Vice-chair (2008-2010)
Leslie Anderson
University of Florida Research Professor in Political Science
University of Florida
e-mail: landerso@polisci.ufl.edu
Secretary (2008-2010)
Jose Antonio Cheibub
Associate Professor of Political Science
University of Illinois
e-mail: cheibub@ad.uiuc.edu
Treasurer (2007-2009)
Marc Morjé Howard
Associate Professor of Government
Georgetown University
e-mail: mmh@georgetown.edu
Newsletter Editor (ex officio)
Diego Abente
Deputy Director
International Forum for Democratic Studies
National Endowment for Democracy
e-mail: diegoa@ned.org
Associate Newsletter Editor (ex officio)
Melissa Aten
Research and Conferences Officer
International Forum for Democratic Studies
National Endowment for Democracy
e-mail: MelissaA@ned.org
Like most of our members starting a new semester, the Comparative Democratization section is also starting a new set of activities this season. We are moving forward with a new set of officers including Leslie Anderson of the University of Florida as Vice Chair and José Antonio Cheibub of the University of Illinois as Secretary. We welcome their leadership but remain very grateful to their predecessors, Catherine Boone and Ellen Lust-Okar, who have served this section very ably for the past two years. Marc Morjé Howard and I will both complete our terms in office next year. The elections for our replacements will be held early this spring so you might begin thinking about nominees for the offices of chair and treasurer.
3. SECTION NEWS
2009 APSA Annual Meeting: Omar Encarnación (Bard College), our section’s program chair for the 2009 annual meeting, will soon begin reviewing all the paper and panel proposals submitted by the December 15 deadline. We look forward to learning of his decisions next spring, and to seeing many of you at the 2009 meeting in Toronto.
Michael Bernhard, professor of political science, will be leaving Pennsylvania State University at the end of the fall semester to become the Raymond Ehrlich Eminent Scholar Chair in Political Science at the University of Florida.
Call for Applications: Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellowships
I hope you are also thinking about submitting panel proposals for next year's convention. Our program chair is Omar Encarnación of Bard College. All e-mail correspondence should go to encarna@bard.edu; regular mail should go to Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York 12504. This year’s deadline for panel submissions is December 15. To review the 2009 call for papers and submit your proposal, visit: www.apsanet.org/2009. We had a full 196 individual paper submissions and 28 pre-organized panel submissions for only 15 panel slots in 2008 and though Michele Penner Angrist put together a great program I am hoping we will have more panels this year due to higher attendance.
We are already planning our prize committees and hope you will submit nominees for our five prizes. This year’s winners are listed in this newsletter along with the citations read at the awards ceremony at this year’s APSA.
Those of you who attended our meeting know that we are starting a membership drive. I am already in contact with APSA to see if we might subsidize graduate student memberships as we discussed in our last section meeting. Please contact me, or one of our other officers, if you have any ideas on how we might expand membership.
Nancy Bermeo
Nuffield Professor of Comparative Politics
University of Oxford
Report on the 2008 APSA Meeting: The Comparative Democratization Section sponsored or cosponsored twenty-one panels at the 2008 APSA annual meeting in Boston, MA. For a listing visit www.apsanet.org/mtgs/program_2008/divisions.cfm and scroll down to Section 44. Papers presented at the meeting are available here.
The Section’s annual business meeting and reception were held on Saturday evening, August 30. Highlights of the meeting included the installation of new officers; the awarding of prizes for the Juan Linz Prize for Best Dissertation in Comparative Study of Democracy, and for the best book, article, field work and paper presented at last year’s convention. For complete details see the minutes prepared by section Secretary José Antonio Cheibub of the University of Illinois.
Minutes of the Annual Business Meeting, August 30, 2008:
Welcome to the Meeting: Section Chair Nancy Bermeo (Oxford University) thanked everyone for support of the section and attendance of the meeting. She also made an announcement of section member Marsha Pripstein Posusney’s death from cancer on August 22, praised her work and desire to help and participate in the work of the Comparative Democratization section, and asked that everyone take a moment of remembrance.
OLD BUSINESS
Chair’s Report: Nancy Bermeo thanked previous officers Catherine Boone and Ellen Lust-Okar for their service to the section over the last two years. She also reported on the online conduct of the new election and thanked Melissa Aten for her support and extremely competent administration of the election and the section’s business more generally.
Treasurer’s Report: Section Treasurer Marc Morjé Howard (in absentia) reported that the section was in good financial shape.
Membership Report: Membership in the Section has declined from 698 in 2006 to 665 in 2007 to 635 in 2008. A discussion followed focusing on the ways to prevent the erosion of membership, by creating a special fee for graduate students or by identifying those members who allowed their membership to lapse. A motion was presented to give the executive committee the power to investigate the reduction of fees and other ways to attract new members. The motion was passed.
Newsletter Report: Newsletter Editor Diego Abente informed the section that the newsletter is published three times a year and solicits contributions. He also informed the section of the upcoming publication of an annual Spanish version of the Journal of Democracy in partnership with the Instituto de Ciencia Política of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile that will consist of nine to ten articles from the English editions, two or three commissioned articles, and one classic article on democratization.
Program Chairs: Program Chair Michele Penner Angrist reported that the section only had fifteen panels to allot, a reduction from previous years due to a reduction in attendance of section panels at last year’s meeting. She reported there were 110 individual proposals and 28 proposals of pre-organized panels, so many worth panel suggestions could not be accommodated. Omar Encarnación was announced as Program Chair for the 2009 meeting in Toronto.
Section Awards
Juan Linz Dissertation Award: Mr. Juan Pablo Luna (Universidad Católica de Chile) won the Juan Linz Dissertation Award for his work on “Programmatic and Non-Programmatic Party-Voter Linkages in Two Institutionalized Party Systems: Chile and Uruguay in Comparative Perspective.” His dissertation advisor was Evelyne Huber (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Award committee members included Gwendolyn Sasse (Oxford University) (Chair), Aníbal Pérez Linán (University of Pittsburgh), and Juliet Johnson (McGill University).
Committee’s Remarks on the Award Winner:
The Juan Linz Prize is given to the best dissertation in the field of comparative democratization. This year’s award committee included Juliet Johnson (McGill University), Aníbal Perez-Linán (University of Pittsburgh) and Gwendolyn Sasse (University of Oxford). The committee was pleased to receive dissertations that presented a wide range of different angles on comparative democratization and varied in their regional focus. I am delighted to announce that the panel was unanimous in its decision. One dissertation clearly stood out from the rest. The winner of this year’s prestigious Juan Linz Prize is: Juan Pablo Luna Farina. Not only his first name makes him a worthy winner of the prize… Juan’s dissertation, completed in the Department of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, analyses the ‘Programmatic and Non-Programmatic Party-Voter Linkages in Two Institutionalized Party Systems: Chile and Uruguay.’ The dissertation explores the differences in the type and quality of linkages between citizens and politicians in Latin America. By choosing two different cases of higher quality representation in Latin America – rather than starting from an assumption of weakness – Juan effectively analyzes the determinants of the variation in the quality of representation. One of the counterintuitive findings is that political representation suffers in Latin America even under conditions where existing theories would expect high-quality representation to exist. What is most impressive about the dissertation is that Juan has managed to creatively and effectively combine quantitative and qualitative methods rather than just paying lip-service to the benefits of such an exercise. The dissertation’s exemplary research design rests on sophisticated survey data analysis, interview-based fieldwork, a qualitative examination of the path-dependent historical evolution of party-voter linkages, and a careful comparison of the two cases at the district level. The detailed analysis of local politics allows Juan, for example, to detect similarities in the strategies of two successful parties with opposite ideological leanings. Juan approaches his enormous amount of empirical data with conceptual rigor, a good eye for both the significant nuances and the generalizable trends. His findings enable a more nuanced understanding of the nature of political representation and deserve to be taken up by scholars working on other countries and regions of democratization. This is what we hope to encourage with the Juan Linz Prize. Congratulations on an excellent piece of research! We expect to hear a lot more about you in the future.
Best Book Award: The Best Book Award was delivered to Kenneth Greene (University of Texas at Austin) for his book, Why Dominant Parties Lose: Mexico’s Democratization in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and to Amaney Jamal (Princeton University) for her book, Barriers to Democracy: The Other Side of Social Capital in Palestine and the Arab World (Princeton University Press, 2008).
Award committee members included James L. Gibson (Washington University) (Chair), Sheri Berman (Columbia University), and Goldie Shabad (Ohio State University).
Committee’s Remarks on the Award Winners:
Why have dominant parties persisted in power for many decades in countries across the globe? Why after such long periods of dominance do most of these parties eventually lose? Kenneth Greene’s Why Dominant Parties Lose is a masterful investigation of these questions, and will be of great interest to all members of the Comparative Democratization section. Greene shows that the key to dominant parties’ success is their control over public resources. This allows them to engage in extensive patronage, attracting ambitious elites and ensuring voter loyalty. When the system works well, dominant parties are ensured of electoral support even before the voting begins; they are thus able to avoid the taint and potential loss of legitimacy that often accompanies electoral fraud or open repression. But Greene goes beyond this to show how dominant parties control over material resources does more than simply ensure their hold over elites and voters. He shows how it “warps” the development of opposition groups as well. Since the material incentives to support the dominant party are so high in these systems, only those with strong ideological commitments will opt out. This means oppositional parties are likely to be highly ideological, a factor that, when coupled with their lack of resources, limits their appeal to the most discontented, fringe elements. Given these dynamics, Greene shows that a dominant party is only likely to see its grip on power erode when its control over material resources wanes. (as when, for example, a state loses control over nationalized industries). Although his research and evidence is primarily drawn from the case of the PRI in Mexico, Greene extends his analysis to dominant party regimes in other authoritarian (Malaysia and Taiwan) and democratic (Japan and Italy) contexts. Greene’s findings have important implications for our understanding of dominant party regimes, their transitions to democracy, the stability/fragility of authoritarianism, and the interaction between economic and political reform.
