Contagious Capitalism: Globalization and the Politics of Labor in China. By Mary Elizabeth Gallagher. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. 256p. $47.50 cloth, $18.95 paper.

One of the most pressing issues to be addressed with regard to the politics of the People's Republic of China is authoritarian resilience in the face of substantial market reform. Structural Marxism, modernization theory, and transition theory all lead us to expect that strong economic growth (markets and, to a significant extent, privatization), the emergence of a middle class, and the presence of fragmentation within the Chinese leadership might very well unleash forces of democratization. Of course, twentieth-century capitalism does not replicate the Anglo/American experience in which the bourgeoisie is seen to have ushered in democratic institutions, and so some scholars would argue that there is no conundrum to be explained. Nevertheless, the expectation that China's economic transformation will encourage pro-democratic forces persists among those who do and do not know China well.

This is an unabashedly theoretical book motivated by a recent empirical puzzle. To wit, why did certain post-Soviet states strongly reorient their trade and monetary relations away from Russia after 1991, while others either clearly chose not to do so or engaged in heated yet ultimately indecisive political debates about the “proper” direction for their foreign economic policies? Rawi Abdelal provides a provocative answer to this question: “What societies want depends upon who they think they are” (p. 1). His book effectively challenges dominant realist and liberal theories of international political economy, and promotes a new “Nationalist” theoretical perspective to better explain the foreign economic policies of postimperial states.

In the headline of the review symposium on page 103 of the March 2012 issue of Perspectives on Politics, the title of the book by Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell is erroneously listed as Saving Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. The correct title of the book under discussion is American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. The correct title and bibliographic details should be:

Reports from abroad on the American condition have a special place in the canon of social commentary. There is Lord Bryce's American Commonwealth (1888), Gunnar Myrdal's American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944), Werner Sombart's Why Is There No Socialism in the United States? (1906) and, of course—the standard setter—Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America in 1835. What makes these works touchstones is not just the quality of the analysis or the fame of their authors but the privileged status they have come to enjoy as works of external reflection and criticism. For a people prone to ignore the rest of the world or see abroad only a mirror image of themselves, Americans have always had a surprisingly soft spot for the foreign observer willing to discourse on what makes their nation unique.

Citizenship Under Fire: Democratic Education in Times of Conflict. By Sigal R. Ben-Porath. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. 174p. $32.95.

In this volume, Sigal R. Ben-Porath brings several important and useful perspectives to bear on civic education. Her observations are prompted by the special situation created by the U.S. war on terrorism, as well as the unique perspective she is able to offer due to her Israeli background. Both the American and Middle East conflicts are open-ended and often muddled, so that, as Ben-Porath credibly notes, her unique experience with both situations lends her an advantage as she draws lessons for education for citizenship in the modern age. Citizenship Under Fire, then, offers a fresh approach to the all-important question of education for democracy.

Woodrow Wilson is the only American political scientist to have served as President of the United States. In the time between his political science Ph.D. (from Johns Hopkins, in 1886) and his tenure as president (1913–21), he also served as president of Princeton University (1902–10) and president of the American Political Science Association (1909–10). Wilson is one of the most revered figures in American political thought and in American political science. The Woodrow Wilson Award is perhaps APSA’s most distinguished award, given annually for the best book on government, politics, or international affairs published in the previous year, and sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation at Princeton University.

Wilson has also recently become the subject of controversy, on the campus of Princeton University, and in the political culture more generally, in connection with racist statements that he made and the segregationist practices of his administration. A group of Princeton students associated with the “Black Lives Matter” movement has demanded that Wilson’s name be removed from two campus buildings, one of which is the famous Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (see Martha A. Sandweiss, “Woodrow Wilson, Princeton, and the Complex Landscape of Race,” http://www.thenation.com/article/woodrow-wilson-princeton-and-the-complex-landscape-of-race/). Many others have resisted this idea, noting that Wilson is indeed an important figure in the history of twentieth-century liberalism and Progressivism in the United States.

A number of colleagues have contacted me suggesting that Perspectives ought to organize a symposium on the Wilson controversy. Although we do not regularly organize symposia around current events, given the valence of the controversy and its connection to issues we have featured in our journal (see especially the September 2015 issue on “The American Politics of Policing and Incarceration”), and given Wilson's importance in the history of our discipline, we have decided to make an exception in this case. We have thus invited a wide range of colleagues whose views on this issue will interest our readers to comment on this controversy. —Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor.

Congress, the Press, and Political Accountability. By R. Douglas Arnold. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. 296p. $52.50 cloth, $22.95 paper.

The relationship between members of Congress and local media outlets has long been understudied by political scientists. This failure to fully explore one of the critical links between citizens and their representatives has left us with an incomplete understanding of how, or even whether, the local news media facilitate representation and accountability. R. Douglas Arnold's new book takes a significant step toward addressing this gap with an ambitious and rich study of the local news media's role in providing (or not providing) the information necessary for citizens to hold their elected officials accountable. While Arnold notes that citizens may receive information about their House members from various sources, he argues that local newspapers are unique among these information providers because, ideally, they act as independent monitors as well as forums for the airing of diverse opinions. Ultimately, however, he finds that many newspapers fall far short of this ideal by failing to produce adequate congressional coverage.

Retiring the State: The Politics of Pension Privatization in Latin America and Beyond. By Raúl Madrid. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. 336p. $65.00 cloth, $27.95 paper.

Since the Pinochet regime in Chile privatized its public pension system in 1981, several Latin American countries have enacted public pension reforms, usually incorporating some structural reform or privatization. Why have some countries privatized their public pensions (Chile, Mexico, Bolivia), while others add optional private pensions (Argentina, Uruguay), create parallel systems with both public and private pensions (Colombia, Peru), or fail to enact any structural reform (Brazil)? Retiring the State will be required reading for those interested in the answer to this question.