Inside the Presidential Communications Machine: An Interview with Martha Joynt Kumar

Martha Joynt Kumar is a professor of political science at Towson University. Her book, Managing the President’s Message: The White House Communications Operation (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), examines the media and communications operations of the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. In March 2008, Professor Kumar was interviewed in the White House Press Briefing Room by Kevin R. Kosar on behalf of Public Administration Review. As this interview went to press, the American Political Science Association’s Presidency Research Group announced that it had awarded Managing the President’s Message the Richard E. Neustadt Award for best book on the U.S. presidency published in 2007.     

Book Reviews

Armstrong, David, Lloyd, Lorna and Redmond, John From Versailles to Maastricht: International Organisation in the Twentieth Century Brubaker, Rogers Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe Gillespie, Paul (ed) Britain’s European Question: The Issues for Ireland Hesse, Joachim Jens and Wright, Vincent (eds) Federalizing Europe? The Costs, Benefits, and Preconditions of Political Systems Hooghe, Liesbet (ed) Cohesion Policy and European Integration: Building Multi-level Governance Laffan, Brigid (ed) Constitution-building in the European Union Lane, Jan-Erik, McKay, David and Newtown, Kenneth (ed) Political Data Handbook: OECD Countries, 2nd edn Page, Edward C. People Who Run Europe Smith, Michael New Cloak, Old Dagger: How Briain’s Spies Came In From the Cold Urban, Mark UK Eyes Alpha: The Inside Story of British Intelligence Herman, Michael Intelligence Power in Peace and War West, Nigel The Secret War for the Falklands: The SAS, M16 and the War Whitehall Nearly Lost Jones, Tudor Remaking the Labour Party: From Gaitskell to Blair Thompson, Noel Political Economy and the Labour Party Shepherd, Robert Enoch Powell Webster, Charles The Health Service since the War, vol. II: Government and Health Care—The British National Health Service, 1958–1979 Adams, Adrian and So, Jaabe A Claim to Land by the River: A Household in Senegal Strange, Susan The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy Vatikiotis, Michael J. Political Change in Southeast Asia: Trimming the Banyan Tree Jacobs, Michael/Real World Coalition The Politics of the Real World Landauer, Thomas K. The Trouble with Computers: Usefulness, Usability and Productivity MacKenzie, Donald Knowing Machines: Essays on Technical Change     

The Art of Not Being Quite So Governed: An Examination of the Work of the “Critical” Journal

Michel Foucault in his lecture “What is Critique?” argues that criticism offered a response to the state's developing art of governing in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Instead of accepting the state's way of governing, critics presented alternative visions of not being quite so governed or of not being governed thusly. Similarly, in the latter half of the twentieth century, factions within academic disciplines also rejected their disciplines' mode of governing and created alternatives. In response to the desire to make political science more relevant and visible, the Caucus for a New Political Science formed as an alternative to the American Political Science Association. A similar trend occurred in other disciplines. Over the next few decades a number of academic journals were founded that included the word “critical” in their titles or explicitly stated a “critical” aim or approach. However, even dissenting academic groups, like the Caucus for a New Political Science, began to be reabsorbed within their disciplinary homes. With time, many of these groups succumbed to a degree of professionalization that perhaps inhibited their larger aspirations. As Foucault argues, the critical attitude does not reject governing altogether; it is not a call for anarchy. Rather, it demands an alternative to the current governance. The question becomes how to maintain the critical attitude while also building alternative institutions. Does institution building attenuate critique? And what then is critique? This article reflects on these questions by providing a brief study of “critical” disciplinary reorganizations, with greater attention to the Caucus for a New Political Science and its journal, New Political Science.     

C. Wright Mills,Power Structure Research,and the Failures of Mainstream Political Science

“Power Reconsidered” was the theme of the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association in 2006. In a steady stream of analytically focused and empirically rich books and articles over the last 40 years, G. William Domhoff had made a unique and challenging contribution to the study of power and politics in the United States. In this commentary, based on a presentation at an APSA panel sponsored by the New Political Science section, Domhoff criticizes the narrow and misleading ways in which the concept of power has been used by pluralist, state autonomy, and historical institutionalism approaches in political science. Drawing on the path-breaking work of C. Wright Mills and Floyd Hunter in the 1950s, Domhoff restates and develops his class and organizational interpretation of the American power structure. As a progressive and scholarly journal, New Political Science encourages authors to submit research articles that engage with the theoretical questions raised by Domhoff.     

