Orient-Occident, la fracture imaginaire, George Corm, Paris : La Découverte, Paris, 2005, 208 pages.

S'interrogeant sur l'origine de la fracture entre l'Orient et l'Occident, George Corm en vient, dans cet ouvrage, à porter un regard critique particulièrement incisif sur l'image que l'Occident se fait de lui-même. Comme l'annonce le titre, l'auteur établit rapidement le constat d'une fracture imaginaire entre ces deux mondes, fracture résultant d'une mise en scène identitaire à l'Ouest. C'est donc afin de mieux comprendre non-seulement le sens de cette fracture, mais aussi qui nous sommes, qu'il s'emploiera, dans cet essai, à déconstruire certaines idées préconçues et à briser les grands dogmes qui ont conduit à ce malentendu conceptuel.

Reigns of Terror, Patricia Marchak, Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003, pp. xi, 306

In Reigns of Terror, Patricia Marchak investigates “the causes and conditions that underlie crimes against humanity conducted under the aegis of states” (x). According to Marchak, most works on genocide (attacks on citizens because of their ethnicity or religion) and politicide (the eradication of people for mainly political reasons) are far too simplistic. She maintains that factors such as racism, ethnic conflict, authoritarian regimes or ideologies of intolerance and hatred are usually important, but each is nonetheless insufficient in explaining situations in the twentieth century in which governments attacked their own citizens.

The Roots of American Exceptionalism, Charles Lockhart, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003, pp. 221.

In The Roots of American Exceptionalism: Institutions, Culture and Policies, Charles Lockhart has written a short book on a big topic that is sure to stimulate readers seeking to understand how America's unique political inheritance influences the world's only hyperpower. The book rests upon a premise that is simple to state, but much more complex to think through, namely that a nation's history shapes its political culture, which is both reflected and reinforced by institutional structures, and which then creates governance capacities that either facilitate or constrain potential policy outcomes.

Dismantling Democratic States, Ezra Suleiman, Princeton and Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2003, pp. 327.

At the heart of this comparative text is a fundamental critique of the substitution of the norms of the market place for those of collective public interest. As citizens are transformed into ubiquitous consumers, so the reinvention of government raises profound questions about the public domain and its role. To this extent, the New Public Management (NPM) is a vehicle for a deeper ideological program, differentiating it from earlier reform endeavours. However, Suleiman contends it is a global movement very much constrained by cultural contexts. The reluctance of countries such as France or Japan to implement far-reaching reforms reflects deeply embedded socio-cultural and political values that underpin the public sphere, unlike prevalent values in the United States.

Comparative Biomedical Policy: Governing Assisted Reproductive Technologies, Ivor Bleiklei, Malcolm L. Goggin and Christine Rothmayr, eds., London: Routledge, 2004, pp. 284.

Few issues have the potential to combine elements of science fact and science fiction as does the field of biomedical research and its offshoot, assisted reproductive technologies (ART). As newspapers testify with regularity, this area of science and medicine uniquely combines promises for the improvement of human health but also exemplifies the dangers associated with scientists playing god with the very the building blocks of our species. Confronted with these stark opposites, public authorities have entered the fray and have tried, with varied responses, to frame these practices in such as way as to encourage and stimulate the positive elements of this area of research and medicine, such as in vitro fertilization, while cutting off or severely circumscribing the areas which have been deemed immoral or unethical, such as human cloning. It is where issues of morality or ethics enter the policy discourse that the waters get murky and where, as a result, governments find the arbitration between first-person experiences and societal norms the most difficult.

Islam and Politics, Beverly Milton-Edwards, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004, pp. vii, 217.

The Search for Arab Democracy: Discourses and Counter-Discourses, Larbi Sadiki, New York: Columbia University Press, 2004, pp. vii, 409

These two books approach Middle Eastern Arab and Islamic politics from a post-modern perspective informed by new European and American scholarship on democracy and gender. Both authors tackle a range of issues that should have been treated as discrete topics. Beverly Milton-Edwards and Larbi Sadiki, the two authors, are trying to define Islam and politics not only in terms of the world after 9/11, but also in terms of the recurring and yet-to-be-solved issue of the role of Islam in the modern world and its relationship to politics.

Mexico's Pivotal Democratic Election. Candidates, Voters, and the Presidential Campaign of 2000, Jorge I. Domínguez and Chappell Lawson, eds., Stanford and La Jolla: Stanford University Press-Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego, 2004, pp. xxiv, 363.

This book reads almost like the dissection of one single day: July 2, 2000, when Vicente Fox was elected president of Mexico. As an opposition candidate, Fox defeated the PRI, the party that had been in power for the longest period in modern world history. The title of this book is thus aptly chosen, because that day Mexican politics changed forever. It captures the uniqueness of that moment. Even if Fox's victory is understandable in retrospect, most analysts could not predict it. Indeed, as the events were unfolding, not even Fox himself was certain about the outcome. Francisco Labastida, PRI's candidate, was, until the last moment, certain he would win.

