Downsizing the State: Privatization and the Limits of Neoliberal Reform in Mexico. By Dag MacLeod. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004. 320p. $65.00 cloth, $29.00 paper.

Democratization Without Representation: The Politics of Small Industry in Mexico. By Kenneth C. Shadlen. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004. 224p. $65.00 cloth, $27.00 paper.

Mexico's dramatic shift from state-led development to neoliberalism in the 1980s and subsequent transition to democracy in the 1990s has been the subject of extensive scholarly research. These two well-researched and empirically rich books further our understanding of these important processes by providing in-depth analyses of privatization and the decline of small industry. They represent a new generation of scholarship that presents a long-term perspective on Mexico's political economy, beginning with the emergence of state-led development and corporatism in the early twentieth century through to the contemporary era of neoliberalism and multiparty democracy.

Trust and Democratic Transition in Post-Communist Europe. Edited by Ivana Markova. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. 232p. $65.00.

This is a frustrating volume. That trust is important to democratic transition is its central assumption, but only the final chapter asks whether it is true or why it should be. Instead, most of the chapters discuss how the communist experience affected relations of trust. But some chapters make claims about communist society that generalize solely from the Stalinist period, while others concern the experiences of particular countries to a point where the precise relationship to communism is left unclear. In the end, the only unifying aspect of the book is each chapter's discussion of some aspect of trust in relation to some aspect of the former Soviet bloc.

Enforcing the Peace: Learning from the Imperial Past. By Kimberly Zisk Marten. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. 208p. $27.95.

This instructive volume aims to sort out the reasons that peacekeeping missions today so frequently fail. Kimberly Zisk Marten throws a wide net in investigating why. While her main case studies are Haiti, the Balkans, East Timor, and Afghanistan, she also makes more passing reference to a number of other recent or current interventions, including Iraq. As the subtitle of her book indicates, she also considers a variety of efforts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century by liberal (for the times) colonial powers to ensure order and to restructure local societies and governments in line with what was perceived as beneficial both for the subject populations and the imperial homeland.

After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions. Edited by Michael McFaul and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 272p. $60.00.

Michael McFaul and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss's edited volume constitutes a useful introduction to important research frontiers in the analysis of postcommunist polities. The editors explicitly set the contributors the task of transcending conventional (post-)Soviet Studies and contributing to a social science analysis of formerly communist polities. Through that lens, “legacies” of the old regimes are important inasmuch as causal mechanisms can be spelled out that show their continuing relevance for the dynamic reconfiguration of politics in the region.

Whither Globalization? The Vortex of Knowledge and Ideology. By James H. Mittelman. New York: Routledge, 2004. 152p. $105.00 cloth, $22.95 paper.

This book contains an accessible blend of previously published articles (revised) and new essays that examine the role of knowledge and ideology as the pivots of globalization's power in the twenty-first century. Expanding the central arguments of his previous study, The Globalization Syndrome (2000), James Mittelman defines globalization as “a triangulated structure” comprised of “the global division of labor and power, a new regionalism, and resistance politics” (p. 5). Shifting his analytic focus from issues in international political economy to the cultural production of identities, Mittelman locates his primary concern in this concise collection in the “subjective framework of globalization, namely, knowledge and ideology” (p. 3). Thus viewing globalization as a “cognitive map constituted by clusters of knowledge,” the author focuses particularly on the production of alternative forms of knowledge, ideas, and strategies of resistance to globalization—“alterglobalization” (p. 97).

Covenants Without Swords: Idealist Liberalism and the Spirit of Empire. By Jeanne Morefield. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. 280p. $39.50.

