Book reviews

F. J. M. Feldbrugge, Samizdat and Political Dissent in the USSR. Leyden: Sijthoff, 1975. 255 pp. Dfl. 48,00. $20.00.

Daniel Stone (ed.), The Polish Memoirs of William John Rose. Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1975. xxv+248 pp. $15.00.

George Maude, The Finnish Dilemma: Neutrality in the Shadow of Power. London: OUP, 1976. vi+153 pp. £6.00.

Christopher Stevens, The Soviet Union and Black Africa. London: Macmillan Press, 1976. xii+236 pp. £10.00.

Jochen Bethkenhagen, Bedeutung und Möglichkeiten des Ost‐West‐Handels mit Energierohstoffen. (Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Sonder‐heft 104.) Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1975. 307 pp.

Jeremy Russell, Energy as a Factor in Soviet Foreign Policy. (Published for the Royal Institute of International Affairs.) London: D. C. Heath, 1976. xix+241 pp. £7.50.

Michael Kaser, Health Care in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. London: Croom Helm, 1976. 278 pp. £12.95.

James H. Bater, St. Petersburg: Industrialisation and Change. Studies in Urban History 4. General Editor H. J. Dyos. London: Edward Arnold, 1976. xxiii+411 pp. £14.95.

Leslie Symons and Colin White (eds.), Russian Transport: An historical and geographical survey. London: G. Bell, 1975. xxiii+192 pp. £7.25 or £3.50 (paperback).

Robert Auty and Dimitri Obolensky (eds.), An introduction to Russian History. Cambridge: CUP, 1976. 403 pp. £12.50.

Edward Allworth, Soviet Asia: Bibliographies; A Compilation of Social Science and Humanities Sources on the Iranian, Mongolian and Turkic Nationalities. With an Essay on the Soviet‐Asian Controversy. New York: Praeger, 1975. lxiii+686 pp. $35.00. £21.35.     

D. Reviews and notes: bibliographies and works of reference

RANNYAYA PERSIDSKAYA LEKSIKOGRAFIYA, XI‐XV vv. [Early Persian lexicography, 11th‐15th centuries]. By S.I. BAEVSKII. Moscow, Nauka, 1989. 166pp.

PERIODICALS IN TURKISH AND TURKIC LANGUAGES: A UNION LIST OF HOLDINGS IN U.K. LIBRARIES. Edited by MUHAMMAD ISA WALEY. Oxford, Middle East Libraries Committee (U.K.), 1993. 95pp. £20.‐

DIRECTORY OF TURKISH STUDIES 1993. Edited by MALCOLM WAGSTAFF and CHRISTINE WOODHEAD. [Southampton,] Turkish Area Study Group, 1993. 19pp. £2.00

LEBANON. Compiled by C.H. BLEANEY. (World Bibliographical Series, 2.) Oxford, Clio Press, 1991. xxxi, 230pp. Map. £39.00.

THE ILLUSTRATED ATLAS OF JERUSALEM. By DAN BAHAT, with C.T. RUBINSTEIN. Jerusalem & New York, Carta Israel Map and Publishing Company; English‐language Edition: Simon & Schuster, 1990. 152pp. £60.‐

DER NAHOSTKONFLIKT SEIT AUSBRUCH DER INTIFADA: EINE AUSWAHL BIBLIOGRAPHIE / THE ARAB‐ISRAELI CONFLICT SINCE THE OUTBREAK OF THE INTIFADAH: A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY. By IN‐GEBORG OTTO and MARIANNE SCHMIDT‐DUMONT. (Biblio, 17.) Hamburg, Deutsches Ubersee‐Institut, 1990. ix, 98pp. DM 15.‐

THE INTIFADA: THE PALESTINIAN UPRISING IN THE WEST BANK AND GAZA STRIP: A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BOOKS AND ARTICLES 1987–1992. By HALA KALEH and SIMONETTA CALDERINI. (Middle East Libraries Committee Research Guides, 6.) Oxford, Middle East Libraries Committee, 1993. 59 + 10 + 50pp. [Arabic title: al‐INTIFADA. AL‐INTIFADA AL‐FILASTINIYYA FI AL‐ARADI AL‐MUHTALLA: BIBLIYUGHRAFIYYA LI‐L‐KUTUB WA‐AL‐MAQALAT i987–1992. By HALA KAYLA wa‐SIMUNITA KALDIRINI.] £25.‐

ALGERIEN‐BIBLIOGRAPHIE: PUBLIKATIONEN AUS DER BUNDES‐REPUBLIK DEUTSCHLAND, ÖSTERREICH, UND DER SCHWEIZ, 1962–1989. Compiled by ERNSTPETER RUHE. Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 1990. 181pp. DM48.‐

OPEC AND THE WORLD ENERGY MARKET: A COMPREHENSIVE REFERENCE GUIDE. By JOHN EVANS, fully revised by GAVIN BROWN. 2nd edition. Harlow, Longman Current Affairs, 1991. xxvii+749 pp. £115.‐

WHO'S WHO IN THE ARAB WORLD 1993–1994. Eleventh edition (thoroughly revised and completed). Beirut, Publitec Publications, in co‐edition with K.G. Saur, München, 1993. 978pp. £225.00.