The committee was impressed by the force and originality of Greene’s arguments, the scope and range of his methods and research, and the care he took to investigate the dominance, persistence and downfall of dominant parties. Why Dominant Parties Lose reminds us that investigating why democratization does not happen is as interesting and important as investigating why it does.
Amaney Jamal has written an excellent book on the origins of democratic attitudes and the effects of associational life on trust and support for particular regime types. She asks, are the sources of democratic attitudes different across different regimes types, and more specifically, do civic organizations have the same positive effects in authoritarian regimes as in democracies? These questions are of great importance to the comparative study of democratization. Using Palestine as her primary case study and looking closely at organizations linked to the Palestinian National Authority, she teaches us that civic organizations have very different effects in non-democratic states. Far from being schools for democrats as some of our literature would suggest, civic organizations produce actors who mirror the attitudes and behaviors of their political patrons. In keeping with the larger literature on social capital, she finds that members of associations do display higher levels of trust than non-members. But, breaking with the older literature, she shows that their attitudes toward democracy are ambivalent at best. The association between trust and democratic values posited in work from established democracies does not hold.
Jamal’s Barriers to Democracy is a fascinating test of the theory of social capital built with evidence from survey data, open-ended interviews with elites, observation of over one-hundred individual organizations, and comparative reference to Morocco, Egypt, and Jordan. The committee was impressed with the force and import of Jamal’s arguments and the truly impressive empirical data and research she brought to bear on her analysis. The study represents comparative politics at its best.
Best Article Award: Jason Brownlee (University of Texas at Austin) won the Best Article Award for his “Hereditary Succession in Modern Autocracies,” which appears in the July 2007 World Politics.
Award committee members included Richard Snyder (Brown University) (Chair), Robert Fishman (University of Notre Dame), and José Antonio Cheibub (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign).
Committee’s Remarks on the Award Winner:
In addition to a dozen nominated articles, the committee considered all the articles published during the 2007 calendar year that were listed in the Comparative Democratization Section’s Newsletter. This yielded a total of 114 articles, which were divided equally among the 3 committee members. In evaluating the articles, the committee considered the importance of the core question addressed, as well as the magnitude of the empirical and theoretical contribution. The members of the committee were especially looking for work that made them think about issues of democratization in a new way. In particular, the committee aimed to select the article most likely to be assigned in a world-class graduate course on democratization taught ten years from now.
An Honorable Mention was awarded to Zachary Elkins (University of Texas at Austin) and John Sides (George Washington University) for their co-authored article, “Can Institutions Build Unity in Multiethnic States?” published in The American Political Science Review. This article offers a creative synthesis of literatures on nationalism, democratization, and conflict resolution. Moreover, it demonstrates an impressive and imaginative use of different data sets to address an important, timely question.
The Prize for the Best Article of 2007 was awarded to Jason Brownlee (University of Texas at Austin) for his article, “Hereditary Succession in Modern Autocracies,” published in World Politics. Brownlee’s analysis takes a two-pronged approach, addressing the questions: (1) under what conditions can dictators control their own successions? and (2) when dictators can control their own successions, how do they do it? Brownlee aims to explain why some rulers are able to “keep things in the family,” thereby extending their rule through hereditary succession and dynasticism. Brownlee cogently argues that understanding hereditary succession requires a focus on cases of non-hereditary succession, and he thus constructs an impressive and original data set of 258 dictators who ruled for at least three years during the post-World War II period. Brownlee builds an innovative explanatory framework focusing on the institutional context in which non-democratic rulers operate, especially on the critical relationship between authoritarian leaders and the political parties through which they govern. This focus on ruler-party relations yields a key finding: Where the ruler’s authority predates the party, hereditary succession is most likely, because there is no established institutional mechanisms through which elites who are not part of the ruling family can preserve the regime and, hence, their own privileges. Conversely, where the ruler is himself a product of a pre-existing party, hereditary succession occurs very rarely.
Brownlee’s analysis is important because it gets inside non-democratic regimes by focusing on ruler-party relations, thereby shedding new light on the contrasting fortunes of modern autocracies. The study is remarkable for its impressive empirical scope. Brownlee provides a unifying conceptual and explanatory framework that pulls together cases as disparate as Bulgaria, Paraguay, Haiti, Tanzania, China, Iran, North Korea, Singapore, and Togo. The committee thus concludes that Brownlee’s article is the most likely to be assigned in a world-class graduate course on democratization taught ten years from now.
Best Field Research Award: Daniel M. Corstange won the Best Field Research Award for his work on “Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Lebanon and Yemen.”
Award committee members included Kathryn Stoner-Weiss (Stanford University) (Chair), Michael Mitchell (Arizona State University), and Devra C. Moehler (Cornell University).
Committee’s Remarks to the Award Winner:
Corstange’s thesis uses truly innovative research techniques in exploring ethnic politics in Lebanon and Yemen. His superb work was carried out in particularly challenging field conditions. His project demonstrates a formidable command of variety of essential research skills – Arabic language mastery, experimentation, elite interviewing, and powerful observational capabilities. Finally, the mixed methodology Corstange employs, as well as the theoretical sophistication with which he pursues generalization in his work is very impressive. In our deliberations this summer, we found particularly insightful the observation that Bob Axelrod, Daniel’s dissertation supervisor made in his letter of recommendation for the award as particularly apt in summing up the reaction one has in reading this thesis: “why didn't I think of that?” Here is a dissertation destined to be used as a model for those committed to combining outstanding and intrepid fieldwork with the best of political science theory.
Honorable Mentions:
Jennifer Pribble (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) for “Protecting the Poor: Welfare Politics in Latin America's Free Market Era”
Pribble’s dissertation examines the divergence among Latin American countries in the extent to which they offer social protection. She conducts case studies of Chile and Uruguay, and combines these with a statistical analysis of all of Latin America. Of particular note in this fine work, is the remarkable breadth and depth of interviews with key political actors in each of her case studies. Her use of interviews is truly exemplary. The committee found this dissertation to be an impressive combination of some of the best aspects of quantitative and qualitative research.
Rebecca Weitz-Shapiro (Columbia University) for “Choosing Clientelism: Political Competition, Poverty, and Social Welfare Policy in Argentina”
Weitz-Shapiro’s dissertation is a remarkable study of something extremely hard to research – the effects of clientelism on voter behavior. She measures how local governments implement a federally funded social welfare program and uses this to assess to what degree voters might punish politicians who employ clientelism in making distributive choices. One of the more impressive aspects of this dissertation fieldwork is the organization required to assemble a team of Argentine students to carry out surveys of heads of social welfare agencies in 120 towns and cities in 3 provinces. Weitz-Shapiro combines this survey technique with an experiment to argue that middle class voters in particular frown on the use of clientelism by politicians in the distribution of social welfare. In sum, this dissertation combines exhausting and exhaustive fieldwork, and innovative research methodology in an impressive examination of a key and little understood aspect of Latin American politics.
Best Convention Paper: Jan Teorell (Lund University) and Axel Hadenius (Lund University) won the Best Convention Paper for their work on “Elections as Levers of Democracy: An Empirical Investigation.”
Award committee members included Kurt Weyland (University of Texas at Austin) (Chair), Kathleen Collins (University of Minnesota), Marsha Posusney (Bryant University).
Committee’s Remarks to Award Winner:
The Best Paper Prize Committee of APSA’s Comparative Democratization Section comprised of Kathleen Collins (University of Minnesota), Marcia Pripstein Posusney (Bryant University), and Kurt Weyland (University of Texas at Austin, chair) received a number of very good submissions this year. While the decision was not easy, the committee agreed on awarding the prize to Jan Teorell and Axel Hadenius of Lund University for their paper on “Elections As Levers of Democracy: An Empirical Investigation.” This paper analyzes a topic that is of central importance for democratization in particular and the study of political institutions in general, namely whether the holding of elections has a beneficial impact on democratization. A number of recent authors have advanced this optimistic claim and backed it up with a good deal of statistical and case study evidence. But professors Teorell and Hadenius in their well-designed investigation pour a bucket of cold water on this thesis. They demonstrate through a rigorous comprehensive statistical analysis of a worldwide sample of over an 85-year time frame that elections, most likely, do not have a democratizing effect.
The paper is a model of scholarship in its conceptual clarity, theoretical sophistication, and empirical thoroughness. The authors are very systematic in designing their investigation and careful and insightful in interpreting their empirical results. They are especially strong in drawing conclusions from their null findings, moving from more specific, noncontroversial points to a reflection on institutions and their causal effect in general. We recommend the paper to all members of the Comparative Democratization section and hope that it will soon appear in print!
NEW BUSINESS
Inauguration of New Officers
Nancy Bermeo announced the winners of the Section’s elections: Leslie Anderson (University of Florida) is the new Vice-Chair and José Antonio Cheibub (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign) is the new Secretary.
Other Business
A request for feedback from the audience on election procedures was made. One possible concern was raised: the number of Latin Americanists in the ballot. A short discussion follows during which the consensus seems to be that there is value to regional diversity in the executive committee (as it taps into different networks of researchers) but that there is no reason to take explicit action to guarantee that each region is represented in the committee.
