BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this issue. ‘Special’ yes, but when and why? Old World, New World: The Story of Britain and America, by Kathleen Burk. God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World, by Walter Russell Mead. Judicial corruption Global Corruption Report 2007: Corruption in Judicial Systems, by Transparency International. Internet crimes Cybercrime: The Transformation of Crime in the Information Age, by David S. Wall. $$ and €€€ in the global world The Euro and the Dollar in a Globalized Economy, edited by Joaquín Roy and Pedro Gomis‐Porqueras. The engagement of media citizens Media Consumption and Public Engagement: Beyond the Presumption of Attention, by Nick Couldry, Sonia Livingstone and Tim Markham. Scotching the Scots The Scots and the Union, by Christopher Whatley. The Union: England, Scotland and the Treaty of 1707, by Michael Fry. The Union of 1707: Why and How, by Paul Henderson Scot. Citizens and supercapitalists Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy and Everyday Life, by Robert Reich. More Blair effects Blair's Britain, 1997–2007, edited by Anthony Seldon. Carl Schmitt: a scholarly Nazi Carl Schmitt and the Jews: The ‘Jewish Question’, The Holocaust and German Legal Theory, by Raphael Gross. Ein gefährlicher Geist. Carl Schmitts Wirkung in Europa, by Jan‐Werner Müller. Carl Schmitt, Ludwig Feuchtwanger, Briefwechsel 1918–1935, edited by Rolf Rieß. Hans Blumenberg, Carl Schmitt, Briefwechsel, edited by Alexander Schmitz and Marcel Lepper. Gretha Jünger, Carl Schmitt, Briefwechsel (1934–1953), edited by Ingeborg Villinger and Alexander Jaser.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this article: Refining Regulatory Regimes: Utilities in Europe David Cohen and Adrienne Heritier (eds) Civil Service Reform in the United States: Personnel Policy and Politics at the Subnational Level J. Edward Kellough and Lloyd G. Nigro (eds) Measuring Corruption Charles Sampford, Arthur Shacklock, Carmel Connors and Fredrick Galtung (eds) Francis De Groot. Irish Fascist. Australian Legend Andrew Moore Recognising Aboriginal Title: The Mabo Case and Indigenous Resistance to English‐Settler Colonialism Peter Russell     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this article: Jane E. Fountain, Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change Alan Charles Raul, Privacy and the Digital State: Balancing Public Information and Personal Privacy Elaine Ciulla Kamarck and Joseph S. Nye, Jr. (eds.), Governance.com: Democracy in the Information Age Peter John Perry, Political Corruption in Australia: A Very Wicked Place? Adrienne Héritier, Dieter Kerwer, Christopher Knill, Dirk Lehmkuhl, Michael Teutsch, and Anne‐Cecile Douillet, Differential Europe: The European Union Impact on National Policy‐making Susan C. Stokes, Mandates and Democracies: Neoliberalism by Surprise in Latin America Matthew Flinders, The Politics of Accountability in the Modern State     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this article: The Rationality of Social Justice BHIKHU PAREKH Why Social Justice Matters: The Social Democratic Alternative to the Washington Consensus, by Brian Barry Varieties of Corruption Paul Jankowski Corrupt Histories, edited by Emmanuel Kreike and William Chester Jordan Are we all republicans now? Dawn Oliver Our Republican Constitution, by Adam Tomkins Defending the NHS: Myths and Realities Jennifer Dixon NHS plc: The Privatisation of Our Health Care, by Allyson M. Pollock Global Non‐sustainability Dick Pountain Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive, by Jared Diamond Trade union history Nina Fishman United We Stand: A History of Britain's Trade Unions, by Alastair J. Reid Britons behaving badly? Mary Chamberlain Bloody Foreigners: The Story of Immigration to Britain, by Robert Winder Out of Yugoslavia into Europe Ilaria Favretto The Hidden Handshake: National Identity and Europe in the Post‐Communist World, by Ales Debeljak Making Americans Fiona Ross The Liberty of Strangers: Making the American Nation, by Desmond King The cancer of torture Victoria Brittain The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib, edited by Karen J. Greenberg and Joshua L. Dratel Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror, by Mark Danner     

