Book reviews
International Relations theory
International Relations theory and the Asia-Pacific. Edited by G. John Ikenberry and Michael Mastanduno. New York: Columbia University Press. 2003. 450pp. Index. $64.50. 0 231 12590 9. Pb.: $24.50. 0 23112 591 7. This edited volume is the first of several similarly conceived collections to emerge in recent years that aim at bringing International Relations (IR) theory to bear more closely on Asian area studies. Two incoming volumes are International Relations of Northeast Asia (Rowman & Littlefield, forthcoming 2003), edited by Samuel Kim, and Rethinking security in East Asia (Stanford Uni- versity Press, forthcoming 2004), edited by Allen Carlson, Peter Katzenstein and J. J. Suh. The appearance of these works is indicative of a growing interest in integrating area and disciplinary concerns within the IR field in the United States, a trend represents yet another phase in the perennial process of boundary-shifting between area studies and social science disciplines that has been ongoing over the past three or four decades. A parallel development can also be observed in British and Australian scholarship, though it is by any account much less pronounced. The reason behind this difference may be because, unlike the United States where IR is a sub-field of the larger discipline of political science, in those two countries it enjoys a much more autonomous status as a discipline in its own right, thus exempting to a certain extent IR scholars (and area specialists who focus on foreign relations) from social ‘scientific’ demands, which in the United States have largely taken the form of a preoccupation with constructing applied positivist- predictive IR theories. The essays, twelve in all and written by US-based IR scholars and area specialists, are grouped into two sections. The first section focuses mainly on security issues. In the lead article, Thomas Christensen discusses the security dilemma that plagues US–Japan–China relations, noting that the historical legacy of the Pacific War makes it particularly intractable. Next, Avery Goldstein examines China’s emerging grand strategy whose primary aim has been to temper its neighbours’ apprehension about its growing power. Alastair Iain Johnston develops a notion of international socialization and tests it out on the evolution of Chinese approaches to multilateral security dialogue. David Kang surveys six centuries of Asian International Relations and suggests that a hierarchical order existed historically in Asia and that it may be emerging again. Masaru Tama- moto navigates nimbly, as only an insider can, the intricate terrain of Japan’s ambiguous identity and long struggle with the question of modernity. Henry Nau argues that an integrated model that borrows from both realist and constructivist theories captures the essence of contemporary Asian International Relations better than either alone. Finally, John Duffield accounts for the differences between regional security institutions in Asia and Europe by looking at regional structures, state characteristics and institutional factors. The second section is shorter and addresses a more diverse range of topics. Jonathan Kirshner articulates the criteria for testing realist theories of political economy in the context of the Pacific Rim. Robert Gilpin delves into the contrasting political cultures of the United States and Japan and the different roles the state plays in their respective economies for sources of economic
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conflict. Dale Copeland explains how relative power, economic interdependence and trade expectations interact to shape the likelihood of a Sino-American war. William Grimes expounds on how the institutionalization of inertia has prevented Japan from pursuing an effective foreign policy. Rounding off the section, Thomas Berger develops a constructivist framework within which he explores how identities influence regional international relations. In the introduction, the editors state that bridging the gap between IR theory and area studies ‘can only illuminate and enrich both realms’ (p. 2). Do the essays deliver on that claim? Very few of them do, but many are excellent works of scholarship by other standards. Generally speaking, the volume contains three types of essay: the ones that focus on factual analysis, the theory- oriented pieces and those that combine theory and empirical studies. The best representatives of the first species are the essays by Christensen and Goldstein. Although Christensen’s article is framed as an application of the security dilemma theory to the US–China–Japan security triangle, its real strength lies in his subtle and sensitive treatment of the Chinese perception of threat from Japan and its alliance with the United States. In Goldstein’s case, his article is a highly nuanced account of China’s diplomatic and economic efforts since the mid-1990s to reassure its neigh- bours and to avert containment by those who might feel threatened by China’s ascendancy. The authors’ mastery of their subjects is beyond doubt—both draw on legions of Chinese materials and an impressive amount of information derived from research trips to China and multiple interviews with Chinese officials. Although the role of IR theory in these articles is either redundant or minimal, these works are nonetheless richly informative and impart perceptive insights into Asian international relations. IR theories feature much more prominently in the second category of essays, which individ- ually do one or more of the following: testing theories, using Asia as a case study; refining theories and adapting them to the region; and deriving future regional scenarios with the aid of theories. Although theoretically sophisticated, some of these articles regrettably are not above resorting to some degree of manipulative use of history to buttress their theoretical cases, resulting sometimes in far-fetched interpretations of regional phenomena. Kang, who argues that Asia has historically embodied a hierarchical order under which Chinese dominance is acknowledged and accepted by other regional states, explains that post war Japan has not rearmed to a level commensurate with its economic power because it has had ‘no need to’ and, since it occupies a lower rung of the regional hierarchy, has accepted China’s ‘central position in Asian politics’ (p. 177). While it is true that no imminent threat has as yet galvanized Japan into serious rearmament, few Japan scholars would agree with Kang that Japan has not done so because it has acquiesced in playing a role in the region secondary to China’s. Indeed, contrary to Kang’s claims of Japanese passive acquiescence in Chinese dominance, the growth of Chinese military and economic power in the past decade has alarmed Japan and elicited increasingly vocal calls from within the country for boosting its military and political role in the region and beyond. Ingrained pacifism and snail-pace institutional changes, however, have so far prevented Japan from rearming seriously or assuming a more active role on the world stage. If a ‘natural’ pecking order with China at the top really exists and is accepted by countries in the region, as Kang claims, then one wonders why the region abounds with talk of ‘China threat’ and why China is so anxious to temper this kind of fear. Generally speaking, although theoretically elaborate, these essays are weak on the empirical side. Two essays, by Johnston and Berger respectively, stand out in their ability to combine theoretical rigour and quality empirical research in a mutually enriching manner. Theoretical discussion is extensive in both studies, but, unlike in some of the theory-oriented essays, the authors are not chiefly interested in showing whether one or another theory fits snugly with the ‘data’. Rather, theories are used here to derive interesting questions that call for in-depth empirical research. They are the starting points of empirical accounts, rather than the strictures to which the latter must be made to conform. Johnston begins developing a definition of socializa- tion in institutional environments and a set of criteria for identifying its effects. He then proceeds to examine meticulously, according to the said criteria, the actual behaviour of Chinese officials who have participated in the Association of South East Asian Nations Regional Forum to
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ascertain whether the experience has had any transformational impact on their attitudes towards regional security multilateralism. Berger starts off by giving a succinct introduction to the con- structivist approach, pointing out that the approach is not necessarily at odds with neoliberalism and neorealism, and that it emphasizes the socially constructed nature of interstate behaviour, which is shaped by the cultural-ideational character of the actors within the international system. The rest of the article is devoted to exploring the specific cultural-ideational factors that are prominent in Asia, especially in the countries of China, Japan and Korea: the developmental state identity, nationalism and the historical memories of the Pacific War. Space does not allow detailed evaluation of all the articles, but it should be emphasized that the majority of them are of high quality, even though very few manage to meet the challenge of marrying area studies and IR theory in a genuinely fruitful manner which is more than merely adding a theory section to a paper concern largely with factual analysis, or brandishing a few carefully chosen historical case studies and showing that they bear out this or that theory or approach. The role of theories should be that of sensitizing the researcher to domains of enquiry that may otherwise be overlooked amid the chaotic sea of facts. But even the most sophisticated theory, used in a judicious manner, can add little to our knowledge of the world—which is ultimately what human knowledge consists in—if it is not supplemented by solid, careful research into the real world, which, in the context of our discussion, can only be achieved by someone who is sensitive to the cultural, historical, and preferably also linguistic particulars of the region or country in question. In view of this, the task of bringing IR theory and area studies together is perhaps best left to the area specialist with theoretical interests, rather than to the IR scholar who seeks to bring the world inside his theoretical purview. Joseph Y. C. Chan, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Barbarians and civilisation in international relations. By Mark B. Salter. London: Pluto Press. 2002. 228pp. Index. £50.00. 0 7453 1902 5. Pb.: £15.99. 0 7453 1901 7. The aim of this book is to explore the trope of the barbarian, and particularly the dyadic, self- other, opposition of barbarian and civilization in the discourses of International Relations (IR). The immediate target is Huntington’s civilizational realism with its focus on inevitable conflict, but Salter also wants to give the discipline of IR a kick by reminding us just how much our contemporary analysis is still rooted in this venerable and politically potent formulation. He is stimulating, if somewhat sketchy and polemical, in using this device to make one rethink the standard accounts of the nineteenth century, and relentless in showing how the violence of western imperialism, disguised in rhetorics of civilizing missions, was barbaric in many of its practices. He is good at tracking how these imperial practices got steadily transferred into Europe during the twentieth century, bringing the barbarian inside the gates, and culminating in the Nazi glorification of barbarism and the destruction of the racial basis underpinning the earlier barbarian– civilized discourse. He offers a thought-provoking, but because narrow and one-dimensional not entirely convincing, account of how all this plays into the development of IR through its foundational post-1945 texts. On stronger ground is his useful reminder that seemingly neutral dyads such as developed–developing and core–periphery, not to mention the ‘war on terrorism’, easily recreate the traditional barbarian–civilized discourse. Opinion will probably divide on this book. Some will like its vigorous challenge to orthodox views of the discipline, and its post-modern adventurousness in reaching outside the strictly academic literature. Others will find its historical accounts thin, its post-modern jargon annoying, and its normative positions questionable and polemical. For my taste, the main weakness arises from the combination of Salter’s failure to look closely enough at the pre-modern history of barbarians and civilization, and his eagerness to expose the legacies within IR of modern western imperialism. At the end of the day, Salter’s purpose is critical: he wants to root out and condemn the assumptions of inequality that the use of the barbarian trope smuggles into IR. Yet because his analysis lacks historical depth, he sees the barbarian–civilized dyad mainly in terms of the strong,
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the central and the western, alienating, exploiting, demeaning and racially and sexually stereo- typing the weak, the marginal and the non-western. That is fair enough up to a point, but it loses that still relevant half of the meaning of barbarian which is rooted mainly in pre-modern history. In ancient and classical times the barbarians were not weak and not marginal. The nomadic pastoralists were in some ways the engine of history. They could, and sometimes did, destroy agrarian civilizations, and over long periods their raiding and looting posed horrific threats to settled peoples in Europe, the Middle East and China. They overthrew Rome, laid waste to Baghdad and much of northern China, and plunged Europe into feudalism. It is not for nothing that the names of barbarian tribes such as the Huns, Goths, Vandals, Vikings and Scythians, and of barbarian warlords such as Attila, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, still resonate. For nearly 5,000 years, the bulk of humankind who lived in the cities and villages of the settled, agrarian world lived in justified terror of the barbarians. Salter is right that IR needs to be aware of its modern imperial content. But in his eagerness to expose the hypocrisy of the civilized, he has largely lost sight of that side of the barbarian, both ancient and modern, that justifies the defence of civilization. Barry Buzan, London School of Economics, UK
International law and organization
The health of nations: society and law beyond the state. By Philip Allott. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2002. 452pp. Index. £55.00. 0 521 81655 6. Pb.: £19.95. 0 521 01680 0. Reviewing a book like The health of nations is no easy task—I am confident that Professor Allott would be disappointed if it were otherwise. You see, this latest work, much like its ground- breaking predecessor Eunomia: new order for a new world (Oxford, 1990), staunchly refuses typical categorization. It demands to be read on its own terms—part law, part philosophy, psychology and sociology at once—reliant on a number of the social sciences but beholden to none. While many struggle to define the study of International Relations and international law, Allott strives to create it. This book is a ‘must read’ for every theorist, practitioner and student, however remotely connected to the international community. With each page, Allott takes you on a journey. Its starting point is a world where the tools to improve the plight of humanity are sadly unavailable. Religion has outlived its usefulness, philosophy has been perverted, the intellectual community is almost non-existent. The initiation of this modern pilgrim’s progress is to deny such conclusions, creating a new conception of the world, and in doing so, creating a new world in fact. The first trial that our author confronts is the scope and position of the ‘law’. His approach is one that sees law as a central social construct, of unparalleled importance to society and sociologists, and intrinsically woven into the social world, such that study of it independent of socio-economic factors is impossible. Because of the ever increasing international interaction and the developing global society, international law as a necessary corollary is emerging as well. For international law to be more than the law of nations, to become the law of international society, humanity must embrace a different way of thinking, ‘a fundamental reconceiving of our inherited international worldview, a psychological and philosophical reconstituting, a revolution from above in the public mind of all-humanity’. Allott regards one particular prevailing conception of ‘nation’ as another major obstacle. Rather than body politic, Allott argues, man first found society in a shared public mentality. The nation was, and should be again, that shared subjectivity, not a detached, untamed phenomenon. The actions of nations are insane—as with mental illness in a person, the right to self- determination is limited because it fails to integrate itself into the social schemata sustained by the other participants. Thus sanity may only be obtained by altering the conduct of all parties, changing the very definition of appropriate behaviour. ‘Such a way will not be found by moral
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exhortation, social pressure or the making of law. It will only be achieved by a reconceiving of the human society as a self-transcending nation of all nations, a reconceiving of the reality-for- itself of a humanity at last made sane by the age-old madness of nations.’ With his general theoretical approach so established, Allott then asks whether ‘nations and states transcend themselves through law’. Is the law a gateway to the promised land, or is it a barrier, one more theoretical institution that must come down to clear the way? The question posed is answered through the application of theory to a current, tangible scenario. In the European Union, Allott sees not an ineffectual conglomerate but a ‘new and unique form of integration of the legal constitutions of its member states within a new and unique form of European society’. It has a unique position and responsibility to the rest of the world, with a desire to make things better. It ‘makes itself by choosing to become what it could be’. Of course, the process is not without its share of difficulties—most of all, it lacks an ultimate principle of ordering. This can only be accomplished as Europeans recognize their own historical consciousness, and participate in a concurrent collective consciousness which fosters and develops the public mind and in turn contemplates an internal debate about ‘the idea and the ideal of European integration’. Only then can the public mind overcome the state-centred traditions in favour of a common identity and destiny. Despite the treacherous and winding road, Allott has brought us safely through the pitfalls and snares that have entrapped so many other travellers. In his final chapters, Allott reveals the extent of his utopian vision. International law is defined as a product of a global human society, ‘an essential part of the self-creating and the self-perfecting of the human species’. It is the creation of the whole of humanity, an independent society with its own values, goals and institutions, rather than the collective laws or interests of the various states. This increasingly complex society will eventually require some sort of constitutionalism to provide a method of control and regulation of the rapidly developing global government. Historically and indeed presently, the evolving system is directed by an elite few, politicians and senior officials of various states which support their own individual and national agendas, practising attorneys and diplomats, interested academics and the like. The key for change, then, is for the desires of the general populace to influence the members of this aristocracy. Only when humanity reconstitutes its understanding of acceptable national behaviour and organization, and the elite cast implements such ideals, will the international society and international law become a reality. Complex as this book is, evidenced by the preceding description, it nevertheless proves itself a much more user-friendly text than its predecessor without losing any of its depth and originality. The introduction provides a brief but understandable sentence or two for each of the following chapters. Unlike many other similar attempts, this summary does not read simply as a synopsis but as a cohesive part of the foundational essay. Each chapter begins with summaries of the major sub- sections, providing the reader with extremely useful points of reference and the beginnings of comprehension—we know where the author is going before we get there, something essential in a subject matter as varied and challenging as this. Every paragraph has its own number, a precise and efficient method for citation. Finding flaws in Allott’s most recent work does not come easily. It is important to note, for one, that nearly all of the book has been published in one form or another over the past decade or so. Unlike so many others who have compiled books in such a fashion, however, Allott succeeds in creating a ‘book’, rather than a collection of articles. The reader feels as if the earlier essays were by-products of the larger work, not that the larger work was an afterthought once a paper or two came off the presses. Some might argue that the text is too theoretical or that certain assumptions, arguments or conclusions are flawed. Getting caught up in such issues misses the most valuable contribution: Allott has created his own celestial city by denying traditional theory—theory so ingrained in our understanding of this world that we often fail to realize that it is nothing more than a monolithic construct. Old assumptions have become fundamental tenets of the very world which we inhabit; The health of nations identifies such areas and provides alternatives. The result is challenging, breathtaking and
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essential, provoking discussion long neglected in the classroom and at the conference table. Such debate is vital if we are to move away from a century of mass atrocities and progress towards a modern utopia. M. C. Kane, University of St Andrews, UK
Multilateral institutions: a critical introduction. By Morten Bøås and Desmond McNeill. London: Pluto Press. 2003. 184pp. Index. £50.00. 0 7453 1921 1. Pb.: £14.99. 0 7453 1920 3. Of the many books on the politics of multilateral organizations, this is one of the most interesting and informative (in this review, I use the term ‘organizations’ rather than ‘institutions’ to refer to the entities discussed). Morten Bøås and Desmond McNeill have provided critical and nuanced analyses of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and three regional banks: the Asian Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the African Development Bank. However, the book pays more attention to the World Bank than the other organizations. While the mandates of multilateral organizations portray them as technical and functional agencies, Bøås and McNeill rightly argue that these are ‘political organizations whose projects, programmes and policies have significant impact on domestic policies in the many countries in which they are involved’ (p. 2). The book is divided into five chapters, which focus on a critical engagement approach to multilateral organizations, their structural design, their changing priorities, especially since the 1980s and 1990s, the politics between and within multilateral organizations, and the future of these entities. The politics of multilateral organizations is discussed in terms of three important actors: the states; civil society and non-governmental organizations; and the organizations themselves. The states are significant, because they are responsible for the creation and continued funding of these organizations. However, states are divided between the North and the South, which pursue different programmes, and within the North and South there are also significant differences. Among the states, the US is the most significant actor in the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO, but the authors rightly argue that its influence is not absolute. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have also become very important actors in multilateral politics since the 1990s. As Bøås and McNeill point out, it was environmental issues that provided NGOs and civil society groups access to the decision-makers in international organizations, but their influence has spread to other development activities that such organ- izations engage in. Just as the developed countries exercise more influence in multilateral organizations than the underdeveloped ones, NGOs from the developed world, and especially from the US, tend to exercise more influence on the decisions of the World Bank and the IMF. American NGOs have used the US Congress to try to exert pressure on multilateral organizations, but the authors argue that their alliance with conservative forces could have a deleterious effect on multilateralism. The authors support a critical engagement of civil society with multilateral organizations, but they fear that violence that occurs at the World Bank and IMF annual meetings might destroy the chances of such an engagement. The third set of actors is the multilateral organizations themselves. While some scholars have claimed that multilateral organizations simply serve as instruments for the most powerful states, Bøås and McNeill demonstrate that these organizations also play politics in their own right. In their own words: ‘Multilateral institutions have considerable power to set the agenda, which normally takes place within their already established knowledge frame’ (p. 2). It is a particular knowledge frame that gives multilateral organizations power vis-à-vis the states. There is also inter-organizational rivalry among multilateral organizations, for example between the UNDP and the World Bank over the development agenda. The authors support multilateralism, which ‘implies common decisions on issues based on generalised principles of conduct’ (p. 157). However, they fear the damaging effect of increasing American unilateralism.
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Multilateral institutions is an excellent book that I recommend highly for those interested in development, the politics of the Bretton Woods organizations and multilateralism in general. Samuel M. Makinda, Murdoch University, Australia
Foreign relations
Zones of conflict: US foreign policy in the Balkans and the greater Middle East. By Vassilis K. Fouskas. London: Pluto Press. 2003. 177pp. Index. £45.00. 0 7453 2030 9. Pb.: £14.99. 0 7453 2029 5. This is a complex book that tackles US and EU involvement in Eurasia, an area that accounts for 75 per cent of the world’s population, 60 per cent of its GNP and 75 per cent of its energy resources. The fundamental issue explored by Fouskas is whether the EU can sufficiently cohere to challenge US hegemony in the region. In the course of his exposition he deals at length with the role of Turkey as a state in transition from a regional cat’s-paw of the US to an applicant for EU membership and queries whether the US is promoting its early inclusion as another means of pursuing its own policy interests. A further chapter deals with the accession of Cyprus as an exemplar of the new EU independence from US influence in the formulation of foreign policy. Fouskas’s basic premise is that the US has pursued hegemonic policies in eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Middle East and Central Asia either because of their energy resources or their situation as oil and gas pipeline transport corridors. In many respects this has conveniently coincided with the US Cold War policy of creating a security belt of nations—Greece, Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan—between the USSR/Russia and the Middle East. Today, however, following the ‘defeat’ of Russia the problem for the US is the emergence of the European Union under the leadership of Germany and France. The US is in favour of the EU as an economic bloc and accepts its eastward and southward enlargement but, according to Fouskas, in the view of Washington and the Pentagon ‘the process has to remain subordinate to the US’s global strategic and economic interests.’ US policy, he asserts, seeks to bracket Russia and China; to maintain strategic partnerships with key EU states while at the same time preventing the emergence of a federal Europe; and to prevent the formation of a power coalition in Eurasia that would challenge US supremacy. ‘Preventing Europe from achieving a federal form of governance … would facilitate the US’s globalisation strategy: no organised interests would be in a position to challenge its political/ideological/military influence in Eurasia, thereby guaranteeing it control over oil and gas producing zones’ (pp. 118–19). To this end, the US plays upon economic and strategic rivalries within the EU to frustrate integration and seeks to capitalize on UK opposition to the notion of federation. Fouskas argues that the transformation of NATO following the end of the Cold War from a defence pact into a political organization institutionalized Europe’s military dependence on the US. The effort to find a new out-of-area role for the alliance in the 1990s ultimately promoted US interests in the Balkans and forestalled the creation of the EU’s own European Security and Defence Identity with its policing capacity and rapid reaction force. NATO’s involvement in Kosovo, he claims, had much less to do with securing justice for the Muslim minority than it did with securing territory in the area of a proposed Black Sea to the Adriatic oil pipeline. Fouskas argues that the US historically favoured Turkey over Greece because of its front-line status with respect to the USSR, Iraq and Iran and latterly because of its influence among the Turkic ethno-linguistic states in the region from the Caspian to China. This has caused the US to promote Turkey’s inclusion in an enlarged EU even before the country meets the economic and human and civil liberties criteria of the acquis communautaires. The US has argued that membership is the best way to ensure Turkey’s democratization while Brussels wants to harmonize Turkey’s economy and polity with EU norms before entry. For Fouskas, the willingness of the EU to include a divided Cyprus among the enlargement states, while only promising to review Turkey’s candidacy, is a major step forward in the evolution of independent EU foreign policy.
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Fouskas argues that to counteract the continuing thrust of US interests in Eurasia, the EU should create a pact with Russia, Japan and China ‘based on shared and non-hegemonic … economic, political and social principles’ (p. 124) that would form the basis of a ‘socio-political alternative to America’s global neo-liberal order’. This should draw on European socialist, Christian, anti-nationalist and anti-fundamentalist movements to create a ‘non-hegemonic, social democratic Eurasian administration under the aegis of Eurasian powers’ (p. 125). This is a frustrating book as it sets running many topical political and moral hares but fails to course them all to ground. As a long essay (128 pages of text and 40 of notes) it is repetitive and would have benefited from heavy editing. As a book it needs considerable expansion to provide evidence for many of the assertions that are made to stand for conclusions. Read today, the volume also suffers from the fact that the manuscript was submitted for publication on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq and thus does not deal with the impact on the symbiotic US–Turkish relationship of Ankara’s unexpected refusal to allow American forces to invade Iraq from the north via its territory. Fouskas’s appreciation of the new out-of-area role for NATO, does, however, tellingly presage the handover to NATO on 11 August of command of the Inter- national Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. Robert McDonald
Longitudes and attitudes: exploring the world after September 11. By Thomas L. Friedman. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux. 2002. 224pp. $26.00. 0 374 19066 6. Longitudes and attitudes is award-winning journalist Thomas Friedman’s collection of the articles filed for the New York Times twice a week mostly from the Middle East, that purportedly set the terms of the debate on this crucial and critical area of the world. The book contains a small number of articles filed before September 11 2001 and most of his after that date. In addition it ends with extracts from the diary he kept that begin to explain his anger and perspective on why the attacks took place, by whom, in the larger sense, and against what. The sense of anger does run throughout the book and at times seems to limit the scope of analysis. Obviously the form of these op-ed pieces is quite limited and therefore does not allow for a more desirable and sustained analysis of his point of view. Friedman is keen to point out that the book does not represent a comprehensive study but forms what he calls a ‘word album’, that captures the raw and unpolished emotions and reactions to the events and the aftermath. Friedman’s approach to explaining the situation is to combine the study of globalization with that of the Middle East. They are the lenses through which he considers the events of September 11 best explained. While it is indicated that American readers frequently identify with what he writes, one can also see in these dispatches that what he writes is clearly aimed at the American audience and contains overtones of an ethnocentric and limited view of the crisis. He explains that he is ‘helping [Americans] not only by explaining who “they” are, but also by reassuring us about who “we” are’. He looks at ‘their’ motivations, but his writing is also motivated by, as he explains, ‘a desire to better understand, and express, who we are—we, America’. He seeks to examine the attributes that the United States has as a country and to explain why they remain the targets of such anger and envy. While Friedman provides many insights into particulars, and while the book purports to explore attitudes across various longitudes, and while various Middle Eastern and Muslim views are identified, Friedman is far less critical or inquisitive about the United States. So for instance he writes, ‘that the animating vision of America in the world is the promotion and protection of freedom—freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of markets, and freedom of politics’. And that while the US might have aligned itself with all sorts of countries for either economic or strategic reasons, it was basically those who were pro- freedom that it stood with. This may go down well in the United States, but even as other reports indicate in this book, this view is clearly not shared universally. There is no real attempt to argue or to convince readers that these are the attributes of the United States, it is just a given, an assumption.
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This is ironic. For on the one hand we are informed that the crisis is acute and that he wonders if all realize that this is actually World War Three. But the war is of a very different kind, one that pits the only superpower and ‘quintessential symbol of liberal, free-market western values— against all the super-empowered angry men and women out there’. Friedman clearly argues that this war is not just about territory and armies, or about the eradication of bin Laden, but also about eradicating ‘bin Ladenism’; the necessity as he sees it to eradicate the ideology of religious totalitarianism. He suggests, ‘the Bush team should tell our Arab partners: look, we don’t need your bases or Arab armies. We just need you to open your societies so the voices of those who want a different Arab future can really be heard. We’ll take care of bin Laden—but you have to take care of bin Ladenism’. He does have some strong opinions on gas-guzzling American cars and the dependency that they creates on the resources of the area and on the use the Bush administration has made of the upsurge in patriotism to drive through a narrow agenda. But what these articles lack is a distance from which to look at the United States with a more critical perspective. It is not as if the so-called ideological wars can be fought only in the Middle East or throughout the Muslim world. A more critical analysis of US foreign policy might be a part of the equation. After all, the anger is not solely confined to the targets of his analysis. Friedman is probably right in his argument that ‘to counter his authentic message of hate, you need an authentic messenger of progress, tolerance, and modernism.’ The problem with much of the content is that it cannot be assumed that either the United States represents these attributes, or that others necessarily share these attitudes. David Ryan, De Montfort University, UK
The EU and Russia: the promise of partnership. By John Pinder and Yuri Shishkov. London: Kogan Page. 2002. 153pp. Index. Pb.: £18.95. 1 903 40314 6. In the wake of war in Iraq, the structure of International Relations seems more unipolar than ever. America’s unrivalled dominance in hard power and its willingness to use it virtually assure its rank as the world’s single titan for the near future. But this situation could change. With China’s emergence as the superpower of the East, the world may again become bipolar, as during the Cold War. And this state of affairs, given America and China’s divergent world-views and opposing political systems, could hardly be conducive to peace and stability. In their excellent book, John Pinder and Yuri Shishkov point out that the antidote to this situation would be the transformation of the EU into its own superpower, working in close and equal partnership with America. America would play the dominant role in the area of hard security, while the EU would provide the essential complement of soft security—meaning all action furthering economic, political and social stability. One of the keys to realizing this vision of the European Union as superpower, equal to America in all fields but hard security, is EU–Russian strategic partnership. Not only is such a partnership important to the EU for future energy supplies and economic markets, it will help assure democracy and security on the continent, reach and influence America, and increase the EU’s political weight in its dialogue with the rest of the world, particularly China. As Pinder and Shishkov say, EU partnership with Russia offers ‘the greatest opportunity to affect the course of world affairs for the better and to begin the new century in a manner that will truly affect the course of world history’. This book is compelling. It convincingly explains why the world would benefit if the EU undertakes the necessary reforms and steps to realize Tony Blair’s vision of an EU superpower. It describes how partnership with Russia is a critical component to achieving that vision, and it offers an unusually thorough account of how to build that partnership at all levels—economic, political, military, legal, financial, social and environmental. John Pinder OBE, a leading specialist on the EU, begins with a comprehensive account of the present situation between Russia and the EU, building on the important fact that the EU represents one-third of Russia’s total external trade. (After EU enlargement, it will represent one-half of Russia’s total trade with the world.)
