For the last three decades the study of liberal democratic politics has been dominated by the basic assumption that public policies are determined by the extra-governmental actors which control and exercise the weightiest political resources… Nordlinger challenges this ‘societal constraint’ focus in a book that is probing, imaginative, and elegantly crafted… Nordlinger displays exceptional qualities of scholarship: close familiarity with a very wide range of literature, theoretical and methodological sophistication, and imagination… [A] thoughtful, challenging, and provocative book… Must reading for every political scientist.

For the last three decades the study of liberal democratic politics has been dominated by the basic assumption that public policies are determined by the extra-governmental actors which control and exercise the weightiest political resources… Nordlinger challenges this ‘societal constraint’ focus in a book that is probing, imaginative, and elegantly crafted… Nordlinger displays exceptional qualities of scholarship: close familiarity with a very wide range of literature, theoretical and methodological sophistication, and imagination… [A] thoughtful, challenging, and provocative book… Must reading for every political scientist.

For the last three decades the study of liberal democratic politics has been dominated by the basic assumption that public policies are determined by the extra-governmental actors which control and exercise the weightiest political resources… Nordlinger challenges this ‘societal constraint’ focus in a book that is probing, imaginative, and elegantly crafted… Nordlinger displays exceptional qualities of scholarship: close familiarity with a very wide range of literature, theoretical and methodological sophistication, and imagination… [A] thoughtful, challenging, and provocative book… Must reading for every political scientist.