Stanford U. Press

Bootstrapping democracy; transforming local governance and civil society in Brazil.

Investigating local experiences with Brazil's participatory budgeting initiative, the authors (professors of sociology at Brown U., US, and the Federal U. of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil) decided that their most striking finding was the ways in which local actors and state actors proved extremely adept at adapting the national "blueprint" diffused by the Brazilian state to local realities. Analyzing these processes of participatory budgeting, they came to see them as "bootstrapping democracy," by which they intend to signify that they are, at one and the same time, an instrumental response to the challenge of coordinating the functions of local government with the inputs of local civil society and an ethico-political project of empowering citizens. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The Cold War in East Asia, 1945-1991.

Editor Hasegawa (history, U. of California, Santa Barbara) and 10 historians provide an account of the multitude of alliances and conflicts of the 1945-1991 Cold War. While the Cold War is considered by many to have primarily involved the United States and the then-Soviet Union, it was much more a multi-national phenomenon. The authors examined the relationships and interactions between the United States, the Soviet Union, China, North and South Korea, and Japan as distinct from the European Cold War. The book will interest readers who wish to learn more of the detail, complexities, politics, and other elements of this extremely tense era in global history. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Comparing special education; origins to contemporary paradoxes.

Richardson (sociology, Western Washington U.) and Powell (Social Science Research Center, Berlin, Germany) identify variable patterns and conditions across the world in the institutional and organizational construction of special education and in the ways that special education is understood and practiced, examining specific similarities and differences within and across countries in relation to special education participation rates, categories and types of schools, stated goals of special education, and national policies towards special education. They then theoretically interpret the identified patterns, analyzing the continuum of institutionalized organization forms from segregated settings to inclusive classrooms, and the continuum of national education governance from centralization to decentralization, as well as the social logics that influence how these organizational forms evolve. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Contested conversions to Islam; narratives of religious change in the early modern Ottoman Empire.

It is widely known that the Muslim Ottoman Empire not only tolerated converts from Christian lands it occupied, but instigated mechanisms to help them integrate into Muslim society, says Krstic (medieval studies, Central European U., Budapest), but that does not mean there were no problems or tensions. She draws on narratives by Ottoman Muslim and Christian authors between the 15th and 16th centuries to explore competing and constantly evolving concepts of conversion. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Criminals and victims.

Allen (economics, U. of Alabama) explores the microeconomics of criminals and victims. He models how both criminals and victims operate as rational economic actors in their decision-making. Focusing first on offender behavior, he addresses the microeconomics of planning of crime, violence and damages, destruction of evidence, and recidivism. In the second half, he discusses the microeconomics of crime victims in chapters looking at self-protection against crime victimization, the decision to resist, the decision to report, and labor-market consequences of crime victimization. General reviews of the literature for both criminals and victims are also included. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Defending national treasures; French art and heritage under Vichy.

Karlsgodt (history, U. of Denver) has carried out exhaustive research in order to reconstruct the policies of art preservation under the Vichy government in France. She provides specific accounts of how and why French administrators formulated new laws regarding French cultural patrimony, then describes the complex process of evacuating art collections from the museums and keeping them safe in the provinces, negotiations with the acquisitive Nazis (including the story of the Bayeux Tapestry's travels), the give and take between the French museum administrators and the Germans over the formerly Jewish-owned art collections, and the reorganization of the museums and formulation of new preservation measures and archaeological regulations. Two chapters detail the acquisition of bronze statues throughout France that were melted down in Germany. Painstakingly detailed, this important study brings nuance to a painful story. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The entrepreneur; classic texts by Joseph A. Schumpeter.

Becker (strategic organization design, U. of Southern Denmark) presents English translations of all of Joseph A. Schumpeter's writing on entrepreneurship. The works were originally written in German in 1911, 1928, 1934, 1942, and 1947; two of the writings have not been published in English before, and one has been retranslated. An introduction of about 40 pages traces the development of Schumpeter's ideas on entrepreneurship from their first appearance in 1911 through the late 1940s. The introduction also gives an example of combining some of Schumpeter's theory with other theories to understand entrepreneurship in a new way. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Gender and Islam in Africa; rights, sexuality, and law.

