation of women in the global market economy

under neoliberal policies. The spectrum of cases –

ranging from less developed transitioning economies

such as Nepal, Ghana, Nigeria, Trinidad and Tobago,

Peru, Indonesia and India to highly developed France,

Hungary and Switzerland – is comprehensive and

justified. The selection of the topics, which differ

from each other on many levels of analysis, can be

both a pro and a con. The main issue with the book

is that most of the contributions are contextual case

studies; therefore, a finger may be raised by cynics

considering generalisation and applicability to the

wider context.

Vijender Singh Beniwal(Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi)

Political Choice Matters: Explaining the Strength

of Class and Religious Cleavages in Cross-

national Perspective by Geoffrey Evans and Nan

Dirk de Graaf (eds). Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2013. 448pp., £65.00, ISBN 978 0 19 966399 6

Political Choice Matters provides an unprecedented

analysis of the strength of class and religious cleavages

in advanced and new democracies alike. The key argu-

ment put forward in the first chapter is that the preva-

lent pattern of change in the social bases of electoral

politics can be conceptualised as a top-down process

influenced by the strategies of political parties. Indeed,

the so-called ‘political choice thesis’ developed in the

book ‘attributes changes in ideological and value divi-

sions to the choices offered by parties’ (p. 10), whose

policy preferences can increase or decrease the strength

of existing cleavages via positional polarisation or con-

vergence. Chapter 2 cross-validates the most used

measures of party positions and presents a significant

improvement on the Comparative Manifestos Project

(CMP) in order to overcome some of its well-known

shortcomings.

Chapter 3 provides a pooled cross-national analysis

of fifteen Western democracies between 1960 and

2005, and the authors conclude that ‘only the extent

of left-right party system polarization appears to matter

... rather than voter proximity to left parties per se’

(p. 72).

The comparative chapter is followed by eleven case

studies (Chapters 4 to 14), which cover a wide range

of countries (Australia, Canada, Denmark, France,

Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands,

Poland, Spain and the United States). Every chapter is

able to shed light on the strength of class cleavage

since this is the most common and widespread axis of

political competition, while the hold of religious

cleavage is assessed in a smaller number of case

studies. The results show that ‘the choices offered to

voters influence the strength of the class cleavage’

(p. 395) and the same applies to the strength of

religious voting since only in the cases of recent

democracies do ‘ideological differences among parties

have no effect on the strength of religious voting’ (p.

397). The bottom-up explanation has not been very

successful, and it appears that transformations in the

social structure have had only a limited impact on the

hold of ‘traditional’ cleavages.

432 COMPARATIVE


This book presents itself as an essential reference for

scholars in party politics and political sociology alike,

since it tackles the common wisdom that cleavages have

gone through an irreversible decline over the last

decades. The identification of the agent of change in

party policy positions has remarkable implications for

future research since ‘even in advanced industrial soci-

eties, class or religious voting might increase as well as

decrease’ (p. 404). Put simply, political choice really

does matter.

Mattia Zulianello(Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane, Florence)

Poverty, Inequality and Democracy by Francis

Fukuyama, Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner

(eds). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University

Press, 2012. 185pp., £15.50, ISBN 978 1 4214 0570 4

Against the Odds: Politicians, Institutions and

the Struggle against Poverty by Marcus Andre

Melo, Njuguna Ng’ethe and James Manor.

London: C. Hurst, 2012. 221pp., £22.00, ISBN 978 1

84904 119 5

Poverty, Inequality and Democracy is a collection of

essays, previously published in the Journal of Democracy,

discussing the relationship between these three condi-

tions. The first part of the volume looks at how eco-

nomic inequality threatens liberal democratic regimes

and to what extent electoral democracy enjoys resur-

gence in relation with poverty. Fukuyama in his essay,

for example, argues that the countries in Latin America

are successful in reducing extreme inequality through

well-designed policies, while the rich democracies with

extensive welfare schemes encounter long-term finan-

cial unsustainability (pp. 11–12). However, the second

part of the book shows the poor performance of many

former autocratic countries in Latin America at the

initial stage of reforms (pp. 51–75), which began to

improve only because of an efficient bureaucratic

system and an active citizenry. Similarly, many former

communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe

(CEE) have also maintained a higher level of social

protection and welfare schemes despite some excep-

tions such as Armenia, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine

(p. 76). The well-performing CEE countries, however,

face financial challenges for social spending and diffi-

culty controlling for an ageing population. In addition,

radicalising political forces and political instability in

these countries poses a critical challenge to inequality

reduction efforts.

In the third part of the book the resilience of

democracy in bringing economic growth to Africa

and Asia is reviewed. The authors point out that most

African regimes have had little accountability to their

people even though many of them have supported

democracy and social grant schemes for the weaker

sections of society (pp. 123–52). In addition, these

regimes also face challenges of low quality of educa-

tion, higher unemployment, AIDS mortality, poverty

and social disparities Struggles with such challenges

are similarly witnessed in other democratic countries

in Asia. India, for example, not only needs to

improve poverty alleviation, but also the quality of

governance and democracy, despite its successful pre-

vention of famine and increase in human develop-

ment over the last couple of decades (pp. 153–67).

Finally, the last article discusses the South Korean

model of a strong welfare state that successfully

reduced poverty during the authoritarian regime in

the 1960s, experienced a democratic transition in the

1980s, and has undergone various political and eco-

nomic reforms in the 1990s (pp. 168–82). The ideo-

logical politics underlining self-reliance and hard

work, as well as the institutional arrangement that

allows business and the voluntary sector to partici-

pate in the process of various reforms, are presented

as factors that have contributed to the successful

performance of South Korea.

Against the Odds by Melo, Ng’ethe and Manor pays

more attention to the roles of political leaders and their

ideas on poverty reduction. The three authors here

discuss the role played by senior political leaders in

institutional changes to tackle poverty in three different

developing countries: Uganda, India and Brazil.

In the first part of this book, Melo et al. explain how

Yoweri Museveni has used his personal charisma and

political power as the President of Uganda to build a

new political and economic order. Museveni’s cha-

risma helped him in drafting the new constitution,

mobilising the peasant class for reforms, pushing his

political wing – the National Resistance Movement

(NRM) – to adopt the Bretton Woods institutions,

and maintaining federalism with a powerful central

government. In the second part, the authors discuss the

achievements of Digvijaya Singh, who served as the

BOOK REVIEWS 433


Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh in India from 1993

to 2003, in augmenting institutions to promote inclu-

sive schemes for the poor. Like Museveni, Singh also

had the willingness and capacity to communicate with

local people, especially the marginalised groups of

society in Madhya Pradesh. Interestingly, the success of

this provincial state in India in efficiently reducing

poverty shows how important bottom-up participation

is. The book’s authors argue that the pressure from

society for development created the synergy for this

state to pursue progressive social schemes. In the final

part of the book, the focus is on the role of Fernando

Henrique Cardoso, who served as the President of

Brazil from 1995 to 2002, in implementing the ‘Real

Plan’ for overcoming hyperinflation and anti-poverty

schemes. Even though Cardoso was not as charismatic

as the other two leaders discussed above, his pragmatic

leadership helped him make a coalition with diverse

political forces. Through their extensive discussion on

these three seminal leaders, the book’s authors chal-

lenge the notion that ‘governments perform best when

they limit the role played by politicians and politics’

(p. 163).

In the sense that political institutions such as the

political regime and political leaders are critical in

structuring and implementing economic institutions

such as anti-poverty schemes, the two books reviewed

here will be greatly beneficial to students of political

science and public policy for understanding the inter-

action between the two different areas. They will

also give a comparative perspective to learn ‘how

regions differ’ in dealing with the issues of poverty and

inequality, to use the title of Stephan Haggard and

Robert Kaufman’s article in the first collection above.

Sojin Shin(National University of Singapore)

Migration and Organized Civil Society:

Rethinking National Policy by Dirk Halm and

Zeynep Sezgin (eds). Abingdon: Routledge, 2012.

230pp., £75.00, ISBN 9780415691987

The authors of this work analyse systematically the role

migrant organisations play in their countries of resi-

dence and origin. They develop a new theoretical

framework for this analysis, rejecting methodological

nationalism and including transnationalism, and

approach the subject from a global perspective. The

book consists of two halves organised around four sec-

tions. First, it analyses the relations between migrant

organisations and the state in the context of

transnationalism theory; then it examines the specific

examples of migrant organisations in countries such as

Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal

and the UK.

The main argument of the book is that the concept of

transnationalism should be incorporated into the analysis

of migrant organisations. According to the authors,

current research of migrant organisations applies the

political opportunity structure perspective (expanded

towards transnational political opportunity structures).

However, it does not include within the analysis cul-

tural determinants, the influence of other actors or the

dynamics within organisations, and nor does it provide

a justifiable explanation of the diversities between

migrant organisations, their multifunctionality and

multidimensionality (pp. 9–10).

Nonetheless, the discussion around the case studies is

still concentrated around questions of the influence of

the institutional environment and opportunity struc-

tures on migrant organisations. The authors argue, interalia, that migrant organisations are seen as new actors in

peace building and development in their country of

origin, and that their potential is increasingly recognised

in the country of residence, where – paradoxically –

restrictive migration policies and normative ideas can

reverse this potential. The new theoretical input in the

empirical part of the book is to combine the transna-

tional opportunity structure with neo-institutionalism.

This theoretical section is also the book’s main

strength. Here the authors review the different ways

that migration scholars have approached the subject of

migrant organisations and the typology of scope and

focus of these organisations’ activities. This book will be

helpful for all scholars of migration, since migrant

organisations are still an under-researched topic. On the

other hand, this book is not a compendium and the

second half (Parts II, III and IV) seems to be a quite

random selection of case studies focused around migrant

organisations and transnationalism. It would be interest-

ing to see a meta-study designed on the basis of this rich

material.

Agnieszka Bielewska(Faculty in Wrocław, University of Social Sciences

and Humanities)

434 COMPARATIVE


Democratic Decline and Democratic Renewal:

Political Change in Britain, Australia and New

Zealand by Ian Marsh and Raymond Miller.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

383pp., £60.00, ISBN 978 1,107 02568 4

It is now commonplace to speak of the ‘triumph of

liberal democracy’; since 1970, it has become the

dominant political system in over 120 states. In many

established democracies, however, democratic govern-

ance is withering; turnout is falling, party supporters

are becoming rarer and democratic trust is declining.

Marsh and Miller’s extensive case study-based analysis

on this democratic decay in Britain, Australia and New

Zealand argues that mainstream parties’ embrace of

neoliberalism and disregard for their memberships is

largely responsible. Parties are no longer key players in

‘the public conversation’, but populist observers of it.

Voters see little difference and substance in them, feel

powerless to influence their agenda, and so see little

interest in engaging with politics.

Marsh and Miller suggest a solution to this problem

through two institutional changes. The first is electoral

reform to facilitate a multiparty system, allowing a

wider array of ideologies and interests to be repre-

sented. This also paves the way for the second change

– a significant enhancement in the role of select com-

mittees. The authors suggest that well-resourced com-

mittees, with the power to engage with a range of

political actors and to influence the political agenda,

could fill the gap left by traditional parties and restore

voters’ faith in democratic engagement.

The distinctive strength of Marsh and Miller’s work

is its institutionalist perspective; they suggest that insti-

tutional change caused democratic decay, and institu-

tional change can cure it. They bring a refreshingly

distinct focus to the study of the changing nature of

democracy – which often focuses on the changing

behaviour of individuals – through examining the

changing behaviour of political parties.

This institutionalist focus, however, is also the

study’s weakness. Marsh and Miller understate how

those changes in individuals might have contributed

to the changing behaviour of parties. Voters today

are very different from those of the 1970s; they

engage with politics in different ways, and view

political institutions differently. Parties have had to

respond to changing voters just as voters have had to

respond to changing parties. The authors give little

account of this, and how it might have affected

democratic governance. Nonetheless, Marsh and

Miller have laid the groundwork for further research

into democratic evolution from the thus far under-

valued perspective of the conduct of political parties.

Their approach suggests a novel solution to demo-

cratic decay, and should form an integral component

of future studies of the evolution of democratic

governance and engagement.

Stuart Fox(University of Nottingham)

Comparative Metropolitan Policy: Governing

beyond Local Boundaries in the Imagined

Metropolis by Jen Nelles. Abingdon: Routledge,

2012. 218pp., £75.00, ISBN 978 0 415 68475 0

This book explores inter-municipal cooperation in

metropolitan regions. Such cooperation is becom-

ing more prevalent in a context marked by financial

crisis and municipal budget constraints. Consequently,

this book offers a timely insight into a growing

phenomenon.

Jen Nelles seeks to understand the dynamics of this

cooperation: what makes it effective and what hinders

it. Traditional analyses have focused on institutions and

opportunities. Nelles’ central argument is that these

factors alone are unable to explain success or failure and

have an unpredictable effect on cooperation. To over-

come this she advances the concept of ‘civic capital’ –

the role of leadership at a regional level, the extent to

which this fosters a shared conception of ‘the region’

and how actors engage with each other at this scale. Her

hypothesis is that cooperation is more intense in regions

with high levels of civic capital.

Nelles employs four case studies: Frankfurt Rhein-

Main and Rhein-Neckar in Germany, and Toronto and

Waterloo in Canada. This selection, she argues, allows

for a cross-national comparison of metropolitan

cooperation in federal systems, and analyses cooperation

in small and large city regions. While clearly aimed at

urban and regional studies scholars, the book’s emphasis

on the dynamics of cooperation and effectiveness means

it is also likely to appeal to practitioners.

Nelles develops an analytical framework for inter-

municipal cooperation (Chapter 2), outlining a number

BOOK REVIEWS 435


of variables under the headings ‘institutions’, ‘opportu-

nities’ and ‘civic capital’. The ensuing chapters (Chap-

ters 4–7) then consistently apply this to each case study.

Together, the cases highlight the unpredictable effect

which institutions and opportunities have on coopera-

tion, supporting Nelles’ claim that focusing on these

factors alone is insufficient in determining the intensity

of cooperation. The analysis of civic capital in each case

suggests a positive relationship; the more civic capital

there is, the more intense is cooperation. Again, this

confirms Nelles’ central hypothesis. There are caveats,

however. The Waterloo case, for example, shows that

strong civic capital among private sector actors does not

necessarily translate into intense municipal cooperation.

Given the small number of cases, the wider appli-

cability of the study can be questioned, and this is

acknowledged by Nelles herself. Furthermore, the

selection of Canadian and German regions overlooks

cases of inter-municipal cooperation and the role of

civic capital in more centralised contexts. Nonetheless,

Nelles’ analysis does highlight emerging trends – most

notably that an analysis of civic capital is necessary to

gain a fuller picture of inter-municipal cooperation.

This contribution, therefore, establishes a future

research agenda for scholars of inter-municipal

cooperation and regional governance.

Christopher Huggins(Keele University)

Demobilizing Irregular Forces by Eric Y.

Shibuya. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012. 267pp.,

£13.99, ISBN 978 0 7456 4886 6

Military Integration after Civil Wars: Multiethnic

Armies, Identity and Post-conflict Reconstruc-

tion by Florence Gaub. Abingdon: Routledge, 2011.

180pp., £75.00, ISBN 978 0 415 58094 6

The unifying message of these two titles could be

interpreted as simply as follows: post-conflict environ-

ments are highly sensitive, fragile and complex situa-

tions, where military reintegration of former

insurgents, rebels and militias is a delicate, but crucial

business that needs to be done right.

Eric Shibuya’s Demobilizing Irregular Forces is a com-

prehensive and insightful introduction to the process of

disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR)

as one of the key mechanisms of building a stable

post-conflict peace. Examining both the macro and

micro levels of numerous tensions and contradictions

within such environments, he guides the reader through

different stages of this interlinked process through three

individual chapters focused on disarmament, demobili-

sation and reintegration, respectively. These are com-

plemented by an introductory chapter on the history

and evolution of DDR, and a final chapter which

considers the challenges and conclusions. Shibuya makes

clear at the beginning that the structure of the book is

intentional although not entirely practical, acknowledg-

ing that in reality the process needs to be fluid and

interlinked, rather than separated into book chapters.

Shibuya’s book certainly has many valuable insights

to offer. Perhaps the most significant is that, in contrast

to the widespread tendency to evaluate the power and

value of DDR based on measurable effectiveness or

visible impacts, he argues that the power and value of

this concept lies in what people believe it does. Pro-

viding the critical breathing space early in the post-

conflict environment may be the greatest contribution

towards building long-term peace.

Using empirical examples from Africa, Asia and

Central America, Shibuya does a tremendous job in

outlining the various dilemmas for implementing DDR

on the ground. It is not by coincidence that one of the

clearest arguments in the book is that there is no single

doctrine or dogma of DDR, and that the various situa-

tions and background context of each case are too

varied to suggest a universal blueprint that would work

in all scenarios.

Florence Gaub’s Military Integration after Civil Wars is

in many ways an elaboration on a particular aspect of

the DDR process – namely, military integration (rein-

tegration) after civil wars. In particular, Gaub examines

the role of multiethnic armies in post-conflict recon-

struction, and demonstrates how they can promote

peace-building efforts.

The first chapter addresses the question of the armed

forces as a social agent on a general level. Gaub argues

that in several ways the military is a natural integrator.

She dismisses the assumption that multiethnicity

weakens the military, and builds the argument that the

military has an important role to play in nation building.

The ensuing three chapters are individual case studies

focusing on the Nigerian Army, the Lebanese armed

forces and the armies of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In each of

these, the empirical coverage is impressively broad and

436 COMPARATIVE


demonstrates rich data collected from various sources.

The fifth and final chapter provides an assessment of the

ethnicity factor throughout civil conflict and, together

with a brief conclusion, draws together the book’s

various themes and findings.

Through detailed analysis of the three case studies,

Gaub aims to determine what external or internal factors

make or break an emerging military institution in a

socially challenging and complex environment. One of

her strongest arguments is that despite some general

perceptions, ‘ethnicity is not the cause for insecurity;

rather, insecurity is the cause for ethnicity’, and shows

how a multiethnic army is frequently the impetus for

peace making in multiethnic societies (p. 2).

In the final discussion of social integration within the

armed forces and its potential to contribute to peace,

Gaub concludes that the military is best suited to figure

as a symbol that expresses the need for cooperation and

coexistence, and that if successful, it can lay down the

basis for the construction of long-term social peace.

This book challenges widespread assumptions about

ethnic identities and shows that the military, as a pro-

fessional identity, can supersede them, facilitate cooper-

ation and become the symbol of social integration. The

author’s depth of knowledge and nuanced understand-

ing of the matter is manifest throughout the book.

Both books are an excellent contribution to the issue

of post-conflict reconstruction. Due to their logical

structure and accessible writing style, they are an easy

and pleasurable read. Highly recommended to both

undergraduate and postgraduate students as an excellent

primer for those with an interest in post-conflict recon-

struction, these books will certainly also be of great

interest to scholars and policy makers with an interest in

military studies, peace building, ethnic conflict and con-

flict resolution. Last but not least, both titles should be

considered a ‘must-read’, especially for those who have

a practical involvement in executing peace-building

operations in post-conflict environments.

Jana Jonasova(University of Nottingham)






General

Dismantling Public Policy: Preferences, Strat-

egies and Effects by Michael W. Bauer, Andrew

Jordan, Christoffer Green-Pedersen and Adri-

enne Héritier. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2012. 230pp., £55.00, ISBN 978 0 19 965664 6

Whilst there is a vast body of theoretical and empirical

work on policy change, the work on policy reduction

remains limited. Dismantling Public Policy focuses on this

important aspect of policy change. The book sets out

to build on work gathered from fragmented bodies of

literature and create a unified dialogue which runs

across policy areas, is rich in empirical comparative

evidence and grounded in a systematic framework.

The book seeks to answer two questions: ‘Why do

politicians engage in dismantling?’ and ‘What deter-

mines the dismantling strategy they adopt?’

The book stands apart from previous work, appeal-

ing to scholars and students interested in policy analysis

and comparative politics rather than speaking to those

interested in specific policy areas. The book highlights

that ‘policy dismantling’ does not appear in the index

of most public policy textbooks. The challenge of the

book is thus to incorporate and promote work on

policy dismantling giving it a broader position in policy

analysis.

The book is in three parts. Part I summarises the

research area, highlighting the work done within several

literatures. It then outlines its analytical framework –

namely discussing the conditions under which actors

engage in dismantling, their choice of strategies against

a backdrop of crucial factors and the possible effect this

may have on policy output. The authors distinguish four

separate strategies – active dismantling, dismantling by

default, symbolic strategies and arena shifting – and

propose that dismantling can be observed through these

categories. Part II applies this framework to case studies

by leading policy scholars drawn from social and envi-

ronmental policy areas in Europe and North America.

Each case study observes whether the framework

enhances our understanding of why politicians engage

in dismantling, their choice of strategies, the factors

shaping this choice and the impact across policy areas.

Part III uses insights from the case studies to construct a

general account of policy dismantling, concluding by

claiming that the comparative perspective adopted has

challenged assumptions surrounding policy dismantling

BOOK REVIEWS 437


and demonstrates how it can be approached as a neutral

conceptualisation which can incorporate much of the

work within policy analysis as a whole.

The value of this well-written book is substantial. It

approaches a subject that is both under-studied and

ill-equipped for providing general insights in an effec-

tive and richly theoretical and empirical manner. It

opens up a fresh, exciting debate into policy disman-

tling and further advances our ability to understand

policy change from a perspective that has been largely

ignored. Its ambitious aim of recasting the position

and approach to policy dismantling will succeed

if more scholars follow this innovative lead and con-

tinue to empirically and theoretically develop this

approach.

Leanne-Marie Cotter(Cardiff University)

Governance: A Very Short Introduction by Mark

Bevir. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

132pp., £7.99, ISBN 978 0 19 960641 2

Mark Bevir’s Governance is the latest in Oxford Uni-

versity Press’s well-established ‘A Very Short Intro-

duction ...’ series. In six crisp chapters, Bevir outlines

the key debates about governance, and makes a solid

claim that governance is not merely jargon but ‘a

coherent concept that does useful work’ (p. 2). Bevir

argues that there are two challenges which help

explain the ubiquity of the term. Governance is both

a response to empirical changes in how the state

governs, but it also reflects changes in theoretical

understandings of the role of bureaucracy and organi-

sation (pp. 13–14).

In the first chapter, Bevir outlines the main defining

characteristics of governance, and how it differs from

government ‘in that it focuses less on the state and its

institutions and more on social practices and activities’

(p. 1). In Chapter 2, Bevir outlines the three main ideal

types of organisational governance: networks, hierarchy

and markets. He argues how ‘modernist’ theories of

governance influenced a series of reforms where private

sector ideas about organisations were transferred and

imposed onto the public sector. In Chapter 4, Bevir

outlines the rise of New Public Management (NPM),

with an insightful case from the US on the privatis-

ation of prisons. Chapter 5 examines governance at the

global level and its challenge to existing ideas about

international relations. The book closes with Bevir

surveying the legacy of the governance changes, and

his support for greater democratic ‘collaborative

governance’.

This book, like Bevir’s 2010 Democratic Governance, is

part of his ongoing work to challenge ‘modernist’ social

science, which, he argues, constructs abstract, ideal

typologies that ignore the complexity of the ‘human

nature of social life’ (pp. 35–6). The strength of this

short account is that Bevir deftly maps some of the key

ideational changes that have informed the governance

debate. Given the brevity of the book, a more nuanced

account of his argument is not possible. It is striking,

though, how Bevir’s interpretivist social science relies

on modernist descriptors, and at times struggles to break

free of the modernist ideas it eschews. Bevir charts the

‘modernist’ cycle of new reforms, followed by failure

(p. 36); but given the complexity of public policy –

how could it be otherwise? Overall, this is a well

written, strong account of the story of governance, and

the book contains a very handy ‘further reading’ section

that identifies the key texts and debates for the reader

new to these issues.

