The Essential Thomas Jefferson, Jean M. Yarbrough, ed., Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2006, pp. xxxvii, 287.

This is a useful collection of Jefferson's political writings well suited to undergraduate and graduate courses in political theory and especially in American political thought. There are twelve public papers and addresses (including “A Summary View of the Rights of British America” and, of course, the Declaration of Independence, excerpts from the “Notes on Virginia,” and 44 letters to various correspondents. This compares favourably with an older and larger anthology edited by the distinguished Jefferson scholar Merrill Peterson (The Portable Thomas Jefferson, New York: Viking, 1975), which features roughly the same number of public papers and addresses but also contains the “Notes on Virginia” in its entirety and some 75 letters. While the Peterson volume is more inclusive, Yarbrough's decision to excerpt the “Notes” is understandable, given how few chapters bear directly on political questions, and the selected correspondence provides an ample survey of Jefferson's views on a variety of topics.

Regards philosophiques sur la mondialisation,, Couture, J., Courtois, S. (sous la direction de),, Montréal, Presses de l'Université du Québec, 2005, 240 pages.

Cet ouvrage, qui recueille les thèses présentées par 14 auteurs du monde universitaire canadien lors d'un colloque sur la mondialisation qui s'est tenu à l'Université du Québec à Montréal à l'automne 2003, propose un aperçu des différents débats que suscite ce thème dans le monde de la philosophie politique et sociale.

C'était François Mitterrand,, Jacques Attali,, Paris, Éditions Fayard, Collection : Documents Fayard, 2005, 446 p.

Rien qu'en France, plus d'une centaine de livres ont été publiés sur la présidence de François Mitterrand (1916–1996), et plusieurs biographies sont parues autour de 2006 pour souligner le dixième anniversaire de sa mort. Toutefois, parmi ces multiples références, le présent ouvrage mérite une attention toute particulière. Auteur d'une quarantaine de livres, principalement des essais rigoureux et des romans, Jacques Attali a aussi été le plus proche conseiller du président François Mitterrand, non seulement durant ses deux septennats (soit entre 1981 et 1995), mais dès 1974, lorsque ce dernier était déjà candidat socialiste aux élections présidentielles. Les deux hommes se sont côtoyés, presque quotidiennement, durant une vingtaine d'années. Cet ouvrage, le quatrième que Jacques Attali consacre à l'ancien président français, est à la fois un portrait, une biographie partielle, une suite de souvenirs très précis et une critique déchirante à propos d'un homme jugé admirable – mais au passé obscur et secret.

The Liberal Conscience: Politics and Principle in a World of Religious Pluralism, Lucas Swaine, New York: Columbia University Press, 2006, pp. xxii, 215.

The Liberal Conscience by Lucas Swaine represents a response from a liberal to those who affirm a theocratic conception of the good. Swaine distinguishes between logic and rhetoric, between that which should persuade and that which is likely to persuade. He suggests that a justification of liberal principles founded on conscience should persuade honest theocrats and Swaine makes the case that this should matter to both liberals and theocrats. The liberal, who founds a justification of liberal principles in conscience and accommodates those whose conscience forces them to seek exemption from certain conventional norms, in Swaine's view, is acting in a manner consistent with the authentic spirit of liberal principles. A liberal democratic state reflecting such a spirit, Swaine argues, is in a stronger position logically to expect theocrats to view it as a legitimate political authority. Otherwise, it is presumptuous, he suggests, for a liberal democratic state to expect the allegiance of theocrats.

Collective Dreams: Political Imagination and Community, Keally D. McBride, University Park PA: Penn State University Press, 2005, pp. 157.

Political imagination is greatly underrated, not least because there is so little of it in what passes for “official” politics these days. But it is also understudied by political theorists whose domain encompasses the many imagined but rarely realized versions of the “good society” handed down from the past. And yet political imagination is arguably central to every vision of an alternative political order. Plato never lived in his Republic; Hobbes never wandered through the state of nature; and Marx never knew the rule of the “associated producers.” But, all of them may have felt that they had glimpsed elements of these alternate futures in their own time. Hobbes, after all, lived through the English Revolution which he may have thought resembled a “war of all against all” and Marx witnessed the heady days of the Paris Commune. This is surely as true today. Social conservatives may espy the glimmerings of a heavenly utopia in their local church group. Progressive social activists may see a new social order prefigured in their food co-op or trade union. Political imagination, in other words, is just as much a part of the world we inhabit as it is of those we dream of inhabiting. However, as Keally McBride observes, “Imagination itself, as opposed to its products, is generally not studied in political science. But it is our best tool for changing the world” (1).