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He sizes up the meaning of the 20-year strategic energy partnership for both Russia and the EU, and analyses the pros and cons for Russia’s joining the WTO or forming a free-trade area with the EU. Then he turns to interesting discussions of the strengths and weaknesses of the Tacis programme, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank, and the EU as Russia’s leading partner and guide in the continuing reform process. He analyses Russia’s greatest weaknesses—such as its lack of legal structure and bad corporate governance—and offers ways to correct them in order to promote increased foreign investment in Russia’s industrial base, particularly in the technology sector. From there, Russian co-author Shishkov (described by a Russian colleague as Russia’s best specialist on the EU) provides a balanced and lively analysis of Russia’s troubled reform process since 1991, rooting that troubled history in the Soviet Union’s paternalistic, socialist legacy. What makes this critique so worthwhile is that it is a Russian view, not just another outsider’s judgement (often politically motivated) of what went wrong. In addition, Shishkov takes us inside Russia’s political arena, where he cites memorable examples of the conservative Duma’s considerable role in shaping—rather, deforming—the reform process. Then, Shishkov turns to more specific aspects of Russia’s economic relations with the EU, with particular insight into the issues of protectionism, the steel and textile trade, and free trade. He argues that Russia’s only immediate opportunity for seriously increasing trade with the EU is in the energy sector. Ironically, this opportunity also poses one of Russia’s greatest dangers. Russia is at risk of becoming a mere raw-material appendage of the West with its industry too skewed towards basic goods and away from the more value-added sectors of technology and science. In order to avoid this danger, Russia must breathe new life into the civilian sectors of hi-tech industries by attracting greater foreign investment. To do so would include: creating a solid legal framework for business and financial relations, guaranteeing foreigners’ property rights, improving Russian credit and banking systems and rectifying Russia’s problem of under-insurance. From there, John Pinder refocuses our attention on the EU’s ‘most urgent’ task of deepening its partnership with Russia via the ‘Common Strategy’. This tall order means transforming the EU into a superpower. And that means overhauling EU structure so that common foreign policy and common defence policy become realized, which in turn means switching from unanimous voting to a more workable system of majority voting on foreign and defence issues. From there, Pinder says the EU must allot far more funding and attention to Russia in order to deepen multilateral cooperation. Starting at the regional level: Kaliningrad could become a pilot case for cooperation, while the EU’s northern dimension could render north-west Russia (rich in oil and gas and bordering future EU members, Poland and the Baltics) into a development model. Even joint work to adhere to the Kyoto agreement for climate control would deepen EU–Russian economic and industrial partnership. (By the way, this book provides an excellent explication of the issues surrounding the Kyoto accords.) Above all, the book concludes, the EU must regard developing the EU–Russian partnership as its ‘most important, urgent and challenging task’. Placed in a broader context, that task is part of the vision to transform the EU into a superpower and a pillar for a safer and more stable world. What remains to be seen, however—a point that this book unfortunately does not address—is whether the competing visions of the EU among its constituent members will not strangle progress altogether. The French vision of the EU as a superpower is very different from that of Great Britain, for example. Divergent ideas of Europe, if they are not overcome, could be the downfall of both the EU as a power and the EU–Russian strategic partnership. And the reper- cussions of that could negatively affect future security and stability across the continent and indeed the world. Julie Newton
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Conflict, security and armed forces
Turbulent peace: the challenges of managing international conflict. Edited by Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall. Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace. 2001. 936pp. $59.00. 1 929 223 29 3. Pb: $35.00. 1 929 223 27 7. This follow-up to the compilation Managing global chaos: sources of and responses to international conflict (United States Institute of Peace, 1996) is by the editors’ own admission ‘a behemoth of a book’ (p. xiii). It came, however, at a suitable time, elegantly capturing the great changes the international system had undergone in the 1990s, just before we saw it take another radical turn again with the war on terror. But perhaps scholars and practitioners alike can find some illumination in Turbulent peace to alleviate the dilemmas of managing international conflict; this protracted volume is certainly one that warrants much candlelit late-night study. The aims of the book are set out as examining the sources and responses to conflict, and fit closely with the subtitle The challenges of managing international conflict. The emphasis is firmly placed on the ‘how’ as opposed to the ‘why’, dealing with managing conflict as opposed to the uneven record of international conflict management. Consequently, the book retains an upbeat and prescriptive feel throughout which distinguishes it from a literature more often gloomy and doom-saying than not. Commendable editorial work by Chester Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall creates a lucid and surprisingly readable book which for its collection of seminal pieces by major authors looks much like the starstudded casting of The longest day, or some other such Hollywood epic. However, the 50 essays in Turbulent peace are organized into a tight five- part framework dealing, respectively, with: the changing global context of conflict, intervention strategies, negotiation and mediation, institutions and security regimes and peacebuilding. Unfortunately, due to the scope of the work it is not possible to discuss all contributions in detail here. For the purposes of this review it seems appropriate to mention those pieces which represent pinpoints within the debate and consequently many fine qualitative chapters on aspects of conflict management are not discussed directly. From the outset the narrative is structured around Jack Levy’s levels of analysis framework comprised of system, states/societies and individuals, then gradually built against a conceptual background of what has now come to be known within International Relations as ‘broader security’. The systemic level on sources and context of conflict begins with Charles Kupchan’s realist evaluation of order and the exigencies of empire. Nils Petter Gleditsch touches on the inequalities of western-oriented political structures in his piece on the quizzical notion of ‘environmental security’, translating it for us from global warming into the more human notion of resource scarcity and its implications in complex emergencies. The Under-Secretary General for UN peacekeeping, Jean Marie Guehenno, lucidly presents the complexities of the post-Cold War political environment by connecting globalization to the need for new strategy. In light of the enduring connections between the societal wreckages of the Cold War and September 11 this is an ominous warning of what was to come, if ever there was one. On the societal level, Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder remind us of the dangers attached to half-hearted support for democratization, pointing to the fragility of states during transition. Mohammed Ayoob argues the obligation of the international community not to promote ‘statebreaking’ by legitimizing secessionist movements while Paul Collier outlines the economic links between greed and grievance. On the individual level, Janice Gross Stein and Michael Brown collapse the persistent stereotypes of civil war as built on ‘ancient hatreds’ (p. 209), instead highlighting regional context and the power of politicians in manipulating conceptions of identity. The next section on intervention strategies consists largely of a literature review which flows seamlessly from realist to idealist perspectives. Edward Luttwak’s by now classic argument on the futility of intervention as anything other than a prolongation of war is weighed against Lawrence Freedman’s staunch optimism in just war and the liberal solution. The middle ground is taken by Stanley Hoffmann, Richard Betts and Richard Haas who each offer hardnosed analyses of the
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unintended consequences of military intervention and the tough lessons in foreign policy that might inform a reluctance to intervene. Excepting, of course, those scenarios in which action supports international order, such as stemming wider conflict by protecting minorities through military establishment of ‘safe havens’, this feeds into what Haas sees as an expanded concept of ‘vital national interest’ (p. 304), though he remains sceptical of the efficacy of nation-building. Two chapters on non-military strategies, including Joseph Nye’s important concept of soft or culturally attractive power and Pamela Aall’s take on the role of NGOs as a democratization of conflict management, confirm the notion of peace as symbiotic with good governance as a central theme of the book. This outlook is further discussed by Fen Osler Hampson in his opening chapter for the third section on negotiation and mediation. Using a rather film noir euphemism Hampson assesses the theories of conflict resolution used by third parties, raising questions as to whether their roles are that of ‘parent, midwife or accidental executioner’. In the process he imparts the useful distinction between hard realist, soft realist, governance and social-psychological perspectives on conflict management (pp. 388–97). Sandra Toural and William Zartman give an operational explanation of actors and agendas in mediation, while Terence Hopmann’s subsequent essay highlights the tension between bargaining and problem-solving, concluding that if the trend towards liberal democracy continues, friendship among nations and shared interest will diminish the role of zero- sum bargaining. In a rewrite of their flagship chapter for their volume devoted to diplomacy, Herding cats: multiparty mediation in a complex world, Crocker, Hampson and Aall observe that decentralization, the need for burden-sharing combined with moral and realpolitik imperatives to build a just world order will ensure a broad and continued engagement in mediation. The fourth part considers on a case-by-case basis the roles of the United Nations, NATO, NGOs and business in conflict management. Rolf Ekeus draws on long experience in diplomacy to push the debate towards a refreshingly radical standpoint, arguing democracy as the only acceptable form of government (p. 528). Michael Doyle takes this one step further, charting the evolution of peace operations from rudimentary peacekeeping towards the apparently desirable alternative of UN-led transitional administration and state-building. The idealist strain is further uncovered in William Schabas’s essay on international law in which he claims an ‘almost universal enthusiasm’ (p. 617) for the International Criminal Court which does not seem matched in reality by equally universal ratification. A degree of self-criticism stems the ideological tide with Mary Anderson’s hippocratic warning that intervening actors, above all, should ‘do no harm’; a warning that finds resonance in Virginia Haufler’s important piece on the vastly under-researched role of the private sector in contributing both to conflict and, more dubiously, to its management. The final section looks at the challenges of peacebuilding in the wake of war. Roy Licklider outlines the theoretical approaches to creating a sustainable peace: inclusion of all parties in the political process, resolving intercommunal security dilemmas, establishing a working government while paying attention to accountability and vital group interests, economic revitalization, the importance of transitional justice for the reconciliation process, and last but not least, co- ordination of efforts among the international community. Nicole Ball subsequently makes the important link between development and security, but maintains a technical focus on how to improve international performance in security and economic sector reform. Pauline Baker and Roland Paris’s contributions engage in the relationship between democratization and conflict resolution. Baker’s treatment continues in the operational vein, looking at disarmament, de- escalation and electoral models, while Paris’s piece raises more fundamental and often unasked questions about the functionality of a liberal solution to post-conflict problems. The last two chapters of the book shift the focus from governance to cultural interpretations and grassroots philosophy of peacebuilding. Scott Appleby considers the double-edged nature of religion, noting that its catalytic nature in often triggering war makes it painfully ironic (p. 821) that religion should be such an important medium for reconciliation. Appropriately, the volume concludes with John Paul Lederach’s much quoted work on civil society and conflict tran- formation, contending that conflict, like peace, is eco-systemic. Its resolution, then, comes from
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creating positive interactions in multiple locations within the system and ensuring that these proliferate and ultimately transform the logic of the system as a whole. In its entirety, Turbulent peace provides an excellent survey of the conflict management field, particularly as it stood before the war on terror ensured its domination by the discourse of imperialism. With a masterful eye for balance, Crocker, Hampson and Aall manage both breadth and depth covering all the actors and major approaches to conflict resolution while maintaining enough discussion of alternative theories to be truly comprehensive. The main sacrifice made from the previous volume, Managing global chaos, is that of country case-studies in favour of the thematic and more conceptual approach of Turbulent peace. What is lacking, however, is a more serious engagement with structural political issues, such as the failures of the Security Council and social disparities arising from the inbuilt flaws of the global economic system. At a time when one is no longer consigned to the ‘redlist’ for noting that there are some rather serious inequalities in the world attributable to political economy, which act as direct drivers for conflict, one is saddened by the vigour with which idealism has been made exclusively synonymous with no- holds-barred liberalism. To Crocker, Hampson and Aall, democratization appears to be an article of faith. While touched on by various writers throughout the course of the book, a serious critical treatment of this subject is the biggest conceptual vacancy in the work; contributions by authors more questioning of the sincerity of humanitarian motives behind international politics would have been welcome. Nonetheless, Turbulent peace remains a magnum opus of its kind and will be a key reference work for practitioners and scholars alike for years to come. Christopher Freeman, Civitatis International, UK
Fragile peace: state failure, violence and development in crisis regions. Edited by Tobias Debiel with Axel Klein. London: Zed Books. 2002. 234pp. Index. £45.00. 1 84277 170 1. Pb.: £14.95. 1 84277 171 x. In the years since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the political geography of violence and conflict in world politics has undergone considerable change. ‘In certain regions of the globe, intractable constellations of violence have become consolidated that encourage war and prevent lasting peace’ (p. 2). Violence is not constant in these ‘crisis regions’ but alternates with periods of ‘fragile peace’. The question asked by this volume is a simple one: do such regions have a chance of lasting peace? The transformation of war-torn societies and the structures of violence that characterize them is the main topic of the book, a transformation that has proved extremely difficult. Through a comparative analysis of crisis regions in Central America, the Horn of Africa and the Caucasus, the editors and contributors seek to identify the conditions and methodologies that might enable the construction of durable peace. What causes patterns of persistent violence in crisis regions? Identifying state failure as a key factor, the contributions to Fragile peace address a range of topics concerned with state consolida- tion including the promotion of an independent judiciary and the possibilities and dangers of decentralization and separation of powers. As befits a volume that seeks to identify the causes of both persistent violence and conflict in certain regions as well as practical solutions, the role of security agencies—military and paramilitary forces and police and secret services—receives sustained attention. State crisis is seen as a key factor, both a cause of war and an obstacle to development, although it is explicitly recognized that the production of conflict and violence is invariably a matter of multiple causes. A strength of the volume is the explicit attention to the role of external actors in producing and sustaining conflict in crisis regions. In common with a growing body of literature, Fragile peace argues that, particularly after September 11, ‘global security is best served by a redoubled commitment to a new development co-operation strategy, however alluring the promise of military interventionism’ (p. 211). In the era of globalization, regional conflicts cannot be confined. Thus, the western states at the core of the international community must come to see ‘conflict resolution, peace-making, peace- building and the pursuit of classical development aspirations as measures that strengthen their
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long-term security’ (p. 212). While it is easy to sympathize with the deeply humanistic motivations behind this aspiration, it is important not to lose sight, as Mark Duffield has argued, of the darker side of the growing integration of security and development. As security and development concerns and institutions become increasingly intermeshed, so we are seeing the emergence of a renewed set of interventionary apparatus and impulses that continue the unequal relations between North and South. The contributors to Fragile peace seem largely oblivious of this danger. Fragile peace is a translation of a German volume, produced under the auspices of the Development and Peace Foundation, and half the contributors work in Germany. The volume is in no sense parochial, however, and speaks to a wide audience, not only in conflict resolution but also in development studies and international relations. It deserves an equally wide readership. Mark Laffey, University of London, UK
Defending Europe: the EU, NATO and the quest for European autonomy. Edited by Jolyon Howorth and John T.S. Keeler. Basingstoke: Palgrave. 2003. 256pp. Index. £40.00. 140396114 x. Edited volumes are said to acquire their lasting value from the fact that the sum is greater than the individual parts. In reality, however, they often tend to have the characteristics of the curate’s egg: they are good in parts. The book under review is no exception. While it does compile some excellent analyses on the issue of European security and the transformation of NATO, it lacks a certain coherence that would tie the various strands together. The origins of this collection of articles date back to an international conference held in Seattle in early May 2000, i.e. even before the Bush administration took office, before the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and long before NATO’s transformation summit in Prague. The editors wisely delayed getting the manuscript to press to allow for revisions of the chapters to reflect the impact of the events of September 11. Nonetheless, a few articles fail to sufficiently address the new security challenges. A couple of articles, which are included in this volume, have already been published in journals or as working papers. As the editors explain in their introduction, the book sets out to reflect the profound transformation of policy for the defence of Europe and the assurance of its security since the end of the Cold War. Moreover, it seeks to address the issue of how new institutional arrangements may be viewed as devices for defending Europe’s interests or enhancing its influence vis-à-vis an increasingly hegemonic United States within the Atlantic alliance (p. 3). The book is in three parts dealing with NATO and the development of the European Security and Defence Identity (ESDI) and the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP); the US–European capabilities gap; and NATO enlargement, ESDP and the discrimination issue. The volume concludes with two thought-provoking analyses representing the counterpoints. While Anand Menon argues that ESDP is misguided and dangerous for the alliance, Jolyon Howorth suggests the opposite: that ESDP is necessary and beneficial for NATO. Menon, in essence, proposes that in order to mitigate the potential problems posed by ESDP, an attempt should be made ‘to incorporate it as completely as possible within NATO, thereby effectively foreclosing the possibility of European- only missions except in cases of very low intensity conflict’ (p. 216). However original such a proposal might appear, it is neither a fair reflection of what the fathers of ESDP set out to achieve in late 1998 nor a realistic assessment of what could be achieved after the new structures have been established. Putting the genie, called ESDP, back in the bottle and simply reverting to the ideas of 1996 of establishing an effective European pillar within NATO, seems rather far removed from the realities of European politics at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Howorth, on the other hand, recalls that it is still early days for ESDP and that it is, therefore, unrealistic to expect the EU to have solved in four years a whole range of problems that remained latent but unaddressed for the past half century. Having said that, he addresses the major issues confronting ESDP and calls for an approach that brings the different existing national security cultures together into a practical synthesis.
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The most rewarding contributions come from Frédéric Bozo, David Yost and Kori Schake. Against the background of the Kosovo crisis, Bozo critically assesses the future of the transatlantic relationship; simply put: the danger of decoupling. He rightly suggests that the current debate largely reflects the previous one over a US desire for more effective burden sharing as well as a European quest for increased strategic weight within the alliance. At the same time, he warns that ‘a strategic divorce between Europe and the United States is today less impossible than ever before’ (p. 72). Yost and Schake consider one, though not the most important, of the factors that drives the United States and Europe apart, namely the widening gap in technology, investment and procurement. While Schake convincingly makes the case for constructive (as opposed to wasteful) duplication, both authors argue that narrowing the gap may be difficult and will largely depend on three factors: economic growth, threat perceptions, and the prominence of social priorities other than national defence. The volume succeeds in highlighting the competing ambitions, the contrasting visions and the transatlantic tensions related to the quest by Europe for autonomy in the sphere of security and defence. The verdict on the European security and defence policy as well as that on the future of NATO is still pending. The book does justice to this ongoing debate. Victor Mauer, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland
The democratic peace and territorial conflict in the twentieth century. By Paul K. Huth and Todd L. Allee. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2003. 512pp. Index. £50.00. 0 521 80115 x. Pb.: £18.95. 0 521 80508 2. The authors of the book, Paul K. Huth and Todd L. Allee, claim that democratic peace theory can be further elaborated by introducing new datasets and improved research designs. In line with their claim, this volume is designed to test different kinds of sources or competing theories of democratic peace using a new territorial disputes dataset. The work attempts to show that international conflicts, in particular territorial disputes, can be better understood by exploring each different stage of those conflicts and their resolutions separately. The authors expect that within a democracy, causal effects on the management of disputes can vary across the different stages of conflicts. For example, although democratic leaders may be likely to pursue a peaceful settlement in the early stage of a dispute, they may find it harder to make concessions once the situation becomes a full-fledged crisis. Therefore, the first half of this volume addresses the limits of current studies on the democratic peace and introduces hypotheses on territorial disputes and resolutions, the next half is dedicated to thorough empirical tests. In these empirical chapters, the authors test three important domestic-level models explaining the democratic peace—political accountability, political norms and political affinity models—against international-level models of challenge to the status quo, negotiation and military escalation stages, respectively. In addition, these chapters include tests to examine whether within a dispute, the decision of democracies to make concessions or to allow the situation to escalate to the use of military force varies depending on the regime type of their adversaries. Two especially interesting findings emerge from this analysis: first, the domestic-level models are crucial in explaining the initiation and outcome of negotiation in territorial disputes while the international-level model is important in explaining the initiation and escalation of those disputes. The authors point out that domestic-level models help us to understand why some territorial disputes are settled by using negotiations over military confrontations and therefore provide insights for the peaceful settlement of international conflicts. Second, the political accountability model which can capture the domestic political costs of making concessions and using military force has the strongest explanatory power among the three domestic-level models. According to the statistical results, democratic leaders are more likely to initiate negotiations rather than challenge the status quo with military threats, especially soon after an election. At the negotiation stage, as an election approaches, democratic leaders hesitate to make concessions without strong
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domestic support. Furthermore, when both sides are politically strong and secure, democratic leaders are more likely to reach agreement with their democratic adversaries based on mutual concessions. At the escalation stage, democratic leaders can signal their resolve to use force to their adversaries more effectively, and most importantly, democracies do not escalate to use force against their democratic adversaries. The authors further examine competing causal mechanisms of these findings within the political accountability model and suggest that when democratic leaders manage territorial disputes, they pay attention to both types of domestic audience costs associated with the responses of the public and opposition party to the use of force on the one hand, and their response to retreat from those confrontations on the other hand. This book not only excels in providing comprehensive and systematic findings, and persuasive and thorough explanations about the democratic peace, but also plentiful information on their methodologies. At the end of the volume the authors attach their coding rules and the summaries and sources of their territorial dispute cases. This inclusion enhances our understanding of their findings, and at the same time, encourages us to develop further research on this issue. While studying this book I came up with two questions: first, although they successfully incorporate domestic and international-level variables into their models, the authors seem to dismiss the possibility that the characteristics of individual political leaders may also exert influence over the management of international conflicts. Second, I wonder whether the three domestic models can be integrated into one equation with the international-level model. This effort may help show the relative strength of those four different models clearly. Once again, despite my questions, the findings and explanations in this volume regarding the foreign policy behaviour of democratic states across the three different stages of territorial disputes can provide what previous studies have left unanswered about democratic peace. The findings I discuss above represent only a portion of the book’s scope. There are many other important findings I do not discuss in this review. I strongly recommend this volume to International Relations students, and in particular those who are interested in studying democratic peace or improving their research design. Ajin Choi, Yonsei University, South Korea
Deterrence now. By Patrick M. Morgan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2003. 331pp. Index. £50.00. 0 521 82257 2. Pb.: £18.95. 0 521 52969 7. A theory without internal integrity, a concept that eludes firm conceptualization, a practice to which no one conforms yet—to our great danger—fuels supreme overconfidence. This is the image of deterrence that Professor Morgan, in his 1977 (1983, 2nd edn, both published by Sage) work Deterrence: a conceptual analysis, leaves with us. During the past 25 years, he has found little reason to change his mind. Deterrence now falls into two parts. The first contains chapters one to four and fulfils Professor Morgan’s explicit promise to say more about general (vs. immediate) deterrence and his implicit promise to continue his immobilization of rational deterrence theory. Chapter one reviews the origin of deterrence in the nullification of cheap victory strategies, its paramount theoretical concerns (rationality, retaliation, stability, etc.) and its thin relation to the end of the Cold War. Chapter two chronicles the often papered-over inconsistencies, deficiencies and absurdities of rational deterrence theory. Chapter three distinguishes general deterrence, lists its types, identifies its problems and considers its determinants of success. Chapter four turns to the conceptual obstacles to and contemporary corpus of empirical research. The second part of Deterrence now contains chapters five to seven and fulfils Professor Morgan’s self-imposed duty to examine potential sub- stitutes for rational deterrence theory. Chapter five introduces collective actor deterrence, presents and (using post-Cold War evidence) evaluates a series of operational propositions. Chapter six defines the so-called ‘revolution in military affairs’, considers how its financial, technological, strategic and social dimensions affect deterrence and suggests its deleterious consequences. Finally, chapter seven discusses post-Cold War deterrence (of inter- and intra-state conflict)
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among great and minor powers in the global security system. Chapter eight contains concluding remarks. Deterrence now is thoroughly impressive. Its scholarship is impeccable, its argument irresistible and its writing as deft and light as its message is sobering (it is difficult not to grin when he describes leaders as ‘noodling around’ [p. 121], for instance). In this tremendous effort to wrap up an enduring research project, Professor Morgan provides us with a book that will (or should, as it assumes its place on academic reading lists) be read by every student of deterrence and should (but won’t) be read by every self-styled practitioner of deterrence. For all its strengths, however, Deterrence now is not without its hiccups. First, Professor Morgan includes a tiresome retelling of the Russett, Huth, Lebow and Stein (etc.) research project of the 1980s and 1990s that is unnecessary to establish his point about the conceptual difficulties of studying deterrence. Indeed, his compelling analysis of the conceptual obstacles to empirical research makes the 32-page presentation (pp. 133–64, or ten percent of the book) of such empirical results anti-climactic. A less exhaustive summary would make Deterrence now less exhausting. Second, the substance and tone of the discussion of the ‘revolution in military affairs’ are unsatisfying. While Professor Morgan identifies it as his most vexing chapter, the easy ‘what ifs’ and accessible counter-claims to his speculations about the relation between the so- called ‘revolution’ and deterrence render it less than definitive. Also, since it borders on the defensive and thus contrasts unfavourably with the cool confidence of the work as a whole, Professor Morgan’s repeated insistence within this chapter that there is indeed a ‘revolution’ reinforces this sense. Finally, Professor Morgan seems to repeat the mistake for which he so famously criticizes his colleagues. He defines general deterrence as that very broad effort (claims, capabilities, huffing and puffing) that prevents any thinking about attack from going very far (p. 80). One of Professor Morgan’s signature contributions is the claim that many troubles (arms races) stem from the fact that what is exceedingly rare—immediate deterrence—rather than what is omnipresent—general deterrence—inspires and informs our everyday understanding of deterrence—rational deterrence theory. Wrongly, for Professor Morgan, immediate deterrence characterizes our theory but not our world, while general deterrence characterizes our world but not our theory. The issue is he abandons this reasoning when discussing the ‘recession’ of deterrence among states. Since states have fewer nuclear weapons on high alert, Professor Morgan maintains, deterrence undergoes a dramatic transformation: it is ‘less salient’ (p. 252) now and ‘relegated to the periphery of security affairs’ (p. 250). Persons who insist deterrence remains as prominent as ever confuse nuclear weapons with deterrence (p. 251). The problem is his defining claim thwarts this position. In short, to claim that current security relations evince a dramatic transformation of deterrence is to assert, implicitly, that immediate rather than general deterrence characterizes our world prior to this transformation. If general deterrence characterizes state relations (including the Cold War) then recent shifts are unremarkable. If recent shifts towards general deterrence are transformative, then one must assume immediate rather than general deterrence prevails until this time. Perhaps, as he suggests early on, it is general deterrence that is ‘less salient’ (p. 85) these days. However, it is tough to fathom a complete absence of deterrence when he defines general deterrence as preventing untoward thinking; if general deterrence prevents thinking from going too far, isn’t general deterrence as relevant now as ever? While correcting this errant assumption motivates much of Professor Morgan’s work, it tangles with and becomes a problem for the speculative aspect of Deterrence now. These and other tensions (is he Kuhnian [1977] or Lakatosian [2003], is deterrence instrumental [to be used by leaders] or constitutive [part of who we are]) are small problems within a brilliant piece of scholarship and their identification should reflect the stimulating nature of this very successful effort to nail tight the coffin of rational deterrence theory and, less definitively, to speculate about the future of deterrence. Matthew Woods, Brown University, USA
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Corporate warriors: the rise of the privatized military industry. By P. W. Singer. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 2003. 352pp. Index. $41.95. 0 8014 4114 5. P. W. Singer’s excellent new book on private military enterprises will set the standard for works on the phenomenon in the future. Not only does it set out a clear, yet subtle, analytic framework, it also deftly sets out the plethora of issues that emerge as a result of the increasing privatization of military functions, in the context of numerous well-documented examples. The role of private military actors historically is also well accounted for, setting the context of contemporary privatization, and further demonstrating that there is not a timeless structure of global violence. Singer makes a strong link between the privatization of military functions and other forms of the government privatization of public services, indicating that such services have often drifted in and out of the public and private spheres. Military security, while not being untouchable, certainly has a firmer connection to the public sphere, as it is seen as an essential public service; indeed it is often seen as a key component of legitimate statehood itself. The increasing contemporary prevalence of privatized military services is therefore perceived as breaking down the traditional responsibilities of government. The analytic framework utilized clearly distinguishes contemporary military privatization from profit-motivated military efforts of the past, focusing on their corporate structure. They are firms that provide a service for corporate profit, competing in the global marketplace. Singer uses the term ‘private military firms’ (PMFs) as opposed to the more usual ‘private military company’ in order to hone this definition, and remove the normative associations that have hindered the latter term. He develops three basic types of PMF: military provider firms, military consultant firms and military support firms. Provider firms are at the frontline of the battlespace, either in direct combat, or in the control of combat units. These are the most commonly discussed and most controversial of firms. Consultant firms give strategic and operational advice, often in the form of training, meaning that the client is the one that takes the final risks on the battlefield. Supplier firms provide crucial military services, such as logistics and, increasingly, intelligence. This final category has been the least analysed, but represents the largest area in terms of actual business conducted. Singer follows up his classification with three excellent case-studies of individual firms which are the paradigmatic examples of each form: the now defunct Executive Outcomes as a provider firm, the US-based MPRI as a consultant firm, and the Halliburton-owned Branch & Root Services as a supplier firm. These cases, in addition to the numerous other examples given, provide plenty of evidence for the ‘grey area’ in which PMFs exist: they have provided some excellent and crucial services, but also have a number of potential problems, which Singer goes on to highlight in great detail. One of the best attributes of Singer’s book is the combination of an exemplary analytic framework with a thorough analysis of the implications of the industry. His discussion ranges from technical problems that are not prominently discussed such as contractual dilemmas, inefficiency within the privatized military sector and the difficulties of oversight, to challenges to International Relations theory, impacts on civil–military balances and general normative issues. Overall, the greatest difficulty with the existence of such firms is the tension between public good and private interest. Although this tension comes up in numerous different formulations, issues of accountability and legitimacy are always at the heart of the problem, and feature prominently in Singer’s analysis. Though he hesitates in saying that PMFs are likely to cause the death of states, he does stress that their existence challenges traditional notions of statehood, and creates the potential for new combinations of military and political power. An eventual hollowing out of the state may be a consequence, if security, one of the state’s key functions, becomes a private good. One might question whether Singer’s corporate-oriented framework is broad enough. Some recent contributions have included an even greater diversity of privatized security phenomena, such as private policing and transnational criminal organizations, which surely have similar impacts on the state. Though this may be a limitation in providing an overall analysis of privatized
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security, within the scope of the book, the framework seems justified. Singer’s classification of firms also suggests some more subtle happenings, that are often ignored in the over-emphasis on provider firms: especially that western states are increasingly using support firms for logistics, demonstrating an increasing reliance on the private sector for a crucial aspect of military power. The danger for western countries is that they are becoming too reliant on private firms which may hamstring their own militaries in a time of crisis. The privatized military industry is indeed exerting a greater influence over international security today, and has become an important area of investigation. Singer has rightly emphasized the profound changes this may have for statehood and International Relations more generally, while grounding his analysis in excellent research and providing concrete policy recommen- dations. The broader implications of these firms will need further analysis, but Singer has provided an excellent starting-point. As such this work should be of value not only to those with an interest in the private military industry, but also for those who desire a broader idea of the impact of the privatized military industry on International Relations. Bryan Mabee, Oxford Brookes University, UK
Politics, democracy and social affairs
Media and conflict: framing issues, making policy, shaping opinion. Edited by Eytan Gilboa. Ardsley, NY: Transnational Publishers. 2002. 354pp. Index. £68.99. 1 57105 270 4. Pb.: £24.50. 1 57015 276 3. The discipline of International Relations has changed dramatically in the course of the twentieth century, in particular through the inclusion of new participants in the process of analysis in addition to traditional state actors. Nevertheless, the discipline continues to be largely blind to the information revolution that has been taking place since the end of the nineteenth century. This stands in contrast to the recognition of the actual participants in the international arena that communication and mass media influence almost every aspect of their political activities. Eytan Gilboa, from Bar-Ilan University in Israel, noticed this absence and argues that ‘despite the significant effects the media have on domestic and international conflicts, only limited attention has been given to this critical topic in the relevant social science disciplines including communication, political science, international relations, management, and sociology’ (p. ix). Therefore Media and conflict is a welcome book that focuses on media and conflict manage- ment, conflict resolution and conflict transformation, mostly in the international arena, from cross-national and cross-cultural perspectives. The book presents 17 articles that combine studies from the United States, Central America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Russia and Asia. The research presented enquires into the media’s role in different types and levels of conflict: global, where states and non-state actors are involved, including the conflict over globalization and the World Trade Organization; international, where the protagonists are states, including, for example, the Arab–Israeli conflict and the Tokdo conflict between Japan and Korea and domestic, including ethnic and environ- mental conflicts. The collection is well organized around analytical areas, which enables easy access to the relevant concern: part I deals with the framing of issues in the media; part II examines media effects on policy and uses of the media to promote policy; and part III explores the media–public relationships. Nevertheless, while the book presents both theoretical and analytical studies, there is a lack of overall theoretical organization of these studies. Moreover, while the collection deals with international media influences, there are just four studies that analyse media primary sources that are not American: South Korea and Japan (Ch. V); Russia (Ch. XI), South Africa (Ch. XIII); and Nicaragua (Ch. XV). In addition, chapter two, which probes websites’ uses by non-governmental organizations, deals mainly with western sources.
