Domestic Budgets in a United Europe: Fiscal Governance from the End of Bretton Woods to EMU. By Mark Hallerberg. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004. 258p. $39.95.

Why did nearly all European Union member states in the late 1990s succeed in reducing their budget deficits below the necessary 3% threshold in time to join the monetary union, after years of varied success at achieving fiscal discipline? Do the explicit criteria set out by the Treaty of Maastricht and the prospect of participating in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) fully explain the fiscal convergence seen in Europe prior to and immediately following monetary union? These are the questions that concern Mark Hallerberg's book. Rather than crediting the incentive of joining the euro zone, Hallerberg focuses on the domestic sources of fiscal reform since 1973. He argues that the Maastricht criteria were important in certain countries, especially in southern Europe. But to understand why virtually all states achieved a sufficiently low budget deficit to participate in monetary union, one must examine the competitiveness of the party system, the functioning of the electoral system, and the ideological coherence of the governing coalitions in individual countries. Domestic political factors offer a more nuanced, and ultimately more convincing, account of fiscal policy in Europe at the end of the twentieth century.

For the Many or the Few: The Initiative, Public Policy, and American Democracy. By John G. Matsusaka. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004. 206p. $29.00.

In the most recent wave of initiative use in the American states, citizens have passed an eclectic range of ballot measures. Voters have banned gay marriage, punished negligent doctors, prohibited the confinement of pregnant pigs, limited the taxation and spending powers of state governments, funded stem cell research, and ended affirmative action. Critics of the process claim that this plebiscitary system is out of control, with special interests dominating the process and threatening democratic governance. Defenders, in contrast, claim that ballot measure outcomes reflect the will of the people and are certainly more representative of public opinion than legislative bodies.

Procedural Politics: Issues, Influence, and Institutional Choice in the European Union. By Joseph Jupille. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 294p. $80.00.

According to Joseph Jupille, “procedural politics” extracts from the European Union's policymaking process the conflicts and maneuvers regarding which of the EU institutions will have a say in which policy decisions, and how important that say will be. Ordinary procedural politics are of considerable importance, and the case studies the author presents give us an excellent picture of the coalition building and conflict resolution that goes on among the member states' ministers, the Commission officials, and the leaders and committees of the European Parliament. The cases go into considerable depth and display procedural politics in a fascinating variety of forms. Procedural politics among the EU institutions regard how issues are defined in order to be classified according to the varying treaty-defined competences of the Council of Ministers, the Commission, and the European Parliament. But ordinary procedural politics goes on in a time frame that is bounded by new treaty rules as to what procedures will be applicable to what policy issues. In ordinary procedural politics, that is, during periods in between Treaty revisions, the Commission can employ a variety of strategies and tactics to keep Council members on its side or else in conflict with one another short of the point where division means stalemate. As it has gained in power via treaty revisions, the Parliament can be expected to win something from these battles, sometimes on its own, at other times in alliance with the Commission.

Intervention: Shaping the Global Order. By Karen A. Feste. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2003. 304p. $64.95.

Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal, and Political Dilemmas. Edited by J. L. Holzgrefe and Robert O. Keohane. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 362p. $75.00 cloth, $26.99 paper.

To intervene or not to intervene? This question has dominated global politics over the past five years, in regions as diverse as the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Sudan. Yet the question is as old as international relations and is a logical extension of the institution of sovereignty. Indeed, it was with the rise of sovereign states that the notion of an exclusive jurisdiction, free from the meddling of outsiders, came to have normative value. Since that time, as Karen Feste notes, patterns of intervention have shaped the international system, “defining contours of connection between its units, guiding interaction, and creating operational expectations” (p. xiii).

Religion, Civilization, and Civil War: 1945 Through the New Millennium. By Jonathan Fox. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2004. 312p. $75.00.

