Reviews

Robert V. Daniels, Russia: The Roots of Confrontation, Cambridge, Mass. and London, England: Harvard University Press, 1985, xiii + 411 pp. £22.75.

Harry Gelman, The Brezhnev Politburo and the Decline of Detente. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1984, 268 pp. £9.95.

Stephen F. Cohen, Rethinking the Soviet Experience. Politics and History Since 1917. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985, xiii + 222 pp. £15.00.

Shugo Minagawa, Supreme Soviet Organs: Functions and Institutional Development of Federal and Republican Presidia and Standing Commissions, Nagoya: University of Nagoya Press, 1985, xxi + 346 pp., 5000 yen.

Pekka Sutela, Socialism, Planning and Optimality. A study in Soviet economic thought (Helsinki, The Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters). Commentationes Scientiarum Socialium vol 25. 1984, 230 pp. No price.

Christopher T. Saunders, ed., East‐West Trade and Finance in the World Economy. London: Macmillan, 1985, ix + 338 pp., £30.00.

P. T. Wanless, Taxation in Centrally Planned Economies, London & Sydney: Croom Helm, 1985, xi + 141 pp., £16.95.

Christopher Coker, NATO, the Warsaw Pact and Africa, London: Macmillan for RUSI, 1985, xii + 302 pp. £25.00.

Ellen Jones, Red Army and Society: A Sociology of the Soviet Military. London: Allen & Unwin, 1985, xviii + 230 pp. £18.00.

Thomas F. Remington, Building Socialism in Bolshevik Russia. Ideology and Industrial Organization, 1917–1921, Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1984, x + 222 pp., $19.95.

Teodor Shanin, Russia as a ‘Developing Society’: The Roots of Otherness: Russia's Turn of Century, Volume 1, Basingstoke and London, Macmillan, 1985, XVI + 268 pp., £27.50 h/c, £8.95 p/b.

Olimpiad S. Ioffe, Soviet Law and Soviet Reality, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1985, Law in Eastern Europe series No. 30, 234 pp., Dfl. 135, U.S. $45.50, £34.50.

James M. Swanson, Scientific Discoveries and Soviet Law: A Socio‐historical Analysis. Gainesville, Florida, University of Florida Press, 1985, viii + 150 pp. $11.00.

Martin Fincke, ed. Handbuch der Sowjetverfassung, vols. I and II. Duncker and Humblot, Berlin, 1983, XVI + 1336 pp. including index and synopsis of Constitutions. Vol. I DM 236.00. Vol. II DM 270.00.

Laszlo Antal, Gazdasagiranyitsai és pénzügyirendszerunk a reform útján (The Changes in Our Economic Policy and Monetary System in Connection With the Reform). Budapest, Kozgasdasagi es Jogi Konyvkiado, 1985, 326 pp. 72 forints.

Harold Lydall. Yugoslav Socialism: Theory and Practice. London and New York, Oxford University Press, 1984, 302 pp. £18.50.

Saul Estrin, Self‐management: economic theory and Yugoslav practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, x + 264 pp., £27.50.

Nora Beloff, Tito's Flawed Legacy, Yugoslavia and the West: 1939 to 1984. Victor Gollancz Ltd, London 1985, maps, bibliography, index; 287 pp; £12.95.

Adam Bromke, Eastern Europe in the Aftermath of Solidarity. Boulder: East European Monographs, Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York. 1985. viii + 206 pp. $29.00.

Stanley M. Max, The United States, Great Britain and the Sovietisation of Hungary, 1945–48. Colorado: Eastern European Monographs, 1985, 195 pp. $26.00.

Phillip J. Bryson, The Consumer Under Socialist Planning: The East‐German Case, New York: Praeger Publishers, 1984, x + 206 pp. £33.95.

Roy Allison, Finland's Relations with the Soviet Union 1944–84. London and Basingstoke: (Macmillan in Association with St Antony's College, Oxford), 1985. ix + 211 pp. £25.

Paolo Spriano, Stalin and the European Communists, London, Verso, 1985. 315 pp. £16.95.

Gwyn Prins ed, The Choice, Nuclear Weapons versus Security. (London, Chatto and Windus, Hogarth Press, 1984, xvii + 251 pp. £12.95 hardback, £6.95 paperback.)

Anthony Arnold, Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion in Perspective (Revised and enlarged edition). Stanford University, Stanford, Ca, Hoover Institution Press, 1985, xix + 179 pp. $10.95 (paperback).

Nish Jamgotch, Jr. ed. Sectors of Mutual Benefit in U.S. ‐ Soviet Relations. Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 1985, xxii + 254 pp. £35.00 (hardback).

John Massey Stewart and Alan Wood, Siberia: Two Historical Perspectives, The Great Britain‐USSR Association and the School of Slavonic and East European Studies: London, 1984, 50 pp. £4.50 (UK), £4.95 (elsewhere in Europe), £6.25 (Rest of World [airmail]).

Tatyana Mamonova, ed. Women and Russia. Feminist Writings from the Soviet Union, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1984. xxiii + 273 pp. £19.50 h/b £5.95 p/b.

D. V. Filat'ev, Katastrofa Belogo dvizheniya v Sibiri: Vpechatleniya ochevidtsa. Paris: YMCA‐Press, 1985. 142 pp.

The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences ed., Information Bulgaria, A Short Encyclopaedia of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, translated by Sofia Press Agency, Pergamon Press, Oxford 1985, 976 pp, index, bibliographies, maps, tables, £98.

Robert Weiner, Romanian Foreign Policy and the United Nations. (New York: Praeger, 1984), 206 pp. $28.95).

