Reviewing the Reviewers: Ideological Bias in the APSR Book Section

Abstract

I would like to give attention to that portion of theAmerican Political Science Reviewwhich is most read and least criticized, the book review section. My reading ofAPSRbook reviews in recent years leads me to the following observations:Most of the books selected for review adhere to the orthodox ideological values of today's political establishment. More importantly, these books almost invariably are reviewed by political scientists who share the same centrist ideological slant as the authors they are reviewing. In the reviews dealing with international relations, for instance, cold war terms like “totalitarianism”, “Castroism”, “subversion” and “Free World” are employed uncritically. Western capitalist nations are described as having “governments”, while socialist nations are said to have “regimes”, usually identified as being under the tutelage of one personage, hence: “Mao Tse-tung's regime”, and “Fidel Castro's Cuba”. The idea that popular sentiments and democratic in-puts might be part of the governance of countries like Cuba or China is not entertained.