Reframing Public Policy: Discursive Politics and Deliberative Practices, Frank Fischer, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. xii, 266.

Although in some ways perpetuating a counter-factual narrative about positivist policy analysis and research, Frank Fischer's Reframing Public Policy is an important book because it provides critical perspectives on the dominant forms of inquiry while also articulating in detail complementary or alternative methodologies. This book is not likely to disappoint followers—nor is it likely to persuade sceptics.

Informal Governance in the European Union, Christiansen, Thomas and Simona Piattoni, eds., Celtenham (UK) and Northampton, MA (USA): Edward Elgar, 2003, pp. viii, 274.

The nature of governance in the European Union (EU), the production of authoritative decisions through a plurality of actors and institutional arrangements, has been at the centre of recent scholarly debates. While at first sight many of its institutions resemble their national counterparts the EU seems to have established a system of governance sui generis with modes of decision-making that reflect the distinct institutional distribution of power and the complex multi-level game of accommodating interests in the regional, national and European arena. Thomas Christiansen and Simona Piattoni have focused on one critical aspect of this evolving mode of decision-making, namely, the role of informal governance. It is defined as the operation of networks and actors pursuing common goals through regular, though not codified and not publicly sanctioned exchanges in the institutional context of the EU.

Steps Toward Making Every Vote Count: Electoral System Reform in Canada and its Provinces, Henry Milner, ed., Peterborough: Broadview, 2004, pp. 319.

After some decades of a principally academic debate in Canada, electoral reform has become a topic of current political discussion and even, in some cases, concrete action. Henry Milner's Steps Toward Making Every Vote Count is a very useful follow-up to the widely read Making Every Vote Count (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 1999). While the focus remains on trying to make the case that electoral reform is indeed necessary in Canada, the emphasis lies more on assessing the changes that are already under way. With five provinces directly engaged in electoral reform, this book provides a very welcome collection of essays to deepen our understanding of the subject.

Crossing the Atlantic: Comparing the European Union and Canada, Patrick M. Crowley, ed., Aldershot, Hants and Burlington, Vt., Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2004, pp. vi, 231.

Edited volumes are notoriously difficult to organize around a well-focused theme. This is particularly so when chapters originate from a conference exploring a number of topics with participants from different academic backgrounds. Further complexity arises when chapters are subsequently added, as they were in Crossing the Atlantic. Reviewing such a volume and suggesting an audience for it, in turn, is a challenge because of the inevitable variability in topics, theoretical assumptions and writing styles found in such a collective work.

Crises politiques et démocratie en Belgique, Nathalie Schiffino, Paris: L'Harmattan, 2003.

La Belgique et le Canada sont deux exemples de démocraties plurinationales historiquement confrontées à des questions politiques similaires. Nous pouvons tirer des leçons pertinentes pour le Canada en particulier, mais aussi pour la politique comparée en général, des crises qui ont ponctué l'histoire politique de la Belgique. Le livre de Nathalie Schiffino étudie trois crises de la vie politique belge.

“ Politiques du cinéma ”. Politix., Montebello, Fabrice, et Jean-Marc Leveratto (sous la direction de), Paris : Éditions Lavoisier, N° 61, 2003, 261 p.

Je débuterai par une anecdote. Il y a quelques années, j'avais proposé à un éminent universitaire américain, qui présidait une association de professeurs en science politique, d'organiser lors de leur prochain congrès une séance sur le thème “ Cinéma et politique ”. Mon prestigieux interlocuteur m'avait alors décontenancé par sa réponse hautaine: “ Les politologues ne font pas de critiques de films ”. J'étais stupéfait. Comment un chercheur aussi réputé pouvait-il faire preuve d'autant d'étroitesse d'esprit ? Comment pouvait-il ignorer l'importance cruciale de l'analyse des imaginaires et des discours symboliques dans les sciences sociales, sans compter l'étude de l'hégémonie de ces groupes intégrés, constituant une forme de domination écrasante sous forme d'oligopole ?