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Still, this collection raises hopes for an increased awareness of the need to explore the role of media and communication in the process of International Relations in peace and crisis situations. The collection will be of major interest to scholars and students of both International Relations and media studies. David Mekelberg, University of Sussex, UK
No end to war: terrorism in the twenty-first century. By Walter Lacqueur. London: Continuum. 2003. 288 pp. Index. £16.99. 0 8264 1435 4. The future of freedom: illiberal democracy at home and abroad. By Fareed Zakaria. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Co. 2003. 286pp. Index. £18.95. 0 393 04764 4. One of today’s most common pieces of conventional wisdom is that the democratization of weak and corrupt states is a crucial step towards making short- and long-term gains in the war on terror. Over the short term, democracy will allegedly ‘drain the swamp’ of terrorist support by relieving the frustrations of unemployed and radicalized masses that protect them in developing countries around the world. Once the poor and downtrodden find their political voice in democratic processes, according to this reasoning, they will no longer need Al-Qaeda and its affiliates to speak for them through acts of political violence. Over the long term, democracy is assumed to have benefits as well, as it is likely to put these states on a path to prosperity and eventually eliminate the socio-economic problems like unemployment and poverty that provide an impetus for terrorism. Together, the short- and long-term benefits that allegedly accrue from democracy have convinced many on both the right and the left to make ‘democratization’—however messily defined—a cornerstone of their proposed responses to terror. It is a testament to the strength and currency of this bit of conventional wisdom that the one thing that liberals, disgusted with the Bush administration’s militaristic approach to terror, and neo-conservatives, bent on demo- cratizing the Middle East, can agree on is the need for more democracy. But while this alleged need to democratize the developing world remains a powerful con- sensus in the western capitals today, it has started to experience a backlash in the academic community. Both Walter Lacqueur’s and Fareed Zakaria’s new books should properly be seen in that light. Lacqueur, a noted terrorism expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, argues in No end to war that there is simply no evidence to suggest that terrorism, particularly Islamic terrorism, is a reaction to poverty or political stagnation in weak states. He notes that all of the September 11 hijackers were from the educated middle class and were quite at home in western democratic states. While acknowledging that poverty and unemployment contribute to the radicalization of populations that will eventually support terrorism, Lacqueur maintains that, in as much as it is possible to generalize about them, terrorists are fanatics for their cause and no amount of democratization or economic development will ever deter them. Quite to the contrary, they thrive in liberal states where the government has a limited ability to monitor them and to undertake preventive action against them. Noting wryly that repressive regimes like North Korea rarely have terrorist problems, Lacqueur concludes that it is the West’s political assumptions about its own guilt from imperialism that account for the persistence of the belief that poverty and starvation are the root causes of terror. While his sharp critique of the root causes of terror hypothesis is the centre-piece of his book, Lacqueur takes on a wide range of targets, from the anti-Americanism in the European left to the relationship between the Israeli–Palestinian dispute and international terrorism. In the chapter addressing the intelligence failure of the CIA before the September 11 attacks, he lays blame widely from the government to the media to academics, including both his colleagues in terrorism studies and the so-called ‘post-Orientalists’ whose enthusiastic support of Islam led them to act as apologists for radical Islamism. While this chapter is a provocative and occasionally amusing read, one cannot help noticing that Lacqueur views his job of correcting the miscon- ceptions of his peers much like a frustrated parent would regard the prospect of moderating a
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room full of rambunctious children. He concludes the book on a pessimistic note, arguing that the West belongs among the battlefields of the future—the Caucasus, India and the Balkans—and that democratization and other forms of liberal social reform cannot deter the so-called ‘international brigade’ of Islamists hell-bent on the destruction of the West. While there is no doubt that Lacqueur is one of the most astute students of terrorism and that this book is a work of impressive scholarly achievement, one is left wondering about the extent to which he overstates his fatalistic conclusions about the future of terrorism. It may well be that Al- Qaeda is dominated by fanatics who do not speak for the underclass of the metropolises of the developing world and that democracy is a handicap to governments hoping to undertake counter-terrorism operations on their own soil. But even Lacqueur acknowledges that addressing the economic dissatisfaction of the developing world would diminish popular support for Osama bin Laden and his colleagues and go a long way towards making their attacks more difficult to accomplish. Furthermore, some forms of terrorism—particularly the separatist terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka and Kashmir—are directly related to issues of good governance. If terrorism puts democracy in the dock, terrorism experts like Lacqueur need to contribute more to the debate about what other forms of governance address the poverty of the developing world without creating a permissive environment for terrorism. In The future of freedom, Fareed Zakaria takes on this challenge with a critique of what he calls ‘illiberal democracy’. His core premise is that what is important in the process of democratization is not the mechanics of elections and governance but rather the ethos of constitutional liberalism. According to Zakaria, most of our touted democratic states are actually what Aristotle called ‘mixed regimes’—that is, they have an elected government but also constitutional laws, an independent judiciary and a range of associations and elites that form a civil society. In these mixed democratic regimes, some decisions would be subject to opinion polling or plebiscite but others—especially technical decisions, like regulating the banking system—would instead be taken by institutions and elites concerned with the public interest. He concludes that it is this blend between the elected and non-elected elements of governance, or perhaps the democratic in the procedural sense and the ‘constitutional liberal’ in the political sense, that makes modern democratic states successful. Turning his attention to the US and abroad, Zakaria claims that illiberal democracy— democracy without constitutional liberalism—is now spreading like wildfire around the world. In the US, he sees the increasing reliance on polls and the disastrous experiments in proposition voting in California as evidence that American political leaders have forgotten how to show leadership and instead are ever more reliant on the sometimes untrustworthy whims of the people. An over-democratization of governance in the US, he claims, inhibits the governmental decisions that should properly be made by elites and appears to be leading to a political system dominated by would-be demagogues. In the rest of the world, Zakaria sees the American insistence on forcing elections on the countries of the developing world that lack constitutional liberalism as a base for their political culture as a misguided policy likely to create unstable and illiberal regimes. In a chapter entitled ‘The Islamic exception’, he makes the case that Arab civil society is currently illiberal and that democratizing corrupt regimes will only put these illiberal forces into power. The solution, according to Zakaria, is to accept undemocratic regimes for the time being and to try as hard as possible through other means, like aid and diplomacy, to entrench a liberal culture. Only then can good governance flourish, democracy spread, and the rejection of terror in the Islamic world truly begin. While Zakaria undoubtedly makes a good case that democracy is more than the nuts and bolts of elections, his call for a ‘return to authority’ among elites in the US and abroad is troubling to anyone who is not already a conservative. In practical terms, he does not adequately deal with the difficulties involved in deciding who belongs in the elite and also how one rolls back public participation in government once the genie has been let out of the bottle. Moreover, his call for stability in the outside world—which in his terms means rule by benign autocrats until constitutional liberalism has been entrenched—is a message to the people of the developing world
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to keep waiting to have a political voice. But given the record of their elites and the fact that constitutional liberalism offers no guarantee of democratic success, this is a big gamble to ask them to take. While Lacqueur may be right that democracy will not end terror and Zakaria may be right that democracy may not be the best export for certain regimes, neither provides a convincing alternative account of how the West could convince the people of the developing world to reject the illiberal elements of civil society and terrorists in their midst without at least the promise of democratic self-government. Until they or others can do so, the conventional wisdom that links democracy with a world free of terror is unlikely to be seriously challenged. Michael J. Boyle, University of Cambridge, UK
International who’s who 2004. Edited by Elizabeth Sleeman. London: Europa. 2003. 1888pp. £295.00. 1 85743 217 7. The International who’s who has been published by Europa Publications since 1935 and provides biographical information on the ‘most famous and talented men and women in the world today’. There are over 20,000 entries of which over 1,000 are included for the first time in the 2004 edition. The strength of this established reference work lies in the quality and extent of the biographies. All new and existing entrants are sent forms, which allow the entries to be as current and full as the ‘most famous’ wish. The list of specialisms covered is extensive and ranges from art and architecture to technology and theatre. Indeed it is easy to find famous people in each of the activities represented. The arrangement of the work is alphabetical with a supplementary five-page listing by country of brief but useful entries on reigning royal families of the world. There is no index and, unlike the Who’s who of international affairs also published by Europa, it would benefit from an index by nationality. Such an index makes finding a person easier if one doesn’t know the exact spelling or title. Perhaps the publishers would consider omitting the rather pointless listing of international telephone codes and replacing it with a very useful index by nationality. As with all of these works, the frustration lies in not finding the one particular person who one considers to be famous listed among the many thousands of entries. The publishers provide little clue as to how they select individuals other than saying that they are included ‘entirely on merit’. Unfortun- ately, the criteria for the level of merit are not made clear. Nevertheless, the breadth and coverage of this massive 1,888-page work is impressive and it is a must for any good reference library. Catherine Hume, Library, Royal Institute of International Affairs, UK
Ethnicity and cultural politics
Islam under siege: living dangerously in a post-honor world. By Akbar S. Ahmed. Cambridge: Polity Press. 2003. 213pp. Index. £45.00. 0 7456 2210 0. Pb.: £12.99. 0 7456 2209 7. This study is largely a personal account by the author intended to create a better understanding of Islam in the aftermath of September 11 and an attempt to enter into dialogue with its critics. The explanations for September 11 and bin Laden are presented as part of a changing social order, in the sense of the loss of honour and dignity. This ties in with the issue of local culture and the retaining of a sense of identity in the context of advancing globalization. Although permeated with anthropological and sociological insights the author states that the book is not about anthropology nor about bin Laden; rather it is about the world that has created bin Laden, his Al-Qaeda network and the world he has helped create. Bin Laden is seen as having succeeded in putting Islam in direct confrontation with other religions. The concept of honour features as a central tool of analysis and Akbar argues strongly that we are entering a ‘post-honor world’. He suggests that the notion of honour and its use in our time
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should be explored as a tool with which to look at our world. He argues that the definition of honour has changed and that this is a consequence of a new variety of asabiyya (originally meaning ‘spirit of kinship’) which is based on an excessive loyalty to the group; this is referred to as ‘hyper- asabiyya’ and frequently expresses itself violently. Importantly, the fear of loss of honour gives rise to violence and is reinforced through the perception of injustice and being under siege: a phenomenon felt most strongly by Muslims today. Underlying much of the author’s commentary is the belief that Muslim societies have moved away from the core teachings of Islam and that both scholarship and leadership have failed the Muslim community. It is here that the author touches on the most interesting aspect of the book, the debate between what he terms the ‘exclusivists’ who create boundaries and believe in hierarchies and the ‘inclusivists’ who interact with others and who even listen to them and are influenced by them. Despite Akbar’s critique of ‘exclusivists’ everywhere, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, and his focus on the Taleban as a case-study of what Islam is not, he nevertheless states that given the injustice that exists in the Muslim world it is difficult for ‘inclusivists’ to talk of dialogue with conviction. The underlying factor of demography in any analysis of the Muslim world points to young populations and high levels of illiteracy which for the author mean that emotional and angry solutions find a greater audience and wider appeal. However, this does not account for the support for radical Islam among the literate middle classes, which he himself acknowledges. While the combination of changing cultural notions of honour and the impact of globalization are important in understanding the contemporary makeup of the Muslim world they still fail to provide an explanation for what is ultimately a modern political power struggle. This struggle is taking place within the Muslim world itself and has manifested itself against the United States with the use of modern techniques of violence and traditional symbols and language. Maha Azzam, Middle East Programme, RIIA, UK
The cultural imperative: global trends in the 21st century. By Richard D. Lewis. Yarmouth, Maine: Intercultural Press. 360pp. Index. $29.95. 1 877864 98 6. The reviewer wrestled with this book! Surely cultures are too diverse to categorize (here the author’s declared intention) and compare because the terminology used to describe them does not afford universal application: curry for an Indian man is not the same as curry for a Japanese; a North American woman newly widowed can usually look forward to a ripe old age, an Indian Hindu widow to possibly being burnt on her husband’s funeral pyre! The Japanese word for widow (mibôjin) has a negative connotation! Yet Richard D. Lewis, already the author of When cultures collide (Nicholas Brealey, 1999) here in Cultural imperatives compares cultures with charts, lists and much description. He speaks ten European and two Asian languages, he chairs (see the blurb) an international institute for cross- cultural and language training with offices in more than a dozen countries. He has tutored Japan’s Empress Michiko and other members of the Japanese Imperial family and advises a number of big names in global business. In short, he’s an expert. So much for the practice. Now for the theory: anthropologists are not agreed on whether it is legitimate or even sensible to compare different cultures. Lewis has no compunction in doing so. But he does conclude at the end of the book that culture is dynamic, not static, and may change if a cultural group acquires a new vision of the future. Of course the reverse can happen as September 11 reminded us all and had already prompted Lewis to add a few more chapters. He recognizes cultural differences based on different history, religion and explicit in different languages which on occasion, as with the Japanese language sporting three scripts (one ancient Chinese), are brain-teasers. He argues that different cultural behaviour and mindsets between East and West necessitate different business negotiation techniques. He includes case-studies, including ‘The Mexican mindset’ (especially pp. 86–7) where the author writes, ‘though normally bouncy and gregarious, Mexicans frequently slip into melancholy and despairing moods, where fatalism,
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apathy, and a sense of powerlessness combine to produce an inferiority complex far removed from Argentinian conceit or Brazilian gay abandon. At such times Mexicans “put on a mask”, concealing their feelings behind an impassive countenance denoting stoicism and adversity and a quiet understanding of human suffering.’ (It’s hilarious!) Lewis tells the reader that western thought processes differ from those of the Chinese, Japanese or Koreans. He offers the reader much generalization based on anecdote and experience. He argues that cultural differences predict human behaviour. Can we be sure? Buddhist, Confucian, Hindu and of course Christian customs are themselves diverse and the behaviour of a particular cultural group wedded to a particular nation or political system may well act out of cultural context. Was Mao’s Cultural Revolution Confucian?! Cultures are themselves often so mixed and intertwined. Moreover, a particular ethnic group within a culture and the individuals within that group may act differently from the cultural norm depending upon age, education and social class. Take the UK, now classified as a multi-racial society, where reportedly 300 different languages are spoken. What is the cultural norm? How predictable is individual human behaviour? Initially, people from different cultures do react predictably in everyday life. No Japanese person would dream of entering a house with shoes on. Most slurp their soup unless used to western culture abroad. Foreign travel is the great culture trainer for us all. But when we compare cultures without considering the absence of reliable terminology and above all when comparing Islam and Christianity, it is essential to allow for different time sequences. Islam in some countries today reminds us of Christianity during the Inquisition. The vocabulary reflects this: fatwa, jihad, even Shari’a law. But we in the West still retain our loyalties to the Son of God who lived over 2,000 years ago. Lewis sees and separates cultures into three groups: cool and rational linear-active (blue), emotional and impulsive multi-active (red) and finally, amiable, compromising and passive reactive (yellow). (See cultural variations in colour on the cover.) But then one can think of so many exceptions to, for example, blue linear-active Brits and yellow reactive Chinese. Are we not dealing with stereotypes? Lewis repeats Leo Whorf’s theory of the Hopi language allowing no reference to time or to the past, present or future (p. 147) which has since been challenged if not exploded by later research. Lewis has no footnotes or sources of reference although there is a bibliography. He discusses how cultures are influenced by climate. There’s a reason for everything. But this is not to belittle the author’s achievement in presenting the reader with such a comprehensive cultural phrase book, useful for business executives rushing from one part of the globe to another where yet another cultural oasis in the form of a Holiday Inn or Marriott hotel awaits them. But more qualification is required. Cultural perceptions are changing all the time, especially in the treatment of foreigners. The author has spent five years in Japan, the reviewer ten. The Japanese are eminently culturally adaptable, especially young people who, though often Buddhists, insist on marrying in a Christian hotel chapel and see no cultural contradiction in doing so! Even the priest who conducts the marriage may be just a non-clerical, sober-looking part-timer. (The reviewer was once offered the job!) It isn’t just cultures that differ but also our concept of what culture is. We all know terrorism is a perversion of culture, but still the term is used to explain inexplicable examples of barbarism. We may be able to predict how members of different ethnic groups will behave under certain circumstances with a fair degree of accuracy. But we need to take into account different behavioural patterns according to age, gender, education and social group. And what about sex? (No entry in the index.) Ditto gangster (yakuza) culture, which is still dangerously significant in feudalistic Japan. Lewis compares cultures by writing what he thinks is how one cultural group sees another, including cultural black holes where we totally misunderstand each other, then vice versa followed by his own version based on his own experiences of foreign cultures. But does it make sense to generalize from experience? So many factors influence our interpretation of events, especially when abroad, particularly in Japan. Above all we need to avoid having pre-conceived
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ideas of how our opposite number is going to behave in a particular situation. The reviewer remembers being interviewed for a teaching post by his future dean and saying something based on his experience of his former lectureship which had frozen his understanding of how private Japanese universities worked. ‘Oh, no,’ said the dean, ‘it’s quite different with us’ and so it was. Global influences tend to merge cultures and thus make a particular culture less predictive of individual human behaviour. The cultural imperative necessary is surely to respect each other’s customs, not magnify the differences between them; to coalesce cultures where possible, to syn- chronize them sufficiently to find a modus vivendi. The best requisite of all when abroad, to borrow from the earnest title of Lewis’s book The cultural imperative: global trends in the 21st century, remains undoubtedly, in this reviewer’s opinion, a sense of humour! So often it can be one’s saving grace. John A. S. Abecasis-Phillips, KIBI International University, Japan
Islam and the West: conflict or cooperation? By Amin Saikal. Basingstoke: Palgrave. 2003. 171pp. Index. £45.00. 1 4039 0357 3. Pb.: £13.99. 1 4039 0358 1. Islam and the West, a Manichaean opposition which gained sudden ascendancy following the terrorist events in the United States on September 11 2001, significantly underwrites both the classical orientalist approaches to Islam and the less known ‘occidentalism’ developed by Muslim ideologues in the last century. Interestingly, the apologetic discourse advanced by Muslim intellectuals in the wake of September 11 has continued this inaccurate and, further, alarmingly perilous binary which is oblivious to practical as well as formal evidence in its monolithic understanding of both ‘Islam’ and the ‘West’. Urging cooperation between the terms of the binary, as opposed to acknowledging an irreducible conflict based on an inherent irreconcil- ability, the present volume refutes the common premise of orientalist and occidentalist views on the matter. Nevertheless the study remains self-defeating on the whole for maintaining the assumed dichotomy which homogenizes Islam and the West in essentially distinct realms. Islam as a happy constant is endorsed in the volume in the face of various divisive forces, which in effect characterize Islam and Muslims on both domestic and international levels. The result is Islam, or ‘the domain of Islam’, a term employed in the study throughout, as an uncomplicated, transcendental signified in world affairs. Islam is understood, at once, as a policy element in intergovernmental association and as a transnational force, as a legitimizing tool in domestic politics and as a source of civic identity. Islam as a wholesale referent along these lines is, simultaneously, Islam in history and the present-day Islam, and, perhaps more formidably, Islam as the formal, scriptural frame of reference and Islam in its multifarious, often contrasting, inter- pretations. The disharmony which clearly marks the conceptualizations of Islam to a significant extent, and which is arguably at the heart of the ongoing debate, is therefore largely ignored in the study in favour of a monolithic idea of Islam, one which is sufficiently autonomous and self- contained as an ‘identity’ concept, standing apart from an equally metaphysically constructed notion of the ‘West’ in terms cultural, political and historical. Presuming a duality of Islam and the West in contemporary world politics, the volume seeks to counter the western mindset, formed rapidly in the aftermath of the events of September 11, that a clash between the two is presently what is at play. The stage is set for the argument in the opening chapter by a discussion of the terrorist attacks and the intellectual and policy responses to the events, particularly in the United States, with global implications. The following chapter is devoted to an analysis of the tension from a historical perspective, which offers an overview of the interaction between Muslims and Judeo-Christian communities in history, emphasizing the pattern of long-standing peaceful coexistence, notably facilitated by the common origin and precepts of the respective faiths. The discussion appears to be somewhat anachronistic in its treat- ment of the historical experience between Muslims and non-Muslims living under Islam (the dhimma). The interaction is described through exclusively eurocentric notions, such as minority rights, principally ‘the right of freedom of religion for Jews and Christians’ under Muslim rule, in what is today the Middle East, from the eighth century onwards (p. 30). In truth, the concept was
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alien not only to the pre-colonial Islamic setting, but also to the very European discourse on tolerance prior to the Enlightenment. Another evident anachronism in the chapter is a rather forced effort on the part of the author to render more palatable, under the prevailing parameters, historical notions held suspect in the ongoing debate, such as jihad, interpreted as ‘a conceptually defensive act’ (p. 27). The chapter also discusses, as part of the historical experience, western colonialism, which prompted the resurgence of Islam as an anti-imperialistic ideology in the nineteenth century. Islamism as an ideology would in turn exert considerable influence in the independence and early post-colonial life of the bulk of Muslim nations, only to be subdued by rising secularism, spear- headed by Turkey. The next three chapters in the book seek answers to the question posed at the end of this chapter: ‘what happened that generated the necessary conditions to give rise to Islamism’ (p. 41), especially its extremist versions, following the apparent triumph of secularism? The answers rehearsed in the study are: (1) the US hegemonic behaviour in the Middle East as part of its Cold War policy of containment, which involved support of the authoritarian regimes in the region and consequently the alienation of large masses from democratic governance, (2) the unprincipled and biased US interference in regional issues, such as the Iranian revolution, the Palestinian problem, and the Afghan conflict, with mostly catastrophic consequences that left Muslims by and large embittered, and finally (3) the inability of internal political dynamics in most Muslim countries to incorporate a sound, western-type reconciliation of state and society to create administrations sufficiently accountable, and responsive to needs and demands, on the domestic front. The closing chapter in the study is a perceptive critique of the US and its allies in the continuing all-out war on terrorism, pursued, as the author argues, mostly on a haphazard basis, and hardly mindful of the sources, as opposed to the alleged supporters, of extremism. According to the author, far from having learned from its past mistakes, the US has returned to the region with a vengeance, ‘show(ing) more willingness than ever to add more dictators to its list of allies’ (p. 137), and with little care or patience for a natural process of democratization in regional states. One important merit of this volume in this regard is the strong emphasis it places on the Khatami government in Iran as a genuine exercise towards a home-grown, working democracy, which, the author contends, may form a model for the rest of the Muslim landscape. Although the volume fails to some extent to maximize its contribution to the debate, overall it is a well-written book, by a distinguished expert on Islam and political change, and offers valuable insights. Necati Polat, Middle East Technical University, Turkey
Law and power in the Islamic world. By Sami Zubaida. London: I.B. Tauris. 2003. 248 pp. Index. £35.00. 1 86064 865 7. Hybridity, as opposed to uniformity, in the Muslim setting, both in history and on the contemporary scene, has often been invoked to counter the essentialist assumptions of Islam, entertained not only by Islamists, but also by a critical number of western intellectuals and policy- makers. The arguments of hybridity and ambivalence in relation to Islam have been advanced mostly on the basis of the Muslim praxeology (the study of human action and conduct), which clearly resists a monolithic understanding of Islam. The present volume may be said to go beyond the praxeology and assert hybridity also for the Shari’a, the purportedly revealed holy law of Islam, pivotal to the current Islamist discourse. An exercise in the genealogy of the concept, the work recounts the historical formation and the past and present functioning of the Shari’a, displaying its largely contingent nature, and drawing attention to the elements of human agency and, concomitant with it, power intrinsic to it. As well as the formal-textual sources of Islam, accordingly, liberal borrowings from a variety of existing customs and traditions contributed to the initiation and development of the Shari’a. Power requisites and policy expediency served in the process as the selective, organizing principles. Further, as the formal sources were invariably
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construed in terms of policy, the latter came to dominate as the sole genuine authority. The inevitable conclusion, then, is that, a mere political construction devoid of constraining capabi- lity, and with only a legitimating function, the Shari’a as such never existed. The Shari’a inconceivable as a self-same entity appears largely to do with one fundamental paradox, consistently ignored in the Islamist discourse. Treated as God-given, complete and thus stagnant, Islam as a formal creed has unavoidably been in an antipodean relationship with history and the exigencies of time and space. Islam, in other words, has had to negate history for the sake of its self-declared autonomy. Yet, aspiring at the same time to be a timely enterprise with practical, worldly relevance, Islam has also had to address the elusive manifestations of time, a demand on Islam bolstered by its early rise to power. This seems to have necessitated interpre- tations on a wide range of issues inviting the mediation of human agency and power, which have subsequently subverted the formal autonomy. The paradox, according to Zubaida, has been apparent in the functioning of the Shari’a in the form of a resilient duality of the law and public interest, of the Shari’a and maslaha, with the latter, as expediency, crucially overriding in points of conflict. The dichotomy, formulated by Muslim jurists from as early as the fourteenth century (p. 15), has found a niche, not surprisingly, in the application of the Shari’a also in present-day Iran (p. 210), revealingly so, considering that, unlike the Sunni Islam, maslaha was not historically part of the Shi’i jurisprudence. Zubaida’s reading in the volume is an implicit deconstruction of the binary, whereby the supplementary, contingent term, maslaha, comes to define the identity term, ‘the Shari’a’, essentialized by Islamists. The first three chapters in the volume are devoted to an exploration of the sources of the Shari’a, the historical institutions for its implementation, and its relationship with power. Historically, the Shari’a appears to have been formed principally by opinion (ra’y), supported, only in later stages, by the prophetic tradition (hadith), itself incessantly constructed and reconstructed, and then by the divine revelation, the Qur’an. This is the exact reverse of the hierarchy of the sources postulated in the fundamentalist accounts. What is more, the institutions which were utilized from the earliest times to implement the Shari’a built on, and ex post facto Islamized, the existing traditions, local and peripheral (chiefly Persian and Byzantine). The delivery of justice through these institutions largely conformed to the prevalent power structures, with endemic corruption among the personnel. On the main, what jurists did was to justify the existing order in terms of the Shari’a, lending support to administrations by Islamizing the actual practices of power. This, in turn, generated and consolidated the power of the jurists. Next, Zubaida discusses the striving in the Islamic world, from the mid-nineteenth century, for legal reform by blending the Shari’a rules with the codified law imported from the West, which culminated in the nationalization of the law in the bulk of Muslim states after the western mould. The penultimate chapter in the book is about the uneasy combination of the Shari’a and the modern justice system in today’s Egypt, the subject of a continuing, fiery national debate. The final chapter is on the practice of the Shari’a in post-revolutionary Iran, which the author finds not altogether felicitous with the acknowledged dictates of the Shari’a, and beset with inconsistencies. Zubaida argues on the whole against an essentializing view of the Shari’a, as posited by Muslim ideologues. He maintains that the Shari’a emerged in a complex interaction between rulers and jurists, and functioned as a discursive front for power structures. Yet, simultaneously, Zubaida seems to retain a non-interpretative, essentialized view of the Shari’a in that he tends to register, throughout the volume, the apparent inconsistencies between policies adopted by specific administrations and the Shari’a rules. He cites, for instance, the Ottoman practices of fining for certain offences and devshirme (confiscation of boys from the non-Muslim subjects), among others, established by imperial edicts and with the consent of the religious establishment, as exemplifying practices not justified under the Shari’a, thus subscribing to a fixed concept of it. ‘Many of the practices central to Ottoman rule’, he notes, ‘were clearly at variance with shari’a principle [sic]’ (p. 115). This is manifestly at odds with the main thrust of his argument, which treats the Shari’a as no more than a chimera, a political construction. A substantive concept of the
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shari’a, eschewed in the practice of pragmatist and corrupt Muslim administrations, is in fact a view akin to that of the Islamists, who disown much of the historical practice and urge a return to the fundamentals. The study rests almost entirely on secondary evidence in its historical account, which dimin- ishes the originality of the work. In places, the secondary evidence is used somewhat selectively, sources relied on by the Islamists ignored, without a discernible reason for the choice. More disturbing still is the occasional insensitivity of the work in its anachronisms and inapt cross- cultural swings. The Kharijites are described, for instance, as ‘the Jacobins of early Islam’ (p. 85), and the persecution Ibn Hanbal, an eighth-century Muslim jurist, had to endure as ‘inquisition’ (p. 87). Yet, altogether this is an able study, with a clear structure and flowing style, and makes a fine addition to the growing literature on political Islam. Necati Polat, Middle East Technical University,Turkey
International and national political economy, economics and development
The IMF and the future: issues and options facing the Fund. By. Graham Bird. London: Routledge. 2003. 320pp. Index. £80.00. 0 4152 998 x. This book is a collection of articles previously published by the author in various journals from 1996 to 2001. This compilation suffers from a standard defect of the genre—repetition. But the main problem with the collection is that while the articles answer to the author’s stated rationale of building a ‘measured assessment of how the IMF has operated in the past’, this revisiting of the debates surrounding the Fund since the 1950s does not deliver the promise implied by the title— The IMF and the future. The author analyses various significant ‘moments’ in the IMF’s existence such as the marginalization of the institution during the 1970s due to the introduction of exchange rate flexibility, and to private banks usurping the Fund’s until then traditional role of international financial intermediation. The author also reminds us that it was only following the introduction of the Brady Plan towards the end of the 1980s that the Latin American debt crisis appeared to ease. Before that the Fund had largely failed to achieve its target of normalizing creditor–debtor relations and restoring country access to sustainable and spontaneous lending. In the late 1980s, the Fund began to refer more to encouraging economic growth as a primary objective of adjustment programmes and protecting vulnerable groups from the costs of adjustment. The 1990s saw the metamorphosis of the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (the lending window for the poorest countries, with interest rates subsidized by donor governments) into an instrument more directly focused on economic growth and poverty reduction. This culminated with its renaming as the Poverty Reduction and Growth facility in 1999. The systematic analysis underlying the author’s review of all such important episodes has two focuses: Fund programme conditionality, including the political pressures on the IMF and the political economy surrounding IMF programmes; and the related issues of liquidity shortages and the introduction of the Special Drawing Right (SDR) and its destiny. IMF conditionality has been a subject of debate ever since it was introduced in the early 1950s. While in the 1980s, conditionality is presented as having had little if any significant impact on key macroeconomic variables, in the 1990s conditionality became more comprehensive. The author shows that there may be a ‘conditionality Laffer curve’ with increased conditionality being linked to diminishing effectiveness. An improved track record for conditionality would obviously increase the credibility of IMF programmes and begin to help create the positive signals which the Fund seeks to transmit. Partly this must mean withholding financial support when the attached conditions are not respected. But as the author reminds us, there has been less incentive for large and politically important
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countries to keep on track because they believe that suspensions will only be of short duration. In principle, the IMF could more frequently reject applications. This, in itself, would transmit a signal to countries about the need to prioritize economic stabilization and reform. To do this, however, the Fund would need to be relieved of the political pressures, that it may sometimes be under, which may compromise its economic judgements. The Fund’s lending decisions, it is suggested, are influenced more by the special interests of major shareholders than by economic judgement alone. Large and important countries seem to receive favourable treatment in terms of the design of conditionality. Also ideological proximity to the United States seems to have exerted a positive effect on the probability of receiving IMF loans. During the 1960s, the dominant question in international finance was international liquidity— not only its quantity but also its composition, namely the role of the US dollar. The SDR offered a means to meet the growth in the demand for international liquidity and therefore to avoid global deflation, without requiring the United States to run persistent balance of payments deficits. It seemed simultaneously to solve a major global economic problem and protect the integrity of the dollar. However, the allocation of SDRs coincided with a world economic boom and a rapid increase in other forms of reserves, notably foreign exchange. The feared recession that had provided the underlying justification for SDRs simply failed to materialize. Far from being a countercyclical stabilizing device, SDR creation turned out to be procyclical and, if anything, destabilizing. With the advent of flexible exchange rates and large cross-border private capital flows, the issue of the global adequacy of official international reserves became, in many ways, irrelevant. The author gives a good summary of this situation: ‘Although the Fund continued to set itself an (over) ambitious systemic target in terms of establishing the SDR as the principal international reserve asset, the reality was that as the system evolved more in the direction of multiple reserve currencies, even the Fund’s own asset faded into obscurity.’ The renewed interest shown in the SDR in the mid-1990s arose largely from the IMF’s concern about the inequity of a situation where its new members, unlike its older members, have not received any allocation of SDRs. While there are clearly several lessons to be drawn from these past experiences for the IMF’s future operations, the reader is left uncertain about the moral of the author’s story. To some extent, this is due to the fact the present waterfront is as yet not fully covered. A good example is the debate about the Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism presented by the Fund’s present deputy managing director, Ann Krueger. Given the historical background offered by the author, his thoughts on such a topic would have been welcomed. In short, the reader is left frustrated. Many debates of the past have been thoroughly reviewed and yet no real conclusion relevant to the present debate is drawn; instead the author ends the book with a chapter on the SDR which in his own words ‘seems destined to return to obscurity’ while the book is titled The IMF and the future. Perhaps we should infer that the IMF too is on the road to obscurity. Brigitte Granville, International Economics Programme, Royal Institute of International Affairs, UK
Financial crises and what to do about them. By Barry Eichengreen. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2002. 194pp. Index. £35.00. 0 19 925743 4. Pb.: £14.99. 0 19 925744 2. Over recent years a great deal of attention has been paid to strengthening the ‘international financial architecture’. While stressing that currency, banking and debt crises are a recurrent problem, the author of this authoritative synthesis emphasizes that the distinctive factors of modern times are financial liberalization and political democratization, making currency and banking crises more frequent than in the late nineteenth century. In six chapters, this book takes stock of what has been accomplished in terms of policy prescriptions for curing and preventing crises. With regard to crisis prevention measures, including transparency, standards, prudential super- vision and exchange rate management, Eichengreen points out that ‘it is naive to think that enhanced transparency and disclosure will ever solve the crisis problem.’ Indeed, ‘if Securities and
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Exchange Commission regulations, backed by the full force of US securities law, could not prevent the Enron debacle, then should we really believe that the IMF’s (International Monetary Fund) Special Data Dissemination Standard, backed only by the promise of member governments to comply, will protect investors in the sovereign debts of developing countries?’ Moreover the very proliferation of codes and standards may undermine the credibility and effectiveness of efforts. Exchange rate management is an area where more thought should be given to countries with relatively less sophisticated monetary and financial systems. The present consensus is for greater exchange rate flexibility backed by inflation targeting. This regime is viable not only for high- income countries but also for relatively well-off emerging markets such as the Czech Republic. The difficulties begin with countries that have a relatively underdeveloped financial market and which cannot really meet the preconditions for inflation targeting. The author notes that unfortunately few solutions seem to be on offer. Even positive efforts such as in the spheres of market discipline and prudential supervision can be at odds with poor country needs. The author mentions that prudential standards that discourage related-party lending may limit one immediate source of financial problems, but they can also remove the only viable basis for financial trans- actions in an economy where the information and contracting environments are weak. Having established that crisis prevention will never be perfect, the author turns to crisis management where disputes centre on the role of the IMF. Unless a country displays a strong predisposition towards reform and has political institutions strong enough for the government to commit credibly to its implementation, IMF programmes are bound to fail. Eichengreen has no difficulty illustrating this model of failure—from Turkey’s IMF programmes in 2000–1 to Argentina in the same period. But while the consensus is for developing alternatives to IMF financial packages and for IMF assistance to be the exception, few of these proposed alternatives are risk free. One exception long advocated by the author is improving the process of debt rescheduling negotiations through changes in the types of contracts developed by the private sector with borrowers. As long ago as 1995, Eichengreen suggested in a joint paper with Richard Portes that contractual provisions governing sovereign debt be changed to include so-called collective action clauses. Contracts would be written to include such measures as qualified majority voting to modify the terms of a bond contract, including the rescheduling of principal and interest, and collective representation of bondholders, and would mandate a sharing clause for funds received by any creditor from a debtor. While initially opposed by the private sector, which argued that such contractual revisions would raise funding costs for emerging market borrowers and damage investor confidence and systemic liquidity, the private sector seems to have radically changed its position (see 11 June 2002, memo to the G8 by the leaders of six private sector groups of financial institutions).1 No doubt this change of mind must have something to do with Anne Krueger’s speech in November 2001 where she presented the Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism. While, as noted by the author, the Krueger speech was vague enough to be subject to different interpretations, for the private sector there was no doubt that the Krueger mechanism was to give more power to the IMF over the market and domestic laws. Eichengreen argues convincingly that those Krueger proposals must have had broader ambitions than would be the case for a genuinely modest, market-friendly agenda of facilitating debtor–creditor negotiations and limiting the ability of rogue creditors to disrupt a restructuring. This is not to say that the various attempts at strengthening the international financial architecture have made no difference, but more needs to be done especially in addressing the problems of the poorest countries. So for the author, initiatives to limit the incidence of crises and threats to systemic stability should be linked to an increase in development assistance designed to offset the extra burdens on the poorest countries.
