This section includes book notes of 150-300 words as well as some book reviews of 600-900 words on books of particular interest to the members of our group. If you have either suggestions for books you would like to review or see reviewed (including recent books of your own), please contact Cas Mudde. Book Notes Robert J. Alexander, Maoism in the Developed World, Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001, 223 pp., GBP 50.50, ISBN 0-275-96148-6 (hbk). Reviewed by Cas Mudde (University of Antwerp) It is unclear what Alexander set out to do. The preface only tells us that the book "deals basically with Maoism in the 'developed' countries" (p.ix); i.e. North America, Western Europe, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. Technically, not even this is true, as it 'deals' almost exclusively with Maoist parties. The preface further states that the author has "used two principal sources of information in working on this study […] the Yearbook on International Communist Affairs [… and…] documents of the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschland [sic!] (SED)" (p.ix). Well, "used" is somewhat understated, as there is virtually nothing in this book that doesn't come from these two sources. Still, not all books need to be original; some volumes are useful for bringing things together in an organised manner. But this is not a handbook or encyclopedia, like, for example, O'Maoláin's The Radical Right: A World Directory (ABC-Clio, 1987). It has the same problems as these kinds of publications – various mistakes in translations, names, and dates – but not the major advantages: structure and surveyability. Rather, Maoism in the Developed World is structured like a monograph, with most chapters dealing with Maoism in a particular country – though there are several chapters on the U.S. while the Scandinavian countries are dealt with together – and having introductions and conclusions (despite being often only five pages or so). What emerges is an unstructured pulp of names and details concerning tiny 'parties', without the necessary context and structure to make sense of it all. Moreover, much of the facts are enormously dated (i.e. of the 1960s and 1970s) and it remains completely unclear what has happened to most of them since at least 1989. All in all, this book adds little if anything to the (very limited!) existing knowledge and is not worth buying.
Lisa Baldez, Why Women Protest: Women's Movements in Chile, Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002, 234 pp., GBP 15.95, ISBN 0-521-061006-3, 234. Reviewed by Virginia Garrard-Burnett (University of Texas, Austin) Lisa Baldez explores the motives that bring women into both formal and informal political protest – focusing on Chile during the doomed administration of socialist Salvador Allende (1970-73) and the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet (1973-88). She suggests that women's engagement in protest is motivated by fundamentally different factors than for men, in part because women are either excluded from the formal political process entirely or are involved in it only to the extent to which they can serve as the proxy for men's political agendas. Baldez argues that women are likely to organize when three sets of conditions - which she characterizes as "tipping", "timing", and "framing" - converge. The two conditions where these three factors are mostly likely to come together, she suggests, are when there is partisan realignment, which opens new political spaces which women may enter, and the emergence of new sets of interests and concerns around which women rally. Baldez explores how tipping and framing provoked women's mobilization in two very different political milieus. The first was the organization of middle and upper-class conservative women against the Allende government, culminating in the infamous March of the Empty Pots. Baldez suggests that this March reflected a general failure of the Allende government to recognize the gendered concerns of women. By contrast, Pinochet attempted to 'reward' women for their participation in the overthrow of Allende by allowing them visible positions in the new government. Nevertheless, by the late 1970s and early 1980s, Baldez argues that Chilean women, especially university women and women from the middle and lower classes, began to experience serious dissonance that tipped and framed their political mobilization against this regime. This included conditions of economic hardship, exposure to feminism in exile abroad, and, above all, entry into political participation because of their concern for the widespread human rights violations that took place under Pinochet's administration.