Rob Manwaring(Flinders University)

The Ashgate Research Companion to Political

Violence by Marie Breen-Smyth (ed.). Farnham:

Ashgate, 2012. 600pp., £95.00, ISBN 978 0 7546

7752 9

This edited collection offers an interesting and com-

prehensive introduction to the core issues, problems

and debates in the study of political violence and its

aftermath. An impressive mix of leading scholars and

practitioners in the field tackle a wide range of ques-

tions from motivations, goals and forms of political

violence to counter-terrorism in the UK, transitional

justice and the relationship between peace processes

and violence. In general, ‘political violence’ is

employed here more widely than ‘terrorism’ to ‘avoid

the political judgment and de-legitimisation inherent in

the use of the term (terrorism)’ (p. 2).

In terms of its empirical scope, the book draws on

a whole host of cases from different parts of the

globe, including Europe, Latin America and Africa.

The volume is helpfully structured thematically into

seven parts. Part I deals with various aspects of the

438 GENERAL


thorny issue of defining political violence and

includes contributions focusing on orthodox terrorism

theory, critical terrorism studies, the ‘War on Terror’,

state violence and security in political violence. Part

II sketches the diversity of motivations for political

violence – the psychological causes of violence at the

individual level, the major ideological tenets of Irish

Republicanism, the roots of genocide, the increasing

tactical use of martyrdom and the relationship

between religion and political violence. Part III

examines some of the difficulties involved in

researching political violence and how this field can

be enriched by contributions from other sub-fields

(feminism, nationalism, social movement studies). Part

IV reviews two specific forms of political violence –

genocide and war – giving a brief account of the

‘just war’ tradition. Part V addresses the effectiveness

of measures devised to counter non-state political

violence and their impact on human rights. The final

two parts explore how and why violence ends, as

well as the challenges faced by societies in transition

from conflict to peace and striving to secure func-

tioning political institutions.

The book provides an excellent overview of an

extremely broad field and can serve as a reference work

for students, scholars and anyone interested in conflict

and peace studies, conflict regulation, political vio-

lence, security and post-conflict reconstruction. The

lucid style of the book will make it a popular resource

for courses on international security and comparative

politics. It will be particularly useful for those who are

completely new to the field of political violence.

Overall, this volume is a very welcome and accessible

addition to the literature on an important and highly

policy-relevant topic.

Anastasia Voronkova(Independent Scholar)

Storable Votes: Protecting the Minority Vote by

Alessandra Casella. Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2012. 346pp., £18.99, ISBN 978 0 19 530908 9

Storable votes – a new voting system designed by

Alessandra Casella – is an attempt to tackle two of the

most serious and classic problems of democratic

theory: the representation of minorities, and the

reflection of intensity of preferences in political

decision-making. The idea is simple enough; each

voter is presented with a number of binary choices

(such as referendums or ‘yes’/‘no’ decisions made by a

committee) and, in addition to a regular vote, the

voter can cast for or against each of these proposals,

with one or more bonus votes to spend freely on any

of the proposals.

The system has certain advantages over simple

majority voting. While maintaining the fundamental

equality of voters (everyone has the same number of

bonus votes), it allows a highly dedicated minority to

occasionally prevail against a lukewarm majority by

concentrating their bonus votes on the strongly

supported/opposed proposal. At the same time, stor-

able votes increase, in most cases, the total welfare

or utility of the system, understood as the sum of

values attached by voters to their realised preferences.

The author suggests various applications of the

system, from local committees and other decision-

making bodies to referendums to international

organisations.

The book consists of two parts. The first is a clear,

consistent and well-written description of various

aspects of the system, which is accessible, if demand-

ing, for an average political scientist. The second part,

containing formal proofs of the propositions put

forward descriptively in Part I, will be of interest

mostly to readers well acquainted with quantitative

methods, rational choice theory and so on. One of the

strengths of Casella’s book is that all assumptions and

propositions regarding possible applications of the

system are not only statistically modelled, but also rig-

orously tested through laboratory experiments with

real voters. The most important conclusion from these

experiments – especially if one treats storable votes as

a possible real-life solution, not merely an exercise in

voting theory – is that all a voter needs to do to

maximise her or his chances of obtaining the desirable

result is to follow an intuitive rule of casting the bonus

vote(s) on a proposal they care about most. Strategic

mistakes which might be committed by some of the

voters do not infringe upon the total performance of

the system.

A possible difficulty with storable votes is the legiti-

macy of the system. It might look suspicious to citizens

who take the ‘one man, one vote’ rule literally or fear

the possibility of political bargaining. And although

neither of these objections is grounded, the system

needs much more testing and small-scale applications

BOOK REVIEWS 439


before it can seriously challenge the simple majority

rule.

Maciej Potz(University of Lodz)

Nuclear Weapons in the Information Age by

Stephen J. Cimbala. London: Continuum, 2012.

238pp., £16.99, ISBN 978 1 4411 2684

‘Everything old is new again – and vice versa’ is how

Stephen Cimbala begins his book. He introduces the

concept with the explanation of the term ‘regime’,

which he believes is an intellectual construct, and pro-

ceeds to describe types of regime as being those of

mutual assured destruction, mutual deterrence, nuclear

primacy, defence dominance, nuclear abolition and

nuclear abundance with tailored deterrence. The author

then moves on to discuss how crisis is managed in the

age of using tools of information warfare, the geo-

strategy of nuclear delivery systems, illicit transfers of

nuclear weapons technology, the new START agree-

ment between the United States and Russia, problems

posed by North Korea as a fledgling nuclear weapon

state and its implication for deterrence, nuclear arms

control and non-proliferation, continuing NATO

deployments of sub-strategic US nuclear weapons in

Europe and Russian sub-strategic nuclear weapons, and,

finally, the possible conjunction of more drastic

US-Russian offensive force reductions and the deploy-

ment of missile defences. The book is premised on the

fact that if the ultimate weapons of mass destruction –

i.e. nuclear weapons – and the supreme soft power – i.e.

information warfare – are commingled during a crisis,

the product of the two may be an entirely unforeseen

and unwelcome hybrid. In today’s information age

geography has become infography in many ways.

The central thread which runs throughout the book

is nuclear deterrence, and the fact that the possibility of

a nuclear war coexists uneasily with conventional

warfare based on information principles and advanced

cyber technologies. The author reiterates the fact that

nuclear abolition is impractical because the world

cannot return to a time before nuclear knowledge

existed and the state would never give up sovereignty

voluntarily. Therefore, minimum deterrence appeals as

an acceptable alternative.

Nuclear Weapons in the Information Age provides a

well-written, detailed historical account of the United

States and Russia in terms of their relationship, their

policies and possible future scenarios. However, the

disappointment for the reader is that the book has

nothing new to offer vis-à-vis nuclear weapons as niche

weapons for states which face regional security issues,

bargaining through nuclear blackmail, or the fear of

war which emerges from first use of the weapons. The

book fails to analyse the concept from a contemporary

perspective – one in which the world has ceased to be

a bipolar balance of power and where there is an

ever-increasing number of nuclear weapon states

with their inherent threats, multiplying the repercus-

sions and added to the potential misuses of cyber

technology.

Priyamvada Mishra(Symbiosis Law School, Noida, India)

Nationalism, Ethnicity and the State: Making

and Breaking Nations by John Coakley. London:

Sage, 2012. 320pp., £75.00, ISBN 9781446247426

When the world is experiencing a surge in ethnic poli-

tics, where everyone is trying to define the state in their

own way and when ‘nationalism’ is understood vari-

ously according to ethos and narrative, John Coakley

comes with an engaging and informative book. Nation-alism, Ethnicity and the State offers an explanation and

understanding of the complex terminology and dis-

course around nationalism. The book provides an inclu-

sive synthesis of the literature on nationalism through a

comparative study and clearly establishes the author as

an authority on the scholarship of nationalism. It clearly

portrays nationalism and ethnicity as the most potent

political forces in the world.

Using an empirical analysis and theoretical discussion,

Coakley introduces an approach to understanding this

complex and significant topic. He presents the relation-

ship between ‘state’ and ‘nation’ and how the combi-

nation of these two creates a unified governing entity.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part,

‘Nation and Society’, provides an overview of nation-

alist ideas and phenomena. The second part, ‘Nation-

alist Mobilization’, explores the dynamic character of

nationalism and presents it as a process. Philosophical

debates about nationalism, exclusion and minorities are

also discussed. Coakley brilliantly proposes a different

framework for discourse on nationalism on different

continents, suiting their context and contingencies.

440 GENERAL


While explaining the different related terminologies

with regard to time and space, Coakley also highlights

the significance of race, gender and language in the

formation of the nation. The relationship between

language, religion and nation building are beauti-

fully articulated by the author and the depiction of

historical consciousness and contemporary culture is

remarkable.

In the later part of the book, nationalist movements

are the major focus. Coakley looks at the manner in

which nationalist movements have conventionally been

organised, asking how nationalist movements arise and

what sustains them (p. 23). What is the nature of these

movements and how do they pose a challenge to the

existing state authorities? The book, both implicitly

and explicitly, conveys the answers. A new kind of

perspective has been developed by the author while

looking at nationalism in terms of haves and have-nots:

politically dominant groups that control the state and

counter-groups that wish to reshape the state according

to their vision. This book is worth reading for under-

graduate and postgraduate students as well as research-

ers who are beginning the enterprise of understanding

the discourse on nationalism.

M. D. Irfan(Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi)

Edges of Global Justice: The World Social

Forum and Its ‘Others’ by Janet M. Conway.


978 0 415 53079 8

Edges of Global Justice explores the new modality of the

political taking shape in and through the World Social

Forum (WSF) process as well as the intellectual debate

engendered by the movements which are enacting it.

The edges (margins) of the WSF are seen as privileged

sites to interrogate the emancipatory traditions of

modernity and how they are being challenged by the

emergence of new ‘others’.

Janet Conway begins by conceptualising the WSF

as an open space, an historical praxis that evolves,

contests and continually formulates responses to inter-

nal critiques and external pressures. The contradic-

tions of this praxis – inequalities related to gender,

race and class hierarchies – push the structural limits

of open space as a project. Conway subsequently

argues for a more critical use of the terms ‘global

society’/‘civil society’ – one that would challenge the

hegemonic character of liberal pluralism. According

to the author, autonomist, feminist and subaltern

movements, which find themselves paradoxically at

the centre and leading edge of the WSF, offer

insights on how to do this.

Autonomist movements, predominantly formed by

highly educated young males from the global north,

operate on a liberally modern logic to define our con-

temporary global existence. However, their defence of

localised actions, based on autonomous organisation,

self-management and horizontality, help us to question

the nature and scope of the political inside the WSF.

Feminist movements also remain thoroughly modernist

in their concern with gender specificity and autonomy.

Their contribution is to stress the validity of plural,

partial and situated knowledge by affirming the insepa-

rability of the principles of diversity and equality

through ‘their analytical discourse of intersectionality

and the related practice of transversality’ (p. 116). Sub-

altern movements, such as the ones brought forward by

indigenous communities, also contribute to such a

debate by exposing their problematic inclusion in the

current capitalist order.

By combining ten years of field work with scholarly

knowledge on the subject, Conway successfully

reminds us of the radical pluralism of worldwide

movements and its virtues. Her book critically suggests

directions to localise, feminise and indigenise knowl-

edge of global justice. It should be of particular interest

to those students and scholars who are intellectually

engaged in the praxis of social movements. It will also

appeal to those others who are actually changing the

face of this praxis.

Alessandra Sarquis(University of Paris IV)

Speculative Security: The Politics of Pursuing

Terrorist Monies by Marieke de Goede. Minne-

apolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2012.

274pp., £18.50, ISBN 978 0 8166 7590 6

Marieke de Goede examines in this book the ‘new’

security environment that has emerged in the wake of

the 9/11 terrorist attacks around counter-terrorist

financing practices and their outcomes. According to de

Goede, combatting terrorist financing has created a

BOOK REVIEWS 441


‘new’ security environment, which she terms ‘the

finance-security assemblage’ (p. 28) and which has

established new security intervention domains against

uncertain futures and worst-case scenarios. Even though

pursuing terrorist money is widely viewed as less violent

than other aspects of the ‘war on terror’, de Goede

refutes this assumption with examples demonstrating

the dramatic side effects on individuals and societies.

The main claim of the book is that ‘the finance-security

assemblage’ governs the use of pre-emptive security

interventions – which are uneven, unpredictable and

based on suspicion – to avoid uncertain chaotic future

events. Moreover, these new speculative applicat-

ions may cause substantial security problems. The

author also argues that counter-terrorist financing

mechanisms are infiltrating ever more spaces of every-

day life through pre-emptive interventions, instead

of cutting off money flows to terrorist organisat-

ions. In particular, the book focuses on the intervent-

ions and their negative effects that occur in formal

money transfers, informal remittances and charity

donations.

In the first chapter, the importance of the discourses

and narratives used for constituting urgency and the

importance of terrorist financing as a threat is explored.

In the second chapter, ‘the finance-security assemblage’

is examined from the perspective of governance and

sovereignty. Through the next three chapters de Goede

critically discusses the everyday implementations and

contradictions of these new unpredictable measures and

gives evidence of their violence with important exam-

ples. In the last chapter, the practice of blacklisting and

asset-freezing is discussed and it is claimed that the lives

of those people who are subjected to these measures in

this new juridical order are turned into a form of

‘modern exile’ (p. 158).

Overall, the book presents a new perspective in

the field of counter-terrorist financing; one which

critically challenges the presumed truths and illumi-

nates the dark side of them. Additionally, the ideas

expressed are well-formulated and supported with

substantial evidence and clear examples, stimulating

the reader to enquire more about the ongoing

debates in the book. While this book is both

informative and engaging, the lack of clarification of

theoretical concepts does at times require a slow and

patient reading from the newcomer to the field.

Speculative Security is highly recommended to those

interested in the role of discourse in politics, security,

governance, terrorism and surveillance, as well as ter-

rorist financing.

Burke Ugur Basaranel(Swansea University)

Understanding Social Media by Sam Hinton and

Larissa Hjorth. London: Sage, 2013. 161pp., £21.99,

ISBN 9 781446 201213

‘[T]o understand social media, it is not enough to

simply log in to Facebook and start participating; we

have to look more deeply at the economic, political

and social dimensions of the changes that seem to be

associated with social media’ (p. 136).

This quote from the concluding chapter of Under-standing Social Media provides a good summary of what

the book is and isn’t about. It is not a guide book to

using Facebook and Twitter. Rather, it gets under the

skin of social media to look at its implications across six

key areas. These are covered across six chapters. An

introductory chapter provides an overview of the

development of Web 2.0 and what it means, followed

by a chapter on social networking sites and whether

these are best understood as networks, communities or

both. The third topic covered is user-created content

and the blurring line between users as consumers and

users as producers. This is followed by a chapter on

social media and art, and a chapter on social media

games – in particular on how social media games are

used in China to bridge generational and geographic

divides. Finally, the authors look at Location Based

Services and the mediation of our sense of place. In

particular, they look at camera phones and how this

technology is leading to the creation of new

cartographies.

Each chapter is intended to stand alone and each

provides a useful, if brief (at 161 pages it is certainly a

quick read), introduction to the topic it covers, as well

as a good overview of the key literature. However,

although each chapter stands alone, there are three

themes that thread through the book and so it can

also be read as a whole with a developing narrative.

The three themes are: the empowerment/control

dichotomy; the relationship between online and offline;

and intimacy. Understanding Social Media also takes a

deliberately global perspective on the issues it discusses.

Paradoxically, this emphasis on the global provides a

442 GENERAL


fascinating glimpse into the way in which social media

is shaped by the local.

Understanding Social Media potentially has a wide

appeal for both non-academic and academic audiences

in a range of disciplines. For political scientists, this

book would be a valuable introduction to thinking

about how social media shapes issues such as political

activism, global divides, journalism and ‘the politics of

everyday life’ (p. 136).

Naomi Racz(Independent Scholar)

Organizing Women Workers in the Informal

Economy: Beyond the Weapons of the Weak by

Naila Kabeer, Ratna Sudarshan and Kirsty

Milward (eds). London: Zed Books, 2013. 299pp.,

£19.99, ISBN 978-1780324517

Organizing Women Workers in the Informal Economy is a

compilation of case studies around the struggle of

women workers in marginalised sectors of the informal

economy in developing countries. It focuses on the

interplay between rights, recognition and redistribution,

which is a vital for understanding the empowerment

process of women workers. The editors state that the

book ‘shifts the analytical focus from individual women

engaged in the informal forms of work to organisations

that have set out to work with women in the informal

economy’ (p. 2). The organisations discussed in this

book are engaged with workers who belong to the

marginalised sectors of the economy such as sex

workers, domestic workers, waste pickers, farm work-

ers, fisheries workers and migrant factory workers. The

contributors also throw light on the plight of women

labourers in the post-globalisation era and argue that the

mobility of labour in the modern era has actually put

female workers in a disadvantageous position.

The book consists of nine chapters, with an endnote

entitled ‘Looking Back on Four Decades of Organising:

The Experience of SEWA’ by Ela Bhatt. It is aimed at

research scholars, academics and practitioners who have

a deep interest in the discourse of gender justice and

equity. The editors have successfully compiled a set of

case studies focusing on organisations, originated by the

efforts of actors who are from different class back-

grounds. These studies validate the argument that

organisational capacity has brought social recognition

for the women working in informal sectors. This book

testifies very well to the claim that the process of organ-

ising working women in the informal economy has to

straddle two very distinct sets of issues – namely ‘dignity

and identity’. Further, it deals with gender-specific con-

straints such as women’s primary responsibility for

domestic chores and care of children and the family; the

secondary status attached to their earnings; the resistance

they face from family members; cultural restrictions on

mobility in the public domain; sexual harassment in the

workplace; and the lack of recognition.

Last but not least, the book cites various successful

case studies which feature workers who are variously

positioned in relation to the forces of globalisation in

various informal organisations that have managed to

democratise the struggle for structural transformation.

Thus the path has been opened up to those who were

overlooked, marginalised or simply forgotten by labour

movements, and this in turn supports the notion that

‘Organisation is Power’.

Kapil Sikka(Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi)

The Ashgate Research Companion to Religion

and Conflict Resolution by Lee Marsden (ed.).

Ashgate: Farnham, 2012. 421pp., £85.00, ISBN 978 1

4094 1089 8

The present volume addresses the perplexing ambigu-

ity whereby religiously motivated actors have been the

source of both heinous violence and admirable peace

initiatives. In examining this moral malaise, various

issues related to the structure of communal religious

belief and individual expressions of faith are addressed.

While acknowledging and analysing religious violence,

the thrust of the 26 contributors is towards delineating

ways in which religion and faith-based actors can be

brought into the service of peace building in order to

support positive conflict resolution.

From a political studies perspective, notable contri-

butions include a chapter by Alexandra Mergenschroer-

Livingston, who makes innovative connections

between former US President Jimmy Carter’s policy

choices and his alignment with progressive Southern

Baptists at key moments in his administration, including

the pardoning of Vietnam draft dodgers, his choice to

negotiate rapprochement with the USSR, and his han-

dling of the Iran hostage crisis. Also informative is

Megan Shore’s chapter on the role of religious rituals in

BOOK REVIEWS 443


the Truth and Reconciliation Commission within the

context of South Africa’s post-apartheid nation-

building efforts. Given Mohandas ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi’s

worldwide prominence, both during the Indian Inde-

pendence Movement and now, Sean Scalmer’s chapter

on Gandhi’s approach to non-violent social and regime

change is sound reading for political scientists. Another

noteworthy contribution is penned by eminent peace

researcher, Johan Galtung. Employing broad strokes of

argument, he urges that theological debate take place

within religious frameworks and also within secularist

and humanist schools of thought, so as to enhance the

‘soft’ aspects of these traditions with a normative goal of

encouraging dialogue and sociological transformation.

In turn, these can form intra- and inter-religious blocks

of solidarity as an antidote to ‘hard’ exclusivist, and

sometimes violent, religionists.

Although there are a number of instances when the

copyediting breaks down, this volume will provide

excellent library support for courses in religious studies,

politics and conflict resolution studies. The authors are

not monolithic in their analysis and reporting of events

and ideas. As such, continuity is somewhat lacking in

this collection. However, over the long arc of the

volume a variety of perspectives on peace, violence

and religion are employed so that a methodologically

complete survey of approaches to the subject matter of

religion and conflict resolution results. This feature,

along with the presence of cogent case study material

and ample citations from academic literature, means

that Religion and Conflict Resolution ends up fulfilling its

titular promise. It is a fine ‘research companion’.

Christopher Hrynkow(University of Saskatchewan)

Young People and Politics: Political Engage-

ment in the Anglo-American Democracies by

Aaron J. Martin. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012.

170pp., £85.00, ISBN 9780414596913

This is a thoughtful and carefully researched book. It

invites reflection on the ways in which young people

participate (or not) in politics. It is comparative and

international in its focus, drawing on datasets from

Anglo-American democracies. While drawing largely

on US literature for its intellectual landscape, the claim

is that the issue of (lack of ) political participation is not

a case of American exceptionalism.

Contemporary volatility among young people is

Aaron Martin’s main focus and he links it with low

levels of civic duty (p. 35). Using the notion of ‘political

interest’, Martin argues that young people are in fact

more interested in politics today than their predecessors.

He attributes this to ‘events’ such as the Iraq War, and

this emphasis upon ‘events’ is later used to account for

electoral fluctuations (p. 72) (although why contempo-

rary ‘events’ have more of an effect now on turnout

than occurred historically might have been useful to

unpack). The analysis is focused on the way in which

this interest in events does not necessarily translate into

electoral turnout and so Martin looks to other ways in

which participation in politics can be described.

One of his key findings is that while electoral

turnout may have declined, political participation,

more broadly defined, has actually increased (p. 94)

and he attributes this in large part to the rise of

new media technologies. Yet, despite his argument

that changes in ‘participation’ may transform politics,

Martin’s underlying assumptions are made clear:

political parties and voting matter (p. 101), and other

forms of political participation are not sufficient sub-

stitutes for electoral turnout.

In line with much of the literature within political

science, Martin begins from the point that political

socialisation occurs via the family, and as familial parti-

san attachments have declined, so political involvement

is less likely among young people. There are some

places where a bit more nuance is necessary. So we

might suggest that voting is not the only expression of

civic duty (as suggested on p. 35), and surely support for

democracy can coexist with low voter turnout? Isn’t

abstention an expression of political participation in

itself? We are given a wealth of incredibly useful data

about young people, and how they participate in poli-

tics, but a little more on the why questions (why don’t

they and why do they take part?) would have added to

the excellent discussion that this book provokes.

Heather Savigny(University of Bournemouth)






444 GENERAL


On the Muslim Question by Anne Norton.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013.

265pp., £16.95, ISBN 978 0 691 15704 7

Anne Norton’s book is part of the Public Square Book

Series from Princeton University Press. The books in

the series are scholarly works written by academics, but

they are meant to foster debate about a topic of general

interest. This is how Norton’s book should be read: as

a critical contribution to (academic) debates about a

topical issue.

The basic thesis of the book is that ‘the Muslim

question’ is the contemporary equivalent of ‘the Jewish

question’ in the nineteenth century: discourses on

Islam and Muslims are saying something significant

about ourselves and our times. Norton sets out to show

that ‘Islam’ and ‘the West’ are not internally homog-

enous; that ‘they’ are more like us – and ‘we’ more like

them – than we like to think; and that the opposition

between ‘Islam’ and ‘the West’ is therefore not as sharp

as it is usually presented. On the whole, the book is

successful in achieving those aims.

In Part I of the book, Norton analyses discourses

about Islam and Muslims in relation to issues where the

Muslim question is often raised: freedom of speech, sex

and gender, terrorism, equality and democracy. The

chapters in Part II work through those issues by

addressing contemporary discourses on, among other

things, European identity and the clash of civilisations.