The entanglement of liberal political thought and European imperial expansion has received increasing attention in recent years, in work by David Armitage, Barbara Arneil, Uday Mehta, Richard Tuck, and James Tully, among others. Yet the phenomenon remains puzzling, for while many European liberals, especially from the mid–nineteenth century through the interwar period, enthusiastically promoted imperial rule, the reasons for their support varied widely: There is no single or consistent liberal imperialism. Jeanne Morefield has enriched this story considerably with her closely argued and elegantly written account of a hitherto largely neglected episode, which she calls “one of the most philosophically interesting moments when liberal thinkers and activists engaged in the politics of hierarchy and paternalism” (p. 2). Although Morefield's protagonists, Gilbert Murray and Alfred Zimmern, have not received much attention in previous scholarship, her narrative impressively complements the account in Martti Koskenniemi's recent book The Gentle Civiliser of Nations (2002). Both chronicle the activities and ideas of visionary internationalists who aspired to end the barbarities of war and erect a humane international system, but who also keenly supported European imperial expansion during its heyday.

Decentralization and Democracy in Latin America. Edited by Alfred P. Montero and David J Samuels. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004. 320p. $47.50 cloth, $27.50 paper.

The study of decentralization has become something of a fashion, not least because it seems to encapsulate the process of democratization in Latin America and the shift to a neoliberal policy framework, and because it has been adopted by the political Left in sharp contrast to the state-centered policies of previous decades. Decentralization has been seen as the answer to improving the quality of popular participation in Latin America, to improving the quality of public services, and to improving the efficiency in the allocation of public resources.

Misplaced Distrust: Policy Networks and the Environment in France, the United States, and Canada. By Éric Montpetit. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press, 2003. 168p. $75.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.

Given the enormous impact that agricultural practices have on the natural environment, it is surprising that so little research has been done on the subject. In addition to problems associated with runoff from feedlots, farming generally requires the use of large amounts of pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers. The chemicals that are used in farming, if not adequately controlled, pollute the air and water and negatively impact plants, wildlife, animals, and humans. Many environmental scientists believe that agriculture has become too dependent on chemicals to raise animals and grow crops and that it relies too little on effective natural alternatives.

Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st Century. Edited by T. V. Paul, James J. Wirtz, and Michel Fortmann. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004. 400p. $70.00 cloth, $27.95 paper.

The end of the Cold War and the advent of the post–9/11 era altered the strategic context of international relations irrevocably. In the wake of these changes, it is useful to reexamine our traditional theoretical understandings of the system in order to determine the direction international relations scholarship should take. While theory should evolve independently from the empirical realities of world politics, periodically taking stock of where we are and where we should go is extremely helpful. This book is a welcome collection that takes on that task.

Mixed Signals: U.S. Human Rights Policy and Latin America. By Kathryn Sikkink. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004. 288p. $29.95.

Kathryn Sikkink argues that the United States government has sent mixed signals to the governments of Latin American countries about the importance of respect for human rights. The book provides detailed descriptions of U.S. policies that promoted better and worse human rights practices in particular countries over the past 30 years. She notes several cases where the U.S. government sent mixed signals by being strong on general human rights rhetoric, but by not pressing human rights concerns when dealing with Latin American governments facing domestic rebellions. The willingness of the U.S. government to support anticommunist, counterrevolutionary and antiterrorist policies has been much stronger than any desire to promote good human rights practices in the region. In the author's view, these were the wrong priorities.

The Quality of Democracy: Theory and Applications. Edited by Guillermo O'Donnell, Jorge Vargas Cullell, and Osvaldo M. Iazzetta. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004. 288p. $55.00 cloth, $25.00 paper.

The primary goal of this unique and compelling book is to provide the theoretical and empirical foundations for what the authors hope will be a new wave of interest in the quality of democracy. At the heart of the book is a reaction against the minimalist definitions of democracy that in the past two decades have come to dominate not just the regime literature but also the democracy promotion work of a whole host of external donors in what Guillermo O'Donnell calls the East and South. While more countries have been able to sustain minimally democratic political regimes than early pessimists feared, the paramount failings of democracy nevertheless have been of growing concern to academics and citizens alike. According to the argument advanced in this book, understanding the performance of these new democracies—and identifying strategies for strengthening democracy—requires that we move beyond regime type “toward other spheres where political power is exercised” (p. 1). In much of Latin America, for example, political regimes experienced democratization while many of the state's authoritarian legacies were maintained more or less intact. In addition to conceptualizing democracy in a richer and more complex way, the book goes on to show how this more comprehensive view of democracy can be measured and evaluated, which it does by describing an actual democracy audit in one important Latin American case: Costa Rica.