Each year the Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa (ISITA) at Northwestern University selects a theme and invites a scholar to organize a focused seminar and conference. Badran (Woodrow Wilson Center and Georgetown U.), a historian specializing in women and gender issues in Muslim societies, was chosen to lead investigation of gender. She invited scholars from Africa and elsewhere to participate in the Conference on Gender and Islam in Africa: Women's Discourses, Practices, and Empowerment. Papers from that conference, augmented with further research, offer thoughtful description of life stories and thought-provoking discourse. A sampling of topics: a social biography of a Sufi woman scholar in postcolonial Niger; deconstructing Islamic feminism (a look at Fatima Mernissi); changing conception of moral womanhood in Somali popular songs; video, gender, and Islam (Titanic in Kano); and family law reform in Mali. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Global citizenship and the university; advancing social life and relations in an interdependent world.

Adopting a case study approach informed by critical social science, authors Rhoads (Globalization and Higher Education Research Center, UCLA) and Szelényi (higher education, U. of Massachusetts-Boston) present an original global citizenship typology. After an introductory chapter outlining major theoretical points, four case studies of universities in China, the US, Hungary, and Argentina are presented to challenge neoliberal notions on society and citizenship in the era of global capitalism. The Chinese case study shows how global forces are affecting university life and contributing to emerging ideas of citizenship. The US case study explores the attitudes of UCLA's international graduate students toward their responsibilities as long-term, temporary migrants in a highly industrialized nation. The case from Argentina sheds light on forms of resistance to neoliberalism following the economic collapse of December 2001. Finally, the Hungarian case looks at the role of Central European University, founded by Hungarian-American financier and philanthropist George Soros, in the region's transition from communism to a market-driven economy. The book concludes by synthesizing findings from the case studies. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Habermas; the discourse theory of law and democracy.

Baxter (law and philosophy, Boston U.) conducts a critical analysis of the theory of law and democracy developed by German philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas (b. 1929). Following an introduction Habermas's basic concepts of social action and social theory from Theory of Communicative Action (1981), the core of the work consists of an analysis of Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (1992), which is divided over three chapters that individually discuss Haberbermas's account of the "normative self-understanding" of modern law; his testing of his discourse theory against recent developments in the theory and practice of adjudication, and his "communication theory of society." In the final chapter, Baxter reviews Habermas's writings since Between Facts and Norms, focusing in particular on the key themes of the role of religion in the public square, political-philosophical issues of multiculturalism, and the possibilities of democracy beyond the nation-state. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The margins of empire; Kurdish militias in the Ottoman tribal zone.

This work explores the history of the Hamidiye, Kurdish tribal militias created by the Ottoman state in the late 19th century in an effort to bind the Kurds on the periphery of the empire to the state and to deploy them as a means of suppressing Armenian nationalist-revolutionary activity. Klein (history, U. of Akron) details how the changes wrought by the institutionalization of the Hamidiye frequently went beyond, and even undermined, these Ottoman state goals, describing the way that the militias helped transform the local power structures and social and political organization of Kurdish society, changed structures of land tenure, exacerbated Armenian grievances against the Ottoman state, and strengthened the authority of Kurdish leaders against the authority of the state. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Mongrels or marvels; the Levantine writings of Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff.

In "Rebel, My Brother," Kahahof (1917-1979) describes the lives of her Iraqi and Tunisian-born Jewish parents living in Cairo in the mid-1950s. In "Welcome, Sadat," her last piece, she reimagines the biblical Exodus story. Starr (modern Arabic and Jewish literature and film, Cornell U.) and Somekh (emeritus, Arabic literature, Tel Aviv U.) introduce her autobiographical stories and essays as reflecting a lost world of interaction between Jews and Arabs. The writer, who lived in the US, Egypt, and Israel, termed this model of hybrid identity Levantinism (after the Levant region of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Arab East). The book includes a glossary of Arabic, Hebrew, and Turkish terms. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

On the edge of the global; modern anxieties in a Pacific island nation.

Besnier (cultural anthropology, U. of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) has written an ethnography describing and exploring the uncertainties plaguing the citizens of Tonga as a result of their feelings that progress and development have ignored them. He also addresses how those citizens are dealing with their anxieties and differing concepts of the meaning of modernity, and how that modernity fits with the practices and symbols of tradition. The book is a study that combines the political, economic, social, and cultural in an effort to address the many ways modern uncertainties manifest themselves. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Ottoman ulema, Turkish Republic; agents of change and guardians of tradition.