Sarah Birch, reader in politics, department of government, University of Essex, published “Electoral Institutions and Popular Confidence in Electoral Processes: A Cross-National Analysis” in the June 2008 Electoral Studies in which she explores the factors that shape perceptions of electoral conduct in a cross-national context, testing the hypothesis that institutional structures that promote a “level playing field” at each stage of the electoral process will enhance the extent to which voters perceive their elections to be fair.
Marco Bünte, senior research fellow at the Institute of Asian Studies, German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA) in Hamburg, co-edited Democratization in Post-Suharto Indonesia (Routledge, 2008), which brought together noted Indonesian specialists to provide new insights into the restructuring of core state institutions, the empowerment of Parliament, the slow and difficult evolution of the rule of law, the transfer of power to elected regional bodies, and the role of political parties and civil society.
Ellen Carnaghan, associate professor of political science, Saint Louis University, published Out of Order: Russian Political Values in an Imperfect World (Penn State University Press, 2007), in which she takes aim at the cultural-determinist thesis in the study of Russian attitudes, based on intensive interviews with more than sixty citizens. She argues the reason why Russians have responded favorably to what Westerners see as moves in an antidemocratic direction is caused by malfunction of the economic and political system in Russia, not because they eschew democracy and free markets in any fundamental way.
Miguel Centellas was recently appointed assistant professor of political science at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, MD, with a tenure track position. He was previously visiting assistant professor of Latin American politics at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA.
Michael Coppedge, associate professor of political science, University of Notre Dame, Angel Alvarez, and Claudia Maldonado published “Two Persistent Dimensions of Democracy: Contestation and Inclusiveness” in the July 2008 Journal of Politics. The authors challenge the common assumption that most existing indicators of democracy measure the same single dimension and present eleven different streams of evidence to show that about three quarters of what Polity, Freedom House, and other indicators of democracy have been measuring consists of variation on the two dimensions of democracy that Robert Dahl proposed in Polyarchy – contestation and inclusiveness.
A by-product of this analysis is a set of indicators of contestation and inclusiveness for most countries from 1950 to 2000. The data are available at www.nd.edu/~mcoppedg/crd. An animated scatterplot of these two time series is also available at a beta version of Gapminder World: www.gapminder.org/world/beta/democracy.html. Use gapminder_test for both the login and password.
Javier Corrales, associate professor of political science, Amherst College published “Latin America’s Neocaudillismo: Expresidents and Newcomers Running for President… and Winning” in the Fall 2008 Latin American Politics and Society in which he explains the large number of expresidents and newcomers in presidential elections since the late 1980s by looking at both the demand and supply sides. His argument focuses on economic anxieties and party crises and concludes that this phenomenon does not bode well for democracy because it accelerates de-institutionalization and electorate polarization.
Mr. Corrales also gave a statement “Venezuela’s Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy: Current Trends” before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere on July 17, 2008. He identified the potential political instability and social spending abroad as the two challenges that Venezuela is facing, and he concluded that instead of preaching liberal democracy or military intervention, the best approach is to continue to monitor the activities of Venezuelan officials abroad.
Mr. Corrales also contributed a chapter on “The Backlash against Market Reforms in Latin America” to the third edition of Constructing Democratic Governance in Latin America, edited by Jorge I. Dominguez and Michael Shifter and published by John Hopkins University Press.
Zsuzsa Csergo, assistant professor of political studies, Queen’s University in Canada published Talk of the Nation: Language and Conflict in Romania and Slovakia (Cornell University Press, 2007), in which she explores how democratization and transnational integration resolve conflicts over cultural difference in places that are marked by legacies of nationalist competition by conducting a comparative study of contestations over language use in the heart of the post-Communist region. Ms. Csergo notes that newly independent governments in the region looked to “rejoin” the West, while at the same time asserting control over the institutions they considered key to the reproduction of national cultures. She demonstrates that the role of domestic political actors in interethnic reconciliation is not merely that of “compliance” with international requirements or “effectiveness” in responding to external pressure but is largely guided by the internal democratic process.
Ms. Csergo is also the new book review editor of Nationalities Papers.
Eric Davis, professor of political science, Rutgers University, has been invited to give the Wadie Jwaideh Memorial Lecture by the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at Indiana University on October 21, 2008. The title of his lecture is “Is There a Democracy Deficit? Reflections on Democratization in Iraq and the Arab World.” This lecture will subsequently be published by Indiana University.
Daniel Friedheim, assistant teaching professor, Drexel University, served as a discussant on the panel “Exporting Western Values: US, German, & Polish Democracy Promotion Abroad” at the German Studies Association annual conference in St. Paul, MN on October 3, 2008.
Venelin I. Ganev, associate professor of political science, Miami University of Ohio, published “Explaining Democratic Success as an Analytical Challenge: Why Are Romania and Bulgaria in the EU?” in the August 2008 Newsletter of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. The essay examines how the full implications of the fact that Bulgaria and Romania are now full members of the EU have not been properly thought through. Despite the consensus among scholars writing on postcommunist transformations in the 1990s that democratic reforms in the Balkans are bound to either fail or linger on for several decades, democracy did indeed consolidate in these two Balkan countries.
Matthew R. Golder, assistant professor of political science, Florida State University, William Roberts Clark, and Sona Golder published Principles of Comparative Politics, a comparative politics textbook published by CQ Press in 2008. The book offers an accessible, yet theoretically and empirically rigorous, account of the study of comparative politics that firmly emphasizes the science in political science. Two central features of the book are its emphasis on issues to do with comparative democratization and its departure from the standard approach of examining a series of “important” countries one at a time.
Elliott Green, tutorial fellow, London School of Economics, published “Understanding the Limits to Ethnic Change: Evidence from Uganda’s Lost Countries” in the September 2008 Perspective on Politics, in which he examines the ways states have failed in their attempts to create and change ethnic identities by using the “lost countries” of Uganda, which were transferred from the Bunyoro kingdom to the Buganda kingdom at the onset of colonial rule, as case studies.
Kenneth F. Greene, assistant professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, was awarded a Mellon Summer Research Grant for fieldwork in Mexico during summer 2007 and made conference presentations on two new projects – campaign persuasion in new democracies and the rise of the Latin American left.
Kathryn Hochstetler, professor of political science, University of New Mexico, and Elisabeth Jay Friedman published “Can Civil Society Organizations Solve the Crisis of Partisan Representation in Latin America?” in the Summer 2008 Latin American Politics and Society, in which the authors examine if civil society organizations can and do act as mechanisms of representation in times of party crisis, particularly in Argentina, Bolivia, and Brazil. They conclude that the degree of crisis determines the extent that CSOs’ representative functions replace partisan representation, at least in short term.
Terry Karl, Gildred Professor of Latin American Studies and professor of political science, Stanford University, Mary Kaldor, and Yahia Said, edited Oil Wars (Pluto Press, 2007), in which contributors examine the relationship between oil and war in six regions: Angola, Azerbaijan, Colombia, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Russia and assess what role oil plays in causing, aggravating, or mitigating war.
The “Paradox of Plenty,” a central idea of an earlier book by Ms. Karl, that introduced the political and institutional basis of the resource curse, was recently recognized by Time as one of “ten ideas that are changing our world.” Ms. Karl was also awarded the Miriam Roland Volunteer Service Prize from Stanford University for her “exceptional commitment to public service in the cause of human rights and social justice.”
Robert Knight has been appointed to the position of assistant professor of political science at Chadron State College starting this fall semester.
Erik Martinez Kuhonta, assistant professor of political science, McGill University, published “The Paradox of Thailand’s 1997 ‘People’s Constitution’: Be Careful What You Wish For” in the May/June 2008 Asian Survey. The article examines how Thailand’s adoption of a new constitution in 1997, while intended to advance far-reaching reforms in the country’s democratic development, unintentionally consolidated Prime Minister Thaksin’s grip on power and indirectly precipitated the conditions for the 2006 coup.
Mr. Kuhonta, Dan Slater, and Tuong Vu also edited Southeast Asia in Political Science: Theory, Region, and Qualitative Analysis (Stanford University Press, 2008). Contributing authors provide a review of key topics in Southeast Asian political studies, including state development, globalization, and political economy.
In July 2008, Mahendra S. Lawoti has been tenured and promoted to associate professor, department of political science, Western Michigan University.
Ms. Lawoti, Robert C. Oberst, Charles H. Kennedy, Yogendra Malik, Ashok Kapur, and Syedur Rahman published Government and Politics in South Asia (Westview, 2008) in which a systematically comparative introduction to the political frameworks of the major nations of South Asia: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal, are introduced.
Ms. Lawoti also published “Exclusionary Democratization in Nepal, 1990–2002” in the April 2008 Democratization, in which she discusses the role of historical legacies, majoritarian political institutions, informal norms, and political elite attitudes and behaviors for political exclusion in Nepal.
Amichai Magen, W. Glenn Campbell National fellow, Hoover Institution, and lecturer in law, Stanford Law School, edited International Actors, Democratization, and the Rule of Law (Routledge, 2008), in which contributors examine whether international actors influence development in domestic systems and how to conceptualize the extent and nature of international influence. Using new theoretical insights and empirical data, contributors developed a model to analyze the transitional processes of Romania, Turkey, Serbia, and Ukraine.
Mr. Magen also published “The Rule of Law and its Promotion Abroad: Three Problems of Scope” in the 2008 Stanford Journal of International Law, in which he argues lawyers must overcome three “problems of scope,” conceptual, intellectual, and empirical, that afflict existing discourses about the rule-of-law and its promotion abroad.
Bryon Moraski was awarded tenure and promoted to the rank of associate professor in the department of political science at the University of Florida.