AndrĂĄs BozĂłki and John Ishiyama (eds.), The Communist Successor
Parties of Central and Eastern Europe, Armonk, NY: M.E Sharpe, 2002, 501 pp., GBP 65.95, ISBN 0-7656-0986-X (hbk.). Reviewed by Luke March (University of Edinburgh) While the 'successor' parties of East-Central Europe have received much academic attention in recent years, this is only the second attempt at a comprehensive comparative analysis that goes beyond a handful of case studies of these stubbornly durable, and often successful parties. The authors have assembled a stellar cast of academics working on parties in Central Europe and the post-Soviet space. Though they admit it is a bewildering' and 'daunting' task (p.13), they seek to provide an explanatory account of party organisational and identity change that weaves together historical legacies, internal party dynamics, the structure of competition and electoral performance, which, as Kitschelt's chapter shows, is strongly legacy-driven. The meat of the book is provided by some detailed case studies. These are rich, detailed and interesting, and it is particularly instructive to see the Romanian and Yugoslav successor parties analysed alongside the usual suspects. A final comparative section attempts to synthesise the previous analyses, with reflections on typology, organisational development and successor parties' influence on new democracies. The authors then provide a useful overview of distinct patterns of systemic legacy impact upon organisational transition and resources, which indeed helps decode ostensibly diverse party dynamics. Overall, the volume is a mixed bag. Some chapters are tangential, the final comparative section becomes repetitive, and the conclusion appears more the exposition of a pre-conceived theoretical scheme than a full synthesis of the preceding material. Reinforcing the sense of unevenness, the volume is not consistently contemporary, with most chapters covering events up to 2000, but some only up to 1996-7, and the number of spelling errors blemishes the text. For all that, the vast majority of the material is of very high quality, and the book abounds with empirical and theoretical insights. Not the last word then, but a book that will make a bewildering subject far less daunting. Alice Brauner-Orthen, Die Neue Rechte in Deutschland. Antidemokratische und rassistische Tendenzen, Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 2001, 203 pp., EUR 18.50, ISBN 3-8100-3078-3 (pbk). Reviewed by Jan Herman Brinks (University of Sussex)
In this study Alice Brauner-Orthen investigates important characteristics of Germany's New Right. She not only reviews the history, ideology, organisation, strategy, and programs of this heterogeneous ideological and organisational publicity-oriented network, but also shows its influence on mainstream politics and describes the ways the New Right is intertwined with conservatives and right-wing extremists. It should be welcomed that the author not only uses the existing scholarly literature, but also studies New Right publications. Her discussion of the New Right views on the economy (NationalÜkonomie) and the role of the woman in the Weltanschauung of New Right authors are of interest. Brauner Orthen is a keen observer, so I find it remarkable that she reaches conclusions which seem to me rather contradictory. On the one hand she argues that the New Right "failed (‌) to influence public opinion and the media lastingly nor could it dominate the national political discourses" (p.192). On the other hand her book provides quite a bit of evidence to the contrary. She rightly mentions the influence of the New Right on Germany's "asylumdebate", and argues that the New Right "after the Wende, certainly contributed to markedly lowering the inhibitions with regard to nationalism and racism. This it accomplished by the historisation and decriminalisation of the German past, by which it also made itself heard to quite a few conservatives" (p.191). In spite of this incongruity Die Neue Rechte in Deutschland is certainly worth reading and presents interesting material. Mario Diani and Doug McAdam (eds.): Social Movements and Networks. Relational Approaches to Collective Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, 348 pp., GBP 18.99, ISBN 0-19-925178-9/ GBP 55.00, ISBN 019-925177-0 (hbk). Reviewed by Mate Szabo (ELTE University) The collective volume of Diani and McAdam can be recommended to any member of the standing group. I hardly believe that scholars interested in extremism could not find useful links between their research projects and the relational approach to social movements and collective action. The network concept is related by the editors to individuals, organizations and collectives/communities. They follow this systematization as far as possible in the structure of the book, including chapters on individual networks, interorganizational networks, networking in the political process, and theories of
networks. Although there is one central study by Helmut Anheier on the ¨single members¨ of the German Nazi Party (1925-30), the volume makes a contribution to research on extremismwithout including extensive analysis of extremist movements themselves. The volume covers a wide range of collective actions from the Japanese environmental movement to the Polish underground, and the common denominator within the focus of the studies is the relational network analysis of persons, organizations and communities, which is a useful approach to extremist movements of the past and the present. It is possible that the conference on relational network analysis within collective action research (organized in June 2000) would have covered a different range of case studies had it taken place following September 11, 2001. A relational network perspective based volume on extremist movements of the past and present could well be a future project for the members of our standing group. Social Movements and Networks is intended to commemorate two outstanding members of the social movements and collective action research community; Roger Gould, ¨who (…) passed away on 29 April 2002 (…), preceded by a few months by the leading social movement theorist, Alberto Melucci, who died on 12 September 2001¨. Both were eminent scholars in the field of collective action, and this very well produced edited volume is an adequate honour for them.