Transparency and corruption: Measuring real transparency by a new index

Despite the salience of transparency in policy and democracy debates a global measurement of transparency has always been missing. In its absence, measuring the impact of transparency on accountability and corruption for a large number of countries has been difficult, with scholars using more or less adequate proxies. This paper introduces a new measurement of real transparency—the T-index—using 14 de facto components, based on direct observations of official websites in 129 countries and five de jure components, based on the transparency laws and conventions adopted. The resulting index is a measurement with very good internal and external validity and moderate precision. The paper argues that de facto transparency must be considered alongside de jure (legal) transparency if we are to judge the impact (or lack of) transparency against accountability and corruption, as a large implementation gap exists, in particular in poor countries, between legal commitments and real transparency. The T-index has significant impact on both perception and objective indicators of corruption, including perceived change in corruption over time as measured by the Global Corruption Barometer. An analysis of outliers shows that high transparency alone is not sufficient to achieve control of corruption, especially in countries with low human development and poor rule of law, although transparency is a robust predictor of corruption with GDP controls. The data with all sources is available for download as T-index 2022 dataset: DOI 10.5281/zenodo.7225627 and an interactive webpage developed for updates is available at www.corruptionrisk.org/transparency .     

When do middlemen matter? Evidence from variation in corruption in India

Corruption is a persistent problem in developing countries, and recent scholarship suggests that middlemen play an important role in corrupt acts. Yet, while intermediaries can reduce transaction costs in illicit exchange, they also increase agency costs and reduce benefits to others. The involvement of middlemen may thus vary. I argue that middlemen are most likely to engage in, and benefit from, the subset of corruption transactions that are repeated frequently, but not by the same parties. I test the implications of this argument using survey experiments administered to a large sample of politicians and bureaucrats at multiple levels of government in India. I show that middlemen are critical, but far from ubiquitous. Intermediaries are more relevant where corrupt deals are frequent but involve unfamiliar potential principals. My results suggest that anticorruption efforts must pay greater attention to the type of corruption and the incentives of middlemen.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Montgomery Van Wart, Changing Public Sector Values ;
Andrew Moravcsik, The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht ;
Jonathan Crush, ed., Beyond Control: Immigration and Human Rights in a Democratic South Africa ;
Mark Robinson, ed., Corruption and Development ;
Frank Anechiarico and James B. Jacobs, The Pursuit of Absolute Integrity: How Corruption Control Makes Government Ineffective ;
Richard J. Ellis, ed., Speaking to the People: The Rhetorical Presidency in Historical Perspective     

Corruption, Reform, and Virtue Ethics

Books reviewed in this article:
Gerald E. Caiden, O.P. Dwivedi, and Joseph Jabbra (eds.), Where Corruption Lies
Susan Rose-Ackerman, Corruption and Government: Causes, Consequences, and Reform
Peter Kobrak, Cozy Politics: Political Parties, Campaign Finance, and Compromised Governance
Raymond J. Devettere, Introduction to Virtue Ethics: Insights of the Ancient Greeks     

Empirical determinants of corruption: A sensitivity analysis

Many variables have been proposed by past studies as significant determinants of corruption. This paper asks if their estimated impact on corruption is robust to alteration of the information set. A “Global Sensitivity Analysis”, based on the Leamer's Extreme-Bounds Analysis gives a clear answer: five variables are robustly related to corruption. Corruption is lower in richer countries, where democratic institutions have been preserved for a long continuous period, and the population is mainly Protestant. Corruption is instead higher where political instability is a major problem. Finally, a country's colonial heritage appears to be a significant determinant of present corruption.     