Norton shows how there are continuities between the

treatment of the Muslim question in the academic

literature and the ways in which it is treated by the

media and in public debates. She criticises the usual

suspects on the right, but her critical analysis of less

obvious targets is more interesting. For instance, she

shows the role that Islam and Muslims play in liberal

discourses, including liberals with no Islamophobic

agenda such as John Rawls. And she shows how more

radical philosophers such as Jacques Derrida and Slavoj

Žižek also draw on and contribute to the same repre-

sentations of Islam as inherently opposed to equality,

freedom and democracy.

The critical analysis of the Muslim question works

well. Having said that, in challenging the opposition

between ‘Islam’ and ‘the West’ there is also a danger of

reproducing those two entities as homogeneous to the

extent that ‘the Muslim question’ becomes one homo-

geneous and dominant discourse. Still, the book is an

insightful analysis of the way Islam and Muslims figure

in contemporary discourses, and it should be read by

students and scholars interested in representations of

Islam and Muslims. I recommend it.

Lasse Thomassen(Queen Mary, University of London)

Britain and Ireland

Irish Civilization: An Introduction by Arthur

Aughey and John Oakland. Abingdon: Routledge,

2013. 340pp., £21.99, ISBN 978 0 415 34668 9

Irish Civilization provides a fascinating, accessible and

well-balanced descriptive analysis of the history of

Ireland and Northern Ireland. Despite the difficulty

inherent in writing about a civilisation defined by its

divisions, the authors demonstrate a respect for the

diversity that defines modern Ireland. The text offers a

lens through which we can interpret the trajectory of

the Irish as a people despite a history of conflict, but

without losing sight of the significance of many of the

wide-ranging formative structures that co-constitute the

culture and social reality in Ireland and Northern

Ireland.

The text consists of twelve chapters that address

particular themes that have conditioned the contem-

porary contexts in which the concept of an Irish

civilisation is given meaning. After a concise historical

chapter, each additional chapter presents a different

dimension of the Irish experience from the island’s

geography to today’s media coverage. The content

of the chapters develop each theme through a his-

torical perspective providing factual information as

well as cogent explanations for how and why events

have come to pass. What makes this text even more

valuable than simply being an even-handed account

is that the narrative leads the reader to consider

contemporary issues of policy relevance that are

derived from the historical record. Furthermore, the

manner in which the authors discuss each of the

cultural pillars promotes an opportunity for the

reader to develop their own conclusions regarding

the effectiveness of past, present and potential policy

initiatives.

By attempting to offer a broad understanding of

Ireland/Northern Ireland, a degree of depth must be

BOOK REVIEWS 445


sacrificed. The authors demonstrate a particular gift for

maintaining their creditability and ethos while relating

a range of topics (e.g. Celtic settlement, Home Rule,

relations with the United States, Irish legal systems,

health care and insurance programmes); they cannot

afford to delve too deeply into any one theme without

undermining the flow of the work. However, in

addition to providing an excellent general overview,

each chapter encourages readers to take advantage of

an exhaustive list of websites and other source

materials to go beyond the text. The book is also

unique in that it makes extensive use of survey data to

demonstrate the perspectives of the people of Ireland

and Northern Ireland. Reflections on public opinion

not only assist the reader’s interpretation of how the

Irish see themselves and their civilisation, but provide a

meaningful context through which to evaluate policy

decisions.

Christopher M. Brown(St Thomas University, Miami Gardens, Florida)

Individuals, Health and Policy under

Neoliberalism by B. J. Brown and Sally Baker.

London: Anthem Press, 2012. 214pp., £60.00, ISBN

978 0 85728 458 7

In this book Brown and Baker provide an accessible

exposition of contemporary public sector reform. At

the time of publication, the Health and Social Care

Bill was progressing through Parliament. This makes

the book a timely piece, although the Bill is not ref-

erenced extensively. As well as re-treading familiar

debates by systematically reviewing the literature of the

Carceral society (pp. 121–32), the book examines how

a wider topography of responsibility has encroached

into empirical domains such as health care, screening,

mental health, psychotherapy and housing. The

authors combine two theoretical frameworks: a post-

structuralist conception of power and a sociological

view of the reflexive self. It is argued that previous

ambitions to reduce poverty in material or monetary

terms has been substituted for a polity of thoughts,

feelings and ‘chances’ (p. 164). There is no clear con-

cluding chapter to the book. Instead the authors close

by tying personal responsibility to collective societalobligation.

For advanced undergraduate political scientists and

sociologists, the originality of this book is located

in its thoroughgoing dismantling of the health and

social care system. Little escapes Brown and Baker’s

examination. Cognitive epidemiological theories (pp.

60–1), screening (Chapter 4) and how notions of

personal responsibility impact on doctors’ readiness

to prescribe medication are analysed. This makes

a refreshing departure from traditional economic

and political accounts of neoliberalism. Greater atten-

tion could have been given to the physical institu-

tional environment, however. Ruth Wodak’s 1996

sociolinguistic work on doctor-patient discourse

could have enhanced the argument. Wodak added

a layer of material significance to institutional power

by illustrating how the power of doctors is legiti-

mated and how patient diagnoses are permitted

in a precisely defined setting such as the outpatient

clinic.

The key strength of the book is its self-conscious

eschewal of ‘little Englander libertarianism’ (p. 126).

Instead, Brown and Baker depict a clear contrast

between a general will to empower and how vulner-

able people cope with the instabilities of the market in

reality. Elderly people often put on a ‘desperate display

of autonomy and responsibility ... to deflect any pos-

sible suggestion that they are not coping’ (p. 60).

There has been confusion over whether problematised

behaviour is illegal or whether advice is merely exhor-

tation. Since publication, reports have emerged about

patients quitting onerous courses of cancer medication.

This strengthens the book’s resonance. Given the

incongruity between the autonomy of the individual

and contingent social circumstances, it would be inter-

esting to know how sustainable the authors feel this

type of public sector reform is.

Cherry M. Miller(University of Birmingham)

Politics and Religion in the United Kingdom by

Steve Bruce. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012. 198pp.,

£26.00, ISBN 978 0 415 64367 2

This book shows how religion in British politics and

society has evolved throughout recent history and its

impact upon modern-day politics. It also considers the

various denominations of Christianity and their role in

creating political and civil divisions in different regions

of the United Kingdom, with particular reference to

Scotland and Northern Ireland.

446 BRITAIN AND IRELAND


Today British society appears increasingly secular,

with the decline of church attendance reflecting the

reduced political and social power of the established

Church. Arguably this can be attributed to the sepa-

ration of Church and State, which has produced a

less overtly religious polity. But this should not lead

to the easy conclusion that individual belief has

declined, given that some may believe without

belonging to a Church or, indeed, may belong to

another faith entirely. Rather, it is the decline of an

active relationship between Protestant religious leaders

and Westminster politicians over the last half century

that has created a more fluid form of morality. This

is often free of the theological elements. It is also

worth remembering that some contemporary leaders

still tap into the rhetorical value of personal morality

as a way of demonstrating their electoral worth. In

part, its rhetorical objective is to tap into the innate

belief that a moral individual is less likely to be

corruptible.

For me, the book feels rather unfinished because

there is much more to be said about religion and the

Westminster parties. The Labour Party, for example

has had a close relationship with the ‘Low Church’

since the days of the Independent Labour Party.

Indeed, the pulpits in some Victorian churches were

one of the most important means of communicating

socialism to the working class. Moreover, Tony Benn

often incorporated elements of faith into his Argumentsfor Socialism, while Tony Blair had a moral ethic in his

political speeches. Even today, Blue Labour and fringes

on the Left continue to highlight a closeness between

Christianity and their egalitarian values. Given that the

book is about religion and politics in the UK, I would

argue that a more balanced approach would have

examined these unexplored areas of religion and poli-

tics, among others.

The target audience for this book is undergraduate

politics students and anthropologists. It may also be of

some value to researchers at masters or early doctoral

level. The narrowness of the audience is because of its

introductory nature, and so most interested academics

could be expected to have grasped many of the con-

cepts under discussion, although this may not preclude

them from finding some value in it.

Andrew Scott Crines(University of Leeds)

Devolution in the United Kingdom by Russell

Deacon. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,

2012. 266pp., £19.99, ISBN 978 0 7486 4651 7

This second edition of Russell Deacon’s account of

devolved politics in the United Kingdom is a study

guide for A-level and undergraduate students of British

politics. Beginning with the concept of ‘devolution’,

the rationale behind it and its relationship to British

culture, Deacon systematically considers the develop-

ment of devolved governments in the UK nations. He

examines the historical context of each nation in

which campaigns for devolution were formed. This

highlights the role of twentieth-century economic

issues in Scotland, such as the link between the Great

Depression and the establishment of the Scottish

National Party (SNP) in the 1930s. Deacon underlines

the long history of sectarian conflict in Northern

Ireland, as well as the violent nature of the dispute,

which contrasts with the other Celtic nations. The

development of separate cultural identities informs

Deacon’s explanation of the pressure for devolution in

each nation. This is particularly evident in his discus-

sion of English regionalism, which emphasises the role

of cultural distinction in referenda in London and

northeast England in 1998 and 2004, respectively.

Having addressed the arguments for devolution in

each nation, Deacon examines the political campaigns.

He pays attention to both the 1979 and 1997 referenda

in Scotland, highlighting still-unresolved issues, such as

the West Lothian Question. His account of the Welsh

devolution campaign, however, lacks the same degree

of detail. The book delves into the powers and func-

tions of the devolved institutions, also tackling contro-

versial matters including block grant funding, electoral

systems and Scottish independence. The question of

the constitutional legacy of devolution, whether

unitary or federal, is raised but left open.

The book’s rigid structure makes information simple

to locate as content, learning outcomes and further

reading are set out in each chapter. Text boxes high-

light key material separately from the main text.

However, their substance is limited and they often

distract from the prose, encouraging the reader to skip

over different sections. Moreover, the separate discus-

sion of each nation limits the opportunity for direct

comparison, which would facilitate deeper understand-

ing of certain issues.

BOOK REVIEWS 447


Overall, the book’s tone is descriptive rather than

rigorously analytical, comprehensively chronicling

events without explaining in detail the political pro-

cesses that informed them. The book contains little that

is empirically innovative and it is not clearly related to

the wide body of literature discussing devolution and

devolved policy. This is an understandable consequence

of the study guide format, making it a useful starting

point for students seeking a basic understanding of

British devolution, while lacking the complexity and

nuance necessary for latter-stage undergraduate readers.

Rebecca George(Swansea University)

Defending the Realm? The Politics of Britain’s

Small Wars since 1945 by Aaron Edwards. Man-

chester: Manchester University Press, 2012. 319pp.,

£70.00, ISBN 978 0 7190 8441 6

As one of Aaron Edwards’ more recent works, Defend-ing the Realm? aims to address a gap in the academic

literature and act as a tool for practitioners and policy

makers as well as academics. His central argument in

the book is that there has been a skewed understanding

of Britain’s historical record in the area of the nation’s

involvement in small wars which needs to be

re-examined with more emphasis placed on the dia-

logue between the military and politicians. To achieve

these aims of clearing the historical debris, Edwards

uses eight case studies to draw out the lines of his

arguments. These include British actions in Palestine,

Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus, Aden, Northern Ireland, Iraq

and Afghanistan. In each of these case studies Edwards

draws on a strong variety of appropriate sources. A

selection of documents from different archives, auto-

biographies, newspapers, secondary literature and, in

some cases, interviews have been used to good effect in

these different studies. As Edwards explains, this

volume covers a lot of historical material but does not

aim to provide in-depth analysis of each study,

although it does point the reader to other useful works.

This approach is perhaps best demonstrated with the

chapter on the British in Aden. This well-written and

highly developed section is a promising insight into

Edwards’ future work on this topic.

Throughout his case studies, Edwards stresses the

damaging impact of limited dialogue between politi-

cians and the military. In most case studies the claim that

political indecision in London resulted in military fail-

ures is made. However, Edwards overlooks the other

side of this argument. He leaves little room for discus-

sion that military leaders may not have been as effective

as communicating with London as they could have

been. An example of this can be seen in Sherard

Cowper-Coles’ memoirs, also published in 2012, in

which he claimed that it was sometimes the military

trying to convince often sceptical politicians on the

expansion of the Afghani strategy. Beyond this critique,

Edwards has, in some ways, reached his goal of high-

lighting the importance of communication between

politicians and the military. However, more work needs

to be done to demonstrate this argument by taking the

political considerations more into account.

Philip R. Gannon(Durham University)

The British Dream: Successes and Failures of

Post-war Immigration by David Goodhart.

London: Atlantic Books, 2013. 416pp., £20.00, ISBN

978-1843548058

This book is based on both academic and more anec-

dotal methods, and supplies not just a narrative of

immigration into Britain but a critique of its conse-

quences – or rather the consequences of the manner in

which it was handled by a political class too wrapped

up in its own liberalism (be it social or economic) to

care what ordinary people thought, or to appreciate

the ghettoisation it would create and the havoc it

would wreak on our sense of national identity and

social solidarity. Even on its own terms, Goodhart

argues, the elite messed up. The economic effects of

immigration, he claims, are by no means wholly

benign, either for those at the lower end of the labour

market or for the businesses for which an abundant

supply of cheap labour provides no incentive to invest

in the training and technology essential for lasting

success in the twenty-first century. The political effects

are even more catastrophic: an alienated populace tired

of being ignored and lied to, and which increasingly

lacks the fellow-feeling and sense of place and mutual

obligation that are fundamental to the welfare state

bargain and to civic participation.

This book may well make difficult reading for an

academic audience. Goodhart – a journalist and think-

tanker – is bound to have more of an influence on



informed debate in the UK than those whose work is

published in journals or monographs, the readership of

which will normally run to a few hundred rather than

the thousands who will read his book, or at least the

boiled-down versions in the media. Second, so much of

what Goodhart claims is strikingly novel, but will come

as no surprise to anyone working on migration, many of

whose efforts, to be fair to him, the author tries hard to

draw upon. Third, those people will quickly realise that

quite a lot of the incontrovertible facts that we must all

apparently face before it’s too late turn out not to be

incontrovertible at all.

None of this, however, is necessarily a bad thing.

Although the book may well irritate more than it

convinces, it will not only provoke plenty of debate in

a teaching situation but may even encourage more

people who really know their stuff into bringing it to

a wider audience. If they don’t, Goodhart will remain

the media’s go-to-guy on all these issues. If that

happens, we have only ourselves to blame.

Tim Bale(Queen Mary, University of London)

Not For Turning: The Life of Margaret

Thatcher by Robin Harris. London: Transworld,

2013. 493pp., £20.00, ISBN 978 0 593 05891 6

A fortune teller in Orpington once predicted that a

young Margaret Roberts would be ‘great – as great as

Churchill’ (p. 433) and in this, the first of the whole-

life biographies of the late Baroness Thatcher, Robin

Harris makes no secret of his personal admiration of a

woman with whom he worked for over 30 years, first

as a speechwriter then on her memoirs after she had left

office in 1990. For this reason, this is not a conven-

tional biography of Thatcher’s life and nor does it seek

to be, but it is instead a readable and at times amusing

part-history part-polemic in defence of both the Iron

Lady herself and all that she stood for. As a result,

‘balance’ plays no part in Harris’ thinking (p. 2). The

author recognises that this approach may not be to

everyone’s taste and is careful therefore not to alienate

those who are not of a similar ilk (Thatcher loyalists) by

ensuring that as we pass through the character-building

phases of Thatcher’s life – her austere upbringing in

Grantham; her time as the infamous ‘Milk Snatcher’

Education Secretary; the Prime Minister who beat

General Galtieri and Arthur Scargill but was over-

thrown by her own cabinet in a ‘Treasury Plot’ led by

John Major (p. 333); her decline into dementia due to

a series of strokes, which Harris describes as a ‘particu-

larly sad’ period in her life (p. 430) – he highlights her

mistakes along the way. The most scathing criticism is

reserved for the two men whom Harris clearly feels

were the most to blame for her downfall: Geoffrey

Howe, a man with ‘an extremely high view of his own

abilities’ (p. 173), and Nigel Lawson, who Thatcher

found ‘lacking in moral character’ due to his secretive-

ness at the Treasury (p. 295). It is opinions such as these

which make Harris’ biography such an enjoyable read.

Thanks to Charles Moore’s 2014 ‘official’ biography

revealing correspondence between Margaret and her

sister Muriel, some of Harris’ statements have proved to

be inaccurate, such as that Thatcher had ‘no romantic

friendships’ before Denis (p. 42). Otherwise, this

is an excellent insight into the life of a woman who

proved divisive and controversial right up until her

death, and who is perhaps best summed up by Harris’

own distinctive view on Thatcher and her legacy: ‘She

slew the dragons. Now the meek can inherit the earth’

(p. 450).

Thomas McMeeking(University of Leeds)

The Political Integration of Ethnic Minorities in

Britain by Anthony F. Heath, Stephen D. Fisher,

Gemma Rosenblatt, David Sanders and Maria

Sobolewska. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

256pp., £55.00, ISBN 9780199656639

The Political Integration of Ethnic Minorities in Britain offers

an encouraging picture of how Britain’s minorities are

‘just as good democrats as other British citizens’ (p. 205).

The key finding of the research carried out by Anthony

Heath and his colleagues is that engagement in both the

electoral process and other forms of political participa-

tion does not differ significantly between ethnic minor-

ities and the white majority. Particularly for the second

generation, the trend is for a convergence with the rest

of society. This is not to say that there is nothing

specific about ethnic minority political engagement.

There is evidence to show that ethnicity does in fact

trump class when looking at allegiance to the Labour

Party. Indeed, minorities are, in general, less supportive

of government spending but still more inclined to vote

Labour. The data from the Ethnic Minority British

BOOK REVIEWS 449


Election Survey (EMBES) throws up some other inter-

esting results. For example, minorities were less likely to

abstain or defect from Labour at the 2010 general elec-

tion. The authors explore these and other issues in detail

and attempt to provide possible reasons for certain find-

ings without discounting alternative explanations.

The book is divided into ten chapters and looks at

several key topics including: whether there is an ethnic

minority agenda and how/if this is incorporated into

mainstream politics; why Labour partisanship is so much

more prevalent among minorities; rates of registration,

turnout, abstention and defection; forms of non-

electoral participation and overall satisfaction with

democracy and its institutions. In each chapter the data

is presented in a manner designed not to bamboozle the

non-specialist reader, who is guided through the results

with the most significant findings highlighted and com-

mented upon. Handily for those who wish to get more

intimate with the data, supplementary tables are pro-

vided in the appendices of several chapters. Heath et al.should also be commended for recognising the potential

flaws and limitations with their survey data. They are at

pains to warn readers about the pitfalls of inferring

causal processes from the statistics and readily admit to

the fuzziness of some of the ethnic categories they are

using.

The recent media interest in the potential of ethnic

minorities to significantly influence the next UK

general election in 2015 means that the timing of this

book is impeccable. It should give serious pause for

thought for politicians and political parties – in par-

ticular Labour, which despite successfully incorporating

minorities in the past is in danger of taking their

loyalty for granted.

Timothy Peace(University of Edinburgh)

The British Left and Zionism: History of a

Divorce by Paul Kelemen. Manchester: Manchester

University Press, 2012. 225pp, £18.99, ISBN 978 0

7190 8813 1

As a ‘symbolic atonement for European civilisation’s

responsibility for the Holocaust’, the state of Israel was

initially supported by the British Labour and Commun-

ist Parties (p. 1). Post-1967, however, the British Left

and the Zionist movement drifted apart following Isr-

ael’s shift to neoliberalism and exclusive nationalism.

Drawing upon rich archival material, The British Left andZionism explores the changing attitudes of the British

Left to Israel and the Zionist movement in the second

half of the twentieth century.

From the early twentieth century the British Left

helped to popularise the Zionist cause inspired by the

strength of the Jewish labour movement, which led

them to believe that Israel would trigger economic

development and promote social justice in the Middle

East. Relations between the Zionist movement and the

British Left was flourishing until the end of the 1960s,

and culminated in Labour’s support for the newly

created state of Israel.

However, the rise of messianic nationalism chal-

lenged the Left’s perception of Zionism as a ‘long-term

cure from anti-Semitism’ and a means to ensuring the

peaceful coexistence of Jews and non-Jews in the

Middle East (p. 143). Labour’s disillusionment with

Zionism deepened with the decline of the Israeli

Labour movement and the country’s drift to the right in

pursuit of neoliberal economic policies and the military

occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. That eventually

intensified Labour’s contacts with a unified Palestinian

movement.

Finally, the book examines whether it was a new

form of anti-Semitism that changed Labour’s percep-

tion of the Israel-Palestine topic in the 1980s. There is

no evidence in support of that view, which is con-

firmed by the author. The British Left’s divorce from

the Zionist movement was politically rather than ideo-

logically motivated.

Grounded in rich archival material, the book could

have been better embedded in the political context.

For instance, a clear distinction between Labour’s atti-

tude to Israel while in government and in opposition

would have enriched the analysis. Despite Paul

Kelemen’s hints that Labour’s disillusionment with

Israel caused more damage on a grassroots – if not a

government – level, the difference in their views is not

necessarily clear (p. 207).

Nonetheless, the book provides a historically accu-

rate, informed overview of how the British Left shifted

from support to criticism of Zionism in opposition to

Israel’s ‘blood and soil’ nationalism and the expansion

of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories.

Ekaterina Kolpinskaya(University of Nottingham)



The British Constitution: A Very Short Intro-

duction by Martin Loughlin. Oxford: Oxford Uni-

versity Press, 2013. 135pp, £7.99, ISBN 978 0 19

969769 4

‘A Very Short Introduction’ to anything is never going

to be able to cover all of the debates and issues sur-

rounding its subject, least of all when that subject is the

British constitution. This book by Martin Loughlin

opens with a discussion over whether Britain can be

said to have a constitution, establishing the constitution

as existing more as a spirit than a document, but still

under attack in that form. The book then examines

three strands of the constitution: parliamentary gov-

ernment, the English State and civil liberties.

The chapter on parliamentary government deals first

with the origins of parliamentary government as far

back as the Norman Conquest and the subsequent

centralisation of power, before moving through the

Magna Carta to modern parliamentary reforms, and the

inherent issues and debates around executive and prime

ministerial power. The development of the United

Kingdom’s territory is examined, starting with the Act

of Union and the subsumption of other states. It also

deals with the issue of the Empire, both in the tradi-

tional and less traditional senses, as well as the aspects

of the history of devolution, and the EU. Civil liberty

issues are discussed around William Blackstone’s prin-

ciples of liberty and the principle of the rule of law.

Loughlin discusses the rights and prerogatives of the

modern judiciary, including its expanded scope under

the Human Rights Act. The book ends with a discus-

sion of where the constitution is headed in the future.

It may have been more accurate for the title of the

book to be ‘A History of the Constitution’. The

British constitution is constantly evolving, but too

much time is spent on the evolutionary nature of the

constitution and not enough on its actual function.

Devolution is examined, but without discussion of one

of the main debates over the English Question, or

even the West Lothian Question. On further reading,

there is an absence of debate on the roles and powers

of the House of Lords, or of continuing concerns in

relation to the Human Rights Act and the role of the

courts.

Overall, this book provides an adequate overview of

the development of the current constitution, and an

introduction to the issues still under question, but is

weak on how the current constitution works on a

day-to-day basis, and leaves much to the reader.