Jonathan Fox's book makes a very important contribution to the ongoing debate on the impact of religion on domestic conflict. On the one hand, the author takes issue with Samuel Huntington's clash-of-civilizations thesis. As many others before him, Fox does not find much quantitative support for Huntington's bold expectations: We neither experience a major reorganization of international relations along civilizationally defined fault lines nor observe a significant increase in the number of violent disputes involving parties from different civilizations. On the other hand, he objects to those recent studies according to which the onset of civil wars is determined by political and economic factors, while religion is found to be largely irrelevant (see, for instance, James Fearon and David Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” American Political Science Review 97 [no. 1, 2003]: 75–90, or Errol Henderson and David J. Singer, “Civil War in the Post-Colonial World, 1946–92,” Journal of Peace Research 37 [no. 3, 2000]: 275–99). By using data both from the Minorities at Risk Project (MAR) and the State Failure Project (SF), Religion, Civilization, and Civil War provides strong evidence that religious identity—whether the conflict involves two groups who belong to different religions or to different denominations—and, even more so, religious grievances do influence conflict escalation. This can be best studied when the crude distinctions of Huntington are questioned and religious diversity within civilizations is recognized.

Remaking Muslim Politics: Pluralism, Contestation, Democratization. Edited by Robert W. Hefner. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. 408p. $19.95.

The line between popular culture and scholarship has been obscured by the large volume of books and articles dealing with Islam that came out in the United States after September 11. One can see the features of an Islam Industry dominating production (popular, commercial, media, and sometimes academic) on—or against—Islam. The matter is quite important as this has become an issue that transcends mere intellectual pursuits and deals with policy matters and, most importantly, with wars. Pundits now casually speak with glee about a war “within Islam” as if to portray U.S. official roles as marginal or secondary. Amid the plethora of books on Islam, one welcomes with great enthusiasm a serious and sober look at Islam in the political and social realms worldwide. Remaking Muslim Politics was based on an academic conference, and the papers were later collected in a book form.

The Moral Economy of Welfare States: Britain and Germany Compared. By Steffen Mau. New York: Routledge, 2003. 248p. $114.95.

As postwar welfare state accords unraveled in the 1970s, welfare state scholarship grew rapidly, with most scholars aiming to identify the determinants of policy variation and growth. Scholars typically debated the relative roles of economic and demographic factors, political configurations, and national attitudes and preferences. In subsequent decades, many researchers turned their attention from the determinants of welfare state development to the effects of social policies on varied social, economic, and behavioral outcomes. At the same time, a number of scholars moved away from social expenditures as the primary measure of welfare state effort and aimed instead to analyze the institutional features, or the architecture, of public provisions. Furthermore, scholars began to argue that the welfare state's causes and effects were, in fact, multidirectional. Welfare state features shape socioeconomic outcomes, political alliances, and preferences, and in turn are shaped and maintained by their own effects.

Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis. By Paul Pierson. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. 108p. $49.50 cloth, $19.95 paper.

Paul Pierson opens his book with a fictional metaphor in which he imagines “the trendiest new restaurant in town, charmingly named ‘The Modern Social Scientist.’” He invites you to tour the restaurant as “the chef explains that the kitchen is divided into two parts.” On one side, the chef proudly points out the ingredients, called “variables.” On the other side are lovingly arrayed an “extraordinary profusion of measuring devices.” In order to prepare your favorite culinary delight, all the chef need do is combine the correct ingredients, properly measured and calibrated. In this kitchen, the length of time in which the variables are cooked, the order in which the ingredients are combined, and the relative skill of the chef are unimportant to the preparation of the meal. (Later on, the book makes it clear that the specialty of this particular establishment is something called the “multiple regression.”) Pierson concludes this metaphor with the observation that “[f]ew would want to patronize a restaurant with such a philosophy of cooking, but most social scientists are working in that kind of kitchen” (p. 1).

Imagined Economies: The Sources of Russian Regionalism. By Yoshiko M. Herrera. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 318p. $75.00.

In her book Yoshiko Herrera crafts an impressive theoretical argument by first noting and then rectifying an important intellectual inconsistency in contemporary studies of nationalism. While these studies typically view identities as multiple and constructed, they nevertheless tend to treat economic interests as unproblematic and objective. Herrera challenges this assumption by arguing that economic understandings are constructed as well, and that these constructed views of economic interests will affect the relative propensity of substate regions to press for greater autonomy or secession. As she succinctly puts it, “The central argument of this book is that variation in regional activism is explained not by differences in structural economic conditions but by differences in understandings of the economy, which, in particular institutional contexts, resulted in differences in the imagination of economic interests” (p. 11).

