Book Review: Of Power and Right: Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, and America's Constitutional Revolution, The Not So Grand Jury: The Story of the Federal Grand Jury System, Foundations of India's Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s, Foundations of Pakistan's Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s, Situating the Self: Gender, Community and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics, Abortion and American Politics, Understanding the New Politics of Abortion, The Pro-Choice Movement: Organization and Activism in the Abortion Conflict, China's Far West: Four Decades of Change, Christian Democracy in Europe, Do Institutions Matter? Government Capabilities in the United States and Abroad, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, The New Politics of Class: Social Movements and Cultural Dynamics in Advanced Societies, The Political Philosophy of Hannah Arendt, The Question of UK Decline: The Economy, State and Society, Talking about Tomorrow: A New Radical Politics, The Atlas of Apartheid, South Af
| Author | Roger Backhouse,Andrew Parkin,Mary G. Dietz,Valerie Bryson,Philip J. O'Brien,Kris Deschouwer,Anthony Seldon,Robert J. McKeever,Gerald Segal,Simone Chambers,K. S. Subramanian,Anthony Barker,Gavin Bradshaw,Edward B. Vermeer,Michael Goldsmith |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1995.tb01707.x |
| Date | 01 March 1995 |
| Published date | 01 March 1995 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Political Studies
(1993,
XLIII,
172-187
Book
Reviews
Howard Ball and Phillip J. Cooper,
Of
Pouer and Right: Hugo Black, William
0.
Douglas, and America’s Constitutional Revolution
(Oxford, Oxford University
Press/OUP USA,
1992),
ix
+
390
pp.,
f25.00
ISBN
0
19 504612 9.
Blanche Davis Blank,
The Not
So
Grand Jury:
the
Story
of
the Federal Grand Jury
System
(Lanham MD, University Press of America,
1993), 108
pp.,
$39.50
ISBN
0
8191
9100
0,
$23.50
pbk ISBN
0
8191 9101 9.
These two volumes tackle very different aspects of the American judicial process and
with, it must be said, different levels of accomplishment. Ball and Cooper analyse the
judicial relationship between two of the great liberal activists of the modern Supreme
Court, Hugo Black
(1937-71)
and William
0.
Douglas
(1939-75).
By comparing and
contrasting the jurists’ records on issues such as civil rights, religious freedoms, the rights
of
accused and privacy, the authors gradually establish that Black and Douglas often
reached similar results by different jurisprudential means. Indeed, far from being
identical peas in the Warren Court pod, Black and Douglas had significantly different
concepts not merely of constitutional interpretation, but
also
of the role of the Supreme
Court in American democracy. For Black, the key issue was always whether a literal
reading of the text of the Constitution showed government to have the power to restrict
the freedom of the individual. While he frequently came down on the side of the
individual, Black was also sufficiently conscious of the proper limits of judicial power
to allow government
to
act where there was no clear constitutional barrier
-
even if the
result was personally distasteful to him. Not
so
Douglas, who, by the
1960’s,
paid scant
attention to either the Constitution
or
judicial role theory, and simply reached for the
‘right’ decision as informed by his own sense of Natural Law and Justice. The authors
develop these perspectives with clarity, reference to a wide range of primary and
secondary sources and, not least, considerable affection and respect for both Justices.
And here perhaps is the one significant fault of the book: such is the authors’ admiration
for their subjects that they somewhat pull their punches on the Justices’ weak spots.
Thus, the full implications
of
Black’s untenable argument on the incorporation of the
Bill of Rights into the Fourteenth Amendment are not pursued. And Bill Douglas’s
willingness to consult only his personal notion
of
‘a good result’ in deciding cases earns
him not critical scrutiny but rather the title of ‘the conscience of the Court’.
Nevertheless. Ball and Cooper have produced a serious, informative and enjoyable
book. Blanche Davis Blank, however, has not. Her account of the grand jury system
is openly acknowledged as based on personal experience and anecdote. But that does
not excuse the superficiality
of
the ‘analysis’ here, the numerous errors that should have
been picked up by proof-reading
or
the egregious writing style that involves underlining
words whose meaning already carry their own stress.