Bridging the European Divide: Middle Power Politics and Regional Security Dilemmas. By Joshua B. Spero. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004. 360p. $75.00.

The focus of this work is narrower than the title implies. It is actually a close study of the policies of Poland's first noncommunist foreign minister, Krystof Skubiszewski, who served all four Solidarnosc-based governments, 1989–93, and thus set Poland on its present course. Joshua Spero abundantly praises Skubiszewski for pursuing policies that not only safeguarded Poland's interests but kept Central Europe out of the traps of the interwar period.

Paths to Democracy: Revolution and Totalitarianism. By Rosemary H. T. O'Kane. New York: Routledge, 2004. 288p. $110.00 cloth, $33.95 paper.

In this book, Rosemary O'Kane seeks to restore a political dimension to the comparative historical analysis of paths to democracy. Reacting against the focus upon social structure that has been so prominent in the analysis of democratic and nondemocratic regime trajectories, she attempts to provide an explanation of the paths to the contemporary situations of three countries, France, Germany, and Russia. She argues that these cases contrast with one another in ways that help to illuminate a range of hypotheses generally accepted about the relationship between democracy, on the one hand, and such variables as economic crisis, economic growth, industrialization, and urbanization, on the other. In broad terms, she sees the cases contrasting in the following ways: Russia contrasts with France and Germany in respect to democracy, Germany with France and Russia in respect to revolution, and France with Germany and the Soviet Union in respect to totalitarianism.

The New Masters of Capital: American Bond Rating Agencies and the Politics of Creditworthiness. By Timothy J. Sinclair. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005. 208p. $29.95.

In his book, Timothy J. Sinclair makes a strong theoretical and empirical contribution to the growing political economy literature on the increasing influence of nonstate actors. More specifically, he draws upon a cogent interweaving of rationalist and constructivist approaches to reveal the various forms of power exercised by American bond raters, such as Moody's and Standard & Poor's. Moreover, by means of detailed case studies on the rating of corporations, municipalities, and national governments, he demonstrates the broad political implications of rating agency power in terms of both geopolitical and distributive questions. In both cases, Sinclair's central argument is that “rating agencies help to construct the context in which corporations, municipalities, and governments make decisions. Rating agencies are not, as often supposed, ‘neutral’ institutions. Their impact on policy is political first, in terms of the processes involved, and second, in terms of the consequences of competing social interests” (p. 149).

Studies in Public Opinion: Attitudes, Nonattitudes, Measurement Error, and Change. Edited by Willem E. Saris and Paul M. Sniderman. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. 384p. $65.00 cloth, $29.95 paper.

This edited volume contains a series of papers, which address a key issue in public opinion research. The issue could not be more general or more important. It is this question: Do members of the mass public actually have opinions about political issues? The question has been debated from the earliest work on public opinion, but was raised in a particularly stark form in a seminal paper by Philip Converse published in 1964. As is well known, he suggested that most people did not have meaningful opinions on most issues, due to the instability of their responses across different waves of a panel survey. The contributors to this volume are leading authorities in the field of political psychology and public opinion research, and the papers collectively make an important contribution to addressing this question. Paul Sniderman and John Bullock in the concluding chapter summarize the existing research agenda on this issue in the following terms: “The dominant themes of two generations of research have been that citizens tend to be muddle-headed (the lack of constraint theme), empty headed (the non-attitude theme) or both” (pp. 337–38).

Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle. By Stephen Biddle. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. 312p. $37.50.

