The Order of Genocide. By Scott Straus. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006. 273p. $27.95.

Studies of the 1994 Rwandan genocide have moved, Scott Straus argues, beyond simplistic interpretations in terms of “tribal” or “ancient” hatreds (interpretations that were, in truth, more those of the media and politicians than of the early academic literature) toward a “new consensus” that this was a modern genocide based on elite planning, nationalist ideology, and media manipulation. Straus argues that while this is not wrong, it does not go far enough to explain why genocide happened and why so many Hutus were mobilized to kill their Tutsi neighbors as well as moderate Hutus. Emphasizing the need to link the national, elite level on which most study has focused with the local level in the rural areas where most killing was done, Straus undertook a unique study, interviewing more than two hundred confessed and convicted male perpetrators in Rwanda's jails.

Feminist Methodologies for International Relations. Edited by Brooke A. Ackerly, Maria Stern, and Jacqui True. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 316p. $75.00 cloth, $29.99 paper.

This volume presents a marvelous account of feminist methodologies. Mainstream scholars might find it all too easy to dismiss when confronted immediately with its refusal to define feminist methodologies and its jabs at quantitative methodologists for presumably assuming their work to be value neutral. Such a dismissal, however, would be a grave mistake. For the book presents a collage of perspectives on feminist methodology. The essays address the questions feminists ask, why they ask such questions, what we learn from these approaches, and how this research contributes to our knowledge. This is not a “how to” book, as you do need to reach your own conclusions—to find your own way methodologically. But this apparent lack of direction is more of an invitation to experiment and to add to our knowledge. And this unrestrained quest for knowledge is precisely the point of feminist methodology as conceived by the authors.

Scare Tactics: The Politics of International Rivalry. By Michael P. Colaresi. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005. 232p. $34.95.

The emerging research program of international rivalries is an important branch of study within the international relations subfield. Rather than focus on rare events such as war, this research program seeks to understand the dynamics at work for what many scholars perceive to be the most dangerous pairs of interstate enemies in the system. Those enemies are historical rivals, typically coded as strategic or enduring rivals. In a rivalry, hatred is endemic and cooperation may be rare. These actors clearly are of a different sort than the rest of the system and need to be studied in their historical context.

Fostering Fundamentalism: Terrorism, Democracy and American Engagement in Central Asia. By Matthew Crosston. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006. 186p. $89.95 cloth.

In his book, Matthew Crosston lays out an interesting and worthwhile argument: that by focusing on short-term security assistance and long-term democracy building in authoritarian regimes, the United States is unwittingly creating conditions for extremism and anti-American sentiments throughout the world. His case study is the region of Central Asia—one that had largely been ignored by policymakers until the need for non-OPEC energy that increased in the 1990s and the military actions in Afghanistan that began in October 2001. According to Crosston, given the newfound strategic importance of Central Asia in its “global war on terrorism,” the U.S. government has all but abandoned the notion of advocating democracy in the region. He emphatically states, “There has been no real oversight to gauge whether vibrant democracies are being established [in Central Asia]. And there has certainly not been a process where regimes have been singled out and denounced for the fact that they have consistently denied their citizens the right to chose their leaders and engage their governments in peaceful opposition and open debate” (p. 18). This particular theme runs throughout the book under the moniker “Wonka Vision of Democracy”—a reference to the children's tale of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory—which suggests that U.S. policymakers ignore the “reality of democracy” while professing “admiration for the fantasy democracy supposedly emerging.” Crosston quotes excerpts from various public statements of U.S. government officials in a variety of settings to show that this is a “bipartisan effort” to avoid the difficult challenges raised by providing assistance to authoritarian regimes.

Democracy as Human Rights: Freedom and Equality in the Age of Globalization. By Michael Goodhart. New York: Routledge, 2005. 256p. $95.00 cloth, $26.95 paper.

