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ALAIN-G. GAGNON, ANDR LECOURS, AND GENEVIVE NOOTENS ~eds.!. Contempo-rary Majority Nationalism. By Eric Kaufmann 713CHRISTOPHE PARENT. Le concept dtat fdral multinational. Essai sur lunion des

peoples. By Franois Rocher 714ANN E. TOWNS. Women and States: Norms and Hierarchies in International Society.

By Andrea Chandler 716GENEVIVE NOOTENS. Souverainet dmocratique, justice et mondialisation. Essai

sur la dmocratie librale et le cosmopolitisme. By Alain Ltourneau 718BENOT PELLETIER. Une certaine ide du Qubec. Parcours dun fdraliste. De la

rflexion laction. By Franois-Olivier Dorais 720JARED J. WESLEY. Code Politics: Campaigns and Culture on the Canadian Prairies.

By Allen Mills 722LOUIS CT, BENOT LVESQUE, ET GUY MORNEAU ~dir.!. tat stratge & participa-tion citoyenne. By Gilles Paquet 724

DAVID WELSH. The Rise and Fall of Apartheid. By Tom Lodge 726MARIO TEL ~ed.!. The European Union and Global Governance. By Anastasia

Chebakova 727ANNE-MARIE GINGRAS. Mdias et dmocratie. Le grand malentendu. By Catherine

Ct 728MICHAEL MANIATES AND JOHN MEYER ~eds.!. The Environmental Politics of Sacri-

fice. By Peter Stoett 730PASCAL BOUVIER. Petite histoire de la philosophie politique. By Djamel Chikh 731

DAVID E. SMITH. Federalism and the Constitution of Canada. By Jean-PhillipeGauvin 734

PAUL CARTLEDGE. Ancient Greek Thought in Practice. By Sara MacDonald 735MARC JACQUEMAIN ET PASCAL DELWITT ~dir.!. Engagements actuels, actualit des

engagements. By Jol Madore 736

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Contemporary Majority NationalismAlain-G. Gagnon, Andr Lecours and Genevive Nootens, eds.Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2011, pp. 248.doi:10.10170S0008423912000509

Ethnic studies emerged from the American urban context of the 1920s and has beencentred in departments of anthropology and sociology. The systematic study of nation-alism is more recent, dating only from the early 1980s. A European-origin discourse,it is anchored mainly in departments of history and political science. In both cases,however, the focus has been on minorities, with the majority either subsumed withinthe state or portrayed as a kind of taken-for-granted backcloth against which minor-ity exotica can be studied.

This impressive edited volume cuts against this grain. It grows out of the workof Alain Gagnon and his research group on plurinational societies at Universit deQubec Montral, arguably Canadas leading research network in nationalism. The

groups previous focus has been on minority nationalisms, but this book addressesthe oft-neglected phenomenon of majority nationalism and how it relates to minoritynations.

Not all of the chapters succeed in this endeavour, but there are enough highpoints to more than justify the purchase price. The most original and germane pieceis the introduction by Lecours and Nootens. This neatly sets out the state of the fieldof majority nationalism to date. This feat alone guarantees its relevance to scholars.It follows on from their important Dominant nationalism, dominant ethnicity ~2009!.That work marked the coming of age of these rising scholars and was the f irst appear-ance of the concept of dominant nationalism. Their chapter in Majority National-ism clarifies the concept and attempts to distinguish majority nationalism from cognate

ideas such as dominant ethnicity or state nationalism. They nicely navigate betweenthese shoals by claiming that while the classic work on state nationalism by Gellner,Tilly and other modernists has tended toward the materialistic, that on dominantethnicity and ethnic nationalism has overemphasized culture. Where Lecours and Noot-ens part company is in their focus on the non-material aspects of state-defined nationssuch as Canada. In other words, just because the nation is coextensive with the stateand defined by civic elements does not mean it can be reduced to the material func-tions of the Weberian state. While I largely accept their analysis, the work of PhilipResnick must be considered, at the very least, to be a forerunner of the majoritynationalism approach. This said, there is certainly a need for a book which offers asustained examination of the phenomenon.

