Book Review: Alberto D Cimadamore, Gabriele Koehler and Thomas Pogge (eds), Poverty and the Millennium Development Goals: A Critical Look Forward
| Published date | 01 November 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929917717445 |
| Author | Abhishek Choudhary |
| Date | 01 November 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Book ReviewsGeneral Politics |
648 Political Studies Review 15(4)
Alexiadou’s theoretical mechanism for the link
between cabinet members and policymaking.
Sceptical readers might question the gener-
alisability of Alexiadou’s findings, as the
author’s empirical analysis focuses on a lim-
ited number of policy areas and countries.
Also, there is a common view that ministers
almost always toe the party line in parliamen-
tary democracies. However, Alexiadou does
not totally disregard the existing research;
instead, she convincingly points to the possi-
bility that ministers can shape policy outcomes.
Parliaments and Government Formation is
an important study that consists of 19 chapters
written by two dozen authors who specialise in
parliamentary politics. The book examines the
variation in investiture rules among countries
with diverse backgrounds such as Sweden,
Romania and India, just to name a few.
More specifically, the authors contributing
to this edited volume seek to explore the extent
to which investiture rules matter in parliamen-
tary democracies. For example, one important
question might be, ‘can unpacking the investi-
ture procedure better explain the rate of minor-
ity governments?’ (p. 6). According to the
editors, this question is not a trivial one as coali-
tion theory often fails to predict government
formation patterns.
It is no easy task to review such an enor-
mous scholarly effort in a few paragraphs. The
conclusions the authors reach in the book can
be summarised in two points. First, as the
country chapters show, there is significant
variation in investiture rules between coun-
tries. In the editors’ words, ‘some parliaments,
operating in what are otherwise easily charac-
terised as parliamentary democracies, play no
formally decisive role in the selection of the
government. For example, in the Netherlands
there is no parliamentary vote of investiture
for new cabinets’ (p. 333). Here, it is important
to note that the authors distinguish between
ex-ante and ex-post systems, where the former
refers to a parliament that selects the govern-
ment and the latter refers to a parliament that
becomes involved in the investiture process
after the government is appointed.
Second, as regards the effect of investiture
rules, the authors suggest that ‘the relationship
between formation votes and type of government
is complex and ambiguous’ (p. 349). However,
this is a very preliminary finding, as the book
does not capitalise on traditional statistical tech-
niques that can account for other potential factors
influencing the likelihood of minority cabinets.
The books under review make important
contributions to our understanding of parliamen-
tary politics. Alexiadou’s study challenges the
assertion that ministers always toe the party line,
arguing that ministerial selection has policy con-
sequences. Rasch, Martin and Cheibub’s edited
book examines an unexplored aspect of parlia-
mentary politics – investiture rules – providing
the most comprehensive account to date of the
nature of this parliamentary procedure and its
effect on government formation in parliamentary
democracies. All in all, I highly recommend
these two books for students of parliamentary
politics.
Tevfik Murat Yildirim
(University of Missouri)
© The Author(s) 2017
Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1478929917719403
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
General Politics
Poverty and the Millennium Development
Goals: A Critical Look Forward by Alberto D
Cimadamore, Gabriele Koehler and Thomas
Pogge (eds). London: Zed Books, 2016. 268pp.,
£24.99 (p/b), ISBN 9781783606184
The book presents an appraisal of the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with
a compilation of 10 essays. The authors assess
the impact of the MDGs on global poverty, out-
line the problems with poverty statistics, seek to
redefine the development goals and present
policy alternatives.
The book is divided into three sections
for a clearer flow of the arguments. The
first section provides an overview of the
problem of global poverty, underlining the
statistical and methodological issues in its
definition and assessment. Sundaram’s
essay argues that the use of the ‘poverty
line’ is a misleading measurement of pov-
erty (p. 28). The focus has to shift towards
equity and inclusion of the poor (p. 42).
Rogers and Balazs focus on the voice of the
poor through ‘field hearings’, bringing in
To continue reading
Request your trial