1 The six are: Emerging Markets Creditors Association, Institute of International Finance, International Primary Market Association, Securities Industry Association and the Bond Market Association.
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This book makes a valuable addition to the understanding of the numerous attempts and proposals for reforming the international financial system. The most consistent message is that mechanisms designed to strengthen the international financial architecture should not override market forces. Instead, such efforts should enhance market efficiency—by making it ‘easier and cheaper for emerging markets with good credit to finance their economic growth and develop- ment by borrowing abroad’. Brigitte Granville, International Economics Programme, Royal Institute of International Affairs, UK
World investment report 2002: transnational corporations and export competitive- ness. By United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. New York, NY: United Nations. 2002. 384pp. $49.00. 92 1 112551 0. The volume under review is the latest in the invaluable series of annual World investment reports, which focus on current trends in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) around the world. Masterminded by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s (UNCTAD) Karl P. Sauvant, they are prepared by a multinational team of researchers, with input from major economists such as John Dunning (now reducing his involvement) and Sanjaya Lall. This series is now into its second decade. Each volume gives the latest statistics on FDI flows, but then picks a theme for further analysis. In 2000, the relevant volume was looking at the rise of mergers and acquisitions as a model for FDI. In earlier years, they have looked at issues such as the impact of transnational corporations (TNCs) on employment, or the development of integrated international production. This year, the focus is on the relations of TNCs with countries’ export competitiveness. On the purely statistical front, this volume picks up the global slowdown in FDI following the collapse of the dot.com bubble—the first such fall in FDI for a decade. The collapse was particularly marked on the mergers and acquisitions front, and was more marked within the industrialized world than in the developing economies, where investment into countries such as China held up quite well. The authors speculate that FDI flows are actually returning to trend, after a period in which mergers and acquisitions became overly speculative and unsustainable at the margins. The core of the volume looks at the way in which the evolving system of international production is integrating new production bases into the world system. The authors look particularly closely at China, Costa Rica, Hungary, Ireland, Mexico and South Korea, showing how FDI is playing an important role in developing the export sectors of such economies, while not forgetting that TNCs from the developing world are becoming steadily more important. I would not normally recommend International Affairs readers to focus on economic texts, but this series is an exception. The volumes all have plenty of statistics, but the emphasis throughout is on demonstrating the lessons from them. The authors are as happy discussing trends in policy towards FDI as they are in analysing the way that the nature of production flows are changing. They are particularly good at identifying case-studies which illustrate particular trends. For instance, they look at the emergence of contract manufacturers like Flextronics in such detail that any intelligent non-economist can easily see how new exporting economies are being brought into the world economy. These volumes are a treasure trove for those who want to keep tabs on how the world economy is evolving. As an Asian specialist, I appreciated this volume’s analysis of how Japanese investment is fitting into the development of China as an export platform. European specialists will equally be interested in the sections on the place that Hungary is developing in the economy of Central Europe. Development economists will appreciate sections which look at why Africa is still failing to attract much FDI. This volume maintains the high standards of past World investment reports. Louis Turner, Asia Pacific Technology Network, UK
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Energy and environment
The global environment and world politics: International Relations for the 21st century. By Elizabeth R. DeSombre. London: Continuum. 2002. 248pp. £65.00. 0 8264 5665 0. Pb.: £19.99. 0 8264 5666 9. After more than three decades of determined campaigning, intense lobbying and, in some cases, sheer bloody-mindedness, environmentalists have finally driven home the concept that we are all interdependent. The action of one affects the lives of all. This also applies to our relationship with the natural world. The global ‘commons’ such as the oceans and the atmosphere are shared by all, so any ecological damage inflicted by one country has an impact on everyone. This is readily accepted by most people, yet on a global stage there is a reluctance to make such an association because of a divide between the ecological and political systems. Elizabeth DeSombre quickly uses this as the paradigm for her book. She sets out the effect of conflicting dynamics between individual nation-states competing to secure economic and social develop- ment in a world with finite resources. When it comes to International Relations, this can lead to problems around the conference table. On the one hand, there is a need for the nation-state to protect its economic growth. A healthy stable economy means it can attract investors, offer its citizens job security and increase the standard of living—a vote-winning strategy that will see those in power stay in power. Yet to meet the increasing demand by consumers for goods that they can now afford as a result of such a buoyant economy requires more raw materials, more energy, more water and more buildings to accommodate the expanding businesses. Where there are inputs there have to be outputs, and not all of them are shiny new toasters: air and water pollution, greenhouse gases, overflowing landfill sites. Why should companies worry about the unwanted outputs going into the environment? If they want to remain competitive and keep the local workers employed, extra costs—such as renewable energy and emissions control— cannot be accommodated into the business strategy. Surely it is the role of the government to legislate if things become a problem. What if a government is enjoying the political success of a winning fiscal strategy? It does not want to scare away inward investment and burst its economic bubble through extra legislation and bureaucracy. Besides, if it does attempt to curb the ecological impact of the country’s development by introducing fiscal instruments or pollution limits, investors will head to another country where such measures are not in place and carry on as before. As a result, the economy will stall and head into recession, people will feel less secure and stop spending. At the next election, the electorate will call for change and a new government will come to power, and the global environment will be no better served. Mitigating ecological damage does not make for sustainable political success in western market-based economies. Although these scenarios are extreme, they are not completely alien to some of the debates that take place in the environmental sphere. DeSombre looks at the issues surrounding the divide between the ecological and political systems. She clearly outlines the economic and social pitfalls of a nation-state setting out as a lone green crusader, and highlights the benefits that international cooperation can offer nation-states steering a course that reduces ecological damage, while mitigating the economic and social risks to future development. But is it really that straightforward? Professor De Sombre uses the book as an opportunity to set out the various mechanisms in operation within the sphere of global environmental negotiations. Assessing each option, she does not pass judgement on what proves to be the most effective; instead she makes the point that some approaches work in certain circumstances, while others succeed when dealing with other issues. The key objective, the author highlights, is to engage the nation-states in acknowledging the need to stop, reduce or mitigate ecological damage. If there is no dialogue then there is no progress.
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All the key environmental issues that have captured the headlines are covered: whaling, acid rain, ozone depletion, climate change. The book provides a historical background to how the problem was first recognized and came to the international community’s attention. And once the political will was present to engage with the issue, the book elaborates on what framework was developed. For those who follow international affairs closely, much of what is covered does not offer anything more than a reprise, but there is an area DeSombre addresses that is going to be part of the discursive process for years to come. Since the events on September 11 2001, the concept of security has been thrust to the top of the agenda. While the book does not directly deal with International Relations following the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, it does introduce some substance to the arguments being used by environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on environmental security. She suggests that the trend of increasing environmental problems and growing demand for a finite supply of natural resources could result in a new generation of conflicts. This is a view that is shared by several water experts who feel future tensions in the Middle East will centre on securing water resources. DeSombre also says nation-states will have to revisit the perception of ‘security’. Instead of basing defence strategies around a Cold War philosophy of military threats, there is a need to understand the consequences of water and food shortages, and the implications these could have to ‘national security’. Even when environmental security fits neatly within the context of security that is dominating the international agenda, it is still not going to be enough to create a permanent space on the political agenda. Global environmental issues are complex by their very nature. Their existence is not clear-cut enough for governments to unconditionally commit to tackling them. Although ecological degradation affects everyone on the planet, the impact is long term and is not immediately felt. Therefore governments respond in different ways, and demand varying levels of proof. Gathering scientific data to prove the existence of a problem and gauging the effectiveness of the mechanism tackling its consequences takes considerable time and is open to a range of interpretations, depending on the impact felt by the nation-state in question. However, as DeSombre concludes, the fact that countries are willing to come together to address the issue, the emergence of the precautionary principle and an increasingly vibrant NGO community show that there is a positive trend. Whether it reaches a critical mass that will end the dissociation of ecological and political systems remains to be seen. Mark Kinver
Environmental leadership in developing countries: transnational relations and biodiversity policy in Costa Rica and Bolivia. By Paul F. Steinberg. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 2001. 280pp. Index. £41.95. 0 262 19465 1. Pb.: £17.95. 0 262 69266 x. Greening the Americas: NAFTA’s lessons for hemispheric trade. Edited by Carolyn L. Deere and Daniel C. Esty. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 2002. 382pp. Index. £48.95. 0 262 94212 6. Pb.: £19.95. 0 262 54138 6. Both these books are about environmental policy in the Americas and both bear the imprint of the MIT Press, but there the similarity would seem to end. Paul Steinberg’s volume is a closely researched monograph investigating the transnational and domestic impulses behind biodiversity policies in Costa Rica and Bolivia. In doing so it provides a novel approach to the problems of global environmental governance from a developing country’s rather than an international perspective. Inspired by comparative policy studies it is most explicitly not about the ways in which international regimes may be designed to change domestic environmental rules and behaviour in developing countries. By contrast, the volume edited by Carolyn Deere and Paul Esty is a multi-authored contribution to the trade-environment debate in the specific context of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the ongoing negotiations for a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). On closer inspection it turns out that there are, in fact, some important points of connection and contention between the two volumes.
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Steinberg’s research seeks to provide an answer to the question of how Costa Rica and Bolivia came to develop and implement their respective national biodiversity policies centred upon the creation of national parks. The question is interesting because both in their separate ways can be regarded as pioneers in such matters as ecotourism and ‘debt for nature’ swaps. At the same time Costa Rica and Bolivia are extraordinarily different from one another in terms of size, wealth, social development and political stability. The author’s contention is that the two cases can provide a specific contradiction of fallacious theories of ‘environmental privilege’. These hold that developing countries will be too poverty-stricken to devote time and energy to the preser- vation of the natural environment and that green concerns are in some way a luxury only affordable once societies have achieved high levels of income per capita. Steinberg’s spirited and empirically substantiated rebuttal constitutes one of the book’s strongest features. Whether in terms of theories about post-material values, explanations of the environmental Kuznets curve (which posits a relationship between the achievement of a certain level of economic development and a downturn of pollution indicators) or environmentalism as an imperialist project, such views are widely, and perhaps too easily, accepted. As an antidote, chapter two of this book can be recommended in its own right. In the rest of the book Steinberg sets out his detailed research on the evolution of biodiversity policy in the two countries, devoting a chapter to each, and then elaborates an explanation. This is self-consciously different from that which is common among theorists of environmental regime effectiveness who attempt to establish the domestic-level impacts of international collaboration. His intent is to view international influence ‘from the inside out’ (p. 7). ‘A more serious challenge’ is intended to the growing literature on transnational environmental advocacy as represented by the work of Princen and Finger and Keck and Sikkink. There has been, he claims, an excessive focus on the short-term activities of Northern non-governmental organizations which, by avoiding entanglement in the domestic politics of the South, have given rise to the erroneous conclusion that ‘the nation-state is irrelevant to the resolution of global environmental problems’ (p. 205). Steinberg argues that in Costa Rica and Bolivia this was very far from the case but that effective environmental advocacy relied upon the efforts of specific individuals situated at the intersection of international and domestic politics. At the core of the author’s approach is the, perhaps unfortunately named, ‘spheres of influence framework’. The international sphere provides scientific and financial support plus policy ideas for domestic environmental action in developing countries. Only the domestic sphere allows access to the requisite political resources to engineer change in addition to the ‘policy culture’, which allows it to occur. Domestic effectiveness requires the kind of knowledge and long-term commitment that only ‘insiders’ possess, but they will at the same time need to rely upon the funds and knowledge that can only be acquired outside. Thus the critical ‘bilateral activists’ are located where the two spheres of influence overlap. These ideas are worked out in some detail in the Bolivian and Costa Rican cases, with extensive reference to individuals who were, through their access to external training and funding alongside internal long-term political resources (which included in some instances family ties to powerful rulers), able to play the role of environmental ‘bilateral activist’. The analysis is further refined through the use of categories such as political learning, agenda-setting resources, networks of social influence and process expertise. To this is added a content analysis-based study of shifts in policy culture that facilitated the changes in Bolivia and Costa Rica. All this is convincing up to a point. One can readily agree with the claim that the ‘comparative historical approach’ offers ‘greater analytic resolution’, allowing a close understanding of some of the mechanisms that link domestic responses to global ecological concerns (pp. 194–5). It is, nonetheless, open to criticism in terms of its stress on (often individual) agency and its reliance on, admittedly significant but perhaps atypical, cases of entrepreneurialism in biodiversity conserva- tion. The author does claim that his approach can capture ‘elements of both structure and agency—of relatively immovable constraints on social action, and of the significant degree of creativity and entrepreneurship that individuals exercise within these constraints’ (p. 198). Yet the
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structural constraints mentioned are those of national political systems rather than the wider economic structures within which Latin America is enmeshed. The development and renegotiation of the trade and investment rules for the Americas as a whole is the subject of the second book under review. It is a topic with potentially vast, yet disputed, implications for environmental degradation and, indeed, for the opportunities open for the kind of green political entrepreneurialism evidenced in Steinberg’s research. As Deere and Esty demonstrate, it is not possible to dissociate the nature of the trade and investment regime from the fate of the natural environment. The trade–environment relationship can be summarized under three headings: (1) scale effects, where increases in trade lead to proportional increases in economic output and attendant pollution; (2) composition effects, where the dictates of compara- tive advantage will lead to changes in the types of activity undertaken which may in turn increase environmental degradation (for example through the setting up of ‘dirt havens’); (3) technique effects, where increased trade will stimulate the adoption of more advanced and cleaner technologies. As various essays in this volume demonstrate, the research is inconclusive, but there are certainly instances where trade liberalization under NAFTA has led to significant increases in pollution, for example the Mexican paper and textile industries (Gallagher, Ch. 7). Equally, the investment regime has led to a bizarre reversal of the ‘polluter pays’ principle whereby attempts by governments to withdraw land from use and to set up ecological reserves is actionable under the expropriation clauses of NAFTA (Mann and Araya, Ch. 9). In general, however, the conclusion is that the ‘jury is still out’ on the full extent of the positive and negative connections between trade liberalization and environmental quality under the operation of the agreement. The main thrust of the book concerns the NAFTA experience and its implication for FTAA. A very great deal of attention is devoted to Mexico (six chapters directly concerned with Mexico and numerous mentions elsewhere). This is partly because Mexico, as the ‘less developed’ member of NAFTA, provides a ‘testbed’ for theories about the implications of trade liberalization, but also because it was Mexico that vociferously objected to the insertion of environmental clauses into a trade treaty and most specifically to the demand by the Clinton administration that it accept an additional side deal on the environment—the North American Agreement for Environmental Cooperation. This agreement included provisions for trade sanctions against parties failing to enforce their own environmental laws, the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation and mechanisms to allow civil society groups to complain about non-compliance. On the American side, as the chapter by Frederick Mayer shows, the policy of a side agreement ‘with teeth’ was driven by congressional lobbies. As far as the Mexicans were concerned it was an outrageous imposition and an exercise in abusive US negotiating power but one which appears to have imposed few if any actual economic burdens. In a mirror image of the kind of ‘bilateral activism’ which is applauded in Steinberg’s study of Costa Rica and Bolivia, Mexican policy was driven by ‘a small corps of US-trained economic advisors who dominated former president Salinas’ cabinet’ (Alanis-Ortega and Gonzalez-Lutenkirchen, p. 45). Opposition to the very idea of adding environmental clauses to a trade agreement, following the Mexican lead, was adopted by virtually all the Latin American governments when the FTAA negotiations sought to extend NAFTA-like provisions to the entire hemisphere. In the view of many contributors to the book, such opposition is misplaced and short-sighted, reflecting an unwarranted fear that the US and Canada would use environmental provisions as a form of disguised protectionism. The arguments pointing out the desirability of environmental impact assessment of trade deals, the need for deference to multilateral environmental agreements, eco- labelling, environmentally responsible investment and greater openness to civil society are cogent indeed. Yet they appear to have fallen upon deaf ears. While the editors insist that ‘Absent attention to transboundary pollution and the management of environmental resources, the integrity and efficiency of international commerce cannot be maintained’ and that ‘recent experience suggests that governments will not be able to bring the FTAA negotiations to a successful conclusion’ (p. 5), the development of the FTAA negotiating text in the period since the book was written (many of the papers date from a conference in 2000) suggests otherwise. It
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contains no environmental clauses and is unashamedly concerned with trade liberalization alone (save the limited attention paid to civil society groups and the disparities between more and less developed economies). Not even a ritual mention of sustainable development is to be found in the aims and principles of the draft FTAA text (http://www.fta-alca.org). If most of the contributors to the Deere and Esty volume are correct in their analyses this is a dismal situation, for trade liberalization must be sensitive to green concerns if environmental quality is to be achieved. Yet, if we accept Steinberg’s argument, it is also an unnecessary one. For developing as well as developed countries, there is no necessary contradiction between trade, economic growth and a high level of environmental protection. The negotiators of the FTAA would do well to read both of these books! John Vogler, Keele University, UK
History
The 1956 Hungarian revolution: a history in documents. Edited by Csaba Békés, Malcolm Byrne and János Rainer. Budapest: Central European University Press. 2002. 598pp. Index. $67.95. 963 9241 48 2. This collection of documents on the 1956 Hungarian revolution—perhaps the last in Europe that can be called truly spontaneous—is well worth its hefty price. Two prominent scholars from the Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution in Budapest (Csaba Békés and János Rainer) and one from the National Security Archive (Malcolm Byrne) have edited this third volume in the series of Cold War readers published by the Central European University Press. Key documents from Russian and Hungarian archives published here have already been translated in the early 1990s in the Woodrow Wilson Center’s International Cold War History Bulletin. Others came to light during an international historians’ conference in Budapest in September 1996 commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the revolution. Organized by the 1956 Institute, this conference was unique in bringing together both original participants in the 1956 events and scholars who had worked with the new archival documents, thus enabling one to compare archival findings with living memories. Nevertheless, this reader is invaluable in collecting them, along with documents from American, British, Polish and UN archives, in one volume. In total, the editors present 120 documents from seven archives. In addition to the documents, The 1956 Hungarian revolution contains three essays averaging 20 pages each, providing a detailed chron- ological account of the revolution; a chronology of events; bibliography; index; extensive footnotes; list of acronyms and abbreviations; and three introductory essays by Arpád Göncz (former Hungarian prime minister), Charles Gati (Johns Hopkins University scholar) and Timothy Garton Ash (Oxford University scholar). Topics covered include new evidence on Soviet policy towards Hungary, the uprising’s impact on Eastern Europe, and the role of Radio Free Europe. Specifically, documents in part one (‘Hungary before the revolution’) cover the rivalry between hardliner Mátyás Rákosi and reformer Imre Nagy and other topics. Documents in part two cover the events from the student demonstration (23 October 1956) to the second Soviet intervention (4 November 1956). Documents in part three (‘Hungary in the aftermath’) cover the ‘normalization’ process, reprisals against the insurgents, the quisling János Kádár’s efforts to consolidate his unpopular regime, and the reactions to the Hungarian crisis by the UN and United States. The 1956 Hungarian revolution is an indispensable research tool for scholars and advanced graduate students. For an analytical monograph about the crisis based on still other new documents, readers may also consult my forthcoming book, The first domino: international decision making in the 1956 Hungarian crisis (Texas A & M University Press, 2004). Johanna Granville, Stanford University, USA
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The two Germanies and military security in Europe. By Christoph Bluth. Basingstoke: Palgrave. 2002. 276pp. Index. £50.00. 0 333 96893 x. This fairly short and very concentrated study (a volume in the publishers’ impressive Cold War history series) deals with East–West negotiations on conventional weapons in the 20 years from Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik to the new Europe of the early 1990s. Its particular focus is on the role of East and West Germany in the negotiations on Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR) which went grinding on in Vienna from 1973 to 1989 and which led to an overall agreement on Conventional Forces in Europe in the radically different Europe of 1992. The central issues at stake in MBFR were highly technical, as the author is able to show with interesting quotations from the now available position papers of both German governments. There was intensive debate on precisely how many troops, tanks and other items of hardware each party should be allowed to retain, and on whether any agreement should cover both ‘indigenous’ and ‘stationed’ (essentially American) forces. However, as Bluth ably shows, the decisive questions were the political ones in the background. The Bonn government (which of course had vastly greater freedom than its East German counterpart) wanted the MBFR talks as a military counterpart to the broader Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe; both Washington and Moscow, paradoxically, appear to have wanted the talks to get started as a way of preventing major US force reductions in Europe, as demanded by Senator Mike Mansfield and others; and in the 1990s one of the big questions was the size and function of the armed forces of the newly united Germany. This informative study explores these inter-linked issues precisely and subtly, and shows how the MBFR talks produced politically valuable results by their mere existence, even though their ostensible outcome was so long delayed and so meagre. The material is densely packed and the author’s style is sometimes rather angular, but the book will be important to anyone concerned with this central theme of the Cold War in Europe. Roger Morgan, European University Institute, Italy
Diem’s final failure: prelude to America’s war in Vietnam. By Philip E. Catton. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas. 2003. 280pp. Index. $34.95. 0 7006 1220 3. The contemporary exercises in nation building in Afghanistan and Iraq give this history of failed nation building in the Republic of Vietnam, or South Vietnam, a relevance that the author may not have anticipated. One of the series of interesting new histories about the war(s) in South-East Asia published by the University of Kansas Press, this well-written study of political leadership can be read as a cautionary tale about both the risks inherent in imposing new institutions in the face of popular resistance and the costs of failing to adopt and implement the sort of reforms that win a new regime legitimacy. South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, who served as intelligence chief and party leader of the ruling Can Lao Nhan Vi Cach Mang Dang (Revolutionary Personalist Labor Party), together with their regime’s efforts at rural development, are the primary focuses of this book. Diem and Nhu were assassinated in a US-endorsed military coup d’état in 1963. The author begins with a more sympathetic portrayal of Diem than that found in Frances Fitzgerald’s widely read Fire in the lake (Back Bay, 2002). Rather than the inflexible, reclusive conservative Roman Catholic bachelor out of touch with both the elites and masses of South Vietnam, the South Vietnamese strongman is portrayed as a nationalist, anti- colonialist and anti-communist who believed, correctly, that victory in the war against the communist-led insurgents depended on winning over the peasantry and who sought consistently to avoid the taint of collaboration with either the French colonialists or their American successors. In this rereading of his character, the more savvy and more realistic Diem fails, not because of poor leadership, but because he faced daunting and perhaps ultimately intractable problems.
