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The Americas in Transition: The Contours of Regionalism. Edited by Mace Gordon and Bélanger Louis. Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner, 1999. 195p. $38.00.

Jordan is a relatively poor, weak country situated in a highly conflictual neighborhood. It has been very permeable to the shifting ideological winds of Arabism and has faced divisive questions of national identity and purpose (to the point of civil war in 1970-71). It also has, since the parliamentary elections of 1989, experienced both a substantial political opening and a subsequent restriction of public freedoms. For all these reasons, Jordan is an excellent laboratory in which to assess the competing theoretical claims of realist/ rationalist and constructivist approaches to the explanation of international relations. To what extent have Jordan's foreign policy interests and behavior derived from its struggle for survival in an anarchic region, shaped by patterns of regional threat, alliance, and resources? In what ways have changing regional norms and the shifting strands of Jordanian identity determined state interests? What role has been played in all this by the changing quality and nature of domestic political discourse? In his excellent book, Marc Lynch takes on the task of evaluating competing explanations. He does so against the backdrop of four major shifts in modern Jordanian foreign policy: King Hussein's 1988 decision to disengage from the Israeli-occupied West Bank; Jordan's refusal to align with coalition forces against Iraq during the 1990-91 Gulf War; the decision, in 1994, to sign a peace treaty with Israel; and the reversal of Jordanian policy toward Iraq in 1995-96. These decisions, Lynch suggests, can only be partially, inadequately, and inconsistently explained by the dominant realist/rationalist approaches (threat balancing against external challenges; "omnibalancing" against a combination of external and domestic political factors; or rent-seeking in support of domestic neopatrimonialism). Constructivist approaches are seen by Lynch as having much to offer. These, however, ultimately fail to treat adequately the question of how and where identities, norms, and values ultimately emerge; of how precisely they undergo change; and in what ways they are linked to foreign policy behavior.