Iva Mihaylova

Book Review: Bumba Mukherjee, Democracy and Trade Policy in Developing CountriesDemocracy and Trade Policy in Developing Countries by MukherjeeBumba. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2016. 315pp., £21.00 (p/b), ISBN 9780226358819

In contrast, Stephanie Dornschneider’s book Whether to Kill offers a corrective to such trends by employing a cognitive mapping approach, which ‘explores the belief systems underlying human behavior’ and thus ‘bridges the gap between actors and structures’ (p. 3; emphasis in original), with the aim of investigating why different individuals enduring the same conditions may choose violent or nonviolent activism. After explaining the cognitive mapping approach, Dornschneider details her research design, a double-paired comparison of violent and non-violent individuals in Egypt and Germany. For her research, she interviewed representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Jihad, among others, in Egypt, while her German research focused upon such groups as the Red Army Faction and the Socialist German Student Union. Following a brief history of the groups whose members or former members she was able to interview, Dornschneider lays out in great detail how she went about constructing cognitive maps for each individual and abstracting the beliefs expressed into comparable categories. She also presents a counterfactual analysis, testing what interventions might have prevented the individuals analysed from taking up arms. Dornschneider develops a number of interesting conclusions: both violent and non-violent individuals react primarily to perceived state aggression; the adoption of violence can be linked neither to mental illness nor to religion; and violent individuals are not motivated by beliefs about economic deprivation or the groups to which they belong. In short, ‘the boundaries between violent and non-violent activism appear to be rather thin, much thinner than we think’ (p. 257). Through her use of the cognitive mapping approach, Dornschneider offers a complement and a corrective to many structural theories of political violence. Although it can occasionally prove a somewhat difficult read, Whether to Kill, by taking seriously individual belief, demands a reconsideration of our easy dichotomy of violence and nonviolence, which may well change how political activism is studied and conceptualised in the future. Guy Lancaster (Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture)

Russia’s New Concept of the State Migration Policy until 2025: A Reform towards Effective Policies for International Economic Migrants?

Russia’s new Concept of the State Migration Policy until 2025 (the CSMP) was approved on 13 June 2012. As the first comprehensive, nationwide document on migration policy in the modern history of Russia, it marks the beginning of a decisive reform of the country’s migration policy by departing from the existing focus on temporary foreign workers. The emphasis of the CSMP is on coordination between new, modernized, and reformed migration policies to help achieve its central goals: sustaining the country’s economic competitiveness, alleviating the negative effects of the country’s demographic decline, combating the deficiencies of the country’s domestic labor market, attracting and retaining talented foreign workers, and facilitating the country’s modernization and innovative development. This article first presents the principal elements of Russia’s migration policy in the post-Soviet period. It explains the reasons for the legacy of problems arising from this policy that have motivated migration reform in Russia. Second, it describes the scope, stages, and policy measures of the new CSMP, with emphasis on its major new aspect – the selective recruitment and facilitated settlement of international economic migrants. Third, it provides recommendations to policy-makers, based on the relevant experience of other migrant-receiving countries. These recommendations are derived from a theoretical model for the important but often overlooked notion of the effectiveness of migration policy. The article entirely relies on a comparative learning method. By answering the question of whether a decision variable may be regarded as supply-led, demand-driven, or both, the recommendations of this analysis are summarized in the following categories: (1) models for selective migration policies; (2) state programs for foreign graduates of local universities; (3) temporary-to-permanent residence programs; (4) migration diasporas and skill-selective migration programs; and (5) labor market tests. The article concludes with a discussion of two points: (1) data quality and availability, and (2) the appropriate research methods for measuring the effectiveness of migration policies for international economic migrants.

Oil by Gavin Bridge and Philippe Le Billon. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013. 256pp., £12.99, ISBN 978 0 7456 4926 9

in the second part, the only positive and statistically significant coefficients produced by the model applied to Latina women (to predict their descriptive representation) are smaller than the ones produced in the model applied to Latino men. As a consequence, Bejarano’s findings, taken together, seem to provide a trend, but, if analysed as individual chapters, only yield partial support for her theory. Despite these faults, Bejarano’s contribution ‘calls for a re-examination of the concept of racial threat to include the impact of gender’ (p. 11). Her well-structured book and intelligent theory should be considered a starting point for future studies that wish to engage in nuanced and effective analyses of the recruitment and electoral processes.

Book Review: General Politics: Oil

in the second part, the only positive and statistically significant coefficients produced by the model applied to Latina women (to predict their descriptive representation) are smaller than the ones produced in the model applied to Latino men. As a consequence, Bejarano’s findings, taken together, seem to provide a trend, but, if analysed as individual chapters, only yield partial support for her theory. Despite these faults, Bejarano’s contribution ‘calls for a re-examination of the concept of racial threat to include the impact of gender’ (p. 11). Her well-structured book and intelligent theory should be considered a starting point for future studies that wish to engage in nuanced and effective analyses of the recruitment and electoral processes.

Book Review: General Politics: OilOil by BridgeGavinLe BillonPhilippe. Cambridge: Polity Press2013. 256 pp., £12.99, ISBN 978 0 7456 4926 9

in the second part, the only positive and statistically significant coefficients produced by the model applied to Latina women (to predict their descriptive representation) are smaller than the ones produced in the model applied to Latino men. As a consequence, Bejarano’s findings, taken together, seem to provide a trend, but, if analysed as individual chapters, only yield partial support for her theory. Despite these faults, Bejarano’s contribution ‘calls for a re-examination of the concept of racial threat to include the impact of gender’ (p. 11). Her well-structured book and intelligent theory should be considered a starting point for future studies that wish to engage in nuanced and effective analyses of the recruitment and electoral processes.

Integrating Climate, Energy and Air Pollution Policies by Gary Bryner and Robert J. Duffy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012. 240pp., £15.95, ISBN 9780262517874

aspects of campaigns – candidate experience, crying, anger, toughness, lack of empathy and knowledge gaffes during the campaign (p. 51) – were interacted with gender and analysed in regard to their impact on ‘overall favourability, likely effectiveness in Senate, and likely effectiveness as US president’ (p. 54), as well as their perceived ‘issue competencies’ (such as knowledge of the economy) and ‘personal traits’ (p. 55). Brooks’ conclusions are optimistic: gender stereotypes are still in place, but they do not disproportionately hurt the electoral chances of female candidates. Also, contrary to journalistic accounts, Brooks does not find evidence to support the suggestion that women are penalised for ‘violating gendered prescriptive stereotypes’ (p. 144), and even that inexperienced female candidates have a slight advantage over inexperienced men. Brooks’ writing is clear and exciting, which means the book contributes not only to the scholarly literature on women and politics, but also to the overall nonacademic discussion of the topic. Perhaps precisely because of this attempt to connect to a non-academic audience, however, the book seems to bear a disconnected design: it is motivated and framed in regard to the presidential elections, but undertakes analyses at the legislative level. The reader is also left to wonder whether findings could be biased as a result of using YouGov, a self-selection platform for population sampling, or by respondents’ knowledge of the intent of the study (an issue Brooks briefly discusses on p. 170). Brooks’ work is aligned with recent findings on voter behaviour and candidate gender, and is well timed and placed within the literature’s growing understanding of the relationship between gender biases and descriptive representation. It also succeeds in combining nonacademic discourse with methodological rigour, thus potentially satisfying a large and diverse audience.