Review: Miscellaneous: Media Definitions of Cold War Reality
| Date | 01 March 2003 |
| Published date | 01 March 2003 |
| Author | David Close |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200305800126 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
Reviews
methodological
discussion
on
the
use
and
limitations
of
paired
com-
parisons.
It
is
certainly
useful
to
rethink
the
transformations
in
the
region's
political
regimes
and
reserve
the
label
'transitions'
for
just
one
type
of
transformation
while
creating
new
types
such
as
'foundations'
and
'reforms.'
However,
the
lumping
together
of
cases
as
dissimilar
as
Ecuador,
Paraguay,
Peru,
and
Venezuela
under
the
single
label
of
'crisis
and
regressions'
is
completely
unwarranted.
The
second
part,
'Democracy
and
the
(re)construction
of
political
society,'
offers
some
insightful
contributions
to
major
debates
that
loom
large in
Latin
America's
(democratic?)
future:
Rodolfo
Stavenhagen
on
ethnicity,
Amparo
Mendndez-Carri6n
on
political
culture,
and
Ellen
Lutz
and
Ellen
Sikkink
on
the
international
dimen-
sion
of
democratization
deserve
mention
here.
Because
it
is
an
ambi-
tious
theoretical
piece
that
attempts
to
frame
the entire
discussion,
Garret6n's
chapter
on
'The
New
Socio-Political
Matrix'
should
have
appeared
at
the
beginning,
not
the
end,
of
the
volume. But
despite
Garret6n's
reiterated
use
of
polis,
polity,
and
political
community
as
interchangeable synonyms
for
'political
society,'
the
specific
meaning
of
this term
-
as
intended
by
the
editors
and
shared
by
the authors
-
remains obscure
for
the
reader.
Because
the
concept
is
central for
the
book's
project,
as
becomes obvious
from the title
and
as
stated
in
the
introduction
(p
4),
the
lack
of
a-
clear
definition
not
only
cripples
the
volume,
but,
most
of
all,
robs
it
of
the
possibility
of
standing
out,
among
other
such
edited
collections,
as
a
well-defined
contribution,
focused
on
a
specific
issue
among
the many
suggested by
the
broader
theme
of
democracy
in
Latin
America.
Ana Maria Bejarano/Visiting
Fellow,
Princeton
University
MEDIA
DEFINITIONS
OF
COLD
WAR
REALITY
Walter
C.
Soderlund
Toronto:
Canadian
Scholars'
Press,
2001,
xvi,
312pp,
$39.95,
ISBN
1-
55130-200-4.
A
student
beginning
PhD
studies
in
2002
will
scarcely
remember
the
cold war.
She
would
have
been
perhaps
twelve
years
old
when
the
Berlin
Wall
fell
and
14
when the
Soviet
Union
ceased
to
be.
For
her,
her
classmates,
and.
anyone
younger
than
them,
the
cold
war
really
is
history.
234
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Winter2002-20 03
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