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).

Morality Politics in American Cities. By Elaine B. Sharp. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005. 288p. $35.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.

Elaine Sharp's book examines the political climate and specifics of the local policy debate, authorization, and implementation associated with a number of controversial issues: casino gambling projects and regulation/prohibition of “sex industries,” as well as municipal support for/opposition to gay rights and provision of abortion and addiction services. Using the blanket notion of morality politics to characterize these matters, Sharp looks at local-level political/policy debates in 10 metropolitan areas during the 1990s. With this number of cities available for comparative analysis, she structures her numerous city/issue narratives by way of four independent variables: local cultural climate, local economic climate, municipal institutional structure, and intergovernmental relationships.

Citizens Abroad: Emigration and the State in the Middle East and North Africa. By Laurie A. Brand. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 264p. $85.00.

This book charts new territory by taking emigration, and the policies of sending states toward their citizens abroad, seriously. Laurie Brand's comparative examination of state emigration institutions and policy across Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon, and Jordan places her in an excellent position both to critique and to contribute to literatures on transnationalism and citizenship that are myopically focused on immigration to the North and host country policies toward migrants. Most intriguingly, early research led Brand to frame her investigation in terms of broader questions about the contemporary reconfiguration of “sovereignty in the international system” by home states in response not only to host state actions but also to the changing demands, material resources, and experiences of émigré communities (pp. 10–11, 222).

The Politics of Constitutional Review in Germany. By Georg Vanberg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 208p. $70.00.

The judicial power to review the constitutionality of laws was a unique feature of American constitutionalism well into the twentieth century. The perceived success of this experiment in limited democracy prompted several nations, among them West Germany, to create courts of constitutional review in the aftermath of World War II. Now several decades later, as the author of this book writes, constitutional review “has emerged as an almost universal feature of western-style democracy” (p. 1). In most of the world's advanced liberal democracies, the power to review the constitutionality of laws has been lodged in specialized courts of constitutional review, meaning that only these courts are empowered to nullify laws on constitutional grounds. Germany's Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) is one of the most notable and powerful of these specialized tribunals. It is notable for the frequency with which it has invalidated national and local laws and also for the extensive reach of its jurisdiction. Owing to the German court's rejection of any political question doctrine, together with its authority to decide with finality abstract questions of constitutional law—that is, questions raised by legislators outside the normal framework of an actual law suit—its powers of review actually exceed those of the Supreme Court. Indeed, the FCC has begun to challenge the Supreme Court as the leading model of constitutional review around the world.

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.

Tides of Consent: How Public Opinion Shapes American Politics. By James A. Stimson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 206p. $55.00 cloth, $16.99 paper.

The main goal of James A. Stimson's book is to show how the dynamics of public opinion impinge on the the American political process. This is a broad and potentially difficult task, particularly for such a succinct text. Nevertheless, I believe the book achieves its objectives quite convincingly.

Federalism and the Market: Intergovernmental Conflict and Economic Reform in the Developing World. By Erik Wibbels. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 276p. $85.00.

In this book, Erik Wibbels explores the “federal collective action problem” (pp. 47, 62). Because in federal countries national and regional leaders answer to different constituencies, their electoral interests and preferences toward socially costly reforms might conflict. Market economic reforms constitute one type of such measures. As Wibbels argues, in crisis-ridden federations, “economic reforms takes [sic] on the quality of a public good requiring the individual regions to cooperate, whereas it is more rational for each career-oriented politician to avoid the costs associated with austerity” (p. 27). National leaders concerned with macroeconomic stability want market economic reforms implemented in the regions, but regional leaders have an incentive to free-ride and adopt fiscally expansionary policies. The book suggests that “many market reform policies are a function of a constant process of bargaining between national and regional leaders struggling for political survival” (p. 5). Moreover, it argues that “[t]he degree to which the two sets of actors [national and regional leaders] conflict depends on four crucial factors: the electoral interests that each brings to the game, a shared intergovernmental fiscal system, the manner in which regional interests are represented in national policy making, and the levers of partisan influence national leaders have over subnational politicians” (pp. 5–6). The author proposes that fiscally autonomous regions with competitive party systems are more likely to converge with the national government's interests on market economic reforms; and that national electoral coattails are a more effective means for disciplining regional leaders than partisan harmony through centrally dispensed carrots and sticks (pp. 38–39).

