Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions

, Vol. 20, No. 1,January 2007 (pp. 145–157). © 2007 The AuthorsJournal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing, 350 Main St., Malden, MA 02148, USA,and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK. ISSN 0952-1895

Blackwell Publishing Ltd.Oxford, UK and Malden, USAGOVEGovernance0952-18952007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.January 2007201145157Book Reviews

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Book Reviews

Governance in Contemporary Germany: The Semisovereign State Revisited

. SimonGreen and William E. Paterson, eds. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,2005. 350 pp. $34.99 (paper), $75.00 (cloth).

Peter Katzenstein’s 1987 landmark analysis of West Germany’s “semi-sovereign state” explains the seeming paradox of centralized societalstructures and decentralized state institutions. Their successful meshingwithin the policy process, he argues, was because of the effects of threedistinctive modes of intermediary politics. A consensual party system,cooperative federalism and para-public entities combined to facilitate apostwar domestic governance distinguished by conflict moderation andincrementalist decision making. The model was also conducive to achiev-ing Germany’s postwar economic miracle and to establishing a system ofrelative social justice. Katzenstein’s work has left an indelible imprint onthe thinking of all those who regularly observe the workings of modernpolitical systems.

However, because today’s united Germany occupies a different spaceand operates under new constraints, we need to know whether or notKatzenstein’s model has retained its explanatory powers. If its relevancehas receded, is this a consequence of unification itself or of a downslidein economic performance? Are the dynamics of change to be found inter-nally or externally? With such themes in mind, the editors of this volumehave recruited 12 leading scholars of German politics to take up thechallenge of addressing the persisting significance of the “semi-sovereignstate.” Katzenstein himself has contributed an important concluding chap-ter. The chapters can be divided roughly between those that deal primarilywith institutional dimensions and those that deal with policy sectors.

The institutionally focused chapters by Wade Jacoby, Charlie Jeffery,Andreas Busch, and Klaus Goetz include much insightful analysis. Theysuggest that new political dynamics may be at odds with traditionalmodes of consensual conflict resolution. They particularly point to howveto politics and divided government have eroded previously successfulincrementalism. Charlie Jeffery examines the federal question by notingthat unification has created a more regionally diverse society with morecomplex patterns party representation. Given the power of the Bundesrat,this has made veto politics more likely. The extent to which gridlock hasoccurred is open to debate, but it is clear that slowdowns in the policyprocess have led many to sense an urgency of reform in the federal order.Relatedly, Thomas Saalfeld uses a veto player framework to explain how

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party politics have influenced incrementalist outcomes. Klaus Goetz, inexplaining the institutional role of elite

Beamten

, points to “lean-state”downsizing as a factor in altering semi-sovereignty. Andreas Buschaddresses the crucial buffer function of para-public institutions, anothernotion central to Katzenstein’s thinking, and inquires into the implica-tions of the weakening of such shock absorbers.

As was true in the original work, policy-focused chapters—in thisvolume contributed by Simon Green, Charlie Lees, Roland Czada, Ken-neth Dyson, Wolfgang Streeck, and William Paterson—provide contextsin which to evaluate propositions essential to Katzenstein’s framework.Simon Green’s analysis of the politics of immigration involves a policydomain under stress by virtue of Germany’s traditional nonrecognitionof its own immigration reality and by the unexpected waves of immigra-tion with the end of east–west division and turmoil in southeasternEurope. Green demonstrates how Germany has responded and what thismay tell us about the persisting validity of Katzenstein’s framework.Roland Czada highlights the emerging crisis in Germany’s generous wel-fare state and the unresolved conflicts over it. Although the welfare statemay have shifted away from the stable conditions of the 1980s, manyaspects of Katzenstein’s interpretation remain valid.