Cas Mudde, associate professor of political science, University of Antwerp, Renske Doorenspleet, associate professor of comparative politics and director of the Centre for Studies in Democratization, Warwick University, and Petr Kopecky edited the August 2008 Democratization, a special issue on “Deviant Democracies.”
Mr. Muddle will be a visiting professor at the department of political science of the University of Oregon during the academic year 2008-2009.
Monika Nalepa was recently appointed assistant professor in the political science department at the University of Notre Dame. She moved from Rice University where she was also an assistant professor of political science.
Pippa Norris, Maguire Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, published Driving Democracy: Do Power-Sharing Institutions Work? (Cambridge University Press, 2008), in which she compares the consequences for democracy of four dimensions of power-sharing regimes: the basic type of electoral system, whether there is a parliamentary or presidential executive, the decentralization of power in unitary or federal states, and the structure and independence of the mass media.
Paulina Pospieszna, department of political science, University of Alabama, accepted an appointment as a Graduate Council Research/Creative Activity Fellow in the graduate school of the University of Alabama for the 2008–2009 year.
Benjamin Reilly, director of the Center of Democratic Institutions and professor of political science, Australian National University, and Per Nordlund edited Political Parties in Conflict-Prone Societies: Regulation, Engineering and Democratic Development (United Nations University Press, 2008). The result of a three-year joint project between the Centre for Democratic Institutions, International IDEA, and the United Nations University, the book examines the ways in which new democracies can strengthen their party systems by regulating the way parties form, organize, and behave.
It is the first work to analyze the growing trend towards ambitious political party regulation in new democracies, drawing on the comparative experiences from new democracies in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the South Pacific.
Sebastian Royo, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, director of Madrid Campus, and associate professor of government, Suffolk University, published Varieties of Capitalism in Spain: Remaking the Spanish Economy for the New Century (Palgrave, 2008), in which he builds on recent literature on “varieties of capitalism” to show the impact that institutions have on national economic policy.
Frederic C. Schaffer, assistant professor of political science, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, published The Hidden Costs of Clean Election Reform (Cornell University Press, 2008). Drawing on both recent and historical evidence from the United States, Venezuela, the Philippines, South Africa, and Taiwan, Mr. Schaffer investigates why citizens sometimes found themselves abruptly disenfranchised. He also examines numerous incidents in which election reforms have, whether intentionally or accidentally, harmed the quality and experience of democracy.
Gregory Schmidt became chair of the department of political science at the University of Texas at El Paso in January 2008. He previously served on the political science faculty at Northern Illinois University since 1984.
Jillian Schwedler, associate professor of political science, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, continued her field research this summer for a book project on the politics of political protest in Jordan, with a grant from the United States Institute of Peace.
Dan Slater, assistant professor of political science, University of Chicago, and Erica Simmons have been awarded the Sage Paper Award by APSA’s Organized Section for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research for their 2007 paper on “Informative Regress: Critical Antecedents in Comparative-Historical Analysis.”
Mr. Slater also published “Can Leviathan Be Democratic? Competitive Elections, Robust Mass Politics, and State Infrastructure Power” in the December 2008 Studies in Comparative International Development, in which he proposes three causal mechanisms through which competitive national elections can incite the territorial extension of state institutions.
Etel Solingen, professor of political science, University of California, Irvine, won the American Political Science Association’s Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award for the best book published in the U.S. on government, politics, or international affairs in 2008 for her book, Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia and the Middle East (Princeton University Press). The book also won the 2008 Robert Jervis and Paul Schroeder Best Book Award.
Ms. Solingen also published “The Genesis, Design and Effects of Regional Institutions: Lessons from East Asia and the Middle East” in the June 2008 International Studies Quarterly.
Rein Taagepera, professor emeritus of political science, Tartu University, Estonia, received the Skytte Prize of Political Science at a ceremony at the University of Uppsala in September 2008.
Storm Thacker, associate professor of international relations and director of Latin American studies program, Boston University, and John Gerring, professor of political science, Boston University, published A Centripetal Theory of Democratic Governance (Cambridge University Press, 2008), in which they argue that good governance arises when political energies were focused toward the center or “centripetal” in nature. They argue three national-level institutions are fundamental important in securing a “centripetal” style of democratic governance: a unitary sovereignty, a parliamentary executive, and a closed-list PR electoral system.
Raul Sanchez Urribarri, doctoral candidate in political science at the University of South Carolina, is working as visiting assistant professor at the department of political science at Tulane University for the 2008–09 academic year. He plans to conduct fieldwork on judicial behavior in Costa Rica, Paraguay, and Venezuela in the summer of 2009 for his dissertation.
Milada Anna Vachudova, associate professor of political science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, published “Center-Right Parties and Political Outcomes in East Central Europe” in the July 2008 Party Politics and “Tempered by the EU? Political Parties and Party Systems Before and After Accession” in the September 2008 Journal of European Public Policy.
Ms. Vachudova was also awarded the Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement by Young Faculty by her university.
Donna Lee Van Cott, associate professor of political science, University of Connecticut, published Radical Democracy in the Andes (Cambridge University Press, 2008), in which she examines ten examples of institutional innovation by indigenous-party-controlled municipalities in Bolivia and Ecuador. The findings underscore the contributions of leadership and political parties to promoting participation and deliberation at local level. She concludes that indigenous parties’ innovations have improved democratic quality in some aspect, but the authoritarian tendencies endemic to Andean cultures and political organizations have limited their positive impact.
Nebojsa Vladisavljevic, LSE fellow in government, London School of Economics and Political Science, published Serbia’s Antibureaucratic Revolution: Milosevic, the Fall of Communism and Nationalist Mobilization (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), in which he uses primary sources and builds upon comparative politics literatures on authoritarianism and contentious politics to explain how popular unrest contributed to the fall of communism and the rise of new form of authoritarianism, competing nationalisms, and the break-up of Yugoslavia. The book sheds new light on the meteoric ascent to power of Slobodan Milosevic and on the making of the contemporary Serb-Albanian nationalist conflict in and over Kosovo.
In fall 2008, Gloria Walker began her tenure-track position as assistant professor of political science in the department of history and political science at Centenary College of Louisiana.
Georgina Waylen, reader in politics, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom, was the co-recipient of the 2008 Victoria Schuck Award presented by APSA for the best book published in the field of women and politics in the previous calendar year for her book Engendering Transitions: Women’s Mobilization, Institutions and Gender Outcomes (Oxford University Press, 2007).
Susanna Wing, assistant professor of political science, Haverford College, published Constructing Democracy in Transitioning Societies in Africa: Constitutionalism and Deliberation in Mali (Palgrave, 2008), in which she examined the process by which constitutions and democratic institutions are constructed to explain both the frequent failures and the success stories of African constitutionalism. Based on field work in Mali, she explores how innovative constitutional dialogues involving participation, negotiation, and recognition of groups previously excluded from political decision-making may be the key to a legitimate constitution.
The Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program at the Washington, D.C.-based National Endowment for Democracy invites applications from candidates throughout the world for fellowships in 2009–2010. Established in 2001, the program enables democracy activists, practitioners, scholars, and journalists from around the world to deepen their understanding of democracy and to enhance their ability to promote democratic change. The program is intended primarily to support activists, practitioners, and scholars from new and aspiring democracies; distinguished scholars from the United States and other established democracies are also eligible to apply. Projects may focus on the political, social, economic, legal, and cultural aspects of democratic development and may include a range of methodologies and approaches. A working knowledge of English is an important prerequisite for participation in the program. The application deadline for fellowships in 2009–2010 is Monday, November 3, 2008. For more information, including instructions on how to apply, please visit www.ned.org/forum/fellows.html.
Postdoctoral Fellowship Opportunity at Bentley College
The Jeanne and Dan Valente Center for the Arts and Sciences at Bentley College, a four-year private university in greater Boston, is accepting applications for its 2009–2010 postdoctoral fellowship. The Center seeks postdoctoral students from any discipline in the arts and sciences who are working within the broad theme “Behaving Ourselves: Motivation and Agency Across the Disciplines,” which is described at the Valente Center’s website, as is the application process. The Valente Center encourages interdisciplinary projects and work that connects the arts and sciences to business disciplines. Candidates must have PhD in hand by June 30, 2009, may not have received their doctoral degree earlier than September 2006, and must be in residence at Bentley College during the fellowship period. The postdoctoral fellow will receive a total stipend of $40,000 for the nine-month residency as well as office space and borrowing privileges at Bentley and research libraries in the Boston area, as needed. A CV, project title and one-page abstract, 10-page project description, article-length writing sample, brief description of teaching interests, and two letters of recommendation should be submitted no later than December 1, 2008.
Call for Papers for Conference on Heterogeneity and Democracy
The Working Group “Democracy Research” of the German Political Science Association, the Committee on Concepts and Methods of the International Political Science Association, and the Research Unit “Democracy” of the Social Science Research Center Berlin have released a call for papers for their joint conference on “Heterogeneity and Democracy,” to be held on June 25–27, 2009, in Berlin. The conference will be divided into three sections: democratic theory and normative models: heterogeneity as a challenge for and precondition of democracy; empirical outcomes: identity- and interest-based challenges for democracy, their interconnectedness and their impact on the quality of democracy in established and young democracies; and the management of challenges. To submit a paper proposal, send a one-page abstract to Sascha Kneip at kneip@wzb.eu.
More information about the conference and call for papers is available here.
The deadline for submission of abstracts is October 30, 2008.
