Book reviews

Vernon Hewitt, The New International Politics of South Asia (Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York, 1997), xxxvi +305 pp., ISBN 0–7190–5121–5 (hb), 0–7190–5122–3 (pb)

Ruth Lister, Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives (Macmillan, London, 1997), 284 pp., ISBN 0–333–53488–3

Martin Bull and Martin Rhodes (eds), Crisis and Transition in Italian Politics (Frank Cass, London, 1997), 253 pp., ISBN 0–7146–4816–7 (hb), 0–7146–4366–1 (pb)

Linda McDougall, Westminster Women (Vintage, London, 1998), 215 pp., ISBN 0–09–927405–1     

Between a rock and a hard place: The Swedish social democratic party into Europe

Goran Therborn, European Modernity and Beyond: The Trajectory of European Societies, (Sage, London 1995). 403pp. ISBN 8039 8934 2.

John McGany and Brendan O'Leary, Explaining Northern Ireland, (Blackwell, Oxford 1995). 535pp. ISBN 0–631–18349–3.     

Resolving Socioeconomic Disparities through Fiscal Decentralisation in the Republic of Macedonia

This article examines whether fiscal decentralisation in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia between 2005 and 2012 has been achieved at the expense of economic and territorial cohesion. It examines the presence of longstanding socioeconomic disparities and rural under-development, before considering whether fiscal decentralisation has: facilitated a more equitable distribution of public resources; created the optimal conditions for expanding citizens’ access to basic services; and reduced socioeconomic disparities between urban and rural areas. The article argues that unless carefully designed and implemented, fiscal decentralisation reforms can have unintended consequences and may actually exacerbate socioeconomic disparities rather than reduce them.     

Education for Modernity: The Impact of American Social Science on Alva and Gunnar Myrdal and the “Swedish Model” of School Reform

This paper directs itself to the impact of American social science on the writings of Alva and Gunnar Myrdal on the role of education and social science in modern industrial democracy. After a brief sketch of the Myrdals' role in the development of Swedish welfare reforms and of their intellectual contacts in the United States during the 1930's, the paper outlines four theoretical dilemmas of modernity to the solution of which education and social research was seen to contribute: the relationships between facts and values, the individual and the collective, child rearing and social change, and theory and practice. The paper concludes by tracing the articulation of these themes in the Social Democratic Party school reform proposals of 1948.     

The place of women in European royal succession in the middle ages

When in 1997 Professor Michael Bennett announced his rediscovery of Edward III’s succession charter of 1376, the general press proclaimed that succession to the English throne had for the first time been made a male preserve, and that before that date there had been no barrier to a woman occupying the throne, citing, for example, the case of Matilda, daughter of Henry I. But is this correct? By examining examples from both Britain and continental Europe from c.1100 onwards, this paper seeks to establish the true position of women in the succession to European thrones before ‘effective’ female rulers – those who ruled independently of husbands or regents – became a regular feature of the political landscape from the late fifteenth century onwards.