Book Reviews

The New Politics of British Local Governance. Edited by Gerry Stoker. Macmillan, 2000. Pp.xvii + 294, £16.99 pb.

Local Political Leadership. By Steve Leach and David Wilson. Policy Press, 2000. Pp.v + 228. £17.99.

Structural Reform of British Local Government: Rhetoric and Reality. By Michael Chisholm. Manchester University Press, 2000. Pp.194. £40.

The Careers of Councillors: Gender, Party and Politics. By Catherine Bochel and Hugh M. Bochel. Ashgate, 2000. Pp.143. £37.50 hb.

Communicating Successfully in Groups: A Practical Guide for the Workplace. By Marie Reid and Richard Hammersley. Routledge, 2000. Pp.188. £10.99 pb.

Using Psychology in Management Training: The Psychological Foundations of Management Skills. By David A. Statt. Routledge, 2000. £14.99.

Housing Associations and Housing Policy: A Historical Perspective. By Peter Malpass. Macmillan Press, 2000. Pp.298. £16.99 pb.

The State of UK Housing: A Factfile on Dwelling Conditions. By Philip Leather and Tanya Morrison. The Policy Press, 2000. £15.95 hb.

Allocating Social Housing: Law and Practice in the Management of Social Housing. By Hal Pawson, David Mullins and Siobhan McGrath. Lemos and Crane, 2000. £18.95 pb.     

Social Inequality and Assessments of Democracy and the Market: Evidence from Central and Eastern Europe

Considerable comparative scholarly attention has been paid to various aspects of mass support for democracy and the market. However, despite strong theoretical suggestions of a linkage, little is known about the impact of social inequality on this support. We address this issue using evidence from mass surveys undertaken in 12 post-communist states in 2007, supplemented by country-level data about economic and political performance. Specifically, we investigate whether social inequality generates negative perceptions that democracy and the market will lead to social conflict and if it increases support for anti-democratic forms of governance. Notably, we find little link between citizens’ expectations of social conflict and national-level indices of income inequality. However, we do find a link between perceptions of the extent of social inequality and expectations of market-generated—but not democracy-generated—conflict. Underscoring these positive and negative findings, perceptions of social inequality are also clearly consequential for support for ‘strong-hand’ economic government but not for anti-democratic leadership.     

Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Russia: Contending Paradigms and Current Perspectives

The most outstanding trend in contemporary conflicts has been the fusion of the threats from terrorism and insurgency. Insurgent threats in many places on the globe today are mistaken as terrorist threats, and counterterrorism (CT) is deployed as the local insurgents come increasingly to resemble their transnational terrorist partners. Such an emphasis on the role of terrorism in insurgencies and the undue focus on CT risks strengthening, rather than severing, the connection between local insurgents and transnational terrorists. Russia's counterterrorist strategy inadvertently transformed the conflict from a contained, nationalist rebellion to a sprawling jihadi insurgency and perversely encouraged the group to resort even more to terrorist tactics. The Russian counterinsurgency has been unsuccessful, as the insurgents are neither demolished as a force nor are they isolated by society. Losing the hearts and minds among the Chechen people is a key reason behind why the Russian operation in Chechnya suffered failures. Too little attention was paid to winning over the “hearts and minds” of the people.     

Community Involvement in Rural Regeneration Partnerships: Exploring the Rural Dimension

This paper is about the involvement of local communities in rural regeneration and area development partnerships. In particular it asks questions about the extent to which there are distinctive rural elements to this which differentiate and counterpoise it to such involvement in urban areas. The paper concludes that, whilst there are some commonalities between such involvement across urban and rural communities, there are also challenges particular to rural areas. These are the spatial features of rural areas, the paucity of human capital in rural communities and a much lower resource level than in urban communities. The paper concludes that these challenges can only be met effectively in rural areas where there is strong local voluntary and community sector infrastructure to support community involvement in rural regeneration partnerships.     

Britain,the United States and the Syrian crisis, 1957

This paper seeks to analyze the Syrian Crisis in 1957 and its impact on the Anglo‐American reconciliation after the dispute over Suez in the previous year. The Middle East remained at the forefront of British and American continued regional instability and led to close allied cooperation over the perceived Soviet threat in Syria. This ensured that by the time of the Washington Conference in October 1957 both Macmillan and Eisenhower agreed that the Middle East required a joint Anglo‐American policy to safeguard vital regional interests.     

US–Russian Nuclear Arms Control: Forward and Retro after 2008?

Abstract

The arrival of a new US administration in 2009 is a swinging door with respect to opportunities for Russian–American cooperation in strategic nuclear arms reductions and nonproliferation. Both US presidential candidates in 2008 supported nuclear abolition as a theoretically desirable goal, and the Obama administration will certainly pursue nuclear arms reductions consistent with already agreed, or lower, levels. Missile defenses complicate US–Russian relations on this issue, but they pose negotiable, not insurmountable, barriers to further arms reductions and strategic stability.     

Forever young: START and aftermath

Abstract

The New Strategic arms reduction treaty nuclear arms control agreement signed by US President, Barack Obama, and Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, in 2010 is likely to achieve ratification in both Washington and Moscow, but it is too early to break out the champagne or vodka. Even successful ratification of this agreement is, at best, an important but incremental part of the US–Russian policy ‘reset’ and the larger agenda for both states with respect to arms reduction and nonproliferation. Further reductions in both states’ inventories of strategic nuclear weapons are a necessary preface toward credible leadership in stopping the spread of nuclear arms – especially in the looming test cases of Iran and North Korea. In addition, both states have to decipher a policy-strategy nexus for emerging missile defense technologies: in particular, whether missile defenses should be seen as possible means of cooperative security, as between NATO and Russia, or whether they are firewalls in the way of further progress in offensive nuclear arms reductions.     

Issue-Related Learning in a Gubernatorial Campaign: A Panel Study

This study is based on data from a three-wave telephone panel survey conducted during the 1998 governor's race in Florida. The evidence suggests that a considerable amount of issue-related learning (having to do with candidate policy stands and group endorsements) took place over the course of the general election campaign, though substantial differences were observed from one issue area to the next. Further analysis indicates that learning was especially likely to occur among voters (a) who were more knowledgeable about political affairs to start with (confirming that the so-called “knowledge gap” may be exacerbated during campaigns), (b) who scored high on a measure of advertising negativity (for one candidate but not the other), and (c) who early in the campaign, read their local newspaper less frequently. Consistent with prior research, TV news appears to have done little or nothing to boost issue-based learning among the electorate.