The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs After 9/11. By John Yoo. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. 378p. $29.00 cloth, $19.00 paper.

Most readers of this journal will recognize the name of John Yoo, legal architect of the Bush administration's most controversial policies in the war on terror. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Yoo played a decisive role in the Office of Legal Counsel to the U.S. Department of Justice, where he regularly defended the most extreme legal options under consideration by the administration. In August 2002, he penned a memo arguing that both international and domestic legal prohibitions on torture represent illegitimate restraints on presidential power. His legal views rapidly gained the upper hand because they told the president what he wanted to hear: As commander in chief, the president can do pretty much whatever he wants in order to protect the American people.

Transforming Latin America: The International and Domestic Origins of Change. By Craig Arceneaux and David Pion-Berlin. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. 280p. $27.95.

In this book, Craig Arceneaux and David Pion-Berlin examine the impact of international influences on policy change in Latin American countries. As the authors correctly point out, “the scholarship on political change in Latin America provides little direction for those seeking answers to the relative impact of domestic and international forces” (p. 29). This ambitious project seeks to explain the conditions under which international actors influence governmental decisions, as well as the degree to which government policies are or are not shaped by foreign forces. To this end, they advance an “issue-guided analysis” that attempts to identify the important actors, capabilities, and modes of influence associated with policy change. The book offers a stimulating overview of foreign influences in domestic policy decisions, yet its contribution to the literature on policy reform in Latin America is limited.

Political Choice in Britain. By Harold D. Clarke, David Sanders, Marianne C. Stewart, and Paul F. Whiteley. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 392p. $95.00 cloth, $39.95 paper.

This book is a useful contribution to the psephology of British elections, using the 2001 British general election as its test bed. The authors examine the history of “sociological” and “economic” models of voting behavior, test and find them wanting, explaining that movement to issue, party, and leader perception (Worcester 1991) coupled with economic performance assessment (Sanders et al. 2001) is found to be more effective.

Institutions and the Fate of Democracy: Germany and Poland in the Twentieth Century. By Michael Bernhard. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. 310p. $29.95.

In this book Michael Bernhard asks two questions: Why do new democracies pick the institutions that they do? How do certain patterns of institutions affect the chances of democratic survival? And his theoretical framework, in its initial formulation, makes two claims. First, institutional choices are a product of powerful agents pursuing their narrow interest. If you know who is powerful and what they want, you will be able to predict the institutional outcomes. Second, the key to democratic survival, at least in the initial posttransition phase, is the breadth and strength of the original institution-forming coalition. A key conclusion of the study is that democracies are in trouble when the coalitions that brought about their institutional arrangements lose power too soon, as happened in prewar Poland and in Weimar Germany. And this can occur for a variety of reasons: New actors may be brought in, for example, or the salient issues may change.

Reforming European Welfare States: Germany and the United Kingdom Compared. By Jochen Clasen. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 264p. $90.00.

This book traces welfare policy developments in Germany and the United Kingdom from the late 1970s to 2003. Focusing on three policy dimensions—unemployment policy, public pension policy, and family policy—Jochen Clasen seeks to understand the scope, nature, and timing of welfare reform. To his credit, the author avoids the usual trap of characterizing welfare reform exclusively in terms of retrenchment. Recognizing the complex nature of shifts in social policy over time, his work details and explains patterns of retrenchment, restructuring, and expansion. To understand the pathways of policy transformation, he considers three types of explanatory factors: party politics (mainly actors' preferences), contextual conditions (such as major events and social trends), and institutional parameters (including legal constraints, existing policy programs, and the characteristics of political economy structures). He also considers the relationships among these causal forces.

Engaging the Law in China: State, Society, and Possibilities for Justice. Edited by Neil J. Diamant, Stanley B. Lubman, and Kevin J. O'Brien. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005. 256p. $49.50.

This book, an outgrowth of a 2002 conference held at the University of California at Berkeley, takes as a given the importance of law as an operational concept in China. Rather, the fundamental questions for investigation are 1) how, when, and to whom law matters, and 2) how to study the relationship between law and society (p. 3). Traditionally, the study of Chinese law has been the preserve of legal specialists, predominantly lawyers, who have focused their attention on the institutional development of the Chinese legal system. This book takes an alternative approach in that it seeks to broaden the scope of investigation of Chinese legal issues. The contributors are primarily young scholars in the social sciences—notably political science and sociology—who report on their recent field research in China.

China's Democratic Future: How It Will Happen and Where It Will Lead. By Bruce Gilley. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. 320p. $29.50 cloth, $20.00 paper.

Much of the scholarship on democratization in China falls into roughly two camps. Some argue that democracy in China is or will be a bottom-up process. Others aver that it will be an elite-driven top-down phenomenon. Bruce Gilley is firmly in the second camp. He argues that democratization is likely to occur as China's more moderate and liberal leaders recognize, in the face of “a multiple metastatic dysfunction,” the tenuous hold they have on China and move toward democratization as a means of minimizing their losses.

The Business of Lobbying in China. By Scott Kennedy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005. 278p. $49.95.