Andean Democracy Research Network
The Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions at the University of British Columbia has launched a pilot project to build a research network to monitor the state of democracy in the Andean region. While CSDI is serving as conveyor of the project, it supports the idea of promoting democracy assessments outside the Organization of American States conducted by independent experts and civil society organizations, based as much as possible within the Latin American region. For more information about the network, contact Max Cameron, professor of political science, University of British Columbia, at cameron@politics.ubc.ca.
New Comparative Governance and Politics Journal
Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft (ZfVP), a new comparative governance and politics journal, is the first internationally focused German journal dedicated to central themes and innovative research results in the field. The first issue of the peer-reviewed, German and English language journal featured articles on current trends in comparative politics, the historical development of comparative politics, and social policy reform. More information about the journal is available at www.zfvp.de.
Fellowship Opportunity at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute
The Central Asia-Caucasus Institute (CACI), at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, invites young scholars to apply for short-term fellowships to do research in the Washington, D.C. area. Successful candidates should be U.S. citizens, should have completed a Ph.D., either have an academic appointment, be teaching in a U.S. institutions of higher education, employed by a think tank in an analytical role, or work for the government. Finally, all individuals should have a strong interest in Central Asia, the Caucasus, or Afghanistan, and a demonstrated interest in current international policy issues. Strong preference will be given to those scholars who live far from Washington to provide them access to the unparalleled resources of the area (including archives, libraries, organizations, experts, media) and who have had little direct contact with the policy-making process affecting their regions of study. To apply, please submit a detailed CV, a 1200-word description of the proposed project, including a discussion of the project’s relevance to current policy issues involving Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan to Mr. David Soumbadze at dsoumba1@jhu.edu. The application deadline is October 27, 2008.
Fellowship Opportunity at the Center for Asian Democracy
The Center for Asian Democracy at the University of Louisville invites applications for its Visiting Fellows program for the 2009–2010 academic year. Applicants need to demonstrate their competency in Asian studies with a solid record of publications. The fellowship will be ideal for junior scholars whose work is related to democratization in Asia, and senior scholars on sabbatical leave. Fellows are expected to be actively involved in the Center’s scholarly activities and to present their research in a public forum. For details about the Center, please visit our website. To apply, send a research proposal of approximately 1,000 words, curriculum vita, one writing sample, and three letters of recommendation to Dr. Shiping Hua, Director, Center for Asian Democracy, Ford Hall 205, the University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292, the United States of America. Email inquiries are welcome: shiping.hua@louisville.edu. The deadline for application is December 1, 2008.
6. RECENT CONFERENCES
The American Political Science Association held its 104th annual meeting in Boston, Massachusetts on August 28–31, 2008. The theme of this year’s conference was “Categories and the Politics of Inequalities.” More information about the conference is available at www.apsanet.org/section_222.cfm.
On June 18–19, 2008, Central European University launched the Center for the Study of Imperfections in Democracy (DISC). The Center focuses on the challenges old and young democracies around the globe are facing at the beginning of the 21st century. The launching conference brought together over 30 prominent scholars and policy experts from Europe and the US. Policy papers written in response to the debates at this event, photos, and further information are available at www.ceu.hu/disc.
On October 10–11, 2008, the Center for the Study of Imperfections of Democracy (DISC) together with Freedom House Europe held a conference entitled “Challenges to Democratic Governance in New Democracies in Central Eastern Europe and the Balkans.” This two day event takes place at the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest. A preliminary program and conference papers are available at www.ceu.hu/disc.
7. FUTURE CONFERENCES
On November 20–23, 2008, the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies will hold its annual conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Panel topics include “Making Democratization Happen and What Really Happened Afterwards: External versus Domestic Factors” and “Promoting and Inhibiting Democratization in Post-Communist States.” More information about the meeting is available at
www.fas.harvard.edu/~aaass/convention.html.
On November 22–25, the Middle East Studies Association will hold its annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Selected panel topics include “Nationalism in the Middle East,” “Social Movements and Mobilization,” and “The Islamist Contention.” A preliminary program is available at www.mesa.arizona.edu/annual/current.htm.
On February 15–18, 2009, the International Studies Association will hold its 50th annual meeting in New York City. The theme of this year’s convention is “Exploring the Past, Anticipating the Future” and featured panels include “Regions, Borders, and Democracy,” “Democracy and Legitimacy,” and “The Resource Curse and Democracy.” Registration information and a preliminary program are available at www.isanet.org/newyork2009/.
8. NEW RESEARCH
Journal of Democracy
The July 2008 (Volume 19, no. 3) issue of the Journal of Democracy features a cluster of articles on Islamist parties and democracy, as well as individual articles on ASEAN, ethnicity and democratization, Northern Ireland, South Korea, Somaliland, and Kenya. The full texts of selected articles and the tables of contents of all issues are available on the Journal’s Web site.
Islamist Parties and Democracy
The rise of Islamist parties poses new challenges to efforts to understand the relationship between Islam and democracy. A diverse group of authors investigates this new phenomenon and its implications for the future of democracy in the Middle East.
I. “Three Kinds of Movements” by Tamara Cofman Wittes
II. “Going Back to the Origins” by Husain Haqqani and Hillel Fradkin
III. “Are They Democrats? Does It Matter?” by Tarek Masoud
IV. “Turkey’s AKP in Power” by Ihsan Dagi
V. “Participation Without Power” by Malika Zeghal
VI. “Institutions Make the Difference” by Laith Kubba
VII. “Why They Can’t Be Democratic” by Bassam Tibi
VIII. “A Boon or a Bane for Democracy?” by Amr Hamzawy and Nathan J. Brown
“The Real Causes of the Color Revolutions” by Lucan Way
The “color revolutions” in the postcommunist countries cannot be attributed to diffusion alone. Structural factors offer a better explanation of why such revolutions have succeeded in some countries and not in others.
“ASEAN’s ‘Black Swans’” by Donald K. Emmerson
Can regionalism help to redress the uneven spread and internal weaknesses of democracy in Southeast Asia? Unforeseen events in the region and positive political entrepreneurship may yet transform ASEAN into a force for democracy.
“A New Look at Ethnicity and Democratization” by Mark R. Beissinger
Conventional scholarly wisdom holds that ethnic diversity within a given society generally dims democracy’s prospects. Careful reflection on the experience of many post-Soviet states, however, suggests that this need not be so.
“Has the Northern Ireland Problem Been Solved?” by John Coakley
The 1998 Good Friday Agreement provided a framework for peace and democracy in Northern Ireland. But it was a particular set of internal circumstances that allowed for the pact’s successful implementation.
“Latin America: Eight Lessons for Governance” by Scott Mainwaring and Timothy R. Scully
Latin America’s recent experience shows that effective democratic governance is difficult to achieve and depends on many factors, some of them context-specific. Nonetheless, it is possible to draw some general lessons.
“South Korea’s Miraculous Democracy” by Hahm Chaibong
Despite South Korea’s messy democratic trajectory, it has miraculously achieved consolidation. Though far from perfect, South Korea’s democracy has turned obstacles into opportunities for reform and development.
“The Remarkable Story of Somaliland” by Seth Kaplan
Emerging from one of the world’s most notorious failed states, Somaliland has become an oasis of relative democratic stability in the troubled Horn of Africa. What does its story teach us about democratic state-building?
“The Orange Revolution and Beyond” by Kateryna Yushchenko
Ukraine gained independence in 1991, but its people gained their freedom only in 2004 with the Orange Revolution-an uprising of the human spirit in which Ukrainians joined together to gain a voice in their future.
“The Crisis in Kenya” by Maina Kiai
For years Kenya was regarded as one of Africa’s sturdiest democracies. The fraudulent 2007 presidential election, however, exposed the fragility of Kenya’s democratic framework.
Journal of Democracy
The October 2008 (Volume 19, no. 4) issue of the Journal of Democracy features clusters of articles on Pakistan after Musharraf and poverty, inequality, and democracy, as well as individual articles on Zimbabwe, Bolivia, Kenya, Thailand, and Georgia. The full texts of selected articles and the tables of contents of all issues are available on the Journal’s Web site.
Pakistan After Musharraf
I. “The 2008 Elections” by Larry P. Goodson
Elections set the stage for the General’s exit after nearly a decade in power, yet Pakistan still faces deep-seated structural problems that cannot be remedied merely by a return to competitive elections.
II. “Praetorianism and Terrorism” by Aqil Shah
The military is currently showing signs of wanting to back away from overt political involvement, but this should not be confused with a rejection of praetorianism or an acceptance of the principle of civilian supremacy.
III. “The Burden of History” by Sumit Ganguly
Since its founding out of the partition of British India in 1947, Pakistan has labored in the shadow of critical choices made at the same time.
IV. “The Media Take Center Stage” by Zafarullah Khan and Brian Joseph
The military regime opened up the media sector to more competition and private broadcasters in 2002, and the ramifications turned out to be vast.
V. “The Emerging Civil Society?” by S. Akbar Zaidi
The lawyers’ movement has been lauded as the hero of the return to civilian rule, but is civil society ready to meet the challenges ahead?
“Zimbabwe’s Long Agony” by Michael Bratton and Eldred Masunungure
Once hailed as liberators, Zimbabwe’s ruling party now clings to power through violent repression. How did the country’s founding father become its dictator, and what patterns in his party’s past foretold such an outcome?
Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy
I. “Why Democracies Fail” by Ethan B. Kapstein and Nathan Converse
Many of today’s developing-world and postcommunist democracies are at risk of reversal. What are the key factors that lead to democratic collapse?
II. “The Latin American Experience” by Francis Fukuyama
The development of democratic political institutions combined with recent economic growth and new social policies has yielded positive changes in Latin America, but deep inequalities remain.