The Formation of National Party Systems: Federalism and Party Competition in Canada, Great Britain, India, and the United States, Pradeep K. Chhibber and Ken Kollman, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004, pp. xvi, 276.

Mining electoral data to arrive at theories about the relationship between political party performance and party system determination and electoral and governmental institutions forms the main stream of political science. And one of its most enduring puzzles is the explanation of the patterns and diversities of party systems. With the famous “Duverger's Law” about single-member plurality systems and two-party political systems forming its point of departure, political scientists have attempted to substantiate their discipline's status as a “science” by producing theories about relationships between measurable political variables.

Comparative Constitutionalism and Good Governance in the Commonwealth: An Eastern and Southern African Perspective, John Hatchard, Muna Ndulo and Peter Slinn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. xxv, 361

This is a magisterial tome in both substance and style. It is comprehensive, almost encyclopaedic; it also presents the perspective of “constitutional lawyers” (4), at least until the “retreat” towards the political science in the concluding, thirteenth chapter (310). Reflective of their trade, the trio of authors include lists of cases, constitutions, statutes and other instruments, with page references, as well as a comprehensive index of almost 20 pages. The volume presents the significant conceptual advances in comparative constitutionalism in anglophone Africa since independence, including democratic pressures towards “good governance” advanced through the Commonwealth nexus (1); but it also comes to lament the continuing existential constraints on “constitutional governance” (308). It offers welcome comparative analysis of a dozen countries and myriad regimes over four decades.

Greening NAFTA: The North American Commission for Environmental Co-operation, David L. Markell & John H. Knox, eds., Stanford Law & Politics Series; Stanford University Press, 2003, pp. xv, 324.

At first blush, the title of this book, Greening NAFTA, would likely be viewed as an oxymoron by most environmentalists. After all, the environmental critiques of free trade including the massive use of fossil fuels in transporting goods around the globe and a “race to the bottom” as it relates to environmental standards, among others, continue to resonate among North American environmentalists. However, once one has tucked into this volume, it becomes clear that the intent of this edited collection is to examine how effective the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (the NACEC or CEC) has been in its (now) ten years of existence. Its genesis was largely the result of widespread objections made by North American environmental groups and, at the time it was created (1994), it was the first international organization created to address the environmental aspects and issues associated with economic integration. In some respects, a more appropriate title for this edition would have included a question mark after the word NAFTA, because the contributors to this book have very mixed assessments as to whether the CEC has fulfilled its early promise of having a greening effect on NAFTA.

L'Allemagne en guerre., Forty, George et Johanne King., St-Sulpice (Suisse) : Éditions Labodega, 2003, 256 p.

Aujourd'hui à la retraite, le lieutenant-colonel George Forty a publié une quarantaine de livres sur l'histoire militaire du 20e siècle, principalement en Angleterre, parallèlement à une seconde carrière de conservateur, en tant que directeur du musée militaire de Bovington (au Royaume-Uni). Le présent ouvrage, le seul disponible en français, est la traduction de Germany at War, initialement paru chez Carlton Books en 2003. Cet ouvrage abondamment illustré livre de nouvelles archives sur la Deuxième guerre mondiale et constitue une introduction générale utile pour s'initier à cette période, en décrivant la vie quotidienne durant les années 1930 et jusqu'à l'arrivée des Alliés. La documentation réunie provient de sources variées et fournit surtout le point de vue nazi vu de l'intérieur, c'est-à-dire à partir de témoignages et d'illustrations ayant appartenu principalement à des particuliers allemands.

La grande perturbation., Zaki Laïdi, Paris : Flammarion, 2004, 473 p.