European Conquest and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: The Moral Backwardness of International Society. By Paul Keal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 274p. $70.00 cloth, $24.99 paper.

Paul Keal's study of the position that indigenous peoples have occupied in international society is best read as a critical contribution to the work of the “English School” of international relations theory. Members of this school have long had an interest in relationships between European and non-European peoples, usually understanding them in terms of the expansion of the European society of sovereign states. Keal takes this as his starting point, but he criticizes it as “incomplete” because “it has excluded the story of peoples destroyed and dispossessed in the process of expansion” (p. 36). The purpose of his book is to broaden our understanding of the expansion of international society to include those stories, and so invite us to think more critically about the moral value of the society of states.

Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide. By Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 348p. $70.00 cloth, $24.99 paper.

Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart tackle two pressing empirical and theoretical questions about religion and politics: Why have most wealthy countries become less religious, and why have most poor countries become more religious? Their answer will be no surprise to those who have followed Inglehart's research over the years: The socioeconomic and external security conditions in which people grow up strongly affect their propensity to be religious. Those who were socialized during conditions of “existential security” have less need for religion; those whose formative years were marked by conditions of insecurity (to themselves, their families, or their communities) have much more need for religion. As with Inglehart's earlier work on postindustrial values (The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles Among Western Publics, 1977), the main variable is socioeconomic well-being and security when young.

The Congressional Experience: Third Edition. By David E. Price. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004. 336p. $25.00 paper.

Rarely do we have an opportunity to see the intimate workings of one of our major political institutions through the eyes of not just a participant but a participant who is a political scientist as well. And that is probably both the strength and weakness of the third edition of this excellent memoir by David Price. His account of running for and serving in Congress is often, at the same time, too in depth and too superficial to find the right audience.

Organized Labor in Postcommunist States: From Solidarity to Infirmity. By Paul J. Kubicek. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004. 256p. $29.95.

What happened to organized labor when capitalism came to postcommunist Europe? Paul Kubicek provides a convincing answer to this question, based on case studies of Poland, Russia, Hungary, and Ukraine. He confirms the core story of labor weakness laid out in Stephen Crowley and David Ost, eds., Workers After Workers' States (2001). Kubicek draws on an impressive range of primary and secondary sources and dozens of interviews with union officials, mostly in 2001–2.

How Democracies Lose Small Wars. By Gil Merom. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 310p. $65.00 cloth, $22.99 paper.

The essence of Gil Merom's argument in this book is that democratic strong actors cannot win small wars because these states are constrained by society to avoid the sacrifice—in both sustained and inflicted casualties—necessary to win: “My argument is that democracies fail in small wars because they find it extremely difficult to escalate the level of violence and brutality to that which can secure victory. They are restricted by their domestic structure, and in particular by the creed of some of their most articulate citizens and the opportunities their institutional makeup presents such citizens. Other states are not prone to lose small wars, and when they do fail in such wars it is mostly for realist reasons” (p. 15). Merom adds that “[e]ssentially, what prevents modern democracies from winning small wars is disagreement between state and society over expedient and moral issues that concern human life and dignity…. Achieving a certain balance between … the readiness to bear the cost of a war and the readiness to exact a painful toll from others—is a precondition for succeeding in war” (p. 19).

Managing the President's Program: Presidential Leadership and Legislative Policy Formulation. By Andrew Rudalevige. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002. 292p. $65.00.

This book responds effectively to a theoretical challenge with an empirical analysis. The author addresses the proposition that successive presidents have increasingly centralized policy development in the White House to the detriment of the departments. The linear trend is said to be in response to the political demands on presidents to control their own programs. Andrew Rudalevige qualifies the theory out of existence by so broadening it that it disappears. He supplies a rich, empirical model in which presidents employ centralized, balanced, and decentralized approaches for developing policy as deliberate strategies as they perceive the different kinds of political capital and expertise involved in given cases. He finds no linear trend at all. All presidents since Harry Truman have used the White House to develop policies, but not to an increasing degree. Centralization is contingent.

