Readers of Perspectives will hopefully have noticed that in recent issues we have instituted a new practice of supplementing our journal's long-standing four-field classification of all books under review with a fifth “theme” section of book reviews—on such topics as gender and politics, democratization, and most recently immigration politics. This addition signifies more than a change of scholarly bookkeeping or journal formatting. It represents one of many ways that we have sought to bridge and to reconfigure standard subfield and methodological divides in our profession, and to open up new and more problem-oriented ways of thinking about the thing our profession is presumably organized to study—politics.

Many post-colonial states use ethnically-based redistribution (EBR) programs to address economic inequalities between dominant minority communities and professedly autochthonous majority communities. Nevertheless, despite considerable efforts such programs have generally failed in terms of advancing the economic status of majorities. In this article I will suggest that EBRs in post-colonial states are not solely intended to ameliorate economic gaps, but rather are also a policy tool used by governing elites to advance a narrative of state ownership, and by extension a decidedly non-liberal notion of democratic citizenship. I explore this claim through an analysis of Malaysia and Fiji, two post-colonial states characterized by persistent asymmetric claims by ethnic majorities who claim legitimacy by virtue of indigenousness. The discussion will focus first on the formation, deployment, and persistence of claims of ethnic hierarchy by professedly indigenous groups. Second, attention will be paid to how such claims are linked to demands for ethnically based redistribution following a direct challenge to extant ethnic hierarchies. Finally, the policies will be assessed both in terms of their stated economic objectives and in terms of their ability to generate a broader sense of autochthonous identity.

What kind of policy can the United States pursue that ensures its security while minimizing the likelihood of war? We describe and defend a realist theory of foreign policy to guide American decision makers. Briefly, the theory says that if they want to ensure their security, great powers such as the United States should balance against other great powers. They should also take a relaxed view toward developments involving minor powers and, at most, should balance against hostile minor powers that inhabit strategically important regions of the world. We then show that had the great powers followed our theory's prescriptions, some of the most important wars of the past century might have been averted. Specifically, the world wars might not have occurred, and the United States might not have gone to war in either Vietnam or Iraq. In other words, realism as we conceive it offers the prospect of security without war. At the same time, we also argue that if the United States adopts an alternative liberal foreign policy, this is likely to result in more, rather than fewer, wars. We conclude by offering some theoretically-based proposals about how US decision makers should deal with China and Iran.

In debates about promoting civic and political engagement in America, political scientists are often skeptical about the role of nonprofit organizations offering health and social services in the US because they are constrained by the tax code and grant agreements. However, I argue that by focusing on what I term social movement-borne nonprofits, we can see how these organizations may engage (marginalized) communities and participate in political activities. To illustrate, I consider the California Prostitutes Education Project (CAL-PEP) and the St. James Infirmary (SJI), two San Francisco Bay-area nonprofits created by prostitute-rights activists that offer HIV/AIDS and other health services to sex workers. Drawing on multi-method qualitative research on CAL-PEP and the SJI, I argue that social movement-borne nonprofits engage in political activities through a process of radical institutionalization, whereby they incorporate and advance activist goals within their organizational practices. I theorize the properties of radical institutionalization as “oppositional implementation,” “community engagement,” and “claims-making activities.” My hope is that scholars will test for and further define these properties in order to broaden understandings of nonprofits' evolving role in civic and political life, and in processes of social change.

When Jeffrey Isaac approached us to review some recent works in American politics from a comparative perspective, we gladly accepted the task, believing it important to help overcome what some see as the “splendid isolation” of American politics. Indeed, the invitation arrived at a propitious time because, after completing our most recent book, we critically reflected on the fact that we had unfortunately written almost nothing on the oldest, and one of the most diverse, democracies in the world, the United States. We thus agreed to contribute some thoughts on the matter, recognizing the limits of our knowledge of the entire field of American politics, but acknowledging, too, our belief that the current distancing of the study of America from the analysis of other democracies impoverishes modern political science.