III. “Postcommunist Welfare States” by Mitchell A. Orenstein
The more-democratic postcommunist countries have maintained stronger social safety nets than their authoritarian counterparts, but they must reassess their welfare policies to address emerging social challenges.
IV. “Growth Without Prosperity in Africa” by Peter Lewis
Fifteen years after the wave of democratization crested in Africa, the region still grapples with an economic malaise that is disappointing popular expectations and undermining the legitimacy of electoral regimes.
“Bolivia’s Constitutional Breakdown” by Fabrice Lehoucq
Bolivia now finds itself locked in a stalemate between forces bent on “refounding” the country and an eastern region insisting on greater autonomy.
“Kenya: Back from the Brink?” by Michael Chege
After the ethnic violence that marred its 2007 presidential election, Kenya must reform its institutions to better represent its diverse polity.
“Thailand Since the Coup” by Thitinan Pongsudhirak
Torn between populism and those who fail to respect democratic limits in combating it, Thailand badly needs to locate a middle ground where the best of its old traditions can help it adjust to the new challenges that it faces.
“Georgia’s Year of Turmoil” by Miriam Lanskoy and Giorgi Areshidze
A domestic political crisis began brewing in Georgia long before the current conflict with Russia. Since the Rose Revolution, the country has been troubled by flawed elections, a “superpresidency,” and a malleable constitution.
Democratization
The June 2008 (Volume 15, no. 3) issue of Democratization includes articles on war and democratization, democratization and state-building, democratization after civil wars, and conflict resolution.
“War and Democratization: Legality, Legitimacy and Effectiveness” by Sonja Grimm and Wolfgang Merkel
“Basic Principles of Law as Normative Foundations of, and Limits to, Military Enforcement of Human Rights Across State Boundaries” by Reinhard Merkel
“Democracy through War?” by Wolfgang Merkel
“Democratization and War in Political Science” by Lars-Erik Cederman, Simon Hug, and Andreas Wenger
“External Democratization after War: Success and Failure” by Sonja Grimm
“Democratization after Civil Wars - Key Problems and Experiences” by Jochen Hippler
“Democratization and Transitional Justice” by Mark Arenhvel
“Democratization, State-building and War: The Cases of Serbia and Croatia” by Nenad Zakoek
“Conflict Resolution through Democracy Promotion? The Role of the OSCE in Georgia” by Pamela Jawad
“Democratizing a Dependent State: The Case of Afghanistan” by Astri Suhrke
“The Perils and Promises of Democratization through United Nations Transitional Authority - Lessons from Cambodia and East Timor” by Aurel Croissant
Democratization
The August 2008 (Volume 15, no. 4) issue of Democratization is a special issue on deviant cases of democratization and includes case studies on Costa Rica, India, Botswana, Mongolia, and Benin.
“Against the Odds: Deviant Cases of Democratization” by Renske Doorenspleet and Petr Kopecky
“Democratic Development in Costa Rica” by John A. Booth
“Deviant Democratization in India” by Alistair McMillan
“Botswana: A Minimalist Democracy” by Kenneth Good and Ian Taylor
“Mongolia: The Rise and Travails of a Deviant Democracy” by Verena Fritz
“Democratic Transition and Democratic Survival in Benin” by Rachel M. Gisselquist
“Upping the Odds: Deviant Democracies and Theories of Democratization” by Renske Doorenspleet and Cas Mudde
SELECTED JOURNAL ARTICLES ON DEMOCRACY
This section features selected articles on democracy that appeared in journals received by the NED’s Democracy Resource Center, May 2–October 1.
African Affairs, Vol. 107, no. 428, July 2008
“Gender Balance and the Meanings of Women in Governance in Post-Genocide Rwanda” by Jennie E. Burnet
Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol. 41, no. 2, June 2008
“The Role of Geography and History in Determining the Slower Progress of Post-Communist Transition in the Balkans” by Milenko Petrovic
“Parties, Rules and Government Legislative Control in Central Europe: The Case of Poland” by Radoslaw Zubek
“Two Dimensions of the Europeanization of Election Programs: The Case of the Czech Republic” by Vlastimil Havlik and Hana Vykoupilova
“Populism, Liberal Democracy, and the Rule of Law in Central and Eastern Europe” by Bojan Bugaric
“Putin as a Flexible Politician. Does He Imitate Stalin?” by Vladimir Shlapentokh
Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol. 41, no. 3, September 2008
“Czech Social Democracy and Its ‘Cohabitation’ with the Communist Party: The Story of a Neglected Affair” by Lubomir Kopecek and Pavel Pšeja
“State Administration’ vs. Self-Government in the Slovak and Czech Republics” by Phillip J. Bryson
“Local Governance in Post-Soviet Armenia: Leadership, Local Development and Accountability” by Babken V. Babjanian
Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol. 24, no. 3, September 2008
“Electoral Mandate and Party Cohesion: Does It Matter in Lithuania?” by Terry D. Clark, Zilvinas Martinaitis, and Ramunas Dilba
“The Virtuous Circles of Western Exposure in Russian Regions: A Case for Micro-Polity Analysis of Democratic Change” by Tomila V. Lankina and Lullit Getachew
“Media Use in Putin’s Russia” by Jukka Pietilainen
“From Spheres of Influence to Energy Wars: Russian Influence in Post-Communist Romania” by Teodor Tudoroiu
“The Birth of a Bipolar Party System or a Referendum on a Polarizing Government? The October 2007 Polish Parliamentary Election” by Aleks Szczerbiak
Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 41, no. 6, June 2008
“Bad for Business? Entrepreneurs and Democracy in the Arab World” by Scott Greenwood
“The Presidency, Regionalism, and Distributive Politics in South Korea” by Yusaku Horiuchi and Seungjoo Lee
Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 41, no. 7, July 2008
“Squeaky Wheels and Unequal Policy: Executive Authority and Education Reform in Latin America” by Clayton Thyne and Erika Moreno
Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 41, no. 10, October 2008
“Policy Concentration in Europe: Understanding Government Choice” by Lucio Baccaro and Marco Simoni
“Electoral and Mechanical Causes of Divided Government in the European Union” by Philip Manow and Holger Döring
“Explaining the Dominance of Legacy Unions in New Democracies: Comparative Insights from Indonesia” by Teri L. Caraway
“Economic Reform and Democracy: Evidence of a J-Curve in Latin America” by Jordan Gans-Morse and Simeon Nichter
East European Politics & Societies, Vol. 22, no. 3, Summer 2008
“Socialism with a Slovak Face: Federalization, Democratization, and the Prague Spring” by Scott Brown
“Social Policy in the Czech ‘Republic’: The Past of the Future of Reforms” by Jiri Vecernik
“Cleavages in the Contemporary Czech and Slovak Politics: Between Persistence and Change” by Vit Hlouse and Lubomir Kopecek
“The Politics of Minimal ‘Consensus’: Interethnic Opposition Coalitions in Post-Communist Romania (1990-1996) and Slovakia (1990-1998)” Mihaela Mihailescu
Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 60, no. 4, May 2008
“Pacts, Parties and Elite Struggle: Ukraine’s Troubled Post-Orange Transition” by Geir Flikke
“Status Quo Bias or Institutionalisation for Reversibility?: The EU’s Political Conditionality, Post-Accession Tendencies and Democratic Consolidation in Slovakia” by Geoffrey Pridham
“Living with Non-Recognition: State and Nation Building in South Caucasian Quasi-States” by Pal Kolsto and Helge Blakkisrud
“Secret Public Finance: Revenues and Expenditures of the Soviet Communist Party, 1938-1965” by Eugenia Belova and Valery Lazarev
Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 60, no. 5, July 2008
“The Monetisation of L’goty: Changing Patterns of Welfare Politics and Provision in Russia” by Susanne Wengle and Michael Rasell
“Europarties and Party Development in EU-Candidate States: The Case of Bulgaria” by Maria Spirova
International Political Science Review, Vol. 29, no. 2, March 2008
“Out of the Frying Pan, into the Fire? Post-Soviet Regime Changes in Comparative Perspective” by Vladimir Gel’man
“Deliberative Drift: The Emergence of Deliberation in the Policy Process” by Peter McLaverty and Darren Halpin
“Banking on Democracy: The Political Economy of International Private Bank Lending in Emerging Markets” by Javier Rodriguez and Javier Santiso
Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol. 24, no. 2, June 2008
“Consolidation or Second Revolution? The Emergence of the New Right in Hungary” by Andras Bozoki
“A Change of Direction: The 2006 Parliamentary Elections and Party Politics in Slovakia” by Tim Haughton and Marek Rybar
“Prime Ministerial Staff in Post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe: A Role Assessment by Cabinet Ministers” by Ferdinand Muller-Rommel
“The Ukrainian Parliamentary Elections of 2007” by Nathaniel Copsey
Journal of East Asian Studies, Vol. 8, no. 2, May-August 2008
“Democratization and Government Education Provision in East Asia” by Jing Chen
“The Origins of Regional Autonomy in Indonesia: Experts and the Marketing of Political Interests” by Benjamin Smith
“Interest Groups in North Korean Politics” by Patrick McEachern
Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 46, no. 2, June 2008
“From the Global to the Local? Governance and Development at the Local Level: Reflections from Tanzania” by Graham Harrison
“The Dialectic of Police Reform in Nigeria” by Alice Hills
“Political Corruption, Party Financing and Democracy in Kenya” by Oscar Gakuo Mwangi
“Building Democracy from Below: A Case from Rural Tanzania” by Katherine A. Snyder
Party Politics, Vol. 14, no. 3, May 2008
“Parties and Leader Effects: Impact of Leaders in the Vote for Different Types of Parties” by Marina Costa Lobo
“Factions, Parties and the Durability of Parliaments, Coalitions and Cabinets: The Case of Thailand (1979-2001)” by Paul Chambers
Party Politics, Vol. 14, no. 5, September 2008
“Mandates, Parties, and Dissent: Effect of Electoral Rules on Parliamentary Party Cohesion in the Russian State Duma, 1994–2003” by Jana Kunicova and Thomas Frederick Remington
“Democratic Norms and Party Candidate Selection: Taking Contextual Factors into Account” by William Cross
“Candidate Selection Procedures in Transitional Polities: A Research Note” by Bonnie N. Field and Peter M. Siavelis
Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 123, no. 3, Fall 2008
“Reconciliation after Democratization: Coping with the Past in Spain” by Omar G. Encarnación
“When the Men with Guns Rule: Explaining Human Rights Failures in Kosovo since 1999” by Mark A. Wolfgram
SELECTED NEW BOOKS ON DEMOCRACY
ADVANCED DEMOCRACIES
After Bush: The Case for Continuity in American Foreign Policy. By Timothy J. Lynch and Robert S. Singh. Cambridge University Press, 2008. 382 pp.
