What's Wrong with Democracy? From Athenian Practice to American Worship. By Loren J. Samons II. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. 327p. $27.50.

Loren Samons's book is a nuanced and perceptive history of classical Athenian democracy. Well organized and lucidly and convincingly written, the chapters of this book, devoted to elections and voting (Chapter 2), public finance (Chapter 3), foreign policy before and during the Peloponnesian War (Chapters 4–5), and national defense (Chapter 6), bring to light underappreciated aspects of Athens's democratic development. To offer only a few examples: Samons traces the roots of Athens's fifth- and fourth-century democracy to its sixth-century tyrannies, underscoring the important respects in which Athenian democracy came to resemble more egregious forms of tyranny. He tracks the emergence of a public treasury at Athens during the fifth century and shows how this shift in the practices and institution of property expanded both Athens's citizenry and its imperialistic tendencies over the course of the Peloponnesian War. He explores the effects of Athens's quest for empire on its domestic policies and, by way of a sustained but largely implicit contrast with Athenian militarism and foreign policy, he offers an unconventional and persuasive picture of fifth-century Sparta as less pathologically warlike than Athens.

Uncivil Society: The Perils of Pluralism and the Making of Modern Liberalism. By Richard Boyd. Lanham, MA: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004. 351p. $75.00 cloth, $25.00 paper.

In his book, Richard Boyd offers a thoughtful reappraisal of the relation between the idea of civil society and the tradition of liberal political thought. He questions the view held by many contemporary political theorists that the development of civil society, understood as the realm of what Tocqueville called “voluntary associations” mediating between the individual and the state, is a necessary condition for the maintenance of liberal democracy. Against this position, Boyd argues that an earlier tradition of liberal thought was justifiably suspicious of the potential for subpolitical social groups—especially, but not limited to, intolerant religious sects—to undermine rather than support liberal institutions. In a series of well-argued chapters, he traces the trajectory of the connected ideas of civil society and social pluralism from initial suspicion to perhaps uncritical acceptance.

Event History Modeling: A Guide for Social Scientists. By Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier and Bradford S. Jones. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 232p. $65.00 cloth, $23.99 paper.

The study of durations in political science has been on the rise over the last decade and a half. Their application spans major research questions in virtually every field, including the duration of parliamentary governments, international conflict, policy adoptions in the U.S. states, and issue emergence in campaigns. Testing theoretical arguments regarding these and other questions involving durations has led political scientists to learn about and rely upon statistical models for durations, often referred to as event history models. Perhaps more than models for other classes of data, learning about event history models, particularly those for continuous-time data, presents a formidable task. This is partly due to the unique language of the models (e.g., terms like “spell,” “failure,” “frailty,” and “hazard”) that developed through their application in other disciplines, but also because of the new concerns that they involve. For example, how should one control for duration dependence? Is the proportional hazards assumption met?

Democracy Defended. By Gerry Mackie. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 483p. $85.00 cloth, $29.99 paper.

The main thesis in this book is that social choice theorists, and especially Bill Riker and his Rochester “school,” have cast a “long dark shadow over democratic politics” (the title of Chapter 1). Gerry Mackie then proceeds to dispel this dark shadow by an excessively argumentative interpretation of an impressive number of intellectual accomplishments in the study of social choice, public choice, and what is called in political science “formal theory.” His main attack is directed against the work of Riker, especially that author's work on disequilibrium in majority rule.

After Brown: The Rise and Retreat of School Desegregation. By Charles T. Clotfelter. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. 216p. $24.95.

Boom for Whom? Education, Desegregation, and Development in Charlotte. By Stephen Samuel Smith. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. 246p. $86.50 cloth, $29.95 paper.

Charles Clotfelter was moved to write his book because he discovered that his students at Duke had no real appreciation of the intense struggle to end racial isolation in public schools begun by the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. He felt some urgency in laying out the historical record since there were strong indications that contemporary schools were becoming resegregated. After Brown focuses on “interracial contact,” the physical proximity of the races in schools, because it is the necessary intermediary for all other potential benefits, including educational achievement, self-esteem, attitudes, and long-term social and economic success.

Problems and Methods in the Study of Politics. Edited by Ian Shapiro, Rogers M. Smith, and Tarek E. Masoud. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 432p. $75.00 cloth, $29.99 paper.

