The essays in this edited volume are the product of a seminar and conference at Georgetown University. In different ways, each contribution addresses the complex nature of the relationship between democracy and trust and helps to define the issues and questions involved in this relationship. The contributors address the topic from a variety of perspectives, some primarily theoretical and others combining theory and statistical analysis. As editor and contributing author, Mark Warren provides an effective framework for the diverse set of contributions that comprise the volume and develops a typology of theories of trust and democracy.

Like other volumes in the series Issues in Political Theory, which Weale edits with Peter Jones, this book combines an overview of the topic suitable for advanced undergraduates and above with an original argument reflecting the author's distinctive perspective that is likely to stimulate fellow specialists. The combination is an attractive one, which, when it works—as it does in this case—ensures that we do not get the sort of deadly dull textbook that merely rehashes other people's ideas. There are two novel features of Weale's argument. The first is his justification of democracy in terms of its capacity to enable members of society to advance their common interests as political equals in a situation of human fallibility. The second is his attempt to delineate the form of democracy, including the type of representation and decision rule, most likely to promote this purpose. I take each in turn.

Engaging her contemporaries in debates over democratic ideals and processes, Iris M. Young offers a collection of seven essays that mitigate arguments on either side of those debates (participation vs. representation, localism vs. state, segregation vs. integration, identity vs. difference) by applying the critical ideal of inclusion. She argues that the normative legitimacy of democratic decisions rests upon the extent to which those affected by decisions are included in or have the opportunity to enter the decision making process. One might think that inclusion solves only one problem, the problem of exclusion, for democracy. However, Young extends the ideal of inclusion across manifold debates in democratic theory and speaks broadly to the less than ideal conditions under which we now practice democracy.

Leslie Alm presents what may be the best study yet produced on the acid rain policy debate, at least with regard to its scientific underpinnings. The book describes the evolution of the current U.S.-Canadian acid rain policy agreement and focuses on the role of scientists in the formulation and implementation of acid rain policy. Alm found that most natural scientists believe they have little influence on the policy process. He suggests they are not trained to understand policymakers, and policymakers are not trained to understand science. Both have a narrow focus that causes them to perceive selectively what the other is saying. As does Lynton K. Caldwell (Between Two Worlds: Science, the Environmental Movement, and Policy Choice, 1990), Alm informs us that scientists and policymakers operate in two totally different worlds using two different languages and two different time scales; this complicates the policy process.

For decades the U.S. courts of appeals were afflicted with the proverbial middle child syndrome. They were given less than deserved attention by legal scholars and political scientists, and their decisions commanded less media and popular attention than rulings by the Supreme Court and even decisions of federal district courts. To many observers, the appeals courts were relatively invisible. Circuit courts are convalescing from this affliction because increasingly political scientists are turning their analytical attention to these thirteen important stations of judicial power in American society.

The 1994 elections were watershed elections in several respects. Perhaps most significantly, the Republicans gained control of both chambers of Congress for the first time since 1953. In the process, the 1994 elections also swept into office a large, relatively homogeneous group of 73 House Republican freshmen determined to change the political system. With size comes an opportunity for power in Congress, and the 73 Republican freshmen elected in 1994 were determined to exert considerable influence over the legislative process. Not since the 1974 elections produced the 76 freshmen Democrats (i.e., the Watergate Babies) have political scientists focused so much attention on a single class of legislators. Timothy Barnett's Legislative Learning is a nice complement to similar books already written about this interesting group of legislators, including Richard Fenno and Michael Armacost's Learning to Govern: An Institutional View of the 104th Congress (1997) and Nicol Rae's Conservative Reformers: The Republican Freshmen and the Lessons of the 104th Congress (1998).

Scholars have long been participant-observers in presidential transitions, which provide extraordinary opportunities to refine their understanding of continuity and change in the presidency. Political science, more generally, has benefited from this engagement. Whether we read the elegant memoranda of Richard Neustadt or the advice-laden briefing papers of the White House 2001 Project, we gain a new appreciation for the challenges confronting a chief executive who must build an administration, establish a policy agenda, and achieve demonstrable political results within a few short months of the election. In Presidential Transitions, From Politics to Practice, John Burke makes a notable contribution to our knowledge of these events, both as historical drama and as political developments. Quite simply, this book can be enjoyed for its narrative and appreciated for its analysis by those interested in presidential institutions and policymaking.

With the Supreme Court decision in Easley v. Cromartie, the 1990s round of redistricting litigation came to an end just in time for the new decade's round to commence. Looking back upon the Court decisions from the 1990s as well as the extensive scholarly commentary on them, anyone new to the field of voting rights in the United States might wonder how the Voting Rights Act, which was a straightforward attempt to remedy indisputably unjust political practices, could have given rise to the I-85 district in North Carolina.

A sense of puzzlement is likely to be the first reaction to Ethan Fishman's book. Aristotle and presidential leadership? These are topics that we tend not to associate with each other. Yet, as Fishman makes clear in this admirable and provocative work, Aristotle had much to say about proper political leadership, much that is directly applicable to evaluating and understanding American presidents and their acts of leadership.

It has been more than forty years since the publication of Richard Neustadt's Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents (1960). In that seminal work Neustadt rebuffed systemic, legal, and constitutional approaches to emphasize the personal basis of presidential power and the centrality of presidents' reputation and persuasive skills. Michael Genovese's book and the collection assembled by Shapiro, Kumar, and Jacobs are timely and useful additions to the reevaluation of the individual and institutional bases of presidential power, influence, and leadership across time. If scholarship on the presidency is at a crossroads, these works invite us to journey in different analytical directions.