Karen Kampwirth, Women and Guerrilla Movements: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas, and Cuba, University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2002, 194 pp., USD 35.00, ISBN 0-271-02185-3 (hbk). Reviewed by Rachel May (University of Washington) This slim volume is the first comparative analysis of women's roles in Latin American guerrilla movements to be published in English. Kampwirth's contribution is a highly structured analysis which considers the question of how, why, and under what circumstances women were recruited into these four revolutionary movements. She interviewed hundreds of revolutionary women in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Chiapas, and she deftly integrates their stories into her analysis. The book is nonetheless heavily weighted towards the analysis, and it might have been more interesting and revealing if there had been more attention paid to the women's stories. The four chapters
and the appendix of this volume stand alone well, and although the central argument is structured identically in each chapter, the chapters are not particularly well-integrated. Kampwirth concludes that certain kinds of structural changes (land concentration and resultant dislocations and migration) create the necessary but not sufficient conditions for the mobilization of women into guerrilla movements. Although she considers how these economic changes affect family structures and gender relations, the kinds of changes she cites are the same kinds of conditions that coincide with large scale revolutionary movements in general. But her analysis of the ideological, political and personal factors that impacted upon women's decision to commit themselves to the revolutionary struggle is what makes her study original. Women who became revolutionary militants tended to be of a certain age, come from families in which resistance was encouraged, and they tended to have preexisting political involvement in other kinds of social networks. The rise of liberation theology and a change in guerrilla strategy to one of mass mobilization created more opportunities for women in the guerrilla struggle. And state-sponsored repression limited women's choices and often prompted women into more militant positions in the interests of self -defense. Overall, this is an important and engaging book with only minor weaknesses. David S. Meyer, Nancy Whittier, and Belinda Robnett (eds), Social Movements: Identity, Culture, and the State. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, 366pp., GBP 20.99, 0-19-514356-6 (pbk) / GBP 54.99, ISBN 019-514355-8 (hbk). Reviewed by Randle Hart (University of Toronto) The 16 chapters in this volume each challenge the dominance of the political process model in explaining external and internal social movement processes. The first major section is concerned with the relationship between the state and social movements. In one notable chapter in this section, Bourdreau compares historical social movement activity within repressive states (Burma, Indonesia, Phillipines), and shows how different styles of repression shape collective activities. Part Two focuses on movement organization. In her discussion of Canada's federal NDP party, Schwartz provides a very interesting example of how factionalism within a party movement provides the opportunity for organizational innovation and thus longevity. Klatch's chapter
is the most fascinating in the volume. She compares the radicalization of two U.S. student organizations of the 1960s: on the left, Students for a Democratic Society; and on the right, Young Americans for Freedom. She examines both the external and the internal processes that led to a merger of factions of these two movements. Klatch provides a very rich discussion of the relationships between movements and governments, culture and ideology, as well as organizational dynamics. The final section of the book is comprised of chapters on collective identities, discourse, and culture. Williams' comparison of religious language in the 1960s U.S. civil rights movements and the 1980s U.S. "family values" movement connects movement culture to broader cultural and ideological conditions very nicely. Many of the chapters in this book are quite interesting – though often poorly edited. While alternatives to the political process model are refreshing, in the end most of these chapters do not offer radical departures – Steinberg's "dialogic analysis" is the most methodologically innovative. Unfortunately, the political process model has become a catch-all theory that manages to incorporate a variety of competing accounts. Many of the chapters in this volume can easily be incorporated into this model.
Vjekoslav Perica, Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 332 pp., GBP 24.99, ISBN 0-19514856-8 (hbk). Reviewed by Dušan Dinic (RWTH Aachen) This book is an attempt to examine the political history of religion in the states of former Yugoslavia. As a member of the office for relations with religious communities, the author is very familiar with the state activities in this field of politics. Perica gives a well structured chronological overview, although he sometimes repeats the facts. He criticizes the efforts made by some Churches to undermine the roots of socialist Yugoslavia, because this worsened interethnic relations. Perica believes that the three biggest religions of Yugoslavia were responsible for the creation and outbreak of the conflict. The policy of ´Brotherhood and Unity´ proclaimed by the state is in his view another important religion of the former Yugoslavia. This policy was practised by the communists in WW II. It was also accepted by the majority of the population in post-war Yugoslavia. Still, to fight for the specific interests of one
sole nation was often suppressed or even punished. The Churches promoted themselves as the only ´true´ representatives of the individual nations to which they belonged, by maintaining old and creating some new myths with a strong nationalistic background. The latter refers mostly to the Serbian-Orthodox and to the Catholic Church in Croatia. They also supported the nationalist parties in their bid for power, as the political liberalisation took place in 1989. A violent solution to the conflict was unavoidable because their mythologised world view made rational prospects of solving the problem peacefully almost impossible. Perica has written a very interesting and informative book, presenting a fair introduction to the problematic nature of the relations between the established religions and the state in one multinational country, as Yugoslavia was.
Susanne Rippl, Christian Seipel and Angela Kindervater (eds.), Autoritarismus: Kontroversen und Ansätze der aktuellen Autoritarismusforschung. Opladen: Leske+Budrich, 2000, 284 pp., ISBN 3-8100-2634-4 (pbk.) Reviewed by Andreas Umland (National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv, Ukraine) With this collection of twelve essays, the sixteen authors from Germany, Japan, the United States and the Netherlands present an important new follow-up volume to the famous study of Adorno et al., The Authoritarian Personality (1950). They deal with such subjects as socialization in the family, social class, the effects of school attendance, problems of conceptualization and measurement, and permutations of authoritarianism in Japan, Russia, and East and West Germany. Jos Meloen makes a worldwide comparison of sources of authoritarian attitudes. Using a sophisticated method of measuring authoritarianism, Sam McFarland demonstrates in his contribution on democratic consciousness in Russia the topicality of the approach of Adorno et al. today, and concludes that, in Russia, "[t]he full meaning of democracy, especially with regard to tolerance and minority rights, has not yet been fully understood and accepted until today" (p. 195). The book provides a wide array of interesting data, high-class interpretations, and competing theories. It is valuable as both an introduction to and update on the authoritarianism approach in psychology and sociology.
