Book reviews

Justin Rosenberg, The Empire of Civil Society. A Critique of the Realist Theory of International Relations, Verso Books, London, 1994, 224 pp, £12.95, ISBN 0 86091 607 3 (pbk). Also hbk ISBN 0 86091 442 9, £39.95.

Cable, Vincent and Henderson David (eds), Trade Blocs? The Future of Regional Integration, Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 1994, 198 pp, £9.95, ISBN 0 905031 81 4 (pbk).

Marian A. L. Miller, The Third World in Global Environmental Politics, Open University Press, Buckingham, 1995, 181 pp, £13.99, ISBN 0 335 19500 8 (pbk). Also hbk ISBN 0 335 19501, £40.00.

Javed Siddiqi, World Health And World Politics. The World Health Organization and the U.N. System, Hurst and Company, London, 1995, 272 pages, £32.50, ISBN 1 85065 205 8(hbk).

Donald M. Snow and Eugene Brown, Puzzle Palaces and Foggy Bottom. U.S. Foreign and Defense Policy‐Making in the 1990s, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1994, 284 pp, £14.95, ISBN 0 312 08654 7 (pbk). Also hbk ISBN 0 312 10268 2.

Desmond Dinan, Ever Closer Union? An Introduction to the European Community, Macmillan Press, Houndmills, 1994, 533 pp, £12.99, ISBN 0 333 61687 1 (pbk).

Christine Chinkin, Third Parties in International Law, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1993, 422 pp, £45.00, ISBN O 19 825715 5 (hbk).

Mohamed Munavvar, Ocean States: Archipelagic Regimes in the Law of the Sea, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht/Boston/London, 1995, 240 pp, ISBN 0 7923 2882 5(hbk).     

The political economy of voluntary public service

We characterize the voluntary public service policy that minimizes the expected cost of delivering a public service (e.g., jury or military service). We then examine whether a majority rule voting procedure will implement the voluntary public service policy (VPS) whenever it entails lower expected cost than mandatory public service (MPS). We find that majority rule often favors MPS in the sense that majority rule implements MPS when VPS would secure the requisite public service at lower expected cost.

     

The rise of the modern welfare state, ideology, institutions and income security: analysis and evidence

In the 25-year period between 1960 and 1985, there was a great expansion of welfare state programs throughout the West. The fraction of GDP accounted for by social expenditures doubled in much of Europe and grew by 40–50% in many other OECD nations. After 1985, growth in social insurance programs slowed relative to other parts of the economy. This paper explores the extent to which institutions and ideological shifts may have accounted for the period of rapid growth, for differences in the extent of that growth, and for the subsequent reduction in the growth rates of social insurance programs.