This study explores the neglected role of the late Ottoman ulema (Islamic religious scholars) in the shaping of the modern Turkish republic. Bein (history, Clemson U.) examines how the ulema and their associated institutions reacted to societal change, describing their differing views of political reform, religious education, the nature of the state, political activism, and Turkish republicanism and showing how despite their suppression by the secular Kemalist republic their institutions and debates over the relationship between religion and the state have ongoing relevance for contemporary Turkish society and politics. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Pollution limits and polluters' efforts to comply; the role of government monitoring and enforcement.

Earnhart (economics, U. of Kansas) and Glicksman (environmental law, George Washington U. Law School) combine economics and law to provide an empirical study of compliance with the Clean Water Act. The authors base their findings on Environmental Protection Agency databases as well as data from their own survey of chemical manufacturing companies authorized to discharge wastewater. They address a variety of questions, but one of the most critical is whether government interventions promote better behavior and environmental performance. Stanford Economics & Finance is an imprint of Stanford U. Press. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The problem with grace; reconfiguring political theology.

Lloyd (religious studies and African American studies, Georgia State U.) examines political theology from a post-secular, post-sectarian stand point. He draws from studies and works of literature approaching the subject to illustrate the nature and drawbacks of liberal politics and political theology. The book is organized into chapters, each of which deals with a relatively abstract theme, i.e. love, faith, hope, tradition, liturgy, sanctity, revelation, and prophecy. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Social movements, mobilization, and contestation in the Middle East and North Africa.

International contributors examine the dynamics of secular movements of the working class, the intelligentsia, unemployed degree holders, and human rights and democracy activists in the Middle East and North Africa, and seek to explain the limited participation of Islamists. An introduction presents a way beyond classical social movement theory to view the recent insurgence in the region. Later chapters compare Egypt and Morocco and delve into areas such as Egyptian leftist intellectuals' activism, feminist and democratic implications of the Saturday vigils in Turkey, mobilizations for Western Thrace and Cyprus, Islamic social movements, and labor struggles in Egypt, Turkey, Morocco, and Tunisia. Beinin teaches history at Stanford University. Vairel teaches political studies at the University of Ottawa. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Spending without taxation; FILP and the politics of public finance in Japan.

Park (political science, Baruch College) conducts an analysis of Japan's use of the Fiscal Investment Loan Program (FILP) in the postwar years. He argues that this financial mechanism enabled the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to maintain low taxes and a neoclassical fiscal policy based on low budget spending accompanied by pork barrel spending. This commitment to budget constraint enabled by FILP delivered economic benefits and was central to the postwar political bargain of budget restraint without sacrificing spending, he argues, but came at the cost of heavy intervention in finance, deferred fiscal burden, and the political challenge of reforming the program once the quality of its investments and loans deteriorated by the 1980s because the LDP had exploited the program too much in order to balance competing interests between fiscal hawks and pork-barrel politicians in order to maintain political power. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Uncommon schools; the global rise of postsecondary institutions for indigenous peoples.

Cole (sociology, Montana State U.) documents the emergence of postsecondary schools which seek to preserve traditional languages and cultures of indigenous peoples, promote local economic development, and foster political autonomy for indigenous communities. Focus is on postsecondary institutions in the US, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. The book examines how changes in global discourses and national policy environments fostered the creation of these institutions as novel organizational forms. The establishment of these institutions offers a specific empirical context in which to examine much larger social, political, and legal processes, including the incorporation of indigenous peoples into nation states, the rise of the global indigenous rights movement, and the worldwide expansion of the 'massification' of postsecondary education. An appendix offers a list of indigenous postsecondary institutions in the US, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Voice and vote; decentralization and participation in post-Fujimori Peru.

In the wake of the corruption scandals that led to the flight of President Fujimori from the country, Peru adopted, in the early 2000s, participatory decentralization reforms that sought to empower regional, provincial, and municipal governments and create new ways for civil society actors to participate in decision-making. Focusing on two specific initiatives, a mandatory participatory budgeting process for regional budget planning and Regional Coordination Councils bringing together mayors and civil society representatives to consult on development plans and institutions, McNulty (government, Franklin and Marshall College) explores why policy makers opted to adopt decentralization reforms, the factors that influenced the design of the new participatory institutions, and how the design conditioned the implementation of the reform. In addition to the change of government, McNulty points to three factors as key to the adoption of the reforms: experiences with corporate structures in the 1970s and 1980s, the experiences of some participatory planning processes during the 1980s and 1990s, and institutional relations between the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Peruvian Congress. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)