Reviews

S.M. IMAMUDDIN. Muslim Spain, 711–1492 A.D.: A Sociological Study. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981. Pp. viii, 269. £36.80. Reviewed by Jill R. Webster

DANIEL R. HEADRICK. The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. Pp. 221, $14.95 (US). Reviewed by Barrie M. Ratcliffe

V.R. BERGHAHN. Militarism: The History of An International Debate 1861–1979. Leamington Spa: Berg Publishers, 1981. Pp. 132. $8.95. Reviewed by Martin Kitchen

HUYNH KIM KHANH. Vietnamese Communism, 1925–1945. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Pp. 379. $25.00 (US). Reviewed by William J. Duiker

RALPH B. LEVERING. The Cold War, 1945–1972. Arlington Heights, Illinois: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1982. Pp. 165, $6.95 (US). Reviewed by Wesley T. Wooley

R. DAN RICHARDSON. Comintern Army: The International Brigades and the Spanish Civil War. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1982. Pp. 232. $19.50 (US). Reviewed by Stanley G. Payne

KATHLEEN BURK (Editor). War and the State: The Transformation of British Government 1914–1919. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1982. Pp. 189. $29.50 (US). Reviewed by M.L. Dockrill

TONY SMITH. The Pattern of Imperialism: The United States, Great Britain and the Late-Industrialising World since 1815. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Pp. xi, 308. $34.50 (US). Paperback $10.95 (US). Reviewed by Barbie M. Ratcliffe

D. GEORGE BOYCE. Nationalism in Ireland. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982. Pp. 441. $32.50 (US). Reviewed by Don M. Cregier

ODED ERAN. The Mezhdunarodtniki: An Assessment of Professional Expertise in the Making of Soviet Foreign Policy. Ramat Gan, Israel: Turtledove Publishing, 1979. Pp. 331. £11.75. Reviewed by Teddy J. Uldricks

BINNAZ TOPRAK. Islam and Political Development in Turkey. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981. Pp. viii, 164. $22.75 (US). Reviewed by Dimitri Kitsikis

ORVILLE T. MURPHY. Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes: French Diplomacy in the Age of Revolution, 1719–1787. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, pp. 607. $16.95 (US) paper. Reviewed by William Stinchcombe

HUNTER R. RAWLINGS III. The Structure of Thucydides' History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981. Pp. xiv, 278. $21.00 (US), MARC COGAN. The Human Thing: The Speeches and Principles of Thucydides' History. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1981. Pp. xvii, 309. $20.00 (US). Reviewed by Malcolm F. McGregor

H.E. MAUDE. Slavers in Paradise: The Peruvian Slave Trade in Polynesia, 1863–1864. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1981. Pp. xxii, 244. $22.50 (US). Reviewed by James A. Boutilier     

Accountability and Inaction: NGOs and Resource Lodging in Development

From the late 1980s, research on NGOs had a normative focus and was vulnerable to changing donor preoccupations. This article contributes a new conceptual approach, analysing the practices through which relationships and resources are translated into programmes and projects. The theoretical justification for this move combines the new ethnography of development practice with a re‐agency approach to transactions across time and space. The study is based on data including thirty hours of video ethnography involving interviews and field visits with Kenyan NGOs in a variety of sectors. The analysis focuses on the problem of accountability that emerged through the interactions of donors and state corruption. We argue that NGOs operating in capital cities often provide organizational solutions to this problem. Depending on donor preferences, varying amounts of resources become ‘lodged’ or absorbed in ‘capital NGOs’ as they provide accounts of programmes that satisfy donors. However, no matter the donor preferences, capital NGOs provide accountability independently of increased action with communities or increased resources transferred to them. We conclude that the institutionalization of the NGO field as a well‐grounded specialization depends in part on the degree to which researchers can sideline the stories generated in inter‐organizational contexts such as workshops and policy meetings, and substitute understandings based on accounting practices, resource flows and social ties.     

It's time to scrap the NPT

Due to persisting demand-side factors and crumbling supply-side controls, the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will probably be unable to prevent a likely proliferation rate of one or two additional nuclear weapons states per decade into the foreseeable future. Beyond being ineffective, I argue that the NPT will make this proliferation much more dangerous. The NPT is a major cause of opaque proliferation, which is both highly destabilising and makes use of transnational smuggling networks which are much more likely than states to pass nuclear components to terrorists. However, abandoning the NPT in favour of a more realistic regime governing the possession of nuclear weapons would help put transnational nuclear smuggling networks out of business and stabilise the inevitable spread of nuclear weapons.     

Trade agreements and strategic rivalry in Asia

The Asia Pacific is currently beset by two contradictory trends: growing economic interdependence and deepening strategic rivalry. Amidst these trends, new sets of regional trade agreements are being negotiated, primarily the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). This article argues that these proposals represent a third phase of competitive regionalism in the Asia Pacific, which will be more complex than the previous two rounds. This complexity is driven by two factors: this time, rivalry is not over scope or leadership but regional order; and this time there is a greater number of leading players in the rivalry.     

Books Received

While improving the “hard” resources of the physical infrastructure is important to facilitating cross-border trade, studies of global supply chain logistics performance suggest that expanding the focus to include “soft” infrastructure resources will be critical for future gains. Border management is increasingly important to North American trade facilitation, yet little is known about what constitutes the soft infrastructure of border crossings or how to design and manage this infrastructure for improved performance. Hence, this study uses an exploratory research design to examine the nature and dimensions of the soft infrastructure of border crossings. The research relies on a grounded-theory analysis of primary data collected in an exploratory case study of two border crossings between Alberta, Canada, and Montana, US.