I
doubt whether academic readers
would gain much from this slight volume.
ROBERT
J.
McKEEVER
University
of
Reading
Subroto Roy and William E. James (eds),
Foundations
of
India’s Political Economy:
Towards an Agenda for the
1990s
(London, Sage,
1992). 339
pp.,
E30.00
ISBN
0
8039
9411 7.
L;
Political Studies Association
1995
Published
by
Blackwell
Publishers.
108
Cowley
Road.
Oxford
OX4
IJF,
UK and
238
Mam
Street,
Cambridge.
MA
02142.
USA
Book
Reuiews
I73
Subroto Roy and William
E.
James (eds),
Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy:
Towards an Agenda for the
1990s
(London, Sage, 1992),
304
pp.,
f35.00
ISBN
0
8039
9443
5.
At a time when the economies of the South Asian region are fast being globalized with
far-reaching socio-political implications and consequences, the two volumes under
review are valuable for their attempt
to
make sense of the emerging scenario. The ten
essays in the first volume on India address two broad issues relating to the structure of
the modern Indian polity and the nature and extent of government’s role in the
economy. The first three essays point to certain distortions in the present system,
especially in its federalist and pluralist aspects leading to (i) the emergence, of
authoritarian centralism in the working of the Union Government; (ii) the awakening
in large parts of the electorate; (iii) the heightened feelings of group identities and
differences; and (iv) their increasing political manipulation. The next five chapters call
for a frank discussion of the economic policy in India and point out that the spending
of tax resources by the Central and State Governments has been reckless and wasteful.
These developments underline the need for pragmatic rather than ideological ap-
proaches and the drawing up of an appropriate agenda. Among the important but
undiscussed issues noted by the editors are constitutional reforms, the nature of the
Indian intercourse with Islam, the country’s monumental poverty and the need for
opening up to the winds of change from outside.
The volume on Pakistan
is
especially interesting and contains ten essays on different
facets of the society and polity. The five in the first part are concerned with the historical
origins of Pakistan, its internal and external policies and the role of its administration.
They set the tone for the economic discussion which follows in the next five essays.
Significantly, the lack of representative institutions (such as in India) has led to the
consolidation of the power of the elite civil service and its central role in setting the
parameters of economic, political and foreign policies. The ‘paradox’ of Kashmir is
identified as symbolizing the ‘multiple crises over national identities in the subcontinent’
and
a
fascinating analysis attempts to unravel it by using the insights of history,
economics and philosophy. This is a very interesting section in the volume. The genuine
concern over the multiple crises of society and politics in India and Parkistan which
pervades the two volumes is a notable and welcome feature.
K.
S.
SUBRAMANIAN
State Institute
of
Public Administration
and Rural Development, Tripura
Seyla
Benhabib,
Situating
the
Self: Gender, Community and Postmodernism in Contem-
porary
,%hies
(Oxford, Polity, 1992), viii
+
266 pp.,
E45.00
ISBN
0
7456
0998
8,
El 1.95
pbk ISBN
Q
7456
1059
5.
Seyla Benhabib’s most recent book,
Situating the SeK
contains eight previously
published essays. The essays not only situate a conception of a morally responsible self
within
a
theory of communicative ethics but also situate Benhabib vis-a-vis numerous
and
criss-orassiag strains within contemporary ethics. Although the topics under
discussion
are
wide
ranging (communitarianism, critical theory, liberalism, republican-
ism, developmental psychology, feminism and postmodernism) there is a clear argumen-
tative thread running through the book. As a result, it is not only a collection of good
essays
but
&a
a
good
collection of essays that articulate Benhabib’s distinctive and
important contribution
to
ethics at the same time as offering interesting and often
incisive criticism
of
such thinkers as Alasdair MacIntyre, Hannah Arendt, Lawrence
Kohlberg,
Iris
Yaung,
Jean-Francois Lyotard, and Jiirgen Habermas to name only a
few.
At
the heart of the book is a vision of moral deliberation as a type
of
conversation
in which participants work through moral disputes under conditions
of
universal respect
C
Polittc4
Studies
Aesaciulion.
I995
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