The Military and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Chile. By Gregory Weeks. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2003. 248p. $47.50 cloth, $22.95 paper.

Since the coup of September 1973, no one can deny that the Chilean political system has been influenced by the armed forces. A democracy that had earlier distinguished itself as one of the most stable and durable in Latin America has had to fight to recover its reputation, and continues to do so. The outgoing Pinochet dictatorship made sure to leave its imprint on the Chilean constitution and democratic institutions in an attempt to protect military interests into the future. To what extent have these efforts obstructed the civilian quest for supremacy over the armed forces? To what extent are civilians gradually gaining the upper hand?

Women in Contemporary Mexican Politics.

From Mao to Market: Rent Seeking, Local Protectionism, and Marketization in China. By Andrew H. Wedeman. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 292p. $60.00.

In the debate on postsocialist transitions, China has proved a contentious anomaly for proponents of the “big bang” and “gradualism” to explain. In particular, scholars have contended that China's combination of capitalist markets with socialist purchasing and marketing organs provided opportunities to gain rents by taking advantage of discrepancies between the two price mechanisms. Officials gain from such a pattern of rent seeking, which tends to stall reform efforts. Somewhat paradoxically, Andrew Wedeman argues that economic rents propelled China toward a free market economy, a novel contribution to the debate on postsocialist transitions.

Islamic Political Identity in Turkey. By M. Hakan Yavuz. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. 352p. $49.95.

In November 2002, Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the majority of the votes in the general elections and formed the government. AKP's electoral victory was a major development in Turkish politics, one that was the culmination of the growing importance of Islamic identity since the 1980s, but it also reflected the impact of the liberalization of the country's economy and politics in the 1990s. AKP was formed by a breakaway faction of the main Turkish Islamic political movement, disavowing that movement's more contentious Islamic demands in order to adopt a moderate and democratic platform. The meteoric rise of a party with origins in Islamic activism in the most secular Muslim country, one that has served as the paragon for secularism across the Muslim world, is a member of NATO, and is an aspirant to membership in the European community, has raised a number of interesting questions. There is much in the example of Turkey that is instructive for the study of Islamic activism, but there has so far been a dearth of studies on the subject. Hakan Yavuz's seminal study seeks to fill that lacuna.

The Size of Nations. By Alberto Alesina and Enrico Spolaore. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. 272p. $35.00.

When the Soviet Union fell, why did the region break up into smaller independent states, rather than remain one nation? In contrast, at almost the same time, what caused 15 European nations to band together to create a supranational institution with a common currency, rather than maintain their completely separate sovereignty? Are small countries more viable than large countries? Are dictatorships bigger than democracies? And within countries, why are capital cities usually centrally located?

Politics and the Russian Army: Civil–Military Relations, 1689–2000.

The Behavioral Origins of War. By D. Scott Bennett and Allan C. Stam. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. 300p. $59.50 cloth, $24.95 paper.

An aphorism in the natural sciences states that one should either write the first article on a subject or the last one. The statistical study of war began in the 1930s and 1940s with the work of Lewis Richardson and Quincy Wright, then expanded massively in the 1960s with the Correlates of War project based at the University of Michigan. Those were the first articles. This book is potentially the last important one.

Ambition, Federalism, and Legislative Politics in Brazil.

Ambiguity and Choice in Public Policy: Political Decision Making in Modern Democracies. By Nikolaos Zahariadis. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2003. 208p. $26.95.

Nikolaos Zahariadis has written an interesting and ambitious book that extends to other countries and later stages of the policy process John Kingdon's classic insight into agenda setting—that policies are the result of streams of problems, solutions, and politics, coupled by policy entrepreneurs when windows of opportunity open.

Food Fights over Free Trade: How International Institutions Promote Agricultural Trade Liberalization. By Christina L. Davis. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. 416p. $39.50.

Christina Davis's book adds two important insights to our understanding of trade negotiations. First, Davis persuasively argues that complex international institutional factors can alter domestic protection of agriculture. Using the European Union and Japan as cases and marshaling sophisticated statistical evidence, she details historical patterns by which agricultural policy became linked to wider issues and, in the process, allowed trade liberalization to overcome the political advantages that small, well-organized groups, such as farm interests, possess. Second, she documents the contingent character of the politics of trade negotiations. Outcomes emerge not only from negotiating decisions, such as choice in agenda setting and the use of threats, but also from forces external to the negotiations per se, such as budget pressures.

Dissolution: Sovereignty and the Breakup of the Soviet Union.

Genes, Trade and Regulation: The Seeds of Conflict in Food Biotechnology. By Thomas Bernauer. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. 224p. $39.50.

There is more heat than light in the discussion of the differences between the United States and the European Union over the regulation of genetically engineered (GE) crops. Thomas Bernauer's sober, thorough, and accessible book sheds welcome light on a complex issue, while also taking some of the heat out of the discussion.

A Grand Strategy for America.

Terrorism and the UN: Before and After September 11. Edited by Jane Boulden and Thomas G. Weiss. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004. 248p. $60.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.

One year after the attacks of 9/11, a workshop was held in New York City to explore two questions: How does the United Nations respond to terrorism, and how has the international environment been changed by terrorism? This well-edited selection of chapters, first presented at the workshop sponsored by CUNY's Ralphe Bunche Institute and the University of Oxford's Centre for International Studies, offers a thorough examination of the UN post-9/11, and provides an inventory of the questions now facing scholars of international conflict and international organization.

Imagining the Congo: The International Relations of Identity. By Kevin C. Dunn. New York: Palgrave, 2003. 228p. $79.95 cloth, $26.95 paper.

Created to conceal foreign exploitation of ivory and rubber, the Congo represented the instrument of an extractive colonization system, before turning violent and paternalistic. The Congo is the most egregious example of the ruthless exploitation of Africans for riches. Its independence came suddenly and unexpectedly in 1960, the peaceful handover of power being marred only by flashes of bad temper and recrimination. Once independent, the country descended into five years of sheer chaos combining mutinies, secessions, rebellions, coups, and a botched UN intervention, followed by several years of stifling arbitrary rule, predation, economic ruin, and civil war.