Suchergebnisse

A review essay on books by (1) Asit K Biswas [ed], Eglal Rached [ed], & Cecilia Tortajada [ed], Water as a Human Right for the Middle East and North Africa (London: Routledge, 2008); (2) Transparency International, Global Corruption Report 2008: Corruption in the Water Sector (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) & (3) Edella Schlager & William Blomquist, Embracing Watershed Politics (Colorado: University of Colorado Press, 2008).

'Policy Entrepreneurs and Social Choice' by Michael Mintrom is reviewed.

The core of the paper argues that public policy is directly related to the character of democracy and the definition of citizenship. My argument begins with some contextual conditions that I believe strongly argue for increased attention to the linkage between public policy and democracy. It then explores briefly the meaning, characteristics, and necessary condition of democracy, and next posits some hypothetical linkages between democratic conditions and public policy content or design. The bulk of this paper develops these pathways or linkages as a subject matter for political science.

The End of Liberalism is one of the most widely read books in political science. As book review editor of the American Political Science Review, it interests me that the reviewers of neither the first nor second edition of the book predicted its enormous success. While the reviews were clearly positive in tone, they were far from effusive, and none suggested that the book would become required reading for a generation of political science students. My own copy of the book is annotated by three sets of underlines and comments—my own and those of my two daughters who were assigned the book as undergraduates. Why has the book become so important? What can we learn from it about the ingredients of a great book? Given the broad readership that has responded to Lowi's book, how relevant are the criteria that political scientists use to evaluate their own literature? What qualities should disciplinary reviewers watch for if they hope to recognize what will become a classic?