Representation and Democratic Theory, David Laycock, ed., Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004, pp. 224

Debates over minority rights and identity theory are irreducibly connected to issues of representation and citizenship. But while discussions in the past decade have focused on the philosophical justifications for a discrete set of rights for cultural minorities, there have been fewer efforts made to understand the impact of this demand upon conceptions of representation per se.

The 1999–2000 Elections in Russia: Their Impact and Legacy, Vicki L. Hesli and William M. Reisinger, eds., New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 301.

In many respects, the title of this volume understates the importance of its contribution to our understanding of the political dynamics of post-Soviet Russia. By conducting a thorough autopsy of the pivotal 1999 parliamentary and 2000 presidential elections, the contributors to The 1999–2000 Elections in Russia: Their Impact and Legacy do indeed say a great deal about the state of Russian electoral politics and political parties at the turn of the century. At the same time, they also provide an excellent overview of the first decade of reform in Russia, through the lens of electoral politics, and make some important conceptual linkages to the broader issues of democratization, institutional reform and public opinion.

Political Philosophy and the God of Abraham, Thomas L. Pangle, Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003, pp. 263

In the beginning was Leo Strauss with his trailblazing Platonizing exegeses of Genesis, “On the Interpretation of Genesis” and “Jerusalem and Athens.” Strauss begat many strong and independent minds who commented on the text. Hillel Fradkin and Robert Sacks were two of the earliest, as was Leon Kass. Kass recently published a hefty commentary on the entirety of Genesis, The Beginning of Wisdom (New York: Free press, 2003).

Telepopulism: Media and Politics in Israel, Yoram Peri, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004, pp. 376.

This is an ambitious work that does not achieve all that it sets out to do but is nevertheless stimulating and provocative. Peri tries to combine a general summary of the literature on media and politics in a rapidly changing technological environment with an application to the Israeli political system and a detailed analysis of how the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (1996–1999) fits into the picture. It appears that Peri's views on his general subject have been greatly affected by his observations during the Netanyahu years. Indeed he sees that prime minister as the quintessential practitioner of media-centred politics on the Israeli scene.

Contre l'espoir comme tâche politique., Lawrence Olivier., Montréal : Liber, 2004, 247 p.

Lawrence Olivier est un penseur et un philosophe de la modernité. Il n'est pas moderne, il n'est pas traditionnel et, Dieu merci, il n'est pas postmoderne non plus. Son dernier essai “ Contre l'espoir comme tâche politique ” donne cependant l'impression d'un immense plaidoyer contre le défi que s'est lancé l'humain moderne à lui-même. Défi situé au cœur même de la modernité, soit celui de “ faire de l'homme un homme ” à travers ce qu'il appelle “ le principe espérance ”, porté entre autres par l'éducation et l'expérience politique depuis le dix-huitième siècle.

Quel avenir pour Israël? Entretien avec Yves Charles Zarka, Jeffrey Andrew Barash et Elhanan Yakira, Shlomo Ben-Ami, Paris : Presses Universitaires de France, 2001, 362 p.

Depuis l'éclatement de la deuxième Intifada, en septembre 2000, l'échec du processus de paix israélo-palestinien n'est plus une potentialité mais un fait. Comment sortir de cette impasse et réamorcer un dialogue entre Israéliens et Palestiniens? La question est d'autant plus actuelle que la stabilité au Moyen-Orient dépend en grande partie de la résolution du conflit israélo-arabe. Dans cet ouvrage, Shlomo Ben-Ami, ancien ministre israélien des affaires étrangères, réfléchit à l'échec des négociations et aux contours de toute solution future. Car, en dépit de son pessimisme actuel, M. Ben-Ami tranche en faveur de la paix. La solution du conflit israélo-palestinien ne peut, selon lui, être que politique.

Pursuing Equal Opportunities: The Theory and Practice of Egalitarian Justice, Lesley A. Jacobs, Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Public Policy; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. xiv, 280.

The concept of equality and the precise means by which it is most effectively realized are matters that for centuries have engaged scholars representing a variety of disciplines and animated some of the most interesting and sophisticated works in the fields of political theory, economics, sociology, and jurisprudence, to name only a few. Efforts to identify the specific demands of equality and the conditions necessary for its realization generate both theoretical and practical challenges. In particular, before one can develop a theory of egalitarian justice, it is necessary to determine what is meant by equality—what it provides and for whom—and which legal and political institutions are best suited to help secure its establishment and preservation.