Book reviews

Gray Brechin, Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

Michael Goldman, ed., Privatizing Nature: Political Struggles for the Global Commons. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this issue. The Travails of Opposition
MARK GARNETT The Conservative Party: From Thatcher to Cameron, by Tim Bale. Labour's travails
Richard Briand Speak for Britain! A New History of the Labour Party, by Martin Pugh. Anti‐social behaviour? Dial 101
Paul Michael Garrett The Politics of Antisocial Behaviour: Amoral Panics, by Stuart Waiton. Surviving nukes in one's back garden
Victoria Honeyman After the Bomb; Civil Defence and Nuclear War in Britain 1945–68, by Matthew Grant. Israel's foundation myths
Richard Kuper The Invention of the Jewish People, by Shlomo Sand, (trans. Yael Lotan). Political science mission statement
Gianfranco Pasquino The Oxford Handbook of Political Science, edited by Robert E. Goodin. Sir Ian Blair: the Burkean top cop
Ian Loader Policing Controversy, by Ian Blair. To intervene or not to intervene?
Daniele Archibugi Humanitarian Intervention, by Michael Newman. A phenomenal trade unionist
Geoffrey Goodman Arthur Horner: A Political Biography. Vol. 1: 1918–1944; Vol. 2: 1944–1968, by Nina Fishman.     

Book Reviews

Donald Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism: The West European Left in the Twentieth Century Erich Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust Ivan Hannaford, Race: The History of an Idea in the West Michael H. Armacost, Friends or Rivals? The Insider’s Account of US–Japan Relations Susanne MacGregor, Arthur Lipow (eds), The Other City: People and Politics in New York and London Krishan Kumar, From Post-Industrial to Post-Modern Society: New Theories of the Contemporary World Edward Tenner, Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge Effect Jay G. Blumler, Michael Gurevitch, The Crisis of Public Communication Jack Hayward, Elitism, Populism and European Politics Jack Hayward, The Crisis of Representation in Europe Adrian Guelke, The Age of Terrorism and the International Political System     

Reviews

Postmodern Revisionings of the Political Anna Yeatman, Routledge London and New York 1994

An Introduction to Semiotics Thomas A. Sebeok, Pinter London 1994

The Frankfurt School: Its History, Theories and Political Significance Rolf Wiggershaus translated by Michael Robertson, Polity Press Cambridge 1994

An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics Suzanne Eggins, Pinter London 1994     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Fred Argy, Australia at the Crossroads: Radical Free Market or a Progressive Liberalism? Peter Bridgman and Glyn Davis, Australian Policy Handbook Diane Gibson, Aged Care: Old Policies, New Problems Michael Coper and George Williams(eds.), Justice Lionel Murphy: Influential or Merely Prescient? Jenny Hocking, Lionel Murphy: A Political Biography Charles Sampford and Kim Preston (eds.), Interpreting Constitutions: Theories, Principles and Institutions Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben, Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and Internet Greg J Bamber and Russell Lansbury(ed.), Review of International andComparative Employment Relations: A Study of Industrialised Market Economies Michael Bittman and Jocelyn Pixley, The Double Life of the Family     

Terror,War, and Democracy: An Interview with Stephen Eric Bronner

Stephen Eric Bronner is a Professor of Political Science and a member of the Graduate Faculties of Comparative Literature and German Studies at Rutgers University. The Senior Editor of Logos, an interdisciplinary internet journal, Bronner is also a member of the Editorial Board of New Political Science and a longtime contributor to this journal. In an interview conducted by Antonia Werbell, Bronner elaborates on themes in his most recent book Blood in the Sand: Imperial Fantasies, Right-Wing Ambitions, and the Erosion of American Democracy (University of Kentucky Press, 2005) and offers a critical analysis of US democracy in the context of the Bush administration's “war on terror.”     

Book Reviews

Who Cares? True Stories of the NHS Reforms Peter Bruggen A Damn Bad Business: The NHS Deformed Jeremy Lee-Potter The Politics of Change in the Health Service Brian Salter The National Health Service: A Political History Charles Webster Cyberdemocracy: Technology, Cities and Civic Networks edited by Roza Tsagarousianou, Damian Tambini and Cathy Bryan Governing in the Digital Age Christine Bellamy and John A. Taylor Coordinating the Internet edited by Brian Kahin and James H. Keller Raymond Williams Fred Inglis The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism Richard Sennett Political Theory of European Constitutional Choice edited by Michael Nentwich and Albert Weale Citizenship and Citizenship Education in a Changing World edited by Orit Ichilov Work, Consumerism and the New Poor Zygmunt Bauman Feminism and Citizenship Rian Voet Conscience and Parliament edited by Philip Cowley     

