Can Welfare States Be Sustained in a Global Economy? Lessons from Scandinavia
Eric S. Einhorn and John Logue argue that the European social model can be reformed without sacrificing its gains and that the Scandinavian states have already adapted their welfare state models to meet demographic, social, and economic challenges. They sketch the characteristics of the Scandinavian model, including its underpinnings in encompassing organizations of the less well off, the role of democratic corporatism in policymaking, and the importance of empiricism, social trust, and solidarity in the development of public policy.

Perception, Memory, and Partisan Polarization on the Iraq War
Gary C. Jacobson analyzes four surveys designed to investigate partisan polarization on the Iraq war. He finds that modes of motivated reasoning, including motivated skepticism and selective perception, selective memory, and selective exposure, contributed strongly to the emergence of the unusually wide differences of opinion on the war.

Religion, Divorce, and the Missing Culture War in America
Mark A. Smith explains why divorce, an issue that sparked heated controversy earlier in American history, is now absent from the culture war. He shows that religious groups gradually accommodated rising rates of marital breakup by changing their biblical interpretations and deemphasizing divorce as a political issue.

Building the New American Nation: Economic Development, Public Goods, and the Early U.S. Army
William D. Adler and Andrew J. Polsky contend that contrary to traditional notions of a weak national state in our nation’s early years, the national state, acting through the Army, was indispensable in shaping the pattern and direction of economic development. They propose a new way of conceptualizing the early American state: a state of the periphery, dominated by the Army, and a state of the center, in which other public institutions also performed key development functions.

Marc the Medici? The Failure of a New Form of Neopatrimonial Rule in Madagascar
Richard R. Marcus examines the roots of Madagascar’s President Marc Ravalomanana’s power and how they grew in leadership and regime expression. He argues that the private sector came to substitute for the bureaucracy, military, and other common bases of neopatrimonial rule thus allowing Ravalomanana to create a personalized economic–political fusion in a democratic context. This ultimately contributed to his downfall.

Class War? What Americans Really Think about Economic Inequality, Benjamin I. Page and Lawrence R. Jacobs
Reviewed by Andrew Gelman

The Democracy Index: Why Our Election System Is Failing and How to Fix It, Heather K. Gerken
Reviewed by Lonna Rae Atkeson

Globalization and Sovereignty, John Agnew
Reviewed by Howard H. Lentner

National Security and Core Values in American History, William O. Walker III
Reviewed by Jeffrey A. Engel

Rebels Without Borders: Transnational Insurgencies in World Politics, Idean Salehyan
Reviewed by Paul Staniland

The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War, James Mann
Reviewed by James Hershberg

Strategy on the United States Supreme Court, Saul Brenner and Joseph M. Whitmeyer
Reviewed by Jonathan Nash

The Case for Big Government, Jeff Madrick
Reviewed by Max Neiman

The Power Problem: How American Military Dominance Makes Us Less Safe, Less Prosperous, and Less Free, Christopher Preble
Reviewed by Gerard Alexander

Peace by Design: Managing Interstate Conflict through Decentralization, Dawn Brancati
Reviewed by David S. Siroky

The Sodomy Cases: Bowers v. Hardwick and Lawrence v. Texas, David A.J. Richards
Reviewed by Jonathan F. Parent

Lincoln on Race & Slavery, Henry Louis Gates
Reviewed by Lucas E. Morel

The Supreme Court's Role in American Indian Policy, John H. Vinzant
Reviewed by Matthew L.M. Fletcher

James Madison and the Spirit of Republican Self-Government, Colleen Sheehan
Reviewed by Jack Rakove

The Perils of Federalism: Race, Poverty, and the Politics of Crime Control, Lisa L. Miller
Reviewed by Khalilah L. Brown-Dean

Our Schools Suck: Students Talk Back to a Segregated Nation on the Failures of Urban Education, Gaston Alonso, Noel Anderson, Celina Su and Jeanne Theoharis
Reviewed by Christopher A. Simon

The Third Agenda in U.S. Presidential Debates: Debate Watch and Viewer Reactions, 1996–2004, Diana B. Carlin, Kelly M. McDonald, Tammy Vigil and Susan Buehler
Reviewed by WILLIAM L. BENOIT

In Search of the Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era, Richard Iton
Reviewed by Keith A. Mayes

Party Images in the American Electorate, Mark D. Brewer
Reviewed by Joel David Bloom

Colin Powell: American Power and Intervention From Vietnam to Iraq, Christopher D. O'Sullivan
Reviewed by Christopher Paul

The Right to Rule: How States Win and Lose Legitimacy, Bruce Gilley
Reviewed by Vsevolod Gunitskiy

Central Banking as Global Governance: Constructing Financial Credibility, Rodney Bruce Hall
Reviewed by Andrew Baker

Forced to Be Good: Why Trade Agreements Boost Human Rights, Emilie M. Hafner Burton
Reviewed by Dursun Peksen

Union, Nation, or Empire: The American Debate over International Relations, 1789–1941, David C. Hendrickson
Reviewed by Robert J. McMahon

Federations: The Political Dynamics of Cooperation, Chad Rector
Reviewed by Michael Burgess

Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism, Sheldon S. Wolin
Reviewed by Nadia Urbinati

The Political Economy of Transitions to Peace: A Comparative Perspective, Galia Press-Barnathan
Reviewed by Omar M.G. Keshk

Urban Sprawl, Global Warming, and the Empire of Capital, George A. Gonzalez
Reviewed by Kent E. Portney

The Invisible Hand of Peace: Capitalism, the War Machine, and International Relations Theory, Patrick J. McDonald
Reviewed by Erik Gartzke

Voting Amid Violence: Electoral Democracy in Colombia, Steven Taylor
Reviewed by Nazih Richani

Killing Neighbors: Webs of Violence in Rwanda, Lee Ann Fujii
Reviewed by Jeffrey Conroy-Krutz

The Politics of Presidential Appointments: Political Control and Bureaucratic Performance, David E. Lewis
Reviewed by William Howell