Angus Roxburgh, Preachers of Hate. The Rise of the Far Right, London: Gibson Square Books, 312 pp., 2002, GBP 18.99, ISBN 1-903933-21-8 (hbk). Reviewed by Cas Mudde (University of Antwerp) Preachers of Hate, written by a longstanding Europe Correspondent for BBC Radio and Television, is not meant for an academic audience. Indeed, it is a book for the interested (non-academic) reader, written in a popular and uncomplicated style. It would be therefore unfair to criticise it harshly for its lack of academic rigour or its disregard of the academic literature. That said, more of both could have been expected, even from a book written by a journalist for a broad audience. The terminology used in the book is extremely vague (no definitions are provided) and at times even sensationalistic ('designer fascists', 'brown plague'). Terms like 'populist', 'far right', and 'fascist' tend to be used interchangeably, yet at the same time one comes across statements like "He [Blocher] is a populist but no fascist" (p.290), without any explanation why this is so. My main disappointment, however, is with the lack of any new information or insights. While the back cover promotes the book by saying that Roxburgh draws "on his unique access (‌) to leaders and supporters of the far right", very little of this can be found in the book. Indeed, Preachers of Hate is poor rather than rich in detail. Only sporadically does the author use his many interviews with party leaders, and even then the outcomes are far from spectacular. So, in the end, one is left with a well-written, though not particularly well-structured account of the far right in Europe, which will hardly startle the informed non-academic reader, let alone the academic specialist. Nick Ryan, Homeland. Into a World of Hate. Edinburgh and London: Mainstream Publishing, 2003, 319 pp., GBP 15.99, ISBN 1-84018-465-5 (hbk). Reviewed by Cas Mudde (University of Antwerp) At first glance, this seems just another book on the extreme right fringe written by a keen 'investigative', freelance journalist. But upon
reading, Homeland turns out to be a pleasant exception, different in at least three ways. First, Ryan did not go 'undercover', but was open about being a 'liberal journalist' (although keeping his close ties to anti-fascists to himself). Second, the book is the result of on and off research over an extensive (five year) period. Fourth, and most importantly, Ryan does not claim to know everything beforehand and is not out to prove a point. Rather, he truly tries to understand what makes extreme right activists tick and why they are becoming so successful. This second question remains somewhat underdeveloped, however, as Ryan has mainly approached the marginal extreme right. The bulk of the book deals with groups and individuals in the UK, like the BNP (e.g. Nick Griffin and Paul Golding) and Combat 18 (e.g. 'Charlie' and Steve Sargent), and in the US, such as the World Church of the Creator (Matt Hale) and the American Friends of the BNP (Mark Cotterill). Homeland is a book that reads like fiction - partly because of the content, mostly because of the gripping writing style - but provides an honest and intriguing picture of the extreme right margins. We see the self-proclaimed elite of the white race in its many shapes and forms; violent thugs, unworldly 'intellectuals', overconfident leaders, confused followers, and various types of freaks. In addition, we are part of the internal struggle of a liberal journalist between his political disdain for the arguments of his subjects and his personal affection (and pity) for some of the people he spends considerable time with.