Engagée dans la mondialisation, qui la porte et dont elle ne semble pouvoir s'échapper, notre époque est marquée par un désordre généralisé, un trouble qui assaille l'ensemble des peuples de la Terre. Dans les pays du Nord, ce trouble de l'ordre mondial se manifeste comme une vive inquiétude à l'égard des délocalisations massives auxquelles les confronte ce nouvel ordre mondial, alors que c'est sous la forme d'une crainte de ne pouvoir intégrer ce jeu mondial et ainsi sombrer plus encore dans la pauvreté qu'est vécu ce trouble par les pays du Sud. Tel est le constat général qui sert de point de départ à l'analyse de Zaki Laïdi dans son dernier ouvrage, La grande perturbation.

A Unified Theory of Party Competition: A Cross-National Analysis Integrating Spatial and Behavioral Factors, J.F. Adams, S. Merill, III and B. Grofman, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 311.

A Unified Theory of Party Competition continues the development of the important research agenda started by Merrill and Grofman's A Unified Theory of Voting: Directional and Spatial Proximity Models (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). This agenda focuses on integrating hitherto diverging streams of the literature in order to present sophisticated formal models that lead to empirically testable predictions with more realistic results than earlier models. As such, this book is at the cutting edge of developing the scientific study of politics. Although written with an explicit theoretical concern in mind, it presents a wealth of rigorous empirical tests, drawn from case studies of Britain, France, Norway and the Unites States, to demonstrate how well the theory travels across very different institutional and contextual settings.

Histoire de l'OTAN, Charles Zorgbibe, Paris : Editions Complexe, 2002, 283 pages.

Au moment où l'OTAN élargit le nombre de ses adhésions du côté de l'Europe de l'Est et redéfinit sa mission au regard de la montée du terrorisme et des conflits en ex-Yougoslavie, en Afghanistan et en Irak, il serait sage de lire l'Histoire de l'OTAN de Charles Zorgbibe. Il s'agit d'un ouvrage quasi prémonitoire qui, en plus de dégager les origines et les fondements de l'Alliance atlantique, réussit à illustrer son évolution et surtout à mettre en lumière ses problèmes et ses perspectives ainsi qu'à dégager les motifs qui font de l'OTAN une organisation à la fois indispensable et controversée dans le monde de l'après-guerre froide.

Regressive Taxation and the Welfare State: Path Dependence and Policy Diffusion, Junko Kato, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 260.

This book provides a surprisingly interesting look at an understudied problem within the field of comparative welfare state research: the relationship between funding and welfare state regime characteristics. The author proposes that researchers take a second look at regressive taxation, specifically value-added taxes (VATs) such as Canada's GST. While it is commonly assumed that a sustainable and extensive welfare state goes hand-in-hand with a heavy reliance on progressive taxation, Kato seeks to demonstrate through a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods that this is not the case.

Vers des périmètres de sécurité? La gestion des espaces continentaux en Amérique du Nord et en Europe., Fortmann, Michel, Alex Macleod et Stéphane Roussel (sous la direction de)., Montréal : Athéna et CEPES/GERSI. Collection sécurité. 2003. ISBN 2-922865-14-2.

Est-il nécessaire de le rappeler : depuis le 11 septembre 2001, les questions de sécurité occupent une place prépondérante dans le discours de politique étrangère, provoquant du même coup une prolifération d'études, d'enquêtes, de réflexions, d'analyses, voire de spéculations. Il est parfois difficile de saisir le sens de cet amalgame d'idées tant les perspectives sont diverses. Si, aujourd'hui, nous voyons apparaître de plus en plus d'études de contexte, la première génération d'études – notamment celles qui étaient issues de colloques comme c'est le cas avec cet ouvrage – portait essentiellement sur le “ que faire ”. À cet égard, l'initiative du Groupe d'études et de recherche en sécurité internationale (GERSI; Université de Montréal et Université McGill) et du Centre d'études des politiques étrangères et de sécurité (CEPES; Université du Québec à Montréal et Université Concordia) mérite d'être saluée. Nous sommes en présence non seulement d'un survol méthodiquement orchestré, mais aussi d'une réflexion qui prend en considération les dimensions nord-américaines et européennes de la question et tente de les comparer.