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The long odds against the South Vietnamese strongman were owing to a number of factors. These included the insurgents who would be formally organized as the National Liberation Front (NLF) in 1960; bureaucratic resistance to reform from an ineffective, incompetent and corrupt, if still politically powerful, army and civil administration; control of the municipal police force and organized crime rackets in Saigon-Cholon by the powerful Binh Xuyen mafia; resistance from both the Cao Dai and Hoa Hoa religious sects who controlled their respective provincial bases; and the growing impatience and hostility of leading figures in Washington who had once been Diem’s strongest supporters. Diem’s responses included the deployment of a new political ideology and the launching of four new programmes to transform rural Vietnam politically, socially and economically. The new ideology was personalism, which had its origins in the efforts of humanist Roman Catholic intellectuals to find a ‘third way’ between liberalism and communism. The ideological project was to promote both individual rights and responsibilities in what would be a communitarian middle ground free from both the selfish individualism of capitalism and the dehumanizing collectivism of socialism. In contrast with the Confucianism traditional in Vietnam, the new ideology was intended to offer ‘a more expansive conception of social relations, in which the individual was also a citizen with ties to the rest of society. For the palace, these were the kinds of bonds that would help to foster group solidarity, national loyalty, and a popular commitment to the task of nation building’ (p. 44). Unfortunately, personalism performed poorly in the competition with Vietnamese communism. In the period between taking power in 1954 at the end of French colonial rule and the 1963 coup that would remove it from power, the Diem regime attempted to implement four rural development schemes: land reform, land development, agrovilles and the strategic hamlet pro- gramme. Land reform, which began with legislation adopted in 1955, proved the least vigorous of the regime’s efforts and perhaps its most important failure. The comparatively charitable view of the author is that the land reform in South Vietnam failed to win popular support because it benefited too few tenant farmers. The land reform law allowed landlords to retain 100 hectares of land, a much larger area than their counterparts were allowed in the successful land reforms in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan (p. 57). The less charitable view is that the Viet Minh had already implemented an informal land reform and the Diem regime was simply granting formal legal title to some of the property that the peasantry thought they deserved. Notwithstanding the differing interpretations, what is clear is that the Diem regime missed its opportunity to deprive the communist-led insurgency of its ability to exploit a deep grievance felt by the majority of the population. Begun in 1956, land development was a resettlement programme intended to engage participants in the kind of pioneering struggle that would contribute to nation building and to colonizing the sparsely settled central highlands with ethnic Vietnamese. Prior to this moment most inhabitants of the region were Montagnards, a catchall term denoting the many different highland ethnic groups. In what the author describes as the most successful of the four schemes, ethnic Vietnamese from the densely populated central lowlands, together with demobilized soldiers and Roman Catholic refugees from North Vietnam, were settled in new communities. Montagnards were also compelled to settle in new permanent communities. By 1962, the programme had produced 173 settlements with a population of over 230,000 (p. 58). In 1959, a more ambitious programme was launched to resettle the peasantry into larger rural communities called agrovilles. The original target was to move 500,000 peasants in the Mekong Delta into towns with 2,000–3,000 residents who could then be controlled effectively by the government. The distribution of the population in many small villages scattered across the Mekong Delta had not only frustrated government supervision but also facilitated insurgency. The project can be understood as a member of the family of authoritarian high modernist projects critiqued in James C. Scott’s Seeing like a state (Yale University Press, 1998). Failure to provide adequate funds for construction and failure to explain the purpose of resettlement led to peasant resistance. Peasants resisted as local officials coerced them into resettling and conscripted their
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unpaid labour for construction. Only 13 agrovilles were completed before the scheme was suspended in September 1960 (pp. 69–70). The brainchild of Nhu and an ‘unnamed’ US official, who the author appears to suspect was Saigon CIA Station Chief William Colby, the strategic hamlet programme launched in 1961 drew inspiration from the models of the Israeli Kibbutz and Malaysia’s ‘new villages’ (pp. 90–91). Faced with a deteriorating security situation, the regime wanted fortified rural communities whose walls separated the peasantry from the NLF insurgents (p. 120). Deprived of their peasant base, it was hoped, the NLF might be drawn into conventional war and defeated by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. Rural development in the form of greater state supervision of the rural population was another, secondary goal. Just as with the agrovilles, corruption and the use of coercion by local officials to resettle the population led to popular resistance. Some measure of the depth of the unpopularity of the programme may be read in the fact that it was suspended only ten days after the regime was overthrown. The author ends his book by crediting the strategic hamlet programme with stemming the tide of the NLF’s military progress temporarily (pp. 207–8). An equally plausible reading is that the programme and its predecessors in the Mekong Delta so angered the peasantry that they made the reunification of Vietnam inevitable. Two lessons about nation building might be drawn in the history of South Vietnam from 1955 to 1963. The first and simplest lesson is that it is inadvisable to impose unwanted institutions on an unwilling population. The likely result is active and passive resistance. The second lesson is that windows of opportunity during which a population may be given institutions it wants sometimes close never to be reopened. Missing that window of opportunity means that no amount of coercion may be sufficient to deal effectively with the violent consequences. John Hickman, Berry University, USA
Discussing Hitler. Advisers of US diplomacy in Central Europe, 1934–1941. Edited by Tibor Frank. Budapest: Central European University Press. 2003. 376pp. Index. £38.00. 963 9241 56 3. Students of interwar diplomatic history have an ever diminishing area of unplotted turf to burrow into. Therefore, as most historians still agree with the late grandee of Cambridge dons, Geoffrey R. Elton, that the understanding and evaluation of historical source material ‘remains the only proper ambition’, the publication of a hitherto entirely unknown collection of prime documents from the period is very good news. Tibor Frank, the distinguished Hungarian historian, current holder of the Humboldt Research Award at the Max Planck Institute of Berlin, has carefully arranged and annotated an impressive volume of notes by John Flournoy Montgomery, United States minister (Head of Mission) in Budapest from 1933 to 1941. (The notes themselves start in 1934.) Professor Frank discovered the papers in the United States and obtained them from Montgomery’s daughter in 1993. The editor’s detailed introduction and the 182 recorded ‘conversations’, as the minister called them, cast an exciting and often novel light on the storm which was gathering in Europe in the 1930s. Though originally a businessman, Montgomery quickly acquired the instincts and finesse which are the hallmarks of a successful diplomat. His post, Budapest, was the epicentre of the mutually hostile claims and counterclaims that characterized the Central Europe of the then recently constituted successor states of the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in the aftermath of the Paris treaties of 1919–20. The US minister won the confidence of a wide array of Hungarian politicians, industrialists, financiers and journalists as well as foreign diplomats whose opinions mattered in these critical years. They included the regent Miklós Horthy himself, Hungarian prime ministers (incumbent, past and future), as well as British, French, German, Italian, Czech, Slovak, Polish, Romanian, Greek, Yugoslav and Turkish representatives. Montgomery dictated the ‘conversations’ to his secretary still fresh in his mind immediately after they had taken place.
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The most graphic picture that emerges from the interviews is that of Hungary’s desperate and tragic wavering between Hitler’s Germany and the West. (The same dilemma of divided loyalties dogged Hungary’s rival, Romania.) While, with hindsight, this strategy was patently hopeless, it did not appear absurd at the time. Amid the unease of the 1920s and 1930s, exacerbated by the Treaty of Locarno, in which only the western borders of Germany were guaranteed (even so, the treaty was renounced by Hitler in 1936), the West, the original sponsor of the region’s territorial settlement, remained uncomprehending and unwilling to play a proactive role. The US, while the key power of the future, had not ratified the peace treaties, and remained little more than an observer. At the same time, Hungary’s food, Romania’s oil and Czechoslovakia’s industry proved irresistible bait for fast-increasing German economic and political penetration. In the circum- stances, Hungary, possessed by overwhelming fear of the Soviet Union, had few options but to attempt a policy of balancing between the western democracies and Nazi Germany. In the end, no longer able to maintain the neutrality it cherished at the outbreak of war in 1939 and played off against Romania by Hitler, Hungary fell into German servitude in 1941. Throughout these years, though no paragon—we read about his failings in the intro- duction—Montgomery held his own. While impressed by Horthy and the Hungarian aristocracy, he did not side with any party or partisan view in Hungary, which is to say he did not ‘go native’, a fate regarded as almost inevitable among professional diplomats in the British or French diplomatic service. Unswayed by revisionist Hungarian propaganda, he also maintained a distance from Hungary’s often hostile neighbours. Furthermore, in Tibor Frank’s words, Montgomery ‘was never one of FDR’s cronies’, privately judging the president’s grasp of the subjects that he had discussed with him in Washington as ‘half-baked’. Yet the minister’s unequivocal denunciation of the Nazi regime, and of the Führer in particular, was much to the president’s liking. Montgomery only gives account of one conversation with Otto von Erdmannsdorff, German minister in Budapest from 1937 to 1941, whom he describes as ‘not a Nazi’, and of two meetings with a Nazi German press agent. The latter, called Wilhelm von Hahn, told one of Montgomery’s Hungarian interlocutors, Tibor Eckhardt, in early 1935 that ‘the time is ripe for Germany to make up and annex Austria’, and claimed, shortly before the conclusion of the Munich Agreement in 1938, that the ‘Czechs were trying to provoke the Germans into war’ as the Reich ‘cannot see them killing our Germans and do nothing about it’. Hahn also ventured to obtain information from the minister as to the possible British attitude in the event of a war between Germany and Russia. During the slide towards the catastrophe of Munich, Montgomery also recorded Tibor Eckhardt quote Benes,“ the Czechoslovak President, saying to Eckhardt that ‘the defence of Czechoslovakia was up to the rest of Europe’. The interesting asides include a barb from the Hungarian Prime Minister, Count Teleki, in April 1939, that, in the face of German and Italian aggression, ‘small countries couldn’t be convinced that [England] ever intended to do anything but protest.’ In May 1940, the regent Horthy told Montgomery that as far as he was concerned, ‘Hungary would defend itself against Germany until the last peasant’, but, Horthy added, ‘any such talk of defence was futile’. The talks reveal that Horthy felt anxious about the fate of the British and Belgian armies in May 1940. The regent also declared ominously: ‘The Germans talked of a new bomb which they would use at the right time, so deadly that it would kill everything within a mile. This had not yet been used, but he thought they intended to use it on England.’ Although formally resigning his office and finally leaving Budapest in March 1941, Mont- gomery was apparently recalled from Hungary as a result of intrigue by pro-Nazi elements in the Hungarian establishment who had become increasingly influential by that time. (In 1947, the ex- minister published a book about his tenure in Budapest, entitled Hungary, the unwilling satellite [Devin-Adair].) While perhaps the presentation could have been further enhanced by the inclusion of a register of document summaries, the volume allows us access to true gems from the archives of interwar history. Historians and readers with special interest in this period will look forward to the
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promised sequel: an edition of Montgomery’s correspondence, which is also part of the recently discovered rich collection. Miklos Lojko, Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary
The Stasi files: East Germany’s secret operations against Britain. By Anthony Glees. London: Free Press. 2003. 461pp. Index. £20.00. 0 7432 3104 x. The first part of this book examines the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and its espionage apparatus (the ‘Stasi’), with special reference to the latter’s activities in Britain. There is much important new information here. The author then turns to the people in this country whom the Stasi found useful, some of whom became, in one sense or another, its ‘agents’. Much of this was predictable: there were obviously a number of left-wing politicians, Christian peace activists or politically naive academic Germanists sympathetic to the GDR. The sensational part comes when Glees adds to the above, lumping them all together, some elements of the British ‘elite’ who engaged in political dialogue with their GDR counterparts (and thus no doubt with the Stasi), including the Foreign Office, Chatham House, and specifically John (now Lord) Roper. When researchers in and around Chatham House began to develop contacts with the GDR in the 1960s and 1970s, we all knew that our East German interlocutors must have links with intelligence, and acted accordingly. Anthony Glees, however, utterly condemns all activities of this kind. He believes that, since the GDR was an odious dictatorship, any contacts which gave encouragement to its abhorrent regime could only be harmful and dangerous. The fact that he surveys the GDR’s entire range of British contacts in this light obviously colours his conclusions, and so does the fact that his story is based very largely (as the title indicates) on the official records of the Stasi itself. Glees is very proud of being able to tell the story of Stasi operations in Britain ‘in the Stasi’s own words’ (p. 25), but he repeatedly fails to examine this one-sided documentary source with the necessary critical detachment, and thus takes the self-serving reports of Stasi operatives at face value. Worse still, he writes without knowing the actual contents of virtually any of the Stasi reports he refers to: the texts have disappeared, so that Glees can only guess at their contents from their headings in the Stasi index. The originals might have revealed that much of their inform- ation was widely available in political, diplomatic or media circles in London, and not based on classified documents at all. Indeed, one of his star sources, the former Stasi agent ‘Eckhart’, has recently confirmed precisely this. In his eagerness to prove that high-level information was regularly passed to the Stasi by someone working at Chatham House, Glees, though he correctly notes the virtual absence of any correlation between the subjects of the institute’s general meetings and the headings of the contemporary Stasi reports from London (p. 233), perversely insists that there must have been a link after all. For instance, he asserts that a Chatham House talk by Denis Healey in December 1982 is ‘undoubtedly linked directly’ to a report on ‘Foot, Shore, Kinnock and Healey’ filed by ‘Eckhart’ four months later (p. 237). Glees seems unaware that speakers at Chatham House meetings (at least the external big names) arrive, speak and then leave: his idea that these talks represent the tips of icebergs of internally conducted ‘secret intelligence’ work (p. 232) is pure fantasy. Anyway, in 1982–3 the Labour Party’s leadership was being discussed everywhere, as were the other subjects reported on by ‘Eckhart’, such as nuclear weapons, British policy towards China or Germany, or the prospects of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). Yet Glees’s argument presupposes that Chatham House was the Stasi’s only possible source of information on these subjects, and indeed of a hare-brained ‘tip-off’ that Admiral Sir James Eberle, the institute’s director from 1984, might be well disposed towards the GDR. In fact, Eberle’s dissent from some aspects of British nuclear policy was common knowledge in London, so Stasi agents could have heard about it anywhere. Glees’s identification of John Roper as the putative Stasi agent in Chatham House is based partly on the overlap between his areas of expertise and the topics of Stasi reports to Berlin.
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However, such ‘Roper’ themes as arms control, Britain’s relations with the European Community, and the prospects of the SDP, were universally discussed in the London of the time. Glees’s ‘evidence’ also includes the tortuous argument that the GDR embassy withdrew from its associate membership of Chatham House once the Stasi had placed its ‘agent of influence’ there in 1983, to avoid attracting attention to this new link. In fact, the embassy’s membership lapsed in April of 1983, seven months before Roper joined the staff in November. Glees asks us to believe that the Stasi knew by March or April that Roper (then an MP) would lose his seat in a general election to be held in June (in fact the election was not even announced until May), and would then be appointed to a post at Chatham House towards the end of the year. Glees’s interpretation of the three Anglo-GDR ‘round table’ meetings held between 1986 and 1989 is equally unconvincing. He takes no proper account of the purposes for which the British government encouraged and financed these meetings, nor of the role of the Great Britain/East Europe Centre, an important body established in 1967, of whose work he seems unaware. This book must be used with care, particularly as its highly speculative insinuations and its frequently sneering tone are accompanied by a number of factual errors. For instance, Glees describes (p. ix) East Berlin as ‘the capital … of East Germany’, blithely flouting the basic western tenet that it could only be the GDR’s ‘seat of government’. He also, in the course of a tendentious summary of Brandt’s Ostpolitik (p. 81), confuses Bonn’s Eastern Treaties with the quite distinct Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin. There are also mistakes in names (François ‘Buchene’ should of course be ‘Duchêne’), and some howlers in translation (for instance, ‘Hauptamtlicher Mitarbeiter’ means ‘full-time employee’, not ‘member of the main office’). Above all, it is to be regretted that Anthony Glees, by not treating his important and exciting sources more critically, and by failing to understand the context properly, has produced an unscholarly, sensationalist and deeply flawed book. Roger Morgan, European University Institute, Italy
Suez: Britain’s end of empire in the Middle East. By Keith Kyle. London: I. B. Tauris. 2003. 684pp. Index. £19.95. 1 86064 811 8. Keith Kyle has been called the ‘doyen’ of Suez studies, devoting the greater part of his working life at the BBC, Chatham House and in academia to finding out what really happened during that great crisis, to which he had been witness, as The Economist’s correspondent in Washington. Suez represents his crowning achievement. First published in 1991 by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, a new paperback edition has been issued by I. B. Tauris with an extra chapter detailing the fresh information which has since come to light on Suez. This includes evidence of Franco-Israeli plotting of undercover operations against Egypt, of Gaitskell being alerted to collusion by a Lebanese businessman and Butler and Heath forcing Eden to make the all-important concession to UN intervention in his House of Commons speech on 1 November 1956, which led to the unravelling of the Anglo-French position. But possibly the most interesting revelation concerns a controversial and therefore suppressed interview with US News and World Report which shows that, on the eve of Suez, Dulles was in no mood to see Eden repeat his demarches over Buraimi and Jordan in the expectation that he could square the Americans afterwards. Above all, the US Secretary of State was concerned with the effect that unilateral British actions seemed to be having on the Saudis, who were funding anti-British activities throughout the Middle East. This so exercised Dulles that, even after Suez and just out of his hospital bed, he mistakenly berated the Dutch Foreign Minister, the unfortunate Dr Joseph Luns, for British behaviour at Buraimi. When Luns tried to put him straight on the matter, ‘this apparently exasperated Dulles so much that he got up and strode about the room with a purple face in such a state that [a colleague] whispered to Luns that he better lay off or Dulles would become ill again’ (p. 551). The question arises as to why Dulles should work himself up to such a paroxysm of fury over Buraimi. Kyle provides a clue (p. 267) when he refers to a French complaint about Dulles’s
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supposed deference to the US oil lobby. Certainly Aramco (the petroleum company) facilitated the Saudi attempt to grab Buraimi from Abu Dhabi and Muscat and Aramco had for a decade effectively dictated the terms of the US–Saudi relationship to State Department officials. So, had the US Secretary of State been co-opted by Aramco as well? If true, this would explain the seemingly pro-Saudi orientation of US policy not only over Buraimi, but towards the Hashemite states of Jordan and Iraq (and membership of the Baghdad pact) and even Nasser’s Egypt. A proper study of Anglo-American relations and Saudi Arabia during this period is needed before we can fully understand US policy during the Suez crisis. Although Keith Kyle’s Suez, along with Scott Lucas’s Divided we stand (Sceptre, 1996), remain the fullest accounts to date of the crisis, Suez-watchers should be reassured that there is still more to be revealed. Saul Kelly, King’s College London, UK
Changing direction: British military planning for post-war strategic defence, 1942– 1947. By Julian Lewis. London: Frank Cass. 2003. 475pp. Index. £30.00. 0 7146 5399 3. Published in 1988, the first edition of Lewis’s Changing direction (Sherwood Press) accounted for the development of Britain’s post-Second World War strategy. The process, which began well before the end of the war against Germany and Japan, culminated in the May 1947 ‘Future Defence Policy’, a document which largely shaped Britain’s security and defence posture until the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. ‘Future Defence Policy’ defined British strategic priorities in terms of three pillars: defence of the UK; a firm hold in the Middle East; and control of sea lines of communication. The real significance of the document, however, was in confirming that a transition (albeit cautious) had at long last taken place in British threat assessments; the risk of German resurgence was dwarfed by ‘the possibility of war with Russia’. Changing direction was well received and widely read by scholars of Britain’s part in the origins of the Cold War. My own work on that period—British military planning for the defence of Germany, 1945–50 (Macmillan, 1996)—benefited enormously from Lewis’s meticulous and dogged research into the official papers. With improved access to official archives, Lewis has been able to fill a number of ‘small, but significant gaps’ in his early work, and has produced a yet more authori- tative and very welcome second edition of his important study. Additional material is presented in seven sections of a new, 74-page introductory chapter. Returning to long-standing allegations that Churchill had wanted to develop an offensive biological warfare programme in 1944, Lewis demonstrates convincingly that the main purpose of British biological weapons research was to produce defensive countermeasures. There was no intention to produce an offensive biological weapons (BW) capability. It was, however, under- stood that a retaliatory posture—a ‘threat of retaliation’—could improve the UK’s defences against a BW attack. As far as the Soviet Union was concerned, Lewis’s research confirms that Britain’s military planners were ahead of their Foreign Office colleagues in assessing Soviet intentions and in proposing an early version of what was to become the strategy of containment. The prospect of the ‘unthinkable’ war with Russia in Europe in 1945 convinced Britain’s military planners that continental Europe could not be defended against a Soviet land attack; a stark prospect which led them to early advocacy of German rearmament. Lewis produces more evidence of the very high priority placed by British security and defence policy makers on sustaining a close military and political relationship with the United States, and it was on this basis that Britain became so closely involved in planning for a strategic withdrawal from Europe in the event of Soviet aggression. The section on strategic deception planning confirms Britain’s early involvement in the development of a sophisticated atomic deterrent strategy based to a considerable degree on the manipulation of Soviet perceptions. As Lewis notes in the final section of the new introduction, Britain’s military planners moved quickly and effectively to develop a complex framework for managing the threat of Soviet aggression, one based on a mixture of defence and deterrence. Lewis is a meticulous historian who writes clearly and persuasively, and with great authority.
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This expanded edition of Changing direction will be essential to any serious research on British security policy during the late 1940s. Paul Cornish, King’s College London, UK
In victory, magnanimity: in peace, goodwill: a history of Wilton Park. By Richard Mayne. London: Frank Cass. 426pp. Index. £30.00. 0 7146 5433 7. This book, by a former member of the Council of Chatham House, is a commissioned history. It was originally to have been written by Robert Rhodes James, who sadly died before he had seriously begun to write. Mayne has produced a substantial book, which chronicles the ups and downs and the human failings of the 57 years of the life of ‘Wilton Park’, at Wilton Park near Beaconsfield for the first five years, and at Wiston House near Steyning for the last 52. For more than half of that time its work was led by Heinz Koeppler. He was appointed in 1946 as first Warden of a course designed to contribute to the re-education of German prisoners of war. He presided for 31 years over the gradual evolution of Wilton Park to embrace German civilians, other Europeans, and members of the broader Atlantic community. The early years are the heart of the story, the expression of the vision of the naturalized German to help rebuild the shattered society of his native Germany by persuading Germans of all political backgrounds to face their past from outside Germany and to think about their future through frank discussion with each other, with the British way of thinking and doing as a paradigm not of the best, but of the least bad way of tackling political problems. Helmut Schmidt in 1971 reflected that ‘almost a whole generation of German politicians defined their concept of and attitude towards Britain and the British on the basis of the impressions they received at Wilton Park.’ Before Koeppler’s retirement Britain’s accession to the European Economic Community saw the European Discussion Centre established as a separate programme at Wilton Park. The men who have led Wilton Park since his retirement inherited Koeppler’s commitment and his adaptability, gradually extending its purview to the problems of other regions—a process given a powerful boost with the collapse of communism at the end of the 1980s—and to global issues. Entwined with the story of this evolutionary process is the chronicle of Wilton Park’s struggles for survival, from the surgical strike of straight closure to the thousand cuts of arbitrary financial reductions. Over the years the Treasury in particular, at ministerial as well as official level, was profoundly unconvinced by the rationale for the continuation of Wilton Park. It is fair to say that there were also sceptics in the Foreign Office—Wilton Park’s parent department—as well as some notable and doughty supporters. This should not be a complete surprise. Adaptation and change were often necessary. The case for using taxpayers’ money on a discussion centre where the British position was deliberately exposed to challenge and criticism, and where the strict off-the-record formula made specific outcomes very hard to identify, is one which rightly had to be made and remade, just as it has over the years for continuing government funding of the BBC World Service. That Wilton Park survived each challenge, and particularly that of 1956–7 when the decision to close was ultimately overturned only in full cabinet at the insistence of Selwyn Lloyd, was the outcome of the wise decision, reached in 1949, to set up an Academic Council to assure Wilton Park’s academic links and standards, and its standing in public. It was to its Academic Council members and especially to Sir Robert Birley, involved with Wilton Park from his days in the German Education Department in 1947 until his death in 1982, to whom, more than anyone, Wilton Park owed its survival. Wilton Park fitted no existing official category. There was always an argument that limited resources would be better spent on activities under the Foreign Office’s more direct control. For some, the Foreign Office’s ‘self-denying ordinance’ was little more than skin deep. The ‘enlightened creative tension’ which was the natural state of the relationship with Wilton Park consequently went through phases of being more tense than creative. This book has been written at a time when these tensions are happily much less evident. The clue to this does not require much hunting out—the British taxpayers’ subsidy to Wilton Park is now down to a very small
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percentage of the overall costs. Present management has to work very hard to earn the keep of the Wilton Park Agency which came into being in 1991 but no longer has one primary paymaster glowering over their shoulders. This is an arrangement more easily coupled with the concept of academic freedom, especially in an era when academia has become all too used to the idea of having to earn its keep. So Mayne is able to conclude his chronicle of heights and depths and many twists and turns on an upbeat note, and to restate as equally valid in 2003 as in 1946 Wilton Park’s ‘revolutionary’ purpose’: ‘to turn ignorance into understanding, prejudice into apprecia- tion, suspicion and hatred into respect and trust’. Robert Alston
Britain, Nasser and the balance of power in the Middle East 1952–1967. By Robert McNamara. London: Frank Cass. 2003. 308pp. Index. £39.50. 0 7146 5397 7. For a start, this is not a further last reminiscence of a former US Secretary of Defence but the converted doctoral thesis of a lecturer at the National University of Ireland at Maynooth. He opens with an adequate summary of the Nasser revolution in Egypt and the subsequent Suez crisis of 1956, but the book really gets into its stride with the post-Suez era when the author, handling a mass of mainly British and American documents, displays considerable skill in developing the narrative thrust which carries the story through many complex twists and turns of fortune. In 1957 Harold Macmillan thought he could carry on almost as if Suez had not happened and Britain had remained a major player in the region. President Eisenhower the while continued to be polite to his old wartime comrade without ever giving much away that could be interpreted as endorsing colonialism. He and his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, wanted to pursue an anti-communist line and Macmillan wished to pursue an anti-Nasserite one and to the degree that these two objectives seemed for all practical purposes to coincide there was apparent harmony between London and Washington. At times there would even appear to be a switching of roles. The trouble, as McNamara’s carefully sequenced account discloses, lay with Macmillan’s celebrated ‘Facts, dear boy’. The truth was that, for all of Khrushchev’s dealings with Nasser—the arms sales and the help over the Aswan Dam—it was the Nasserites who were the main rivals to Marxists in the Middle East and vice versa. Syria’s union with Egypt in February 1958 was a pre-emptive move by anti-communists alarmed by the prospect of a communist takeover; conversely, the overthrow of the Hashemite dynasty and Nasser’s bête noire Nuri es-Said in July 1958 was a victory for the communist- supported General Qasim which brought no joy to Nasser. Interestingly enough it appears from McNamara’s research that the British, being well aware of this, rather swiftly wiped away the tears shed for their Iraqi friends and attempted with minimum delay to build a relationship with the new regime in Baghdad. They had, it seems, been becoming increasingly disillusioned with Nuri who since the formation of his union with Jordan had been showing an unhealthy interest in Kuwait. When in 1961 Kuwait again felt itself threatened by Iraq to the extent of inviting Britain to land troops there, Macmillan was pleased enough to extract them when, courtesy of Nasser, Arab League forces arrived as replacements. Perhaps the most remarkable document unearthed by the author is a Middle East assessment of 28 July 1958 by the usually cautious British Chiefs of Staff (pp. 138–41). This reads more like a memorandum from the American neo-conservatives of 2003. It argues that as this was the last opportunity Britain and the United States would have of threatening force without attracting a military response from Russia they should use it to break Nasser’s leadership of Arab nationalism, establish an international authority for the Suez Canal and guarantee the unimpeded supply of oil. Otherwise all Britain’s dominoes would fall, even including the ability to recruit Gurkhas in Nepal. This agenda was not what the Americans of that era were proposing to follow. Washington was distinctly unhappy when, following a Nasserite coup against the Imam of Yemen, the British Ministry of Defence led by Peter Thorneycroft showed considerable zeal for unconventional warfare and arms supply in aid of the Imam (pp. 195–6).
