Wade Jacoby's scholarly study successfully marries theory to a detailed, specialized knowledge about the history, political culture, and politics of Germany. German specialists will find plenty of insights, but Jacoby's theoretical framework—parsimonious yet central in its limitation to two crucial variables— stands out. It will stimulate all those interested in the transfer of institutions and, more generally, the transfer of democratic capitalism. For example, the decade-old transitions in Central and Eastern Europe have been referred to as “negotiated” and “imitative revolutions,” but often the implications of such pronouncements are assumed but not explored. Jacoby's study supplies important answers to questions about the conditions that are most likely to render institutional transfer effective—in Germany, Central and Eastern Europe, and elsewhere.

This edited volume, assembled by Kornai and his colleagues, addresses a vital topic in the study of postcommunist societies. Now that the “heroic phase” of rapid political and economic change is over, it seems clear that a long road remains ahead—a slow slog of step-bystep reforms through each sector of government and society in an effort to create a modern state. How should this process take place? Leaders and analysts alike desperately need a road map.

An important contribution to the emerging literature on Europeanization, this book explores the extent to which there is cultural convergence in the European Union. It focuses on four case studies: alcohol policies in Finland and Sweden, “recreational” drug policy in the Netherlands, and abortion policy in Ireland. Paulette Kurzer concludes that there has been very moderate cultural convergence in relation to these sensitive policies, although EU membership is merely one dimension of change, with the EU becoming part of the tool kit of those advocating change by providing a discourse around which discussion that may lead to change can emerge.

Henry Laurence compares the pathways to and consequences of financial reform in Britain and Japan in the 1980s and 1990s. In each instance, reform was pushed on the government by a new international financial reality and by the heavy pressure the governments were under to pull their ailing economies out of the economic doldrums. Laurence's main theoretical attention centers on the Japanese case; the British case is dealt with in less detail and is used mainly to provide comparison. As a former London-based fund manager for a Japanese bank, Laurence had firsthand experience with many of the events he describes. His academic training provided him with the necessary theoretical tools to analyze the cases and put them in context.

For some, governance is a weasel word, meaning all things to everyone, but to others it stands for a shift in public management from service delivery using bureaucracy and markets to steering networks of public, private, and voluntary organizations. Robert Leach and Janie Percy-Smith document this shift to network management among British local authorities. Traditionally in Britain, local government has been viewed positively, while the netherworld of other local bodies is deemed “illegitimate.” Leach and Percy-Smith want to make “local governance” respectable while confronting the practical problems posed by the emerging new system.

In this book, José Magone addresses the important yet neglected topic of trade unionism in the European Union. He examines two related dynamics: 1) the role of interest groups, and specifically trade unions, in shaping European integration; and 2) the impact of multilevel governance structures on trade unions, particularly in Portugal and Spain. The first part of the book analyzes the concept and reality of multilevel governance in the EU. The second part analyzes the evolution of national systems of interest intermediation and trade union strategies in Portugal and Spain in light of democratization and European integration. The third part assesses the subnational and transnational polices of the Iberian trade union confederations.

For students of social democracy, the big debate of the contemporary era concerns change: Has the Left been transformed in fundamental ways over the past decades, and if so, how and why? Gerassimos Moschonas's new book attempts to give a definitive answer to at least the first of these questions by marshaling an impressive amount of evidence in a wide range of areas relevant to the development of social democracy. As the book title indicates, he falls firmly into the camp of those who believe that the Left has indeed undergone a “great transformation.” As he puts it: “[A]ccording to the central hypothesis of this book … we are witnessing a recasting of the European social democracies … [it is] the end of a political and social cycle” (p. 6). But Moschonas understands that such a claim alone is both commonplace and unhelpful; a real contribution to the debate requires clearly delineating what social democracy was and what it has become, and as anyone who knows the literature on social democracy can attest, this is easier said than done.