Book Review: Political Theory
| Published date | 01 September 2008 |
| Date | 01 September 2008 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-9302.2008.00165_1.x |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Book Reviews
Political Theory
Democracy. Problems and Perspectives by
Roland Axtmann. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2007. 266pp., £18.99, ISBN
978 0 7486 2010 4
Communism and the Emergence of
Democracy by Harald Wydra. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2007. 314pp.,
£45.00, ISBN 0 521 85169 6
The study of democracy has become a battlefield
over the last 30 years with formidable troops
arranged, trenches criss-crossing the theoretical
terrain and ever fewer chances of fraternisation.
While transitologists wanted to conceptualise
contingent factors in regime changes such as elite
pacts, or disposition of key actors on the political
scene, institutionalists emphasised the slow and
gradual processes of institution building, favour-
ing rational choice approaches on one side of the
spectrum and historical narratives on the other.
Somewhat distant to and unmoved by these
discussions, political theorists have toiled away
at carving out a plausible normative concept of
democracy.
Entirely novel approaches that deliberately
transcend the battle lines are rare, and sadly,
only one of the books reviewed here manages to
open up genuinely new territory for further
theoretical mining. It is probably fair to say that
Axtmann’s book is not of this quality.The central
themes of the book are developed by contrasting
patriotic cosmopolitanism with liberal cosmo-
politanism; a critical examination of promoting
democratic governance; the globalisation of
democracy and human rights (which Axtmann
terms liberal anti-pluralism), and a discussion of
sovereignty and democracy.
The author dives right into the matter with a
critical exploration (that borders on a text analy-
sis) of Kant’s perpetual peace. He ties this in with
what he considers the challenges and advantages
of republicanism.These sections of the book are
scholarly and perceptiveif only slightly unexciting
to read, yet the author fails to tell us why
republicanism is so critical to matters regarding
democracy.
The substantial part of the book deals with the
impact of global human rights discourse on
democratic theory. However, as germane as this
issue is, once again,didactically the book works in
mysterious ways. Whole chapters read like brief
outlines of the main ideas of thinkers.Pretty much
everybody in the history of thought makes an
appearance but it is not clear how Axtmann
weighs their arguments.Text exegesis seems to be
his favourite methodological approach, which
becomes a little tedious when page after page of
UN declarations and conventions are outlined
and interpreted. It remains unclear what the exact
relationship is between the ample documentary
evidence that Axtmann laudably musters and
his normative argument that the articulation
of human rights on a global scale undermines
democracy. In fact, the normative relationship
between human rights and political rights remains
curiously obscure.
If I had to point to those chapters that are
particularly worthy of attention I would single
out the initial chapters for scholars of Kantian
political philosophy and chapter 4 which charts
some important revisions of state theories by
assessing the impact of democracy on sovereignty.
Who is this book for? It cuts across quite a few
POLITICAL STUDIES REVIEW: 2008 VOL 6, 357–439
© 2008The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Political StudiesAssociation
interests in political theory without actually
managing to weave them into a coherent nor-
mative model of democracy, but it may provide
students of political theory with a first encounter
of debates surrounding state theory and
cosmopolitanism.
The second book is a joy to discover simply
because it does what is rare in academic discus-
sions on democracy. It ventures into genuinely
new territory and attempts to forge a novel
synthesis between the issues of transition to
democracy in Eastern Europe and the nature of
democratic politics. If I had to characterise the
book I would call it a revisionist account that
utilises sociological perspectives for an under-
standing of why democracies sometimes succeed
and sometimes fail.
The core of Wydra’s argument is that the
experience of communism and democracy must
be placed at the centre of analysis of transitional as
well as consolidation politics. In very perceptive
and astute sections on the emergence of the
Soviet regime, as well as its disintegration at the
end of the twentieth century, Wydra manages
to transcend current paradigms of interpretation
that construct artificial divides between pre-
democratic and democratic phases. Differentiated
accounts of human agency and memory functions
act as Wydra’s main analytical devices that, justi-
fiably,push into the foreground various processes
of symbolisation and meaning formation. His
examination of ‘second reality’ and its slow but
inexorable disintegration during the communist
era is fascinating and stimulating reading.
Wydra has succeeded in challenging the
current (myopic and fragmentary) terms of refer-
ence in the theory of democracy and has made an
excellent attempt at a synthesis which repositions
human experiences and the formation of
meaning in the political process at the centre of
democratic politics and its analysis. My only criti-
cism would be that the language derived from
French sociologists sometimes makes the book
hard to read and that it is still necessary to inte-
grate his approach into the analytical tradition of
political thought.This is a greatly rewarding book
that will frame future discussions on democracy
and compel scholars to re-evaluate their
epistemological and analytical armour in the
current debate on the subject.
Axel Kaehne
(Cardiff University)
The Chomsky Effect: A Radical Works
Beyond the Ivory Tower by Robert F.
Barsky. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2007.
381pp., £17.95, ISBN 978 0 262 02624 6
Noam Chomsky, one of the most prominent
leading thinkers of our time, has numerous sup-
porters and detractors. The central theme of this
book deals with Chomsky’s impact in the fields of
education, law, linguistics, media studies and poli-
tics, along with the wide range of reactions to his
work. As his biographer Barsky puts it, the
Chomsky effect ‘is important not only for those
interested in understanding Noam Chomsky as a
person [going beyond the confines of academic
discourse] but also for those who hope to change
the current situation of systemic inequality in the
direction of the ‘good society’ he [Chomsky]
describes’ (p. xii).
The Chomsky Effect is organised into two main
sections. It begins with Chomsky’s popular
appeal, and the various debates Chomsky has
sparked.It then moves on to the anger and venom
which his disparagers, such as Christopher
Hitchens, harbour towards him, and the charges
Chomsky confronted, such as in the Faurisson
affair.This part of the book is a compendium of
the interaction between Chomsky and his critics.
To capture critical references in Chomsky’s
works, Barsky establishes a connection between
Chomsky’s thought and his numerous precursors
ranging from anarchists, Cartesians, liberals and
anti-Bolshevik Marxists. In particular Barsky
singles out Zellig Harris, Rudolph Rocker and
Wilhelm von Humboldt,who laid the intellectual
groundwork for Chomsky’s intensive analysis.
Examining the intellectual roots of Chomsky’s
writings enables Barsky to make a case for
Chomsky as a catalyst, political activist and inspi-
ration in the second part of this book.
The second half of The Chomsky Effect exam-
ines in fine-grained detail the academic fields
with which Chomsky engaged.It fir st clarifies the
358 POLITICAL THEORY
© 2008The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Political StudiesAssociation
Political Studies Review: 2008, 6(3)
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