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The British of course were thinking of the defence of Aden and of the South Arabian Federation which they were attempting to construct around it. But it was typical of the way external calculations were mocked by events that when in 1968 the British finally decided to hand over power in Aden the dreaded Egyptian surrogates were swiftly wiped out by the Marxists, who once again showed themselves to be the most efficient barrier to Nasser’s pre-eminence. In two chapters dealing with Britain’s relationship to the buildup to the Six-Day War, McNamara traces the process whereby George Brown’s resolve to make a decisive break from anti-Nasser policies ended up with him seeking to organize an international naval force to hold open the Straits of Tiran which Nasser was committed to keeping shut to Israeli traffic. Unhappily this book, with its many good qualities, is marred by a distressingly large number of errors, as if the moment the author lifted his eyes off the documents his vision of the era he is describing became blurred. Nasser became President of Egypt in June 1956 not in 1954 (pp. 25– 6); Eden did not ‘move an increasingly out-of-depth Butler to the Home Office’ (p. 44) but did move him to the leadership of the House of Commons; Aneurin Bevan was not the Shadow Foreign Secretary at the time of Suez (Alf Robens, rather implausibly, was and Bevan was Shadow Colonial Secretary) (p. 50); Ralph Murphy was not the US Under-Secretary of State but the Deputy Under-Secretary (p. 50); Lester Pearson was not the Canadian Prime Minister (though he was later) but the Secretary for External Affairs (p. 52); the reference to ‘the Imam’s tyrannical rule in North Yemen’ followed immediately by an account of the overthrow of Imam Badr is without mention of the fact that Badr had been in power for less than a week (p. 128); Sir Harold Beeley, the highly regarded British ambassador in Cairo, did not depart to a new posting but at 60 he hit the Foreign Office’s strict retirement buffers (p. 200); Moise Tshombe became Prime Minister, not President, of the Congo in 1964 (p. 212); and the well-known Sunday Times writer James Margach makes a strange appearance as ‘James Morchach’ (p. 221). Any of the above, taken individually, might be thought too trivial to note in a review but taken together, in what was originally a doctoral thesis, they do raise questions about the author’s academic supervisor and his examiners, let alone his publisher. Keith Kyle
Stalin’s holy war: religion, nationalism, and alliance politics, 1941–1945. By Steven Merritt Miner. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. 2003. 407 pp. Index. $42.95. 0 8078 2736 3. In Stalin’s holy war, Miner probes the role of religion in Soviet history and the unique ways in which it reinforced Russian nationalism, particularly during the Second World War. A professor of history at Ohio University (Athens, Ohio), Miner believes scholars have neglected the study of religion and specifically the Russian Orthodox Church, usually mentioning the latter in passing as one of the many institutions victimized by the communists. In fact, Miner writes in clinical metaphor, ‘the history of religion in the USSR is more like the barium cocktail that a patient swallows before undergoing a body scan. By tracing the circulation of religious issues through the body politic of the Soviet Union, the historian can view more clearly how the Communist system operated on any number of levels. Because so many millions of common people retained their beliefs, and religious questions circulated through the major arteries as well as the veins and capillaries of Soviet life, a focus on religion provides the historian with an excellent, yet neglected, analytical tool’ (p. 4). Despite decades of ruthless atheistic campaigns and Stalin’s dominating personality, religion remained a powerful force in Soviet life. By the Second World War, the Kremlin decided to unleash, not suppress, it. Miner’s key argument is that Stalin decided to use the church, especially to restore the Patriarchate in September 1943 as a functioning institution, not to woo the Allies just before the Tehran Conference, as authors Volkogonov and Medvedev have claimed, but primarily as a way to re-establish Soviet power in non-Russian areas formerly occupied by the Germans, where the ‘anti-Soviet nationalists and guerrillas resisted the Red Army, often supported by local clerics’ (p. 12). If the purpose of reviving the Patriarchate had
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been solely to rally soldiers in the Red Army (as others have claimed), one would think Stalin would have done it sooner, in 1941–2, when Nazi Germany had the upper hand. In this way, Miner points out, Stalin continued the legacy of the tsars, who used the church to ‘enhance St. Petersburg’s control over the fluid western frontiers of the Russian empire’ (p. 11). A key strength of the book is Miner’s use of archival documents from the Russian State Archive of Social Political History and the clear exposition of his argument in his introduction. Stalin’s holy war is thus useful reading for scholars and advanced graduate students, as well as for undergraduate students. It would be instructive to read in conjunction with David Branden- berger’s National Bolshevism: Stalinist mass culture and the formation of modern Russian national identity (Harvard, 2002). Johanna Granville, Stanford University, USA
Ho Chi Minh: the missing years (1911–1941). By Sophie Quinn-Judge. London: Hurst and Co. 2003. 356pp. Index. £25.00. 1 85065 658 4. More than 30 years after his death, Ho Chi Minh remains something of an enigma largely because of the big gaps in his life story. Ho himself relished the mystique this created, once telling the French writer Bernard Fall: ‘An old man likes to have a little air of mystery about himself. I like to hold on to my mysteries!’ The gaps or ‘mysteries’ have contributed to the Ho Chi Minh myth which, as this well researched book reveals, has become bigger than the man. Ho, then known as ‘Nguyen Ai Quoc’ or ‘Nguyen the Patriot’, first came to international attention at the Versailles Peace Conference of 1919 when he tried unsuccessfully to gain the attention of US President Woodrow Wilson to an eight-point programme for greater freedom for the Vietnamese people, then under French colonial rule. Twenty-six years later, as leader of the Vietnam Independence League or Viet Minh, he sought in vain to get support from another US president, Harry Truman, before adopting the words of a third, Thomas Jefferson, in his 1945 declaration of Vietnam’s independence, which began ‘All men are created equal.’ This book focuses on the ‘missing years’ in between when Ho became an agent of the Communist International or Comintern, based initially in Canton, an intermediary between the emerging Chinese Communist Party and the leadership of the Soviet Union. Reading of Ho’s Comintern links during the rise of Stalin as well as his early contacts in China with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai among others, one cannot help regretting that he did not himself chronicle this crucial period in the growth of international communism. The Chinese Communist Party was to be a major inspiration for Vietnam’s own communist movement. It is left to Sophie Quinn-Judge to try to unravel the mysteries. She has benefited from the opening up of the Comintern archives in 1992. Her task has been made no easier by the vast number of pseudonyms adopted by the man born Nguyen Tat Thanh in Central Vietnam in 1890. The name he first adopted, Nguyen Ai Quoc, was rendered into Russian at one stage as Miguel-Ai-Kvak. The appellation ‘Ho Chi Minh’, or Ho the Enlightened One, was adopted only in 1945 when he assumed the presidency of Vietnam. Quinn-Judge tracks Ho’s travels on behalf of the Comintern from Moscow to China, rather as the French Sûreté did at the time, their records providing another important source. At the Russian-supported Whampoa Military Academy in Canton, Ho’s sessions as an instructor included Sun Yatsen’s Three People’s Principles and Gandhian non-violence as well as Vietnamese history and Marxism–Leninism. Later Ho went to Siam, Singapore and Hong Kong, where he was briefly arrested by the British authorities but avoided being handed over to the French administration in Indochina by appealing to the Privy Council Judicial Committee in London. Nor did the Sûreté give up their pursuit of Ho when it was reported he had died in Hong Kong. Quinn-Judge reveals that he fought a long struggle with tuberculosis, being hospitalized several times. Among other revelations are that Ho was admitted as a Freemason in Paris, as intriguing in its own way as his undoubted admiration for American democracy. He also suffered frostbitten
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fingers and nose after waiting for hours to view the dead Lenin, a show of devotion, which, Quinn-Judge says, did nothing to harm the political fortunes of this convinced Leninist. In charting Ho’s role in the creation in 1930 of the Indochinese Communist Party, the book throws light on the eternal conundrum as to whether Ho was more Vietnamese nationalist than a committed communist, leaning firmly towards the latter view. Yet Quinn-Judge concludes that Ho’s significance in international communism has been overstated because it was not until the early 1940s that he emerged as an influential communist on the world stage. She suggests, for example, that he may not have had an audience with Stalin until 1950—and by implication did not meet Lenin who was on his death bed by the time the young Ho first arrived in Moscow in 1923, another oft-debated mystery of Ho’s early life. It was his role in forging a unified Vietnamese Communist Party that led to his being taken seriously in Beijing and Moscow rather than the other way round. Some of ‘Bac’ or ‘Uncle’ Ho’s mysteries remain only partially uncovered, such as the romantic side of his life. We still do not know for sure whether Ho married fellow Vietnamese revolutionary, Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, in Moscow, or whether his relationship in Canton with Tuyet Minh was a true marriage or a way of learning Cantonese, as a French agent quoted in a footnote suggests. According to official Vietnamese records Ho died a bachelor. Some years ago a Vietnamese editor lost her job after writing that ‘Bac’ Ho had taken a Chinese wife in a marriage arranged by the Chinese Communist Party. Sadly the mood of glasnost that opened the Comintern records in Moscow has not yet caught on in Hanoi, where the ruling faction seem determined to preserve the heroic myth of ‘Bac’ Ho in all its aspects. Nicholas Nugent
The challenges of high command: the British experience. Edited by Gary Sheffield and Geoffrey Till. Basingstoke: Palgrave. 2003. 216pp. Index. £50.00. 0 333 80438 4. Gary Sheffield and Geoffrey Till, the editors of this slim and expensive book, are well known academic historians of, respectively, land and sea warfare. Both are based at the Joint Services Command and Staff College (JSCSC), Shrivenham, where Till is Dean of Academic Studies. The book is the result of a conference hosted by the JSCSC in 1997. Several of its eleven case-studies have been published, in slightly different form, by the Strategic and Combat Institute (Camberley, 1999)—also edited by Sheffield and Till. In his introduction Sheffield attempts to define ‘command’, ‘control’, ‘leadership’ and ‘high command’; not the simple, fixed concepts that you learn from the official definitions in the British Defence Doctrine. ‘High command’, for example, would now be exercised by a divisional commander, but not on the Somme in 1916. Command involves leadership, but not necessarily leadership of the men at the sharp end. ‘Bomber’ Harris had no real opportunity to inspire his airmen directly, while Haig shunned pep talks, unlike Monty. Grant of the Union Army even- tually commanded unprecedented numbers, but it would have taken him months to visit and inspire his far-flung units, unlike Caesar, who ‘led’ his men in every sense, from close quarters. Patton was ‘in the lead tank’—his charismatic reputation was a source of pride and encourage- ment even to Third Army soldiers who had never seen him. The authors are somewhat influenced by the current bias towards the ‘aggressive manoeuvrists’ (‘ratcatchers’ Andrew Gordon calls them, referring to Admiral Cowan’s description of Beatty) and against the ‘attritional’ general/admiral or ‘regulator’ as Gordon puts it dismissively in his restoration of Beatty’s reputation. Jellicoe is derided as a lover of ‘the comfort blanket’ of ‘control’, ‘micro managing’, fearful of initiative in others, an ‘attritionist’ and a ‘Haig’ (now interestingly a slightly dirty word again) ‘in his approach to fleet action’. But Jellicoe did not lose the war in an afternoon, as the jaunty, brave but reckless Beatty might have done in command. Of course, his caution—particularly in turning away from decisive action at the crucial moment for fear of U Boats—meant he failed to inflict total defeat on a, numerically, inferior enemy. But he knew the limitations of some of his captains (partly,
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admittedly, his fault for preferring obedient to resourceful officers), knew his vulnerability to torpedo attack and his fleet’s unreadiness for night action. Admiral Sheer of the German fleet escaped three times from blunders of his own making, but if his fire control had been as bad as Beatty’s, and the British gunnery as effective as the Germans’, his loss of ships would have been far greater and not simply proportionate to that of the British, for his ships were indeed punished ferociously when caught by Jellicoe. Beatty’s battle-cruisers should never have been pitched against Sheer’s superior dreadnoughts, a firefight should and could have been avoided. Two chapters, one by Duncan Anderson and the other by Robert Lynam, deal with the modern hero of manoeuvre warfare, Slim. There is some repetition but they pinpoint reasons for initial defeat and later victory succinctly—poor assessment of intelligence through inadequate Japanese speakers, lack of clear strategic objectives; and then bold manoeuvring with tanks, with close air support and supply, all the diverse elements of warfare wielded in unison with extraordinary skill and singleness of purpose. But, not least, victory was the result of deter- mination and dash by—and this was crucial—a physically robust general. The authors should have mentioned that, by the end of 1944, the Fourteenth Army had malaria under control—a significant factor in victory. It was ‘the greatest defeat suffered by the Japanese on land during the Second World War’ and it had little to do with Stillwell, the Chinese or the Marauders—not many Americans know that. Till’s chapter on the deferential—to Kitchner [sic]—Hamilton at Gallipoli upgrades his performance. But he did have an unnerving instinct to land troops at the wrong place. ‘Bomber’ Harris is digested by Christina Goulter in an essay that suffers from reading like an address, but has some pithy points to make: about the nature of ‘greatness’, about the wisdom of area bombing, about the feasibility of precision bombing … but nothing on the legal and proportionate response to Nazism, on bombing cities and people into oblivion about which Bishop Bell was so lucid and eloquent. No man is an island. It is worth a mention. Having myself trawled through Public Record Office files about Harris’s attitude to Overlord (he thought strategic bombing would do the job), and seen his blunt refusal to cooperate in either Atlantic convoy protection or even pre-Overlord ‘No Ball’ attacks, I cannot help wondering about the nature of absolute command that these writers don’t address: why was Harris allowed to be so obstinate and refuse Coastal Command (‘an obstacle to victory’ as he put it) the few planes that might have secured our island’s safety, why was he permitted to continue mass bombing raids without fighter escort to eastern Germany resulting in 6 per cent plus losses on average in 1943, why could he not have been ordered to release long-range Liberators to cover the Atlantic gap …? The nature of political high command is strange indeed … Nicholas A. Bird, RUSI, UK
Europe
Understanding the war in Kosovo. Edited by Florian Bieber and Zidas Daskalovski. London: Frank Cass. 2003. 350pp. Index. £45.00. 0 7146 5391 8. Pb.: £17.50. 0 7146 8327 2. This book comprises 16 articles, the bulk of which were presented at the conference ‘Kosovo: understanding the past, looking ahead’ held in Budapest in April 2000. There is no attempt at proffering a single interpretation of the conflict and the various contributors, Serbs, Albanians, western Europeans and Americans, articulate individual and at times contradictory conceptions of the war in Kosovo. The book is sub-divided into five parts; the background to the conflict; international inter- vention prior to the war; the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia and the war in Kosovo; the international administration of Kosovo, and lastly the regional implications of the Kosovo conflict. Part I outlines the competing claims to Kosovo held by Serbs and Albanians and assesses the possibility of ever reconciling these seemingly mutually exclusive ideologies. Zidas Daskalovski
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argues that social scientists need to determine a ‘just theory of nationalism’ (p. 14) by which national claims can be impartially assessed. Dejan Guzina analyses the contemporary Kosovar Albanian path to separatism and the Serbian response, arguing that the maximalist demands of both sides prevented any debate on compromised solutions. Lazar Nikolic’s examination of ethnic prejudices exposes the extent to which both communities came to live in ‘segmented realities and segmented time’ (p. 54). Part II examines the diplomacy pursued by international actors prior to Operation Allied Force. Stefan Wolff offers a somewhat limited critique of the use of non-military international intervention that fails to come to a strong determination. Elizabeth Allen Dauphinee, in what is probably the best article in the book, offers a critical reassessment of the Rambouillet talks. Dauphinee disputes the widely held perception of the talks as the last chance for peace foiled by Serb intransigence and offers a plausible explanation as to why the agreement was so unpalatable to the Serbs. She states, ‘it is not at all clear … that Rambouillet represented the last chance for a negotiated settlement [nor] is it clear that [it] presented a coherent plan for achieving a negotiated settlement’ (p. 107). In part III Leon Malazogu and Gábor Sulyok examine the growth in ostensibly humanitarian intervention in the modern era. Malazogu’s chapter reads too much like a fulsome endorsement of Operation Allied Force and lacks balance. Sulyok applies a more general approach, assessing the implications humanitarian interventions have for state sovereignty and international law. While supportive of the NATO action he concludes that it ‘will probably not constitute a precedent for further humanitarian action’ (p. 159). The following two chapters focus on specific elements of the conflict. Marina Blagojevic details the integral part played by the media in the conflict, writing, ‘experiencing the Western media interpretation of the Kosovo conflict and the NATO actions was a numbing and shocking experience’ (p. 174). Laurie Johnston assesses the part played by religion in the region, asserting that its seemingly divisive influence may not be a true reflection of its historical role. Part IV offers a critical assessment of the UN administration in Kosovo. The views expressed suggest that the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo has not been a success nor is it likely to be. Besnik Pula, while acknowledging the massive financial investments in Kosovo since 1999, laments the lack of local ownership of the new Kosovo and criticizes the UN for its ‘inability to build an effective legal system and properly institute the rule of law’ (p. 208). Isa Blumi outlines the manner in which the Kosovar Albanians have been overlooked in the UN ‘democratization’ programme, arguing that the administration has in fact destroyed what civil society there was in Kosovo. He claims that ‘what has changed in Kosovo since June 1999 is the nature of rule not the discursive relationship between power and subject’ (p. 223). Blumi predicts that, without substantive change, violence will again erupt in the region. Cristina Churruca Muguruza outlines the EU handling of the crises in Kosovo and suggests that its failure to prevent disaster came not from any constitutional constraints but from a lack of political will. In the final part of the book contributors analyse the regional implications of the Kosovo conflict. Florian Bieber provides an insightful account of the postwar political situation in Serbia and suggests that Kosovo will never again be administered from Belgrade. Aldo Bumci and Goran Janev give conflicting accounts of the impact of the Kosovo issue in Albania and more particularly Macedonia. Bumci plays down the popular fear of Albanian separatism spreading into northern Macedonia, arguing that the violence that did erupt there in 2001 was sparked by a desire for equality rather than independence. Janev believes, however, that the Slavs are frightened of the Albanians in their country who seem intent on partition. This book provides the reader with an overview of many of the major elements that make up the multi-faceted situation in Kosovo. Certain articles stand out more than others but the book is well researched throughout and will provide very interesting reading for anyone studying the Balkans or contemporary international relations. Aidan Hehir, University of Limerick, Ireland
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Turkey and the European Union: domestic politics, economic integration and international dynamics. Edited by Ali Çarkog“lu and Barry Rubin. London: Frank Cass. 2003. 200pp. Index. £45.00. 0 7146 5402 7. Pb.: £17.50. 0 7146 8335 3. A few sentences in the European summit communiqué in Helsinki at the end of 1999 suggested that it was up to Turkey to reform itself and settle its conflicts with Greece and the Republic of Cyprus before negotiations on its accession to the EU could be opened. The twelve authors themselves are all broadly in favour of domestic political and economic reform. Less enthusias- tically, they also acknowledge that it may be necessary for Turkey to compromise over the Aegean and Cyprus disputes, but offer no detailed settlement proposals. For west European readers, how- ever, the principal value of these timely essays lies in their scholarly depiction of some of the forces and arguments against Turkish accession during the period of the Ecevit coalition government. Nergis Canefe and Tanil Bora devote the whole of their article to the anti-European sentiments of right-wing Turkish nationalism. Ziya Önis shows how a formidably entrenched anti-EU coalition has been built on fears of the consequences to the integrity of the state and to the privileged status of elites in applying international norms. He also underlines the fragility of the parties of the left which, like their counterparts in western Europe, have cut themselves off from agricultural and industrial workers. Unlike their western counterparts they have remained patriotic, and not embraced multiculturalism and liberal internationalism. Gamze Avci also points up the similarities between Euro-scepticism in Turkey and elsewhere in Europe. Nearly all the authors make the point that the pro-EU coalition has been weakened by widespread uncertainty on whether the EU will ever accept Turkey as a full member. For example, a survey of the obstacles perceived by Turkish parliamentarians supports other evidence that ‘Turkish elites are supportive of Turkey’s membership in the EU but are not overly optimistic about the realization of this project in the near future’ (p. 208). Lauren McLaren and Meltem Müftüler-Baç’s survey also points out the deep division on Cyprus in the last parliament, finding that 48 per cent expected a solution to lie in international recognition of the sovereignty of Northern Cyprus, and 46 per cent looking for reunification in a federal state (p. 206). Ali Çarkoglu“ himself analyses the results of a nationwide poll in 2002 in which 64 per cent of the sample said they would vote for membership while 30 per cent said they would vote against. The more educated tend to be more supportive, with the significant exception of support for the EU in Kurdish areas. In light of its triumph in the November election, it is interesting that only 52 per cent of members of the AK party favoured EU membership. The rival Islamist party associated with Mr Erbakan was the only party in which a majority of the members were opposed to membership. Some of the issues on which the EU expects Turkey to demonstrate reforming zeal are discussed in this volume. The most detailed is William Hale’s chapter on human rights. This is appropriate in that the political criteria have to be met before the EU will open negotiations. Mine Eder lists the difficulties Turkey will face in meeting the economic criteria of a Union which is itself deregulating along neo-liberal lines. Kemal Kirisçi provides an informed overview of how EU requirements to manage migration and asylum requests imply that Turkey will have to be more open and generous to those coming from the east. Esra Çayhan disappointingly does not focus on the opaque internal debate within the Turkish armed forces on whether Turkey needs to limit the reforms implicit in accession. Instead she sets out the more intellectual debate that the development of European military collaboration is at once inadequate, a particular threat to Turkey in the Greek–Turkish dispute, and generally unappreciative of the contribution which Turkey could make to peace in the eastern Mediterranean. Finally, Semin Suvarierol sets out the mainstream Turkish view of Cyprus as a national issue, a military triumph, strategic necessity and diplomatic card. She concludes by cogently suggesting a change in this understanding of Turkey’s national interest. All the chapters are consistent in quality, and have been updated for this volume with postscripts on the significance of the electoral triumph of the moderate Islamic AK party in the elections of November 2002. Christopher Brewin, Keele University, UK
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A political and economic dictionary of Eastern Europe. By Alan J. Day, Roger East and Richard Thomas. London: Europa Publications. 2002. 642pp. £95.00. 1 85743 063 8. This new title in the highly regarded Europa series deserves a warm welcome and a place on the reference shelves of all but the very largest reference or university libraries. The scope of the dictionary entries and the geographic coverage (the former Soviet bloc except for the five Central Asian states and the former GDR) is clearly described in a short foreword. The bulk of the work is devoted to the main dictionary section. The entries include all the countries of the region, political parties and politicians, and regional and international organizations. A number of historical entries on people and places are also included; the descriptions clearly show their continued relevance for an informed understanding of current political developments and international affairs. This section is laid out clearly with extensive use of acronyms and alternative names to direct the user to the required page. Within each entry bold type is used to indicate a cross-reference to additional material; contact information for organizations and persons is given where known. An appendix arranged by country lists relevant entries and provides an introduction to the wide scope of the Dictionary—the entries for Bulgaria range from ‘Balkans’ to ‘Zhivkov’. A comprehensive index includes many additional names. Regional specialists will naturally be able to suggest topics for future inclusion, or note omissions, and the next edition would benefit from additional cross-references and the use of bold text in the name index. The editors must, however, be congratulated on producing a fascinating and useful volume, which is much more than a dictionary. Mary Bone, Library, Royal Institute of International Affairs, UK
The Balkans after the Cold War: from tyranny to tragedy. By Tom Gallagher. London: Routledge. 2003. 256pp. Index. £60.00. 0 415 27763 9. The Balkans after the Cold War is the second of a three-part series on the Balkans since 1789 by Tom Gallagher. The series as a whole is labelled ‘outcast Europe’, and Gallagher focuses on both the regional politics of the region and the contribution of the Great Powers to the region’s many woes. The predecessor to this volume charts Balkan history from 1789 to 1989. The centrepiece for that book was a detailed explanation of the breakdown of Yugoslavia which insisted that ‘Yugoslavia broke up from within, and not as a result of any unfriendly external action’ (p. 2). The subsequent volume, on The Balkans in the new millennium, will chart a new era of engagement between the Balkans and the West, an era in which some Balkan states joined NATO and many others began along the path to NATO and EU membership. In this second volume, Gallagher continues in the same vein as the first by arguing that the Balkans’ post-Cold War troubles can be blamed on individual politicians and intellectuals. He argues that the entire region suffered through ‘the elevation of flawed individuals to positions of absolute power’ (p. 15) and takes aim at writers such as Susan Woodward who insist that structural economic factors were the primary causes of conflict. Instead, Gallagher pins the blame on criminals such as Arkan and deplorable politicians, particularly Serbia’s Milosevic and Croatia’s Tudjman. Thus he argues that Milosevic engineered the destruction of Yugoslavia to preserve his political legitimacy and that he was aided and abetted by the fanatical Tudjman who consistently advocated the creation of a ‘greater Croatia’. To explain how these two men were able to persuade so many Serbs and Croats of the rightness of their cause (both were, after all, elected several times, albeit in flawed elections), Gallagher focuses on the role of the media and both leaders’ use of ‘hate speech’. The problem with adopting such an agent-centred perspective is that it fails to take account of the fact that nationalist arguments were more resonant in 1990 than, say, in 1980, for two principal structural reasons. First, as Woodward and many others have pointed out, the secessionist crisis was a direct consequence of an economic crisis that beset Yugoslavia at the end of the 1980s.
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That economic crisis was partly caused by Tito’s flawed policies and partly by the demands placed upon Yugoslavia by the World Bank. Second, as a direct consequence of the economic crisis and the broader political changes in eastern Europe, the League of Communists faced a crisis of legitimacy. Because the Yugoslav centre had been so weakened by the 1974 Constitution, the new unemployed in Croatia and Serbia looked to their republics rather than the federation for assistance. While Gallagher’s perspective brings an important counter-balance to structuralist accounts, it is important to recognize that the breakdown of Yugoslavia and the dynamics of the subsequent wars were products of the interaction of agents and structures. The second main focus for Gallagher’s treatment of Yugoslavia is the failure of the West to respond effectively to the war. Gallagher uses a wealth of primary and secondary literature to build a compelling case that the West was either ambivalent to Yugoslavia’s plight or, in the case of Britain, actually favoured the perpetrators of most of the war crimes: Milosevic and Karadzic. In this regard, Gallagher provides an excellent contribution to our understanding of the inter- national engagement with Yugoslavia though he is surely over-stating the case when he suggests that western leaders were ‘just as culpable’ (p. 63) as Serb leaders for the crimes committed. Although this book is ostensibly about the Balkans, the vast bulk of it focuses on the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. Indeed, less than 40 pages are dedicated to non-Yugoslav countries. Even within Yugoslavia, Slovenia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro receive only a cursory discussion. Although Gallagher does discuss the rise and fall of Sali Berisha in Albania and the 1997 Italian intervention, it is not done in any great detail and nor are the discussions of Romania and Bulgaria detailed or original. That said, where Gallagher does broaden his scope beyond Yugoslavia he offers an interesting and succinct treatment of his subject-matter that would be ideal for newcomers to the field. Although it is generally a good read, there are two principal problems with this book. First, there is nothing here that has not been said before, and in greater detail. The role of the British was devastatingly exposed by Brendan Simms. The course of the wars in Yugoslavia has been exhaustively dealt with in a number of volumes, many of which Gallagher refers to. The post- Cold War experiences of the region’s non-Yugoslav states have also been treated in more depth elsewhere. Thus, while Gallagher offers a useful introduction, there is little new for those versed in the literature. Second, the book is littered with typographical errors that detract from its overall impact. The diacritic symbols key to the Serbo-Croat alphabet are mis-produced throughout and there are many other errors. For instance, Gallagher refers to ‘article 52’ (p. 97) of the UN Charter in reference to self-defence, when he surely means to refer to Article 51. Despite these flaws, Gallagher succeeds in making an interesting contribution to our understanding of the Balkans after the Cold War. Alex J. Bellamy, University of Queensland, Australia
Prime time crime: Balkan media in war and peace. By Kemal Kurspahic. Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace Press. 2003. 261pp. Index. $42.50. 1 929223 39 0. Pb.: $19.95. 1 929223 38 2. Balkan holocausts? Serbian and Croatian victim-centred propaganda and the war in Yugoslavia. By David Bruce MacDonald. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2002. 308pp. Index. £50.00. 0 7190 6466 x. Pb.: £18.99. 0 7190 6467 8. Early in September 1995 Serbian television’s daily weather forecasts stopped using a map showing the Serb-controlled regions of Croatia as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina alongside Yugoslavia. The shrinking map was one of the initial indications for the Serbian public that Belgrade had abandoned the project of creating a greater Serbia in the run-up to what turned into the Dayton peace conference on Bosnia. But the change was also a clear demonstration of President Slobodan Milosevic’s firm control of Serbia’s media, which reached as far down as the contents of the weather forecasts.