From time to time, a region of the world captures the attention of social scientists because people there achieve some important human value to an extent greater than the rest of us have managed to do. In the 1970s, the Scandinavian and Northern European social democracies earned the world's envy for their remarkable accomplishments in equality, solidarity, and welfare. Accordingly, many social scientists sought to understand the political and economic keys to their success.

Evan Lieberman's Boundaries of Contagion: How Ethnic Politics Have Shaped Government Responses to Aids proceeds from a simple question of great importance to millions of people: “Why have some governments responded to AIDS more quickly and more broadly than others?” In answering this question, Lieberman employs a range of methods and engages a range of scholarly literatures dealing with health policy, comparative public policy, and ethnic politics. Because the book addresses “big” issues and bridges conventional divides in political science, we have invited a number of colleagues working broadly in comparative politics to comment on it.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

Evan Lieberman's Boundaries of Contagion: How Ethnic Politics Have Shaped Government Responses to Aids proceeds from a simple question of great importance to millions of people: “Why have some governments responded to AIDS more quickly and more broadly than others?” In answering this question, Lieberman employs a range of methods and engages a range of scholarly literatures dealing with health policy, comparative public policy, and ethnic politics. Because the book addresses “big” issues and bridges conventional divides in political science, we have invited a number of colleagues working broadly in comparative politics to comment on it.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

Evan Lieberman's Boundaries of Contagion: How Ethnic Politics Have Shaped Government Responses to Aids proceeds from a simple question of great importance to millions of people: “Why have some governments responded to AIDS more quickly and more broadly than others?” In answering this question, Lieberman employs a range of methods and engages a range of scholarly literatures dealing with health policy, comparative public policy, and ethnic politics. Because the book addresses “big” issues and bridges conventional divides in political science, we have invited a number of colleagues working broadly in comparative politics to comment on it.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

The election of Michelle Bachelet as president of Chile in January 2006 was heralded in the world press as an advancement of women's rights in Chile. Not only did Bachelet's election increase women's representation at the highest levels, but it also raised expectations that Chile would adopt more women-friendly policies as well. Although focused on the years between the democratic transition and the election of Bachelet, Liesl Haas's Feminist Policymaking in Chile speaks volumes to the questions of how and why such representation makes a difference. Although the women's movement and feminist policymaking in Chile have been well mined by gender scholars, Haas provides a different perspective, both in terms of time frame and of theoretical argument. The book is notable for its extensive documentation of the legislative process, church activism, and feminist policymaking in Chile in the posttransition era. This rich description will make it valuable to gender scholars wishing to understand the Chilean case and to Latin Americanists wishing to understand more about gender politics in Chile. But my particular interest, and my focus in this review, concerns what the book tells us about the reasons that feminist policies get adopted in a particular place at a particular point in time.

I appreciate Lee Ann Banaszak's thoughtful and insightful comments about my book. As she notes, there is a tendency in the kind of work we both do to focus on specific aspects of the complex policy process; her research on the role of the bureaucracy in policymaking makes her particularly well-positioned to identify the ways that a deeper focus on this area might have contributed to my own analysis of the Chilean case.

In this impressively researched and thought-provoking book, Lee Ann Banaszak explores the role of “movement insiders”—women's movement activists working inside the federal bureaucracy—in shaping policy on women's rights. Through a series of engaging narratives, she highlights the often-invisible role of feminist lawyers, regulators, other members of the civil service, and political appointees in shaping important policies on such issues as equal employment, educational equity (particularly Title IX), and foreign policy (women in development). Banaszak's investigation into the role of feminist activists within the bureaucracy illuminates the critical role that the movement played within the state on a number of policy issues. More broadly, her argument for an expanded view of the dynamics of social movements, movement–state intersections, and policymaking represents a needed corrective to the rather stark dichotomies that often dominate the study of social movements.