Book Reviews Mark R. Beissinger, Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, 520 pp., USD 80.00, GBP 60.00, ISBN 0-521-80670-4 (hbk) / USD 30.00, GBP 21.95, ISBN 0-521-00148-X (pbk). Reviewed by Juri Shabajev (Russian Academy of Sciences, Ural Division) Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State is a very serious analytical work, which, no doubt, will attract the attention of many political scientists, especially those studying political processes in Russia and in the post-Soviet area. Although the collapse of the Soviet Union and its consequences have provoked quite an emotional discussion in the academic arena, as well as a lot of publications in the West and in Russia, the mass of academic papers do not constitute good, in-depth studies. This is not the case
with the work of Mark Beissinger, however, which is quite fundamental and insightful. In his work, the author carefully analyzes the political events that preceded the collapse of the USSR and could have provoked this collapse. Indeed, the careful analysis of the processes connected to the policy of Glasnost and democratization is the key to understanding the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Empire. However, while accepting the importance of the study of these processes from different points of view as well as understanding how Glasnost and democratization in their Gorbachev variant prepared the preconditions for the disintegration of the USSR, we should not forget that the deeper reasons for the collapse are probably found in more distant times. I dare to suggest that a certain role was played by Khruschev's "worming". However, the potential threat of disintegration was created already in the 1920s, when the Soviet Union emerged as a federal state (in reality it could only be called a 'pseudofederation'). The federation, which was created according to ethnic rather than territorial principles, carried the seeds of its disintegration from the beginning. In fact, it was cemented only by the totalitarian character of the regime, and lacked any other solid grounds for existence. The disadvantages of a federative structure built on ethnic principles was emphasized by many Russian as well as Western researchers, who also pointed to these disadvantages as the underlying causes of the collapse of the USSR. Beissinger here touches only briefly on this aspect of the problem, despite the potential advantages of serious historical research for his book. It should be noted, however, that the author has paid sufficient attention to the distant epochs of the history of the USSR in one of his previous works (Hajda & Beissinger). In this work, Beissinger pointed to the ethnic stratification of the Soviet Union, which, in his opinion, was the consequence of the strengthening of Russian nationalism within the Soviet elite. With the decline of the communist ideology, nationalism occupied its place as the main principle of the Soviet state. The Soviet elite, according to Beissinger, were too nationalistic and lacked a perspective view to incorporate ethnic minorities – a tradition continued in the policy of Gorbachev as well. All this constitutes only part of the truth, however, and the criticism concerning the lack of deep historical analysis of the Soviet ethnic policy in the commented work remains justified. The work of Mark Beissinger has certain cross-points with the work "Ideology
of Disintegration" (Ideologija raspada) by the famous Russian theoretician of ethnic policy Sergey Cheshko, which was published in 1993. I think that Beissinger's book could have been greatly enriched by references to Cheshko's book. Unfortunately, the usage of Russian works in Beissinger's book is quite limited. This is unfortunate, as the contemporary works on ethnic mobilization and ethnic policy by Russian political scientists are usually quite novel and by no means standard. The most interesting and constructive sections of this book are those, where the author presents the idea of the three levels of causation operated within nationalism during the Glasnost period: pre-existing structural condition, institutional constraints and events. This idea provides a theoretical clue to the evaluation of nationalism as an instrument of both the creation and destruction of a state. It also contributes to the understanding of the reasons for the collapse of the USSR. The analytical framework proposed by the author makes it possible to research the mechanisms of nationalist mobilization during the transition from totalitarian regime to democracy. I also can only agree with Beissinger on the reasons for the demobilization of nationalist challenges during the 1990s. The author is also quite right saying that "post-Soviet states were weak states, often with uncannily little ability to make their decisions stick and with incomplete control of the territories over which they claimed sovereignty. But it is also true that these were not entirely new states. They were in many cases fragments of an old state ...". In conclusion, the work of Mark Beissinger is quite important for the understanding of nationalism as a social and political phenomenon. It is also a good step forward in the research of ethno-political processes in the postSoviet area, especially those connected to the political mobilization of ethnicity. Although regional political elites in Russia as well as in other postsoviet states rarely mobilized ethnicity in recent years, and the scale of this mobilization was more limited than in earlier times, this instrument of political pressure is by no means exhausted. Therefore, the work of Mark Beissinger has not only theoretical, but also practical importance. Ruth Murray Brown, For a Christian America: A History of the Religious Right. Amherst: Prometheus Books, 2002, 309 pp., USD 28.00, ISBN 157392-973-5 (hbk). Reviewed by Mark Rozell (Catholic University of America)
This book is the final work of the late Ruth Murray Brown, a sociologist who had grown up in a traditional conservative Christian home and later taught in Oklahoma, a state of the so-called "Bible belt". Consequently, Brown does not write with strict scholarly detachment about the social movement in the US called the religious right. But she does nonetheless write with fairness about this topic – no small accomplishment given the level of emotions inspired by religious right political activity. In researching for this book, Brown interviewed numerous grass roots activists and leaders of the religious right. She began in the 1970s by spending time attending anti-Equal Rights Amendment meetings as an observer, getting to know the conservative activists who so strongly despised the feminist movement in the US. She visited their homes, interviewed them at length, and then years later she returned to re-interview many of her contacts. In so doing, she developed a strong feel for the core beliefs of religious conservatives and that enabled her to write the kind of book that the very subjects themselves would likely consider an honest scholarly effort. Brown is not a movement sympathizer; indeed, she is candid in