No policy sector is more central to Katzenstein’s interpretation than inindustrial relations, and Wolfgang Streeck brilliantly addresses core prop-ositions in light of German industrial relations in the post-unification era.Kenneth Dyson provides a lucid analysis of fundamental economic issuesfacing the new Germany. From the postwar roots of the social marketeconomy, he delineates fundamental processes of economic change foundin technological advances, Europeanization, and globalization, all ofwhich have challenged Germany’s traditional policy paradigm. WilliamPaterson, in pointing to the external meanings of semi-sovereignty andthe extent to which it might persist even after attainment of full sover-eignty in 1990, demonstrates why these changes must be viewed withinthe broader processes of Germany’s normalization of external influencethrough Europeanization and globalization.

Obviously, the Germany of 2006 is not the Germany of 1987. Newchallenges and unresolved tensions have meant the erosion of policycontrol and autonomy. As many of these chapters indicate, we can see notonly how incrementalism may have given way to gridlock but also howstructural reforms, however hesitantly, may be creeping slowly forward.Katzenstein’s concluding discussion highlights the central questionsinherent in the semi-sovereignty debate, which derive from the rebalanc-ing of political, social, and economic dynamics in a now unified Germany.Given the depth and insights found in the varied contributions, thiscollection will serve to inform our perspectives on German politics andpolicy for many years to come.

WILLIAM M. CHANDLER,

University of California

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Foreign Flowers: Institutional Transfer and Good Governance in the Pacific Islands

. PeterLarmour. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005. 232 pp. $22.00 (paper),$54.00 (cloth).

Peter Larmour’s book asks intriguing questions about governance in thePacific island states: how have institutions been developed (before andafter independence); where have they come from; and what impact havethey had on the functioning of the state? Most governing institutions inthe region have been borrowed, transplanted, or imposed by colonial rule.Almost all have been based on Western models, typically those of thecolonizing power. Here, this has usually meant from the United Kingdom,directly or indirectly. Although Larmour refers to many Pacific islandstates, the key case studies usually come from the larger Melanesian states(Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu), hence, minimalattention is given to either French territories or (former) American terri-tories, limiting the scope for some comparisons.

The early chapters emphasize that institutional transfer is a persistentissue in the Pacific, reflected in early ideas such as cargo cults (and alsocricket). But whereas cargo cults and cricket syncretized local and distantvalues, many states took on board wholly alien constitutions and evenland tenure systems that proved to be quite inappropriate for local cir-cumstances. Larmour points out that such inappropriate institutions playsome part in the more recent emergence of “weak states” in the region(and even perhaps “failed states” in the cases of Nauru and the SolomonIslands). However, he gives surprisingly little space to any account of theeconomies of the island states, although it is evident that small, remote,multi-island states with few resources are substantially compromised intheir efforts to achieve development, however defined, irrespective of theadequacy of their institutions or their governance. Larmour never men-tions the words scale, size, or poverty.

The core of the book is an analysis of some 40 cases of institutionaltransfer, many centered on land issues, going back to Tonga’s absorptionof foreign institutions in the mid-nineteenth century—giving it a uniqueland tenure system—and ending with contemporary attempts to induceisland states to regulate often illegal offshore finance centers. The fivecentral themes are land registration, constitutionalism, representativedemocracy, public sector reform, and anti-corruption. Larmour examinesthe factors that determined whether or not transfer took place, such astiming, social conditions, and sympathy with local values.

The key conclusions are as complex as the Pacific region. Transferswere direct and indirect, coercive, mimetic, and normative. They rarelytook note of earlier failures as new waves of politicians, bureaucrats,consultants, and alien institutions passed by. Much rhetoric on the partof both locals and outsiders was directed to supposedly utopian pastswhen corruption was absent. Even more fundamentally, in many cases,states were essentially established during the last great global wave ofdecolonization just as Western governments and international organiza-

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tions were turning against the state in favor of the private sector. Globalinstitutions, in distant metropolitan capitals, tended to embrace a “onesize fits all” mentality that fell on limited and stony ground. Structuressuch as constitutions, land registration, and electoral democracy survivedbut without any local ideology to support them, while elements of aparallel state, best expressed through the various Councils of Chiefs, anintriguing invention of colonial and postcolonial times, added complexityto the practice of governance.