The Impact of Public Officials’ Corruption on the Size and Allocation of U.S. State Spending

This article demonstrates the impact of public officials’ corruption on the size and allocation of U.S. state spending. Extending two theories of “excessive” government expansion, the authors argue that public officials’ corruption should cause state spending to be artificially elevated. Corruption increased state spending over the period 1997–2008. During that time, the 10 most corrupt states could have reduced their total annual expenditure by an average of $1,308 per capita—5.2 percent of the mean per capita state expenditure—if corruption had been at the average level of the states. Moreover, at the expense of social sectors, corruption is likely to distort states’ public resource allocations in favor of higher‐potential “bribe‐generating” spending and items directly beneficial to public officials, such as capital, construction, highways, borrowing, and total salaries and wages. The authors use an objective, concrete, and consistent measurement of corruption, the number of convictions.     

Tackling Corruption at its Source: The National Corruption Prevention Bureau

In Spring 2007 as part of its ongoing anticorruption efforts, the PRC announced the establishment of a new organization called the “National Corruption Prevention Bureau” (NCPB). The article first examines the origins of the NCPB and its position in the current Chinese anticorruption regime. The NCPB will concentrate primarily on information collection and coordination work. Given these goals, This article examines the organization’s potential for improving work in three areas related to information collection and coordination; increased oversight of the private sector, improving information quality and dissemination, and strengthening routine anticorruption activities. The final section examines potential problems that will likely limit the ability of this new organization to improve anticorruption work, such as the possibility of increasing complexity within the anticorruption system, and the NCPB’s limited independence from the agencies it seeks to coordinate.