her discomfort about much of what the religious right aspires to achieve. But neither does she dismiss the movement as too radically extreme to be given credibility as a real force in US politics. As Brown points out, the core constituency of the religious right may be as high as 14% of the voting age population. If accurate, that would make the movement comparable in size to other significant voting blocks in the US, such as labor union households and African-Americans. Nonetheless, she does raise the question in her conclusion "are they extremist?", and her answer is perhaps somewhat equivocal. For example, if the definition of extremism is "the use of violent and/or illegal means to advance their causes" then such groups as the Ku Klux Klan, the neo-Nazis, and abortion-clinic bombers certainly qualify, but the religious right would not. The movement may be characterized by usually very divisive and occasionally over-heated rhetoric, but group leaders in the religious right have denounced violent and illegal tactics and worked hard over the years to be accepted as a part of the mainstream of US politics. On the other hand, Brown makes it clear that the issue positions of the religious right are far outside the mainstream of the US and thus under a less limited definition of extremism the movement would qualify for that label. Brown correctly emphasizes that the religious conservative worry about moral
decline in the US is a widely shared sentiment, even among the non-religious. Thus, when movement leaders talk about the breakdown of the family unit, indiscipline in public schools and the cultural race to the bottom led by the entertainment industry, most Americans are receptive to the message. But when these same leaders articulate solutions – mandated Christian prayer in public schools, outlawing all abortions, prohibiting gays and lesbians from teaching – then the public quickly turns its back on the religious right. Although Brown wants to give the movement its fair due, she is not hesitant to call an error an error. Perhaps her most critical chapter is the one that covers constitutional interpretations of Church-State separation in the US. Here she addresses many of the efforts of religious conservatives to effectively rewrite US constitutional history in ways that simply cannot be supported by any facts. Her criticisms of the textual analyses of prominent religious conservative writers are unarguable. She makes it clear that these authors play loose with history, twist events, take quotations out of context, even make up quotations, all for the purpose of trying to prove that the constitution-makers of the US never intended there to be a separation of church and state. The religious conservative argument that the country was founded as "a Christian nation" is pure fantasy. The major strength of this book is that it provides a very engaging and fairminded overview of the growth of the religious right in the US. There are some weaknesses. For example, Brown often relies on old GSS and other data when much more recent information was readily available at the time she was writing. When Brown discusses a local or state level issue, she draws out an example from her own state. To put it bluntly, there is simply too much Oklahoma in this book. Examples from other states are abundant, but she did not dig enough in her research to draw them out. And it is possible that in her many interviews with religious conservatives she became perhaps just a bit too close to her sources. Brown writes with strong critical detachment when evaluating religious conservative textbooks, but she is rather soft at times when assessing the motivations and goals of the movement leaders and activists. I give a lot of points to the author for all the time and effort she devoted to interviewing religious right people. But I wonder if she would have come out differently in some of her analysis had she spent significant time also interviewing the pro-ERA and other anti-religious right group forces as well. These concerns aside, Brown's book is a solid contribution to the growing literature on the religious right in the US.
Peter Davies, The Extreme Right in France, 1789 to the Present, London: Routledge, 2002, 224 pp., GBP 16.99, ISBN 0415239826 / GBP 55.00, ISBN: 0-415-23982-6 (hbk). Reviewed by Steve Bastow (Kingston University) Davies' survey of the "ideas and debates" associated with the French extreme right (pp.4-5) since 1789 clearly aims at being an introductory text. However, I find it much too brief. This brevity would be less of a problem were the book clear and precise in its analysis but, rather than presenting us with a rigorous analysis of the multiplicity of extreme rights which have developed in France since the Revolution, Davies merely offers us a list of positions adopted by the secondary literature on the various movements in question. No attempt is made to either synthesise these positions or, if they are deemed to not all be compatible, to outline what Davies feels is the best position. This is further undermined by a tendency to draw conclusions which do not necessarily follow from the positions quoted. Concerning the right-wing nationalism of the last quarter of the 19th Century, we are told, for example, that the fact that by "the late 1880s and 1890s, the nationalist right had been infiltrated by a number of influential anti-Semites" is "convincing proof, if any was needed, that this was a new and radical doctrine" (p.58). Just how this does so is simply assumed to be obvious. It is also sometimes difficult to discern the rationale underpinning the choice of movements. Davies is right to focus on Déroulède, Barrès and Drumont in the chapter covering the 1870s-1918 period, but fails to even mention figures such as Gustave Hervé. In the inter-war period Davies focuses almost exclusively on the Action Française (AF)—when Davies himself admits that the movement was in decline during that period—, and (in somewhat less detail) on the ligues, but devotes hardly any attention to the much more important (in terms of ideas if not size) Faisceau of Valois, or the numerous 'literary fascists' of the 1930s, both of which were radical breakaways from the more staid AF. A similar story could be told about the post-war period, which discusses (in rather vague terms) the Algérie Française movement, Poujadism and the Front National (FN), particularly the omission of any meaningful focus on the nouvelle droite. The choice of relevant historical events also seems rather lacking in logic. The
1870-1918 period is centred around the Franco-Prussian War, the inter-war period around the events of 6 February 1934, and the post-war period around decolonisation. This is a rather simplified approach. There is no discussion of the tremendous impact of WWI on the French extreme right, for example, or of the crisis of rationalism of the fin de siècle, to name just two crucial conditioning factors. Overall, this is a useful introduction to the topic for the absolute novice, but will, I am afraid, be somewhat of a disappointment to those seeking a more rigorous study.