RELIGION IN POLITICS: A WORLD GUIDE. Edited by STUART NEWS. (Longman International Reference.) Harlow, Longman, 1989. 332pp.     

Conditional Cash Transfers and Voting for Incumbents under Democratic Backsliding: The Case of Honduras's Bono 10,000

As democracies worldwide have reverted to competitive authoritarian regimes or full dictatorships, some autocrats have used clientelist policies to strengthen their positions of power. We contend that autocrats can weaponise conditional cash transfers (CCTs) to shore up electoral support under democratic backsliding. In this vein, we analyse the impact of Honduras's Bono 10,000, a discretionary CCT, on the electoral support for the incumbent National Party and opposition blocs between 2013 and 2017, an era marked by the erosion of democracy. Using two survey waves from the AmericasBarometer by the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), we show how the CCT boosted the electoral support for the National Party as democracy unravelled. Our findings contribute to the growing literature on how autocrats rely on carrots – not just sticks – to consolidate power.     

From Porto Rico to Puerto Rico: Citizenship,Race and the Politics of Worthiness

The English-language text of the 1898 Treaty of Paris, the accord conceding Puerto Rico to the United States, misspelled the island's name as Porto Rico. The treaty's ratification entrenched the error in US law and prompted a decades-long campaign to restore the territory's original name. More than a comedy of errors, this incident exposes conflicting interpretations of US citizenship and the worthiness of different sets of citizens. Puerto Ricans discovered that the statutory citizenship they acquired was attenuated by their perceived worthiness: a status limited by their membership of the so-called Spanish race.     

Party Polarization and the Business Cycle in the United States

A large literature has studied the trend of greaterpolarization between Democrats and Republicans in Congress.This paper empirically examines the extent to which inflationand unemployment explain cyclical movements ofpolarization over time. An informal application of thestandard Downsian spatial competition model of partiesgenerates the following relationships, ceteris paribus: (1)inflation should be associated with policy convergence, (2)unemployment should be associated with polarization, (3) theeffect of unemployment on polarization should be larger inmagnitude than the effect of inflation on convergence, and (4)the effect of unemployment on polarization should be strongerin the House than in the Senate. We estimate the relationshipbetween vote records and business cycle conditions over the1947–1999 period using a GLS model with varying lags. Ourresults are broadly consistent with these business cyclehypotheses of polarization, though greater support is found inHouse data than in Senate data.     

Issue Importance and Performance Voting

Issue importance mediates the impact of public policy issues on electoral decisions. Individuals who consider that an issue is important are more likely to rely on their attitudes toward that issue when evaluating candidates and deciding for whom to vote. The logic behind the link between issue importance and issue voting should translate to a link between issue importance and performance voting. Incumbent performance evaluations regarding an issue should have a stronger impact on the vote choice of individuals who find that issue important. The analysis demonstrates that there is a significant interaction between performance evaluations and issue importance. People concerned about an issue assign more weight to their evaluations of the government's performance on that issue when making up their mind.     

Chronicle of a Survival Foretold: How Protest Behavior Against Armed Actors Influenced Violence in the Colombian Civil War, 1988–2005

This article examines the circumstances under which civilians, using protests as a mechanism, alter the strategic use of violence by armed actors (rebels and state forces). By examining the civil war in Colombia between 1988 and 2005, this study finds that combatants decrease their attacks against the population when civilians protest against the enemy. Combatants interpret such demonstrations as costly signals of loyalty. Furthermore, when insurgents are the target of the protests, insurgents increase repression against civilians as rebels get stronger. In contrast, state forces (and paramilitaries) compensate for their weakness in the area by multiplying civilian victims. Both state forces and rebels, however, are likely to decrease violence against civilians when civilians protest against both parties in contested zones. In such contexts, armed actors are likely to refrain from retaliation because any violence might drive noncombatants toward the enemy.     

Beauty and Politics

Stars on and behind the stage fuse an ancient Chinese legend with Western opera.