Fiona Williams(University of Nottingham)

Northern Ireland’s Lost Opportunity: The Frus-

trated Promise of Political Loyalism by Tony

Novosel. London: Pluto Press, 2013. 274pp., £17.99,

ISBN 978 0 7453 3309 0

Northern Ireland’s Lost Opportunity takes its readers on a

journey into the soul of Protestant paramilitary politics

in the 1970s and 1980s. It is written by an American

historian who has been studying the Ulster ‘Troubles’

and peace process for many years. The book is an

important contribution to the study of Northern

Ireland because of the ‘frustrated promise’ of the pro-

gressive politics it details within a community closely

aligned to the Ulster Volunteer Force and Red Hand

Commando – two illegal terrorist groups that between

them killed over 500 people in the period from 1966

to 2010. Tony Novosel argues that Loyalist attempts to

find a way out of the Ulster killing fields prior to

the paramilitary ceasefires in 1994 represent a ‘lost

opportunity’.

Novosel has performed an invaluable service for

scholarship on Ulster Loyalism precisely because he has

challenged the weaknesses of glib criticism, found in

the otherwise invaluable work of Steve Bruce and

Jennifer Todd, that loyalists were ‘incapable’ of think-

ing politically (pp. 5–6). Indeed, this kind of carica-

turing is echoed in the work of other established

academics and has done little to deepen our apprecia-

tion of Irish politics or terrorism. Exploiting an

impressive ensemble cast of interviewees and under-

used documents, Novosel disputes the empirically

unreliable interpretation of Loyalism as anything other

than thuggish sectarianism. He argues, convincingly,

that it is not true that Loyalists never attempted to put

their political thoughts into action. As he states in

relation to the Progressive Unionist Party document

Sharing Responsibility (1985): ‘[If it had been] accepted

as the basis for discussion and negotiation [it] would

have accomplished what the GFA [Good Friday

Agreement] did twelve years later and in the process

saved many lives’ (p. 195). Novosel has shown con-

clusively how Loyalism has much more nuance and

complexity to it than is often admitted.

BOOK REVIEWS 451


This book is also important for other reasons,

including, vitally, for its challenge to Loyalists them-

selves to plough their own fertile history for more

positive political episodes. The fact that public meet-

ings have been held in Protestant working-class areas,

including the Shankill Road, to discuss NorthernIreland’s Lost Opportunity is perhaps testament to how

well the book has been received by the very people

Novosel has written about.

In sum, the book presents us with an alternative

history of the origins of the peace process and the role

of Loyalists within it. It should be compulsory reading

for scholars and students precisely because it overturns

old shibboleths about Ulster Loyalism and challenges us

to think more seriously and imaginatively about poli-

tics in this deeply divided society.

Aaron Edwards(Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst)

The House of Lords Reform: A History,

Volume 1 (Books One and Two) by Peter Raina.

Bern: Peter Lang, 2011. Book One 604pp., Book Two

623pp., £119.00, ISBN 9783034307499

With the reform of the House of Lords now a per-

ennial topic in British politics, Peter Raina’s volume

could not be better timed. In it, he endeavours to

illuminate the surprisingly lengthy history of reform

proposals for the upper chamber, demonstrating that

the issue is not a new one, nor did it even begin in the

crisis that led to the Parliament Act of 1911, which

stripped the Lords of much of their power to oppose

legislation from the House of Commons.

Raina dates the first major reform measure to 1719,

when the Duke of Buckingham introduced a bill to

change both the number of, and selection process for,

Scottish peers. The bill was defeated, as were most

subsequent measures, as the chamber’s members were

generally content with the status quo and loath to change

what they did not think was broken. The proposals that

followed over the years highlighted the uneasiness of

some, in a gradually democratising nation, with the

increasingly anachronistic presence of the Lords in

British political life. Despite the involvement of such

prominent figures as the fifth Earl of Rosebery (who

was involved in four reform efforts between 1884 and

1908), it was only with the struggles over the ‘People’s

Budget’ that the Lords experienced significant change.

Yet instead of resolving the matter, the 1911 Par-

liament Act only spawned new reform efforts. As

early as 1913, a proposal was considered to reconsti-

tute the upper chamber, while the emergence of the

Labour Party after the First World War gave new

urgency for reform from Unionists seeking a bulwark

against radical legislation. None of the major efforts

resulted in actual legislation, though, and after the

failure in 1937 of Baron Strickland’s motion to allow

the Dominion prime ministers the right to sit and

participate in the Lords, the coming of the Second

World War effectively sidelined further proposals for

the duration.

Raina recounts all of this using his standard

approach of quoting extensively from the relevant

documents; indeed, most of the chapters consist pri-

marily of long passages from Hansard, with little analy-

sis or explanation added. While useful, the price of

such a book is difficult to justify in an age when nearly

all of the documents from which Raina quotes can be

accessed online for free. More input from the author

would have made for a more valuable book on this

durable subject.

Mark Klobas(Scottsdale Community College, Arizona)

History, Heritage and Tradition in Contempo-

rary British Politics: Past Politics and Present

Histories by Emily Robinson. Manchester: Man-

chester University Press, 2012. 215pp., £65.00, ISBN

9 780719 086311

Emily Robinson’s book is an ambitious examination of

the uses of ‘history’ in politics. Specifically, she exam-

ines the way in which history is invoked by those

involved in contemporary party politics, and looks at

how this has changed. Robinson argues that the poli-

ticians of a generation ago believed that history exerted

powerful demands on their present. For conservatives,

an understanding of history conferred a duty of con-

tinuity and respect for tradition – the institutions of

Church, monarchy and family had provided a guide

to action in the past and would continue to do so

in future. For the Left, history provided both an obli-

gation to correct past injustices – such as capitalist

exploitation, sexism or racism – as well as heroic exam-

ples of those who had fought these wrongs – the

Tolpuddle Martyrs or Emily Davison, for example.



From whichever ideological vantage point, history

demanded something of us: to conserve, reform or

revolt.

Robinson explores this issue through three case

studies examining ‘moments of political re-positioning’:

the emergence of the new right in the Conservative

Party; the creation of the Social Democratic Party; and

the collapse of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Her conclusion is that history no longer makes the

demands on us that it once did. Older views of con-

servatives and socialists have been ‘sidelined in favour

of a present-focused view of the past as “heritage”,

which can be embraced or rejected as politically expedi-

ent. “History” is no longer viewed as a political force’

(p. 2). To Robinson, history is now cosy and comfort-

able. It is used to justify the present, not to challenge it,

leaving politicians unable to talk of radically different

futures.

Robinson’s book is, appropriately perhaps, like a

sprawling stately home. At every turn there is some-

thing that diverts your attention: the discussion of the

relationship between progressivism and conservatism,

for example, is worth the entrance price alone. At

times, perhaps, it is too easy to get diverted, and more

explanation of the main route through – the

overarching argument – would be useful. I wanted to

know more about why history has lost its moral pull

and the contemporary reduction of history to ‘herit-

age’. There was also room for a longer conclusion

pulling the book together. Overall, however, this is a

fascinating and thought-provoking book, which is well

worth reading.

Simon Griffiths(Goldsmiths, University of London)

The End of Ulster Loyalism? by Peter Shirlow.

Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012.

230pp., £16.99, ISBN 978 0 7190 8476 8

Peter Shirlow presents a well-researched and informa-

tive book on the nature of Ulster Loyalist paramilitary

groups since the mid-1970s. It concludes with some

thought-provoking suggestions about the future of

Ulster Loyalism that should lead to further academic

investigation and reflection.

This book can be viewed as an apposite contribution

to the debate about the future of Ulster Loyalism,

particularly given the civil disorder and street protests

that erupted in Loyalist communities in the aftermath

of the Union flag dispute within Belfast City Council

in December 2012. In the introduction, the author

presents the theoretical and analytical frameworks the

book is constructed upon, with particular reference to

the idea of ‘peace-making criminology’ (p. 19). Each

chapter in turn deals with a specific aspect of Loyalist

conflict transformation, analysing Loyalist ideas and

opinions on topics such as state-led collusion, restora-

tive justice and, additionally, an exploration of intra-

Loyalist disputes. Through this research, the author’s

intention is to analyse and explain the positive role that

progressive Loyalists have played in conflict transfor-

mation. As he argues, ‘this book aims to expand the

discussion of groups such as Loyalists and their journey

out of violence – a political, social and cultural expedi-

tion that has been uneven, incongruous and frustrating’

(p. 24).

However, this transformative role has been sub-

sumed by other media-driven narratives that have

prioritised and emphasised the voices of regressive

elements within Loyalism (the ‘wreckers’ and ‘spoilers’

are explored in Chapter 4). At various points in the

book the author argues that this narrative of

transformative Loyalism has been ignored, and that

discourse on Ulster Loyalism is ‘driven by tabloid

media to such an extent that the signs of progressive

change have been submerged’ (p. 201). Irrespective of

whether one agrees with the author’s conclusions,

analysis or recommendations on the future of Ulster

Loyalism, this book will be of significant interest to

scholars interested in post-conflict Northern Ireland

and in other societies emerging from conflict. It is

written in a scholarly manner with the clear intention

of appealing, principally, to an academic readership.

Furthermore, it also has genuine interdisciplinary

appeal. As such, it will be of interest to scholars from

political science, criminology, conflict studies and

political sociology.

Peter Munce(University of Hull)






BOOK REVIEWS 453


British Catholics and Fascism by Tom Villis.

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 280pp.,

£60.00, ISBN 978 1,137 27418 2

Tom Villis has written a very interesting work that

raises such issues as: How did British Catholics react to

fascism? Did leading Catholics embrace it? Were the

overtures by the British Union of Fascists (BUF)

toward Catholics successful?

Villis embraces Max Weber’s theory on the limited

role of religion in modern society by arguing that many

British Catholics sought to combat secularisation by

turning toward fascism. For many Catholics, pro-

fascism became a way of expressing their own distinct

identity in a society that largely held different views.

Villis reinforces the argument through the systematic

critique of the Distributist League – the Catholic politi-

cal movement of Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton.

Villis argues that Belloc was the leading British Catholic

pro-fascist intellectual of the 1930s and that Chesterton,

contrary to popular opinion, followed Belloc’s lead and

wrote that fascist authoritarianism had resurrected Italy

from political chaos. He argues that: ‘Ultimately

Chesterton and Belloc failed to open up a space in

British political culture which convincingly articulated a

non-materialist critique of capitalism and democracy

without either being absorbed into fascism or being

subsumed into the conventional discourses of British

political culture’ (p. 98). Saunders Lewis and Plaid

Cymru’s critique of liberal democracy and capitalism

also led to ‘a skewed analysis of the political dangers of

fascism’ (p. 195). Moreover, the publication the CatholicHerald ‘was a place where fascist arguments and ideas

gained far more publicity and sympathy than elsewhere

in the press’ (p. 57).

Ultimately, Villis fails to demonstrate a close working

relationship between the BUF and the Distributist

League or any overwhelming Catholic support for

fascism. He also fails to distinguish between British

Catholic support for Spanish nationalists and their less

than ardent support for generic fascism. In any case, the

Catholic third way critique of both communism and

capitalism during the 1930s did not necessarily entail

outright support for fascism (see Margaret Canovan’s

1977 book, G. K. Chesterton: Radical Populist). More-

over, if British Catholic intellectuals were pro-fascist,

then how can we explain, for example, the recent resur-

gence of the ideas of Belloc and Chesterton (see, e.g.

Christianity, Patriotism and Nationhood: The England of G.K. Chesterton, the 2008 book by Julia Stapleton)? Tony

Blair’s New Labour concept of the ‘stakeholder

society’, for instance, echoes Belloc’s ideas on wide-

spread property ownership. Some political thinkers

affiliated with the current leadership of the Conserva-

tive Party, the so-called ‘Red Tories’ led by Philip

Blond, are also introducing distributist ideas into the

political debate, such as the primacy of local politics.

Paolo Morisi(Independent Scholar)

Europe

European Integration and the Communist

Dilemma: Communist Party Responses to

Europe in Greece, Cyprus and Italy by Giorgos

Charalambous. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. 225pp.,

£55.00, ISBN 978 1 4094 3635 5

Giorgos Charalambous’ book analyses the responses of

communist parties to European integration by using

three contrasting case studies: the Communist Party of

Greece (KKE), the Cypriot Progressive Party of the

Working People (AKEL) and the Italian Party of

Communist Refoundation (RC).

In the first chapter the author discusses the research

questions and the method of empirical investigation he

has adopted. Charalambous views communist parties

foremost as ‘real political actors’ (p. 2) that face a

constant and intricate ‘dilemma’ – namely the choice

between ideological consistency and pragmatism.

Chapter 2 analyses in depth the nature of the dilemma,

which is further amplified by EU integration, and

which presents communists with new and specific

challenges. In Chapter 3 the author proposes to disen-

tangle three distinct areas of party activity in order to

identify different responses to EU integration at differ-

ent times: patterns of party competition, programmatic

positions and transnational affiliations. Chapter 3 also

introduces the domestic, partisan and international

factors that may influence party responses. Chapters 4,

5 and 6 provide in-depth analyses of the three case

studies: respectively the KKE, AKEL and RC. In each

chapter, a detailed discussion of the party’s domestic

environment and historical background is provided,

along with the evolution of each party’s response to

454 EUROPE


European integration. Chapter 7 assesses how and why

communist parties have responded to European inte-

gration. The KKE, AKEL and RC, despite some clear

specificities, all experienced a period of moderation at

one time or another (p. 164). However, the crucial

point is that such parties ‘regulate, and hence alter at

times, the salience levels they place on their criticism of

European integration, depending on whether they

choose consistency or moderation’ (p. 165). Leader-

ship, ideology and party system position are found to

be conditioning factors for the responses of the parties

analysed, while the dissolution of the Soviet bloc ‘has

had a lasting impact’ only in the case of AKEL

(p. 171). Chapter 8 discusses the wider implications of

European integration for the communist movement

and argues that the complex interconnections between

partisan, domestic and international factors greatly

undermine the prospects for coordinated action by

communist parties at the supranational level.

This book is a very welcome contribution for schol-

ars of party politics and comparative politics alike, and

bears great theoretical and empirical significance.

Indeed, Charalambous’ book provides the analytical

tools to understand how parties respond to European

integration – in particular those belonging to radical

and non-mainstream party families.

Mattia Zulianello(Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane, Florence)

The Politics of Ratification of EU Treaties: Pro-

cesses and Actors by Carlos Closa. Abingdon:

Routledge, 2013. 232pp., £80.00, ISBN 978

0415454896

Several times in the history of European integration

ratification problems have put the success of new trea-

ties in jeopardy (Maastricht and Lisbon) and scuttled

others entirely (the European Defence Community and

the Constitutional Treaty). Although some aspects of

EU treaty reform – particularly negotiations and refer-

endum voting behaviour – are well studied, despite its

key role, the ratification process itself has received scant

attention until recently. The Politics of Ratification of EUTreaties by Carlos Closa is the most substantial contri-

bution yet made to this burgeoning field.

Closa adopts an historical institutionalist framework

to explain the impact that rules, institutions and actors

have on the ratification process. He begins by uncov-

ering the origins of the most important European-level

ratification rule – the unanimity requirement (all signa-

tories must ratify a treaty for it to come into effect) – in

the standards of international public law during the early

phase of European integration. He then examines the

legal and institutional ratification frameworks in each of

the EU Member States and the use of referendums to

ratify treaties. The book then surveys the ratification

process of each major European integration treaty, from

the European Coal and Steel Community to the Lisbon

Treaty.

Closa’s central argument is that the use of the unani-

mity requirement means that we must view the ratifi-

cation process in each Member State as interdependent,

with the ratification strategies used and obstacles faced

in one Member State influencing the ratification process

in others. Closa shows that almost every treaty has faced

potentially derailing ratification difficulties. Whether

these are overcome depends on the strategies adopted

by Member States – particularly the timing of ratifica-

tion procedures and the way that obstacles, such as

rejection at referendum, are framed by actors.

Closa offers a convincing and well-specified argu-

ment, backed up with richly detailed evidence. A

potential hole in his argument is that not much weight

is given to arguments put forward recently by several

scholars that emphasise the role that domestic politics,

particularly calling referendums for defensive electoral

reasons, may play in creating barriers to ratification.

Additionally, although the unanimity requirement may

make each Member State a potential ratification veto

player, Closa does not consider that power may still be

distributed asymmetrically between them, as perhaps

evidenced by the fact that the two failed treaties were

both abandoned after ratification failure in France –

one of the key drivers of European integration. None-

theless, Closa’s arguments are compelling and this book

is a major contribution to EU scholarship and deserves

to be widely read.

Christopher Prosser(University of Oxford)






BOOK REVIEWS 455


Europeanization and Domestic Policy Change:

The Case of Italy by Paolo Graziano. Abingdon:

Routledge, 2012. 190pp., £80.00, ISBN 978 0 415

57491 4

This book systematically analyses the ongoing relat-

ionship between Europeanisation and national policy

change, focusing on mechanisms and consequences

that trigger domestic adaptation and revealing sources

and mechanisms of Europeanisation. Paolo Graziano

puts the Europeanisation hypothesis to the test by ana-

lysing policy change in Italy in the period between

1945 and 2010, looking at patterns of adaptive pro-

cesses in three national policy domains: agriculture,

regional cohesion and employment.

Chapter 1 conceptualises the Europeanisation

process and develops the research hypothesis. Chapter

2 analyses Italy’s political relationship with the EU,

providing evidence to support the subsequent analysis

of the Europeanisation hypothesis contained in Chap-

ters 3 to 5. The Europeanisation concept is employed

as an analytical tool focusing primarily on the empirical

testing of outcomes with regard to the construction of

specific EU policies and policy diffusion at the domestic

level. In particular, Graziano focuses on Italy’s bargain-

ing power and its ability to influence EU policy

making at the construction phase, while applying the

‘goodness of fit’ hypothesis to the diffusion phase and

adopting a policy structure approach with a diachronic

analysis of national and European policy evolution.

The case studies on Italian policy domains success-

fully demonstrate how a Member State’s limited

ability to negotiate at the construction phase (the

degree of ‘fit’ with the national framework) detri-

mentally affects its ability for subsequent diffusion and

‘uploading’ capacities at the national level. Following

this analysis, Graziano’s findings clearly indicate that

in cases where EU policy misfits the domestic ‘tradi-

tional’ policy, the subsequent national change is sig-

nificantly greater.

Graziano’s policy-based comparative research analy-

sis contributes to existing literature on Europeanisation

and policy change – an area that has been underdevel-

oped – particularly closing the gap in such analysis with

regard to Italian domestic policy changes in relevant

areas. The study’s approach is also relevant for the

development of a definition of policy ‘change’ and the

way in which it can be measured. The research strategy

and the combination of analytical tools employed

appear innovative, and they effectively demonstrate

how Europeanisation has occurred in each particular

national policy. The same strategy and tools could be

applied to other Member States and policies, as well as

beyond the EU’s domain. The book is interesting to

read, it is well written and coherently structured. It

serves as a good reference point for EU-induced

change in the national policies covered, and is recom-

mended to anyone interested in the mechanisms and

consequences of Europeanisation and Member States’

policy change.

Jelena Ganza(King’s College London)

Changing Welfare States by Anton Hemerijck.

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. 485pp.,

£22.50, ISBN 978 0 19 960760 0

The Great Eurozone Disaster: From Crisis to

Global New Deal by Heikki Patomäki. London:

Zed Books, 2013. 274pp., £12.99, ISBN 978

1780324784

One of the most notable aspects of the post-2007

world of global crisis has been the particularly intense

nature of the crisis in the Eurozone from 2010

onwards. More specifically, the structural adjustment

measures imposed on peripheral Eurozone countries

such as Ireland, Portugal and Greece, combined with

the steady downward pressure on worker rights and

welfare provision across the continent more generally,

have brought to the fore the question of whether the

fabled European ‘social’ model still exists.

These two books address the crisis in different ways,

as can be indicated by their titles. Taking Anton

Hemerijck first, he builds on his notable contributions

in the late 1990s and 2000s to institutionalist debates

on welfare state evolution and transformation in order

to consider more recent years as well. Nevertheless, he

makes clear in the preface (and in the rest of the book)

that ‘the argument that a strong economy requires a

strong welfare state continues to stand tall’ (p. x).

Three reasons are given: the welfare state continues to

be able to contribute to economic efficiency and social

equity via investments in human capital over the life

course; the potential for cross-border social policy

learning has expanded greatly over the past decade,

456 EUROPE


enabling policy makers to reform national welfare states

in the most appropriate manner possible; and the crisis

has demonstrated the need for, and desirability of,

much greater fiscal and social/welfare coordination at

the EU level in order to preserve the ‘caring’ aspects of

the European social model(s).

What follows is probably the fullest and most sophis-

ticated account yet delivered from an institutionalist

perspective on the fate of European welfare states in

times of crisis and seemingly permanent austerity. The

main reason is because Hemerijck explicitly attempts to

synthesise the insights he developed prior to 2007 on

welfare state evolution with detailed analysis of the new

circumstances. This allows him, further, to develop an

agenda that seeks to inform both scholarly and policy

debates on the future of European welfare states.

However, although the final chapter is an excellent

example of how to combine scholarly and policy con-

cerns into one overarching commentary, Hemerijck is

too sanguine about European capitalism in general and

the last several years more specifically. For instance, he

states rather blandly that: ‘The key policy challenge is to

make long-term social investment and short-term fiscal

consolidation mutually supportive, both economically

and politically’ (p. 375). This takes into account neither

the increasingly neoliberal nature of European political

economies since the 1980s, nor the unprecedented

assault on European welfare states since 2010 especially.

In contrast, Heikki Patomäki argues that we need to

consider how ‘EMU has become intimately intertwined

with the development of the global political economy’

(pp. 8–9), particularly with regard to processes of

financialisation. In consequence, although his aims are

similar to those of Hemerijck – to synthesise earlier

research with reflections on more recent years, plus to

inform both academic and political debates – Patomäki’s

approach is more polemical and direct. This enables his

book to be one of the most effective interventions on

the Eurozone crisis yet published because it is rooted in

clear positions on its historical genesis and on the lessons

that (in his view) need to be learned for the future. As

such, in juxtaposition to Hemerijck’s tendency to plea

for a return to the social investment paradigm that

emerged in the 1990s, Patomäki argues for a radical

break with past frameworks in favour of what he terms

a ‘democratic global Keynesianism’. This would poten-

tially overcome the causes of the crisis – such as neo-

classical economics and the democratic deficit at the

heart of the European project and especially the

Eurozone crisis response – in the name of a holo-

reflexive understanding of the world, which encourages

us to view global developments and structures as part of

our lives rather than being outside our national ‘com-

munity’ in a space that we are unable to influence or

participate in.

Whether Patomäki succeeds in his endeavour ulti-

mately depends on one’s view of capitalism. For

example, if one takes the view that capitalism as a

historically specific system of production, distribution

and exchange is characterised by crisis (among other

things) – through which different parts of the globe

develop unevenly and have asymmetrical relation-

ships with each other – then a democratic global

Keynesianism may well succeed for a time in reducing

the frequency and severity of crisis, especially at the

systemic, global level. However, these fundamental

characteristics of capitalism would not disappear, and a

‘global New Deal’ would not address this. Therefore,

one needs to ask whether Patomäki is, in a different

way to Hemerijck, also constrained by the framework

that he adopts. Nevertheless, the fact that he goes well

beyond much of the literature means that his book will

be required reading for years to come.

Taken together, then, both books are examples of

excellent scholarship on the European political

economy(ies). However, it is likely that Patomäki’s

critical, forward-looking account – whatever its poten-

tial flaws – will remain relevant for longer than

Hemerijck’s consolidation of an institutionalist

approach that seems increasingly disconnected from

present conditions.

Ian Bruff(University of Manchester)

The Constitution of Germany: A Contextual

Analysis by Werner Heun. Oxford: Hart, 2011.

241pp., £15.95, ISBN 9781841138688

Germany’s Basic Law (Grundgesetz) was enacted in

1949 in the aftermath of the Second World War.