In this fascinating monograph, Scott Kennedy explores the nature of state–society relations through the lens of business lobbying. He begins his work by criticizing existing approaches in comparative politics, which often try to fit various countries into a few standard models of state–society relations: pluralism, corporatism, clientelism, and monism. Given the complexity and dynamism in China's economy, Kennedy makes the astute observation that no single model suffices to describe the complex business–government relations in China. As he puts it succinctly, “countries do not just have one political economy, but multiple political economies” (p. 160).

New Institutionalism: Theory and Analysis. Edited by André Lecours. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005. 380p. $65.00 cloth, $30.95 paper.

There has been a lot of discussion over the past decade about the relevance of institutions in political science. This has led to the emergence of an explanatory discipline, new institutionalism, a prominent social theory that focuses on developing a comprehensive study of institutions, the way they interact, and the effects of institutions on society—thus providing a way of viewing how institutions evolve in very different ways, or how institutions shape the behavior of individual members and produce change. In this collection of essays, edited by André Lecours, a case is made for the ways new institutionalism helps reframe and renew the theoretical and analytical importance of political institutions in the determination of a variety of political phenomena and outcomes, as a group of scholars—mainly from Canadian universities—address a set of complex issues related to new institutionalist research.

Understanding the Process of Economic Change. By Douglass C. North. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. 187p. $29.95.

When the Soviet Union collapsed and rapid integration into world markets failed to produce anything like an effective capitalist economy in its Russian successor state, many economists found that failure puzzling. Not Douglass North. So far as I know, North did not predict the Soviet Union's fall or the subsequent chaos of its economy. But he had long since put in place an account of economic change raising serious doubts that markets alone could even function reasonably well, much less transform whole economies, without extensive institutional underpinnings.

The Defeat of Solidarity: Anger and Politics in Postcommunist Europe. By David Ost. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005. 238p. $39.95.

“Whatever happened to Solidarity?” is an often heard question, echoing the passivity of organized labor during the transition to capitalism throughout Eastern Europe. The position of the working class is especially puzzling in view of Solidarity's role in bringing down communist power in Poland and beyond. Yet the mighty force of the 1980s became a shadow of itself during the construction of markets and democracy, losing members' loyalty, organizational power, and political influence as the country embraced the ideology of neoliberalism. David Ost offers a powerful and original answer to the question of Solidarity's demise, one that goes beyond the oft-repeated claims about economic and social dislocation rendering the working class the “losers” in the postcommunist reconstruction. Rather than adhering solely to structural explanations, Ost focuses on political agency as determining the fate of the working class. His bold, persuasive assertion is that workers were abandoned by intellectual allies and union leaders. The new Polish elite embraced a radical vision of the liberal, capitalist future that left little room for accommodation with the working class. Even worse, by overlooking the interests of labor, the liberal establishment pushed the workers to channel their resentment in a populist direction, ultimately embracing the ideology and political parties of the nationalist Right (pp. 66, 95–96).

Making the EMU: The Politics of Budgetary Surveillance and the Enforcement of Maastricht. By James D. Savage. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. 239p. $85.00.

As all students of contemporary European politics know, the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 specified a series of criteria that member states of the European Union had to fulfill in order to join the single currency that would be launched in 1998–99. Most importantly, public debt had to be less than 60% of the GDP and government deficits were not to exceed 3% of GDP. When decisions on initial membership of the Eurozone were taken in 1998, the debt criterion was relaxed, but the deficit criterion was strictly enforced, and as result, Greek membership was postponed for several years. The Stability and Growth Pact adopted by the European Council in 1997, in turn, introduced a procedure whereby the European Commission would monitor the fiscal policies of Eurozone members and would be required to propose sanctions against states with persistent government deficits in excess of 3% of GDP. During 2002–4, the European Commission found Portugal, France, and Germany in violation of the Stability and Growth Pact, but the Council of Ministers declined to impose sanctions on any of these countries.

Class, Race, and Inequality in South Africa. By Jeremy Seekings and Nicoli Nattrass. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005. 464p. $55.00.

Jeremy Seekings and Nicoli Nattrass present an immense amount of quantitative and qualitative information regarding inequality in South Africa during the apartheid and post-apartheid periods. Their descriptive findings involve assertions that both support and challenge existing knowledge. For example, they conclude that during the apartheid era, there was significant redistribution of income by the state to poorer sections of the population; that apartheid “converted the state-imposed advantages of race into the market-rewarded advantages of class” (p. 379); the “deracialization” of class began not with the assumption of power by the African National Congress in 1994 but rather in the early 1970s; the end of apartheid has not led to a reduction but to an increase of inequality; the “distributive regime” that produces inequality did not really change after majority rule was achieved in 1994; there are now as many rich black South Africans as there are white South Africans; and that the most significant contributor to inequality is the high level of unemployment.

The Healing of Nations: The Promise and Limits of Political Forgiveness. By Mark R. Amstutz. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005, 296p. $79.00 cloth, $29.95 paper.

International Governance of War-Torn Territories: Rule and Reconstruction. By Richard Caplan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 304p. $99.00 cloth.