Shaping the Future: Nietzsche's New Regime of the Soul and Its Ascetic Practices, Horst Hutter, Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 2006, pp. xvii, 222.

Everyone interested in Nietzsche should read this book. Long pondered and passionately argued, its devotion to Nietzsche and Nietzsche's texts results in a Nietzsche worthy of our closest attention yet ill-treated by standard academic approaches. Basic to Hutter's reading of Nietzsche is his recognition, against the grain today, that here is a philosopher, a human singularity, yes, a wise man, who commands our attention because he has achieved an understanding of the human past and present that enables him to take responsibility for the human future.

Regional Economic Voting: Russia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, 1990–1999, Joshua A. Tucker, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. xxii, 417.

Recognizing and predicting the patterns of voting behaviour is a formidable task even in the case of mature and stable democracies. Needless to say, the identification of such trends in the wake of a fundamental political and economic restructuring, when the basic rules of the game are still in flux, can be frustratingly elusive. In this ambitious and methodologically sophisticated study, Joshua Tucker takes on the challenge and suggests a fresh approach for cutting through the fog of post-communist institutional ambiguity. The book reports on several prominent regularities in the voting outcomes that span five countries, several distinct institutional designs, twenty national elections and ten years of transition. In contrast to the studies that rely on micro-level survey data or small-n cross-country comparisons, Tucker aggregates and analyzes the election results at the intermediate, regional level. Cross-regional comparison provides enough resolution for detecting systematic voting patterns shaped by local economic conditions. Explaining the observed connection between regional economy and regional vote is the central theme of Tucker's study.

Bienvenue dans le désert du réel,, Slavoj Žižek,, Édition Flammarion, 2005.

Le statut de Slavoj Žižek dans les universités américaines est ambigu. D'une part, sa popularité ne cesse de grandir – comme le démontrent le succès de ses livres et l'affluence à ses conférences – d'autre part, rarement pris au sérieux par ses pairs, il est relégué à l'univers des cultural studies. Élève de Jacques-Alain Miller, Žižek offre une vision originale de la politique où il mélange psychanalyse, commentaires philosophiques de haute voltige, anecdotes tirées de l'actualité, interprétations et réinterprétations de sujets divers allant du cinéma à la critique d'art, souvent avec un humour peu caractéristique des milieux universitaires. Après son Plaidoyer en faveur de l'intolérance (Éditions Climats, 2004) qui critiquait la fausse tolérance pratiquée par la société libérale et multiculturelle, son essai Bienvenue dans le désert du réel, traduit récemment en français, a été écrit dans l'urgence après les attentats du 11 septembre, au lendemain de l'invasion américaine de l'Afghanistan. Žižek présente dans ce livre la suite de certaines thèses qu'il avait déjà évoquées. Il remet non seulement en question le caractère “ d'événement ” attribué au 11 septembre – pour lui, rien n'aurait vraiment changé – mais il revisite l'opposition que les théoriciens politiques décrivent (et imposent) entre l'Occident et son Autre islamique : ces deux entités ne sont pas antagonistes, elles appartiennent au contraire à la même dynamique capitaliste mondiale et font le jeu de l'immobilisme. L'alternative doit être pensée en dehors des oppositions. Ce que cherche donc à faire Žižek, c'est moins d'offrir une thèse en remplacement de celles qui existent déjà que de réfuter celles-ci, en montrant l'identité intrinsèque d'opinions qu'on prétend être différentes.

Radical Right Parties: Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market, Pippa Norris, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 349.

Voting Radical Right in Western Europe, Terri E. Givens, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 178

The growing importance of immigration politics in Western Europe during the past two decades and the connected rise of radical right parties have justifiably received much scholarly attention. While a first generation of scholars treating this phenomenon were mostly concerned with the social bases for the growing political influence of such parties, recent studies have begun to emphasize the importance of purely political factors, such as institutional frameworks and strategic party competition. The books on this topic by Norris and Givens are two of the most prominent accounts in this second generation of studies.

Retribution and Reparation in the Transition to Democracy, Jon Elster, ed., New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 341.