While Larmour treads confidently through a wealth of information andcomparative studies—and indeed he has been a participant in severalinstitutional transfers in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Van-uatu—at times, this approach poses a disadvantage. Even Pacific“experts” will be challenged by the unfamiliar fragmentations and juxta-positions, and the book will be challenging for those with little familiaritywith this island realm. A map, and some hint of comparative populationsizes, areas, and economies would have been invaluable, particularly ina region where some small states are entirely dependent on aid andremittances and others have a different future as producers of mineralsand agricultural goods, or as tourist destinations. It is a shame too thatthere is no room for any mention of Keith Hart’s seminal 1974 piece “AModel of Development to Avoid” that, on the eve of Papua New Guineanindependence, warned against the kinds of transfers that had alreadyproduced negative impacts in Africa and most of which later came tocharacterize the Pacific.

Equally remarkable is the fact that ethnicity takes a backseat in muchof the book, although it has played at least a partial role in two of thegreatest recent contemporary constitutional challenges: the struggle forindependence in Bougainville and the devastating civil disturbances inSolomon Islands. Secessionism, federalism, and decentralization are cru-cial issues in several contexts and reflect some of the most importanttranspositions of all: the role of colonial mapping pens in outlining thesometimes idiosyncratic borders of what are now modern nations. Thelimited social cohesion that this often entailed, especially as most statesachieved independence without the kind of struggle that might havecontributed to notions of national unity, has been critical in the success,or often otherwise, of other imposed institutions. Curiously too, there islittle on capitalism and Christianity—surely the most successful trans-plants—however superficial, both may be at particular times and in par-ticular places, or on education, another key to successful institutionaltransfer.

Larmour, therefore, gets us part of the way, and does it extremely well,creating the authoritative account of institutional transfer. His work willbe a valuable text for governance courses as it clearly explains the flawsin the transfer from rich world to poor world of more recent globalinstitutions of public regulation, law, and governmental accountability, asorganizations embedded in alien cultures and contexts make little head-

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way. A more comprehensive understanding of the roots of the problemsof institutional transfer, and thus of failed states, requires a deeper anal-ysis of both economics and culture—where cultures are both socially andgeographically complex—and thus of the manner in which globalizationhas enveloped small island states. This is a very valuable stepping-stoneon the route.

JOHN CONNELL,

University of Sydney

The Green State and the Global Ecological Crisis

. John Barry and Robyn Eckersley,eds. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005. 307 pp. $27.50 (paper).

The editors of this timely and provocative volume want to get a messageacross: those environmentalists that have written off the state as a vehiclefor turning the Earth back on a sustainable course should reconsider theirview. Admittedly, states differ in terms of ecological potential, but theydo share a common feature that places them above other alternatives.Only states can, at once, legitimately represent the people within theirterritory and legitimately enter into agreements committing them toimplement treaties negotiated within the international community tomeet the global ecological challenge.

The volume is built around two themes. The first part focuses on thedomestic ecological performance and capacity of states. The chapter byJames Meadowcroft points to the lessons from the modern social welfarestate. One should expect also the ecological state to be moving in fits andadaptations, and perhaps never be fully greened from within. Chapterson how to characterize the “green” state, and what lessons can be drawnfrom the comparative history of environmental politics over the last fewdecades are valuable complements to this guarded view of states’ domes-tic ecological capacity. Furthermore, the chapters on how the United King-dom and the United States have dealt with environmental issues withina framework of economic liberalism show how policies and practices ofdeveloped states run the risk of becoming “ecologically contradictory.”

