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CIAO DATE: 12/03
Volume 118 No. 3 (Fall 2003)
Abstracts
Understanding the Bush Doctrine
Robert Jervis argues that the Bush doctrine presents a highly ambitious conception of U.S. foreign policy. Based on the premise that this is a period of great threat and great opportunity, the doctrine calls for the assertion and expansion of American power in service of hegemony. He concludes that this assertion and expansion is not likely to succeed.
[Full Text, PDF Format, 25 pages, 140 kb]
Deciding on War Against Iraq: Institutional Failures
Louis Fisher analyzes the performance of U.S. political institutions in authorizing the war against Iraq in October 2002. He finds that the Bush administration failed to provide correct information to Congress to justify the war and relied on tenuous claims that were discredited on many occasions. He also argues that Congress failed in its institutional duties both by voting on the Iraq resolution without sufficient evidence and by drafting the legislation in such a way that it left the power to initiate war in the hands of the President, exactly what the Framers had tried to prevent.
Judicial Uses of Subterfuge: Affirmative Action Reconsidered
Daniel Sabbagh contends that it is the visibility of affirmative action decisions that triggers negative side effects as far as its underlying goal of deracializing American society is concerned. He suggests that some of the most important developments in the Supreme Court's case law can be understood as reflecting a tendency to minimize those negative side effects by dissimulating the policy's most distinctive features.
Pluralism and Multiculturalism in France: Post-Jacobin Transformations
William Safran examines the modifications of France's traditional Jacobin republicanism in the direction of pluralism. He shows how this development has been reflected in the growth of "polyarchic" patterns as manifested in the competition between national and local governmental authorities, on the one hand, and public and private sectors in economics, education, and the media, on the other.
Direct Democracy and Institutional Realignment in the American States
Caroline J. Tolbert draws a parallel between the Progressive era and the last two decades of the twentieth century to look at the role of direct democracy in American political reform. She argues that ballot issues at the state level may function as an adaptive mechanism, realigning institutions of representative government to new social and economic functions.
Is the Body Politic Dying? A Review Essay
Hugh Heclo reviews three books that seek to explain the decline of voting in the United States. The results of his analysis paint a grim but not hopeless portrayal of modern American citizenship.
Book Reviews
John R. Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, Stealth Democracy: Americans' Beliefs about How Government Should Work
Reviewed by Robert Shapiro
[Full Text, PDF Format, 4 pages, 66.2 kb]
Charles A. Kupchan, The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-first Century
Reviewed by Walter LaFeber
[Full Text, PDF Format, 3 pages, 57.1 kb]
David A. Crockett, The Opposition Presidency: Leadership and the Constraints of History
Reviewed by David R. Mayhew
Artemus Ward, Deciding to Leave: The Politics of Retirement from the United States Supreme Court
Reviewed by Henry J. Abraham
George W. Breslauer, Gorbachev and Yeltsin as Leaders;
Andrew Felkay, Yeltsin's Russia and the West
Reviewed by Mark Kramer
Miguel Angel Centeno, Blood and Debt: War and the Nation-State in Latin America
Reviewed by Jorge I. Domínguez
Steven K. Vogel, ed., U.S.-Japan Relations in a Changing World
Reviewed by Akira Iriye
Robert H. Scales, Jr., Yellow Smoke: The Future of Land Warfare for America's Military
Reviewed by William Odom
[Full Text, PDF Format, 4 pages, 60 kb]
Graeme Gill, Democracy and Post-Communism: Political Change in the Post-Communist World
Reviewed by Oxana Shevel
Vesna Danilovic, When the Stakes Are High: Deterrence and Conflict among Major Powers
Reviewed by Erik Gartzke
Glenn E. Schweitzer with Carole Dorsch Schweitzer, A Faceless Enemy: The Origins of Modern Terrorism
Reviewed by Audrey Kurth Cronin
Robert Kagan, Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order
Reviewed by Frank Costigliola
Thomas Ambrosio, ed., Ethnic Identity Groups and U.S. Foreign Policy
Reviewed by Kay Lehman Schlozman
Michael Welch, Detained: Immigration Laws and the Expanding I.N.S. Jail Complex
Reviewed by Athan Theoharis
John Denvir, Democracy's Constitution: Claiming the Privileges of American Citizenship
Reviewed by Verity Smith
Kira Sanbonmatsu, Democrats/Republicans and the Politics of Women's Place
Reviewed by Doris A. Graber
John A. Agnew, Place and Politics in Modern Italy
Reviewed by Randolph Starn
Jenny B. White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey:A Study in Vernacular Politics
Reviewed by Quinn Mecham
Peter J. Wallison, Ronald Reagan: The Power of Conviction and the Success of His Presidency;
Peter Schweizer, Reagan's War: The Epic Story of His Forty Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism
Reviewed by John J. Pitney, Jr.
David Denver, Elections and Voters in Britain
Reviewed by Justin Fisher
Lisa Baldez, Why Women Protest: Women's Movements in Chile
Reviewed by Elisabeth Jay Friedman
E. Scott Adler, Why Congressional Reforms Fail: Reelection and the House Committee System
Reviewed by Jeffery A. Jenkins
Gianpietro Mazzoleni, Julianne Stewart, and Bruce Horsfield, eds., The Media and Neo-Populism: A Contemporary Comparative Analysis
Reviewed by Brigitte L. Nacos
Sally S. Cohen, Championing Child Care
Reviewed by Sonya Michel
Leonard N. Moore, Carl B. Stokes and the Rise of Black Political Power
Reviewed by Wilbur C. Rich
John H. Kessel, Presidents, the Presidency, and the Political Environment
Reviewed by Erwin C. Hargrove
A. James Reichley, Faith in Politics;
Louis Fisher, Religious Liberty in America: Political Safeguards
Reviewed by Andrew Greeley
David M. Anderson and Michael Cornfield, eds., The Civic Web: Online Politics and Democratic Values
Reviewed by Bruce Bimber
Irwin L. Morris, Congress, the President, and the Federal Reserve: The Politics of American Monetary Policy-Making
Reviewed by Gerald Epstein
Jon C. Teaford, The Rise of the States: Evolution of American State Government
Reviewed by Thomas Lewis Gais
Lawrence J. Vale, Reclaiming Public Housing: A Half Century of Struggle in Three Public Neighborhoods
Reviewed by Donna Kirchheimer