Retribution and Reparation in the Transition to Democracy is a useful addition to the burgeoning scholastic field of transitional justice. The essays in the book are authored by several well-known and other lesser-known scholars, including Luc Huyse, Claus Offe and Alex Boraine. Collectively, the essays tackle two of the major themes of transitional justice: retribution and reparation.

Villes, Régions et Universités : Recherches, Innovations et Territoires., Sous la direction de Hudon, Raymond et Jean-Pierre Augustin,, Les Presses de l'Université Laval, Québec, 2005, 385 p.

Ce livre est un compte rendu particulièrement fidèle des deuxièmes Rencontres Champlain-Montaigne entre la ville de Bordeaux en France et celle de Québec au Canada, qui se sont tenues en 2002. Ces rencontres se veulent un forum d'échanges portant sur les relations entre les universités et les partenaires socioéconomiques de leurs espaces régionaux respectifs. Elles ont été établies dans le contexte des relations bilatérales entre ces deux villes qui prévalent depuis leur jumelage en 1962. Depuis 2000, un protocole de coopération a été signé entre l'Université Laval, le Pôle universitaire de Bordeaux, la ville de Québec, la ville de Bordeaux, le Conseil régional de concertation et développement de la région de Québec et le Conseil régional d'Aquitaine. Les premières Rencontres Champlain-Montaigne se sont déroulées à Québec en 2001. Elles avaient déjà pour thème les villes, les régions et les universités et s'intéressaient tout particulièrement aux acteurs et à leurs pratiques. La seconde édition de ces rencontres les inscrit donc dans la durée et confirme l'intérêt pour le même sujet. Ces deuxièmes rencontres abordent toutefois la question du point de vue de la recherche, des innovations et de la dimension territoriale.

Beyond Japan: The Dynamics of East Asian Regionalism, Peter J. Katzenstein and Takashi Shiraishi, eds., Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2006, 325 pp., viii pp.

This edited volume presents an interesting and comprehensive discussion of Japan's evolving relationship with the East Asian region. A central theme that runs throughout the book is that East Asia has moved beyond the influence of the single Japanese model toward a region that is being jointly driven by American, Japanese, Chinese and other national influences.

The Power of Greed: Collective Action in International Development, Michael Rosberg, Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2005, pp. 299.

This book has a title that promises interesting and provocative content. It is published by the press of one of Canada's major universities. It is written by a Canadian who, after graduating from a US university with a fine reputation in development studies, accumulated years of field experience with development projects in Colombia and Belize. It is sad, therefore, that this volume supports the adage against judging a book by its cover.

The “War on Terror” and the Framework of International Law, Helen Duffy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. li, 488.

The war on terror poses increasingly intractable challenges for the international legal order. Some commentators query whether the international reaction to 9/11 might have relaxed or transformed well-established legal principles, particularly in the fields of recourse to force and state responsibility. Other scholars opine that international law is adequately suited to address the relatively new and polymorphous threats of terrorism. Regardless of one's stance on the question, it is clear that the current war on terror has generated considerable academic writing, both inside and outside of law, and propelled various legal issues, such as the application of international human rights, international humanitarian law and international criminal law, to the forefront of scholarly inquiry.

Empire and Imperialism: A Critical Reading of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Atilio A. Boron, London: Zed Books, 2005, pp. 141.

Michael Walzer, reflecting in a 2002 Dissent article (vol. 49, Spring) upon the compelling issues in world politics, asked “Can there be a decent Left?” After reading Atilio A. Boron's impassioned and derisive critique of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), one wonders whether today there can be an empirically sophisticated, coherent Left. (Negri, by the way, spent seventeen years in Italian prisons for his involvement with the Red Brigade and the murder of Italian politician Aldo Moro.) Boron, a professor of political theory at the University of Buenos Aires claims, no doubt rightly, that the last three decades, embracing the end of the Cold War, the impact of neo-liberal policies on the “periphery” and sweeping technological changes, have necessitated a reformulation of leftist thinking. The influential Empire, which advances a root-and-branch restructuring of socialist thought, though hugely popular among anti-globalization groups and already translated into over a dozen languages, is to Boron emphatically not it. While paying obeisance to Hardt and Negri's “noble intentions and intellectual and political honesty” (4–5), the author proceeds to shred virtually all their main contentions.