Churchill’s Promised Land: Zionism and Statecraft. By Michael Makovsky. Yale University Press, 2008. 342 pp.
The Death of Social Democracy: Political Consequences in the 21st Century. By Ashley Lavelle. Ashgate, 2008. 221 pp.
Democracy in the States: Experiments in Election Reform. Edited by Cruce E. Cain, Todd Donovan, and Caroline J. Tolbert. Brookings Institution Press, 2008. 238 pp.
Democracy Inc.: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism. By Sheldon S. Wolin. Princeton University Press, 2008. 356 pp.
Democratic Reform in Japan: Assessing the Impact. Edited by Sherry L. Martin and Gill Steel. Lynne Rienner, 2008. 252 pp.
The European Union. By Duncan Watts. Edinburgh University Press, 2008. 314 pp.
The European Union and Border Conflicts: The Power of Integration and Association. Edited by Thomas Diez, Mathias Alber, and Stephan Stetter. Cambridge University Press, 2008. 265 pp.
European Unions: Labor’s Quest for Transnational Democracy. By Roland Erne. Cornell University Press, 2008. 260 pp.
The Future of Human Rights: U.S. Policy for a New Era. Edited by William F. Schulz. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. 288 pp.
A Government Ill Executed: The Decline of the Federal Service and How to Reverse It. By Paul C. Light. Harvard University Press, 2008. 278 pp.
Local Voices / Global Perspectives: Challenges Ahead for U.S. International
Media. Edited by Alan L. Heil, Jr. Public Diplomacy Council, 2008. 183 pp.
Money in the House: Campaign Funds and Congressional Party Politics. By Marian Currinder. Westview, 2008. 230 pp.
The Persuadable Voter: Wedge Issues in Presidential Campaigns. By D. Sunshine Hillygus and Todd G. Shields. Princeton University Press, 2008. 249 pp.
Presidential Leadership, Illness, and Decision Making. By Rose McDermott. Cambridge University Press, 2008. 334 pp.
Public Culture: Diversity, Democracy, and Community in the United States. Edited by Marguerite S. Shaffer. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. 392 pp.
Race and American Political Development. Edited by Joseph Lowndes, Julie Novkov, and Dorian Warren. Routledge, 2008. 348 pp.
Red and Blue Nation? Consequences and Correction of America’s Polarized Politics. Edited by Pietro S. Nivola and David W. Brady. Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace and the Brookings Institution, 2008. 320 pp.
Small Change: Money, Political Parties, and Campaign Finance Reform. By Raymond J. La Raja. University of Michigan Press, 2008. 287 pp.
Today’s American: How Free? Edited by Arch Puddington, Thomas O. Melia, and Jason Kelly. Freedom House, 2008. 163 pp.
AFRICA
Brokering Democracy in Africa: The Rise of Clientelist Democracy in Senegal. By Linda J. Beck. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 280 pp.
Democracy and the Rise of Women’s Movements in Sub-Saharan Africa. By Kathleen M. Fallon. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. 168 pp.
Faith and Politics in Nigeria: Nigeria as a Pivotal State in the Muslim World. By John N. Paden. U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 2008. 140 pp.
Human Rights in African Prisons. Edited by Jeremy Sarkin. Ohio University Press, 2008. 254 pp.
Kenya’s Quest for Democracy: Taming Leviathan. By Makau Mutua. Lynne Rienner, 2008. 329 pp.
Liberia: The Violence of Democracy. By Mary H. Moran. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. 190 pp.
No-Party Democracy: Ugandan Politics in Comparative Perspective. By Giovanni Carbone. Lynne Rienner, 2008. 258 pp.
The Resolution of African Conflicts: The Management of Conflict Resolution & Post-Conflict Reconstruction. Edited by Alfred Nhema and Paul Tiyambe Zeleza. OSSREA in association with Ohio University Press, Unisa Press, and James Curry, 2008. 207 pp.
The Roots of African Conflicts: The Causes and Costs. Edited by Alfred Nhema and Paul Tiyambe Zeleza. OSSREA in association with Ohio University Press, Unisa Press, and James Curry, 2008. 244 pp.
Somalia between Jihad and Restoration. By Shaul Shay. Transaction Publishers, 2008. 204 pp.
Trade Unions and the Coming of Democracy in Africa. Edited by Jon Kraus. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. 296 pp.
Traditional Justice and Reconciliation after Violent Conflict: Learning from African Experiences. Edited by Luc Huyse and Mark Salter. International IDEA, 2008. 204 pp.
ASIA
Beijing’s Games: What the Olympics Mean to China. By Susan Brownell. Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. 240 pp.
China’s Changing Political Landscape: Prospects for Democracy. By Cheng Li. Brookings Institution Press, 2007. 352 pp.
China’s Great Leap: The Beijing Games and Olympian Human Rights Challenges. Edited by Minky Worden. Seven Stories Press, 2008. 336 pp.
China’s New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society. By Daniel A. Bell. Princeton University Press, 2008. 240 pp.
China’s Republic. By Diana Lary. Cambridge University Press, 2008. 225 pp.
Contested Democracy and the Left in the Philippines after Marcos. By Nathan Gilbert Quimpo. Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 2008. 422 pp.
Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars Within. By Shuja Nawaz. Oxford University Press, 2008. 655 pp.
Democracy and Diversity: Political Engineering in the Asia-Pacific. By Benjamin Reilly. Oxford University Press, 2008. 227 pp.
Democratization in Confucian East Asia: Citizen Politics in China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. By Zhengxu Wang. Cambria Press, 2008. 254 pp.
Democratization in Taiwan: Challenges in Transformation. Edited by Philip Paolino and James Meernik. Ashgate, 2008. 193 pp.
Dissident Democrats: The Challenge of Democratic Leadership in Asia. Edited by John Kane, Haig Patapan, and Benjamin Wong. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 304 pp.
East Asian Multilateralism: Prospects for Regional Stability. Edited by Kent E. Calder and Francis Fukuyama. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. 281 pp.
Labor, Democratization and Development in India and Pakistan. By Christopher Candland. Taylor & Francis, 2007. 214 pp.
Legal Reform and Administrative Detention Powers in China. By Sarah Biddulph. Cambridge University Press, 2007. 484 pp.
Myths and Realities: The Democratization of Thai Politics. By Tamada Yoshifumi. Kyoto University Press and Trans Pacific Press, 2008. 356 pp.
Nepal in Transition: A Study on the State of Democracy. By Krishna Hachhethu, Sanjay Kumar, and Jiwan Subedi. International IDEA, 2008. 134 pp.
Political Change in China: Comparisons with Taiwan. Edited by Bruce Gilley. Lynne Rienner, 2008. 260 pp.
Religion and Democracy in Taiwan. By Cheng-Tian Kuo. State University of New York Press, 2008. 161 pp.
The Road to Democracy in Iran. By Akbar Ganji. MIT Press, 2008. 113 pp.
State of Human Rights in 2007. Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, 2008. 236 pp.
EASTERN EUROPE AND THE FORMER SOVIET UNION
Central & East European Politics: From Communism to Democracy. Edited by Sharon L. Wolchik and Jane L. Curry. Rowman & Littlefield. 2007. 389 pp.
From Dissident to Party Politics: The Struggle for Democracy in Post-Communist Hungary, 1989–1994. By Bernard Ivan Tamas. East European Monographs, 2007. 240 pp.
Russia and Globalization: Identity, Security, and Society in an Era of Change. Edited by Douglas W. Blum. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. 383 pp.
Yeltsin: A Life. By Timothy J. Colton. Basic Books, 2008. 616 pp.
LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN
Constructing Democratic Governance in Latin America. Edited by Jorge I. Dominguez and Michael Shifter. Third Edition, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. 412 pp.
Cuba: Religion, Social Capital, and Development. By Adrian H. Hearn. Duke University Press, 2008. 220 pp.
Dual Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Institutionalized Regimes in Chile
and Mexico, 1970–2000. By Francisco E. González. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. 286 pp.
Judging Policy: Courts and Policy Reform in Democratic Brazil. By Matthew M. Taylor. Stanford University Press, 2008. 227 pp.
Judicial Reform as Political Insurance: Argentina, Peru, and Mexico in the 1990s. By Jodi S. Finkel. University of Notre Dame Press, 2008. 157 pp.
The Long Night of Dark Intent: A Half Century of Cuban Communism. By Irving Louis Horowitz. Transaction, 2008. 599 pp.
