Reviews

John Miller, Mikhail Gorbachev and the End of Soviet Power. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993, xviii + 267 pp., £45.00 h/b, £13.99 p/b.

Geoffrey A. Hosking, Jonathan Aves & Peter J. S. Duncan, The Road to Post‐Communism. Independent Political Movements in the Soviet Union, 1985–1991. London and New York: Pinter Publishers, 1992 x + 236 pp., £37.50 h/b, £12.99 p/b.

Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992, xx + 264 pp., $41.50 h/b, $13.95 p/b.

Ian Jeffries, Socialist Economies and the Transition to the Market: A Guide. London: Routledge, 1993. 562 pp., £70.00 h/b, £19.99 p/b.

William M. Reisinger, Energy and the Soviet Bloc: Alliance Politics after Stalin. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1992, xiii + 184 pp., $37.95.

Joan DeBardeleben, ed., To Breathe Free: Eastern Europe's Environmental Crisis. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, and Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991, xviii + 266 pp., £25.00 h/b, £9.50 p/b.

Donald D. Barry, ed., Toward the ‘Rule of Law’ in Russia? Political and Legal Reform in the Transition Period. Armonk, NY and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1992, 402 pp., $90.00.

Anna Lawton, Kinoglasnost: Soviet Cinema in Our Time. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992, xvi + 288 pp. £35.00 h/b, £13.95 p/b.

David Pike, The Politics of Culture In Soviet‐Occupied Germany 1945–1949. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993, 691 pp., $ 55.00.

Alec Nove, ed., The Stalin Phenomenon. London: Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1993, 216 pp., £25.00 h/b.

M. B. Broxup, ed., The North Caucasus Barrier: The Russian Advance Towards the Muslim World. London: Hurst, 1992, xxvii + 252 pp., £27.50.     

Global Simplification of Extradition: Interviews with Selected Extradition Experts in New Zealand,Canada, the US and EU

This paper explores the discernible long-term trend towards the simplification of the conditions for extradition in the law of many states. The process of simplification appears to be justified by the necessity of taking more effective action against transnational crime. It appears to be taking place in three main areas: the recharacterisation of extradition from a criminal to an administrative process, the reduction of the substantive conditions for extradition and the expansion of the international platforms for extradition. The process is being tempered by and partially justified by greater individual human rights protections. In an effort to gain a better grasp of the nature of this process, what is driving it, and where it is heading, this paper records the views of a number of expert practitioners from the state, defence, and judiciary in seven different countries with significant extradition practice on these justifications, changes, and human rights protections. The paper synthesises their views thematically before drawing some conclusions about the nature of the process of simplification of extradition and whether there is an emerging global standard for extradition. The research was funded by the New Zealand Law Foundation International Research Fellowship for 2015.     

Ideological cohesion between congress and the president: Does the road to the white house matter?

This study examines the impact of US presidential nomination politics on congressional‐executive relations. In particular, we pose the critical question of whether nomination reforms have had any systematic effect on the inter‐branch ideological gap. Using an indicator of liberal voting in Congress and a derived liberalism score for presidents, we analyse the ideological disparity between the branches over a 40‐year period from 1949 to 1993. Results do not support the view offered by Polsby and others that a shift toward more open and participatory decision making in the post‐reform nomination process has increased the probability that presidents will be ideologically distant from their fellow partisans in Congress. Indeed, the situation is quite the opposite, with post‐reform presidents being closer to the ideological centre of gravity of their parties in Congress than are presidents who reached the White House in the pre‐reform era.     

Globalisation and resistance in post-cold war Mexico: Difference,citizenship and biodiversity conflicts in Chiapas

In the post-cold war era changes at the global, regional, national and local level are altering earlier ways of understanding and practising citizenship. In Mexico the decline of the state-guided national development project (1930s-70s) has been accompanied by the transformation of corporatist forms of political control. This article uses examples of recent biodiversity conflicts in the state of Chiapas to illustrate this process in terms of a struggle between competing models of 'market citizenship' and 'pluri-ethnic citizenship'. By focusing on the actions and demands of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and other indigenous organisations, the article highlights how resistance to globalisation in the Lacandon rainforest of Chiapas is related to struggles for collective rights and a more inclusive form of democracy in Mexico. This also raises important questions regarding the future shape of national identities and the scope of democratic rights around the world in the post-cold war era.