Book Reviews

Dionne, E.J. Jr. They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Will Dominate the Next Political Era Gitlin, Todd The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America is Wracked by Culture Wars Hochschild, Jennifer L. Facing Up to the American Dream: Race, Class and the Soul of the Nation Kozol, Jonathan Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation Foster, Christopher D. and Plowden, Francis J. The State Under Stress Barberis, Peter The Elite of the Elite: Permanent Secretaries in the British Higher Civil Service Porter, Norman Rethinking Unionism: An Alternative Vision for Northern Ireland English, Richard and Walker, Graham (eds) Unionism in Modern Ireland: New Perspectives on Politics and Culture Clarke, Peter Hope and Glory: Britain 1900–1990 Harrison, Brian The Transformation of British Politics 1860–1995 Radice, Giles (ed) What Needs to Change? New Visions for Britain King, Preston (ed) Socialism and the Common Good: New Fabian Essays Perryman, Mark (ed) The Blair Agenda Stone, Diane Capturing the Political Imagination: Think Tanks and the Policy Process Denham, Andrew Think Tanks of the New Right Klein, Rudolf, Day, Patricia and Redmayne, Sharon Managing Scarcity: Priority Setting and Rationing in the National Health Service Lawson, Richard Bills of Health Disney, Richard Can We Afford to Grow Older? Brown, Alice, McCrone, David and Paterson, Lindsay Politics and Society in Scotland The Constitution Unit Scotland’s Parliament: Fundamentals for a New Scotland Act The Constitution Unit Regional Government in England     

Supplementing the effective number of parties

The effective number of parties, N=1/Σp²_i (where p_i is the fractional share of the ith party), usually suffices to describe adequately a constellation of parties of different strengths. Difficulties arise when disparity in party sizes is such that the largest share (p₁) surpasses 0.50 (meaning absolute dominance), while N still indicates a multi-party constellation. In such cases N_∞=1/p₁ is proposed as a supplementary indicator: a value less than 2 indicates absolute dominance. An ‘NP' index proposed earlier is a combination of N and N_∞; its values are close to those of N_∞, but NP sometimes falls below 2 even when many parties are relevant for coalition formation. [Reference to Appendix A] offers an alternative approach based on indices of deviation from a norm, but it proves cumbersome.     

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: Alan Campbell, Nina Fishman and John McIlroy (eds.), British Trade Unions and Industrial Politics; Volume One: The Post‐war Compromise, 1945‐‐64; Volume Two: The High Tide of Trade Unionism, 1964‐79 Robert E. Lane, The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies Peter Self, Rolling Back the Market: Economic Dogma and Political Choice Anne Phillips, Which Equalities Matter? Royden J. Harrison, The Life and Times of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, 1858‐‐1905: The Formative Years Tim Judah, Kosovo: War and Revenge Michael J. Hogan (ed.), The Ambiguous Legacy: US Foreign Relations in the ‘American Century’ Eric Roll, Where Are We Going? The Next Twenty Years Dennis Smith and Sue Wright (eds.), Whose Europe? The Turn Towards Democracy Meg Russell, Reforming the House of Lords: Lessons from Overseas The Wakeham Report, A House for the Future: The Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords Anthony D. Smith, Myths and Memories of the Nation Phil Mullan, The Imaginary Time Bomb: Why an Ageing Population is not a Social Problem     

A vision for sociology

His most recent books are Foundations of Social Theory,and Equality and Achievement in Education.He is also the author of Power and The Structure of Society,and The Asymetric Societyamong many other books.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this issue. The dark side of the Chinese economic miracle
MARINA LEWYCKA Scattered Sand: The Story of China's Rural Migrants, by Hsiao‐Hung Pai. Neoliberalism yesterday and today (and tomorrow?)
Gianfranco Pasquino Bourgeois Liberty and the Politics of Fear. From Absolutism to Neo‐Conservatism, by Marc Mulholland. Masters of the Universe. Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics, by Daniel Stedman Jones. The death of civility
Richard Kuper Occupation Diaries, by Raja Shehadeh. The not‐so‐new economy of the WWW
Maurice Walsh Misunderstanding the Internet, by James Curran, Natalie Fenton and Des Freedman. The ever‐changing Conservatives?
Richard Briand The Conservatives since 1945: The Drivers of Party Change, by Tim Bale. Inequality is bad for growth
Paul Auerbach Plutocrats. The Rise of the New Global Super Rich, by Chrystia Freeland Surviving the Gulag
Geoffrey Roberts The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin, by Stephen F. Cohen. Promises, promises: hyping the new biology
Brian Butterworth Genes, Cells and Brains: The Promethean Promises of the New Biology, by Hilary Rose and Steven Rose.     