James M. Goldgeier makes a major contribution to the contemporary case study literature concerning American foreign policy formation. Based on extensive interviews with more than 75 key participants (William Perry, Richard Holbrooke, John Shalikashvili, Leon Panetta, Anthony Lake, Strobe Talbott, and so forth), Goldgeier reconstructs a richly detailed account of the policy process that culminated in the decision to expand the NATO alliance eastward. The study illuminates the complex interplay of political considerations, bureaucratic interests, and individual preferences and skills (even chutzpah) that led to the admission of the first tier of new NATO member nations in Eastern/Central Europe.

Studies of interest-group influence on politics and studies of mass participation in politics typically have been quite separate undertakings. With a few notable exceptions, research projects have been designed to examine one or the other, not both, and the influence of interest-group activity on mass political activity is too seldom considered. In this broadly integrative book, Kenneth Goldstein makes a convincing argument for why this should not be the case.

This is another in the Landmark Law Cases and American Society series from Kansas, joining such topics as the Salem witchcraft trials, Marbury v. Madison, the Pullman case, and Bakke. The series editors have chosen wisely in making this selection, both in topic and author. Goldstein is the nation's leading expert on legislation and judicial review related to flag desecration. He brings to this project considerable knowledge, prolific publications in this area, and a clarity of voice and focus. There are no provocative and startling new approaches or theories, but that is not the purpose. I highly recommend this book as assigned coursework for college seminars on civil religion, the separation of powers doctrine, First Amendment rights, Supreme Court functioning, or the interplay between politics, the media, and the Constitution. It will work well in classes not only in political science but also in intellectual and cultural history, American studies, philosophy, and communication studies.

The power of social movements to transform what we take for granted and what we contest is beautifully displayed in Faithful and Fearless. Mary Fainsod Katzenstein shows how some protest in American society has moved inside institutions. Particularly, she means, feminist protest: “Less lawbreaking than norm-breaking, these feminists have challenged, discomfited, and provoked, unleashing a wholesale disturbance of long-settled assumptions, rules, and practices…. Sometimes by their mere presence, but more often by claiming specific rights, and by demanding in certain facets the transformation of the institutions of which they are a part, feminists have reinvented the protests of the 1960s inside the institutional mainstream of the 1990s” (p. 7)

This volume purports to explore questions about the changing role of nonprofit organizations in contemporary urban America. The stated theme is to explain how and why such organizations “attempt to sculpt the landscape of urban policy and political action rather than simply react or adapt to it” (p. 1), although the nine articles do not embrace it with equal rigor. The editors, who also contribute a chapter, further state that the text will explore “when and where such efforts are effective and when and where they are not''(p. 1). These are timely and important issues, given the Bush administration's stated goal of increasing reliance on nonprofit organizations.

Over the past decade the study of environmental justice has sparked considerable debate, with conflict often exacerbated by conceptual and definitional muddles, scarcity of pertinent data, and disagreement over which methods to employ. This book by the late James Lester and his colleagues is unlikely to diminish the controversy. Yet, as a comprehensive attempt to clear out the conceptual underbrush and bring hard data to bear on difficult empirical questions, the book merits attention by all those concerned with issues of environmental equity. The preliminary findings have been presented at conferences from 1994 on, and many are already familiar with this research. As the authors note, however, they began with a skeptical posture toward the strident assertions made regarding environmental justice. In the end, they reconsidered that position and found much evidence to support concern over environmental inequities in U.S. society.

Nearly four decades ago, in a path-breaking book, Aaron Wildavsky taught us, among other things, that “in the most integral sense the budget lies at the heart of the political process” (The Politics of the Budgetary Process, 1964, p. 5). Building on Wildavsky's study, many scholars have contributed to our understanding of various aspects of budget policy and politics. Some have discussed the role of trust funds in the federal budget, but none have made them the central focus of their research. Eric Patashnick fills an important void in the literature by explaining why trust funds are created and how they affect deliberation over tax and spending decisions. Using the trust fund mechanism as a point of reference, Patashnik also tests theories of policy history, public choice, and institutionalism.

Peretti's book purports to refute conventional constitutional scholarship about the dangers of a political Supreme Court, lauding such a political nature as supportive of the peculiar brand of democracy practiced in America. It seems, in large part, that she is quite successful in doing so, although I am certain that it is far easier to convince me of such a notion than it would be to convince the legal scholars whom Peretti so vehemently attacks.

For political scientists, the world of politics is often comprised of policy markets and aggregated data points. Regression models, actor preferences, and game structures are disciplinary norms. For political professionals, however, politics often has a strongly militaristic bent: It is war by other means. John Pitney analyzes political affairs in the way that political professionals commonly do, using armed conflict as a metaphor to understand complex political phenomena.

This important new study argues that American labor markets have been and are governed by employers to a degree unique among Western capitalist democracies; that this pattern of governance is the outcome of crucial struggles among unions, employers, and middle-class labor reformers from the Civil War to the New Deal; and that American political institutions strongly shaped the struggles and their outcome. In the nineteenth century, all Western countries largely protected employer control of hiring, firing, wages, hours, and working conditions, but in the twentieth century nations other than the United States began to curb employer prerogatives and extend worker protection in the form of labor regulations, trade union and collective bargaining laws, public management of labor supply and demand, and work insurance (the four major types of policy in Robertson's framework). In the United States, fewer such protections were established, and the fragmented federal and state labor policies that were enacted were often undermined by lax enforcement or court rulings. On the eve of the New Deal, Robertson shows, U.S. employers had a degree of autonomy in labor markets unparalleled in European and other industrialized countries.