Book Reviews

European Welfare Futures: Towards a Theory of Retrenchment, by Guiliano Bonoli, Vic George and Peter Taylor‐Gooby The New Politics of the Welfare State, edited by Paul Pierson The Divided Welfare State: The Battle over Public and Private Social Benefits in the United States, by Jacob S. Hacker The Information Society and the Welfare State: The Finnish Model, by Manuel Castells and Pekka Himanen Market‐Driven Politics: Neoliberal Democracy and the Public Interest, by Colin Leys The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty‐First Century, by Robert Cooper Intellectuals and the American Presidency: Philosophers, Jesters or Technicians? By Tevi Troy Nehru: A Political Life, by Judith M. Brown The Labour Market under New Labour: The State of Working Britain 2003, edited by Richard Dickens, Paul Gregg and Jonathan Wadsworth European Integration, 1950–2003: Superstate or New Market Economy? by John Gillingham Dude, Where's My Country? by Michael Moore     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: Incomes and the Welfare State: Essays on Britain and Europe, by A. B. Atkinson. Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher, and the Politics of Retrenchment, by Paul Pierson. Managing Policy Change in Britain: The Politics of Water, by William A. Maloney and Jeremy Richardson. Professional Correctness: Literary Studies and Political Change, by Stanley Fish. Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, by Will Kymlicka. The Rights of Minority Cultures, edited by Will Kymlicka. Globalisation in Question: The International Economy and the Possibilities of Governance, by Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson. Economic Growth and Political Change in Asia, by Graham Field. American Exceptionalism: A Double-edged Sword, by Seymour Martin Lipset. Neither Right nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France, by Zeev Sternhell, trans. David Maisel. Strategies for Self-Govemment: The Campaigns for a Scottish Parliament, by James Mitchell. The Germans: Power Struggles and the Development of Habitus in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, by Norbert Elias, edited by Michael Schröter, translated from the German and with a preface by Eric Chinning and Stephen Mennell.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: Uniting the United Kingdom? The Making of British History, edited by Alexander Grant and Keith J. Stringer. Conquest and Union: Fashioning a British State 1485–1725, edited by Steven G. Ellis and Sarah Barber. A Union for Empire: Political Thought and the Union of 1707, edited by John Robertson. The British Problem, c.1534–1707, edited by Brendan Bradshaw and John Morrill. Macmillan. Three Nations—A Common History? England, Scotland, Ireland and British History c.1600–1920, edited by Ronald G. Asch. Brockmeyer. Scots and Britons: Scottish Political Thought and the Union of 1603, edited by Roger A. Mason. The Monarchy and the Constitution, by Vernon Bogdanor. The Hidden Wiring: Unearthing the British Constitution, by Peter Hennessy. Prime Minster, Cabinet and Core Executive, edited by R. A. W. Rhodes and Patrick Dunleavy. SDP: The Birth, Life and Death of the Social Democratic Party, by Ivor Crewe and Anthony King. Enlightenment's Wake: Politics and Culture at the Close of the Modern Age, by John Gray. The Way We Live Now, by Richard Hoggart. Arts and Cultures: The History of the 50 Years of the Arts Council of Great Britain, by Andrew Sinclair. The Faber Book of Science, edited by John Carey. But is it True? by Aaron Wildavsky. Orchestrating Europe: The Informal Politics of the European Union 1973–95, by Keith Middlemas. Living Islam:From Samarkand to Stomoway, by Akbar S. Ahmed. Jihad vs. McWorld: How the Planet is both Falling Apart and Coming Together and What This Means for Democracy, by Benjamin Barber. Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, by Francis Fukuyama.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this issue. The Doubting President
SELINA CHEN The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, by Barack Obama. Old age and new economics
David Metz The Age of Aging: How Demographics are Changing the Global Economy and Our World, by George Magnus. Vindicating the state
Gianfranco Pasquino In Government We Trust: Market Failure and the Delusions of Privatisation, by Warvick Funnell, Robert Jupe and Jane Andrew. Italian communists and the USSR
Maud Anne Bracke Palmiro Togliatti: A Biography, by Aldo Agosti. Antisemitism in the hall of mirrors
Brian Klug Globalising Hatred: The New Antisemitism, by Denis MacShane. Taking on the sceptics
Rosemary Bechler Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Approach, by Gillian Brock. Financial scandals: the lessons from France
Robert Boyce Shades of Indignation: Political Scandals in France, Past and Present, by Paul Jankowski: Berghahn. Fewer Willys but more consensus
Matthew Grant Seeking a Role: The United Kingdom, 1951–1970, by Brian Harrison. The crunching of classical economics
Paul Auerbach The Subprime Solution: How Today's Global Financial Crisis Happened and What to Do about It, by Robert J Shiller. Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism, by George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this issue. Once Upon a Time in America