The second part deals with states and their role in transnational eco-logical governance. The possibilities of greening the state from withoutare assessed from different angles. Robyn Eckersley asks what happenswhen states emerge more and more as inclusionary implementers ofcommon ecological “goods” and less as exclusionary sovereignties. JohnVogler points to how international cooperation diffuses norms aboutgood behavior and may raise ecological performance among states. KenConca asserts that transnationalization is already happening throughhybrid forms of large-scale, transboundary ecosystem management. Butwhere do such forms leave the ecological citizen seeking transparencyand accountability? Tim Hayward discusses what would happen to theEU policy of “harmonization”—down from the top and up from thebottom in terms of ecological performance—if EU citizens were to have

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constitutionally entrenched environmental citizen rights. Steven Slaugh-ter argues for the republican state: committed to the common good ofnondomination, such a state, he argues, is better able than the neoliberalstate—which is preoccupied with securing property rights, and thus pro-motes domination—to secure sustainable development.

In the final chapter, the editors argue that while there has been progressin states’ ecological performance, there remains “unevenness in environ-mental policy development.” Overall, “democracy is good for the envi-ronment as well as for governance,” although smaller and poorerdeveloping states are doubly plagued, both by their lack of domesticresources to tackle even fundamental health, welfare, and security prob-lems of their citizens, and by their being “locked in” by a globalizedeconomic structure. Ending on a cautionary note, the editors argue that“no positive change within the state (toward the green side) can be takenfor granted.”

One must agree. If we look around the world, we find that the tencountries with the largest populations are all environmentally “rogue”states, the United States included. Add to this the fact that five of theseten states are among the ten largest countries in terms of territory overwhich they have sovereignty (Russia, China, the United States, Brazil, andIndia). Furthermore, most of the states with sovereignty over the greenbelt around the globe have not exactly occupied center stage in ecologicalperformance. The volume’s chapter on the Philippines, for instance, con-firms the lingering inadequacy of dealing effectively with naturalresource management.

It is a merit of this volume that it provokes the reader to begin pon-dering over what it really takes for states to get over to the green side.That democracies do better is one thing. But the democratic and thesocioeconomic welfare states, as we know them, have taken very long incoming. Despite their reputation for “quality of government,” they stillhave problems and even shortcomings. What are the prospects of shiftingfrom the “grey” to the “green” state as a dominant species, particularlyin a time when most of the states governing the largest territories andpopulations seem bent on rapid economic growth while lacking in termsof the institutions crucially instrumental to such a green shift?

LENNART J. LUNDQVIST,

Göteborg University

States and Development: Historical Antecedents of Stagnation and Advance

. MatthewLange and Dietrich Reuschemeyer, eds. New York: Palgrave-McMillan Press,2005. 288 pp. $24.95 (paper), $75.00 (cloth).

World wealth has grown exponentially since the industrial revolution inthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Yet, its uneven creationand distribution suggest that this wealth is not the by-product of naturaland linear processes but instead messy and tangled individual choices.

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What shapes these choices? The new edited volume by Matthew Langeand Dietrich Rueschemeyer,

States and Development

, begins with theassumption that states and politics do as much, to shape choices, asmarkets do. But instead of simply evaluating the impact of state andmarket institutions on economic growth, the contributing authors extendthe development discussion in three important ways. First, they explorethe endogenous interaction between state and market institutions and itseffects on economic outcomes. Second, they employ a self-consciouslyhistorical and comparative methodological analysis that makes possibleseveral, albeit tentative, conclusions. Finally, and perhaps most impor-tantly, they offer explanations for the origins of state institutions

and

howthose institutions change over time, from patrimonial to proto-bureau-cratic to developmental configurations.

