Reviews

Herbert J. Ellison, (ed.), Soviet Policy Toward Western Europe, Seattle and London: University of Washington Press. 1983. xvii + 322 pp. £25.00.

Edwina Moreton and Gerald Segal, (eds.), Soviet Strategy Toward Western Europe, London: George Allen & Unwin. 1984. 296 pp. £17.50.

Lawrence L. Whetten (ed.), The Present State of Communist Internationalism, Lexington & Toronto: Lexington Books, 1983, xi + 254 pp. £25.00.

Neil Harding (ed.), The State in Socialist Society, London: MacMillan, 1984, 316 pp. h/b £20.00. p/b £7.95.

Stephen White, John Gardner and George Schopflin, Communist Political Systems: an Introduction, Macmillan, 1982, viii + 293 pp. £15.00.

John Erickson, The Road to Berlin. Volume 2 of Stalin's War with Germany, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983. xiii + 877 pp. £20.00.

John B. Dunlop, The Faces of Contemporary Russian Nationalism, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983, 363 pp. £28.20.

Aryeh L. Unger, Constitutional Development in the USSR. A Guide to the Soviet Constitutions, London: Methuen, 1981. viii + 310 pp. £12.50.

Stefan Hedlund, Crisis in Soviet Agriculture, London and Sydney: Croom Helm and New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984, 228 pp. £17.95.

Vladimir Sobell, The Red Market: Industrial Co‐operation and Specialisation in Comecon, Gower Publishing Company, 1984, 265 pp. £16.50.

Raymond Hutchings, The Structural Origins of Soviet Industrial Expansion, London and Basingstoke, Macmillan: 1984, x + 242 pp. Index, £25.00.

Peter Blandon, Soviet Forest Industries, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. Distributed by Bowker Publishing Co., Erasmus House, Epping, Essex, UK 290 pp. £19.75.

Ronald Grigor Suny, Transcaucasia: Nationalism and Social Change. Essays in the history of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, University of Michigan: Ann Arbor, 1983, 349 pp. + xiv.

Sidney Bloch and Peter Reddaway, Soviet Psychiatric Abuse: The Shadow over World Psychiatry, London: Victor Gollancz Ltd. 1984, 288 pp. £10.95.

Thomas T. Hammond, Red Flag Over Afghanistan. The Communist Coup, the Soviet Invasion, and the Consequences, Boulder, Colorado; Westview Press, 1984, xvii + 261 pp. £9.75 pb., £23.00 hb.

Martin Crouch and Robert Porter (eds.), Understanding Soviet Politics through Literature. A book of readings, London: George Allen and Unwin, 1984, xi + 211 pp. h/b £15.00. p/b £6.95.

Bernard Chavance, Le système économique soviétique, Paris: Editions le Sycomore, 1983, 114pp. Price: 33F.

S. Brucan, The post‐Brezhnev era, New York: Praeger, 1983 126 pp. xiii + $21.95.     

Adding Insult to Injury

I suffer from "the cough," a raspy highpitched chronic wheeze which is a natural reaction of the body against the presence of foreign particles in airways. Speaking of natural reactions to foreign matters,He Quanying,Director of the Respiratory Care Department of Peking University People’s Hospital,     

Ideational Theorizing in the Social Sciences since “Policy Paradigms,Social Learning,and the State”

In the years since Peter Hall's seminal 1993 article “Policy Paradigms, Social Learning and the State” appeared, the ideational research agenda has expanded enormously, to the point where it now includes everyone from constructivists to rational choice theorists. This article assesses what we have learned about the role of ideas in political life since “Policy Paradigms” appeared, analyzes how well social scientists have taken up the challenges and questions “Policy Paradigms” put forward, and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of current ideational scholarship. Based on this, the article concludes that the way forward for ideational scholars must include coming up with clearer, more easily agreed upon definitions of ideational variables, more extensive study of the processes through which ideas become institutionalized and thus able to affect political outcomes over time, and more careful investigations of the ways in which ideas shape or form both actors' motivations and contexts.     

Judicial misconduct

Although judges are subject to the same human frailty as all other members of society, they must expect their conduct to be the subject of constant public scrutiny. This article examines instances of judicial misconduct in the USA. It considers various aspects of misconduct including humour, courtroom management, denigration of lawyers, racist speech, sexual harassment, acceptance of gifts, alcohol misuse, and financial conduct. These illustrations of misconduct by judicial colleagues are intended to serve as cautionary tales from which judges in other jurisdictions can learn lessons as they to seek to act in a manner that promotes public confidence.     

Democratization,Instability, and War: Israel's 2006 Conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah

In 2006 Israel resumed military operations in the Gaza Strip and conducted a war in Lebanon following attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah, respectively. Due to the elections that had recently taken place in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon, these events seem to support the argument that democratizing nations are particularly war-prone. Yet the dynamics this perspective identifies as dangerous were largely absent. To address this puzzle, this paper offers three arguments. First, democratization enhanced the power of groups openly hostile to Israel, increasing Israel's perception of threat. Second, democratization was threatening because it occurred within highly divided societies governed by weak state institutions that allowed radical groups to attain political power. Finally, Israel's response to the increased threat posed by these groups was ultimately counterproductive because it further eroded the capacity of the Palestinian and Lebanese governments, heightened polarization within both societies, and therefore exacerbated the same conditions that made democratization threatening to begin with.