Community-Driven Regulation: Balancing Development and the Environment in Vietnam. By Dara O'Rourke. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004. 288p. $62.00 cloth, $25.00 paper.

The prevailing assumption among scholars and policymakers alike is that developing countries have a poor track record when it comes to environmental protection. Dara O'Rourke challenges this assumption through the lens of six extremely well researched case studies of environmental regulation in Vietnam. Specifically, his book is motivated by the puzzle that despite Vietnam's rapid integration into the global economy, weak state capacities, and the promotion of industrialization over environmental protection, effective environmental regulation has emerged. O'Rourke argues that local communities are spearheading environmental protection in Vietnam, and precisely because environmental protection has emerged as a bottom-up effort, which he terms “community-driven regulation” (CDR), Vietnam may be better posed to balance development with environmental concerns.

The Structure of Regulatory Competition: Corporations and Public Policies in a Global Economy. By Dale D. Murphy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 336p. $99.00.

Dale Murphy addresses the study of globalization, specifically global regulatory competition, with the careful empirical work of a former banker and the analytical bite of a political science scholar. The result is a coherent theoretical statement about when, and under what conditions, states will dismantle regulations (the colloquial “race to the bottom,” or “competition-in-laxity” as Murphy labels it), harmonize them to the highest level (a trend David Vogel named the “California effect”), or allow heterogeneous regulations to prevail. What sets Murphy's book apart from other political science scholarship in this area is that he abandons the assumption that corporations have monolithic regulatory preferences, and instead unpacks the “black box” of the corporation. He then gives corporate preferences weight in the regulatory process. Thus, the motivations and preferences of corporations are significant drivers of a state's regulations, and determine whether regulations will be harmonized upward or downward in international regulatory competition: “Powerful firms exert influence but they do not seek a monotonic goal; one must identify each firm's different interests. Over time, these preferences will shape state regulations” (p. 9).

The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela. Edited by Jennifer L. McCoy and David J. Myers. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. 368p. $49.95.

The replacement of a “stable” democracy with an elected self-proclaimed “revolutionary” government—especially in a major petroleum-exporting country—demands the attention of comparative politics. Thus, this volume is a welcome addition to the rather thin body of scholarship on Venezuela. Comprised of essays by several leading students of Venezuelan politics, it locates the preconditions for Hugo Chavez's rise in the vulnerabilities of the previous regime. Some chapters, including the conclusion, also attempt to explain the nature of the new government under Chavez. However, given the origins of the book in conference papers from 2000, the latter task is quite underdeveloped. A fuller analysis of the nature and structure of the Chavez government, now into the final year of its first full constitutional term, would have made the book all the more valuable. Nonetheless, its question about democracy's “unraveling” is of great importance.

Picking Winners: From Technology Catch-up to the Space Race in Japan. By Saadia Pekkanen. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. 304 pages, $45.00.

The purpose of this book is to use the postwar Japanese political-economic experience to answer a question that has divided Japan and other Asian scholars for over two decades, namely, how governments choose which industries to favor. This is an important question for both intellectual and policy reasons. Indeed, answering this question will help determine which of two very different points of view better explains Japan's postwar trajectory and will assist the governments of the developing world to design and enact policies that best serve their economic development goals. Saadia Pekkanen addresses this question with a rich variety of quantitative and qualitative data, the former captured in an expanded data set that breaks down the Japanese economy and trade and industrial policy tools by two-digit economic sectors, and the latter involving short case discussions of specific industrial sectors and an extended case study of the commercial space industry.

Divided Union: The Politics of War in the Early American Republic. By Scott A. Silverstone. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004. 278p. $42.50.

Is it possible, by constitutional arrangements, to reduce the likelihood that a nation will go to war? This is the question to which Scott Silverstone addresses this informative and carefully argued book.