The first two authors in the volume, Peter Evans and Matthew Lange,address the question of how states interact with other social institutionsto influence economic development. Evans argues that productiveeconomic capacity is generated through “hybridity,” a combination ofbureaucratic controls, market discipline, and democracy. Lange, on theother hand, argues that productive capacity is the outcome of coordina-tion both within the state and between the state and key economic actorsfostered by strong legal institutions. Neither argument precludes theother and both add significantly to the developmental debate by uncov-ering important synergies and balance among institutional configurationswhile recognizing the negative potential of imbalance or malformed con-nections based on market-dominated or clientelistic relationships. How-ever, it is unclear whether or not “hybridity” or legal structures are evennecessary components for development, let alone sufficient. Certainly,there is variation in economic outcomes among well-balanced states withstrong legal foundations. To answer questions of necessity or sufficiency,one would need to understand exactly

how

different institutional struc-tures or coordination patterns interact to produce growth. For example,does democracy ensure that market and bureaucratic mechanisms do notfacilitate unequal distribution? If so, then participation and not democ-racy may be the key variable, where participation might be fosteredthrough other institutional mechanisms. Likewise, can cooperation befacilitated in ways other than legal institutions, perhaps, for example,through social capital? Finally, how do we know that the causal directionis not reversed from economic efficiency to hybridity or legal founda-tions? Even if the starting point were correct, it would be hard to deny astrong endogenous relationship.

The next three authors use detailed comparative historical analysis toaddress the question of whether or not early patterns of state buildinghad an impact on developmental capacity. Areendam Chanda and LouisPutterman argue that countries with longer state histories grew fasterfrom 1960 on than did newer states. Interestingly, however, older statesare not necessarily richer. Nor are their state institutions of better quality.

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Ultimately, confusing causal implications offset the advantage of quanti-tatively assessed historical antecedents to growth. Why would ancientstate structures affect growth but not income levels? How does oneexplain newer states such as the Philippines with weak state institutionsthough experiencing rapid growth? How can the age of a state and eco-nomic growth be causally connected if the age of the state is not relatedto the quality of its institutions?

James Mahoney and Matthias vom Hau, and Matthew Lange tacklesome of these more difficult relationships between the state and economicgrowth by assessing the historical role of colonialism. Mahoney and vomHau argue that the more centralized states of Spain’s colonial empiredeveloped more slowly than did the peripheral, less important economiccolonies. Lange, on the other hand, argues that in British colonies, it wasthe directly ruled colonies, which were also the more centralized andeconomically important, that were more successful than the indirectlyand less economically important colonies. At first glance, these findingsappear contradictory. But in fact, they provide useful comparative insightinto varied experiences of colonization, making it difficult to draw blanketconclusions about the impact, positive or negative, of colonial control. Inaddition, both articles clearly show that colonial territories do not alwaysreflect the institutional structure of the colonizer. At the same time, bothauthors miss the opportunity to reflect on the way economic preferencesmay have driven colonization. For example, perhaps the nature of extrac-tive industries in the Spanish empire shaped certain institutional struc-tures while the trading industries of the British led to others. Furthermore,although statistical significance in Lange’s quantitative evaluation sug-gests that colonial state institutions resulted in lasting economic andsocial trajectories, substantive significance derived from the fit of themodel suggests equally strongly that after independence, colonizationexplained less and less of the total variation in these same social andeconomic outcomes.

The final, and largest section, explains the origins of state institutions.Dietrich Rueschemeyer’s key finding is that state formation involves aprocess shaped by norms, which are in turn shaped by institutions in anongoing endogenous process. Focusing on norms and ideas makes clearthe importance of conflict and opposition, which helps explain whyadopting new ideas and changing norms takes an extremely long time.Thomas Ertman, Jaime Becker and Jack Goldstone, and Bruce Cumingsmodify Rueschemeyer’s argument slightly by noting that many of thechanges in state structure happen suddenly, sometimes by revolution,internal conflict and external forces followed by longer periods of consol-idation and stasis. Moreover, even though critical junctures might facili-tate rapid change, the very opportunity for change often relies onprevious institutions and capacities, which often take long periods toemerge. Although convincing on many fronts, whether or not the argu-ments are truly generalizable is not clear as a result of the ambiguity of

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the definition of long. Is 25–30 years, which Rueschemeyer suggests is thecutoff for long, really a long time? The terminology used in the differentchapters is also confusing, with some authors arguing that “rapid” changehappened within 30–50 years. Admittedly, the “ingredients” for changemay have taken a long time to form, remaining dormant until conditionswere right. But it is also unclear which of these antecedent conditions isnecessary and how long it might take to create them in the first place.

