Beyond the Anarchical Society: Grotius, Colonialism, and Order in World Politics.

Trade Threats, Trade Wars: Bargaining, Retaliation, and American Coercive Diplomacy. By Ka Zeng. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. 324p. $57.50.

This book examines bilateral U.S. trade diplomacy during the 1980s and early 1990s. Ka Zeng advances (and generally sustains) an important thesis: that in trade disputes, U.S. policy has been tougher and more effective toward advanced industrial democracies (Europe, Japan) than nondemocratic nations (esp. China). The reason, she argues, lies in the structure of the economic relationships. Trade between the United States and the democracies is largely “competitive,” with industries and sectors going head-to-head for markets. The trade pattern with autocracies (and less-advanced economies like India and Brazil) is more “complementary,” with imports from these countries largely in product areas U.S. producers have abandoned.

Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry. By P. W. Singer. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003. 368p. $39.95.

Peter Singer has produced a highly commendable volume for the Cornell Studies in Security Affairs series on an area of study that has received relatively little attention within the academic world. Much of the existing literature focuses on the mercenary end of private military companies (PMCs) and ignores the breadth of the industry. Similarly, the debate on transformation has tended to focus on technology and changing approaches to the conduct of war; relatively little has concerned itself with the increasing role of the privatized military companies, yet, as Singer points out, 1 in 10 of those deployed by the United States in the most recent war in Iraq was a contractor. It is not just the scale of the industry at present (one estimate puts it at $100 billion per year) that makes it an important area for study. It is also that this industry covers the full spectrum of defense activities. It ranges from service provision at home to the provision of combat services and military units. This will become even more so as we move away from the linear battlefield and the idea of a front line melts away. Moreover, this is not just a Third World issue; virtually every state uses elements of the industry, with the United States being the largest user.

The Impact of Public Opinion on U.S. Foreign Policy Since Vietnam. By Richard Sobel. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 288p. $24.95.

International Public Opinion and the Bosnia Crisis. Edited by Richard Sobel and Eric Shiraev. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003. 344p. $80.00 cloth, $25.95 paper.

In 2001, Richard Sobel published four case studies chronicling the impact of public opinion on U.S. foreign policy since the start of the Vietnam War. He used public opinion surveys and interviews with senior policymakers, including three secretaries of state and four secretaries of defense, to document how opinions fluctuated throughout each crisis and how various movers and shakers felt about the weight that they should assign to public opinion in their deliberations. The crises—the Vietnam War, the Nicaraguan Contra-funding controversy, the Persian Gulf War, and the Bosnia crisis—demonstrate that public opinion did constrain policy options, but did not determine the specific policies that were chosen. This finding confirms V. O. Key's theory, first expressed in his pathbreaking study Public Opinion and American Democracy (1961) that public opinion operates like a system of dikes. These dikes limit how far policymakers can go in committing the country to actions in the policy sphere.

Reliable Partners: How Democracies Have Made a Separate Peace.

The IMF and Economic Development. By James Raymond Vreeland. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 216p. $70.00 cloth, $22.00 paper.

This insightful and carefully researched work by James Raymond Vreeland should end once and for all the debate on whether participation in an International Monetary Fund program tends to improve or depress economic growth. The answer is a resounding no in that, on average, economic growth is roughly 1.5% slower when countries are under an IMF program than otherwise, according to Vreeland. This finding is consistent with several studies—mostly written by authors on the Left—although he takes pains to leave ideology at the door. Rather, he puts together the most systematic and exhaustive study of the subject to date in order to show how the same finding can be arrived at with methods that are qualitative and quantitative, empirical and abstract. Although the result tends toward repetition, there is something here for everyone.

Democracy's Dilemma: Environment, Social Equity, and the Global Economy.

Getting It Done: Post-Agreement Negotiation and International Regimes. Edited by Bertram I. Spector and I. William Zartman. Washington, DC: United States Institute for Peace, 2003. 332p. $39.95 cloth, $17.50 paper.

The authors of this edited volume make a useful contribution to scholarship by bringing negotiation theory into the analysis of international regimes. As they note, the approach builds on earlier work on bargaining and regime formation. (See especially two seminal works by Oran Young, “Regime Dynamics,” in Stephen Krasner, ed., International Regimes, 1983; and “Politics of Regime Formation,” International Organization 37 [no. 3, 1989]: 349–76). Getting It Done further examines how regime participants continue to negotiate rules after the ink has dried on their foundational agreements. In doing so, the volume serves as a helpful reminder that regimes evolve in response to changes in the international and domestic environments. Gauging the effectiveness or strength of a regime, as these authors suggest, requires analyzing the negotiations that occur after a regime is established and evaluating whether, indeed, the collective action problem the regime was intended to resolve is being resolved.

The editors of Perspectives on Politics regret that the title of Kent Portney's Taking Sustainable Cities Seriously appeared incorrectly when reviewed in the previous issue. We apologize for the mistake.

The Offshore World: Sovereign Markets, Virtual Places, and Nomad Millionaires.

A Critical Rewriting of Global Political Economy: Integrating Reproductive, Productive and Virtual Economies.

The Engines of European Integration: Delegation, Agency, and Agenda Setting in the E.U.

State Identities and the Homogenization of Peoples.