NINA FISHMAN Resisting McCarthyism: To Sign or Not to Sign California's Loyalty Oath, by Bob Blauner. Don't blame Bush on Strauss
Lars Fischer The Cambridge Companion to Leo Strauss, edited by Steven B. Smith. Afghanistan: not a barbarous country of savage people
Grahame Hunter Butcher and Bolt: Two Hundred Years of Foreign Entanglement in Afghanistan, by David Loyn. Protesting is good for you
Ilaria Favretto Voices of the Valley, Voices of the Straits: How Protest Creates Communities, by Donatella della Porta and Gianni Piazza. The Internet: a school for life?
Brian Groombridge Learning through Life: Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning, by Tom Schuller and David Watson. The Internet and Democratic Citizenship: Theory, Practice and Policy, by Stephen Coleman and Jay G. Blumler. Right‐wing spectres
Vassilis Fouskas Twenty‐First Century Populism: The Spectre of Western European Democracy, edited by Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan McDonnell. Macmillan: the unflappable politician?
Peter Catterall Harold Macmillan, by Charles Williams.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: The US Presidency in Crisis: A Comparative Perspective, by Colin Campbell Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption, by Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau The Future of Governing: Four Emerging Models B. Guy Peters “A Dutch Miracle,” Job Growth, Welfare Reform and Corporatism in the Netherlands, by Jelle Visser and Anton Hemerijck The Economic History of the Netherlands, 1914–1995: A Small Open Economy in the “Long” Twentieth Century, by Jan L. van Zanden The German and Dutch Economies: Who Follows Whom?, edited by Lei Delsen and Eelke de Jonge The Reordering of British Politics: Politics After Thatcher, by Dennis Kavanagh     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this article: Labour: Professionalism and Internal Democracy
JAMES E. CRONIN Building New Labour: The Politics of Party Organisation, by Meg Russell Cuba: Miserable Happiness? Cuba: A New History, by Richard Gott
Maurice Walsh Yeh but no but
Robert Colls The Politics of Identity. Liberal Political Theory and the Dilemmas of Difference, by Michael Kenny Does economic growth help the poor?
Norman Flynn The End of Poverty: How We Can Make It Happen in Our Lifetime, by Jeffrey Sachs, with a Foreword by Bono Jews for dialogue
Ann Jungmann A Tale of Love and Happiness, by Amos Oz. Vintage A modest proposal
James Cornford Magnificent Vision: The Right to Work, by Alan Whitford Churchill's righting history
John Rams den In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War, by David Reynolds     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this issue. The Dogs of Journalism. STEVEN BARNETT. Flat Earth News, by Nick Davies. Public intellectual: The art of making oneself up. Richard Mullender. Philosophy as Cultural Politics: Philosophical Papers, Volume 4, by Richard Rorty. The Second Plane: September 11: 2001–2007, by Martin Amis. Planning and all that. Matthew Grant. From Dreams to Disillusionment: Economic and Social Planning in 1960s Britain, by Glen O'Hara. Let a hundred flowers bloom. Munira Mirza Provoking Democracy: Why We Need the Arts, by Caroline Levine. How to change your brains. Dick Pountain On Deep History and the Brain, by Daniel Lord Smail. ‘Clean’ torture. Caroline Fournet Torture and Democracy, by Darius Rejali. Reforming Italy. Gianfranco Pasquino Political Institutions in Italy, by Maurizio Cotta and Luca Verzichelli. Choice and competition in health care. Jennifer Dixon The Other Invisible Hand: Delivering Public Services through Competition and Choice, by Julian Le Grand, Afterword by Alain Enthoven. Who is afraid of politics?. Meg Russell Politics and the People: A History of British Democracy since 1918, by Kevin Jefferys. Why Politics Matters: Making Democracy Work, by Gerry Stoker, Palgrave Macmillan. Why We Hate Politics, by Colin Hay.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this issue. The Real Story of the Romanian ‘Revolution’
SILVIA MARTON 1989 à l'est de l'Europe: une mémoire controversée, edited by Jérôme Heurtaux and Cédric Pellen. La mort des Ceau?escu: la vérité sur un coup d'Etat communiste, by Catherine Durandin and Guy Hoedts. A hedgehog approach to capitalism
Paul Auerbach 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism, by Ha‐Joon Chang. A Scottish Salmond in a sea of banalities?
Tom Gallagher Salmond Against the Odds, by David Torrance. Israel: the politics of brute force
Geoffrey Bindman The Punishment of Gaza, by Gideon Levy. Heath: no need to be loved
Mark Garnett Edward Heath: The Authorised Biography, by Philip Ziegler. The politics of rebellious music
Nico Pizzolato Reds, Whites and Blues: Social Movements, Folk Music and Race in the United States, by William G. Roy. Lloyd George's wrong choices
Dick Leonard David Lloyd George: The Great Outsider, by Roy Hattersley. The constraints on American caesars
Richard Briand American Caesars: Lives of the American Presidents, from Franklyn D. Roosevelt to George Bush, by Nigel Hamilton. Faltering Habermas
Gianfranco Pasquino Europe: The Faltering Project, by Jürgen Habermas. Some light on the Prince of Darkness
Andrew Blick The Third Man: Life at the Heart of New Labour, by Peter Mandelson. Trio: Inside the Blair, Brown, Mandelson Project, by Giles Radice.