Fujimori's Peru: Deception in the Public Sphere. By Catherine M. Conaghan. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. 328p. $29.95 cloth, $25.95 paper.

In her book, Catherine M. Conaghan traces the major events of the presidency of Alberto Fujimori, starting in 1990 with his rise to power out of political obscurity and continuing through his departure from office in disgrace in 2000 after winning a highly controversial third term. The author characterizes the Fujimori regime as a “permanent coup,” whereby government officials repeatedly eviscerated the country's constitution and subverted the rule of law. A central theme of the book is the Fujimori government's inability through various unsuccessful attempts to completely dominate the political discourse despite persistent and sophisticated efforts to control the public sphere. As Conaghan writes, “The history of the Fujimori presidency is a chronicle of wrongdoing and complicity, but it is also a story about resistance and the limits of public deception in modern politics” (p. 13). The book is enriched with excellent primary sources and recent investigative reports that became available only after the collapse of the regime, and which had not previously been so cohesively compiled into one comprehensive narrative.

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.

Political Culture and Institutional Development in Costa Rica and Nicaragua: World Making in the Tropics. By Consuelo Cruz. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 302p. $80.00.

Political culture has remained an attractive subject since works such as Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba's The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (1963) propelled it to the fore of comparative politics in the 1960s. Over the last four decades, different approaches to political culture sought to provide theoretical leverage on an array of political phenomena, including political participation, modernization, democratic development, and state building. The appeal of the concept of political culture lies primarily in its intuitive logic: Individuals, organized into groups, are responsible for the creation of political realities. While these realities may certainly be influenced by an array of exogenous factors, their creation is dependent on individuals' perceptions and preferences. Critics of political culture research suggest that attributions of political culture are frequently deterministic or difficult to falsify scientifically. In Political Culture and Institutional Development in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, Consuelo Cruz analyzes political culture employing what she refers to as an integrative approach, a rational-structural culturalism that recognizes the direct influence of morally driven, rational political actors on institutional norms.

Japan's Financial Crisis: Institutional Rigidity and Reluctant Change. By Jennifer A. Amyx. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2004. 408p. $39.50.

Recently, the puzzle of the unexpected and never-ending Japanese financial crisis has eluded Japan specialists and comparative political economists alike. How could the same institutions generate an overperforming economy for more than three decades and a decade-long crisis? How could a system once praised for its ability to handle economic shocks such as the two oil shocks and a massive reevaluation of the Yen suddenly stall and prove unable to adapt to changing conditions? How could the greatest creditor and capital exporter of the planet have such weak financial regulations? Scholars have disagreed on both the diagnostics and the causes of the crisis. While some have focused on mistakes in fiscal or monetary policy, others have emphasized a systemic breakdown. While some have emphasized domestic political factors (be they interest groups, party politics, electoral system, or bureaucratic dominance), others have focused on external factors.

The Information Revolution and Developing Countries. By Ernest J. Wilson, III. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. 431p. $49.95.

This book provides a comprehensive theoretic framework explaining the “strategic restructuring” of government policies and institutions associated with policies promoting the adoption of new information and communications technologies (ICTs). It also provides detailed case study chapters on Brazil, Ghana, and China, concluding with two chapters placing ICTs in a global perspective. The Chinese case study should be of interest to many readers, given China's political and economic importance. Brazil has a long history of state-guided and supported development strategies in this sector, combining import substitution and partnerships with transnational corporations. Ghana occupies a more peripheral position in global political economy, lacking the size and industrialization of the other countries examined.

Learning Democracy: Citizen Engagement and Electoral Choice in Nicaragua, 1990–2001. By Leslie E. Anderson and Lawrence C. Dodd. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. 336p. $24.00.

