Democracy. by Charles Tilly-REVIEW

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Questions can arise as to the approaches taken or their interpretative use or the perspectives most relevant to uncovering the dynamics at work in such situations. Could it be for example that the real challenge is to explain social and attitudinal changes chan ges tha thatt are fun fundam dament ental al eno enough ugh to res restru tructur cturee a soc societ iety y and its va value lues? s? Possibly this is simply another way of refocusing what the study has shown. The value of whatever focal point informs the analyses is, as the author argues repeatedly, a potential model of adoption for other nations faced with profound social change. The stu study dy is an imp import ortant ant res researc earch h con contri tribu butio tion, n, chal challen lengin ging g in ana analyt lytic ic approach and the relevancy of its findings, and one that can be approached on a number of levels. William Crotty  Northeastern University

Democracy. By Charles Tilly. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. 2007. 246 pp.

Democr Demo crat atiza izati tion on is on onee of th thee mo most st sa satu tura rate ted d fie field ldss of st study udy in pol polit itica icall science—not a place where one would expect to find an original, inventive contribution to the literature. Yet this is exactly what Charles Tilly provides in Democracy. Pro rofe fess ssor or Til illy ly ca cast stss as asid idee muc uch h of th thee rec ecen entt fo focu cuss on ec econ onom omic ic determinants, cultural affinities, and institutional design, in favor of a macrosociological investigation of the historical processes that generate broad and equal inclusion inclus ion of citize citizens ns in the political sphere. The search for “necessary conditions” conditions” is futile. But “democratization never occurs without at least partial realization of  three large processes: integration of interpersonal trust networks into public politics; insulation of public politics from categorical inequalities; and elimination or neutralization of autonomous, coercion-controlling power centers in ways that augment the influence of ordinary people over public politics and increase the control of public politics over state performance” (p. 78). Understanding these three processes, and the complex ways in which they interact with varying levels of st stat atee cap capaci acity ty,, wi will ll all allo ow us to ex expl plai ain n al alll cas cases es of dem democ ocra rati tiza zati tion on and de-democrati de-dem ocratization zation,, across the globe, for all of “demo “democracy cracy’s ’s sev several eral centuries of  history” (p. 78). Tilly’s conceptualization of democracy keeps the focus on “process.” The fundamental characteristics of democracy are not to be found in a particular type of constitution or even in the implementation of free and fair elections. Rather, Till illy y con concent centrat rates es our att attent ention ion on the rel relati ations onship hip bet betwee ween n the sta state te and its citizens: “a regime is democratic to the degree that political relations between the state and its citizens feature broad, equal, protected, and mutually binding con-

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sultation” (pp. 13–14). So even on basic issues of conceptualization, Tilly’s work  cuts against the grain of much recent scholarship, which has tended to favor institutional definitions of democracy. Of course, neither the theory nor the definition of democracy offered here is completely without precedent. Its most obvious affinity is with historical sociology’s recent contributions to the democratization literature, such as Ruth Collier’s Paths Toward Democracy   (1999). Tilly also builds directly off his own recent work: “this book clarifies and revises some arguments from [Tilly’s] earlier publications” on democratization, and Tilly “regard[s] Democracy as the culmination and synthesis of all [his] work on the subject” (p. xii). For those of us who have trouble keeping up with Professor Tilly’s torrid pace, this is doubly good news—it offers absolution to those who have still not read his previous two books on the subject, and it provides a more complete and synthetic statement of the theory that has been germinating in Tilly’s thought over a period of years. Many readers will appreciate Tilly’s unrivalled ability to cast a broad historical net, taking illustrative examples from different time periods and from countries as varied as Kazakhstan, Jamaica, Spain, and China. But in addition to the general pleasures of an erudite discussion, the book’s unwavering insistence on the importance of process, complexity, and change over time also produces specific insights that are quite novel and interesting. For example, Tilly exhorts the reader to recognize that democracy is not a condition or an end point, but a dimension along which countries are continually moving. Degrees of democracy are constantly changing and are never fully secure, even in the advanced industrial world. Of  course, most scholars who dichotomize or otherwise quantify the concept do so for expediency, rather than for some deeper theoretical reason. And Tilly himself uses the same simplifications in the form of Freedom House scores, for want of  alternative measures that might match the complexity of his theoretical constructs. Nevertheless, Tilly is probably right to complain that our measures of democracy tend to influence our conceptualizations, when only the reverse should ever be tolerated. The book’s focus on changes over time produces interesting observations about the varying speeds at which countries democratize and “de-democratize.” Tilly notes that democratization is typically a long process with piecemeal advances and occasional setbacks, while de-democratization often happens abruptly and definitively. His explanation for this stylized fact is insightful: democratization requires the gradual incorporation of large numbers of people into public politics; but de-democratization only requires the withdrawal of support from a small number of powerful elite actors, who are better able than the masses to evade democratic constraints when they perceive a sudden need to do so (see p. 195). Another fruitful discussion in the book involves the interaction between the “three master processes” and state capacity. The relationship may be too complicated to summarize here, but Tilly’s insights include the following. In the long run,