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The changing shape of the weather map is recalled in Kemal Kurspahic’s informative and highly readable account of the role of the media in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia before, during and after the conflicts in ex-Yugoslavia during the 1990s. Prime time crime covers similar ground to Mark Thompson’s Forging war, which was the first detailed account in English to document the media’s contribution in those three former Yugoslav republics to the revival of nationalism and the stirring up of ethnic and national hatreds. Although the subject-matter is largely identical, Kurspahic’s more journalistic book is very different from Thompson’s scholarly account. In addition to using available written sources, it is based on a wealth of anecdotes, interviews and the author’s personal experiences—as befits one of the most prominent journalists from the region. Kurspahic was the war-time editor of Oslobodjenje, the Sarajevo newspaper that distinguished itself by going on publishing throughout the city’s siege, even after its building was destroyed by shelling from Bosnian Serb forces. It was a siege that, as Kurspahic notes, was barely reported in the Serbian media. He cites the findings of a survey conducted in the early phase of the war, which noted that in a 12-month period of monitoring, Serbian TV’s main news programme showed only one piece of footage of Sarajevo under siege. Instead, much of its coverage focused on the Bosnian Serb forces’ military successes or the atrocities—real and imaginary—that had been committed against Bosnian Serb civilians. Prime time crime describes in detail how President Milosevic established his iron grip over the Serbian media and the parallel process whereby President Franjo Tudjman brought most of Croatia’s broadcasters and press under his control. They used similar methods: hiring and firing media executives and editors on the basis of how far they were prepared to toe the official line; imposing restrictions on the independent sector and suppressing independent-minded media outlets through a range of financial and legal penalties; suing publications and journalists for libel (in 1999, during Tudjman’s last year in office, there were over 900 libel suits outstanding against the media in Croatia); and even using violence against prominent opponents who could not be silenced through other means. Kurspahic is highly critical of the international community’s role in the years immediately after Dayton, particularly in the case of Bosnia where the Office of the High Representative and foreign donors had much scope for restructuring the media along non-nationalist, professional lines. He blames the donor community for many missed opportunities as a result of failing to find the right people to take control of the major media outlets and for often spending large sums of money on projects that were not adequately prepared or supervised. But he ends on an optimistic note. The political changes ushered in during 2000 following Tudjman’s death and Milosevic’s fall from power created the preconditions for loosening the state’s stranglehold over much of the media in both Croatia and Serbia. Indirectly that also helped the situation in Bosnia, along with the success of non-nationalist political parties there in the elections of 2000 (which were partially reversed two years later). The book ends with a number of policy recommendations that are designed to build on the successes of recent years. While Kurspahic looks at the policies and methods of nationalist leaders bent on gaining control of the media and exploiting publicity for their own purposes, MacDonald’s valuable book focuses on the content of nationalist propaganda with a special emphasis on the portrayal by Serbian and Croatian polemicists of their own nations as victims. He examines the nationalist output of the two sides during the late 1980s and 1990s within the framework of a comparative approach. His study begins with a general discussion of different models of nationalism and with a summary of the ways in which the Holocaust has been used, whether for purposes of nation- building in Israel or in political debates to relativize it in comparison with other large-scale atrocities. The chapter on the Holocaust serves a dual purpose. One of those is because the Holocaust has turned the Jews, in the words of Alain Finkielkraut, the French author, ‘into the gold standard of oppression’. The other is that the competing nationalist polemicists, most explicitly and most often on the Serbian side, have compared themselves with the Jews. It was a frequent refrain of
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Serbian nationalist writers that no other nation—apart from the Jews—had suffered as much as the Serbs. But Serbs were not alone in the former Yugoslavia in making that or similar claims. Even Bosnia’s Bosniaks—one of very few Muslim communities in the world to do so—would argue that because of their suffering, they were the new Jews. MacDonald’s work takes in both the key historical episodes of real or perceived national oppression and the contemporary situation at the time of the wars of the 1990s. It deals with the background to Serbo-Croat enmity, and illustrates the way in which that relatively recent historical development—which began in earnest with the formation of the first Yugoslav state after the First World War and was greatly exacerbated by the reciprocal violence during the Second Wolrd War—was projected back to earlier periods by nationalist apologists. Fear of genocide and the imagery of the Holocaust were then abused by propagandists and their political masters for purposes of justifying ethnic cleansing. The author cites specific examples of how Serbian claims of atrocities having been committed against Bosnian Serbs preceded attacks on Bosnian government-held areas by Bosnian Serb forces. Balkan holocausts? provides a comprehensive and reliable guide to the Serbo-Croat war of words of the 1990s which will be much valued by Balkan specialists as well as by students of nationalist propaganda. However, its presentation may not be easy to follow for those who lack a grounding in the history of the region. That is because MacDonald outlines the arguments of first one side and then the other, and it is only in the final section of each chapter that he provides a balanced analysis of a historical controversy that is based on the work of unbiased scholars or on his own assessment. This approach may be somewhat confusing for those who lack detailed knowledge of the subject and who may therefore not be aware of the veracity or otherwise of Serbian or Croatian nationalist arguments until they get to the end of a chapter. Apart from that reservation over methodology, there is much to commend in MacDonald’s work. It is an impartial and level-headed discussion of a highly controversial subject, and some of its insights on the use of Holocaust imagery and the language of victim-centred propaganda can also be applied in regions of the world well beyond the Balkans. Gabriel Partos, BBC World Service, UK
Migration and the externalities of European integration. Edited by Sandra Lavenex and Emek M. Uçarer. Lanham, MD: Lexington. 2002. 232pp. $75.00. 0 7391 0378 4. Pb.: $24.95. 0 7391 0629 5. Cooperation on immigration and asylum issues has probably been the most rapidly evolving area of EU cooperation over the past decade. This has inevitably had far-reaching repercussions, not just for those European states participating in this ‘migration regime’, but also for other non-EU countries and actors affected by its provisions. While there has been some research on these impacts—especially on how the emerging regime has affected Central and East Europe—until now the question has been addressed in a rather piecemeal fashion. One of the great virtues of this book is to provide a conceptual framework for a more systematic analysis of the ‘externalities’ of EU cooperation in immigration and asylum, and to draw together some really excellent contributions covering a wide range of ways in which EU policies are affecting other actors. The major form of ‘externality’ identified by Lavenex and Uçarer is what they term ‘policy transfer to non-EU countries’. They conceptualize this as running along a continuum from more benign and voluntary forms of policy diffusion or transfer, including unilateral adaptation to EU standards, through forms of pressure on non-EU member states to conform to EU standards, to more direct coercion in the form of political or economic conditionality. The different forms of policy transfer are well illustrated in individual chapters, covering Norway and Switzerland (which Lavenex and Uçarer define as the ‘first circle’ of non-EU countries), Central and East European (CEE) candidate countries (the ‘second circle’), non-EU Mediterranean countries (the ‘third circle’), and countries of origin further afield (the ‘fourth circle’). Not surprisingly, a number of the chapters are highly critical of how EU policies have affected the countries under
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discussion. Grabbe suggests that the imposition of strict border controls between new member states in CEE and their eastern neighbours may contribute to the creation of unstable, isolated regions at the borders of the enlarged EU—clearly an example of the type of negative externality of EU policies described by the editors in their introduction. Kirisci“ wonders whether the EU’s focus on returning illegal migrants or asylum seekers to countries at the border of the EU is effectively an attempt to export the messy job of migration control to the EU’s buffer zones, bypassing domestic scrutiny from a liberal lobby at home. In her chapter on the EU’s trade policy, Lavenex also points to a contradiction between the EU’s emerging migration regime, and its far more developed competence in trade: migration policies now appears to be constraining the EU’s more liberal-oriented trade agenda in the context of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements. Whether the effects are positive or negative, one cannot help being struck at how ineluctable this process of transfer from the EU appears to be. What emerges from this collection is how potent an expression it is of the EU’s leverage vis-à-vis third countries. But it is also a product of the difficult distributive issues created by international migration. As the editors argue, restrictive policies in one country or region can lead to an increase of migration into other countries, forcing them to emulate these restrictive policies or else bear a disproportionate burden. Transfer of restrictive measures therefore reflects a collective action problem, whereby states compete to avoid creating a ‘pull’ factor for immigrants. The collection also deals with two other forms of policy transfer from EU immigration and asylum, although in less depth. The first concerns the migration regime’s externalities for other international regimes and institutions—a theme addressed in the first two chapters, and of interest for students of international organization and refugee law. The second is the impact of this migration regime on other policy areas within EU member states—notably on welfare systems and the harmonization of these, and on patterns of inclusion and exclusion of immigrant com- munities in EU states. In a very interesting chapter, Geddes considers and rejects the hypothesis that the pressure placed on welfare systems by immigration is contributing to an ‘Americanization’ of EU welfare systems. All in all, as we would expect from these editors, this is a well-structured, insightful book, discussing a fascinating issue in a lively and intelligent way. It fills an important gap in migration studies, and should be thoroughly recommended to students, scholars and the migration policy community. Christina Boswell, Associate Fellow, Royal Institute of International Affairs, UK
Post-Cold War identity politics: northern and Baltic experiences. Edited by Marko Lehti and David Smith. London: Frank Cass. 2003. 336pp. Index. £45.00. 0 7146 5428 0. Pb.: £18.50. 0 7146 8351 5. Constructing post-Soviet geopolitics in Estonia. By Pami Aalto. London: Frank Cass. 2003. 190pp. Index. £42.50. 0 7146 5425 6. Pb.: £ 17.50. 0 7146 5426 6. Post-Cold War identity politics is a collection of papers, which is the culmination of the co- operative project ‘Mapping the Baltic Sea area: the meaning of political space in the European North’, upon which the Department of Contemporary History at the University of Turku in Finland, the Baltic Research Unit at the University of Bradford, the British Council, the Finnish Centre for International Mobility and the Nordic Council of Ministers all collaborated from 1997 to 2001. It contains a well-thought-out sequence of articles by researchers from the Baltic and Nordic states as well as from the UK, Germany and Russia, mapping the politics of identity and forms of cooperation in the Baltic Sea region. Sadly, the project ended before the Baltic states were invited to join NATO in November 2002 and the EU in December 2002; this brought a radical change for the whole perception of the idealist concept of a ‘Europe whole and free’. It actually became a reality, despite some scepticism on the part of the editors who claim that ‘the
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past decade has in many ways been marked by a growing sense of Russia’s isolation and exclusion’ (p. 3). A brief but remarkably clear paper by Professor John Hiden, ‘Regional security: all or nothing at all?’, places the three Baltic states in the natural centre of the ‘new Europe’. It concludes that pandering to the concerns of Russia reflects an identity crisis within the EU and NATO. It explicitly states that ‘it should also be just as obvious by now that, as in the inter-war period, when it comes to the security of the Baltic countries it remains very much a matter of all or nothing at all. A Baltic entry into the EU without full admission to the main security system in Europe would offer no solution, only a postponement. Thankfully, since this was written, September 11 has convinced the rest of Europe of this fundamental truth’ (p. 180). The second book is a revised edition of a PhD thesis in European Studies awarded by the University of Bradford. It applies the so-called Q-methodology, the evaluation of experiment participants’ responses to a sequence of statements, to gain insight into issues of subjective perception, e.g. Estonian–Russian border disputes of the 1990s, the presence of a significant number of Russians in Estonia, European integration, or different aspects of security. Although the monograph reflects the attitudes of various groups of people to those wide issues in Estonia, it is far from being clear why its title seems to attempt to impose the post-Soviet reality on present-day Estonia. The Russian troops were withdrawn from the country in 1994, a year later than from Lithuania, but Estonia along with the other Baltic states signed the European Association agreements in 1995 and it decisively rejected Russia’s security guarantees in 1997, when it was invited to join the post-Soviet space. It successfully completed the necessary groundwork and the Heritage Foundation named Estonia as the most free market economy in the world last year. It celebrated the invitations to join NATO and the EU, thus it would be much more historically correct to make the title of the book ‘Reconstructing European geopolitics in Estonia’ and address this topic thoroughly. The blurb says that ‘the book argues that small states such as Estonia should be understood as active participants in post-Soviet and European geopolitics, and not simply pawns in a superpower environment’, but it seems that it deals more with the analysis of the internal boundaries between the Russian and Estonian population and their attitudes towards Estonia’s return to Europe in the widest sense. The methodology is clearly defined and comprehensively explained, but the key question and aim of the book are far from clear. ‘This book is about the construction of political space, boundaries, and what can be called post-Soviet geopolitics in Estonia’, argues the author, defining the country as post-Soviet Estonia in the concluding remarks as well as suggesting an alternative route for ‘desecuritisation, interethnic dialogue and the promotion of more peaceful and co- operative interstate relations’ (p. 166). It is important to know what Estonia’s Russophones think about European integration and how their thinking has changed, but their influence in any case is clearly not a dominant factor in the subjective perception of Estonia’s security or its place in Europe as a whole. In the other hand, Vahur Made offers an analysis of the major trends in the currently evolving Estonian European identity in his article ‘Estonia and Europe’ in Lehti and Smith’s volume. It deals with German, Nordic, Russian and Baltic dimensions of identity, Estonia’s ‘fight over Europe’, explaining ‘peripherality syndrome’ and roots of isolationism and Europeanism, and concluding that ‘it seems inevitable that peripherality will cease to be a nominator of Estonian national identity’ (p. 194). Indeed, the whole book attempts to place the Baltic Sea Region into the centre of Europe, analysing the new changing identity of Europe in the North, where East meets West. Indeed, Inga Pavlovaite in her excellent paper ‘Paradise regained: the conceptual- ization of Europe in the Lithuanian debate’ states in the first sentence that ‘if one were asked to locate the centre of Europe on the map, I doubt whether Lithuania would be the most obvious answer’ (p. 199). She concludes by identifying three discursive developments that link ‘Europe’ with the crucial elements of Lithuanian identity. First, she notes how European integration represents a return to Lithuania’s ‘natural’ place of belonging. Secondly, she emphasizes that ‘given the importance of the sovereignty discourse in Lithuania, “Europe” is primarily conceived as an inter-state co-operation project’. Thirdly, that European integration facilitates the
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modernization of the country in the economic, political and administrative senses. The same is valid for other accession states, which makes them the natural allies of the United Kingdom in its major European play. Darius Furmonavicius, University of Bradford, UK
Ambivalent neighbors: the EU, NATO and the price of membership. Edited by Anatol Lieven and Dmitri Trenin. Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 2003. 330pp. Index. $45.00. 0 87003 200 3. Pb.: $24.95. 0 87003 199 6. It takes a volume of this nature to show how little has changed in the ten to 14 years since the collapse of European communism. In the immediate aftermath, much was predicted about the coming together of the continent. But yet, as James Sherr notes here, in the ten years after President George Bush Snr decried the aim of creating a Europe ‘whole and free’, none of the ex- Soviet states had joined the European Union, and only three had joined NATO (p. 108). In a region of 19 states, this represented very little progress on the projections of the post-communist euphoria. Thus we are still worrying about how to consider Europe’s margins, and in that context this is an invaluable volume. Of course there are chapters on Russia, Ukraine and Poland; but the book also considers the transformations and orientations of the Baltic republics, Romania, Moldova, Kaliningrad and Belarus (a chapter rejoicing in the marvellous title, ‘Give a dog a bad name’…) Yes, of course, there are chapters on EU policy and on NATO ( including a typically thoughtful contribution by Karl-Heinz Kamp). But the analysis is overwhelmingly focused on the voices of the region between the EU and the Urals. But what does this add up to? To reinforce the point that there has been little change in ten years, that we still debate ‘where are the margins?’ It is interesting to note that Huntington’s ‘clash of civilizations’ is still a reference point on several occasions (readers will recall that the book version was published by Simon & Schuster in 1996). Underlining the point, Dmitri Trenin entitles his introduction ‘The Grand Redesign’—in a clearly ironic tone. Yet what is clear, in chapter after chapter, is the profound nature of change within states. Yes, this is more or less pronounced in different parts of the region. And, indeed, the book does not deal greatly with south-eastern Europe. But it does cause some reflection upon the nature of the title, Ambivalent neighbors. Who is ambivalent? Certainly states and governments in western Europe. Certainly Russia over this period, unclear as to the appropriate nature of its relationship with its European partners. But surely one important level where ambivalence is not present is among the public in these states. The drive for western—or is that American?—identity is palpable, and has shaped and is shaping the political culture of the states of the region. And as the European Union stands upon the verge of a massive expansion of membership, perhaps that is about to mark the end of ‘ambivalence’ on the western ‘side’. Anatol Lieven ends the volume with some thoughts as to future ‘models’ (perhaps a far more grand term than is being suggested) as to the nature of relations across the European continent. There is much thought provoking here. But again there is much that demonstrates that change is not always as obvious as continuity. After all, comparisons of relations within the ‘eastern bloc’ and those between the United States and Central America were prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s—and return here. In the post-9/11, post-Iraq world, there is a danger that international attention will continue to drift away from the states in a part of Europe for which we have no acceptable term (‘post-communist’? ‘Eastern Europe’? ‘accession states’?). This volume reminds us of the complexity and importance of this part of the continent. Stuart Croft, University of Birmingham, UK
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Integration in an expanding European Union: reassessing the fundamentals. Edited by J. H. H. Weiler, Iain Begg and John Peterson. Oxford: Blackwell. 2003. 418pp. Index. Pb.: £24.99. 1 405 1 1232 8. This compilation celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Journal of Common Market Studies. Four- teen essays, most with two responses, make for a diverse and stimulating read. A variety of perspectives are represented: legal, economic, political scientific and the practitioner’s. One benefit of a volume like this is that it provides a salient snapshot of the major concerns of the field at a particular moment. What concerns emerge here? Most prominent is perhaps the debate over the ‘legitimacy’ of the European Union and its alleged ‘democratic deficit’. In a characteristically clear and provocative essay, Andrew Moravcsik assures us that no such deficit exists. Critical responses by Wolfgang Wessels and especially Andrew Scott point out that Moravcsik’s view follows inexorably from his intergovernmental premises. A chapter by Yves Mény suggests that popular dissatisfaction with the EU stems from a lack of democratic institutions, and a chapter by Pat Cox argues that a more powerful parliament will enhance legitimacy and make EU politics more ‘real’. Without criticizing the quality of the essays, one might have wished that all these authors had engaged in some preliminary discussion of what they consider ‘democratic’ in the first place—the interpretations seem to vary. Naturally intertwined with these issues are debates about Europe’s institutions. J. H. H. Weiler identifies five ‘hard choices’ the constitutional Convention should make, including the important question of form: treaty or constitution. The prospects for major institutional reform are assessed by Johan P. Olsen, who argues that ‘the need for comprehensive reform may be reduced by improving ordinary processes of learning and adaptation’ and ‘strengthening reform capabilities’ (p. 61). Beyond institutions, the volume also evinces a growing concern with European social and industrial policy. Fritz W. Scharpf presents an analysis of the legal means by which the ‘fundamental inequality’ (p. 129) between social and economic power in the EU might be reduced. The chapter is complemented by Tony Atkinson’s somewhat more concrete essay on recent progress and prospects with regard to social issues. Paul Marginson and Keith Sisson’s essay on industrial relations is more a contextual essay on the state of industrial relations in Europe than an assessment of the prospects for initiatives at the EU level itself. Three chapters also take up the important subject of Europe’s relations with the rest of the world. Anne Deighton reviews the history of European Security and Defence Policy, pointing to its revolutionary implications for the ‘character’ of the EU (p. 291). A comment by Kori Schake provides a positive American perspective. In another chapter, Robert Keohane examines the changing European conception of sovereignty, arguing (not altogether convincingly) that it provides a model for regionalism in other parts of the world and (much more convincingly) that it will increasingly create tensions between the United States and Europe. Finally, although already a reality, European Monetary Union is still very much an issue of concern. Paul de Grauwe presents a very clear and especially cutting critique of the European Central Bank’s general anti-inflationary aims as well as its focus on monetary aggregates (in his view a practical anachronism) in pursuing those aims. The problems of the stability and growth pact are analysed by Marco Buti and Gabriele Giudice, who put forward the controversial view that, in the light of enlargement, the pact should be tailored to the individual needs of different economies. This collection is a challenging read. The approaches are diverse and the chapters are dense and in many cases require a substantial background in the field of the author. It is thus clearly an excellent resource for advanced students and those seeking to familiarize themselves with the state of the art in integration studies today. Christopher Chivvis, New York University, USA
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Russia and the former Soviet republics
Putin’s Russia: past imperfect, future uncertain. Edited by Dale R. Herspring. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. 2003. 296pp. Index. $75.00. 0 7425 1967 8. Pb.: $26.95. 0 7425 1968 6. In his foreword, Dale Herspring remarks on the paucity of literature on President Putin and his administration. Gathering a number of predominantly American scholars, he sets out to rectify this omission by presenting a panoramic impression of the first three years of the Putin presidency, its successes and its failures. The contributions cover a wide range of subjects: democratization, political parties, the media, corruption, the economy, the oligarchs, the military, Chechnya, the regions and Russian foreign policy. The best chapters are those by Timothy Colton and Michael McFaul on ‘Putin and democratization’, Thomas Remington on ‘Putin, the Duma, and political parties’, and Nikolai Petrov and Darrell Slider on ‘Putin and the regions’. What distinguishes these contributions above others is that they provide genuine insights and analysis in addition to information. Colton and McFaul mount a highly persuasive case (supported by revealing data) to counter the conventional wisdom that the Russian people are not interested in democracy. They argue that ‘[o]rder and democracy should not be thought of as two poles on a continuum’ (p. 27) and note that the 1990s saw a ‘very significant mutation’ of Russia’s traditionally authoritarian political culture (p. 34). They make the point that the general public ‘have assimilated democratic values faster than the elite has negotiated democratic institutions’ (p. 35) and that the trend towards authoritarianism under Putin is by no means a reflection of popular attitudes. Remington gets to the heart of the political system in Russia. He rightly observes that Putin does not seek to eliminate party political activity, but rather ‘to make the political arena more orderly, more regulated, more manageable, and less fragmented’ (p. 55). The main purpose of Putin’s notionally pluralist system is for ‘weak parties’ on right and left ‘to provide safe outlets for political dissent’ (p. 56). Ultimately, his bargain is the offer of ‘organizational rights to organized political interests in return for their support of his policies and power’ (p. 56). Petrov and Slider are fascinating on Putin’s approach to the regions. Unlike many treatments of the subject which focus almost entirely on the Kremlin’s statist project, they tie the development of ‘multiple instruments of strong vertical control’ (p. 222) to an attack on Russian democracy more broadly. Although the parallel to Paul I—‘who could well have become the greatest counterreformer in Russian history’ (p. 222)—is somewhat far-fetched, the point about Putin’s anti-democratic instincts is made convincingly, as it is in Michael McFaul and Masha Lipman’s chapter on ‘Putin and the media’. The latter sound an appropriately cautionary note about the disjunction between Putin’s alleged pro-western tilt post–9/11 and the de-democratization of the Russian polity (p. 76). The Kremlin’s determination to suppress the independent media—and control dissent more generally—emerges clearly in this essay and in Peter Rutland’s piece on ‘Putin and the oligarchs’. It is unfortunate that the weakest chapter concerns perhaps the most important subject of all. James Millar’s ‘Putin and the economy’ attempts to place contemporary Russian economic policy in a historical context by comparing it to reforms undertaken under Khrushchev, Gorbachev and Yeltsin. Unfortunately, the outcome is a mishmash of tangential historical detail, vague con- jecture and tendentious judgements. There is minimal recognition of reforms Putin has initiated in the areas of tax, property, investment and economic integration (most notably through the WTO accession process), while some of the claims are astonishing: ‘With the exception of China, the countries Putin has been reaching out to are either global outcasts or economic basket cases’ (p. 122); ‘Putin appears to have more in common with Brezhnev than with his more decisive, risk-taking predecessors’ (p. 122). Fortunately, this essay is an exception. Other chapters, while lacking in analytical depth, nevertheless provide useful summaries of developments in different areas under Putin. Herspring’s
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own contributions on the military and Russian foreign policy fall into this category. In the former chapter, he gives a comprehensive account of the problems in the armed forces, although his claim that under Putin ‘a serious effort is being made to address the military’s problems’ (p. 173) remains unproven. A generally sound chapter on foreign policy (with Peter Rutland) is marred slightly by an excessive emphasis on the significance of 9/11 in the evolution of Moscow’s world- view—witness the alarmist claim that US–Russian relations were in danger of foundering ‘on the rocks of the ABM treaty’ before 9/11 changed everything (p. 239). Although this collection of essays does not entirely elude the problem of variable quality that afflicts most edited volumes, it is a serious and largely successful attempt to portray the changes and continuities in Putin’s Russia. Herspring has shed valuable light on a subject of past neglect and growing importance. Bobo Lo, Russia & Eurasia Programme, Royal Institute of International Affairs, UK
Social construction of international politics: identities and foreign policies, Moscow, 1955 and 1999. By Ted Hopf. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 2002. 299pp. Index. $52.50. 0 8014 4036 X. Pb.: $24.95. 0 8014 8791 9. Applying the social constructivist approach to International Relations developed by Alexander Wendt, Ted Hopf aims in this book to ‘provide in-depth, empirical case studies’ to investigate ‘how identity might affect foreign policy choice’ (p. xi). Sensitive to criticism that constructivists have been preoccupied with theoretical issues, he seeks to demonstrate that his method can explain Soviet and Russian foreign policy better than others. Although he pays tribute to sovietology, he says with regret that he is not able to discuss the academic literature on Soviet and Russian foreign policy. This is something of a handicap; it means that he cannot in fact compare his own work with earlier attempts at explanation by people familiar with the field. As a social constructivist, Hopf seeks to derive state identity from within domestic society, not from the interaction between states. He discovers various discourses of identity in the USSR in 1955 and in Russia in 1999, and links these identities with attitudes towards foreign states. At the risk of over-simplification, I would say that Hopf sees identity as an independent variable and foreign policy as a dependent variable. Identity determines interest; the identity of policy-makers determines their interest in other states, and hence their policy towards those states. He uses what he terms an ‘interpretivist’ method for the ‘inductive recovery of identity’ (p. 25) from a very impressive range of well-chosen sources. For both 1955 and 1999, he trawls widely read texts such as newspaper articles, speeches and fiction, and for 1955, political archives also. A problem with Hopf’s approach is that these sources were not really independent in 1955; the discourses were controlled by the state, and, no less than foreign policy, reflected the interests of the Party Presidium and the nomenklatura. Themes of working-class solidarity, modernity, the Russian nation and the new Soviet man dominated the domestic identity discourse in 1955, according to Hopf. These all had an impact on alliance choices in Soviet foreign policy. Khrushchev and Molotov both saw relations with Yugoslavia in class terms, but whereas Khrushchev, more tolerant of difference at home, empha- sized that Yugoslavia was socialist, Molotov saw it as deviant and opposed rapprochement with Tito. Other supporters of rapprochement emphasized the common Slav nature of Yugoslavia and Russia, or the Soviet Union’s geopolitical need for alliance with Yugoslavia against the United States. By 1999 the dominant official discourse had, according to Hopf, been replaced by four identity discourses. The new western Russian discourse rejected the Soviet past, and identified with an external other, wanting Russia to become part of the West. The new Soviet Russian discourse, propounded particularly by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, identified with the historical other, the Soviet past, except that it advocated freedom of religion, and it emphasized the solidarity of the Slavs. The liberal essentialist discourse emphasized Russia’s distinctiveness, but rejected much of the Soviet past and sought to build a Russian identity from western, Russian and eastern elements. Hopf describes this as subsuming the Eurasianist orien-
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tation, but the examples adduced are probably closer to what has been referred to as pragmatic nationalism or pragmatic centrism. Finally, Hopf identifies a liberal relativist discourse, that of the intelligentsia, which he sees as cynical about both Russia and the West, and which unlike the other three discourses did not have a practical orientation in foreign policy. Common to these three in 1999 was a desire to assert the control of the federal centre over the regions of Russia; the Caucasus, in particular Chechnya, was seen as a criminalized other in contrast to Russia’s sover- eign self. The Kosovo war was seen through the prism of Chechnya. The new western Russian orientation, already marginalized by the 1998 economic crash, sought to minimize Russian criticism of NATO bombing, seeing Russia’s security in joining the West. The new Soviet Russian orientation favoured an alliance with Yugoslavia, on ethnic grounds. The liberal essen- tialist trend, embracing most of Russian society, rejected alliance with the dictator Milosevic“ ,; but opposed the bombing because it violated Yugoslavia’s sovereignty. Hopf’s discussion focuses on attitudes within society, rather than on policy-making. Foreign policy in Russia, as in most countries, is made by a relatively small number of people; arguably, since 2000, it has been made mainly by just one person, Putin. The book has few references to the statements or identities of the foreign policy institutions, or key persons in 1999 such as Yeltsin and Primakov. Additionally, there is little indication of the process of change in identity. The causes of the disillusionment with the West among foreign policy-makers, in comparison with 1991, are rooted as much in interaction with the West as in changes in Russian society, and Russian identity itself has developed in response to foreign policy experience. While the book has some interesting things to say about Russian foreign policy, it will probably be of more interest to International Relations theorists than to the practical foreign policy community or to Russia specialists. Peter J.S. Duncan, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, UK
Boundary issues in Central Asia. By Necati Polat. Ardsley, NY: Transnational Publishers. 2002. 282pp. Index. $115.00. 1 57105 143 0. In view of the thorny delimitation and other border issues that have been contributing to the growing fragmentation of the Central Asian region, this volume is a particularly timely publication. Although sparse on analysis, Necati Polat draws fully on official and legal documents as well as the wider academic literature on political geography to provide the reader with an unparalleled review of the legal issues surrounding Central Asian boundaries. The volume is divided into four sections and a conclusion. The first section concerns itself with the problems of state succession following the dissolution of the USSR. The second part covers border issues and agreements between Russia and China, the Central Asian states and China, and the Central Asian states and Russia, while the third and fourth parts examine ethno– border issues and transboundary waters, respectively. The appendices of boundary agreements, which comprise nearly one-third of the book’s pages, range from the Treaty of Peking in 1860 to the Treaty on Frontier Regime concluded between the USSR and Iran in 1957. Of special interest are the sections on the status of the Caspian Sea and on contention over transboundary waters in Central Asia. In the former Polat provides especially helpful background information to the protracted and complex dispute over the legal status of the Caspian Sea, the territorial delimitation of which has still not been formally clarified. The latter section leads us through the maze of legal and geographical peculiarities concerning the use of shared water resources in Central Asia, which have led to growing discord among upstream and downstream states. Despite the existence of a number of interstate grievances over transboundary waters in Central Asia, Polat draws on individual and comparative surveys to argue the point that ‘the very nature of the resource and the strong interdependence effected by its transboundary movement act in practice to far outweigh the possible incentives that would induce the interested parties to consider violent conflict.’ In his conclusion, Polat makes the rather sanguine statement that ‘the conversion of the old administrative divisions [of the USSR] into new international boundaries turned out to be
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remarkably uneventful, particularly so in Central Asia.’ This assertion seems premature at best and inaccurate at worst, given that Uzbekistan has encountered innumerable difficulties in working out border delimitation agreements with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and that Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have recently amassed troops on their common border. Despite a somewhat overly optimistic conclusion, this volume will be an invaluable reference source for anyone interested in Central Asian boundary issues and their repercussions for stability in the region. Annette Bohr, University of Manchester, UK
Middle East and North Africa
Iran’s unresolved revolution. By Mark Downes. Aldershot: Ashgate. 2002. 199pp. Index. £45.00. 0 7546 3188 5. This is a book ‘broadly based upon [Downes’s] PhD’, ‘[d]edicated to all those who dare to dream in the darkness of the night’. The dedication is presumably directed to supporters of President Khatami, ‘the left hand [that] does not know, although it may suspect, what the right hand is doing.’ Downes’s contribution is to use the events in revolutionary Iran to advance revolutionary theory. At this point Downes begins to lose the more generalist reader because he adopts a ‘new approach to measuring socio-political unrest in society [which he has developed] utilising Derrida’s concept of binary opposition and marrying it to an analysis of political structures’. Some may ask, ‘who is Derrida?’ The answer is Jacques Derrida, a philospher, who along with ‘binary opposition’ has also introduced the term ‘deconstruction’. Googling ‘Derrida’ produces the web page ‘How to astonish your friends and confound your enemies with deconstruction,’ but only specialists will be informed, or even amused. Downes’s analysis of pre- and post-revolutionary Iran produces a triangle with ‘the State’, ‘the Populace’ and ‘the Political System’, represented by different points. Ascribing values to elections, political institutions, political association, electoral systems, and capacity for change, Downes comes up with two triangles sharing the same base but with the apex for the present regime much closer to a selected equilibrium. Unsurprisingly, Downes concludes: ‘(in) Iran today, the risk of social unrest has decreased significantly since the removal of the Shah. However, it still remains outside of the zone of relative equilibrium and so the possibility of social unrest is still very real.’ Readers who consider that the Shah’s ‘authoritarian government’ perhaps had something going for it compared with the horrors of the last 24 years of the Islamic Republic will object to probably every line of analysis in this book. Perhaps the most valuable pages for the reader interested in Iran are two glossaries, one explaining people, places and organizations, and the other, terms, dates and expressions. Simon Henderson, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, USA
Syria. Neither bread nor freedom. By Alan George. London: Zed Books. 2003. 206pp. Index. £39.95. 1 84277 212 0. Pb.: £22.50. 1 84277 213 9. Alan George is a journalist with high academic qualifications; this book bears evidence of both. Some of its chapters start out with sharp journalistic impressions of aspects of Damascene life; they go on to show evidence of persistent research in the uncomfortable climate of present-day Syria. Chapters deal with the structure of Ba’ath socialist politics and with the ethnic, legal, educational and economic aspects of current Syrian life with historical backgrounds briefly sketched in. In the course of his acknowledgements the author suggests that the Syrian authorities, who provided him with a certain measure of assistance, ‘might not be pleased with my book’. Since he describes the prevailing system created by the late Hafiz al-Asad as ‘cruel, capricious and venal’ and holds that it has ‘turned the country into a vast prison’, that is probably correct. What is impressive is not that the author is not able to name all his sources but that there are some whom,