The Network Society, Darin Barney, London: Polity, 2004, pp. 198

In The Network Society, Darin Barney investigates the claim that “the spirit of our age is the spirit of the network” (2). This claim, the so-called “network society thesis,” announces the birth of a new social order in which “identity, politics, and economy are structured, and operate, as networks” (2). The argument that networks form the organizational principle of social, political, and economic configurations is a direct consequence, we are told, of the communication and management technologies that mediate virtually all contemporary societal practices. This being said, Barney sets out to assess the status of the network society thesis as a truth claim: Does the thesis in fact describe the arrival of a new societal order or does it merely provide a script for its possible realization? Although he concludes the rhetoric of the network society serves both functions, Barney's ultimate concern is that its prescriptive capacity is sufficiently powerful that the political will to offset the further advance of the network society is fast disappearing.

Building Democracy in Contemporary Russia: Western Support for Grassroots Organizations, Sarah L. Henderson, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003, pp. xii, 229.

In this well-researched and provocative book, Sarah Henderson asks to what extent Western aid can facilitate the emergence of civil society in countries where civil society is domestically weak. Through an in-depth study of Western aid to Russian women's organizations, she argues that foreign assistance has dramatically affected NGO development in Russia, but not always in expected or positive ways. On the one hand, she finds that external funding “made a tremendous difference in improving and increasing the short-term financial viability, organizational capacity, and networking skills among recipient groups” (9). On the other, she argues that foreign aid contributed to at least four pathological developments within the NGO community. First, funded groups tended to copy the aid agencies' top-heavy and bureaucratic organizational structures. Second, funded groups lacked grassroots constituencies because they shifted their policy agendas to reflect aid agencies' preferences rather than objective domestic needs. Third, foreign aid encouraged the development of a “civic elite” among the domestic NGO community, exacerbating the differences between those groups that received funding and those that did not. Finally, the competition for foreign aid dollars encouraged uncooperative behaviour among funded Russian NGOs rather than bridge building and information sharing. She argues that these problematic unintended consequences were the result of avoidable mistakes in the foreign aid process, and states bluntly that “NGO development is not synonymous with civil society development, and the development of one does not necessarily imply the advancement of the other” (11).

Mondialisation, économie sociale, développement local et solidarité internationale., Louis Favreau et Lucie Fréchette., Sainte-Foy : Presses de l'Université du Québec, 2002, 251 p.

Sujet à la mode que celui de la mondialisation! Le voici abordé sous un angle un peu différent, qui allie les thèmes de l'économie sociale, du développement local et de la solidarité internationale. Ce dernier thème est plus souvent associé à la mondialisation, alors que les deux autres le sont moins.

The Horn of Africa as Common Homeland: The State and Self-Determination in the Era of Heightened Globalization, Leenco Lata, Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2004, pp. xi, 219.

The author of this book describes himself as a political activist who earned his credentials to write about self-determination in the Horn of Africa largely through his experiences in helping to form the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) in Ethiopia in the 1970s. He also draws on two decades of political activities, work and travel throughout the entire region. The result is a text that is rich in “lived experiences.” Yet the author is a scholar as much as he is an activist and keen observer of events. Drawing on different theoretical perspectives and exploring alternative theories of state, nation, self-determination and democracy, Lata has produced a coherent and nuanced analysis of current state-building processes in the Horn of Africa.

The Biblical Politics of John Locke, Kim Ian Parker, Editions SR, Volume 29; Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2004, pp. ix, 211.

Parker's study is on the foundational role played by the creation story of Genesis in Locke's moral and political philosophy. Locke's First Treatise against patriarchalism was not only a refutation of Filmer's reading of Adam and original sin, it was a positive rereading of that story suggesting “an emancipation of humanity almost unprecedented in theological writings” (38). Locke's distinction between paternal and political power, then, is not merely a way of “scoring polemical points against Filmer” but becomes a way “to form the basis of his political theory” (120). What can too easily be read as “merely” exegetical polemic in the First Treatise is translated into philosophical argument in the Second Treatise.

Et si nous dansions ? Pour une politique du bien commun au Canada, Charles Blattberg, Montréal : Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 2004, 213 pages.

Notre pays est-il voué à l'éclatement ? Est-il possible de songer à la re-fondation du Canada autour de valeurs qui emporteraient l'adhésion de toutes les citoyennes et tous les citoyens ? Voilà les questions auxquelles Charles Blattberg tente de répondre dans son livre Et si nous dansions ? Contrairement à l'analyse d'autres auteurs, il croit qu'il est possible de définir un bien commun, à condition que celui-ci soit constitué de ce que Blattberg appelle des “ règles expressives ”, c'est-à-dire des principes qui sont l'expression de ce que nous sommes individuellement et collectivement.