Behavioral symmetry,rent seeking,and the Republic of Science

The Olsonian distinction between roving and stationary bandits outlines the rationale behind the transition from anarchy to the emergence of the predatory state. This two-bandit model may, however, be expanded to include more bandit types. In the case of Viking Age England, local English kings were unable to monopolize violence and defend their realms against competing Viking raiders. As the Vikings’ time horizon grew, so did the accumulated value of more formal taxation, and bandit types evolved in four steps. The first step is the Olsonian roving bandit, who executed Viking hit-and-run attacks and plunders during the second half of the tenth century. The second step is the gafol bandit; gafol is payment for leaving, paid to, among others, Swein Forkbeard. The third step is the heregeld bandit; heregeld is a tax to support an army for hire; most notably Thorkell the Tall’s. The fourth step is the Olsonian stationary bandit, i.e. the strongest military leader among the Vikings, Cnut the Great, settled down as the new king. Overall, the Olsonian two-bandit model can be expanded to a four-bandit staircase model, in which the new gafol and heregeld bandit types explain the steps from anarchy and short-run raiding to long-run formal taxation in a predatory state.

     

The Participedia Project: An Introduction

ABSTRACT

Participedia is an open-source, participatory knowledge tool that responds to a new global phenomenon: the rapid development of experiments in new forms of participatory politics and governance around the world. The experiments are diverse and widespread, from the British Columbia Citizens' Assembly in Canada and the Oregon Citizens' Initiative in the United States to Participatory Budgeting in Brazil, deliberative forums in China, Panchayati Raj reforms in India, and citizen technology assessment in Denmark. Our knowledge of this rapidly expanding universe is shallow. The authors of this article, together with several others, have created the Participedia to respond to this deficit in knowledge. This article documents the development of the Participedia project to date. Participedia aims to be useful to scholars (and practitioners) as an open-source, real-time, cumulative qualitative and quantitative data repository about participatory and deliberative governance experiences. We believe that Participedia is the first effort in the social sciences to build a large data set through a method that is both crowd-sourced and structured to produce good quality, comparable information.

[Editor's Note: The authors of this article are two of the co-founders of Participedia.]     

The Impact of the Australian Government Job Network Contracting on Not‐for‐Profit Service Providers

This article examines the impact of Australian government contracting for the provision of Job Network services on not‐for‐profit organisations ¹ . The term not‐for‐profit is used to categorise organisations which are variously described as non‐government, non‐profit, community and third sector organisations ( Lyons 2001 ).     

Truth and Reconciliation as a Model for Change in Response to #MeToo

The U.S. criminal justice system is designed to handle extreme cases of sexual misconduct, but the system has not adapted well to less extreme (but no less important) sexually inappropriate behaviors. As our understanding of sexual misconduct and impropriety evolves, the need for a new system of accountability seems apparent. The authors call for a new approach to providing justice for survivors/victims: the adoption of a truth and reconciliation model. This model involves providing a public forum for survivors/victims to testify to the events of their victimization and for offenders to admit previous wrongdoing, take responsibility, and ask forgiveness. While it is not appropriate for handling illegal behaviors, a truth and reconciliation model would be ideal for incidents that are not illegal but violate our evolving social norms.     

