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State Making and Environmental Cooperation: Linking Domestic and International Politics in Central Asia

mizing the government’s influence. Since whole industries develop around government largesse, economic reform often means direct economic dislocation to specific-interest groups. In making his case, Eaton compares Argentina and the Philippines during the 1990s. In both countries there were significant reform drives prompted by the president. In Argentina, Eaton argues, these reform efforts were more successful than in the Philippines. This is because the Philippines has single-member districts that encourage personal vote machines and a reliance on candidates, while in Argentina party strength is very powerful. Thus, in Argentina legislators supported reforms because of the party leadership, while in the Philippines legislators opposed reform because it would harm their ability to provide selective benefits to constituents. After the return of democracy in 1983, Argentina’s partycentered system was able to relatively successfully implement economic reform. Eaton argues that in particular, President Carlos Menem (1989–1999) was able to make large strides in delivering tax reform and price stability. In the Philippines, by contrast, President Fidel Ramos (1992–1998) actively pursued a number of fiscal reform measures during his tenure. However, he was only moderately successful, in large part because representatives of the lower house—elected from single-member districts—aggressively defended particularistic interests and the discretionary powers they had under their control. Eaton admits that his is not the only explanation and that many other factors are involved, from the strength and influence of the President, to the party leadership’s ability to lead, to differing interest groups and economic crises that affected both countries. However, I still would have liked to see more effort by Eaton to explore just how important electoral systems are in explaining the relative success of economic reform. That is, Eaton compares his explanation with competing explanations only in passing, preferring instead to focus on a detailed exploration of the evidence for his theory. But if we are concerned with explaining reform, a better sense of the relative weight of the causal explanations would be very helpful. Despite this quibble, Kent Eaton has written a deeply researched and theoretically powerful book that will be required reading for years to come.