Mexico since 1980. By Stephen Haber, Herbert S. Klein, Noel Maurer, and Kevin Middlebrook. Cambridge University Press, 2008. 244 pp.
Pathways to Power: Political Recruitment and Candidate Selection in Latin America. Edited by Peter M. Siavelis and Scott Morgenstern. The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008. 496 pp.
Political Violence and the Authoritarian State in Peru. By Jo-Marie Burt. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. 286 pp.
MIDDLE EAST
Beyond the Facade: Political Reform in the Arab World. By Marina Ottaway and Julia Choucair-Vizoso. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2008. 288 pp.
Constitutional Politics in the Middle East: With Special Reference to Turkey,
Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. Edited by Said Amir Arjomand. Hart, 2007. 210 pp.
Contemporary Politics in the Middle East. By Beverly Milton-Edwards. 2nd ed. Polity Press, 2008. 311 pp.
A History of Modern Lebanon. By Fawaz Traboulsi. Pluto Press, 2007. 306 pp.
Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East. By Daniel C. Kurtzer and Scott B. Lasensky. U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 2008. 190 pp.
The Politics of Chaos in the Middle East. By Olivier Roy. Columbia University Press, 2008. 167 pp.
COMPARATIVE, THEORETICAL, GENERAL
The 2008 Annual Register: World Events. Edited by D.S. Lewis. ProQuest, 2008. 682 pp.
Alliance Curse: How America Lost the Third World. By Hilton L. Root. Brookings Institution Press, 2008. 286 pp.
Base Politics: Democratic Change and the U.S. Military Overseas. By Alexander Cooley. Cornell University Press, 2008. 328 pp.
A Brief History of the Masses: Three Revolutions. By Stefan Jonsson. Columbia University Press, 2008. 231 pp.
Broadcasting, Voice, and Accountability: A Public Interest Approach to Policy, Law and Regulation. By Steve Buckley, Kreszentia Duer, Toby Mendel, and Sean O Siochru. University of Michigan Press, 2008. 402 pp.
Building States to Build Peace. Edited by Charles T. Call with Vanessa Wyeth. Lynne Rienner, 2008. 438 pp.
Catastrophic Consequences: Civil Wars and American Interests. By Steven R. David. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. 204 pp.
A Centripetal Theory of Democratic Governance. By John Gerring and Strom C. Thacker. Cambridge University Press, 2008. 237 pp.
The Citizen Solution: How You Can Make a Difference. By Harry C. Boyte. Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2008. 207 pp.
Citizenship across Borders: The Political Transnationalism of El Migrante. By Michael Peter Smith and Matt Bakker. Cornell University Press, 2008. 249 pp.
The Civic Conversations of Thucydides and Plato: Classical Political Philosophy and the Limits of Democracy. By Gerald M. Mara. State University of New York Press, 2008. 327 pp.
Civil War and the Rule of Law: Security, Development, Human Rights. Edited by Agnes Hurwitz with Reyko Huang. Lynne Rienner, 2008. 351 pp.
Closing or Widening the Gap: Legitimacy and Democracy in Regional Integration
Organizations. Edited by Andrea Ribeiro Hoffman and Anna van der Vleuten. Ashgate, 2007. 206 pp.
Constitutionalizing Economic Globalization: Investment Rules and Democracy’s Promise. By David Scheiderman. Cambridge University Press, 2008. 326 pp.
Controlling Governments: Voters, Institutions, and Accountability. Edited by José Mariá Maravall and Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca. Cambridge University Press, 2007. 311 pp.
Corruption and Development Aid: Confronting the Challenges. By Georg Cremer. Lynne Rienner, 2008. 150 pp.
The Crucified Nation: A Motif in Modern Nationalism. By Alan Davis. Sussex Academic Press, 2008. 123 pp.
Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy. By Natan Sharansky. Public Affairs, 2008. 288 pp.
Democracy and the Politics of the Extraordinary: Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, and Hannah Arendt. By Andreas Kalyvas. Cambridge University Press, 2008. 326 pp.
Democracy as Problem Solving: Civic Capacity in Communities Across the Globe. By Xavier de Souza Briggs. MIT Press, 2008. 374 pp.
Distrusting Democrats: Outcomes of Participatory Constitution Making. By Devra C. Moehler. University of Michigan Press, 2008. 245 pp.
Domestic Perspectives on Contemporary Democracy. Edited by Peter F. Nardulli. University of Illinois Press, 2008. 178 pp.
Driving Democracy: Do Power Sharing Institutions Work? by Pippa Norris. Cambridge University Press, 2008. 320 pp.
The Economic Vote: How Political and Economic Institutions Condition Election Results. By Raymond M. Duch and Randolph T. Stevenson. Cambridge University Press, 2008. 399 pp.
Election Fraud: Detecting and Deterring Electoral Manipulation. Edited by R. Michael Alvarez, Thad E. Hall, and Susan D. Hyde. Brookings Institution Press, 2008. 255 pp.
From War to Democracy: Dilemmas of Peacebuilding. Edited by Anna K. Jarstad and Timothy D. Sisk. Cambridge University Press, 2008. 290 pp.
The Global Diffusion of Markets and Democracy. Edited by Beth A. Simmons, Frank Dobbin, and Geoffrey Garrett. Cambridge University Press, 2008. 367 pp.
Global Political Parties. Edited by Katarina Sehm-Patomaki & Marko Ulvila. Zed, 2008. 176 pp.
Global Politics after 9/11: The Democratiya Interviews. Edited by Alan Johnson. Foreign Policy Centre, 2007. 320 pp.
Global Politics of Defense Reform. Edited by Thomas Bruneau and Harold Trinkunas. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 298 pp.
Governance in the Americas: Decentralization, Democracy, and Subnational Government in Brazil, Mexico, and the USA. By Robert H. Wilson, Peter M. Ward, Peter K. Spink, and Victoria E. Rodriguez. University of Notre Dame Press, 2008. 337 pp.
The Great Experiment: The Story of Ancient Empires, Modern States, and the Quest for a Global Nation. By Strobe Talbott. Simon & Schuster, 2008. 478 pp.
The Hidden Costs of Clean Election Reform. By Frederic Charles Schaffer. Cornell University Press, 2008. 243 pp.
Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power, Ethics. Edited by Michael Barnett and Thomas G. Weiss. Cornell University Press, 2008. 302 pp.
Ideology and Politics. By John Schwarzmantel. Sage, 2008. 198 pp.
International Perspectives on Contemporary Democracy. Edited by Peter F. Nardulli. University of Illinois Press, 2008. 264 pp.
The International Politics of Democratization: Comparative Perspectives. Edited by Nuno Severiano Teixeira. Routledge, 2008. 217 pp.
Introduction to Media and Politics. By Sarah Oates. Sage, 2008. 230 pp.
Justice: Political, Social, Juridical. Edited by Rajeev Bhargava, Michael Dusche, and Helmut Reifeld. Sage Publications, 2008. 325 pp.
Magnanimity and Statesmanship. Edited by Carson Holloway. Lexington, 2008. 229 pp.
Nobility of Spirit: A Forgotten Ideal. By Rob Riemen. Yale University Press, 2008. 116 pp.
Non-Party Actors in Electoral Politics: The Role of Interest Groups and Independent
Citizens in Contemporary Election Campaigns. Edited by David M. Farrell and Rudiger Schmitt-Beck. Nomos, 2008. 282 pp.
Occupational Hazards: Success and Failure in Military Occupation. By David M. Edelstein. Cornell University Press, 2008. 235 pp.
On Thinking Institutionally. By Hugh Heclo. Paradigm, 2008. 220 pp.
Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas. By David Cortright. Cambridge University Press, 2008. 376 pp.
Perspectives and Limits of Democracy: Proceedings of the 3rd Vienna Workshop on International Constitutional Law. Edited by Harald Eberhard, Konrad Lachmayer, Gregor Ribarov, Gerhard Thallinger. Nomos, 2008. 170 pp.
Power and Military Effectiveness: The Fallacy of Democratic Triumphalism.
By Michael C. Desch. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. 232 pp.
Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West. By Benazir Bhutto. Harper, 2008. 328 pp.
Recuperación de Activos de La Corrupción. By Guillermo Jorge. Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, 2008. 372 pp.
Rethinking Democracy. By Rajni Kothari. Zed, 2008. 176 pp.
The Return of History and the End of Dreams. By Robert Kagan. Knopf, 2008. 128 pp.
The Rise of Global Civil Society: Building Communities and Nations from the Bottom Up. By Don Eberly. Encounter Books, 2008. 333 pp.
Sacred Violence: Torture, Terror, and Sovereignty. By Paul W. Kahn. University of Michigan Press, 2008. 233 pp.
Spiritual Enterprise: Doing Virtuous Business. By Theodore Roosevelt Malloch. Encounter, 2008. 163 pp.
The Strategy of Campaigning: Lessons from Ronald Reagan & Boris Yeltsin. By Kiron K. Skinner, Serhiy Kudelia, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, and Condoleezza Rice. University of Michigan Press, 2008. 338 pp.
Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-First Century. By Philip Bobbitt. Knopf, 2008. 672 pp.
Understanding Global Social Policy. Edited by Nicola Yeates. The Policy Press and the Social Policy Association, 2008. 326 pp.
Voting from Abroad: The International IDEA Handbook. By Andrew Ellis et al. International IDEA, 2007. 278 pp.
World out of Balance: International Relations and the Challenge of American Primacy. By Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth. Princeton University Press, 2008. 226 pp.
A World Survey of Religion and the State. By Jonathan Fox. Cambridge University Press, 2008. 388 pp.