Donald Hodges and Ross Gandy, Mexico under Siege: Popular Resistance to Presidential Despotism. London: Zed, 2002, 268 pp., GBP 45.00/USD 69.95, ISBN 1-84277-124-8 (hbk) / GBP 14.95/USD 25.00, ISBN i-84277-125-6 (pbk). Reviewed by Viviane Brachet-Márquez (El Colegio de México) The history of post-revolutionary Mexico, from the creation of the official party in 1929 to the latter's demise in 2000, is usually characterized as a placid sequence of "más de lo mismo (more of the same), occasionally interrupted by epiphenomenal conflicts quickly smoothed over by an all knowing and all powerful state. Mexico under Siege, by contrast, centers on the very real and often bloody struggles from below met by the kind of official violence that is inseparable from authoritarian rule. Electing thirteen episodes of violent conflict between 1941 and 1997, Hodges and Gandy offer the reader a view of Mexico in which unions fight for internal democracy and independence from the state, peasants for clean elections, students for a just society, and the indigenous people for democracy and local autonomy. Should we adopt this picture instead of the tamer orthodox version of Mexican history? Yes and no. Yes, because it reveals a facet of Mexico's political reality which the regime has taken great pains to conceal, or at least deny: habitual electoral fraud, clientelism, corruption, abuse of state power and a disregard for human or citizen rights; in short, the none too clean underskirts of an old established authoritarian system. But no, because the book portrays political power in Mexico as rigidly fixed and undifferentiated, and all these heroic episodes as mere failures. No again, because violence is not the only reality in Mexico. And finally no, because the authors' view that the Communist Party was a major actor because most of the rebellious leaders
analyzed had been expelled from or had left this party is preposterous, given that the PCM at no point gave them overt of covert support (quite the opposite). Were all administrations from 1941 to 2000 really alike? Jaramillo, the guerilla peasant leader from Morelos who struggled against all odds to create an independent sugar cane cutters' union and be elected as governor of his state is received and pardoned by two presidents, but persecuted, and his followers "kidnapped, tortured and assassinated" (p. 46) by a third. But dirty local politics, the organization of land invasions (aimed at creating an independent agricultural settlement) and his vocal support for the Cuban revolution lead to his final demise. Something similar happens in the railroad conflict of 1958. The Lopez Mateos administration (1958-64), self-declared "extreme left within the Constitution", is willing to negotiate with the dissidents, and even let them take over from the corrupt union leaders, but not to lose control altogether. Despite the government's willingness to negotiate wage rises, Vallejo (advised by Trotskyist circles, not the PCM) never stops asking for more, while paralyzing the country's railroad system (the only available one at the time for transporting goods). He is arrested and jailed. The most important thing to remember about these episodes is not that their heroes end up assassinated or imprisoned, but that they obtained important concessions for the rank and file (including their followers), despite their movements' political defeat, something that the authors of the book omit, and would probably consider mere 'cooptation'. The history of post-revolutionary Mexico can thus be seen as a series of crises in which the limits of authoritarian rule are challenged by dissidents, until the state is moved to make concessions to demands from below, even while repressing those making the demands, and refusing to change the political rules of the game. Concessions (such as land distribution, social security, public housing, profit sharing) are, in effect, olive branches aimed at bringing the rebels back into the fold, and dissidence the only mechanism through which the regime has evolved through time, and made true some of its promises to the popular masses. Whether we witness utter savagery (as in the repression of student protesters in 1968), or relative leniency (as in the 1958 railroad conflict), at no point should we forget that we are dealing with an authoritarian regime; hence, one in which the rule of law and electoral honesty are a mere legitimating
discourse. Unlike totalitarian ones, however, such systems have unwritten rules stating the limits within which state authority is exercised, so that we should talk about pacted, not absolute domination by the state. In each of the episodes of dissidence and struggles described in Mexico under Siege, Mexico's post-revolutionary pact of domination has been forcibly challenged for different reasons and by different actors, thereby not forming a single continuous movement of resistance (as implied), but a series of disconnected episodes. The combination of repression and concessions has been the hallmark of Mexican do calle 'inclusionary' or 'populist' authoritarianism, a regime that lasted ninety years (much longer than its harsher USSR brethren) precisely because it was wielding and open to negotiations within the unwritten rules of its historically constructed pact of domination. To read or not to read this book? I would recommend it for undergraduate and graduate readers alike as a healthy antidote to the orthodox version of Mexico's politics, yet advising those little versed in the subject to combine it with a good primer. Aristotle A. Kallis, The Fascism Reader, London and New York: Routledge, 2003, 513 pp., GBP 16.99, ISBN 0-415-24359-9 (pbk) / GBP 60.00, ISBN 0-415-24358-0 (hbk). Reviewed by Stein Ugelvik Larsen (University of Bergen) We shall always welcome more studies of fascism due to the significance of this political phenomenon in Europe and the world throughout the last century. Aristotle A. Kallis´ new, comprehensive book, The Fascism Reader, gives us an overview of many of the scholarly traditions which have tried to capture what he calls the ¨essence and limitations of fascism¨ plus a range of other topics related to the development of regimes, the ideology, and ¨fascism and society¨. The book is divided into four main parts, each with two sections, comprising altogether 47 chapters. Kallis has written short introductions to each section, comprising two to four pages each, and at the beginning a more general overview in which he sketches ¨the story of fascist historiography¨. In these personal writings he presents his understandings of fascism and his reasons for selecting the material he has chosen to include in the reader. At the end of the book Kallis has produced a very much up-to-date and