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democracy requires sufficient state capacity—the more the better. But where the initial degree of democracy is low, further democratization can be hindered when state capacity is either too high or too low. Too high, and the state can be captured and used to perpetuate authoritarian rule; too low, and the country is likely to be mired in civil war or ruled by “petty tyrants” (p. 184). Between these extremes, “we discover the zone of feasibility for effective democratization” (p. 184). Ideally, capacity and democracy would increase in tandem, allowing democracy to be established while minimizing the threat of an authoritarian capture of the state. Such are a few of the many lessons that this book imparts to the reader. Nevertheless, it would be impossible to write a book as ambitious as this one without leaving room for criticism, and there are clearly several points at which objections are likely. For example, the theory is innovative but is continually burdened by two difficulties. One is the appearance of tautology. Tilly defines democracy as a regime with broad and equal inclusion and then attempts to explain it by focusing on the processes that make inclusion broader and more equal. Thus, we learn that democratization (i.e., breadth and equality of participation) is enhanced when women or ethnic minorities gain political rights or when a system of “categorical inequality” like apartheid is overturned. How could it be otherwise? When an event like “broadening of popular participation” is a cause, and “increase in breadth . . . in state-citizen relations” is an effect, one wonders whether the two events are actually different, and how it would make sense to claim that one caused the other (see Figure 6-2, p. 138). Incidentally, fuzzy conceptual boundaries also exist   among   the three “master processes.” For example, a self-reliant, wealthy kinship group could be considered as a nonintegrated trust network (pp. 81–83), a formally privileged categorical group (p. 111), or an autonomous power group (p. 138). Aside from this difficulty in identifying conceptual boundaries, many scholars will wonder whether Tilly’s “master processes” themselves require explanation. For example, accepting for the sake of argument that “the insulation of  public politics from categorical inequalities” is necessary for democratization, most readers will immediately ask: what determines whether political actors in a given regime are willing and able to establish such an insulation? To be sure, Tilly offers answers to most of these questions, both in his theoretical discussions and in the narratives of various historical cases. But he is forced to walk  a fine line, for two reasons. First, a major motivation of his theoretical approach is his desire to understand the process itself. This continually draws his attention away from the political and structural determinants of the master processes. Additionally, it turns out that the underlying causes—for example, the reason that categorical inequalities are strengthened in one country but weakened in another—are intimately connected to many of the “usual suspects” in the mainstream literature, like the economic bases of wealth, economic inequality, international influence and diffusion, institutional arrangements, and the like. The