To sum up, this book makes important theoretical, methodological, andempirical contributions to the study of states and development. It takesseriously the difficult question of institutional origins and operation whilemaintaining a focus on methodological control. It recognizes the messi-ness of explaining economic development as a nonlinear, path-dependent,complicated process shaped in many ways by external and sometimeserendipitous (and therefore uncontrollable) forces. Yet, it is also able tocome to several conclusions: the detrimental role of patrimonialism, theimportance of history, and the influence of interests and ideas on the stateand vice versa. In addition, the book attempts to draw out the policyimplications of its findings. Still, these strengths are tempered by anunclear overall objective, despite a laudable willingness to tackle theentire causal chain. Multiple dependent and independent variables makeit easy to lose sight of the bigger objectives. Definitions are fuzzy acrosscontributions, especially with respect to time. Equally troubling is theabsence of any discussion on the interaction of state capacity and devel-opment tasks, particularly in the current knowledge-intensive era ofindustrial growth.

BRYAN RITCHIE,

Michigan State University

The Global Public Management Revolution, 2nd Edition

. Donald F. Kettl. Washington,DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2005. 108 pp. $17.95 (paper).

The second edition of Kettl’s book,

The Global Public Management Revolu-tion

, is “an effort to capture the living nature of government reform” (viii),although the new edition returns to the succinct argument made in theprevious volume. Stated simply, management reform is not fundamen-tally about management. Peeling back the surface of the reform initiatives,Kettl discovers the deeper layer of political reform that involves an essen-tial reconceptualization of the relationship between government and civilsociety. Highly readable and engaging, Kettl’s work is accessible for ageneral audience and provides a solid foundation for those wishing togain insight into the drivers and direction of the global public manage-ment reform movement. Moreover, Kettl provides a series of poignantobservations and raises critical questions that government officials, poli-cymakers, academics, and citizens would be remiss to ignore.

Kettl bases his argument on three chief observations drawn from theshifting relations between government and civil society over the past

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three decades. First, management reform has undeniably swept aroundthe world as evidenced by changes in consolidated democracies, devel-oping democracies, and even authoritarian states such as China. Second,despite its breadth in radically different political settings, the movementis based on six core components shared in common: productivity, mar-ketization, service orientation, decentralization, policy, and accountabil-ity. Third, these reforms are pushed by a variety of factors includingeconomic crises, political questions regarding the role of government,expanded expectations of citizens that their governments simultaneouslydo more while costing less, and institutional challenges stemming fromthe rise of supranational structures and nongovernmental organizationsinvolved both in political debates and service delivery. These factors,according to Kettl, capture the pressing tests facing governments in thetwenty-first century, and to face them, governments have opted to pursuean agenda of management reform.

In the first edition, Kettl offered a classification of two general types ofmanagement reform—Westminster and American—while alluding to athird, or hybrid, approach initiated by the Nordic countries. In the newedition, this typology is expanded with Kettl fleshing out in further detailthe characteristics and distinguishing features of the three models. TheWestminster reform strategy redefined what government ought to do andsubsequently reduced the size and scope of government through exten-sive privatizations and contracting out of services to nongovernmentalorganizations. In addition, the reforms involved new innovations in theprocess of budgetary planning, shifting from cash-based accounting sys-tems to accrual accounting, and forcing government officials to confrontthe full cost of their decisions as they are made (46). The American strat-egy was one of incremental reforms that sought cheaper, more effectivegovernment without shrinking the scope of government activities (20).Considering the paucity of government intervention in the United States,it is no wonder that reducing the scope of government was politicallyunpalatable to the government and citizenry alike. The hybrid approachgenerally involved the Westminster shift to accrual financing while main-taining the size and scope of government that the country was accus-tomed to (43).

