Booknotes

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/0033-3352.00056
• Date: 01 July 2001
• Published date: 01 July 2001

Booknotes 509

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Alston, Margaret. 2000. Breaking

Through the Grass Ceiling: Women,

Power and Leadership in Agricul-

tural Organisations. Amsterdam,

The Netherlands: Harwood Academic

Publishers.

A contemporary examination of

the position of women in agricul-

ture, this book uses interviews and

surveys to explore why farm-

women are virtually absent from

positions of power and leadership.

The answer is found in ideology

and structural relations, not in the

women’s capacity for leadership.

Beamer, Glenn. 1999. Creative

Politics: Taxes and Public Goods in

a Federal System. Ann Arbor, MI:

University of Michigan Press.

This book focuses on two ques-

tions about federalism—how rela-

tionships among political institu-

tions alter political dynamics, and

how the public sector’s responsi-

bility to provide nonexclusionary

public goods changes federal poli-

tics. It examines decision making

by legislatures in four policy ar-

eas to find the answers.

Behn, Robert D. 2001. Rethinking

Democratic Accountability. Washing-

ton, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

Concerned that the idea that we

should “hold people accountable”

has become a cliché, Behn asks the

question, “What do we mean by

democratic accountability?” He

says that we want accountability

for finances, fairness, and perfor-

mance—but that we have not cre-

ated effective systems for attain-

ing them. He concludes with a few

suggestions.

Booknotes

Bowen, William. 2001. Environ-

mental Justice Through Research-

Based Decision-Making. New York:

Garland Publishing

Bowen examines environmental-

justice research and concludes that

it generally suffers from a lack of

adequate scientific proof. Arguing

that environmental justice is “a

provocative political symbol” that

is used to gain sympathy for se-

lected social groups, he prefers

policy making that is based on sci-

ence and rationality to that which

is based on a conception of justice.

Daniels, Mark R., ed. 2001. Creat-

ing Sustainable Community Pro-

grams: Examples of Collaborative

Public Administration. Westport, CT:

Praeger Publishers.

The contributors to this volume of-

fer a variety of case studies aimed

at showing how greater collabora-

tion between citizens and their lo-

cal governments can improve re-

lations between citizens and their

governments. They argue that the

way to make local programs sus-

tainable is to have citizens admin-

ister them in collaboration with lo-

cal officials.

Glazer, Amihai, and Lawrence S.

Rothenberg. 2001. Why Government

Succeeds and Why It Fails. Cam-

bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

The authors find that economic

constraints are important in ex-

plaining the ability of the U.S. gov-

ernment to implement policies.

They focus their analysis on mac-

roeconomic policies, redistributive

policies, production policies, and

regulatory policies.

Goodlad, Stephen John, ed. 2001.

The Last Best Hope: A Democracy

Reader. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-

Bass.

With essays from authors like Neil

Postman, Benjamin Barber, Rob-

ert Putnam, Michael Oakshott,

Martin Buber, Noam Chomsky,

Howard Zinn, and Mihaly

Csikszentmihalyi, this 269-page

volume addresses such issues as

why one might want a democracy,

and what troubles are inherent to

democracy.

Hauger, J. Scott, and Celia

McEnaney, eds. 2000. Strategies for

Competitiveness in Academic Re-

search. New York: American Associa-

tion for the Advancement of Science.

The product of an American As-

sociation for the Advancement of

Science analytical task aimed at

developing a better understanding

of the nature of competitiveness in

academic research, this book also

includes chapters on strategies to

enhance research competitiveness.

Its contributors include Albert H.

Teich, Irwin Feller, W. Henry

Lambright, and J. Scott Hauger.

Lindblom, Charles E. 2001. The

Market System: What It Is, How It

Works, and What to Make of It. New

Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Written in non-technical language,

this book takes on the task of explain-

ing the market system to a general au-

dience. Along the way, Lindblom ad-

dresses such questions as: Is the

market system efficient? Is it demo-

cratic? Does it inherently work to de-

spoil the environment? Does it debase

culture?

Loomis, Burdett A., ed. 2000. Es-

teemed Colleagues: Civility and De-

liberation in the U.S. Senate. Wash-

ington, DC: Brookings Institution

Press.

This volume’s contributors address

the decline of civility in the Sen-

ate, assess its impact on the politi-

cal system, and consider prospects

for improvement. Despite increas-

ing individualism, declining trust,

and rising partisanship, the con-

tributors offer hope that the nature

of the institution is such that it can