Innovative for its time and sweeping in its reforms, the

Basic Law has become one of the most celebrated

constitutions in the world. Foremost among its accom-

plishments was the creation of the Constitutional

Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht), which is tasked with

safeguarding Germany from oppressive regimes and the

BOOK REVIEWS 457


whims of the masses that had, in the past, led to

bloodshed and war across the European continent. The

Basic Law also codifies the democratic nature of

modern Germany and provides a framework for the

legal protections available to the over 80 million

German citizens.

Werner Heun is a professor of law at the University

of Göttingen and his wealth of knowledge about the

Basic Law is immediately evident in The Constitution ofGermany. The text is organised thematically and seeks to

provide the reader with a general overview of the Basic

Law. The introduction and first two chapters place the

Basic Law within its historical context. Special attention

is placed on identifying the unique German experiences

that shaped this document. The third chapter introduces

the fundamental rights set forth in Article 20 of the

Basic Law: the republican form of government; the

basic elements of federalism; democratic principles; the

welfare state; and the supremacy of the constitution and

guarantee of judicial remedies (Rechtsstaat). The subse-

quent chapters flesh out these topics and develop on

them, addressing key areas such as the military, govern-

ment structure, fundamental rights and the Constitu-

tional Court. Heun concludes with a short epilogue

where he contends that the Basic Law has by and large

accomplished its goals.

Overall, The Constitution of Germany is well

researched and provides the reader with a wealth of

information about the Basic Law. Novices and laymen

may find the text too detailed to be of interest and

legal practitioners may find the text overly theoretical

and historical (e.g. there is only a cursory discussion of

the intersection of German constitutional law and EU

law). Additionally, at several junctures the text suffers

from poor translation and/or editing, making it dense

and challenging to read. Despite its shortcomings, this

text provides a good overview of the German Basic

Law within its historical context as well as an intro-

duction to its major themes.

Yehonatan Cohen(Independent Scholar)






The Origins of Energy and Environmental

Policy in Europe: The Beginnings of a Euro-

pean Environmental Conscience by Thomas C.

Hoerber. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013. 290pp.,

£80.00, ISBN 978 0415 63003 0

This book provides a comparative analysis of the

effects of the 1973 oil crisis in Britain, France and

Germany. By using institutional discourses – mainly

from the national parliaments – the book analyses the

discourses that emerged as a reaction to the energy

shortage in the selected case studies. The author cap-

tures a significant period for early European integrat-

ion initiatives such as the European Coal and Steel

Community and Euroatom. The selected period was

also fundamental for the establishment of an agenda of

environmental protection related to energy consump-

tion. Against this background, it is ‘the thesis of this

study that a common European energy policy will be

the logical outcome of a general commitment to envi-

ronmental protection across Europe’ (p. 2). This

research adopts an historical perspective in order to shed

light on the emerging connection between environ-

mental and energy policies in the three Member States

– for example, by focusing on the emergence of renew-

able energy, energy efficiency and savings, sustainable

growth and global warming in the political agenda.

The book differs from the current literature on

European energy policy, which has mainly used a

political science perspective. Instead, this book uses an

historical perspective and perhaps could have incorpo-

rated the current literature more. Nevertheless, the

historical approach selected by the author is relevant

for our understanding of this important period for the

history of European integration, particularly for the

fields of energy and the environment. This work is

condensed into four chapters, which together explain

the national attitudes towards European cooperation in

the energy sector. However, the use of original dis-

courses makes the book difficult to read at times.

Overall the book is a very rich source of informa-

tion and highly recommended to students and

researchers working on the energy and environmental

policies of the EU. The book concludes with the

assumption that ‘only by considering energy and envi-

ronmental policy together can either be successful’.

The author’s conclusion seems rather ambitious for the

limited period he is investigating. However, what

458 EUROPE


remains clear is that it is a very welcome contribution

that will facilitate the understanding of a moment in

history that determined the perspectives of an energy

policy in Europe.

Israel Solorio Sandoval(Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

Renewable Energy Policy Convergence in the

EU: The Evolution of Feed-in Tariffs in

Germany, Spain and France by David Jacobs.


4094 3909 7

With states sharing a common but differentiated

responsibility to address climate change, the onus lies

with the world’s biggest per capita greenhouse gas

producers to make the largest emissions reductions.

Crucial to this objective are the energy sectors of

Western European states. This book by David Jacobs is

therefore of acute significance, examining the evolu-

tion of feed-in tariffs for renewable energy sources in

Germany, Spain and France. The research seeks to

determine whether states’ feed-in tariff policies are

becoming more similar, and if so, why. Focusing on

policy convergence theory rather than policy transfer

or diffusion, the investigation tests the roles of trans-

national communication, regulatory competition and

independent problem solving. Progressing eruditely

and logically, the text begins by outlining its theoretical

and empirical frameworks before contrasting design

options, approaches to tariff differentiation, design

options for market integration and tariff payments. In

so doing, Jacobs is able to examine each state in a

refreshingly in-depth manner, standing in contrast to

the large-n convergence analyses that dominate this

field.

Jacobs’ volume will not merely be of interest to

scholars of comparative and European politics, as well

as practitioners of renewable energy policy, but com-

pulsory reading. The author is willing to acknowledge

that ‘proving’ policy convergence may be impossible

(p. 203), but he has ensured that his research can stand

up to the strictest scrutiny when asserting that policy

convergence can – for the most part – be seen to be

occurring, and without imposition or harmonisation

from the EU. Although the manner in which transna-

tional communication, regulatory competition and

independent problem solving interact could have been

expanded upon further, this is a well-crafted analysis

that covers its themes in great detail. The excellent

introductory and framework chapters feature unparal-

leled overviews of the current theoretical and empiri-

cal literature on the subject, and the case study chapter

on solar photovoltaics is superb.

The volume would also be of interest to any

comparativist as its small-n analysis of convergence is

expertly constructed. As Jacobs notes (p. 201), domes-

tic factors alone cannot be expected to explain policy

development in an increasingly globalised world, such

that ‘analysing countries as interdependent rather than

independent actors will be of increasing importance for

political scientists’ in future. Understanding the nature

of this interaction and convergence is increasingly

salient in modern international politics, and Jacobs has

written what will be seen as a landmark text for many

years to come.

Paul Tobin(University of York)

Europeanization and New Member States: A

Comparative Social Network Analysis by Flavia

Jurje. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013. 162pp., £80.00,

ISBN 978 0 415 65726 6

This study concentrates mainly on the impact of Euro-

pean Union integration pressure on the ‘polity (i.e. the

institutions of the policy-making process) and politics

(i.e. the power constellation and conflict structure

among national elites)’ (p. 6) in Romania, during both

the negotiation period and after enlargement. The

author argues that despite various studies having been

conducted on the general political and economic

development of Romania in recent years, the influence

of the EU integration process on domestic decision-

making processes and practices has been ignored by

scholars. In this book, Flavia Jurje has combined the

social network method of analysis with a number of

statistical methods such as F-test and T-test analysis in

order to test her hypotheses.

Europeanization and New Member States consists of

eight brief chapters. Before beginning to analyse the

Romanian case in detail and in order to develop a

theoretical framework of study, the author provides a

clear and brief overview of several existing crucial

models of Europeanisation (Chapter 2). Jurje explains

BOOK REVIEWS 459


that her research strategy is a mixture of rationalist and

sociological approaches, which are used to test hypoth-

eses about the significance of institutions, power con-

figurations and conflict among domestic actors in the

decision-making process in Romania. In Chapter 4,

after giving a brief overview of the Romanian political

system, Jurje discusses the potential influence of the

European integration process on polity and politics.

Next she analyses the impact of EU pressure on insti-

tutions with regard to the decision-making process, the

impact of EU pressure on power configuration and the

impact of EU pressure on the level of conflict in

Chapters 5, 6, and 7, respectively. In the final chapter,

Jurje summarises the main findings and the contribu-

tions of her study to the Europeanisation literature in

general and policy making in particular.

It is important to underline that, in this study, the

author contributes to the existing theoretical and

empirical studies on Europeanisation by adopting a

mixed model which combines a rationalist and a socio-

logical approach to explaining the influence of the EU

integration process on the decision-making process in

Romania. In addition to this, this study is also impor-

tant in terms of its methodological approach, which

can guide new case studies about EU pressures on new

member countries. Finally, it is important to emphasise

that this book is particularly relevant to anyone

engaged in studying the impact of EU pressure on

national decision-making processes – both during the

negotiation period and after enlargement.

Hamit Can Eren(University of Nottingham)

Lobbying in the European Union: Interest

Groups, Lobbying Coalitions and Policy Change

by Heike Klüver. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2013. 278pp., £55.00, ISBN 978 0 19 965744 5

This book strives to explain why some lobby groups are

able to have influence on European Union decision-

making mechanisms whereas others are not. Relying on

the logic of exchange, Heike Klüver argues that Euro-

pean institutions offer opportunities for influence in

return for policy-relevant information, citizen support

and economic power. The author states that the true

effect of these variables can be captured only when

lobbying in coalitions is taken into account. Klüver also

argues that lobbying success depends on the issue at

hand. She shows that the impact of information is

higher on complex issues. Finally, she argues that inter-

est group influence during the policy formulation stage

is stronger than at the decision-making stage.

It is important to note that the author’s understand-

ing of influence may not be accepted by everyone.

Influence, according to Klüver, is best captured when

we measure the difference between the initial stages

and the final form of policy. Scholars who perceive

lobbying as offering information to friendly politicians

may find this problematic. Also, one should mention

that if the initial policy proposals take interest groups’

preferences into account in the first place, then

Klüver’s method misses the target.1

Another problem is that one cannot be sure that

the preferences of interest groups reflect their sincere

preferences (Lowery, 2013). Moreover, I doubt that

the author’s claim that finding associations between

theoretically sound variables and influence can com-

pletely eradicate the problem with spuriousness. It

is very hard to rule out other factors with the prefer-

ence attainment method since influence may be

caused by many other variables. This problem is par-

ticularly serious in this book as the author tests the

effect of information, citizen support and economic

power separately due to the small sample size and

multicollinearity.

On another note, the validity of identifying policy

positions by counting the frequency of words is

debatable, even though Klüver tested the rigour of

this method by making a case study that also used

hand-coding. Similarly, I am also sceptical about the

validity of counting number of words as a proxy for

quality of information. Despite these criticisms, I

should note that there is no possible way of perfectly

measuring influence and its determinants, so any

study would be open to criticism. Klüver conducts

her study carefully, both theoretically as well as

methodologically, and I expect that this book will

soon be on the reading list of courses in lobbying

and EU politics.

Note1 See, e.g. D. Lowery (2013) ‘Lobbying Influence: Meaning,

Measurement and Missing’, Interest Groups and Advocacy, 2(1), 1–26.

Direnç Kanol(University of Siena)

460 EUROPE


The Debt Crisis and European Democratic

Legitimacy by Huw Macartney. Basingstoke:

Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 96pp., £45.00, ISBN 978

1137298003

In this short volume, Huw Macartney provides an

important scholarly intervention in what will be the

defining political economic period for European states

for a number of generations. In the wake of the

‘financial crisis’ of 2007–8, which induced the

‘Eurozone crisis’ from 2010 onwards, Macartney traces

how ‘state managers’ have attempted to develop coher-ence in their policy responses which could provide for

a renewed legitimacy in the push toward austerity and

restructuring that has taken place with regard to

Europe’s political economy. These aims have evidently

not come to fruition, with processes of depoliticisation

becoming the dominant form of ‘governance’ as ever

more coercive apparatuses replace the consensual post-

war class compromise.

The Debt Crisis and European Democratic Legitimacytakes a number of steps to reach the above conclusion.

The first chapter provides the historical context.

Macartney articulates how the ‘mindworld’ of

ordoliberalism/neoliberalism developed intellectually,

and how the (incomplete) free market project in Europe

has been intimately tied to this, tipping the balance

between capital and labour in favour of the former. The

second chapter traces how the financial crisis provided a

clear opportunity for ‘state managers’ to make the most

of a bad situation. The combination of ordoliberal/

neoliberal ideas once again flourished, overcoming the

stagnant reform environment that characterised the

2000s. This combined the constitutional devices of

governance in ordoliberal/neoliberal thinking, with the

free market reform associated with neoliberalism. The

third chapter considers how the structural reforms ini-

tiated during the financial crisis gave way as the Euro-

pean ‘debt crisis’ took hold, the focus shifting to debt

and deficit figures. It is during this period that

depoliticisation has taken the form of an ever more

coercive, centralised and supranational configuration.

This has not been a one way-process however, with

Chapter 4 examining resistance through social move-

ments. Macartney assesses that depoliticisation has been

able largely to insulate ‘state managers’ from such move-

ments, limiting the effectiveness of the latter in pursuing

their aims.

The volume ends by highlighting the need for both

political theory and practice to overcome the limitations

evident in approaching such social contexts through

methodological nationalism. The call is made to con-

sider how the transnational is mutually constituted

alongside the national. Once this is incorporated into

both theory and practice, resistance to austerity and

restructuring will start to shift the balance back toward

labour. This argument provides an important conclu-

sion to an equally important volume.

Jamie Jordan(University of Nottingham)

Agency Governance in the EU by Berthold

Rittberger and Arndt Wonka (eds). Abingdon:

Routledge, 2012. 168pp., £85.00, ISBN 978 0 415

68966 3

This edited volume by Berthold Rittberger and Arndt

Wonka provides some state-of-the-art reflections on

agency governance in the European Union. The pro-

liferation of EU agencies constitutes one of the most

remarkable changes in EU regulatory policy making,

attracting a great deal of scholarly interest over the past

fifteen years. Assembling seven contributions from

some of the most renowned scholars in the field, this

book, which is an adaptation of a 2011 special issue of

the Journal of European Public Policy (JEPP), constitutes

a cornerstone in the emerging literature on the topic.

In the introductory chapter, Rittberger and Wonka

aptly summarise the research agenda on EU agencies.

Doing so, they connect contributions to the first col-

lection of essays on EU agencies, which was published

in JEPP in 1997, with both the research that has been

conducted since and the research featured in the

current volume. The subsequent chapters are con-

structed around three thematic threads: the creation

and design of regulatory bodies in EU governance; the

consequences and trajectories of governance with and

by EU agencies once they are established; and the

accountability and legitimacy of EU agencies.

This volume provides some ground-breaking

research on both EU agencies and regulatory net-

works. For instance, in Chapter 2, Mark Thatcher

offers a unique contribution to the understanding of

the politics and interinstitutional bargaining over

the creation of EU agencies. In Chapter 3, David

BOOK REVIEWS 461


Levi-Faur opens a new research agenda on the rela-

tion between agencies and regulatory networks by

mapping forms of institutionalisation and the extent

to which agencies and networks coexist. Likewise, the

contributions by Magetti and Gilardi in Chapter 4 on

the relative effectiveness of different regulatory gov-

ernance arrangements and by Busuioc et al. in Chapter

5 on the nexus and tension between agency

autonomy and accountability explore promising fields

for future research. In Chapter 6, Egeberg and

Trondal offer a great deal of new empirical material

on the role EU agencies play in the process of supra-

national centre formation. In the final two chapters

both Wonka and Rittberger (Chapter 7) and Chris-

topher Lord (Chapter 8) provide a refreshing

empirical-analytical approach on the legitimacy and

accountability of EU agency governance.

Rather unfortunately, despite the editors’ efforts to

link the chapters to three thematic threads, the entirety

appears a bit fragmented due to the origin of the

volume. This feeling is reinforced by the lack of a

synthesising concluding chapter. In addition, since the

book touches upon the issues of delegation and agency

autonomy, one could easily envision a chapter in

which a principal-agent approach is used. Despite these

caveats, this volume deserves a prominent place on

the bookshelf of any student of agency governance in

the EU due to the quality and innovative nature of the

featured research.

Arnout Geeraert(University of Leuven)

European Regionalism and the Left by Gerard

Strange and Owen Worth (eds). Manchester: Man-

chester University Press, 2012. 207pp., £65.00, ISBN

978 0 7190 8573 4

This edited collection brings together contributions

from a number of key writers on the political

economy of the EU. The focus is on the prospects for

‘the left’ within the neoliberal project of European

regionalism, given the unfolding global economic crisis

(and its specific iteration in the Eurozone). The book

features a variety of different perspectives (although

neo-Gramscians are well-represented, the book also

includes contributions that are critical of such frame-

works) and its chapters are organised into three parts.

The first part focuses on the broader contours of

European regionalism and its relationship to

neoliberalism and the global political economy. The

second part turns to the specific role of the ‘left’,

while the third part considers the future of European

integration.

It is commendable that the book covers considerable

(theoretical and empirical) ground while retaining a

strong guiding thread; the authors of the conclusion

are only slightly overstating matters when they argue

that ‘the explanations provided in this volume fall

neatly into a conceptual schema that frames out under-

standing of the possibility of Left politics in terms

of a historically sensitive version of critical political

economy’ (p. 185). At the same time, the conclusion

also highlights how the book is effective at showing

that we should move beyond a monolithic (Marxist)

view of ‘critical political economy’. The contributors,

while broadly sharing a progressive concern with

exploring alternatives to neoliberalism in the EU,

clearly do not agree on everything and still manage to

engage in very fruitful debates across chapters. For

example, the pessimism of David Bailey’s contribution

on ‘the impossibility of social democracy’ contrasts

with the more optimistic perspectives of Michael

Holmes and Simon Lightfoot (regarding the potential

for left political party activism) and Andreas Bieler

(concerning trade unions).

My only two (relatively) minor quibbles are that

given the context of the Eurozone crisis, there is no

specific discussion of ordoliberalism (as distinct from

neoliberalism), which has featured in more recent dis-

cussions in European political economy, and that not

quite enough space is dedicated to discussing what is

meant by ‘the left’. That aside, this strikes me as an

extremely interesting and valuable volume which will

appeal not only to scholars of European integration

and political economy, but also those working in the

field of International Political Economy. Its succinct

and accessibly written chapters and breadth of coverage

also mean that it is likely to serve as a useful primer for

university courses on the EU. Finally, its suggestions

for improving the effectiveness of ‘the left’ make it

useful reading for such organisations as progressive

political parties, trade unions and other like-minded

social movements in Europe.

Gabriel Siles-Brügge(University of Manchester)

462 EUROPE


The Americas

The Presidential Leadership Dilemma: Between

the Constitution and a Political Party by Julia R.

Azari, Lara M. Brown and Zim G. Nwokora

(eds). Albany, NY: State University of New York

Press, 2013. 247pp., £66.75, ISBN 978 1 4384 4599 1

This collection examines the ‘Leadership Dilemma’:

tensions between the American President’s dual roles as

leader of his party and of the whole nation. Contri-

butions examine the presidential nomination process,

mandates and re-election strategies, as well as recent

presidential action on military base closures, lifting the

ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the US

military, and counter-terrorism policy. In its explora-

tion of the friction between party policies and national

imperatives, this book seeks to explain how institu-

tional structures, historical developments and individual

agency set up leadership dilemmas for presidents. It also

examines how individual presidents have managed this

tension, and the implications of their actions for

policy.

The book focuses on modern presidents. Most of

the contributors concentrate on the four most recent

ones, although a few reach further back in time (the

Nwokora piece, for example, compares the 1924

Democratic nomination process to the 1980 Repub-

lican race). The book includes some engaging presi-

dential decision-making narratives and useful large-nanalyses, of which the best are Kassop and

Goldzwig’s interesting discussion of Obama’s failed

attempt to close Guantánamo, and Kelley, Marshall

and Watts’s content analysis of presidential signing

statements. Unfortunately, the book is hampered by

some weaker contributions. There are irritating lapses

in writing style, particularly in the middle chapters

(example: ‘Bush’s party leadership decision brought

him sweet-smelling success (reelection), but it also

seems as though it planted weeds in the garden of

his presidential legacy’; p. 77). More importantly,

many of the authors use technical terms impro-

perly or without adequate definitions, thereby betray-

ing problems with their theoretical and conceptual

apparatus. Many of the factors described as ‘exog-

enous’ pressures constraining presidents – including

timing, structure and some historical events – are in

fact endogenous to presidential decision making.

Other improperly used or poorly defined terms are

‘critical event’, ‘leverage’ and ‘paradox’. Although the

book does not suffer from that common edited-

volume complaint – lack of consistency and attention

to a common theme – there is a lot of variation in

how successful the authors are at addressing the lead-

ership dilemma. The well-written Copeland and

Farrar-Myers chapter, for example, really considers

three different dilemmas: intra-party, principal-agent

and adherence to unpopular manifesto pledges. The

chapters that develop theories need more empirical

examples and the empirical chapters need better theo-

retical underpinning. There are interesting indivi-

dual contributions here, but the book disappoints

overall.

Ursula Hackett(University of Oxford)

Suspect Citizens: Women, Virtue and Vice in

Backlash Politics by Jocelyn M. Boryczka. Phila-

delphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2012. 200pp.,

£17.99, ISBN 978 1 4399 0894 5

Suspect Citizens is a critical examination of the dual

concepts of virtue and vice throughout American

history. Specifically, the book focuses on how assump-

tions about virtue and vice are gendered, from the

‘male’ virtue of civic participation to the ‘female’

virtues of chastity and purity. Jocelyn Boryczka argues

that historically as well as in the present day, American

women have been held more responsible than men for

upholding the moral character of the nation, in part

due to women’s status as child-bearers and child-

rearers. Due to the dualistic nature of the concepts,

however, women have also been held responsible

when the nation descends into vice, and female moral-

ity is policed particularly closely. Uncertainty and

anxiety over women’s commitment to the nation per-

sists today: women are seen as ‘moral guardians but

suspect citizens’ (p. 34). The backlash against feminism

builds on this suspicion.

These points are developed in a series of case studies

illustrating how female vice and virtue have been con-

ceptualised through American history, and demonstrat-

ing that these conceptualisations still resonate today.

Chapter 2 focuses on the discourses of Puritan settlers,

contrasting the ‘virtuous’ women who adhered to strict

moral codes with the ‘vicious’ women accused of

BOOK REVIEWS 463


witchcraft. Chapter 3 examines ‘back to virtue’ politics

– a form of backlash against women’s education in the

nineteenth century. Chapter 4 centres on discourses

surrounding female labourers in the nineteenth century

and contrasts these with lesbian feminist debates around

sado-masochism in the twentieth century. Chapter 5

analyses traditionalist moral discourses in the 1950s,

exemplified by the television show Ozzie and Harriet.Chapter 6, finally, turns to feminist reworkings of the

concepts of virtue and vice. Boryczka argues that the

virtue/vice dualism is not useful to feminist ethics since

the moral perfectionism it implies contradicts feminist

ethics’ grounding in everyday realities. Moreover,

defining care as a virtue risks locking women into their

role as moral guardians.

Suspect Citizens offers an extremely interesting

account of the ways female morality has been con-

structed in American history and will interest anyone

interested in feminist theory and research. The book’s

framing as a contribution to feminist care ethics may

seem a little off-putting to anyone unfamiliar with this

literature. However, its empirical accounts are impor-

tant in their own right and will be of value to feminist

scholars working outside the field of ethics.

Fran Amery(University of Birmingham)

Populism in Venezuela by Ryan Brading.


978 0415522977

Ryan Brading’s book on Venezuela is an attempt to

engage critically with one of the most prominent and

debated left-wing populist regimes that have arisen over

the last two decades: Hugo Chávez’s ‘Bolivarian

project’. Brading’s approach is based on the theoretical/

methodological model developed by the so-called

‘Essex School’ of discourse theory and more specifically

on Ernesto Laclau’s theory on populism supplemented

by Jason Glynos and David Howarth’s ‘logics approach’.