Managing Mass Fatalities during COVID-19: Lessons for Promoting Community Resilience during Global Pandemics

In the United States and around the world, COVID-19 represents a mass fatality incident, as there are more bodies than can be handled using existing resources. Although the management and disposition of bodies is distressing and heartrending, it is a task that local, state, and federal governments must plan for and respond to collaboratively with the private sector and faith-based community. When mass fatalities are mismanaged, there are grave emotional and mental health consequences that can delay recovery and undermine community resilience. Using insights from one author's mass fatality management research during the 2010 Haiti earthquake, this Viewpoint essay explores how mass fatalities are being managed in response to COVID-19. Based on the researcher's findings a decade ago, it is apparent that many lessons have not been learned. The essay concludes by providing governments with practical lessons on how to manage mass fatalities to facilitate and promote community resilience.     

Germany's right‐wing press

A crucial factor in the revival of Neo‐Nazism and extreme nationalism in Germany is the right‐wing Press. The Federal Minister of the Interior's annual reports on right‐wing activities have, over a number of years, reported high circulation figures: 223,000 in 1963, 183,000 in 1964 and 227,000 m 1965. Below essential information is given on the principal Right‐wing press organs. This will be followed up in future issues of PREJUDICE by similar facts on other papers.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this issue. Bush's Indecisive Decisions
GIANFRANCO PASQUINO Decision Points, by George W. Bush. Anger, pessimism and community
Richard Mullender The Uses of Pessimism and the Danger of False Hope, by Roger Scruton. Forever learning
Brian Groombridge Remaking Adult Learning, edited by Jay Derrick, Ursula Howard, John Field, Peter Lavender, Sue Meyer, Ekkehard Nuissl von Rein and Tom Schuller. The ‘good’ migrant
Anne Kershen Modern Migrations: Gujarati Indian Networks in New York and London, by Maritsa V. Poros. Imagining migrants
Tiziana Caponio Migration, Public Opinion and Politics: The Transatlantic Council on Migration, edited by Bertelsmann Stiftung and Migration Policy Institute. Dissenting communists
Maud Anne Bracke L'appuntamento mancato. La sinistra italiana e il dissenso nei regimi comunisti, 1968–1989, by Valentine Lomellini. Not a rose‐tinted view
Richard Briand Ages of Reform: Dawns and Downfalls of the British Left, by Kenneth O. Morgan. The people's flag is deepest green
Dick Pountain The Ecological Rift: Capitalism's War on the Earth, by John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark and Richard York.     

Harnessing Market Competition in PPP Procurement: The Importance of Periodically Taking a Strategic View

Public‐Private Partnerships (PPP) procurement is routinely portrayed as offering greater scope for harnessing competitive market forces to secure Value for Money (VfM) than traditional procurement approaches ( OECD 2008 ). The aim of this article is (a) to demonstrate the importance of periodically taking a more systematic and strategic view when assessing VfM in PPP procurement ( OGC 2003 ), and (b) to develop an analytical framework for such an analysis. Road infrastructure procurement in South East Queensland is used as a case study to test the usefulness of the proposed framework, and to show how a narrow focus on individual contracts increases the risk of overlooking overdependence on one supplier ( OGC 2003 ). Discussion focuses on the need to combine detailed analysis of individual contracts with longitudinal analyses of market competitiveness when assessing best VfM.     

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.     

Institutional determinants of the largest seat share

The degree of predominance of the largest party in a representative assembly affects government formation and survival. The seat share of the largest party, in turn, is constrained by the interaction of assembly size and electoral district magnitude in the following way. When all S seats in an assembly are allocated in districts of magnitude M, a logical quantitative model proposes that the largest fractional share is s₁ = (MS)^−1/8. As a curve, the model is found to fit with R² = 0.509, considering data from the averages of 46 periods in 37 countries, during which the electoral rules were essentially steady. As a worldwide average, the expression s₁(MS)^1/8 = 1 holds within 1%. Deviations from this average express the impact of various country-specific political and socio-cultural factors that can be investigated once the basic institutional constraints are controlled-for. This means that the degree of largest party predominance may be engineered to hover around a desired average by adjusting assembly size, and district magnitude, while keeping country-specific factors in mind.     

