Bypassing Congressional Committees: Parties,Panel Rosters,and Deliberative Processes

Although scholars have examined committee rosters extensively, no study has considered the relationship between the ideological composition of panels and their participation in bill drafting. I thus ask: Which committees are frequently excluded from legislative deliberations? Does the composition of committees affect the degree to which they contribute to bill development? Using DW‐NOMINATE data, I calculate ideological scores for congressional panels between 1989 and 2010 to see whether certain committees are routinely bypassed. I find that moderate panels, polarized panels, and panels with moderate chairs are often excluded, while extreme committees in the majority direction tend to retain bill‐writing duties.     

Elections In Iraq – 30 January 2005: An Assessment

Divide and Lose. By Michael Ionides. Published by Geoffrey Bles. 1960. Pp. 271. Sources and index. 21s.

Nasser's New Egypt. By Keith Wheelock. Foreign Policy Research Institute No. 8. Praegar, New York. Pp. 326. $6.

Personal Column. By Sir Charles Belgrave. Hutchinson and Co., Ltd. Pp. 248. Map, illustrated, indexed. 30s.

Israel Resurgent. By Professor Norman Bentwich. Published by Ernest Benn, Ltd. 1960. Pp. 238. Map, index and bibliography. 27s.

Women and the New East. By Ruth Frances Woodsmall. The Middle East Institute, Washington, D.C. 1960. Pp. 436. Map, index, illustrations. $5.50.

Daughters of Allah. By Henny Harald Hansen. Translated from the Danish by Reginald Spink. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1960. 81½ × 6½ in. Pp. 190. Illustrations and sketch map. 21s.

Crossroads. Land and Life in South‐west Asia. By George B. Cressey. Lip‐pingcott Co., Chicago, New York, Philadelphia. 1960. 7 × 10 in. Pp. 593. Illustrations, maps, tables and charts. Index. $12.

The Chronicle of Petros di Sarkis Gilanentz. Concerning the Afghan invasion of Persia in 1722, the siege of Isfahan and the repercussions in Northern Persia, Russia and Turkey, translated from the original Armenian and annotated by C. O. Minasian, with an introduction and additional notes by L. Lockhart. Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Armenian Library, Lisbon. 1959. Pp. xxiii, 77. No price indicated.

The Sabres of Paradise. By Lesley Blanch. John Murray, London, 1960. Pp. 480. Illustrations, maps, bibliography, index. 30s.

The Politics of the Developing Areas. Editors : Gabriel A. Almand and James S. Coleman. Published by Princeton University Press and Oxford University Press. Pp. 576. Indexed. 80s.

The Memoirs of Lord Ismay. Heinemann. 1960. Pp. 464. Index, maps, diagrams. 4. net.

Karachi Through a Hundred Years. By Herbert Feldman. Published by the Oxford University Press. Pp. 238. Illustrated and indexed. 27s. 6d.

A Punjabi Village in Pakistan. By Zekiye Eglar. Columbia University Press and Oxford University Press, 1960. Pp. 240. Index, glossary, bibliography, illustrations. 48s.

The Mind of Mr. Nehru. By R. K. Karanjia. George Allen and Unwin, Ltd. 1960. Pp. 112. 10s. 6d. net.

Islands of the Marigold Sun. By Suresh Vaidya. Robert Hale, Ltd., London. Pp. 192. Map and illus. 18s. net.

Pilgrimage for Plants. By Frank Kingdon‐Ward. Published by Harrap. Pp. 180. Bibliography, index and illus. 18s.

Englishmen in Tibet from Bogle to Gould. By Sir Olaf Caroe. The Tibet Society of the United Kingdom. Pp. 12. Illus. 2s. 6d.

Tibet in Revolt. By George N. Patterson. Faber and Faber. Pp. 197. 18 Illustrations; map. 21s. net.

Britain and Chinese Central Asia. By Alastair Lamb. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1960. Pp. 387. Sketch‐maps, index, bibliography. 42s.

The Way and the Mountain. By Marco Pallis. Peter Owen, Ltd., London. Pp. 216. Illus. and appendices. 30s.

Russia and China. By J. V. Davidson‐Houston. Robert Hale, Ltd., London, 1960. Pp. 200. Maps, index. Illus. 21s.

Les Mouvements Nationaux chez les Musulmans de Russie: le “Sultangaliev‐isme” au Tatarstan. By Alexandre Bennigsen and Chantai Quelquejay. Mouton and Co. Paris, 1960.

Neither War Nor Peace. By Hugh Seton‐Watson. Methuen and Co., London. 1960. Pp.504. 35s.

Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1941. By George F. Kennan. Van Nostrand, New York. 1960. Pp. 191. $1.25.

Özbekcha‐Ruscha Lughat/Uzbeksko‐Russkiy Slovar’. (Uzbek‐Russian Dictionary.) Compiled by the Academy of Sciences of the Uzbek S.S.R. Chief Editor, Professor A. K. Borovkov. State Dictionary Publishing House, Moscow. 1959. Pp. 839. 27 Rubles.

An Introduction to the Turkmen Language. By G. K. Dulling. Published by Central Asian Research Centre. Pp. 48. Price 15s.

The Economic Development of Communist China, 1949–1958. By T. J. Hughes and D. E. T. Luard. Issued under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, O.U.P. 1959. Pp. 223. Maps and index. 22s. 6d.

Han Fei‐Tzu. Works from the Chinese. By W. K. Liao. Probsthain's Oriental Series, Vols. XXV and XXVI. U.N.E.S.C.O. Collection of Representative Works —Chinese Series. Pp. 309 and 338. 30s. and 42s. respectively.

Ballads and Stories from Tun‐Huang. By Arthur Waley. Published by George Allen and Unwin. Pp. 266. Index. 25s.     

IS THIS RUSSIA’S MOMENT IN THE MIDDLE EAST?

Sir Jeremy Greenstock, formerly British permanent representative to the UN, who has had long experience of dealing with Russia in the context of diplomacy, considers whether the current moment of Russian dominance in Syria and the Middle East, combined with the recent general disengagement of the western powers in the region, could be considered as marking the beginning of a general period of Russian hegemony in the Middle East. The article takes into account the global geopolitical situation, the recent history of Russia and the Middle East, the consequences of western intervention in Iraq, and the motivations of the Russian government particularly in view of its recent engagement in Ukraine.     

Thoreau in the 21<Superscript>st</Superscript> Century

Laura Dassow Walls’s superb biography of Henry David Thoreau is the most important study of this author thus far in the twenty-first century. Beautifully written, and packed with rich detail and subtle interpretation, Walls’s book teaches us much that is new about Thoreau and, furthermore, prompts us to think more deeply about and reassess this complex person and challenging writer—a writer whose range and mass of published and unpublished work, produced during his all too brief life (he died at age 44), is astounding. Thoreau is an inspiring radical voice for personal change and social reform, yet he is, at the same time, extremely self-centered and highly skeptical about the capacity of readers and audiences to bring about the transformations that he advocates.