The author develops in the first chapter his

theoretical/methodological framework and offers an

interesting review of the literature on populism to

justify why Laclau’s approach offers the most suitable

framework for his analytical endeavour. He then pro-

ceeds (Chapter 2) with a genealogical narrative of the

pre-Chávez Venezuela, covering the period between

1821 (Venezuela’s independence) and 1998 (Chávez’s

rise to power) to offer a vivid picture of the conditions

of emergence of the Bolivarian project. In the next

two chapters (Chapters 3 and 4) he develops an

in-depth discourse analysis of Chávez’s populism in the

context of a discredited and ‘dislocated’ state. Special

focus is placed on Chávez’s health care programmes for

the poor and the excluded – part of the so-called

‘Missions’ (Chapter 4), which are treated as an example

of how the Bolivarian government managed to

de-institute the ‘ancien régime’ and articulate its own

populist ‘hegemonic project with direct grassroots par-

ticipation’ (p. 89). Brading then turns to the discourse

of the anti-Bolivarian opposition, as it was articulated

by the student movement in 2007, and offers some

insightful explanations on why such projects failed

effectively to oppose Chávez (Chapter 5). The last

chapter of this book (Chapter 6) focuses on ‘key events

that occurred in Venezuela after December 2007’ (p.

135) and especially Chavez’s intention to ‘run for

re-election indefinitely’ (p. 135), where the author

expresses some (debatable) concerns regarding the rela-

tion of the Chavista project and the development of

democracy in Venezuela.

Overall this is a significant contribution to the lit-

erature on Venezuelan populism since it offers some

plausible arguments based on a rich selection of

primary and secondary data. Although it does not

articulate a new theoretical argument, it constitutes an

interesting application of the ‘Essex School’ discourse

theory to a challenging empirical case. The book is

well written, even though the author does not manage

to avoid some repetition and overlapping between

chapters, as well as excessive quotation (in the first

chapter of the book). It is mostly aimed at scholars

familiar with contemporary and post-structuralist

political theory, but will also appeal to anyone inter-

ested in contemporary Latin American politics.

Giorgos Katsambekis(Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece)

Decentralization and Popular Democracy: Gov-

ernance from Below in Bolivia by Jean-Paul

Faguet. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan

Press, 2012. 358pp., £72.95, ISBN 978 0472118199

Enthusiasts of innovation in public policy see decen-

tralisation as a promissory reform. The expectations,

however, have been based on broad perceptions about

464 THE AMERICAS


its positive effects on democracy, governance and

public efficiency. Yet, so far, only a few works have

had the scientific rigour necessary to asses this reform

in an objective manner. This book is one of them.

Building on his previous work, Jean-Paul Faguet

revisits Bolivia – a country that embraced decentralisa-

tion reforms and became an emblematic case of public

innovation in the developing world. His notion of

responsiveness is of particular relevance – namely how

much local governments pay attention to social/

economic needs and act upon them. The author must

be praised for his creative and painstaking econometric

analysis (using a public investment dataset that covers

the universe of Bolivian municipalities) and for making

this data accessible to others. The models presented are

sound and validate the assumption that decentralisation

has made the state more sensitive to local needs, foster-

ing a new sense of public responsibility along the way.

Evidently, there are limitations to explaining many

of the complex realities with certain data. One limita-

tion is the focus on the local level with reduced atten-

tion to the intermediate (Departmental) and national

levels. The governance model is also conditioned to

the available data (e.g. the quantity of organisations)

that do not necessarily capture important qualitative

aspects (i.e. how efficient/effective these are). By no

means do these observations diminish the high quality of

this work, however. Instead, they point out the diffi-

culties in assessing complex reforms in developing

countries.

The shortcomings are compensated by a rich quali-

tative analysis that includes two fascinating municipal

cases. In this section, Faguet becomes a witty novelist,

not only because these cases are very enticing, but also

because they are cleverly divided into ‘before’ and

‘after’ scenarios, leaving the latter for the end. This

forces readers to move quickly through a solid chapter

on the state of knowledge on decentralisation, to find

out how these municipalities evolved over time. The

results are astonishing and give hope that good gov-

ernance is possible, even in places plagued by social,

political and economic problems. This methodologi-

cally rich approach allows the author to achieve his

objective of providing a robust account of the effects

of this reform in Bolivia over a generation. The book

contributes enormously to the understanding of

decentralisation, regardless of the specificities of this

country and/or region, and will appeal to academics

and policy makers alike. Even more importantly,

readers will find solid and scientific arguments to vali-

date the idea that better governance in the developing

world is possible.

Martín Mendoza-Botelho(Eastern Connecticut State University)

Creative Destruction? Economic Crises and

Democracy in Latin America by Francisco E.

González. Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins University

Press, 2012. 281pp., £23.50, ISBN 978 1 4214 0542

12012

Latin America has frequently been the site of

both radical political upheaval and drastic economic

transformation. Referred to as the ‘laboratory of

neoliberalism’, the region has seen many of its nations

swing from democracy to dictatorship and back again,

often coinciding with international economic crises. In

light of the global financial meltdown of 2008, Fran-

cisco González sets out to evaluate the likelihood of

democracy’s survival in the Southern Cone.

The author develops a comparative historical analysis

of Chile, Uruguay and Argentina during the economic

crises of the 1930s, 1970s and 1980s, and the emerging

markets crises of 1997–2002. Based on a three-

pronged evaluation taking in interests, institutions and

ideas, González then uses his findings to suggest the

likely fate of these contemporary democracies.

The book highlights the interrelation of develop-

ments on the national and international levels which

strengthen the prospects for democracy. Factors

involved are various, but the transition to neoliberalism

and the formation of international institutions are the

most fundamental. González argues that now that the

wealth of elites is liquid (i.e. financial) as opposed to

illiquid (e.g. land), the stakes involved in democratic

struggles have been lowered. Elites will be less likely to

support dictatorial coups so long as transnational capital

mobility is maintained. Equally, the Bretton Woods

institutions and the G20 offer vital sources of coordi-

nation and aid, making economic shocks shallower and

more bearable. Accordingly, the text is valuable to

those seeking a more optimistic appraisal of recent

political-economic fortunes.

Although this work offers considerable breadth and

detail, its approach, scope and conclusions are prob-

lematic. Subdividing each section by nation as well as

BOOK REVIEWS 465


each pillar of analysis, the text comes across as

unwieldy. Vision, energy and narrative are central to

arguing a compelling thesis, but unfortunately these are

sacrificed to rigid structure. Equally disquieting is

that the author fails to evaluate whether the democra-

cies that endure have been diluted. If capital flight

lowers the risks of democracy for financial elites, a

democracy that is hostage to such flight is necessarily

hollowed out, unable to legislate in the common inter-

est. The possibility that neoliberalism is either poten-

tially or inherently pernicious for democracy is never

raised.

Finally, those looking for a framework extensible to

other contexts will find themselves disappointed. The

author explicitly excuses himself from applying his

analysis to the Middle East, where the Arab Spring

suggests that a linkage between global economic crisis

and regime change may still be plausible. East Asia and

Eastern Europe are both briefly considered as compa-

rable cases, but the former is quickly dismissed as riven

by ethnic and religious conflicts uncommon to the

Southern Cone.

Philip Roberts(University of Nottingham)

Congress in Black and White: Race and Repre-

sentation in Washington and at Home by Chris-

tian R. Grose. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2011. 242pp., £17.99, ISBN 9780521177016

The link between the descriptive and substantive rep-

resentation of African Americans in politics is com-

plicated; some scholars argue that black legislators in

the US are uniquely able to promote policies that

benefit black citizens, but others argue that political

party outweighs legislator race. In Congress in Blackand White, Christian Grose resolves this tension and

develops a unified theory that adds to our under-

standing of race, representation and legislative behav-

iour. More specifically, he compellingly argues that

African American legislators are important for repre-

senting ‘black interests’, but not for the conventional

reason of shared experiences. Rather, he posits that

black officials make rational decisions to engage in

behaviour that increases their chances of winning

re-election. And because they are likely to depend on

electoral support from black constituents, black

elected officials appeal to black voters through legis-

lative activities related to constituency service – activ-

ities ‘in which legislators have significant power and

control’ (p. 2).

Grose’s new and original data collection – such as

changes in the racial composition of districts repre-

sented by African Americans – allows him to compare

the behaviour of black legislators elected from black-

majority districts to those elected from majority non-

black districts in order to identify the impact of race,

alone, on representation. Previous research could not

disentangle the influence of race on policy outcomes

from constituency characteristics because most black

officials came from black-majority districts prior to the

mid-1990s. Moreover, instead of focusing exclusively

on roll call votes, Grose expands the definition of

‘substantive representation’ to include legislative staff

members’ race, the proximity of district offices to

black neighbourhoods and earmarks for black commu-

nities. Importantly, he finds that black and white

Democrats do not differ much when it comes to the

votes they cast, but that black officials advocate for the

interests of African Americans in their constituency

service more so than do their white counterparts – a

finding overlooked by studies taking a conventional

approach to representation.

If there is a limitation to the book, it is that Grose

generalises perhaps too broadly from a small number

of cases about the importance of race in the substan-

tive representation of black interests. Although the

qualitative evidence adds a degree of detail and

nuance to the findings about the choices members of

Congress make when serving their constituents, the

quantitative analysis tends to be somewhat more com-

pelling. That said, by employing a rational choice

framework to show that race matters for substantive

representation only when we look at activities beyond

roll call votes, Grose makes an important contribution

to the study of race and legislative behaviour in

American politics.

Gail Baitinger(American University, Washington DC)






466 THE AMERICAS


Routledge Handbook of American Foreign

Policy by Steven W. Hook and Christopher M.

Jones (eds). Abingdon: Routledge, 2013. 464pp.,

£32.99, ISBN 978 0 415 80095-2

This volume edited by Steven Hook and Christopher

Jones gathers together 31 studies, judiciously organised

into six parts. It is an authoritative collection addressed

to both students and practitioners of American foreign

policy, providing an all-inclusive analysis, yet in an

easily understandable language to deepen one’s knowl-

edge in the area. The editors successfully bring together

the essential elements for understanding American

foreign policy in a functional way, moving through

major theories from the birth of the nation in the

seventeenth century to today’s threats and paradigms.

Each chapter presents in a meta-analytical way the

past, present and future of the problem debated. By

doing so, the critical analysis opens the reader to

further exploration of the issues analysed. A strong

feature of the book is represented by the extensive

bibliographical references presented at the end of each

chapter, providing the possibility of extending the

research.

Overall, the articles assembled come from authors

with various backgrounds, giving the volume an all-

inclusive perspective, though we have to notice the

near absence of contributions outside the US. The

consistent background sections of the chapters bring an

exhaustive and valuable amount of information and

analysis. Perhaps this could have ‘detached’ the volume

from the American way of thinking and presented

American foreign policy as it is seen in the Anglo-

phone world, or, even better, from a completely dif-

ferent perspective. It is clear that the volume would

have benefited from an analytical perspective outside

that of US academia, particularly from European and

Asian perspectives. I believe that the fifth part on

‘Policy Instruments’ should have received more con-

sideration in order to truly understand the mechanisms

that are generating the policy trends in the American

government.

The great theoretical background and extensive

approach to the problems make this book an excellent

read for undergraduate students and for non-trained

readers, and its all-encompassing bibliography provides

a good starting point in the study of American

foreign policy. Readers will most likely appreciate the

book’s writing style, layout and ease of navigation

through the content presented, as well as the effort

shown in terms of the topic selection, and the quality

of the printed edition itself. To sum up, the hand-

book is an excellent read both for neophytes and for

those already familiar with the instruments of foreign

policy analysis.

Andrei Alexandru Babadac(Independent Scholar)

Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation

and the Destruction of the Republican Party,

from Eisenhower to the Tea Party by Geoffrey

Kabaservice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

482pp., £18.99, ISBN 978 0 19 976840 0

The Tea Party: A Brief History by Ronald P.

Formisano. Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins Univer-

sity Press, 2012. 143pp., £10.50, ISBN 978 1 4214

0596 4

Geoffrey Kabaservice opens the last chapter of Rule andRuin with a memorable metaphor as he likens the fate

of moderates in Republican politics to a chart which

tracked the diminishment of Napoleon’s army in 1812.

The graph illustrates ‘the dreadful toll of diversionary

splits, battles, cold, hunger, disease, defections, and

desertions’ and shows how, in the end, a once pow-

erful arrow is ‘reduced to a thin, shaky line’ (p. 363).

Thus, Kabaservice argues, one could represent the

downfall of moderate Republicans since the 1960s,

which he chronicles meticulously. He takes the

Republican Party Convention of 1960 as the starting

point, introducing the reader to the lesser-known

moderate faction that constituted the Ripon Society,

and to the minds behind the short-lived, but intellec-

tually enriching magazine Advance. The reader is then

taken behind the scenes of the campaigns in favour and

opposed to Barry Goldwater’s bid for the Presidency in

1964 and again learns why moderates not only dis-

agreed with the right wing’s ideological positions, but

also with its ‘antidemocratic, take-no-prisoners, ends-

justify-the-means approach to grassroots politics’ (p.

51). With Richard Nixon’s ascent to the Presidency

one hoped to witness a recovery of moderate politics

since his administration included many Ripon Society

members and the President himself was ideologically

elusive – or best fitted, as Kabaservice put it aptly, the

‘one-word description’ Republican (p. 252). While his

BOOK REVIEWS 467


attempts at realigning the party also harmed moderates,

the press suspected the moderates to be on the rise

again with Vice President Nelson Rockefeller.

However, Rockefeller hardly invested resources in

building a moderate movement and President Ford felt

forced to move to the right due to Ronald Reagan’s

rising influence. The latter’s nomination marked one

of the lowest points in the history of moderate

Republicanism, whose last attempts to recuperate

between 1980 and 2010 close the book.

The title of Sam Tanenhaus’ review in the New YorkReview of Books of 24 May 2012 puts Kabaservice’s

message in a nutshell: ‘How the Republicans Got That

Way.’ Rule and Ruin makes the reader understand why

it has become harder for the GOP’s moderates to make

themselves heard and succeed within the party. Simul-

taneously, Kabaservice explains why the moderates’

defeat means such a loss to the party, and how intellec-

tually enriching they would be. Moreover, he argues

that denying the GOP’s past successes with moderate

policies and style equals ‘historical amnesia and symbolic

parricide, which seeks to undo key aspects of the

Republican legacy such as Reagan’s elimination of cor-

porate tax loopholes, Nixon’s environmental and labor

safety programs, and a variety of GOP achievements in

civil rights, civil liberties, and good-government

reforms’ (p. 391). Some may not agree with

Kabaservice’s unsympathetic portrayal of the GOP’s

right-wing legends like Phyllis Schlafly and might prefer

an even more neutral approach, but, in the end, there

will be no way around this book for those who want to

have a complete picture of the American right wing.

Kabaservice’s account ends where Formisano’s TheTea Party begins – namely with the rise of the eclectic

Tea Party Movement. The Tea Party had many an

observer puzzled, as its rallies started in 2009 and

brought members of rather disparate political convic-

tions together, uniting religious conservatives, libertar-

ians and elderly Republicans alike. They all felt ‘Taxed

Enough Already’ (p. 1), thus the acronym ‘TEA’, and

sought to make themselves heard not only by the

Obama administration, but also by the ‘RINOs’, those

‘Republicans in Name Only’ (p. 10) who allegedly

failed to represent their voters’ interests. In his slender

book, Formisano brings structure into the perceived

chaos of the Tea Party, and first explains the nature of

the movement, also by pointing out earlier examples of

popular defiance. He retraces the movement’s rise to

national importance up to the midterm elections in

2010, and untangles its relationships with the religious

right and ‘big business’. Finally, he shows what imprint

the Tea Party will likely leave on American political

culture and closes with an exploration of the move-

ment’s links to the original Boston Tea Party of 1773.

While much of the Tea Party’s story – including the

constant debate about whether it is just ‘astroturf ’ (p.

7) – is known to observers, Formisano offers more

than a mere primer to the Tea Party’s history. In

addition to looking behind the movement’s founding

myths, he establishes interesting links between Chris-

tian conservatives’ biblical fundamentalism and the

constitutional originalism espoused by many Tea

Partiers (p. 52). Moreover, he points out some central

themes that are rarely discussed – e.g. the Tea Party’s

focus on ‘producerism’ (p. 20), which divides ‘the

producing many in opposition to the nonproductive

but powerful and wealthy few’ (p. 20). This quote may

remind some readers of Tea Party icon Ayn Rand,

who would have judged this division differently –

another contradictory aspect of the movement that

calls for further reading and research.

Claudia Franziska Brühwiler(University of St Gallen, Switzerland)

In Defence of Politicians: The Expectations

Trap and Its Threat to Democracy by Stephen

K. Medvic. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013. 202pp.,

£95.00, ISBN 978 0415880442

The aim of In Defence of Politicians is to shift the respon-

sibility for Americans’ frustrations with politics from the

country’s elected officials to the structural constraints of

their government. After outlining why he believes that

political cynicism threatens American democracy,

Stephen Medvic explores the historical context and

constant electoral pressures American politicians face in

an attempt to explain the origins of this sentiment. He

highlights the institutional pressures on elected officials

(Chapters 3 and 4) before specifically looking at how

these impacted on the 2011 debt ceiling debate

(Chapter 5). He then focuses on the personal attributes

of politicians, examining the role of ambition and

hypocrisy (Chapter 6) and dishonesty (Chapter 7)

among political elites. The book concludes with

Medvic’s proposals for rebuilding trust in American

politicians. It culminates in a plea for more active citizen

468 THE AMERICAS


participation so that ordinary Americans can understand

better the – at times messy – nature of politics and how

it constrains those who work within it.

It may be a hard argument to sell, especially when

mistrust of government dominates American political

culture, but Medvic logically sets out the steps in his

reasoning throughout the book. Though lacking in

detail at times, he calls on evidence about the structure

of American government and human nature in general

to argue credibly that an ‘expectations trap’ exists in

US politics: citizens demand that politicians solve

complex problems without affording them the tools

required to fix them. Using previous research and his

case study of the 2011 debt ceiling debate, Medvic

highlights the practical incompatibility of the country’s

style of party politics and constitutional constraints.

Nonetheless, he is reluctant to criticise the principles

on which American government was built, suggesting

instead that its strict checks and balances ‘may be

working too well’ (p. 85).

Although much of the book feels like an attempt to

educate the reader about the practical pressures and

pitfalls of American politics, Medvic openly states that

explaining many of the intricacies of the US political

system are beyond the book’s scope. Therefore, while

he blames uninformed citizens for much of the general

cynicism towards politicians, claiming that ‘Americans’

tendency to recoil from politics is based largely on

ignorance and naivety’ (p. 37), he does not set out to

solve this issue directly. Nonetheless, this is a thought-

provoking take on the relationship between citizens

and political elites and it highlights how unrealistic

expectations have affected perceptions of politicians

and politics as a whole.

Isabel Taylor(University of Nottingham)

Follow the Money: How Foundation Dollars

Change Public School Politics by Sarah

Reckhow. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

221pp., £27.50, ISBN 978 0 19 993773 8

This engaging and well-researched book examines the

role of foundations in urban education in the United

States. Using social network analysis alongside case

studies and some statistical analysis, it explains why

foundations become involved in school reform in

certain jurisdictions but not others, which stakeholders

become empowered as a result of this involvement,

and how local actors respond. The book also considers

the consequences of private philanthropic efforts for

democratic accountability and openness. It focuses on

school reforms in New York City and Los Angeles,

where differing levels of school district centralisation,

parental engagement and teacher union involvement

have influenced both the shape and the long-term

success rate of foundation-backed reforms.

A must-read book for scholars interested in the urban

politics of school reform, the book also holds lessons for

philanthropic leaders, which it terms ‘Boardroom Pro-

gressives’. This is a misnomer. The similarities Sarah

Reckhow draws between modern-day philanthropists

and early twentieth-century Progressives – such as their

interest in urban education and testing – are dwarfed by

dissimilarities, including their view of positive govern-

ment, citizen control, municipal structure, bureaucrats

and professionalism. Moreover, the book concedes too

much to foundations by drawing an implicit parallel

with Progressive efficiency and elimination of waste and

corruption. It is difficult to avoid polemic in a schools

debate defined by Ravitch and Rhee and, admirably,

the author provides a well-evidenced set of claims that

avoids mud-slinging. However, there are points at

which she misses the opportunity to ask urgent and

searching questions about educational privatisation and

standardised tests. For example, the lack of rigorous

evaluation of student achievement in schools run by

Charter Management Organisations (CMOs) in Los

Angeles is described as an ‘oversight’ (p. 117), but ‘over-

sight’ implies unintentional failure, and this claim is not

evidenced.

Even though the most penetrating questions are

occasionally side-stepped, Reckhow makes a persua-

sive case for democratic community involvement

with foundation reforms. Her chapter-length treat-

ments of New York City and Los Angeles show

that in the former, a mayor-led centralised system

produced rapid but highly contested change, while in

the latter, the involvement of local stakeholders

created a more sustainable outcome. Reckhow’s

lively tone and attention to detail shepherds the

reader comfortably through what could otherwise

be a bewildering morass of acronyms. Her use of

social network analysis provides an excellent visuali-

sation of the flows of money and information

betweendistricts, unions, advocacy organisations and

BOOK REVIEWS 469


philanthropists. This is a valuable addition to the

educational politics literature.

Ursula Hackett(University of Oxford)

New Directions in Media and Politics by Travis

N. Ridout (ed.). New York: Routledge, 2013.

262pp., £34.99, ISBN 978 0 415 53733 9

It is common knowledge that the contemporary media

scenario is undergoing great change throughout the

world, with an inevitable impact on political process,

and clearly American politics would be no exception to

this development. The dynamics arising out of the

mutual interaction of media and politics, of which the

American democracy and people are an integral part, is

so complex that it is indeed difficult to grapple with it

and even more difficult to conceptualise and theorise it.

The volume under review makes an attempt to do so.

New Directions in Media and Politics has fourteen essays,

and eight of them have titles ending with a question

mark. This reveals that insofar as the book’s main theme

is concerned, the task is to explore the topic as deeply as

possible but not to provide definitive conclusions. The

sub-themes of the essays concern the fragmenting

public, media distrust, the status of local television

news, news media and war, Congress and the media, the

gender dimension, the political dynamics of media

framing, and politics in the digital age. There are also a

few contributions on electoral campaigns. Social media

remains a recurring issue in many of the contributions.

The sub-themes are important not just because they are

intimately connected with the American political pro-

cess, but also because these aspects are themselves

undergoing numerous shifts and changes. Thus, they

need to be put under rigorous ‘academic scrutiny’,

which in turn can provide new and innovative perspec-

tives. For example, the essay on negative campaigning,

which highlights its role both in terms of inhibiting and

inspiring popular participation, is one such instance.

Similarly, the contribution on politics in the digital age

makes a much-needed point about digital disengage-

ment – beyond the euphoria of digital inclusion – and

in doing so it also reinstates the importance of politics

‘off line’.

The volume has a 28-page bibliography and makes a

reasonably good effort in mediating the ‘political’

beyond restrictive parameters. This is important because

of the emerging intermediated environment, in which

there is dual convergence: on the one hand, marking the

interaction of the old and the new media and, on the

other, showing the interdependence of the variety of

new media. Also important in the specific context of

new media is the ‘new dose’ of politics marked by

subaltern tinkering – i.e. the maneouvering of media by

ordinary people who simultaneously act as the produc-

ers and consumers of messages. Yet surprisingly, the

editor takes a ‘false step’ in observing that the entertain-

ment orientation of the new media environment facili-

tates the ‘avoidance of politics’ and ‘thus one need not

engage with politics at all’ (p. 2). The contributions

paradoxically and justifiably reveal that it is not so.

Dipankar Sinha(University of Calcutta)

The Original Compromise: What the Constit-

ution’s Framers Were Really Thinking by David

Brian Robertson. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2013. 324pp, £18.99, ISBN 978 0 19 979629 8

Every few months, the US Supreme Court issues a

judgement on the federal system of government first

crafted in Philadelphia more than two centuries ago.