Conceptions of the good,rivalry, and liberal neutrality

Liberal neutrality is assumed to pertain to rival conceptions of the good. The nature of the rivalry between conceptions of the good is pivotal to the coherence, scope and realisation of liberal neutrality. Yet, liberal theorists have said very little about rivalry. This paper attempts to fill this gap by reviewing three conceptions of rivalry: incompatibility rivalry, intra-domain rivalry and state power rivalry. I argue that state power rivalry is the morally relevant conception of rivalry, and that it has significant implications for the scope and realisation of liberal neutrality. I conclude that in the light of state power rivalry, the only feasible liberal neutral state is a very minimal one.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this issue. Capitalism with a Poker Face
DICK POUNTAIN Cool Capitalism, by Jim McGuigan. Reinvigorating the left—again?
Michael Newman In Search of Social Democracy: Responses to Crisis and Modernisation, edited by John Callaghan, Nina Fishman, Ben Jackson and Martin McIvor Imperialism—again?
Vassilis K. Fouskas Imperialism and Global Political Economy, by Alex Callinicos Rethinking Imperialism: A Study of Capitalist Rule, by John Milios and Dimitris P. Sotiropoulos The making of Thatcherism
Matthew Grant Finding a Role? The United Kingdom, 1970–1990, by Brian Harrison Neo‐liberalism: the case against
Gianfranco Pasquino The Neo‐Liberal State, by Raymond Plant Planetary fantasy or strategic project?
Roland Axtmann The Global Commonwealth of Citizens: Toward Cosmopolitan Democracy, by Daniele Archibugi A bit of anarchy is good for you
Constance Bantman Anarchism and Utopianism, edited by Laurence Davis and Ruth Kinna The godlessness of Englishness
Michael Kenny Is God Still an Englishman? How We Lost Our Faith (but Found New Soul), by Cole Moreton     

Reviews and notes

Farewell to the Working Class: An Essay on Post‐Industrial Socialism by Andre Gorz, Boston: South End Press, 1982, $7.50, 152 pp.

Robert Lekachman. Greed Is Not Enough. (New York: Pantheon, 1982).

Debunking is not Enough

Frank Ackerman, Reaganomics: Rhetoric vs. Reality. (Boston: South End, 1982).

Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward. The New Class War. (New York: Pantheon, 1982).

Power and the Intellectuals

Paul Hollander, Political Pilgrims (New York, Oxford University Press, 1981)

Regis Debray, Teachers, Writers, Celebrities (London, New Left Books, 1981)

Alvin Gouldner, The Future of Intellectuals and The Rise of the New Class (New York, Seabury Press, 1979 (Note — Oxford University Press has picked up the imprint and published this work in paperback in 1982)

Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison, The Deindustrialization of America: Plant Closings, Community Abandonment, and the Dismantling of Basic Industry (New York: Basic Books, 1982).

Doreen Massey and Richard Meegan, The Anatomy of Job Loss: The How, Why, and Where of Employment Decline (London and New York: Methuen, 1982).     

A Multidimensional Reputation Barometer for Public Agencies: A Validated Instrument

Reputation is of growing interest for the study of public bureaucracies, but a measurement that can discern between the subdimensions of reputation and is validated on real-life audiences has remained elusive. The authors deductively build, test, and cross-validate a survey instrument through two surveys of 2,100 key stakeholders of the European Chemicals Agency, the European Union chemicals regulator. This empirical tool measures an agency's reputation and its building blocks. This scale represents an important contribution to reputation literature, as it allows scholars to distinguish and measure which aspects of reputation public organizations are “known for” and build their claim to authority on, as well as how the profiles of public organizations differ. The authors find that direct stakeholder contact with the agency is necessary for stakeholders to be able to evaluate the separate dimensions of reputation independently. Evidence for Practice

• This study equips practitioners with a reputation barometer tailored to the public sector. It allows them to measure the reputation of their organization, in a differentiated fashion, among different stakeholder groups.
• While public organizations increasingly engage in reputation management activities, a potential caveat that emerges from our exercise is that managers might be steering in non-astute directions. While our study shows that, as for private actors, “performance matters,” procedural and moral aspects also weigh heavily in the eyes of stakeholders when it comes to public regulators.
• To secure a positive organizational image and the authority crucial for public agencies to operate, the performance management turn in the public sector may need to be supplemented by an enhanced organizational attention to procedural and moral aspects.