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book is motivated by dissatisfaction with these theoretical traditions. But it relies on them heavily in order to explain the three “master processes.” In fact, the either or distinction that Tilly draws between conditions and processes” is unwarranted leads to a good deal of confusion in the book. Clearly both conditions (like economic inequality) and processes (like insulating public politics from such inequalities) are potentially important for democratization, and there is no a priori reason to dismiss either of them. Tilly’s claim appears to be that studying determinants or conditions is fruitless because no “necessary conditions” for democratization have ever been identified, “much less sufficient” ones (p. 72). But this is a misunderstanding of how causal inference works. Smoking cigarettes is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for lung cancer, but it would be foolish to pretend for this reason that smoking has no causal significance and pointless to argue about whether smoking is a condition or a process. Finally, some scholars may object to the way Tilly employs case material in this book. As noted above, the array of cases to which Tilly makes reference is truly impressive. But the reader should keep in mind that cases are used here to illustrate arguments, rather than test them. While Tilly makes great efforts to establish the plausibility of his theory, there is no formal process of case selection, nor any systematic effort to test the theory, either on its own terms or in comparison to competing explanations. In this sense, the main aim and contribution of this book is purely theoretical. This is obviously no crime, but readers need to understand that the main contribution of the book is purely theoretical, and that case materials are employed as theory-building tools rather than theory-testing evidence. More troubling to some readers might be the content of the case studies themselves. For example, Tilly claims that the Spanish path to democratization was set in concrete by changes that Franco accomplished in the 1950s and 1960s. Spain experienced a “continuous cycle [of democratization] from Franco’s postwar years to the 1970s,” making Franco’s death “an anticlimax” (p. 156). Given the brutal nature of the Franco regime (even after World War II) and the tumultuous series of events between Franco’s death in 1975 and the attempted coup in 1981, this claim may perplex many readers, and anger many Spaniards. Having offered these criticisms, I should reiterate the varied and multiple contributions that Professor Tilly’s latest book has generated. Reading this book  will force many scholars to revisit some of their basic assumptions about what democracy is, how it happens, and how we should study it. Tilly’s innovative theory might inspire others to undertake new research and analysis. And, as always, Tilly has produced a challenging yet rewarding set of essays on a topic that remains as engaging and important as ever, in a world where democracy is always on the march—in many different directions. Matthew R. Cleary Syracuse University

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REFERENCE Collier, R. (1999). Paths toward democracy: The working class and elites in Western Europe and South  America. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Why Welfare States Persist: The Importance of Public Opinion in Democracies. By Clem Brooks and Jeff Manza. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 2007. 195 pp.

As globalization proceeds, are the world’s welfare states becoming more similar? In their detailed assessment of cross-national data, political sociologists Clem Brooks and Jeff Manza conclude that the answer is no, and they offer impressive evidence for why nations maintain their unique welfare systems despite potentially converging economies. In their opening chapter, Brooks and Manza detail various economic theories of globalization and its potential influence on the welfare state. While they by no means dismiss the theories, they argue that economic theories alone cannot explain why welfare states do not become more similar. Political theories of the welfare state also offer insights, according to the authors, primarily by providing an institutional basis for understanding the differences between various welfare state models. They note, however, that while labor union strength and social class coalitions might help reveal how welfare states developed, they fall short of being able to explain why they persist. Ultimately, Brooks and Manza are supportive of  economic and political theories but believe neither tack can completely clarify why differences persist. They suggest that the missing piece of the puzzle is mass public opinion. Throughout the remainder of the book, the authors use crossnational surveys to account for differences and similarities in welfare states. To test their hypotheses on the importance of mass opinion in directing change and promoting stability in welfare programs, Brooks and Manza analyze public opinion surveys from the International Social Survey Program. They link  those findings to welfare spending information culled from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. They limit their analyses to 16 developed democracies, and they divide those countries into the three ideal welfare types described by Esping-Anderson (1990): social democratic, Christiandemocratic, and liberal democratic. The first hypothesis Brooks and Manza set out to test is whether policy preferences matter at all in determining welfare spending. Using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) models of welfare state spending across nations, the authors demonstrate that policy preferences make a difference, even when controlling for religious party control and left party control. In other words, mass opinion is related to policy outcomes directly as well as indirectly through party politics. The authors conclude from this first analysis that “social and Christian democracies have higher