Stephen Biddle has written a worthy book on the never-ending debate over why land wars are won and lost. It contributes to the academic literature, and his policy judgments deserve attention. He puts forth the theory that “force employment” (i.e., doctrine for using military forces in battle) plays a major role in determining outcomes, as big a role as the size of contending forces and the sophistication of their technologies. He further argues that modern employment doctrine, which enables skilled ground forces to negate the effects of lethal fires against them, was born in late World War I, when attackers finally overcame entrenched defenses. A skilled operations research analyst of tactical battles, Biddle offers a multimethod approach that combines logical reasoning, case studies, mathematical models, statistical analysis, and dynamic simulations. His book can be read by nonspecialists, but many of its technical discussions (e.g., Lanchester equations) require expert knowledge.

No End in Sight: The Continuing Menace of Nuclear Proliferation. By Nathan E. Busch. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2004. 512p. $40.00.

This new work on the core issue of nuclear proliferation is somewhat unique in its focus and organization. Most of the works on this subject have a virtually standard organization involving a country-by-country breakdown of the most recent and most likely proliferators (India, Pakistan, Israel, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, etc.), according to their motives (why they want to go nuclear) and their capacity to do so, either by themselves or with the help of existing nuclear powers. The focus of these works is, therefore, on what often is called “horizontal proliferation,” having to do with the addition of extra members to the “nuclear club.” Regarding the Cold War superpowers, the United States and former USSR, there has been a largely separate literature devoted to “vertical proliferation,” and associated arms control measures and possibilities, in the context of nuclear deterrence theories and concepts. The uniqueness of Nathan Busch's book is that he combines these two genres, treating various aspects of the nuclear programs of the long-existent large nuclear powers, as well as the emerging nuclear programs of Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and so on as an integrated subject.

National Governance and the Global Climate Change Regime. By Dana R. Fisher. Latham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004. 206p. $69.00 cloth, $27.95 paper.

Debate continues among scholars in a variety of disciplines over the impact (positive, negative, or neutral) of transboundary environmental problems on the sovereignty of nation-states, especially in the developing world (see, for example, Karen Litfin, ed., The Greening of Sovereignty in World Politics, 1998). Expanding this debate to “economically advanced or postindustrial nations,” sociologist Dana Fisher addresses three important questions in her book. First, what is the role of the nation-state relative to other actors (civil society, market, and scientific) in negotiating international agreements when transnational environmental issues are involved? Second, how best can the disparate reactions of governments to the development of these international environmental pressures be explained? Third, how does the interaction of international and national factors affect the substance of international agreements?

Deterrence. By Lawrence Freedman. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press, 2004. 160p. $59.95 cloth, $24.95 paper.

The concept of deterrence—the effort to make an adversary's costs and risks of going to war greater than the political incentives pushing in that direction—was the centerpiece of academic national security studies and the core policy concern of Western governments throughout much of the Cold War. Today, in the post-9/11 world, deterrence has taken a back seat to a different set of strategic concepts: preemption and prevention. Both involve destroying an enemy's capabilities before he can harm you, the former when the threat is imminent, the latter when it is potential (pp. 85–89). In his timely and useful book, Lawrence Freedman offers a compelling account of the decline of deterrence and creatively seeks to revitalize it as a subject of scholarly inquiry and as a viable policy in the post-9/11 world.

The Limits of International Law. By Jack L. Goldsmith and Eric A. Posner. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 272p. $29.95.

The Politics of International Law. Edited by Christian Reus-Smit. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 344p. $75.00 cloth, $29.99 paper.

Is international law really law? If it is law, is it effective in constraining state behavior against interest? These two questions have vexed international lawyers and those international relations scholars interested in international law who until the last 15 years or so were relatively few in number. There has been a proliferation of scholarship on these questions, and on bridging the gap between international relations and international law (IL). (To note only one recent survey piece, see Anne-Marie Slaughter, Andrew Tulumello, and Stephan Wood, “International Law and International Relations Theory: A New Generation of Interdisciplinary scholarship,” American Journal of International Law 92 [July 1998]: 367–397).