Reconsidering The Counter-Mobilization Hypothesis: Health Policy Lobbying In The American States

Despite its widespread use since the concept was introduced by David Truman (1951. The Governmental Process. New York: Alfred A. Knopf), counter-mobilization by organized interests has remained theoretically ambiguous and rarely studied empirically. We more fully develop the concept of short-term counter-mobilization, distinguish it from long-term counter-mobilization, specify the conditions under which we might observe short-term counter-mobilization, and test the resulting hypotheses with data on health care lobby registrations in the American states during the late 1990s. We find little evidence of short-term counter-mobilization among health interest organizations, which leads us to more fully consider several null hypotheses about the limits of strategic behavior on the part of organized interests.An earlier version of this paper was prepared for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, April 2004. This research was supported by a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research (ID#047727).     

Book Reviews

Books Reviewed: The New Wars. By Herfried Münkler. (Cambridge: Polity, 2005). Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. By Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. (New York: Penguin Press, 2004). Sovereignty and its Discontents: On the Primacy of Conflict and the Structure of the Political. By William Rasch. (London: Birkbeck Law Press, 2004). The State of the Political: Conceptions of Politics and the State in the Thought of Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, and Franz Neumann. By Duncan Kelly. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.)     

Reflections on Politics and Academia: An Interview with Michael Parenti

Michael Parenti, the author of more than twenty books on a wide variety of topics, has taught political science and social science at several universities. He is a founder of the Caucus for a New Political Science. In recent years he has been devoted to writing and public speaking, lecturing across the United States, Canada, and elsewhere. He received his PhD in political science from Yale University. He currently lives in Berkeley, California. The following interview was conducted in early February 2012.1 ¹ Michael Parenti would like to thank Carl Boggs for his efforts in putting this interview together. He considers it a privilege to be interviewed by someone of Carl's caliber.      

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     

Neoconservatism: Myth and reality

Seymour Martin Lipset is the Caroline S. G. Munro Professor of Political Science, professor of sociology, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University. He taught previously as the George D. Markham Professor at Harvard University. Among his books are Consensus and Conflict, Political Man, The First New Nation, Party Coalitions in the 1980s,and Revolution and Counterrevolution.This text was originally delivered as the First Ernst Fraenkel Lecture, given at the John F. Kennedy Institute at the Free University of Berlin.     

Keep Them in the Dark: Australian Government Strategy to Weaken Activism against Australia's new Nuclear Reactor

Martin O'Connor, editor: Is Capitalism Sustainable? Political Economy and the Politics of Ecology. New York: Guilford Publications, 1994.

Kate Soper: What is Nature? Oxford: Blackwell, 1995.

Jim Schwab: Deeper Shades of Green: The Rise of Blue‐Collar and Minority Environmentalism in America. San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books, 1994.

Michael E. Zimmerman: Contesting Earth's Future: Radical Ecology and Postmodernity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

Michael Hough: Cities and Natural Process. New York: Routledge, 1995.

Wayne Roberts and Susan Brandum: GET A LIFE! How to make a good buck, Dance around the dinosaurs, and Save the world while you're at it. Get A Life Publishing, Toronto, 1995.

Sara Berry: No Condition is Permanent: The Social Dynamics of Agrarian Change in Sub‐Saharan Africa. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993.     

Sleeping Beauties of Political Science: The Case of AF Bentley

Recognition is what makes science move forward. Yet, late recognition has been an existing phenomenon in the scientific community for centuries. Does this phenomenon of “Sleeping Beauties”, as these works are sometimes called in academic literature, exist in Political Science? The bibliometric analysis we applied showed a positive answer. Our paper is the first case study of “Sleeping Beauty” that is not an article but a book. The book by A. F. Bentley, The Process of Government, serves as an example of “Sleeping Beauty” in the Political Science domain. What put this work to “sleep”? And why, at some point, it has been suddenly “awakened” by a large number of citations? Although it has been discussed previously as a neglected classic, no bibliometric analysis has been applied to examine it and assumptions for its neglect and rediscovery presented by previous authors differ from our bibliometric findings.     

Democracy and populism

He is currently president of the New England Political Science Association and has been a member of the Advisory Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities. His books include America’s Constitutional Soul; Taming the Prince: The Ambivalence of Modern Executive Power; Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories;and a new translation of Machiavelli’s The Prince.     

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