Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2021 - Social & Behavioral Sciences — Political Science — Comparative Politics

All-powerful political parties largely dominate the electoral democracies of sub-Saharan Africa. Over time they tend to lose their first-mover legitimacy. South Africa offers a telling case of this phenomenon. No longer is the African National Congress (ANC) the unblemished political movement of Nelson Mandela. In-fighting over the spoils of office; rampant corruption infecting all levels of the party, including a former president now on trial; and bitter battles between factions of lesser and greater integrity all undercut the party's appeal to electors. This exemplary study by Ndletyana (Univ. of Johannesburg) focuses on the activities of the ANC in the important coastal city of Port Elizabeth (now part of the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality), contributing much to our understanding of how ruling political parties behave, with its longitudinal scope extending over 29 years at the local level. There are very few other studies on contemporary Africa conducted at such a helpful granular level. Ndletyana's examination of how and why the ANC became so corrupt, so dysfunctional, so focused on benefiting itself and its leading cadres, and so evidently willing to ignore the real needs of its constituents, including the citizens and overall welfare of the city, is of enormous academic and public-policy value.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals.

Variations in the subnational level of democracy across federal systems is a growing and important area of focus. In this original and essential study, Hiskey (Vanderbilt Univ.) and Moseley (West Virginia Univ.) break new ground concerning how undemocratic regional political machines affect the attitudes and behavior of citizens within their enclaves. The book analyses Argentina and Mexico, both third-wave democracies featuring, respectively, provinces and states in which a regional dominant party has governed without change since national democratization. The book uses comprehensive public opinion data, collected from both dominant-party regions and those with diverse multiparty competition, and includes case studies reporting on extensive fieldwork conducted in San Luis (Argentina) and the of state Mexico, or Edomex, (Mexico). The authors show that clientelism and corruption, as well as unchecked executive power, both prevalent situations in these places, have the effect that citizens become desensitized to corrupt practices, accepting them as the norm in politics. The consequent less-than-democratic political culture reinforces a less-than-democratic regional government, which spills over into national politics. The book concludes with a discussion of pathways out of such dominant-party control. This impressive, precise work offers lessons for many other countries.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals.

Based on extensive field work and interviews with stakeholders, this innovative work shifts the focus of the growing literature on migration from the policies of developed countries to those of governments in the Global South. Despite hosting tens of thousands of migrants as semi-permanent guests, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, and other similarly situated countries in the Global South are typically treated as "transit countries," places where migrants find temporary refuge on their way to their final destinations in Europe and North America. Consequently, little attention is paid to how these states approach migrants and what explains their policy choices. Over the decades these "transit countries" have become semipermanent homes for thousands of migrants who actively participate in the country's economic life despite their precarious legal position. Norman (Rice Univ.) develops the concept of "strategic indifference" to convincingly argue that policies that are often attributed to state weakness and lack of capacity are in reality the result of intentional strategic choices in response to domestic and international incentives and pressures. This easily accessible volume presents a sophisticated and nuanced theoretical argument and is a major contribution to the literature on migration.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through professionals.

In this timely book, Fox (Bar-Ilan Univ., Israel) examines the causes and effects of discriminatory state policies toward religious minorities worldwide. The book's dataset covers 771 minorities in 183 countries from 1990 to 2014. Its analysis is based on clustered comparisons that categorize countries according to their religion, ideology, and region. Protestant-majority and Catholic-majority countries show lower levels of discriminatory government policies against religious minorities in comparison to Orthodox-majority, Muslim-majority, Buddhist-majority, and communist countries. The book also reveals variation in each of these religious/ideological categories. An unexpected finding is that, on average, Western European democracies exhibit higher levels of government-based religious discrimination than Christian-majority countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, regardless of whether these countries are democratic or authoritarian. This finding is explained by some Western European countries' recent restrictions on certain Muslim and Jewish minorities' religious practices. The book can be read as a challenge to the dominant rational-choice perspective in political science, due to its emphasis on religious and secular ideologies that shape government policies. It is a welcome addition to the literature on religion and politics and a must-read for those who study religious freedom.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels.