Gerring, John & Strom C. Thacker, 2008. A Centripetal Theory of Democratic Governance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. xiii + 237 pp. ISBN 9780521710152
| DOI | 10.1177/00223433090460030906 |
| Author | Helge Holtermann |
| Published date | 01 May 2009 |
| Date | 01 May 2009 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
BOOK NOTES 455
a brooding presence throughout – the subject of
people’s private thoughts and the ultimate insti-
gator of many of their personal successes and
disasters. Montefiore has based his biography of
Stalin’s early years on archived documents found
in Georgia. In particular, he is to be commended
for locating surprisingly frank personal memoirs
written by Stalin’s friends, family and associates
that were collected and suppressed by the Georgian
communist party. His book certainly debunks the
two very different myths produced about Stalin’s
origins – his opponents, and particularly Trotsky,
painted him as a boorish nonentity, while Soviet
era hagiographies crafted an impression of a tire-
less Marxist ideologue. Montefiore shows that he
was much more colourful and explains how he
managed to become such a powerful figure by
1917. Far from being a nonentity, he was Lenin’s
chief fixer, the Bolshevik’s bank robber and gun
runner. Stalin financed the party by performing
daring heists from banks across the Caucasus and
supplied rebellious workers with arms. He also
had a colourful personal life; Montefiore high-
lights that Stalin was educated at one of the best
schools in the Caucasus, spoke several languages
fluently and initially became famous in Geor-
gia as a poet rather than a revolutionary. Mon-
tefiore dwells on how he seduced his way from
one affair to another across Russia. Stalin’s past
also provides a clue to the origins of his paranoia
while in power. In the world of revolutionaries,
everyone was under suspicion, and some of his
most trusted comrades did turn out to be police
informers. Figes instead concentrates upon the
private lives of Russians from all social strata, and
his book is based upon oral history and personal
archives of diaries, letters and photographs. Figes
has written a moving and detailed account of
how people coped with the terror of the purges
and the hardships they endured after they were
sent to the Gulag. More interesting is his treat-
ment of the supporters of the new regime. Some
were motivated by idealism, while for others (par-
ticularly those from peasant families), the Soviet
Union offered social advancement, education
and much improved employment opportuni-
ties. He also highlights how some people from
persecuted backgrounds turned themselves into
model citizens, such as graduates taking manual
jobs, in order to purge the stain on their charac-
ter caused by having a privileged background. In
other cases, it is somewhat disheartening to read
about how people would inform on their neigh-
bours (often for exaggerated or false reasons) and
condemn them to years of imprisonment in order
to gain some furniture or a few square metres of
living space. In all, his book provides a fascinat-
ing insight into how tyrannies are maintained
– partly through fear, resignation, avarice and
ambition. Figes also concludes with a note on the
advantages of using oral history instead of relying
upon documents (as Montefiore does). He states
that a historian can ask a witness for confirma-
tion and clarification while documents cannot be
questioned. In all, both are remarkable books that
provide startling and often moving portraits of a
crucial period in world history.
Nicholas Marsh
Gerring, John & Strom C. Thacker, 2008.
A Centripetal Theory of Democratic Governance.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. xiii +
237 pp. ISBN 9780521710152.
This book lays out a grand institutional theory
of governance in democracies and tests this with
cross-national time-series data. In essence, the
argument holds that democratic institutions
which concentrate political authority in the centre
lead to better governance. Three institutions are
highlighted: configuration of sovereignty, type of
executive and electoral system. The authors argue
that governance is improved by adopting a uni-
tary rather than a federal configuration of sover-
eignty, a parliamentary rather than a presidential
type of executive and a closed-list PR rather than
a majoritarian or preferential-vote electoral sys-
tem. These three ‘centripetal’ institutions are said
to affect governance through three causal mecha-
nisms: strengthening political parties, mediating
conflict and improving policy coordination across
different political institutions. Better governance,
it is assumed, should favour political, economic
and human development in the long term. This
far-reaching argument may seem overly ambi-
tious. However, the authors do a fine job of for-
mulating the argument, testing it empirically and
defending their endeavour to investigate such a
grand theory. Although the empirical analysis
leaves much to be desired in terms of direct test-
ing of the suggested causal mechanisms, it does
succeed in demonstrating that the argument
is empirically plausible. There is particularly
strong evidence that parliamentarism has a posi-
tive effect on a range of ‘governance outcomes’
such as infrastructure, tax revenue and economic
development. Future studies will hopefully shed
To continue reading
Request your trial