Freedom of Speech in Early Stuart England, David Colclough, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 314.

The rhetorical lynchpin of this fascinating book's central argument is the concept of parrhesia, which is a Greek term that began life as a catch-all expression for the quality of speech belonging to citizens of the polis (6). Colclough implies that the tradition of parrhesia took a circular route via the freedom of expression inherent in the group rights of Greek citizens to the need for frank expression of unpleasant truths by courtiers to their rulers. This transition required that “frankness” be elevated to the status of a virtue once it became apparent that rulers did not always make decisions in the best interest of the state. After the Reformation in northern Europe this virtue evolved into a religious imperative in the face of sectarian persecution and in England, especially, this imperative naturally extended itself to the admonition of monarchs who encroached on their citizens' religious freedoms. Religious conflict led to war, war required economic investment and soon the religious imperative to oppose the wrong-headed heretic blended with a protestant parliament's right to admonish the monarch on purely secular matters. Thus, under the Stuarts, parrhesia eventually came to resume its original sense as the right and duty of a free subject to speak out in public without fear that his desire to preserve the common good would be prosecuted under laws aimed at the seditious and libelous. It is but a rising sense of the secular that enables us to recognize the change in values that led an onerous religious duty to become the unimpeachable liberal right we so casually assert today.

Abstract. Unlike previous methodological debates in political science, the recent rational choice controversy has excluded consideration of normative questions altogether. These can be recovered, in part, through a genealogy of counter-utopian democratic theory which connects modern rational choice theory to the fin-de-siècle sociology of elites via the mediating figure of Schumpeter. The family resemblances include the aspiration toward a pure science of society, the search for a “realistic” theory of democratic politics, and the shading of an empirical proposition about elite domination into a normative celebration. Though democratic theorists have learned much from the counter-utopian tradition generally, both sides of the rational choice controversy have failed to take seriously the elitists' recognition of the ineluctable normative and ideological dimensions of social research.

Résumé. Les débats récents sur le choix rationnel, à contre-pied d'autres disputes méthodologiques en science politique, ont exclu les questions normatives. Ces questions peuvent se rétablir, en partie, par l'intermédiaire d'une généalogie contre-utopiste de la théorie démocratique, qui lie la théorie moderne du choix rationnel au retour de la sociologie élitiste de fin de siècle, avec le personnage de Schumpeter comme médiateur. Les ressemblances familiales portent l'aspiration à une science pure de la société, la recherche d'une théorie «réaliste» de la démocratie et la transition d'une proposition empirique sur la domination des élites vers une célébration normative. Bien que les théoriciens démocratiques aient beaucoup appris de la tradition contre-utopiste, aucune des deux parties du débat sur le choix rationnel n'a pris en compte la reconnaissance élitiste des aspects idéologiques inévitables de la recherche sociale.

Russia Transformed: Developing Popular Support for a New Regime, Richard Rose, William Mishler and Neil Munro, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. xii, 226.

This monograph analyzes major findings of fourteen years of public opinion research in Russia carried out under the New Russia Barometer survey research project, which Rose and colleagues conducted in conjunction with the Levada Centre in Russia. Rose, Mishler and Munro offer a clearly written, focused discussion that puts complex data into perspective. The work's major contribution is its systematic evaluation of the evolution of Russian citizens' political attitudes from 1992 to 2005. As the authors note in their dedication to the volume, their surveys included over 28,000 people across Russia (the methodology is outlined on pp. 70–75). As such, the book's authority in providing an accurate reflection of citizens' views is indisputable. Much to their credit, the authors render their findings readily understandable to readers who are not expert in survey research design or quantitative methods.

Escaping the Resource Curse, Macartan Humphreys, Jeffrey D. Sachs and Joseph E. Stiglitz, eds., Foreword by George Soros; New York: Columbia University Press, 2007, pp. xviii, 408.

Escaping the Resource Curse provides economic and political analysis of resource curse theories as well as practical policy advice to governments on managing oil and gas developments. Twelve chapters by natural resource specialists from multiple disciplines discuss a broad range of oil and gas development issues in three sections, “Dealing with Oil Corporations,” “Managing the Macroeconomy,” and “Handling the Politics.” Beyond the specific policy advice elaborated in detail throughout (relating primarily to transparency), the book succeeds in its accessible analysis of resource curse theories and state-industry tensions as well as its reinterpretation of oil wealth.

Parole d'historiens. Anthologie des réflexions sur l'histoire au Québec, Éric Bédard et Julien Goyette (dirs), Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 2006, 492 pages.

Cette anthologie de réflexions sur la pratique historienne au Québec est issue du désir de faire connaître les essais, les bilans et les réflexions théoriques sur l'historiographie au Québec depuis le dix-huitième siècle. Deux historiens québécois, Éric Bédard et Julien Goyette, en sont les tributaires. Par ce projet de publication de textes d'historiens de chez nous s'échelonnant sur près de trois siècles, les présentateurs de l'ouvrage voulaient aussi faire réfléchir sur la théorie et la pratique historique actuelle. Comme le souligne Bédard dans l'introduction de l'ouvrage, il s'agit de “nourrir [les] réflexions sur l'écriture de l'histoire au Québec et les finalités de la recherche” (11). En outre, bien que la discipline historique soit traditionnellement rattachée au domaine des Arts et Lettres, les historiens se sont toujours interrogés sur l'histoire en tant que discipline des sciences humaines et ils ont tenté de répondre aux grandes questions sur le sens et le rôle de l'histoire. L'histoire est-elle une science ou un grand récit ? L'historien doit-il être attentif aux enjeux présents ou tenter d'en faire abstraction ? L'historien est-il un chercheur en quête de vérité ou un critique des grands mythes de la nation ? Ces questions, et bien d'autres, se retrouvent dans les textes des historiens réunis dans cette anthologie.

Democracy in Europe: The EU and National Polities, Vivien A. Schmidt, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 326.

Vivien Schmidt is a specialist on the European Union (EU) who, like most, believes that it has taken over most of the functions of the member-states, that it is a pluralist democracy superior to theirs, that it is necessary and beneficial and the wave of the future. The only problem remaining to complete the subordination of the member-states posed in her book is that their politicians have not yet found the language or discourse to convince the public of these self-evident and unavoidable truths.