Islands of Agreement: Managing Enduring Armed Rivalries. By Gabriella Blum. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007. 355p. $49.95.

Gabriella Blum's book is built on the assertion that some conflicts cannot be resolved. She argues that since some conflicts will always be inescapable, the academic approach should move away from conflict prevention and resolution to the broader and more accurate notion of conflict “management.” Blum argues that considering conflicts as one whole phenomenon, or as a total relationship, leads scholars to search for one big (and often simplistic) solution for their resolution. She maintains that interstate relations are multidimensional and that conflicts should be seen as only one aspect of interstate relations. She asserts that “by concentrating our efforts … on conflict resolution only, we often neglect the potential of reinforcing those elements that fall outside the conflict yet inside the relationship” (p. 5).

International Legitimacy and World Society. By Ian Clark. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. 248p. $55.00.

Ian Clark has written two books about international legitimacy. Linked by Clark's conviction that legitimacy is a normatively freighted practice, related to but not to be confused with moral, legal, and constitutional practices, the two books are complementary in design. The first (Legitimacy in International Society, 2005) forthrightly accepts a guiding premise of the English School: States are members of a distinct society, reflected in common rules and institutions that have grown up over several centuries. In that book, he holds that the core principles legitimating any society, including international society, depend on a social bond or sense of obligation.

International Organisations and Peace Enforcement. The Politics of International Legitimacy. By Katharina P. Coleman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 360p. $85.00 cloth, $36.99 paper.

Since the 1990s, international and regional organizations have engaged in a record 17 peace enforcement operations, multilateral military interventions to end violent conflict within a country. In her excellent book, Katharina P. Coleman seeks to explain why states choose to act either through the auspices or with the explicit consent of an international organization. Using a comparative case method, she explores state motivations in the Nigerian intervention in Liberia under the Economic Community of West African States; the U.S.-led operation in Kosovo under NATO; the interventions of Australia in East Timor under the United Nations; and South Africa's intervention in Lesotho and Zimbabwe's actions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, both under the SADC (Southern African Development Community).

Limits to Liberalization: Local Culture in a Global Marketplace. By Patricia M. Goff. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007. 208p. $35.00.

To what extent has globalization limited national policy autonomy and eroded national identity? Conventional dialogue on this question has proven unsatisfying and even extreme, emphasizing either the supposed infallibility of markets or the evil of the World Trade Organization. Patricia Goff's book injects much-needed focus and clarity by examining the evolution of efforts by the Canadian government and the European Union to regulate international trade in the culture industries: film, radio, television, publishing, and sound recording.

Beyond Compliance: China, International Organizations, and Global Security. By Ann Kent. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007. 334p. $65.00.

International organizations and treaties are critically important for “maintaining international order and enhancing international prosperity and global security” (p. 252). They do so by assisting “the integration and socialization of nonliberal states in the international community” (p. 252). In Beyond Compliance, Ann Kent argues that earlier pessimistic predictions about Beijing's participation in international organizations are unwarranted. Since 1971 when China regained its seat in the United Nations, it has generally played a constructive role in multilateral diplomacy. As the book's title suggests, China's behavior has often extended beyond formal compliance with international agreements to a “deeper” cooperation involving changing attitudes and domestic reform.