The three theorists chosen for dissection are, according to Smith's own labels, the neopluralist Robert Dahl, the interdisciplinary neoliberal Friedrich von Hayek, and the neo-Marxist Bob Jessop. Smith justifies his choice on three grounds: their relevance for contemporary discussions about the state and the good polity, their distinctive focus on the relationship between the state and cultural and economic institutional forms, and their distinctive ontological and epistemological standpoints. He also claims that each advances “an account of the ‘sociality of politics,’ i.e., the embedding of politics within a broader social order. This takes the form of “polyarchic civility” (a distinctive form of citizenship enabling citizens to exercise full autonomy) in Dahl's mature work, “intersubjective catallaxy” (enabling knowledgeable economic actors to engage in the realization of plans and motives in market economy—in part through what they learn observing the effects of their actions) in Hayek's writings, and the relationship between the state and “societalization” (or the production of society effects) in Jessop's work. In exploring the foundational assumptions of these three theorists' reflections on power, their different intellectual trajectories, and the limitations in their mature theoretical and political positions, Smith hopes both to generate new insights into their respective analytical objects and to develop his own guidelines for rethinking the nature of the state.

Based on his distinctions among empiricism, idealism, and critical realism, Smith provides an extended analysis of Dahl's movement from an empirical realist, one-dimensional analysis of power to an idealist (in ontological and epistemological terms) account of the structural preconditions and subjective requirements of polyarchic civility. He emphasizes that Dahl shifted toward a normative commitment to democratizing the economy as well as the polity and suggests that this shift is rooted in Dahl's adoption of a neo-Kantian idealist epistemology. Nonetheless, Dahl continues to neglect the complexities of the state's internal structures and mechanisms, of the public–private distinction, and the circuits of formal and informal power that shape policy making and implementation. However, it is only by exploring these issues, Smith claims, that can one fully understand the link between political institutions and their cultural conditions.

He then examines Hayek's social and political thought. He argues that, in addressing the problematic standing of time and the social distribution of knowledge within economic theory, Hayek forges a creative syntheslis between the Kantian critique of rationalism and phenomenological explanations of social action. In this context, Hayek develops the notion of catallaxy (a self-generating economic order) and then extends it to a particular account of the “constitution of liberty” based on the rule of law and a nightwatchman state as a matrix for the exercise of individual free choice.

Smith then explores the present reviewer's work. He provides a very detailed analysis of my work from its earliest presentation in 1979 through work published in 1997. I learned much about my own intellectual development from this, even though I do not fully recognize some aspects of his interpretation. Smith correctly identifies the major turning points in my work and, in particular, its concern with synthesizing the regulation approach in political economy, a neo-Gramscian interpretation of Poulantzas's state theory, and critical discourse analysis and the catalytic role of my “coquetting” with ideas from the German systems theorist, Niklas Luhmann. Whether or not Smith is correct to argue that my work in 1997 still retained strong elements of idealism (in its ontological and epistemological senses) as well as moving toward critical realism is best left to others to decide. For no theorist is ever completely contemporary with his or her intellectual development.

The book concludes with some critical comments on the recent popularity (described as “me too-ism”) of critical realism because it encourages theoretical complacency. Thus Smith rejects Jeffrey Isaac's recent description of the later Dahl as a critical realist, Tony Lawson's critical realist appropriation of Hayek, and my own claim to have embraced critical realism. Above all, he suggests that all three theoretical approaches tend to miss the importance of ontological depth of the real world (i.e., the stratification of the real world and its associated causal mechanisms, capacities, and liabilities) and that they are insufficiently sensitive to the complexities of representing that world both in everyday practice and in scientific observation. This leads him to present in the final pages of the book a new critical realist model of concept formation and empirical inquiry that would be adequate to the sociality of the political, i.e., its embedding in the economy, political institutions, and civil society.

This book is not an easy read for those without a solid grounding in the philosophy of the social sciences and a ready familiarity with the works of the theorists investigated. Indeed it places demands even on those with such background understanding. But it certainly merits close attention by those who want an intellectual challenge and, like this reviewer, are interested in the meta-theoretical foundations of social inquiry. The summaries of the work of Dahl, Hayek, and Jessop are full and fair, the criticisms are well developed and well defended against alternative interpretations, and the theoretical agenda presented by way of conclusion merits attention. This is a book that can be recommended to specialists and for library purchase rather than for course use. It will prove valuable to those interested in exploring the hidden philosophical assumptions of other currents in social theory and in developing a well-founded postdisciplinary analysis of the sociality of state power and the conditions for effective political participation.