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presumably with their consent, he is able to cite. It is the experience of those who go to Syria that there are brave people there, still. The great argument in favour of the late president was that from 1970 he had brought stability to a country which had become a byword for being the victim of every kind of local and international plot, intrigue and coup. The price has been long stretches of stagnation during which all reform seemed to be blocked and the beautifully phrased legal safeguards of the constitution were routinely overridden by a State of Emergency first proclaimed in 1963 and still in place today. The same political personnel remained in office for decades, and corruption became embedded in the state structures, as the president became older and more ill, the fact that everything had to go through the presidency meant that nothing much went through at all. One could look over the mass of television dishes of Damascus with the odd reflection that most of them were illegal, so that, as with many other things, they could at any time be an excuse for arbitrary arrest. Political prisoners spent a large part of their lives in especially unpleasant jails (pp. 106–7). Since a three-week rising led by the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama in 1982 was hideously suppressed, there has been no sign of mass disaffection with Ba’ath socialism. What did seem possible to those of us including the author who have a special affection for the country and its people was that the carefully stage-managed succession, following Hafiz al-Asad’s death, of his son Bashar might usher in a period of change. The new young president, elected (it was announced) by 97.29 per cent of the vote (as opposed, Alan George points out, to the still more precise 99.987 per cent attributed to his father), was held to be a scientist who believed in mobile telephones and computers and might therefore be expected to open Syria up to the world. Moreover, the hermetically sealed mental universe of most Syrians was being invaded by Al- Jazeera, the Arabic-language television satellite station in Qatar. The station provided generous coverage of the civil society groups meeting in various salons, out of which grew declarations in favour of human rights and the rule of law. George tells the story of how Bashar began to ease up, by for example releasing some (though not all) long-time political prisoners and appearing to favour the emergence of a free press Then, unhappily, the initiatives began to dwindle away as soon as they had produced evidence—like The Statement of 99 and The Statement of 1,000, which are usefully printed as appendices in this book—that the demands springing from them were very far from the minimalist reforms that the new regime evidently had in mind. Some of the ex-prisoners were rearrested; the salons have been virtually suppressed. It was given out that economic reform would take priority over political reform but to judge by some ministerial statements the former would not proceed very fast either. Ayman Abd an-Nur, one of Bashar al-Asad’s top economic advisers, is quoted by the author as saying, ‘We’re not going to make the same mistakes as Eastern Europe made in embarking on a rapid transition from communism to capitalism.’ The Gorbachev experience has entered into the Ba’athist soul. Keith Kyle
Redefining security in the Middle East. Edited by Tami Amanda Jacoby and Brent E. Sasley. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2002. 176pp. Index. £45.00. 0 7190 6233 0. This welcome collection of articles on security in the Middle East has the important aim of expanding the security agenda with regard to this region in the post-Cold War years. Placing their project squarely within the framework of critical security studies, the editors of the volume contend that such redefinition of security is imperative due to the changed strategic environment in the post- Cold War Middle East, that has rendered conventional security conceptions outdated. New security threats and challenges in this region ‘cannot be understood using traditional variables’ (p. 2). As laid out by the editors, the proposed agenda has both theoretical and empirical implications. The volume’s strength is in its empirical chapters that confront head-on relatively unexplored aspects of security in the region. Taken one by one, each chapter uncovers important insights into the meaning of security for Middle East state and non-state actors, and, taken
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together, the strengths of these analyses outweigh their deficiencies. Moreover, as a collection, they are important for sparking continued debate over security issues, from new perspectives. Of particular note for originality are the chapters by Jonathan B. Isacoff, on discourses of security in Israel; by Tami Amanda Jacoby, on gender relations as they relate to national security in Israel; by Jeffrey Sosland, on the relevance of water scarcity in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict (environmental security); and by Brent E. Sasley, who makes the case for including regimes and societies as ‘essential referent objects of security’. The preface and introduction to the volume, however, which set out the conceptual rationale for the project as a whole, inadvertently cast the proposed ‘critical security studies’ agenda (which the editors define as including Marxism–neomarxism, historical materialism, feminism, environmentalism, post-modernism, and, as they later mention, strands of constructivism) in a somewhat problematic light. In the preface, the editors maintain that in light of the deteriorating security situation in the second intifada, there were those who questioned the project’s research agenda. The editors respond by noting their conviction that this was precisely the time to consider new concepts and discourses of security in the Middle East, as it had ‘become quite obvious that the old ones are not working’ (p. x). But, does this mean that the experienced breakdown of security is in itself a criterion for assessing the validity of a theoretical approach to security issues? Does the outbreak of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian arena render the neorealist discourse irrelevant? This implicit conclusion, as can be understood from the editors’ statement, risks undermining the strength of the ‘critical security agenda’ itself, and the much more sophisticated conceptual challenge that it poses to mainstream security studies and neorealist theory (as set out most convincingly, for example, by Krause and Williams in their contribution to their edited volume entitled Critical security studies [University of Minnesota, 1997] and, from a constructivist perspective, in the introduction to Cultures of insecurity [edited by Weldes, Laffey, Gusterson and Duvall, University of Minnesota, 1999]). The volume similarly suffers from an undue emphasis on the ‘profound transformation’ that conflict in the Middle East has undergone in the post-Cold War years (p. 5), as a primary rationale for adopting a new approach. On the one hand, some of the ‘new’ problems are not really so new, and were in place, and being studied, before the Cold War ended (the editors in fact note that the intifada began in 1987). Equally important, there are a few ‘old’ (state-based) security issues that continue to figure very high on the agendas of different Middle Eastern states, and resonate most clearly in regional politics, as is most clear with regard to weapons of mass destruction, for example. Traditional state-based strategic calculations continue to capture the attention of policy-makers, commentators, and citizens of Middle Eastern states. While the editors of the volume pay lip service to the continued importance of the more military and/or state-oriented facets of security in the Middle East (pp. 7, 13), they emphasize that ‘because of the shift in the international system, inter-state violence is no longer the predominant type of security concern’, and there is a need to explore the new forms of conflict that ‘are proliferating at an unprecedented rate’ (p. 2). It is this assessment that influences the choice of topics for the empirical chapters, exemplified most strikingly by the exaggerated emphasis on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in these analyses. This choice has not only resulted in a severely curtailed research agenda for security studies, but has precluded focused analysis of the more ‘traditional’ security concerns from a critical security perspective. What seems to be needed is a broadened (rather than essentially different) security agenda, which employs a new conceptual framework. The rationale for a new agenda for research into security issues in the Middle East is in pro- viding improved tools for the study of security issues in the region. What justifies its employment in the Middle East is not necessarily the emergence of a new and different set of security challenges, but rather the same rationale that justifies its employment in any sphere of International Relations—namely, its theoretical soundness as a means for gaining better understanding of the sources and meaning of an entire spectrum of security threats, and discourses of insecurity, of both state and non-state actors in the region. This should be underscored in any research endeavour that seeks to redefine security in the Middle East. Emily Landau, Tel Aviv University, Israel
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Asia and Pacific
Pakistan: eye of the storm. By Owen Bennett Jones. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 2002. 328pp. Index. £18.95. 0 300 09760 3. Pakistan: nationalism without nation. Edited by Christophe Jaffrelot. London: Zed Books. 2002. 352pp. Index. £50.00. 1 84277 116 7. Pb.: £14.95. 1 84277 117 5. Who rules Pakistan? Many point to the army, some to the country’s feudal elite. Others talk of ‘Punjabi domination’, while yet others refer darkly to the sway of ‘American interests’. Some even believe that real power rests with the country’s intelligence agencies, although the outcome of the recent general elections would suggest that Islamic radicals might soon dictate the course of politics. Whatever the answer to this question, what is not in doubt, as is made vividly clear by these two studies, is that the centres of power in Pakistan lie far from its people. The key issue, which lies at the heart of Owen Bennett Jones’s thoughtful study—Pakistan: eye of the storm—is: does it matter, except to the people of Pakistan, and if so, why? His argument is simple. ‘Pakistan matters. The country’s proven nuclear capability means that its stability concerns not only those who live there but also the international community as a whole’ (pp. 219–20). But unravelling the roots of Pakistan’s political instability has always been a daunting task, and it is to Bennett Jones’s credit that he is prepared squarely to recognize this. He does not therefore pretend to offer a comprehensive or chronological treatment of Pakistan’s turbulent history. Rather, his approach is thematic, drawing attention to key issues, which he believes have determined Pakistan’s political development since independence in 1947. Many of these will be familiar to observers of Pakistan. They concern the weakness of Pakistan’s democratic institutions, the fragility of its national identity, the political preponderance of the army and the dangers posed by the country’s newly acquired status as a nuclear power. It is, however, the fight for Kashmir, Bennett Jones argues, that ‘has been the single most significant reason for Pakistan’s chronic political instability. The dispute has encouraged the growth of militant Islam, drained economic resources and fuelled Pakistan’s sense of insecurity about India’ (p. xiii). As the BBC’s correspondent in Pakistan between 1998 and 2001, Bennett Jones was well placed to test the veracity of this claim. Drawing on extensive interviews with senior military officers and politicians he shows how the issue of Kashmir has come to serve the interests of significant power centres in the country. Indeed, his analysis of the ill-fated Kargil adventure of 1999, which almost led to war between newly nuclearized India and Pakistan, is a riveting account of the power struggle that engulfed Pakistan’s civil and military establishments at the time. But Bennett Jones also points to other more disturbing consequences of the Kashmir conflict. Of these the most worrying is the emergence of hard-line Islamic groups. For them Kashmir has become a convenient rallying cry for jihad and a means of mobilizing support in favour of an Islamic, possibly Sunni, state in Pakistan inspired by a narrow ‘Deobandi’ reading of the Sharia. More ominous still is the suggestion that the influence of these groups has been enhanced by their close association with sections of the army and its intelligence agencies which, Bennett Jones claims, have been radically Islamized, especially since the 1980s. The manner in which this latest phase of Islamization could, paradoxically, ‘undermine the very foundations of Pakistan by promoting a trans-national (instead of a nationalist) version of Islam’ is more fully explored by the contributors to Pakistan: nationalism without nation edited by Christophe Jaffrelot (p. 36). This volume, consisting of some entries already published under the French title, Le Pakistan, carrefour de tensions régionales (reviewed in International Affairs 76: 1) revives the debate about Pakistan’s putative ‘Islamic’ national identity in the context of regional tensions arising from civil unrest in neighbouring Afghanistan and Kashmir. Underlying Jaffrelot’s argument is the debatable proposition that Pakistani nationalism, as it stands, is a negative phenomenon that draws sustenance primarily from defining itself in opposition to India. Most of the contributions therefore are concerned mainly with demonstrating how both sociology and ideology have conspired against the emergence of a coherent national identity in Pakistan. Ian
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Talbot and Yunus Samad offer some interesting insights in this regard. In his ‘Punjabization of Pakistan: myth or reality?’ Talbot addresses the contentious issue of the Punjabi domination of Pakistan, and concludes that ‘the depiction of a monolithic and unified Punjabi interest is as much a myth as Punjabi economic and political dominance is a reality’ (p. 59). Samad’s contribution, by contrast, is a fascinating study of how separatist tendencies developed and were instrumentalized among the Urdu-speaking Mohajirs, who until recently were strongly associated with pro-state ‘Islamic ideology’. It is, however, the failure of Pakistan’s founding ‘Islamic ideology’ to overcome the country’s many social and political divisions that constitutes the meat of this book. Its most graphic illustration has been the hideous spiral of sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shi’is over the last two decades. Vali Nasr, Mariam Abou Zahab, Sumit Ganguly and Saeed Shafqat expertly discuss its domestic imperatives, governing ideologies and seemingly infinite capacity to feed off and into regional conflicts centring on Kashmir and Afghanistan. The complicity of Pakistan’s state agencies in furthering sectarian violence and fomenting Islamic militancy through policies pursued in Kashmir and Afghanistan since the 1980s are also examined in some detail. Indeed, the shadow of Pakistan’s military intelligence agencies, especially the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), looms large in this volume, enjoying the kind of mythic status once reserved for the Shah of Iran’s dreaded secret service, SAVAK. Nevertheless, the contributions by Gilles Dorronsoro and Olivier Roy are careful to avoid any crude explanations of precisely how the ISI exercises power, especially in the field of foreign policy. Dorronsoro, for example, recognizes that the ISI’s support for the Taleban in Afghanistan was crucial to Pakistan’s long-term goal of establishing a ‘protectorate state in Kabul’ (p. 170), but he is also clear that ‘the Taleban is neither a pure Pakistani creation nor an Afghan phenomenon and [that] the intermeshing of the two is a complex affair’ (p. 166). Roy too, while in no doubt about Pakistan’s ‘manipulation of Islamic militant groups as tools for covert action, influence and remote control’, is mindful that the policy of using proxies is ultimately the recourse of ‘weak’ states like Pakistan, for which it has ‘proved to be very efficient against the Soviet Union [in Afghanistan] and India [in Kashmir] and allowed Pakistan to escape strong criticism and pressure from the West’ (p. 157). Both these books are eminently readable though it is likely that Bennett Jones’s will have the wider appeal generally denied to more specialist studies of the kind assembled by Jaffrelot. Nevertheless, both must be valued for their search to answer difficult questions about Pakistan, which has yet to overcome its most dangerous challenges. Farzana Shaikh
Ethnic conflict and secessionism in South and Southeast Asia. Edited by Rajat Ganguly and Ian MacDuff. London: Sage. 2003. 292pp. Index. $49.95. 0 7619 9604 4. Despite their many similarities, one principal difference between the Cold War and the post-9/11 war on terror is the extent of superpower involvement in regional conflicts. No matter how tenuous the connection to the ideological and security interests driving competition between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, few if any regional conflicts in that era failed to elicit some degree of superpower engagement. In marked contrast, several current regional conflicts in which terrorism figures heavily have not drawn the interest of ‘the last superpower’ in its war on terror. Despite the recent, breathtaking expansion in the number and size of United States military combat and training commitments, Washington’s decisions to intervene militarily in regional conflicts have been as selective and thus inconsistent as have been its decisions to officially designate states as ‘state sponsors of terrorism’. Plainly, the United States is at war with only a subset of terrorist movements and their state sponsors, rather than with all terrorist movements or all state sponsors of terror. Only one of the six-case studies in this interesting collection of seven essays involves a conflict that Washington has deemed sufficiently important for a troop deployment as part of the war on
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terror. Approximately 2,000 United States special forces and marines are deployed in Mindanao- Sulu region in the southern Philippines to combat the Abu Sayyaf group, which is connected to the Al-Qaeda network. The insurgency among the Moros, the Muslim minority in the majority Christian Philippines, is detailed in Syed Serajul Islam’s ‘Ethno-communal conflict in the Philippines: the case of Mindanao-Sulu region’. Ethnic conflicts in Indian Kashmir, the Tamil north-east in Sri Lanka, Sindh in Pakistan, East Timor and Bougainville in Papua New Guinea are the focuses of the other five case-studies in this collection. Although not intended as a survey of all of ethnic conflicts in South and South-East Asia, it is nonetheless unfortunate that this book does not include a case-study of any of the ethnic conflicts in Burma. Given its multiple ethno-nationalist separatist movements, some of which are active challenges to the military regime in Rangoon and others of which have been effectively defeated, a contemporaneous democracy movement that has engaged human rights activists around the world, its status as a client state of the People’s Republic of China, and a geographic position straddling South and South-East Asia, failure to include an article about Burma is no small oversight. Notwithstanding, the editors of this volume have brought together seven interesting and informative essays. Among the most insightful of the essays is Peter Chalk’s ‘The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam insurgency in Sri Lanka’, which describes the political origins and subsequent development of the insurgency among the Tamil minority in the north and east of Sri Lanka that is now dominated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The obstacles to ending this particular ‘hurting stalemate’ are explained with clarity and precision. So too are the related requisites for achieving peace, of a sort. Chalk recommends that Colombo increase its diplomatic efforts to reduce the LTTE’s ability to raise funds and buy weapons abroad, that foreign governments limit the activities of the LTTE within their borders, that Colombo do a more convincing job of persuading the Tamil population of the island that it represents their best interests, that Colombo reform its highly politicized and ineffectual intelligence services, and that the Sri Lankan military move to special forces combat operations (pp. 151–3). That peace might be attainable only through more effective military operations is attributable to the uncompromis- ing attitude of Velupillai Prabhakaran (p. 139). The LTTE leader simply cannot make the concessions necessary for a lasting peace agreement because he could not survive the transition from insurgent leader to ordinary politician (p. 139). Collapse of his charismatic power and assassination are too likely to be his fate. Another interesting essay, Vernon Hewett’s ‘An area of darkness, still? The political evolution of ethnic identities in Jammu and Kashmir, 1947–2001’, is a political history of that intractable conflict. While the major political personalities and the international legal dispute surrounding the Kashmir crisis will be familiar territory for many readers, the author successfully weaves these into a narrative about changing national identity. After comparing the construction of Pakistani and Indian national identities, with all of their attendant contradictions and weaknesses, Hewett unwraps the problematic nature of national identity for Muslims in India, and especially for the Muslim majority in Indian Kashmir. Motivating and reflecting change in national identity in India is the increasing mobilization of religious ethnicity, which is attributable to three sources. First, the appeal of secularism is largely restricted to the country’s westernized elite, who underestimated the importance of religion among the country’s masses and other elites. ‘Second, the state, in recognizing one set of rights and ignoring others, encouraged ethnic identities in India to disguise their religious agendas, and failed to adequately comprehend the multiple nature of ethnic signifiers within a specific group and their dynamism over time’ (pp. 64–5). Thus the state created incentives for coded or disingenuous ideological projects like, India’s ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata’s ‘cultural’ conception of Hindutva. Third, the national government repeatedly engaged in ‘high risk’ political interventions into state politics premised on ethnic challenges but actually intended to generate short-term political benefits. Kashmir was subject to repeated political intervention from New Delhi. Although motivated in part by its anxiety about Islamist mobilization, these interventions had the perverse consequence of exacerbating such
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confessional mobilization. Before the crisis of 1990, national identity for the majority Muslim Kashmiris was a composite identity based on the Kashmiri language, Sunni Islam, centuries of shared historical experience, dietary and clothing traditions. Excepting religion, much of this was shared by the state’s Sikh and Pandit minorities. After the crisis, which resulted in the permanent flight of 300,000 Pandits to Jammu, little remained of the shared Kashmiri identity. Finally, note should be taken of David Carment’s excellent ‘Secessionist ethnic conflict in South and South-East Asia: a comparative perspective’. By including this essay, the editors have provided readers with a nicely structured and very complete survey of the relevant theoretical literature. John Hickman, Berry University, USA
North America
Bush v. Gore. The court cases and the commentary. Edited by E. J. Dionne Jr. and William Kristol. Washington DC: Brookings. 2001. 344pp. Index. $15.95. 0 8157 0107 1. Bush v. Gore. The question of legitimacy. Edited by Bruce Ackerman. 2002. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 240pp. Index. Pb.: $26.95. 0 300 09379 9. Forget that in the November 2000 election Gore received more popular votes than Bush. That does happen under various political systems—Attlee’s party had more votes than Churchill’s in 1951 and Heath’s more than Wilson’s in February 1974. What concerned observers of the last American contest was that the prize in what was virtually a dead heat was awarded by the appointed Justices of the United States Supreme Court. Not only this but the judgements were split, with one of the main findings helpful to George W. Bush being carried merely by the same 5: 4 vote that was accustomed to determining legal issues in a conservative fashion. This was held by several of the law professors and others who contribute to the two volumes under review to constitute a scandal, not least because those same conservative judges had argued in other cases for maximum restraint in interference with decisions of the individual states. At times, particularly with the Yale book, it sounds as if the prime motive of many of the authors was the dread of having to face their own students when the chaotic sequel to the election in the state of Florida made it look as though politics and law were indeed, as many students assumed, indistinguishable concepts. To a professional commentator at the last presidential ‘dead heat’—the Kennedy v. Nixon election of 1960—it does seem astonishing that 40 years on the election laws which, even for the presidency, are decided by the individual states should still—and not only in Florida—be in such a muddle. Technology does not seem to have helped, with it being applied differently not just from one state to the next but also between different jurisdictions within a given state. Nor is there any uniformity about the handling of recounts. It was on this point that the majority on the US Supreme Court found sufficient grounds for the federal level to intervene to uphold equal protection of the law. Four justices thought the grounds were remarkably thin for agreeing to touch the matter at all, and two of them went along with Justice Stevens in holding that ‘the identity of the loser (in this year’s presidential election) is perfectly clear. It is the nation’s confidence in the judge as the impartial guardian of the rule of law.’ On the other hand it must be said that the Florida Supreme Court was itself split when its majority ordered a complete manual check of disputed ballots, with its Chief Justice filing a blistering dissent. Readers of the Brookings volume can find most of the relevant legal texts, together with a brief but balanced series of instant commentaries, including a carefully reasoned summation originally published in the Wall Street Journal by Michael McConnell of the University of Utah. The essays in the Yale book are longer, more concerned with possible consequences (with titles like ‘Can the rule of law survive Bush v. Gore?’), and with the choice of contributors more weighted against the US Supreme Court. Nevertheless the book starts off with a straightforward defence of the latter’s performance by Charles Fried of the Harvard Law School entitled, ‘An
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unreasonable reaction to a reasonable decision’. Yet the general tone of the ‘talkfest’ that preceded its composition may be judged by the chapter contributed by the editor, Bruce Ackerman, which calls for a Senate blockage of confirmation hearings to fill any vacancies that may occur in the ranks of the Supreme Court this side of another presidential election. Reading these books leaves the impression that for all the hyperactivity involved the most sensible use was not made of the two months that elapsed between 7 November, when the ballots were cast, and 6 January when the formal proclamation of the national result took place and that this was largely due to a fixation both in Tallahassee (the capital of Florida) and in Washington on a fictitious, or at least unnecessary, deadline of 12 December. On the basis of such evidence as has since emerged it seems increasingly unlikely that Bush would still have won if the ‘undervotes’— the ballots insufficiently perforated in those counties using the defective punch-card method— had all been added to the reckoning. That leaves out of account the strong possibility that a majority of Floridians did want to vote for Gore (who if this wish had been effectively expressed would now be president) but that their intent was frustrated by the clumsy arrangement (incidentally, by a Democratic election official) of the ten presidential candidates on the ballot. This almost certainly resulted in votes being wasted, either by being mistakenly cast for a no- hoper or by appearing to have been cast for two candidates and it would seem likely, for various reasons, that these wasted votes were disproportionately intended for the Democratic candidate. But it is hard to see by what method these ‘overvotes’ could have been counted short of a rerun of the election itself in all or parts of Florida. The one thing to be said for the Supreme Court’s action, most authors accept, is that it achieved closure, political closure that is, certainly not the closure of polemics between legal practitioners and academics. Keith Kyle
Our enemies and US: America’s rivalries and the making of political science. By Ido Oren. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 2002. 234pp. Index. $29.95. 0 8014 3566 8. In this important and courageous book, Oren engages in a research activity in which few American political scientists dare to venture, namely a critical investigation of the history of the discipline. His book is the latest contribution to a small, but growing, number of critical disciplinary histories that collectively question the conventional self-image of political science and the sub-field of International Relations (IR). Oren directly challenges the self-image of American political science as an objective, value-free enterprise devoted to the scientific pursuit of knowledge. He provides an abundance of detailed information about many of the discipline’s leading scholars and their scholarship, as well as their advising and consulting work for the US government, to cast serious doubt on the claim that American political science is somehow outside or above politics. While many political scientists believe that their sophisticated theories and methods allow them to escape Max Weber’s claim that all social scientists are unavoidably shaped by their historical and national context, Oren concurs with Weber and argues that political science in the United States reflects a distinct American perspective. Although paradoxical, given its claim to be value-free, another element of the conventional self-image of American political science is that it is committed to democratic values. Yet as he carefully reconstructs the history of the discipline from the late 1800s to the present, Oren finds that there has often been a large gap between the discipline’s alleged commitment to democracy and what prominent political scientists, such as John Burgess, Woodrow Wilson, Charles Merriam, Gabrial Almond and Samuel Huntington, have actually written in their scholarly journal articles and books. In numerous cases, he finds that political scientists have been more committed to America than to democracy per se. What makes Oren’s book especially relevant to IR scholars is his intriguing thesis that the history of America’s foreign relations with its various enemies, such as Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Soviet Union, have profoundly impacted the substantive and theoretical core of political science. Through a number of detailed case-
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studies, he uncovers a close intimacy between political science and the politics of US foreign policy. The key piece of evidence that Oren carefully presents is that as the United States’ relationship with particular regimes changed from essentially one of friend to enemy, as was the case with both Imperial and Nazi Germany, there was a concomitant transformation of political scientists’ images of these regimes as well as of America itself. Controversially, Oren argues that this systematic pattern of change in political scientists’ pre- and post-conflict images of Italy, Germany and the Soviet Union had less to do with new ‘facts’ that were learned about these regimes than with the particular American character of the discipline. On the basis of the historical evidence that Oren uncovers, he argues that American political science bears all the characteristics of a historically and nationally rooted ideology. Thus when political scientists debate concepts like democracy, they are really, according to Oren, debating the identity of America. And since identity is always a relational concept, Oren reveals how American political scientists’ image of the United States, what he calls ‘US’, has been derived by comparing it to a number of ‘other’ regimes. The pattern that he documents is that when the United States had friendly relations with Germany and the Soviet Union, political scientists tended to be accommodationist and were attracted to these regimes for possible solutions to pressing problems at home. But when these regimes became the declared enemies of the United States, political scientists quickly dropped an accommodationist stance and embraced nationalism, arguing that they were the very antithesis of American democracy. Critics of mainstream political science will find that this book supports many of their intuitions about the ideological nature of the American science of politics, while those in the mainstream may be left shocked and horrified. Whatever the case, Oren’s factually based account of the development of American political science provides a wealth of thought-provoking material that all serious scholars can ill afford to ignore. Brian C. Schmidt, SUNY New Paltz, USA
Latin America and Caribbean
Ecuador vs. Peru: peacemaking amid rivalry. By Monica Herz and João Pontes Nogueira. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. 2002. 124pp. Index. Pb.: £9.50. 1 58826 075 5. In 1995 the illusion of peaceful interstate relations in South America was shattered by the resumption of armed conflict between Ecuador and Peru in the disputed Cenepa valley. Far from being an isolated incident, the renewal of fighting between the two countries over a portion of Amazonia represented the continuation of a border war that had been simmering with varying degrees of intensity for close to 100 years. The difference after this particular spate of fighting was that talks hastily organized by the guarantors of the 1942 Rio de Janeiro settlement resulted in a potentially sustainable peace. In the volume under review here Monica Herz and João Pontes Nogueira explain how and why the guarantors proved successful in obtaining a peace treaty in October 1998. The authors build their analysis around the theory of enduring rivalry, asking not only why tensions were limited to small border clashes, but also what changes allowed settlement of the conflict in 1998. A significant portion of the book is devoted to context, exploring the origins of the dispute and tracing its evolution through to the outbreak of war in the Cenepa valley in 1995. Woven through this account is an explanation of the intervening factors which prevented the guarantor nations—namely Argentina, Brazil, Chile and the United States—from getting Ecuador and Peru to agree on the location of their Amazonian border. The argument advanced by the authors is that the end of the Cold War created a new regional security environment which, when combined with the rise of regionalism, created a new impetus for peace that spurred both the belligerents and the guarantors. Creativity in conflict resolution was the policy outcome of these pressures, with the newly inaugurated Cardoso presidency in Brazil acting with particular alacrity to stop the fighting and start negotiations. (Here, students of conflict resolution will find
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the account of the negotiation strategy particularly valuable.) Rather than pressing for an immediate agreement on the location of the border between Ecuador and Peru, Brazilian diplomats instead pressed for a more protracted negotiating process. Serious points of contention were set aside in a process called subsistent impasses and attention was turned by the diplomats to four parallel negotiating panels dealing with navigation and commerce, economic integration, border demarcation and security building measures. Significantly, three of these panels focused on overcoming the underlying conditions that perpetuated the enduring rivalry, the intent being to develop mutual confidence on a grass roots, institutional and governmental level, as well as to convince all involved parties that peace was more rewarding than continued conflict. As the authors note in some detail, this extended and patient procedure allowed the peace negotiations to continue through a series of political upheavals in both countries, culminating in the 26 October 1998 peace treaty ceremony in Brasília. The strength of this important book lies in its narration of events after the 1995 war in the Cenepa valley. Detailed information on the negotiation process is hard to obtain, as the Brazilian foreign ministry archives on this subject are firmly closed to researchers. As such, the authors’ use of interviews with key actors provide the reader with a unique window into the peacemaking process. And yet these same interviews can be seen to open room for what is perhaps a churlish criticism of a text identified as a case-study of a specific peacemaking process. Throughout the text it is made clear that both the Organization of American States (an organization perceived by some as US-dominated) and the United Nations were not involved in bringing an end to the conflict. Rather, Brazil emerges as the leading actor in the drive for peace, a drive which results not only in the Brazilian foreign ministry taking a lead role in the negotiations, but also in the Brazilian military commanding Argentine, Chilean and US troops in the military observation mission in the Cenepa valley. Placed in the broader context of hemispheric relations that sees increasing contention between the US and Brazil in the Free Trade Area of the Americas process, the Ecuador–Peru peacemaking case might prompt one to ask why Brazil pushed so hard for peace. Detailed research is scarce on the security dimension of the Brazilian-led concept of South America as a viable geopolitical space. The evidence presented by the authors, both scholars with the International Relations Institute of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, almost begs a companion volume exploring the dynamics between the guarantor nations, asking what changes the post-Cold War era has brought to the provision of security in South America. Sean W. Burges, University of Warwick, UK
Colombia: fragmented land, divided society. By Frank Safford and Marco Palacios. New York, NY: Oxford University Press USA. 2001. 416pp. £45.00. 0 19 514312 4. Pb.: £22.50. 0 19 504617 x. There has long been a need for a general English-language history of Colombia—traditionally the most neglected by outside historians of the larger countries of Latin America—to provide an overall framework to complement and contextualize a growing monographic literature. The broad lineaments of such a history were, in part, provided by David Bushnell, the doyen of US historians of Colombia, in his The making of modern Colombia (University of California Press, 1993), a standard narrative which limited itself, however, to the national period. Now two well- established historians of a younger generation have attempted to fill the lacuna with the latest volume in the slowly gestating and metamorphosing Oxford University Press Latin American histories series. This particular volume in the series is unusual in that it has two authors. This has lent a certain hybrid quality to the work as each has adopted a rather different approach to his respective period. Frank Safford, charged with the most substantive part of the text, proceeds in a traditional historian’s vein with a judicious admixture of histoire événementielle and socio-economic analysis and with a clear view to the influence that an adverse topography has played in Colombia’s
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historical development. Marco Palacios, drawing from an earlier work published in Colombia, on the other hand, treats the post-1875 period in a predominantly thematic manner with little room for chronological narrative. This works well, for example, in the sustained discussion of Colombia’s political culture of violence but can render some periods such as the Conservative Republic, in particular the years 1903–28, somewhat nebulous. Both authors also appear to pitch their text at different audiences, Safford towards those first essaying in an acquaintance with Colombian history while Palacios assumes at least some prior chronological knowledge of twentieth-century developments. In their distinctive ways both authors, nonetheless, contribute insights into the Colombian historical experience and they do this in a writing style that is refreshingly lucid. The main shortcomings of this work lie more in the realm of omission than commission. First, the authors fail to adequately advance a considered explanation for the extraordinary longevity of the traditional liberal and conservative parties, despite periods of extreme factionalism and intermittent interparty factional alliances with the potential for party realignment, which differentiates Colombia from most other countries in Latin America. Various possible reasons for this are alluded to en passant throughout the text, but would assuredly have merited summation at some juncture. Secondly, the question as to why elite civilian rule rather than military pronunciamentos has generally been the norm in Colombia, again in contrast to the rest of the region, is not sufficiently addressed. Thirdly, in a work that stresses Colombia’s intense regionalism vast swathes of country such as the Chocó and the Llanos Orientales only intrude when they impact on the ‘national’ scene and are not treated as of much interest in their own right. Fourthly, Colombia’s not uncontentious race relations might have commanded more attention. Finally, readers of this journal might well be disappointed at the short shrift the authors give to Colombia’s foreign relations except as it pertains to the impending loss of Panama. Grow- ing US involvement in the 1990s in the anti-drug war is, for example, not even touched upon. None of the aforementioned should detract from what is a useful contribution to the English- language historiography of Colombia. There is much here for both the novice and the more advanced student, who will surely be encouraged to make further entradas into the Colombian labyrinth. Philip Chrimes
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