The volume is the product of a 2002 conference at Yale hosted by Ian Shapiro and Rogers Smith, in which they challenged the discipline to become more problem focused and less method focused. However, as John Mearsheimer notes in the concluding chapter, the contributors “have barely addressed the issue that [the editors] laid out” (p. 389). The result is a collection that is almost entirely method focused, becoming an inadvertent but stimulating addition to the discipline's methodological/epistemological debate.

Neopluralism: The Evolution of Political Process Theory. By Andrew S. McFarland. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. 208p. $35.00 cloth, $16.95 paper.

Pluralism and its advocates once dominated the study of American politics. And by staking out a strong positivist position on the fundamental issue of political power in their battle with elite theorists, pluralists also influenced the discipline of political science as a whole. Yet, in contemporary American politics, pluralism is rarely invoked as a theoretical guide, and when it is discussed, it is often as a foil for some alternative conceptual approach. So what happened to pluralism? In Neopluralism, Andrew McFarland seeks to explain what happened and to restore pluralism to a place of prominence in American politics and within the discipline of political science.

The Communitarian Constitution. By Beau Breslin. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. 288p. $48.00.

Beau Breslin desires to make a breakthrough in the “communitarian-liberal debate” by moving it to the plane of constitutional discourse (pp. 18–19, 109). He describes his study as a work of constitutional theory, but of a generic sort; his constitutionalist standard owes more to John Rawls than to James Madison. “Constitutionalism” refers varyingly to an architectonic vision of political perfection (or “modeling”) and to the limits on political power. The communitarian constitution is caught in a dilemma that arises from these conflicting imperatives.

Jailbait: The Politics of Statutory Rape Laws in the United States. By Carolyn E. Cocca. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. 228p. $59.50 cloth, $19.95 paper.

In her book, Carolyn Cocca takes on an ambitious topic of a relatively sensitive nature—the politics of sexuality, gender, and morality in the context of statutory rape laws. Cocca recognizes the nature of her task from the start. She opens the preface with a discussion of the reaction of others to her research—comments by colleagues questioning her own beliefs about the topic and the implied notion that her interest must somehow be inherently political or personal. Such is the reaction of most social scientists to those who study the politics of sexuality.

Challenging Diversity: Rethinking Equality and the Value of Difference. By Davina Cooper. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 246p. $75.00 cloth, $29.99 paper.

In the Encyclopedia (1751–65), the Chevalier de Jaucourt observed that while “natural equality” is the moral foundation of liberty, “absolute equality” in society is a “chimera” of fanatic minds. In the social state, he explained, distinctions and subordinations are necessary, including those attached to “differences of condition.” Later, as the old order yielded to democracy, Tocqueville discerned an inexorable tendency toward the leveling of those very differences. Would it end, he wondered, in a new Caesaristic despotism in which an atomized populace, deprived of the protection of intermediate powers, is enslaved by an all-powerful ruler? In modern societies considered free, the march toward equality of conditions has stopped well short of this dead end. But how does the modern conception of equality square with ways of living that challenge prevailing social norms? That is the subject of this inquiry, which, somewhat ironically, aims to restate from a leftist perspective the case put by the Chevalier de Jaucourt for accepting some such differences.

Public Pensions: Gender and Civic Service in the States, 1850–1937. By Susan Sterett. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003. 240p. $39.95.

Susan Sterett's book is a useful, although flawed, history of litigation in the states over municipal and state pensions for civil service employees. In particular, Sterett examines the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century history of state-level efforts to expand the scope of permissible state and local pensions, from firefighters and police officers to other civil service employees and finally to such groups as mothers and the elderly. Generally, state courts interpreted their constitutions to permit pensions for employees but not for the broader public, despite scattered efforts to argue that all labor should count as “service” to the public, meriting reward by state governments.

In Pursuit of Justice: Christian-Democratic Explorations. By James W. Skillen. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2004. 192p. $65.00 cloth, $22.95 paper.

This is a timely book about the relation of theory to practice and of Christian faith to politics. Its author first crafts a case for a Christian-democratic understanding of person, polity, and justice, and then explores possible implications of this worldview for various U.S. policy issues. The book is brief but thought provoking, written in clear and engaging prose and surveying an impressive range of scholarly literature. Among the chief merits of In Pursuit of Justice are its interdisciplinary character and its breadth. The arguments advanced should interest practitioners of many fields within political science, including political theory, American politics, policy studies, constitutional law, and religion and politics.

Regulation in the States. By Paul Teske. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2004. 272p. $52.95 cloth, $22.95 paper.

