This is a refreshing look at some of the most contentious issues that bedevil modern political life. T. Alexander Smith and Raymond Tatalovich pull together a large amount of data to examine morality conflicts in five countries: Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The case studies they selected are capital punishment, homosexuality, and abortion, while they also make references to gun control, euthanasia, and same-sex marriage.

The first chapters outline the origins of culture wars and present a theoretical framework for an understanding of why morality conflicts proliferate. The second part of the book provides a rich tapestry of empirical data on the emergence and resolution of divergent morality conflicts in five countries. In the final chapter, the authors summarize the findings and introduce a more subjective evaluation of the policy process, pointing out that the establishment makes highly debatable decisions by disregarding public opinion.

Smith and Tatalovich account for the pervasiveness of culture wars in the declining salience of class politics or economic redistribution. They argue that unparalleled income growth, mass consumption, and dominance of white collar occupation have both reduced the intensity of socioeconomic conflict and increased demands for equality in many areas of social life. The individualization of social life and lessened attachment to church, community, and family have produced competitive struggles over status, which can be captured as “who among us ought to be esteemed and why” (p. 12). But the emergence of postmaterial values does not completely account for the frequency of conflicts since many of them are unrelated to quality-of-lifestyle issues such as abortion, gun control, or capital punishment. And they are also skeptical of the utility of “identity” to capture the full range of moral disagreements since gun control or euthanasia do not seem to involve “identity politics.” Relying on the literature on social constructivism, they argue that a high degree of individual mobility and social equality creates fluid societies with weak ties and decentered identities. In response to the decline of traditional collective organizations and family structure, groups of individuals coalesce either to push for the defense of their social status or alternatively to alter it.

In defense of status distinctions, collective hierarchists welcome lifestyle differences. They tend to cluster in traditional organizations and government bureaucracies. A second group of individuals consists of egalitarians who fight for equality and resent the status quo. They represent educated professionals, gays, feminists, environmentalists, or students. Moral conflicts erupt when egalitarians push for changes in the face of resistance by those who feel more comfortable in a society governed by hierarchies and status stratification. Conflicts break out when social groups propose different principles in response to moral relativism and individualism. Frequently, culture wars do not involve material trade-offs or even narrow self-interests because most people are only peripherally affected by the outcome of a particular issue. (Environmentalists fight for open space not because it directly benefits them; opponents of the death penalty are unlikely to have a friend or relative on death row, etc.) What provokes conflict is the existence of principled arguments about equality and liberty.

When Smith and Tatalovich trace the different stages in the policy process, they make several provocative observations. Although many conflicts produce legislative change, public attitudes rarely change or shift in tandem with new laws. The authors describe the decision-making process in the morality policy field as an extreme case of antimajoritarian rule.

Egalitarians (associated with the Left) are the most likely to move forward with new morality legislation in spite of considerable popular opposition. The abolition of capital punishment in Europe and Canada is such an example because the overwhelming majority of voters in these countries favor the death penalty. Homosexuality (the United States and Germany) and abortion (the United States, Canada, Germany) are other examples of the law going further than what the public was willing to accept.

Collective hierarchists (the Right) also have their favorite projects although they retain greater respect for the status quo and are more likely to resist reform. But two examples of right-wing antimajoritarianism are gun control in the United States, where the majority of Americans are in favor of stricter laws but lawmakers refuse to act, and assisted suicide, which enjoys support in the United States and Canada but is blocked by judicial intervention that disallows the practice.

In general, the authors conclude therefore that the clash between alternative lifestyles is frequently resolved in an elitist fashion without much regard for public opinion. They find this tendency across all five countries. In parliamentary systems, executive dominance is facilitated by procedures that dictate collective responsibility and party cohesion and is further abetted by the existence of a single-party cabinet or two-party coalition. The authors strongly feel that parliaments have fundamentally lost their influence over morality policy. The United States possesses a more porous political system, but its judicial system has imposed decisions that go counter to the preferences or attitudes of the majority.

While the authors are correct to point out that morality conflicts yield new laws that tend to contradict the broad sentiments of the electorate, a good argument can be made that the quality of a democracy should not be equated with the rule of the majority. Conflicts within liberal democracies propel elites to advance their policy preferences, and it is inaccurate to consider such actions as impositions of a small minority as opposed to the type of behavior that makes democratic institutions work in the first place. Moreover, many democratic systems accept the existence of constitutional constraints placed on the preferences of the majority. Public opinion in the American South might have supported slavery. Should the elite have retained this unjust system in accordance with the opinion of the majority? Public opinion can turn against freedom of the press, against freedom of association, or against certain rights. Theorists of liberal democracy have advanced the argument that one needs to consider the substantive nature of preferences. Standards of representation conflict: A good representative acts as a trustee and as a dele-gate. For this reason, we need to ask why a representative does not respect the preferences of the represented. Smith and Tatalovich provide no answer to this significant question. Although they note that most politicians prefer to shun highly emotional controversies, they do not explain why the political elite goes, once it is ready to intervene, against the preferences of the electorate.

Cultures at War stands out, however, as an important contribution to the growing field of comparative public policy of moral regulation. The authors are undoubtedly correct to conclude that morality issues will increase in salience and that their resolution leaves much to be desired. This accessible study goes a long way toward charting the unpredictability of new political alignments and the opaqueness of the democratic process.