Globalization, which had its modern origins in the capitalist expansion of the nineteenth century, has reached a level of development that challenges the sovereign independence, power, and authority of the nation-state, the primary actor in international politics for the last three hundred years. In so doing, it undermines popular sovereignty as traditionally understood in contemporary democracies. In his book, Michael Goodhart provides a tightly reasoned analysis of globalization's challenge to sovereignty and democratic theory, and puts forward a provocative redefinition of democracy that, he argues, can withstand globalization, even flourish in a globalized world.

Digital Formations: IT and New Architectures in the Global Realm. Edited by Robert Latham and Saskia Sassen. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. 367p. $65.00 cloth, $27.95 paper.

This is an interesting collection of essays about what the editors call “digital formations.” A social formation is something in society that is emerging without a single founding event, in its early stages of development, and tending toward a variable structure and nature (p. 9). Despite this, “you should be able to identify a coherent configuration of organization, space, and interaction” (p. 10). Several of the social formations studied by the authors in this volume are only partly digital: that is, they combine digital and nondigital elements. They are all, however, subject to “digitization,” which involves the “rendering of facets of social and political life in a digital form” (p. 16). One important reason for studying digital formations is that some are potentially “destabilizing of existing hierarchies of scale and nested hierarchies” (p. 19), while others reinforce them. An example of the former is the open-source software movement (as chronicled here by Steve Weber); an example of the latter is what Dieter Ernst in his chapter calls the “global flagship networks” created by large multinational corporations.

The Perils of Global Transparency: Why the Information Revolution May Not Lead to Security, Democracy, or Peace. By Kristin M. Lord. Albany: SUNY Press, 2006. $65.00 cloth, $21.95 paper.

Kristin M. Lord's book title sums up her provocative and thought-provoking main arguments. The conventional wisdom is that transparency usually reduces unwarranted fears and worst-case assumptions, and reduces corruption in government and business. Transparency can thereby calm arms races, prevent wars, and promote understanding, democracy, wealth generation, and justice. Lord's clearly written book is the single most pointed attack on these widely held views. This is its major contribution, and it builds on her work with Bernard I. Finel with whom she coedited Power and Conflict in the Age of Transparency (2002). (See also James Marquardt, “Why Transparency in International Relations is not What it Appears to Be,” Ph.D. diss.,University of Chicago, 1998.)

Predators and Parasites: Persistent Agents of Transnational Harm and Great Power Authority. By Oded Löwenheim. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2007. 280p. $70.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.

At a time when tangible success in the global war on terror seems increasingly elusive, and critics question not only its direct costs (both economic and in human lives) but also the indirect costs of resources diverted from other important concerns, Oded Löwenheim provides a timely explanation of the single-minded U.S. focus on Al Qaeda at the expense of other (and some would argue) equally if not more destructive actors in international society. The author argues that Al Qaeda, and terrorist groups in general, can be viewed as one among many subnational actors he designates as PATHs, “persistent agents of transnational harm,” and as such, they are usefully understood in terms of their impact (perceived or otherwise) on Great Power authority.

The Limits of Culture: Islam and Foreign Policy. Edited by Brenda Shaffer. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006. 360p. $50.00 cloth, $25.00 paper.

This edited volume addresses a question of great interest to scholars working at the intersection of international and comparative politics: What influence does culture exert over a state's foreign policy? In seeking to provide answers, the book focuses on the foreign policies of the states of the greater Caspian region during the first decade after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

In the Space of Theory: Postfoundational Geographies of the Nation-State. By Matthew Sparke. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. 395p. $78.00 cloth, $26.00, paper.

The historic intertwining of things political, military, and geographical are tight and many. To take but one example, the term “region” comes from the Latin regere—to rule. Historically, geographers have been among the key knowledge producers for and analysts of politics. When geographers largely dropped out of political sight during the Cold War, it was an historical anomaly. With the upsurge in critical geopolitics, they are back with a vengeance.