The main body of the book brings together a high-powered collection of schol-ars from both sides of the Atlantic. Part I features four papers, from Alain Dieckhoff,Angel Casti@v#nera, Louis Dupont and John Coakley, focusing on theoretical aspectsof the problem. Part II applies this framework to the cases of France and Britain~John Loughlin!, Canada ~James Bickerton!, the United States ~Liah Greenfeld! andSpain ~Enric Fossas!. Part one moves in a number of different directions. Alan Dieck-hoff nicely demonstrates that globalization has worked to strengthen rather than weakennational and ethnic sentiment. Angel Casti@v#nera alerts us to the manifold connec-tions and analogies between personal biographies and national narratives. John Coak-ley deploys his deep scholarship to offer a new typology of majority strategies formanaging ethnic diversity based on inclusionexclusion and group recognition ver-sus non-recognition. Louis Dupont offers what is arguably the most unconventionaland original chapter in the book. It nicely encapsulates the central issue by setting upthe device of the vivre ensemble, a cultural composition that weaves together major-ity and minority aspirations within a stable whole. His writing is light, and he usesmetaphors well to nudge our minds out of their customary grooves. Thus, in describ-

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ing the vivre ensemble of Britain, he writes: The English planet is at the centre ofthe British universe: the merged nationalities orbit closely around the centre whilethe ethnic cultures orbit further away. Not all will agree with his assessment that theUnited States formed around a clear WASP ethnic core while France was a univer-

salist political compact between distinct ethnic regions. Yet this nice unseating ofNew WorldOld World stereotypes is a welcome departure from orthodoxy. So, too,is the view that multiculturalism and nationalism are, in a sense, two sides of thesame majority nationalist coin.

Among the case studies, Bickerton offers a cogent, fluid account of the thirty-year tension between the charter-based unitary nationalism of the Anglophone major-ity and the linguistic project of Quebec, with its demand for a binational Canada.Fossas outlines a similar tension in the Spanish case, likewise focusing on legal

political aspects. Loughlin moves deftly through the histories of France and Britainto argue that centralizers like Chvenement in France or Thatcher in Britain mayhave represented the last gasps of a dying order as nationality is recast along plural-

ist lines. Fossas, using the example of Spains majority nationalist Peoples Party,suggests this may not be a fait accomplit. Greenfelds examination of the Americancase confirms this view, suggesting that ethnic and religious diversity in America hastended to become trivialized and Americanized upon contact with the powerful vol-untarism and individualism which pervades American society.

While authors might have stuck more closely to the editors hymn sheet by dis-tinguishing majority nationalism from the state, on the one hand, and dominant eth-nicity, on the other, the book broadly hits its mark. In nicely plumbing the depths ofthe majorityminority dialectic in nationalism, it renders a service to all scholars ofnationalism and deserves to be widely read.

ERIC KAUFMANN Birkbeck College

Le concept dtat fdral multinational. Essai sur lunion des peuplesChristophe ParentBruxelles, P.I.E. Peter Lang, collection Diversitas , 2011, 492 pagesdoi:10.10170S0008423912000820

La ncessit de prendre en compte la prsence de plusieurs entits nationales au seindun mme espace politique tatique a conduit plusieurs chercheurs, politologues,

juristes, philosophes et sociologues remettre en question les paramtres tradition-nels de ltat-nation. Cette mutation de la pense librale a conduit au dveloppe-ment du concept dtat multinational qui rpond la ncessit de la reconnaissancede la diversit culturelle et de son inscription dans ltat. Pour Christophe Parent, leconcept dtat multinational renvoie, pour lessentiel, lide selon laquelle la com-munaut politique sest construite sur la base dun pacte librement consenti entrenations souveraines et que celles-ci disposent dun droit lautodtermination. Lidedtat multinational snonce minimalement sous quatre formes distinctes : il vise,dans son acception la plus simple, dcrire une ralit qui touche aux trs nom-

breuses communauts politiques o lon retrouve des revendications nationalistes denature politico-identitaires; il interpelle les thories librales classiques de ltat dontle sujet principal est lindividu et, en ce faisant, laissent de ct les composantesnationales qui sy trouvent; il permet de prendre la mesure des amnagements juridico-institutionnels, particulirement de type fdratif, qui tentent de rendre compte de ladiversit; finalement, il se dcline sous forme de projet politique raliser pour lesnations minoritaires en qute de reconnaissance et de statut politique particulier ausein despaces politiques dj constitus. Louvrage de Christophe Parent proposeune remarquable analyse de ce concept. Il en prsente la gense, dveloppe une riche

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