The book illuminates a series of key challenges that have arisen fromthe global management reform movement. Policy makers and govern-ment officials must now face the task not only of developing effectivemeasures to evaluate the impact of these reforms, but also of determiningwhat to do with the units that fail to achieve tangible and positive results.For the services that have been contracted out to nongovernmental orga-nizations, watchful eyes are needed to ensure the continued quality ofthese services and facilitate coordination among the new service provid-ers. And finally, despite the emphasis on improving the accountability ofgovernments to the people, many of the reforms have served to blur thelines between bureaucrats and politicians, central and subnational gov-

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ernments, and government and nongovernment organizations. Thechallenges, moreover, are undeniably linked to the larger problem ofaddressing the growing cynicism with which citizens regard their gov-ernments. If unaddressed, despite all their reform efforts, governmentswill continue to experience the increased intensity of citizen disenchant-ment with the management of their state, thus casting long shadows onthe abilities of public officials to produce results.

For those readers looking to the author to provide a definitive endorse-ment for one of the three approaches to reform, they will be disappointed.Kettl’s caution in this area demonstrates a keen sensitivity for the realitiesof modern governance. Rather than advocating a hegemonic approach tomanagement reform, Kettl provides the prudent analysis that the effec-tiveness of reform depends on its fit within the existing institutions andpolitical culture of the country. In so doing, unlike many who envision aglobal convergence toward a single model of public management, Kettlaligns himself with other institutionalists recognizing the undeniableinfluence that factors such as parliamentary versus presidential govern-ment have in facilitating variations in the strategies and tactics selectedby policy makers.

While the strength of the book lies in the classification of the threeapproaches to reform situated within an institutional framework, a moredetailed analysis of the interconnections between the specific institutionalsettings and the pathways taken by reformers would have enhanced thisedition. What are the specific characteristics of Westminster governancethat enabled decision makers in those systems to implement rapid andradical reform? How are the other mixed presidential–parliamentary sys-tems structuring their reform agenda? Does federalism make a differencein options that are available to elected officials? Moreover, since the Nor-dic countries pursued a hybrid and less invasive approach to reform,perhaps culture plays more of a role than Kettl is willing to acknowledge.Nevertheless, Kettl’s analysis is of continued relevance as the public man-agement revolution shows no signs of abating, and the problems that theauthor points to are real. There is little doubt that the management reformis about more than simply management; reconceptualizations betweenthe state and its citizens have occurred.

JENNIFER WALLNER,

University of Toronto

Who Leads Whom? Presidents, Policy, and the Public

. Brandice Canes-Wrone. Chi-cago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. 192 pp. $18.00 (paper), $47.50 (cloth).

The central question raised by Brandice Canes-Wrone’s new book is

underwhich circumstances

does who lead whom? The who and the whom in thequestion are the President of the United States and American public,although not necessarily in that order. According to Canes-Wrone, presi-dents may use their rhetoric to lead the public, or their use of such rhetoric

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may be evidence that they are following public opinion. Thus, leadershipitself is defined as “the extent to which presidents engage in . . . policyleadership” such as pursuing policies they believe “will promote socialwelfare, despite a lack of popular support for doing so” (105). This is theopposite of “policy pandering” whereby presidents follow public opinioneven if they believe that the resulting policy will be detrimental to thepublic interest. The issue of who leads whom is therefore central toanswering a basic question about our nation’s democratic proclivities.Were the founders correct in their fear of the demagogic potential ofpresidential rhetoric or does rhetoric provide a sound basis for promotingresponsible leadership? These are questions at the heart of this interestingbook.