general, plus nation-specific, bibliography which is very useful. I do like the way Kallis has made his selections, and how he has defended their inclusion in the reader. All in all this is therefore a very valuable book which certainly will prove to be a good course book for students of comparative fascism. Let me just make a few remarks on Kallis´ Introduction. He is able to give us a very good overview of the intellectual developments in the study of fascism from the early interwar years to Goldhagen´s infamous book. He also tracks down phases of conceptual development and trends particularly in German, French and Italian historiography. For a reader such an introduction is exemplary and an important guide before one starts with the variety of contributions throughout the rest of the book. In order not to sound too panegyrical let me add this: In a different setting the discussion of ¨generic fascism¨ could have been more critical, particularly when he refers to the positions of Stanley Payne and others. I have attacked this idea elsewhere; that fascism ´started´ at one geographical point, at one point in time and that its ´genus´ can be found by digging into a specific national context. Such thinking is influenced by the metaphorical idea of a seed which flows with the wind and falls down somewhere, while intellectual development is of a different, continuous character. I have also attacked the approach of ´comparative fascism´, which often mistakenly is seen as a scholarly ´compromise´ on agreeing that Italian fascism and German Nazism had some common features. To me, comparative studies of fascism should incorporate the global study of fascism and the idea that the fascist phenomena is not a "generic" phenomena, but an emergent property rising out of the complex ideological, political and social structures which were present everywhere at the turn of the 19th century. However, Kallis´ reader provides substantial relevant material and is therefore highly recommended.
Moscow Helsinki Group, Nationalism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Contemporary Russia, Moscow: Moscow Helsinki Group, 2002, 411 pp. (pbk). Reviewed by Zoe Knox (Monash University) Craig Calhoun (1994) has observed that "(n)ationalism is all too often the
enemy of democracy rooted in civil society". Herein lies the paradox of civil society - it provides the opportunity for chauvinistic sentiments to be aired, which, more often than not, oppose the ideological pluralism that is the basis of democracy itself. This volume documents the rise in anti-democratic sentiments in post-Soviet Russia. In September 2002, the official Russian delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Commission stated that combating extremism, xenophobia and intolerance have been priorities for President Putin, the government and lawenforcement agencies (p.17). This volume, published by the project Human Rights Monitoring Network (implemented by the Moscow Helsinki Group, in partnership with the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, Netherlands Helsinki Committee and the Polish Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and human rights organisations from 89 regions of Russia), presents evidence to the contrary. Putin is unwilling to speak out against national chauvinism, there is a lack of political will to counter xenophobic attitudes in society, and law enforcement agencies do not honour the guarantees of equality enshrined in legislation and in Russia's Constitution. The book provides evidence of the rise in 'Caucasophobia' and anti-Semitism, and cites the ongoing conflict in Chechnya and discriminatory practices against migrants as key reasons for the prevalence of such attitudes. The Introduction outlines the history of the Moscow Helsinki Group and developments in human rights lobbying and legislation since the demise of Soviet communism. A survey of Russia's regions lists the most active extremist organisations, their targets, and authorities' responses to their activities (pp.32-52). It includes recommendations for government authorities to combat these elements. This assessment draws on regional reports, and so provides a valuable Russia-wide survey. Various authors from the Moscow Human Rights Group contribute chapters, among them 'Russian Legislation Aimed at Countering Nationalism, Extremism and Xenophobia', 'Nationalism, Xenophobia and the State' and 'Nationalism and Xenophobia in Public and Political Life'. Two chapters on 'Particularly Vulnerable Groups' (identified as Chechens, Jews, Mekhetian Turks and Roma) and 'Xenophobia in Selected Regions of Russia' (namely the Altai Territory, Chechnya and St Petersburg) offer case studies. Nationalism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Contemporary Russia makes a significant contribution to the sparse English-language literature on the development of human rights in Russia. The merit of this collection lies in the examination of national chauvinism in Russia's regions. This volume presents
a convincing case that the prevalence of xenophobia, national chauvinism and intolerance undermines the principles at the base of ideological pluralism and civil society in this fledgling democracy.