When that happens, commentators debate the appro-

priateness of the decision as it relates to the original

intentions of those who drafted the US Constitution.

David Robertson’s book is of signal importance in

this regard. He peers behind the official portraits of the

Constitution’s founders and examines what they hoped

to accomplish by attending the Convention in 1787,

what interests they represented and what they said on

the specific issues that arose. What becomes readily

apparent in reading this volume is how little agreement

existed among the various delegates beyond the basic

principle of limited republican government. While all

agreed that the Articles of Confederation had failed

to move the thirteen former colonies forward, there was

considerable disagreement around the proposals put

forward by James Madison for a strong federal govern-

ment. Indeed, while the ideas put forward by Madison

and the Virginian delegation dominated the discussions,

other states were equally well represented. Delegates

such as Alexander Hamilton (New York), James Wilson

(Pennsylvania) or Roger Sherman (Connecticut) are

perhaps the best known, but Robertson does a very

470 THE AMERICAS


good job in portraying the broad range of speakers and

opinions that were heard during the proceedings.

As one delegate observed, an energetic and formi-

dable government was needed, but so too were the

mechanisms to prevent it from becoming too formi-

dable. Within that shared outlook, the story of the

Constitutional Convention is really about the quest for

compromise to effect that outcome. Today, that sounds

fairly anodyne. In the context of the time, however,

constructing a new national republican government for

states with opposed economic interests (and which had

to approve whatever they drafted) was an extraordinary

undertaking. Robertson’s study does a very good job of

demonstrating that the delegates understood the novelty

of their task. The drafting of a constitution was an

experiment, and it created, to use Robertson’s revealing

phrase, an ‘unfinished republic’. In some areas, such as

the composition of the Senate, accord was minimal and

many of the delegates were deeply unhappy at the

outcome of their deliberations. With regard to slavery,

the compromises directly contributed to events 74 years

later with the outbreak of the Civil War. In others areas,

however, such as the debate between broad or narrow

nationalism (referring to the scope of federal power),

the discussion continues – as many of the Convention

delegates probably intended. This book offers observers

of US politics an insight into how the founders thought

that conversation ought to proceed.

Ben Lombardi(Defence Research and Development Canada, Ottawa)

Asia and the Pacific

China: The Political Philosophy of the Middle

Kingdom by Tongdong Bai. London: Zed Books,

2012. 206pp., £16.99, ISBN 978 1 78032 075 5

The World Political Theories series from Zed Books

aims to broaden the audience’s understanding of non-

Western political ideas by examining the development

of political thought in specific world regions.

Tongdong Bai contributes to this series from a histori-

cal Chinese perspective in his latest book.

Tasked with exploring the universality of political

ideas and the contemporary relevance of classical

Chinese thought, the book is initially driven by a claim

that traditional Chinese political philosophy is analogous

to modern European political philosophy. As evidence,

the author suggests that during the Spring and Autumn

and Warring States periods (SAWS, roughly 770–222

BCE) China was gradually transitioning from a frag-

mented, feudalistic society to a unified populous state,

thrusting it into a period of modernity and forcing

Chinese thinkers to address societal problems inherent

to such a transition. This compelled the dominant

Chinese schools – Confucianism, Daoism, Legalism – to

consider political issues of modernity nearly two mil-

lennia before Western philosophers faced a similar tran-

sition in Europe when the feudal system gradually

ended and Westphalian statehood emerged.

The author carefully presents excerpts, anecdotes and

stories from classical Chinese literature, constantly jux-

taposing Eastern and Western approaches to issues of

modernity. His selections from Confucian, Daoist and

Legalist texts demonstrate how each school struggled

with a variety of modern political and social issues. For

example, when should the state wage a just war? Should

the state encourage upward mobility in society? Is

capital punishment appropriate? And finally, within

state affairs, what should become public and what must

remain private?

The author’s thesis is thoughtful and eventually finds

resolution. Chinese modernity culminates with the uni-

fication of China in 221 BCE and the creation of a

blended bureaucratic and moralistic system. Bai effec-

tively links elements of Confucian and Legalist political

philosophy to their ‘modern’ manifestation under the

state of Qin. The interplay between these two schools

(but not Daoism) created a political foundation in China

which would reappear throughout multiple dynastic

cycles.

At times the author struggles to explain with clarity

the relevance of his selected excerpts to modern politi-

cal issues. The reader is also left hoping for a more

pointed analysis of the continuity (if any) between

contemporary Communist China and her historic

political roots. Nonetheless, within the context of the

World Political Theories series, Bai succeeds in intro-

ducing his audience to traditional Chinese philosophy

and presents a solid argument that China’s early schools

of political thought address issues of modernity,

thereby displaying elements of universalism.

Daniel Westlake(George Mason University)

BOOK REVIEWS 471


Understanding Security Practices in South Asia:

Securitisation Theory and the Role of Non-state

Actors by Monika Barthwal-Datta. Abingdon:

Routledge, 2012. 200pp., £80.00, ISBN 978-

0415616317

‘Speaking and Doing Security’ is the challenge that

Monika Barthwal-Datta sets out to explore in this

book Understanding Security Practices in South Asia, and

she identifies the key challenges of South Asian nations

generally as political violence, ethnic discrimination,

widespread corruption, financial limitations, bureau-

cratic deadlock, weak governance and ongoing politi-

cal instability. The primary focus of the book is on

how non-state actors (NGOs media organisations,

epistemic communities and civil society groups)

attempt to securitise issues they perceive as threatening

to distinct groups, and how these non-state actors step

in to address these challenges directly in the absence of

sufficient and adequate state-led policies. The author

likes to follow in the footsteps of the Copenhagen

School, which argues that when a securitising actor

manages to break free of procedures and rules by

which it would otherwise be bound, we are witnessing

a case of securitisation. Throughout the course of the

book, non-state actors are portrayed as highly active in

identifying, raising and/or dealing with non-military

challenges that have in recent times been widely

acknowledged as having security consequences for

groups other than the state.

The book is based on the doctoral thesis of the

author, and undertakes case studies of mis-governance

in Bengal, human trafficking in Nepal and India’s

national action plan on climate change. The author

begins with the intense hostilities within South Asia,

which catch the attention of authors and scholars

worldwide. She has succeeded in convincingly pro-

viding enough empirical data to substantiate the dif-

ferences in theory and practice as she moves on to

justify the proposition that once the problems have

been identified, policies are framed to tackle the issue

– but she signals both the bigger problem that awaits

at the stage of policy implementation, and the equal

attention that needs to be given to the aggrieved

groups.

A deductive approach has been used throughout by

narrowing down to specific cases. However, there

lacks a thread of continuity among the chapters as the

case study changes the geography and area of concern

with every chapter – political issues in Bangladesh,

social issues in Nepal and environmental issues in India

– thereby lacking a comprehensive perspective of

South Asia on a certain issue.

The book will be a delight for policy analysts and

researchers who wish to immerse themselves in the

complexities of South Asia. However, it attracts a very

limited audience. The continuous emphasis on wide-

spread corruption, poverty, the indifference of elites,

political mis-governance and the lack of a conscious

citizenry seems to be repetitive and does not offer any

new insights.

Priyamvada Mishra(Symbiosis Law School, Noida, India)

Access Contested: Security, Identity and Resist-

ance in Asian Cyberspace by Ronald Deibert,

John Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski and Jonathan

Zittrain (eds). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012.

414pp., £16.95, ISBN 9780262516808

Access Contested is the Open Net Initiative’s (ONI)

follow-up to the 2010 Access Controlled. Whereas the

earlier book focused on Organisation for Economic

Cooperation and Development states, the focus of

Access Contested has shifted to Asia, where the contest

for rights and freedoms in cyberspace has intensified as

governments across the region recognise and respond

to emerging challenges (realised, potential and imag-

ined). Fortunately, the editors ignored their own prob-

lematic assertion that ‘cyberspace can be viewed as an

undifferentiated whole’ (p. 5) to assemble a stellar cast

of regional specialists and internet scholars. And despite

the dominant position of China in debates about

control and resistance among Asian cases, the editors

manage an excellent balance of pan-Asian pieces focus-

ing on specific aspects of contestation, in addition to a

range of case studies on Indonesia, Thailand, Burma,

the Philippines and Malaysia (as well as China). These

studies do an admirable job of examining specific

forms of control and resistance that have ‘created a

unique regional story around the contests to shape

cyberspace’ (p. 5).

Based on the analysis of internet filtering globally,

the editors identify four phases of access and regula-

tion: the open commons (to 2000), access denied

472 ASIA AND THE PACIFIC


(2000–5), access controlled (2005–10) and access

contested (2010 onwards). This schema is convenient

(particularly for publication purposes), but the reality is

rather less neat, and the editors rightly acknowledge

that, certainly in the Asian cases under investigation

here, the behaviours underpinning each of these

periods continue to occur contemporaneously.

The major characteristic of the period which is the

focus of this book is that ‘the contest over access has

burst into the open’ (p. 14), with greater visibility for

open internet advocates among civil society and com-

mercial interests, and the state and other commercial

actors who are increasingly committed to developing

and refining ‘offensive actions in cyberspace against

adversaries’ (p. 15). As the case studies demonstrate,

contestation over the forms and nature of internet

regulation is being played out across societies, in

diverse settings and on many different issues, prompt-

ing the editors to identify ‘a watershed moment for the

future of cyberspace’.

The collection is certainly worth the attention of

readers interested in contemporary developments in

East Asia.

Jonathan Sullivan(University of Nottingham)

Only Beautiful, Please: A British Diplomat in

North Korea by John Everard. Washington, DC:

Asia/Pacific Research Center, 2012. 256pp., £12.99,

ISBN 978 193136825 4

What is it like to serve as one’s national representative

in North Korea? In this book, John Everard, the

former British ambassador to the Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea (DPRK) from 2006 to 2008, offers

his personally experienced eyewitness observations on

the life of ordinary North Korean people and about

being a foreign diplomat in one of the world’s most

closed nations. The main purpose of the book is to

introduce the widely unknown human face of the

inhabitants of the isolated state. Everard, who spent

most of his time within the confined space of the

guarded and cut-off capital Pyongyang, describes with

empathy and sometimes humour how its residents

belonging to the ‘outer elite’ – which is less privileged

than the ‘inner elite’ of top party officials, but which

enjoys far better living conditions than the impover-

ished rural masses – somehow manage to make things

work, despite the difficulties and hardship involved,

especially in winter, when temperatures fall drastically

to far below zero.

Being fluent in Korean, the author talks to citizens

and gathers first-hand information despite travelling

restrictions and the knowledge that he puts his inform-

ants at risk. By focusing on details and things which

may appear trivial to Westerners, such as the national

annual flower wreath competition ritual, and what he

defines as ‘only beautiful, please’ ideology, his message

to the reader becomes clear: ‘Beyond all these aspects

the DPRK is a real country, where real people live,

whose lives revolve not around their country’s nuclear

policy or any other great international issue but around

their families, their colleagues at work, and the thou-

sand daily concerns that make up lives anywhere else in

the world’ (p. xvii). That said, the author leaves no

room for unfounded optimism or unrealistic hope with

regard to future reforms when he writes that neither

confronting nor engaging North Korea will work

(p. xvi).

While the first half of the book deals mostly with

the living conditions of the ‘outer elite’ in Pyong-

yang, the second half has three further sections, start-

ing with an entertaining and informative section on

the lives of foreigners – particularly diplomatic staff –

in the DPRK. The third section, which briefly deals

with North Korean history since 1945, aims to

explain why the North Korean state is as paranoid as

it is. Comparing it to pre-war Nazi Germany (as the

author does, p. 198), seems in this regard a bit too

far-fetched and contradictory, especially since he

acknowledges that the regime does not solely rely on

‘naked fear’ (p. 65). A comparison with the former

East German SED regime would have been more

meaningful and appropriate. Overall, one might agree

with his criticism of NGOs that do more harm than

good by treating North Koreans ‘as if they were

children’ (p. 139).

Patrick Hein(Meiji University, Japan)






BOOK REVIEWS 473


Aspiration and Ambivalence: Strategies and

Realities of Counterinsurgency and State-

building in Afghanistan by Vanda Felbab-Brown.

Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2012.

358pp., $32.95, ISBN-13: 978-0-8157-2441-4

This book is the end product of an extensive study

undertaken by Vanda Felbab-Brown and supported by

the Norwegian government. It captures the key issues

inhibiting Afghanistan, surveys the broad contours of

American engagement and focuses on post-2014 pros-

pects for the country, when the presence of US-led

international forces will be considerably reduced. As

the title suggests, Aspiration and Ambivalence projects the

aspirations of the common Afghan and delineates

American ambivalence on strategy, future objectives

and the nature of its involvement in both counter-

insurgency and statebuilding.

Vanda Felbab-Brown advocates implementing good

governance in Afghanistan, arguing that the issue has

long remained neglected. She is critical of American

practices of collaborating with warlords and local mafia

for short-term military gains, hence sacrificing long-

term objectives regarding peace and stability in the

war-torn country. The author disagrees with assertions

that Afghans would fare better once the international

forces withdraw (p. 59). She believes that Afghanistan as

a buffer has been in the eye of the storm and held

hostage to the vested interests of adjoining countries. In

this regard, the author describes Pakistan as a ‘difficult

and disruptive neighbor’ (p. 189) that is nonetheless

central to Afghanistan’s fate. Adhering to the standard

view that Pakistan treats militant outfits as a strategic

asset against India (which shares friendly relations with

Kabul and has invested heavily in post-war reconstruc-

tion), Felbab-Brown argues that the little Pakistan has

done to curb extremism has been under ‘intense politi-

cal pressure and hefty aid payoffs’ from the US (p. 196).

The crux of the book lies towards the end where

Felbab-Brown prescribes a set of concrete measures on

‘what can still be done?’ to mend the situation. First

and foremost, the focus should be shifted to a post-

2014 commitment and model of engagement. This

would contain growing fear within Afghanistan of an

impending civil war situation after the international

forces leave in 2014. Urgent measures are required to

cut proliferating corruption; institutionalise strong

mechanisms for governance; control the Afghan police,

militias and warlords; minimise unintended conse-

quences; and devise a strategy for an advisory and

capacity-building role after the withdrawal. The author

believes in sustained engagement in Afghanistan so that

the semblance of stability achieved over the last few

years is not rescinded. The 2014 presidential election

and how this is managed by the international forces is

a crucial determinant for the future of Afghanistan.

The book is well timed, appearing in the interven-

ing period before control is handed over to the

Afghans. The account is articulate, convincing and

stands out in the profusion of literature on America’s

role in Afghanistan. Anticipating post-2014 possibil-

ities, it provides valuable insights on how the US-led

international forces could strike the precarious balance

leading to congruence between Afghanistan’s well-

being and the allied forces’ goals.

Priyanka Singh(Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi)

When Counterinsurgency Wins: Sri Lanka’s

Defeat of the Tamil Tigers by Ahmed S.

Hashim. Philadelphia. PA: University of Pennsylvania

Press, 2013. 265pp., £39.00, ISBN 978 0 8122 4452 6

Since the conclusion of the armed conflict on the

South Asian island of Sri Lanka between the govern-

ment and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

(LTTE) in May 2009, the military victory of the Sri

Lankan government has evoked interest among mili-

tary analysts and think tanks dealing with counterin-

surgency (COIN) across the world. Ahmed Hashim’s

book, which caters primarily to this interest group, is

also likely to elicit attention from scholars dealing with

peace and conflict studies in Sri Lanka.

Providing a crisp introduction to the problem of

insurgency and the pressing need for contemporary

states to devote attention to ‘small wars’, the author

refers to an array of sources, ranging from Western

COIN specialists to guerrilla leaders like Mao Tse-

Tung and Vo Nguyen Giap in his analysis of the Sri

Lankan model of COIN. While a general background

to the history of the conflict is given, the thrust of the

book is its military analysis of the last three years of the

war, packed into an intense chapter. The technical and

military innovations of both belligerents are explored.

Hashim’s account of maritime strategies is particularly



insightful. Operating solely through a politico-strategic

perspective, the concluding chapter also provides some

recommendations to the government on preventing

the re-emergence of the conflict.

Yet it is hard not to notice a pro-Sri Lankan gov-

ernment bias in Hashim’s text. While the author

largely refers to the Sri Lankan government, media

and academic sources in his quasi-sociological explana-

tion of the conflict’s background and in his analysis

of the COIN operations, Tamil sources are minimal.

The name of D. Sivaram, the Tamil military analyst

and senior editor of the influential website TamilNet,

who was read widely by both Sri Lankan and Tamil

political observers, is conspicuous by its absence.

It is also ambiguous what the author expects other

countries, especially the West, to learn from the Sri

Lankan model of COIN. While questions on the

LTTE’s military nature and structure are addressed, the

book does not probe how the organisation was able to

sustain an insurgency for over two decades without the

support of any regional or global power. However,

avoiding an obituary for the Tamils’ struggle for self-

determination and noting Sri Lanka’s continuing

failures in pacifying the Tamils, Hashim adroitly con-

cludes that ‘The final chapter of the war is thus yet to

be written’ (p. 214). This, then, raises the question:

‘Did counter-insurgency win?’

Karthick Ram Manoharan(University of Essex)

A Political Legacy of the British Empire: Power

and the Parliamentary System in Post-colonial

India and Sri Lanka by Harshan Kumarasingham.

London: I.B. Tauris, 2013. 297pp., £59.50, ISBN 978

1 78076 228 9

This timely study demonstrates how constitutions can

reflect and shape emerging democracies. Harshan

Kumarasingham compares and contrasts the establish-

ment and immediate fate of the Westminster-style

constitutions adopted by India and Sri Lanka following

their decolonisation in 1947 and 1948, respectively. He

distinguishes these ‘Eastminsters’ from the ‘new

Westminsters’ established earlier in the settler domin-

ions. New Delhi and Colombo did not merely adapt

the Westminster system to localised contexts, these

Eastminsters mutated in very different politico-cultural

environments from those pertaining in the old

Commonwealth. These mutations reflected the

immediate interests of their dominant political elites,

but their occurrence during a critical juncture ensured

lasting consequences.

Kumarasingham applies theories on cultural condi-

tions, horizontal accountability, delegative democracy

and path dependency to demonstrate how the inher-

ently flexible Westminster model could reflect and

deepen dramatic differences between Indian and Sri

Lankan politics. India’s road to independence was

fraught with tension and periodic violence between

nationalists and the British, and as a consequence

their Eastminster eschewed the symbolic trappings of

Westminster. In contrast, Sri Lanka’s Eastminster was

the product of a relatively peaceful transition, and its

anglophile political elite sought to recreate an ideal-

ised Westminster as well as retain features of the

erstwhile colony of Ceylon. Both political elites

found utility in Westminster-style conventions, but

these were harnessed to enforce contrasting interpre-

tations of gubernatorial, prime ministerial and execu-

tive power. In the case of India, Jawaharlal Nehru’s

pursuit of a federal polity squared centralised power

with inclusiveness and provincial diversity, and deci-

sively placed the exercise of prerogative powers with

the prime minister rather than the governor (after-

wards, president) or cabinet. Sri Lanka’s elite

embraced an ideal of Westminster that owed more to

the eighteenth century than the twentieth. The cabal

of barons that took power in 1948 had misplaced

confidence in their constitution. Having failed to

establish modern parties, harness the mass electorate

or create a federal system that might protect minor-

ities, populist communalism made advances that

marginalised the Tamils, and perverted, then aban-

doned, the constitution in favour of a French-style

presidential system.

Today, India is praised for being the largest democ-

racy in history, while Sri Lanka is condemned for

authoritarianism and war crimes. Kumarasingham’s

analysis is strong on the significance of key players in

the operation and ultimate fate of new constitutions

and the cultural specificity of long-established consti-

tutions. Its lessons for the present-day Middle East

should not be overlooked.

N. C. Fleming(University of Worcester)

BOOK REVIEWS 475


Beyond Swat: History, Society and Economy

along the Afghanistan-Pakistan Frontier by

Magnus Marsden and Benjamin Hopkins (eds).

London: C. Hurst, 2013. 352pp., £39.99, ISBN

9781849042062

Beyond Swat presents a comprehensive narrative and an

intensive analysis of the Swat borderlands of north-

western Pakistan, which in recent history has emerged

as the epicentre of terror and militancy. Based on the

proceedings of a 2010 conference titled ‘Rethinking

the Swat Pathan’, the book draws inspiration from

Fredrick Barth’s seminal work Political Leadership amongSwat Pathans published in 1965. The homeland to

ethnic Pashtuns, Swat has a rich inheritance and a set

of cultures and traditions, riding on which the valley

has struggled to survive between forces of primitivism

and resistance to modernity.

The book is an assorted collection of cogent essays

contributed by a cross-section of anthropologists and

historians who are area experts and versed in at least one

of the region’s languages. Divided into five parts and

eighteen chapters, the book is conceptualised to form a

synthesis of inferences drawn from interdisciplinary

research, aided by conducting field trips and mining

archival data. Through this, the book seeks to under-

stand Swat’s transformation from being ‘the periphery of

a faded empire’ to a ‘theatre of the so called “Global

War on Terror” ’ (p. 1). The book contains useful

insights on core issues concerning the interrelation

between religion and forces of fundamentalism, the role

of ethnicity, class divides and the struggle for power. It

details the nature of the state in the Swat region, its

descent into a Taliban stronghold, and studies the inter-

play of such complex dynamics over the years.

The book makes a unique effort to tread

unchartered territory – the society, history and

economy in Swat – whose identity has been largely

confined to being a militant sanctuary. In this regard,

the volume serves as an apt handbook to crystallise

perceptions and preconceptions, and to fight prejudices

that have dominated the understanding of the region.

As it deviates from the conventional security-centric

framework, adhering to a historical-anthropological

approach, it proceeds to unearth lesser known facets of

the region. The book is rich in content and by theo-

rising Swat’s societal and cultural domains it juxtaposes

past research with contemporary understanding.

The book widens the ambit of existing knowledge

by explicating the tribal systems in the Swat region. An

enhanced understanding of tribal issues could be

crucial for strategists in formulating long-term solutions

to the complex issues of this picturesque and yet –

ironically – militant-infested region.

Priyanka Singh(Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi)

Capital as Will and Imagination: Schumpeter’s

Guide to the Postwar Japanese Miracle by Mark

Metzler. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013.

344pp., £30.95, ISBN 978-0801451799

In Capital as Will and Imagination, Mark Metzler makes

the claim that Japan’s growth during the era from 1955

to 1973 was the result of induced credit inflation and

massive industrial investments. The book considers

Schumpeter’s role as a ‘theorist of credit-supercharged

high-speed growth’ (p. 36). The cornerstones of his

theory are monetary ‘credit-capital creation’ (p. 37), and

‘forced savings’ (p. 44), leading to the growth of gross

domestic product (GDP). Simply put, large amounts of

inflated money are invested in the economy at the

expense of national and private savings. The ‘essence of

the capitalist developmental process’ (p. 42) is the entre-

preneur who withdraws producers’ goods from the

market, thereby creating the need and demand for new

goods. As it takes time to produce the new goods,

credit-capital must be created by the banks and injected

into the economy. Once funded, entrepreneurs can

expand material production. Investment surges to more

than 35 percent of gross national product (p. 208),

which makes Japan comparable to a ‘socialist system’ (p.

208). The dark side of over-investment includes short-

ages of goods, ‘frugality’ and a lack of cash savings on

the consumer side (p. 207). Prices rise – notably con-

sumer prices – and inflation forces the working class to

pay for the investment. This phenomenon is called

‘forced savings’. The term is in itself misleading because

‘people do not personally save at all’ (p. 45). Rather,

consumer purchasing power is withdrawn and redi-

rected to production. This system is not unique to

Japan; it has been reproduced in Korea and China. It is

far from perfect. In times of war, which Schumpeter

defines as a kind of ‘enterprise’ (p. 109), new goods are

not returned to the social stream, creating immense

financial debts. Another example of malfunction is the



Japanese bubble economy of 1989, when wealth based

on stock and land speculation was transferred without

creating productive works or, as Metzler states, ‘a taking

without a giving’ (p. 219).

