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Book Review: Thomas J. Volgy and Alison Bailin, International Politics and State Strength (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2003, 173 pp., $15.95 pbk.)

governmentality. The will of enjoying the material pleasures of globalisation can incite different forms of deception, swindling, fraud and trafficking (pp. 283-290). In the face of structural deficits and extreme poverty, the liberal promise of economic growth is, in many regions of the world, neither easily achievable nor sustainable. Hence, new local social figures of success emerge, exemplifying ‘far west’ features of globalisation. Warriors, mercenaries, child soldiers, rebel-chiefs, traffickers, prophets and saints, all incarnations of the liberal dream of fast wealth, create new-fangled political and social limbos within polities and among peoples (pp. 291-8). Given the impossibilities of liberal perpetual peace, globalisation has initiated a ‘transnational style of survival’ (p. 299). Bayart concludes that liberal globalisation is a time of sovereignty asserted and diffused, of borders transgressed, questioned and enforced, of generalised mutual interaction, but not of global governance. Bayart’s political critique is therefore done in comparative perspective and includes abundant examples from Africa, the Islamic world and Asia, which range from funeral services in Dubai and South Iran, to the Mami Wata witchcraft cult of semi-aquatic, semi-terrestrial sirens in Sub-Saharan Africa, and forms of socialisation in Japanese shopping malls. The book’s value is in its highlighting the increasing importance of the subaltern and ‘politics from below’ in international relations. The governmentality approach is a powerful epistemic tool in studies of international relations, as it can account for changes in the international system. With the profusion of examples, however, it is not always easy to discern what the actual political consequences of global governmentality might be. The book leaves many questions about the policy implications of global governmentality unanswered.