The Politics of Direct Democracy: Referendums in Global Perspective., Lawrence LeDuc., Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview. 2003, pp. 214.

The 1980s marked a watershed in the evolution of liberal democracy. On the global front the principles of liberal democracy were successfully used as battering rams to demolish the walls erected by its powerful Cold War rival—socialism. Our side declared victory and the end of ideological conflict. And yet in its struggle with socialism liberal democracy planted the seeds for its own transformation—it was hoist with its own petard. A new consensus emerged. Our elections were also a sham, parties provided little or no meaningful choice, and legislators were unrepresentative, unresponsive and unaccountable. On major constitutional and moral issues there was gridlock. From the left came calls for “people power” and more inclusive and empowering institutions. From the right came calls for privatizing the State and reducing the autonomy of elected officials and the “special interests” who controlled it. Enter the referendum as a way of addressing this “democratic deficit.” Why not let the people decide?

The Shifting Foundations of Modern Nation-States, Sima Godfrey and Frank Unger, eds., Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004, pp. xi, 164.

The collapse of communism, the end of the cold war, and the seeming inevitability of what is euphemistically termed globalization have shifted the parameters of political discourse away from the traditional issues of economics and class or, as Harold Lasswell succinctly put it almost seven decades ago, who gets what, when, how. The new discourse focuses instead on the politics of identity and, whether one likes it or not, nationalism still occupies a very prominent place among the identities cherished by various groups of human beings. Thus the last fifteen years have seen a proliferation of books, articles, and conference papers devoted to the subject of nationalism, in Canada and elsewhere.

Qui sommes-nous ? Identité nationale et choc des cultures., Samuel P. Huntington., Paris : Odile Jacob, 2004, 397 pages.

La mondialisation a eu des retentissements importants sur les identités nationales. En effet, les progrès des communications et l'accélération des migrations ont favorisé un élargissement des contacts entre individus de cultures et de religions différentes et le développement d'identités supranationales. À l'inverse, la crainte de se noyer dans un monde global où les identités éclatent et se fusionnent peut également susciter un désir de se redéfinir à une échelle plus intime. Autrement dit, la formulation classique de l'identité nationale est présentement attaquée de toutes parts et est devenue un problème mondial qui touche toutes les nations du monde.

Democratization Without Representation: The Politics of Small Industry in Mexico, Shadlen, Kenneth C., University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004, pp. vii–xvi, 208.

In this book Kenneth Shadlen addresses the important question of what democracy has really meant for civil society in Mexico. Mexico counts among the stragglers over the finish line of third-wave transitions, but, as elsewhere, hopes were high that democratization would magically result in political, social and economic betterment for all. Shadlen's book is among a growing number of studies drawing attention to the differences between electoral democracy—based on electoral turnover through relatively free and fair contests—and quality democracy—a more ideal regime type with intensive participatory and representative aspects. He challenges the perception that any kind of democracy always benefits all citizens more than other regimes, by offering an in-depth analysis of small business's interest aggregation and articulation difficulties, which have increased with the transition.

Governance for Sustainable Development—the Challenge of Adapting Form to Function, William M. Lafferty, ed., Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2004, pp. xvii, 377.

What distinguishes sustainable development as a governance challenge? William Lafferty characterizes it as a normative long-term challenge that has been formulated “outside-in,” i.e., sustainable development has been developed and decided upon on an international level, and therefore first needs to be communicated “at home.” It is a transformative challenge in that it requires the decoupling of economic and social development from further damage to natural life-support systems; and as the problems with the use and protection of natural life-support systems do not fall neatly within the border of states, there is a need for co-operation on the regional and global levels. Finally, Lafferty speaks of a task “confronted by holistic interactions, interdependencies and unpredictable results” (20).