To address these questions, Canes-Wrone identifies two basic theoret-ical frameworks. The first is the “Public Appeals Theory” which positsthat “a president can achieve legislative success by publicizing issues onwhich he wants congressional members to become more responsive tocitizen’s policy preferences” (52). Rather than arguing that presidentshave a broad-based incentive to go public, Canes-Wrone hypothesizesthat the incentives for presidents to use their rhetoric is conditional. As aresult, presidential appeals will be selective and should occur only underspecific circumstances. Presidents will not make rhetorical appeals whenthey can secure success on an issue without an appeal, even though theycould do so and claim credit for the policy success. Rather, on domesticpolicy issues, they will do so when the president’s policy preferencescoincide with those of the public, while Congress’s preferences simulta-neously diverge. One can argue that this circumstance is most likely tooccur during times of divided government when the opposition partycontrols Congress. Canes-Wrone’s analysis provides support for this pos-sibility, although she does not offer it as a central component of hertheoretical framework. On issues related to foreign affairs, presidentshave greater leeway in influencing the public and other policymakersbecause they have greater information advantages. As a result, Canes-Wrone posits that presidents are more likely to make rhetorical appealseven when a policy is not popular.

In addition to determining when presidents are most likely to use theirrhetoric, she also examines whether or not presidents are likely to abusethe bully pulpit for political purposes. Canes-Wrone, therefore, tests apandering thesis. Her hypothesis is that highly popular presidents willnot pander to the public nor will highly unpopular presidents becausethese presidents are more concerned with the success or failure of theirpolicies. They believe they will be rewarded for implementing successfulpolicies, even if these policies are not popular in the short run. Likewise,they will be punished for supporting failed policies, even if they arepopular in the short term. Thus, according to the pandering thesis, pres-idents will pander only if they face three concurrent circumstances: (1)they are a marginally popular or unpopular president, (2) they are an

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incumbent facing imminent reelection, (3) and there is a limited likelihoodthat the public will discover that the policy was not in their interests priorto the election. As with the public appeals model, then, the panderingthesis presents a conditional model of presidential activity. Interestingly,these models tell us not only when presidents are more likely to use theirrhetoric, but also they tell us when presidents are more likely to abuse it.

What distinguishes Canes-Wrone’s work from much of the previousliterature on presidential rhetoric is its quantitative approach. Pastresearch in this area has been historical, anecdotal, or prescriptive, oftenarguing for or against the value of presidential rhetoric, rather than pro-viding an objective analysis of it. Even the quantitative work in this areadiverges from Canes-Wrone. For example, some scholars find that presi-dents are not responsive to the public, at least not on a substantive policylevel. Canes-Wrone argues that they can be responsive, although underthe specific circumstances delineated previously. While the work of othersfocuses on presidents and the economy, Canes-Wrone’s provides an anal-ysis of a broader set of policy issues.

Interestingly, she also examines issues for which the president both didand did not make public appeals, thus avoiding a difficult self-selectionproblem that could bias her results. She examines not only domestic andforeign policy issues, but also a broad subset of each over time, from 1957or the beginning of Eisenhower’s second term to 2000 and the end of theClinton presidency. She chooses 1957 to begin the series because by thattime “78 percent of homes owned a television set . . .” (53). Consequently,presidential rhetoric was accessible to most Americans.

Not surprisingly, her analysis finds strong support for both the PublicAppeals and Pandering Theories, with only a few minor anomalies.Importantly, her analysis confirms that presidential leadership is condi-tional and that presidential use of rhetoric is and should be selective. Also,presidential pandering occurs much less frequently than we might thinkand only under very specific circumstances.

In sum, the book’s findings are interesting and help us to better under-stand both the relationship between presidents and the public, as well asthe nature of presidential rhetoric. This book, then, along with otherrecent quantitative work on presidential rhetoric, helps us to better under-stand how and why presidents use it, the conditions under which it ismost likely to be successful, and those under which it is most likely to beabused.

RICHARD WATERMAN,

University of Kentucky