Government regulation of economic activity is endemic to modern society; a vast array of everyday transactions are affected—and shaped—by rules and requirements imposed by governments. The intentions behind such regulations are typically assumed to be benign. Through regulation, governments can rectify problems caused by deceit, unaccounted costs, or unchecked power that would otherwise limit the scope and the effectiveness of markets. From a fiscal perspective, regulation is a relatively low-cost form of government activity. The budgets of regulatory agencies represent small items of government expenditure, compared with the budgets of agencies engaging in service provision or income redistribution. Because government regulation of economic activity is very often taken for granted and is of low salience to citizens, it is rarely the stuff of headline news. Among scholars, regulation has also tended to receive short shrift. Yet, as an area of public policy research, the study of government regulation deserves close scrutiny. At its best, research in this area can provide insights into the intersections of markets and governments, using the tools of positive political economy to good effect.

Reviewing Delegation: An Analysis of the Congressional Reauthorization Process. By James H. Cox. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004. 176p. $49.95.

A core debate in the bureaucratic politics literature concerns the extent to which the president and Congress can exert control over the federal bureaucracy in order to shape the direction of public policy. James Cox's book analyzes congressional reauthorization power across numerous federal agencies to expand scholarly knowledge about congressional control of the bureaucracy. Reauthorization is a policy tool that allows Congress to reassess the status of existing policy. Theoretically, this tool allows Congress to prevent the president and the federal bureaucracy from drifting away from the original intent of legislation. However, Cox explains that Congress often proceeds with extreme caution when deciding whether to use this policy tool, because limited resources prevent it from monitoring all of the implementation activities of federal agencies. Therefore, Congress must consider the numerous costs and benefits associated with providing a federal agency with permanent or temporary authorization.

Justice and Democracy: Essays for Brian Barry. Edited by Keith Dowding, Robert E. Goodin, and Carole Pateman. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 242p. $70.00 cloth, $25.99 paper.

Getting academics to focus on a single topic can be a bit like herding cats. Present them with a theoretical problem and they tend to write about whatever they want, making only the merest nod in the direction of the problem specified. The result is that many edited volumes ostensibly devoted to a common theme wind up containing myriad papers that do little to speak to either the common theme or one another.

Justice Without Borders: Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism and Patriotism. By Kok-Chor Tan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 234p. $70.00 cloth, $25.99 paper.

This is an excellent book. Not only does Kok-Chor Tan provide a strong argument for cosmopolitan justice in the face of various defenders of nationalism and patriotism who see their claims at odds with cosmopolitanism, but in doing so he offers a cogent overview of the relevant literature and provides order to discussions surrounding cosmopolitanism where there has been a great deal of confusion.

Citizenship and Democratic Doubt: The Legacy of Progressive Thought. By Bob Pepperman Taylor. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. 240p. $29.95.

Spanning the 1890s to World War I, the Progressive era was characterized by optimism, faith in science and reason, and a commitment to broad social reform. It is remembered, today, mainly for its achievements in combating the social ills associated with new patterns of industrialization, urbanization, and immigration, among them poverty, prostitution, and political corruption.

Feminist Interpretations of Niccolo Machiavelli. Edited by Maria J. Falco. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004. 422p. $95.00 cloth, $39.50 paper.

This volume of 14 essays makes a valuable contribution to three related academic fields: history of feminist thought, history of political thought in North America, and the general history of political thought. In her Introduction, editor Maria Falco has done an excellent job of bringing her readers up to date on the evolving state of the feminist critiques of Machiavelli.

Bureaucrats, Politics, and the Environment. By Richard W. Waterman, Amelia A. Rouse, and Robert L. Wright. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004. 184p. $24.95.

This is not a book about the environment. Rather, it is an effort to improve existing models of bureaucratic behavior, especially in regard to how bureaucrats relate to the larger political environment. It relies on data from questionnaires from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the New Mexico Environment Department.

Affirmative Action Is Dead; Long Live Affirmative Action. By Faye J. Crosby. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. 352p. $30.00.

Through an informative professional literature review, Faye Crosby intends to educate affirmative action critics and a skeptical public about the real-life operation of and continuing need for a largely misunderstood social policy. Her book's key question is “why does the policy of affirmative action which appears reasonable to many social scientists attract so much negative comment?” (p. 22). Despite confusion with illegal quotas and with the Supreme Court's newly minted diversity justification, Crosby is convinced that social science studies prove that properly implemented affirmative action is largely beneficial and still necessary to overcome overt or subtle in-group prejudice, discrimination, and exclusion.