First, I want to thank Liesl Haas for her thoughtful and generous review of The Women's MovementInside and Outside the State. She raises two set of questions which I would like to address here. First, she asks whether a better sample of insider activists would have been found by choosing key pieces of policy and identifying the major players as she does in her own book. While every sampling strategy represents a trade-off when no clear sampling frame exists, such a method seems to me fraught with a number of dangers, including a selection bias towards visible and successful cases (which might lead us to examine only insider feminist successes and exclude those who were influential but less visible) and predefinition by the investigator of what constitutes a feminist policy. I believe one of the strengths of my study was the finding that insider feminists influenced policies ordinarily not identified as feminist—such as foreign aid legislation or scientific research in the NIH. Haas argues a change in sampling method might have increased the number of younger feminists (who were underrepresented in the sample) but their underrepresentation results largely from a focus on activists in higher positions in the bureaucracy, the tendency of fewer feminists to enter the bureaucracy under post-Reagan republican administrations, and my conscious decision to focus on the period before 2001 when interviewing so that I did not ask questions about the current administration.

Much of English-language writing on contemporary Colombia focuses on that country's extended armed conflict and the challenges posed by international drug trafficking to both hemispheric security and local political stability. Often overlooked, however, are the dynamics of Colombia's long-standing democratic political system. In his book, Steven L. Taylor offers readers a detailed discussion of the constitutional structure of party competition in one of Latin America's oldest democracies. Taylor is a capable scholar of Colombia's institutions and does an excellent job of shedding light on the complex interplay between parties in that country's evolving electoral system.

The fundamental point of contention between the works under review here (in my view) is whether or not the presence of systematic violence is primarily a feature or a bug of the given political system being studied. I do not mean this distinction in a normative sense, but rather an analytical one. In other words, should we view endemic political violence in ostensibly democratic states to be deviations from appropriate democratic behavior (i.e., a bug or flaw in a given system), or is it the case that the violence in question should be understood as an inherent part of the system, perhaps even if it is still to be considered a democracy (i.e., a feature or constituent element thereof)?

It is impossible to look at contemporary Latin America and not be struck by the prevalence of violence, whether in the form of drug cartels in Mexico, criminal gangs in Central America, the long-term conflict in Colombia, or urban violence in Brazil. Further, the headliners of violence from these locations obscure a more complex set of interactions that include not just traditional criminal elements but also various social actors and the state itself. This plural violence in the region is the focus of Violent Democracies in Latin America, the volume edited by Enrique Desmond Arias and Daniel M. Goldstein.

I want to thank Steven Taylor for his thoughtful comments on the volume Daniel Goldstein and I edited. In this response I will address two key points he raises that help to highlight some of the key differences in our approaches.

Since early 2011 there have been significant changes in North Africa and the Middle East. Zine El Abidine Ben Ali had ruled Tunisia for 20 years, and Hosni Mubarak reigned in Egypt for 30 years. Yet their bravest challengers were 20- and 30-year-olds without ideological baggage, violent intentions, or clear leaders. Political change in these countries inspired activists across the region. Some tough authoritarian governments responded with tear gas and rubber bullets, others with policy concessions, welfare spending, and cabinet shuffles. The groups that initiated and sustained protests had few meaningful experiences with public deliberation or voting, and little experience with successful protesting. These young citizens were politically disciplined, pragmatic, and collaborative. Where did they come from? How do young people growing up in modern, entrenched, authoritarian regimes find political inspirations and aspirations? Are digital media important parts of the contemporary recipe for democratization?

I'm grateful to Professor Howard for writing a thoughtful review of my book. I agree with some of his charges but find the policy agenda that follows from his critique to be somewhat naïve.

Philip Howard's important book offers a timely and thorough treatment of a subject that has been catapulted into the global limelight thanks to recent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt: the impact of the Internet on the political cultures in the Middle East.