In the late 1990s, the World Bank conducted a far-reaching research program on the causes of civil war. Were civil wars inspired mainly by genuine unresolved political grievances, or were they precipitated by predatory groups (including governments) seeking to profit monetarily from violence and instability? Among the bank's myriad findings, many of them hotly disputed, came one assertion around which there was almost universal consensus: that the single factor that made future conflict likely was past conflict concluded within the previous five years. This finding, based on exhaustive empirical research, has two profound consequences for thinkers and practitioners engaged in formulating and assessing the transition from war to peace. On the one hand, it shows that the risks and costs of failure are high. Failure to foster political reconciliation, to tackle the root causes of conflict, to rebuild shattered economies and (among other things) provide a secure environment is more likely to lead to the outbreak of war and oppression than any other factor. On the other hand, the World Bank findings show that—contra some skeptics who argue that third parties have no part to play and that political conflicts are best resolved violently—long-term success need not be a chimera: Build peace effectively for over five years and the chances of future conflict decrease dramatically. There are clear lessons for Iraq here—civil war need not be inevitable, but to avoid it requires getting a wide variety of things right that are currently going wrong.

Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics. By Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004. 240p. $17.95.

Institutional Change and Globalization. By John L. Campbell. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. 264p. $55.00 cloth, $17.95 paper.

Joined by their pursuit of the causal mechanisms that drive institutional and organizational change, these authors provide a window on the promise and perils of life on a research frontier. John Campbell details the shortcomings of institutionalist theory in the face of institutional change, using the empirical case of globalization for largely illustrative purposes. Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore aim to put the “organization” back into the study of international organizations, using three case studies to locate the roots of mission creep not in the demands of states but in the bureaucratic cultures of organizations themselves. These books share the claim that current institutional and organizational theories fail to incorporate the ways in which ideas determine change and stability.

The Evolution of the Trade Regime: Politics, Law, and Economics of the GATT and the WTO. By John H. Barton, Judith L. Goldstein, Timothy E. Josling, and Richard H. Steinberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. 256p. $29.95.

The scope of this book is impressive. Eight chapters detail the history and institutional design of the World Trade Organization and its forebear, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), analyze their successes and failures over nearly 60 years, and outline challenges that the regime must manage to remain politically viable. As the subtitle suggests, the authors examine the politics that have shaped and sustained the trade regime; legal issues, particularly in the settlement of trade disputes; and economics as an underlying factor in the regime's evolution, along with the trade effects of its presence.

Contesting Globalization: Space and Place in the World Economy. By Andre C. Drainville. New York: Routledge, 2004. 208p. $145.00 cloth, $41.95 paper.

The literature on globalization has come a long way. The first-generation scholarship debated the “decline of the nation-state” thesis. Globalization critics predicted widespread regulatory races to the bottom. They blamed technological innovations that allow firms to decouple various stages of the production processes for privileging capital over other societal actors. While the globalization optimists agree with the causal story of the critics, they welcomed the emergence of a “borderless world.” For them, capital mobility leads to good governance because it privileges economic efficiency over rent-seeking politics.

Darfur: A Short History of a Long War. By Julie Flint and Alex de Waal. New York: Zed Books, 2005. 176p. $60.00 cloth, $19.99 paper.

Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide. By Gérard Prunier. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005. 232p. $24.00.

In the last two years, the Darfur region in western Sudan has moved from relative international obscurity to become a symbol of humanitarian crisis and mass violence. Political scientists who research genocide, ethnic conflict, civil war, humanitarianism, and African politics all have taken interest in the region, and Darfur is likely to command scholarly attention in years to come. Yet the academic literature on the region remains thin. To date, scholars have relied primarily on journalistic accounts and human rights reports, which detail the violence but, by their nature, provide only cursory historical background. With the publication of these two short but informative books, Darfur's political history and the path to mass violence are substantially clearer. That said, the books are not designed to build theories of ethnic violence or genocide, nor do the authors explicitly engage in hypotheses testing. The books are useful primarily as detailed, lucid case histories from two sets of well-informed observers.

The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global. By Fawaz A. Gerges. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 358p. $27.00.

The 9/11 attacks have already produced a substantial literature that seeks to explain the roots of Al Qaeda's strategy of targeting the United States. Explanations range from simplistic statements—“They hate us,” “They hate freedom”—to arguments about revenge or punishment for various American policy choices, to more complex arguments that Osama bin Laden and his associates sought to draw America into a trap of sorts. One problem, of course, is that no one really has much of an idea of precisely what led bin Ladin and his top associates to plot the 9/11 attacks. Scholars do not, quite frankly, have a lot to work with here.

Nation-States and the Multinational Corporation: A Political Economy of Foreign Direct Investment. By Nathan M. Jensen. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. 224p. $35.00.

The dramatic increase in flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) during the last two decades of the twentieth century has been accompanied by an extensive literature dealing with the impact of multinational corporations (MNCs) on issues such as economic growth, poverty and inequality, the environment, and cultural diversity. As many of the concerns about these impacts, positive as well as negative, revolve around the question of markedly increased competition among states for MNCs, it is surprising how little attention has been paid to the political and economic factors that attract FDI.