The book makes for interesting reading because it

sheds light on Schumpeter’s huge impact on Japanese

post-war economic planning and explains the financial

mechanisms of industrial growth. Unfortunately, the

author has failed to address the long-term conse-

quences of the Schumpeterian model: in this process,

Japan accumulated the largest government debt as a

percentage of GDP known to mankind. Likewise, the

author underestimates the actual deviations of the Japa-

nese model from Schumpeter’s historic laissez-fairecapitalism. The tight regulatory frameworks and the

high monopolisation levels of, say, the nuclear power

industry, have prevented Japan from going through

the process of ‘creative destruction’ predicted by

Schumpeter.

Patrick Hein(Meiji University, Japan)

Indonesia: Archipelago of Fear by Andre

Vltchek. London: Pluto Press, 2012. 263pp., £17.99,

ISBN 978 0 7453 3199 7

Andre Vltchek’s Indonesia paints a bleak picture, and an

unfortunately accurate one. His grim depiction of

Jakarta as ‘a poverty-ridden hellhole’ (p. 66) is one that

any visitor there will recognise, even through a tour-

ist’s naïve eyes. Against those who still try to claim

Indonesia as a beacon of moderate Islam, neoliberal

success and developing democracy, Vltchek draws on

fifteen years of investigative journalism to bring to

light the everyday Indonesian experience of poverty,

religious violence, sexism, racism, corruption, social

decay and environmental devastation. Following in the

vein of Benedict Anderson, Naomi Klein and Noam

Chomsky (who provides the foreword), Vltchek

clearly identifies the US-backed Suharto dictatorship

(1968–98) as a fascist regime, and shows that despite

the proliferation of ‘democratic’ political parties during

the reformasi years, nothing has changed – ‘fascism is

surviving and even flourishing’ (p. 74). Fear is an

appropriate theme here, and Vltchek’s indignation is

palpable and justified as he exposes a catalogue of

harrowing atrocities.

Hopelessness is another overriding theme, but it is

not one that I so easily recognise. Statements such as,

‘[a]ll hopes for Jakarta should be abandoned’ (p. 65),

that there is ‘no determination to rebuild the collapsing

nation’ (p. 150) or that ‘Indonesia has lost its voice; it

has become intellectually deaf and mute’ (p. 203) are

understandable when faced with the scale of the Indo-

nesian catastrophe, but Vltchek fails to mention those

glimmers of hope that exist across the country. The

state’s total media black-out against anti-fascist groups,

militant farmers’ collectives and environmental cam-

paigners might explain Vltchek’s apparent unfamiliarity

with these struggling activists, but Vltchek’s own

political perspective may also play a role here. Follow-

ing the 1965 coup and subsequent genocide of up to

three million communist sympathisers, there remains a

strong anti-communist taboo in Indonesia. This leads

Vltchek to focus on the handful of Marxists and geno-

cide survivors willing to speak openly, which is admi-

rable but does cause him to miss the vibrant strain of

contemporary resistance movements stemming from

Indonesia’s anarchist tradition. In my experience, those

movements are filled with a real determination to fight

to improve the situation, rather than the flaccid hope-

lessness Vltchek observes. This oversight aside,

Vltchek’s book is a valuable piece and does well to

expose the reality of politics and ordinary daily life in

Indonesia, counter to the false image presented to the

rest of the world. ‘The story had to be told’ (p. 229).

Jim Donaghey(University of Loughborough)

Managing Regional Energy Vulnerabilities in

East Asia: Case Studies by Daojiong Zha (ed.).


978 0 415 53538 0

This small volume investigates how a number of gov-

ernmental and private practitioners manage the various

dimensions of energy vulnerability in East Asia. Tem-

pering the common view that the search for energy

resources is bound to foster instability, the book aims

to bring to the fore the fact that ‘the movement of

energy across nation-state borders is a multifaceted web

of phenomena, defying neat simplification’ (p. 4).

According to the editor, this is necessary because the

traditional focus of security studies on ‘competition for

access in particular, and energy in general, can easily

BOOK REVIEWS 477


result in fallacious assessments about a country’s or

region’s level of (in)security’ (p. 4).

The book’s eight chapters cover a wide area. In the

context of the disastrous 2011 earthquake in north-

eastern Japan, Kanekiyo Kensuke elegantly and con-

vincingly stresses the importance of creating energy

security. Tilak K. Doshi and Adi Imsirovic then go on

to assess the real extent and importance of the ‘Asian

Premium’ in crude oil markets. Kensuke and Yoshikazu

follow this with an illuminating analysis of the threat of

oil price volatility to regional development, after which

Lee Yin Mui offers an account of interstate cooperation

in the fight against piracy and maritime crime, which

despite being highly detailed, is lacking in analytical

depth. In an original and interesting contribution, Lye

Liang Fook discusses the role of intellectuals and infor-

mal discussion in the development of policy and

regional cooperation in the context of the government-

anointed Network of East Asian Think-tanks (NEAT).

Benjamin K. Sovacool conducts an excellent critical

investigation into several transnational pipeline projects

in Asia, which, he concludes, raise the question of

‘whether large, capital-intensive projects can ever be

done in a way that not only minimizes damage but

actually improves standards of living’ (p. 144). Youngho

Chang and Yao Lixia then offer an overview of the

development of hydropower in the Greater Mekong

sub-region, and Kevin Punzalan closes the volume with

an analysis of the energy situation in the Philippines.

The goals of this book are modest and its authors

generally succeed in achieving them. The chapters

offer accessible, focused and detailed introductions to

many important issues in Asia. The chapters are well

edited and written, but at times the book’s central

theme – managing energy vulnerability in East

Asia – becomes blurred and the bigger picture some-

what lost. This is a shame. Nevertheless, the volume

deserves merit and will prove useful to students and

practitioners alike.

Daniel Falkiner(London School of Economics and Political Science)






New Dynamics in East Asian Politics: Security,

Political Economy and Society by Zhiqun Zhu.

London: Continuum, 2012. 337pp., £19.99, ISBN

978 1 4411 6621 0

This wide-ranging book works well as an introduction

to the contemporary politics of East Asia. Focused on

China, Japan, Taiwan and the two Koreas, the book’s

interdisciplinary approach leads it to being neatly

divided into three sections covering security and foreign

policy, new political economy and changing societies.

As Zhiqun Zhu explains in the introduction, the aim of

the book is to avoid a traditional approach of writing

about government, institutions and processes. This is

borne out in the largely well-written and researched

chapters, which cover a wealth of topics, including the

media, gender, national identity and nationalism,

student politics, the film industry, local politics, the

changing nature of anti-Americanism, environmental

issues, security and foreign policy, welfare and political

economy. Throughout the book the coverage ranges

from the international and wider regional perspective

through to the national and local. The chapters use a

range of theoretical approaches and research models.

Each chapter draws on a good selection of sources, with

the end of each one including further readings and

useful questions for ongoing discussion.

The book faces four problems – all of which it largely

overcomes. First, tying together such a wide range of

topics was never going to be easy, but Zhu manages this

by allowing the reader insight into how this area of the

world is coping with globalisation, changes in technol-

ogy, shifts in power, and the political expectations and

outlooks of the peoples of the region. Second, the book

provides a balanced approach in its coverage of the five

states, although clearly due to its size China receives the

most attention. The United States is ever-present,

which is understandable given its role as a major East

Asian power. However, its use as the main point of

reference when making comparisons means other areas

of the world such as Southeast Asia, Europe or the

Middle East receive few mentions. Third, the book

successfully resists the temptation to focus solely on

international relations and security, instead drawing out

the incredible economic and social transformations. It

provides a good analysis of the military and political

tensions that could undermine these transformations,

which are also being driven by them in part. Finally, the



book’s aim to discuss contemporary developments

means some chapters will date very quickly, although

the overall analysis of the book will remain of interest

for many years to come.

Tim Oliver(Johns Hopkins University)

Other Areas

Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict in the South

Caucasus: Nagorno-Karabakh and the Legacy of

Soviet Nationalities Policy by Ohannes Geukjian.

Farnham: Ashgate, 2012. 264pp., £54.00, ISBN

9781409436300

This book examines the underlying factors and the

catalytic causes of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and

the way in which ethnicity and nationalism worked to

construct conflict. The book is organised around three

major themes: ethnicity, nationalism and overlapping

territorial claims. The author argues that during the

major historical periods in the South Caucasus, these

themes very much shaped the Nagorno-Karabakh con-

flict. Both nations, Armenian and Azerbaijani, believed

that protecting Nagorno-Karabakh territory is protect-

ing their national identities (p. 1).

The main approach adopted throughout this book is

historical. Even though Ohannes Geukjian is not an

historian, he sees no alternative to this approach

because, as he argues, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

cannot be understood without reference to its Persian

and Russian past (p. 14). What distinguishes this book

from an historical narrative, however, is the interpre-

tation of the causes of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

in light of the realities of ethnicity and nationalism.

The book relies heavily on qualitative methods, such as

archival research, document analysis and unstructured

interviews with key figures.

Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict in the South Caucasusis organised into seven chapters. The first chapter pro-

vides a general background on the conflict, and a dis-

cussion of the three major themes. Chapters 2 and 3

examine and interpret the history of the conflict in the

pre-Soviet era (up until 1920), and the early Soviet

period (early 1920s) to stress the arbitrary creation of

borders in the South Caucasus, irrespective of ethnic

and national particularities. Chapters 4 and 5 explore

how developments within the USSR shaped the rela-

tions between the two nations, and how Soviet nation-

alities policies shaped Armenian and Azeri perceptions

over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Chapter 6

covers the emergence of the Karabakh national move-

ment, and how nationalist intellectuals in Armenia and

Azerbaijan used ethnicity and nationalism as political

tools to mobilise their communities for the Nagorno-

Karabakh cause, in light of Gorbachev’s policies of

perestroika (economic restructuring) and glasnost (open-

ness). The final chapter examines how the Karabakh

movement became secessionist in 1989, and the four

stages of war (1992–4).

One might question the objectivity of some of the

sources used in this book, but the overall argument

sounds reasonable, and with no major anomalies. The

book is well written and I recommend it to anyone who

is interested not only in the history of Nagorno-

Karabakh, but also in how ethnicity and nationalism

shape conflict.

Perparim Gutaj(University of Utah)

The Routledge Handbook of Modern Turkey by

Metin Heper and Sabri Sayari (eds). Abingdon:

Routledge, 2012. 416pp., £140.00, ISBN 978-

0415558174

In order to create an awareness of recent developments

and debates, handbooks and companions are beneficial

and illuminating as well as offering a definitive path-

finder role with regard to case studies. Heper and

Sayari’s edited volume The Routledge Handbook ofModern Turkey responds to the growing interest in

Turkey – a country that represents a unique example

both in Europe and in the Middle East. The Handbookis composed of six parts, each of which has been

selected to present various aspects of the Turkish case,

and each part in turn includes chapters providing sat-

isfactory overviews of sub-topics.

First, a strong set of scholars provide an overview of

Turkish history from the early Ottoman period to the

Republic. This chronologically ordered part accom-

modates the Ottoman legacy of modern Turkey. In

the second part the cultural aspect of Turkish society

is presented around seven sub-topics: cinema, litera-

ture, fine arts, music, architecture, the media and tele-

vision are all evaluated in this section, while the

BOOK REVIEWS 479


impact of Islam is studied as an overarching determi-

nant. A political overview is provided in the third

part, which occupies the very heart of volume and is

composed of eleven chapters that consider a number

of important topics, from the Kurdish question to the

European Union and from civil-military relations to

the secular-religious divide. Although some important

dimensions such as the role of leftist movements are

missing, this section covers particular facets of Turkish

politics generally satisfactorily. The fourth section

analyses constituents of Turkish society, from women

and youth to minorities and the impact of urbanism

and cities. Turkey’s spatial context is assessed in the

fifth part, which looks at the environmental and

demographic aspect. Finally, four chapters in the

sixth part review Turkey’s economic development.

Although the most significant feature of post-1980

Turkey has been economic neoliberalisation, this

section does not so much introduce as outline the

recent restructuring. In comparison with the other

parts of the book, this section on the economy pro-

vides the least satisfactory chapters.

All in all, The Routledge Handbook of Modern Turkeyis a promising guidebook, which will serve as a major

reference for scholars interested in the Turkish case

within sub-disciplines. Sayari points out in the intro-

duction that the Turkish case represents a falsifying

model against the arguments concerning the incompat-

ibility of Islam and democracy (p. 1). The Weberian

understanding of the patrimonial state, the centre-

periphery model and the strong state thesis occupy the

epistemological position of this volume. The greatest

shortcoming of the book is that it does not provide

any critical voice, and thus it gives a one-dimensional

overview.

Görkem Altinörs(University of Nottingham)

Ashes of Hama: The Muslim Brotherhood in

Syria by Raphaël Lefèvre. London: C. Hurst, 2013.

288pp., £30.00, ISBN 978 1849042857

Syria’s Islamist movement has played a crucial role in

politics at three moments: as a party in the elections of

the late 1940s; as a challenger to the Ba’th Party-led

regime from 1976 to 1982; and as a component of the

coalition that opposes the Ba’thi regime today.

Raphaël Lefèvre provides a synthesis of scholarship on

all three episodes, supplemented by extensive inter-

views with members of the Muslim Brotherhood and

material from British and American archives. The nar-

rative highlights subtleties in the movement’s platform

that predispose the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood –

unlike, say, its Egyptian counterpart – to operate

within liberal-democratic institutions. As I have also

noted,1 Lefèvre sees the armed struggle of the late

1970s as an aberration, which continues to resist

adequate explanation.

Parts of the tale that have not been told before

seem tentative and unpolished. Lefèvre asserts that

after Syria’s Islamists were routed at Hama, survivors

took their resentment and experience to Afghanistan,

where they contributed to the emergence of

al-Qa’eda. How this happened remains vague: Abu

Musab al-Suri came from Syria, along with a number

of other fighters, but the text falls back on Brynjar

Lin for the claim that ‘even if they were numerically

few, they still played an important role’ in the new

organisation (p. 143). Others settled in Jordan or Iraq,

and split into rival factions. The basis for the rivalry is

unclear. Lefèvre reports unconvincingly that the

Jordan faction came from Aleppo, whereas the Iraq

group originated in Hama, so the conflict arose from

‘cultural’ differences between Halabis, who ‘engage in

politics in a business-like manner, favouring pragmatic

compromises to rigid ideology’, and Hamawis, whose

‘tribal structure and harsh socio-geographical sur-

roundings’ engender ‘tough, conservative [sic] policies’

(p. 167).

If Part II (‘The Islamic Opposition to Ba’athism

[1963–1982]’) and Part III (‘The Rise of Jihadism in

Late 1970s Syria [1963–1982]’) had been amalgamated

into a more cogent and less repetitive account, there

would have been space to elaborate developments in

the Germany- and London-based mainstream branches

of the Muslim Brotherhood over the past two decades.

Struggles involving these branches set the stage for the

movement’s belated and tentative response to the 2011

uprising, and might explain the absence of linkages

between the external leadership and internal activists.

The fragment of this story at the end of the chapter on

the uprising (pp. 198–200) leaves readers hungry for

more.

Fred H. Lawson(Mills College, Oakland, California)

480 OTHER AREAS


Note1 F. H. Lawson (2010) ‘Explaining Shifts in Syria’s Islamist

Opposition’, in H. Albrecht (ed.), Contentious Politics in theMiddle East: Political Opposition under Authoritarianism.Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.

Occupying Syria under the French Mandate:

Insurgency, Space and State Formation by

Daniel Neep. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2013. 241pp., £65.00, ISBN 978 1107000063

In Occupying Syria under the French Mandate, Daniel Neep

revisits a critical juncture in modern Middle Eastern

history and investigates the mechanisms of power, vio-

lence and governance that shaped the French-Syrian

relationship during the Mandate years. While the book’s

analytical parameters are set within a specific geographi-

cal and temporal boundary (French Mandate Syria,

1920–46), the argument’s significance exceeds the limi-

tations of a historical area study and holds wider impli-

cations for social theory. By retracing the tumultuous

reign of French colonial administration in Syria, the

book demonstrates that the process of colonial state

formation entailed the complete transformation of

Syrian society after the image of modern European

‘civilisation’, but also that the material and ideational

frameworks of modernity espoused by the French were

pursued via the perpetual use of a matrix of violent

practices. Accordingly, Neep maintains that violence

should be understood as constitutive of modernity,

rather than representing an externality borne of archaic

traditions or pre-modern social relations.

Built upon ‘an ethnographically informed, post-

Foucauldian perspective’ (p. 3), the original research is

supported by a rich use of textual material in Arabic,

French and English, including ‘evidence from archives,

official publications, memoirs and contemporary

observers’ (p. 5). Neep carefully dissects a plethora of

what may easily be read as mundane administrative

minutiae and recasts them as symptomatic practices of

a colonial rule bent on pursuing ‘the development of a

form of modern civilisation’ in occupied Syria (p. 60).

The methods with which the colonial authority

attempted to reshape Syria are delineated through the

examination of military practices and public policies of

urban governance and health regulation.

Neep’s reading of unearthed archival sources not

only provides an original reinterpretation of the modusoperandi of French colonial rule in Syria, but also por-

trays a set of complex, interwoven relationships and

practices: a picture much more convoluted than the

neat postulations of many theoretical frameworks. The

incisive discussion of Foucault’s key terminology on

gouvernementalité and sécurité reveals the limitations of a

Foucauldian operationalisation in a colonial context.

The book further demonstrates that ‘Eurocentric

notions of linear progression from a state of violence

to a state of liberal government’ (p. 16) permeating

much mainstream historiography and social theory are

also latent in ostensibly more critical strands such as

post-structuralism.

Combining an impressively constructed historical

analysis with a fresh conceptual framework, this book

is a timely and important contribution to the historical

sociology literature. It will be of utmost interest to

scholars and students of French social theory and post-

colonial theory.

Cemal Burak Tansel(University of Nottingham)

Women, Power and Politics in 21st Century Iran

by Tara Povey and Elaheh Rostami-Povey (eds).


4094 0204 6

Tracing the political history of Iran before and after the

1979 revolution using a feminist approach, Women,Power and Politics in 21st Century Iran provides an

account of the struggles of Iranian women’s contribu-

tions to the democracy of their country. The book

challenges masculine stereotypical perceptions of

women and the attempt to impose patriarchal views of

society on women under the guise of Islamic theories.

The authors insist that such attitudes are not necessarily

supported by the Qur’an, which provides for equal

opportunities for men and women; rather, these views

are based on methodological interpretations by Islamic

teachers with regard to women. Contributors analyse

the various debates between women and Islamic clerics

on what constitutes a woman and mankind, and how

different leaders have engaged with these views at dif-

ferent times. The authors demonstrate how the views of

pragmatic and hardline conservative versus reformist

leaders and women’s groups have shaped the recogni-

tion and contributions of women in Iran, always

keeping in mind the provisions of Islam on the status of

women.

BOOK REVIEWS 481


The various authors successfully counter Western

perceptions of Middle Eastern women as being back-

ward and enslaved by Islam, analysing their empirical

evidence in chapters that consider the boom in

women’s education (Khadijah Aryan), the construction

of cultural identities and becoming visible through art

(Mehri Honarbin-Holliday), women and employment

(Zahra Nejadbahram), gender roles in the media (Lily

Farhadpour), women in the judiciary (Jamileh Kadivar)

and women in parliament (Elaheh Koolaee). They

demonstrate Iranian women’s achievements alongside

the challenges within the context of Islam, while cri-

tiquing aspects of domination within some theories of

gender and Islam. Contributing meaningfully to global

debates on women’s role in decision making, the

authors refer particularly to Western media, politicians

and some academics. They challenge views employing

the terms ‘West’ or ‘Middle East’, positing ‘that neither

is ahistorical, timeless or unproblematic’ (p. 1). Rather,

Iranian women have evolved politically and socio-

economically, and now contribute meaningfully to

Iranian democracy.

Impressively, the contributors portray how

women’s achievements have changed the perceptions

of some Islamic countries within the region, moti-

vating the inclusion of women in aspects of govern-

ance. Women, Power and Politics in 21st Century Iranprovides an informative insight on the factual status

of women in Iran and shows that this is not very

different from the challenges facing women around

the world with regard to religion and patriarchal

suppression. The book thus debunks Western views

of Middle Eastern women in particular and provides

a conclusive view that Islamic and Western concep-

tions of feminism can draw lessons from each other.

Providing a conclusive view, Tara Povey posits that

doing so would establish a global vision of feminism

useful to all in the struggle for their identities and

those of their communities.

Patience Bentu(Swansea University)






Intervention, Ethnic Conflict and State-Building

in Iraq: A Paradigm for the Post-Colonial State

by Michael Rear. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012.

280pp., £26.00, ISBN 978 0 415 54150 3

This single case study aims ‘to develop and test a theory

which seeks to integrate the phenomenon of ethnicity/

ethnic conflict, state-building and external intervention’

(i.e. UN-authorised military-humanitarian interven-

tion) in post-colonial states in the post-Cold War era (p.

3). It focuses on the uprisings in Iraq in the spring of

1991, their subsequent repression, and the UN-backed

coalition of states’ response to these events. The

purpose is to demonstrate ‘the relationship between

intervention in ethnic conflicts and the state-building

process’ (p. 214).

The case study mainly confirms the proposed thesis,

which is that external intervention in ethnic conflict

interferes with statebuilding processes ‘by preserving

artificial state boundaries and preventing the forcible

consolidation of state boundaries’ (p. 225). However,

the study’s findings also reveal a ‘muddled picture’ with

respect to the Iraqi case. The long-term intervention

had complex outcomes: it became a source of political

uncertainty and instability in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan

region. This is because the coalition states insisted on a

de facto autonomous Kurdistan region remaining part of

the Iraqi state while, at the same time, ‘refusing to allow

either the regime in Bagdad or the autonomous Kurdi-

stan Regional Government to exercise full sovereignty

over this area’ (p. 215). Although the Iraqi government

retained ‘de jure sovereignty’ over the Kurdistan region,

intervention in the shape of long-term humanitarian

assistance and the establishment of a northern no-fly

zone effectively prevented the Iraqi government from

exercising control in that region (p. 215).

The author’s realist approach to statebuilding pro-

cesses and critical analysis of Iraq’s political history

enable him to identify some key ethno-political (inter-

nal) and geopolitical (regional) factors that have

impeded the successful consolidation of the Iraqi state

since its creation by Britain in the early 1920s.

However, the study’s excessive focus on the conflictual

dimension of intercommunal interactions within post-

colonial states leads it to overlook the positive out-

comes which Iraq’s federal experience have achieved

so far – e.g. the peaceful coexistence of, and growing

cooperative relations between, the governments of

482 OTHER AREAS


Iraq and Kurdistan. This leaves ample room for

counter-arguments.

Nevertheless, by focusing on communities, the study

provides a view of Iraq’s ethno-political realities that

overcomes the limitations of official histographies and

their tendency to recount post-colonial state develop-

ment from the perspective of politically dominant

ethnic/sectarian communities. This helps students of

Middle East politics to understand better the historical

roots of contemporary challenges to statebuilding pro-

cesses and UN-led peace keeping operations/

humanitarian-military interventions in post-colonial

states in general, and in Middle Eastern states in

particular.

Ismail Erdem(Royal Holloway, University of London)






BOOK REVIEWS 483


Coltan by Michael Nest. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011. 220pp., £12.99, ISBN 9780745649320

Documents

Transcript of Coltan by Michael Nest. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011. 220pp., £12.99, ISBN 9780745649320