Zbigniew Landau and Jerzy Tomaszewski, The Polish Economy in the Twentieth Century. (Croom Helm, Beckenham, 1985). vi + 346 pp. £25.00.

John N. Stevens, Czechoslovakia at the Crossroads. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985, xiv + 349 pp., $35.00.

Karel Vítek, Problémy man?elské rovnováhy. [Problems of marital equilibrium] Prague, 1985, 284 pp. p/b K?s 26.00.     

A Participant Evaluation of the U.S. Navy Parent Support Program

This study reports on the results of a program evaluation of the U.S. Navy New Parent Support Program (NPSP). NPSP is composed of two components: center-based parenting classes and home-based visits. Data are presented on: (a) satisfaction with program quality, (b) how well the program met its primary objectives (e.g., helps reduce parenting stress), (c) how well the NPSP met its Reasons for Being (RFBs; e.g., Helps service members concentrate on their job), and (d) program impact on mission-related outcomes (i.e., quality of life (QOL), readiness, and program impact on their decision to remain in the military). Results indicate that parents who take part in both the parenting classes and home-based visits report that the program exceeded their expectations, the program improved their perceptions of their parenting and coping skills, they perceived that the program demonstrated the Navy's concern for Sailors and their families, and the program enhanced the family's quality of life. Implications of study findings are discussed.

The Job Training Partnership Act: New Federalism in Transition

The Job Training Partnership Act of 1982 (JTPA) constitutedthe most recent, successful attempt by the Reagan administrationto devolve increased domestic program authority to the statesusing the block grant approach. Because of its heavy relianceon the participation of state governments and the private sector,JTPA may prove to be the real "acid test" of the Reagan NewFederalism. This article examines the implementation of JTPAin broad perspective. While preparations for the JTPA programbegan in most states during the early part of 1983, the programdid not really begin its first official program year until 1July 1984. After describing the major features of the act, thearticle focuses on the program's implementation. The analysisis based largely on the results of a nationwide study conductedunder the direction of the authors during 1984. The articleconcludes that, in terms of its legislative provisions and effectiveimplementation, JTPA has proved to be a "quasi-block grant"to the states.     

Democracy in microstates: why smallness does not produce a democratic political system

To fully understand the function of volatility in today's European democracies, it is necessary to employ the principal-agent model. Where democracy is exercised in the form of party government, then it is especially essential to enquire into how the electorate can monitor politicians. Electoral volatility may increase the responsiveness of the party system to the electorate and increase the accountability of politicians. Party system instability is persistently higher in the east European democracies than in western Europe. System transition in eastern Europe passes through the party system, as new parties enter the electoral arena. Political innovation in western Europe also passes through the party system, where new movements appear alongside the established parties. However, there are signs of decreasing volatility in the east, whereas volatility is on the rise in several west European democracies. There will be convergence between west and east European democracies: both will experience considerable volatility in the future. This is a positive gain for democratic vitality in Tingsten's conception. The level of party system fractionalization is already the same over the regions of Europe. The principal-agent model would favour several agents as well as agent switches, which means a moderate level of party system instability.     

The Cultural Foundations of the Modern Militia Movement

When Timothy McVeigh lit the fuse that fired the bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, OK on April 19, 1995, most Americans asked, "Why?" "Why," people wondered, "would anyone do such a thing?" This paper explores the way(s) in which key dimensions of American political culture support and inspire the kinds of hate and paranoia that culminated in Timothy McVeigh's horrible act. It is based on social movement theory's insight that challenges to the established order are informed by and shape the broader culture in which the challenge is pursued. Thus, in order to explore the relationship between culture and the militia movement, this paper focuses on militia ideology, circumstances of militia formation, and organizational structures. Each arena is shown to relate to and derive from the general character of public American political culture. Cumulatively, the cultural place of the militia is one of self-described individualists struggling against cultural opponents--the representatives of the New World Order. As Americans, militia members insist that only their specific brand of individualism is "real" Americanism. Thus their disputes with the federal government are not disagreements of policy, or interpretation, or degree. They are culturally-based conflicts over the meaning of America.     

The effects of an experimental intensive juvenile probation program on self-reported delinquency and drug use

In the late 1990s Ventura County, California, USA, implemented the South Oxnard Challenge Project (SOCP), designed to provide intensive, multi-agency services to youth on probation. SOCP built their program guided by Clear’s “corrections of place” model, which argued that community corrections could decrease offender risk by focusing on restorative principles rather than on coercion. SOCP was designed as a randomized experiment, comparing youths in the experimental group with those on routine probation. Researchers interviewed youths in both the experimental and control groups 1 year after random assignment. This article reports on self-reported crime and drug use, finding few significant differences across groups. Specifically, we find that SOCP youths were significantly more likely to indicate that they had committed a violent crime generally, although a majority of both groups indicated they had done so. We found that those in SOCP who robbed people also did so significantly more often than did the comparison group. In the control group, youths reported committing homicide significantly more often, but this was a rare event. Among those youths who reported taking part in gang or posse fights, those in the control group did so significantly more often. Finally, youths in the control group were significantly more likely to have used ecstasy on more days during the previous month than were those in the SOCP.

What kind of capitalism for Russia?: A comparative analysis

Post-communist governing elites had a vision of a transition to a type of society characterised by wealth, markets, private ownership, democracy and civil society. The transformation in Russia is analyzed in terms of company structure, economic outcomes and patterns of social integration, elite and class fragmentation. On the basis of a comparative political economy, different models of capitalism are defined (competitive or market-led and cooperative or negotiated). The Russian economy is defined as a perverse chaotic social formation. It is contended that policy should move towards a state-led “negotiated” type of capitalist system.