In opposition to the recent trend in democratization studies that sees this process as if the glass is half empty, this study of Nicaraguan democratization argues that the glass is half full. Recent history in Nicaragua includes momentous events, such as the fall of the Somoza dictatorship in 1979, the triumph of the Sandinista revolution, the subsequent Sandinista electoral victory in the presidential contest of 1984, and their later defeat in 1990, when voters rejected Daniel Ortega in favor of the mild-mannered, conservative Violeta Chamorro. Noting the voters' continuous embrace of what the authors call “democratic conservatism,” they conclude that “Nicaragua appears to be evolving into an inclusive, constitutional democracy” (p. 280). How was this possible, especially in a country that exhibited so few of the prerequisites traditionally associated with the successful establishment of democracy? And why did voters, the majority of them poor, reject the Sandinistas in 1990 and later elections, favoring candidates that came to undo most of what the Sandinistas had achieved in terms of social and economic equality? These are the most important questions Leslie Anderson and Lawrence Dodd seek to elucidate in this suggestive and informative book.

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.

Governance in Contemporary Germany: The Semisovereign State Revisited. Edited by Simon Green and William E. Paterson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 350 pages. $75.00 cloth, $35.00 paper.

This is a rare thing indeed. Edited volumes tend to contain a hodgepodge of contributions only loosely centered around some theme. The hapless editors are too often left to finesse an introductory link among a series of articles that are, in fact, only vaguely related. In the present case, however, we have an edited volume planned and implemented around a clear vision. If not for the list of contributors (luminaries in the scholarship of German politics), one might easily take this book for a single-authored text.

Contesting Citizenship in Latin America: The Rise of Indigenous Movements and the Postliberal Challenge. By Deborah J. Yashar. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 365p. $37.99.

This is an excellent book and a worthy addition to the series of volumes on collective violence and political movements in the Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics. Building on Deborah Yashar's earlier work with indigenous groups in Mexico and Guatemala and the strategies they have devised in “a global fight for democracy and justice” (p. xiii), the book uncovers a powerful and common theme in the indigenous voices of the region: a demand for inclusion, equality, local autonomy, and authentic citizenship. In short, it is about identity and rights and how and why indigenous movements arise, develop, and succeed in this struggle to attain them.

A New Capitalist Order: Privatization and Ideology in Russia and Eastern Europe. By Hilary Appel. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004. 248p. $27.95.

This book provides a valuable analysis of the role of ideology in the development of mass privatization programs in postcommunist countries. Mass privatization was a unique program that defined postcommunist economic transitions in the 1990s and was adopted in numerous countries. Launched first in the Czech Republic in 1991, this innovative method of privatization was adopted in many other postcommunist countries. The rationale for mass privatization was simple: Since people did not have the money to buy state-owned enterprises, the state could give them away. To distribute ownership widely throughout the formerly expropriated population, the state would distribute shares in state-owned enterprises to millions of small shareholders in exchange for free or nearly free vouchers. Mass privatization would divest the state of thousands of state enterprises, while creating a broad-based class of shareholders after decades of communism.

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 Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security. By Deborah D. Avant. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 310p. $75.00 cloth, $29.99 paper.

Next to the United States, which entity controls the largest number of personnel operating, mostly with arms, in Iraq? Great Britain? Think again. Following the 150,000 American troops in that conflict-plagued “liberated” country are about 20,000 employees of more than 60 private security companies (PSCs). They come from around the world: the United States, South Africa, Fiji, Chile, Israel, and Nepal, to mention just a few. Most are former military or police officials, now under contracts issued to PSCs by the United States, Great Britain, and even the United Nations.

Mao and the Economic Stalinization of China, 1948–1953. By Hua-yu Li. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield, 2006. 266p. $75.00 cloth.

At the heart of Hua-yu Li's argument is the policymaking process of the early People's Republic of China (PRC). Between the years 1948 and 1953, the PRC began its massive and far-reaching socialist transformation. The author suggests not only that Mao Zedong played the decisive role in the drastic policy shift but that he also helped clarify various convoluted economic issues, as well as ignored Stalin's advice on how to achieve socialism.