Political scientists periodically step back and reflect on the state of their discipline. Some explore the origins and development of a particular methodological approach to the study of politics, such as behavioralism or public choice. Others place developments in political science in a broader political and cultural context, such as progressivism or liberal reformism. Oftentimes such reflections are laudatory, championing the wisdom that has accrued in the discipline over time. Every so often, however, a critical voice is raised, not only questioning the empirical work being done in the field but challenging the assumptions upon which such work is based. Ido Oren's book is an important addition to this literature. It compels political scientists to stop and think about what they are doing in the discipline and what ideas from the past they may unintentionally be bringing into their empirical work.

The origins of the book lie in contributions that Oren has made to the debate over the “democratic peace” proposition: the idea that democracies do not go to war with one another. He discovered that the debate was trapped in certain assumptions about the nature of democracy that were the product of America's international rivalries. Far from being a detached and objective empirical proposition about the world, the notion of democratic peace was embedded in a set of normative and conceptual assumptions about the world derived from a particular historical context.

Extending this insight, Oren explores how the scientific study of politics has been integrally connected to the politics of a particular era. Earlier reflections generally looked at the close connection between domestic politics and the emergence of political science. In contrast, Oren focuses upon how our understanding of other countries in foreign affairs, particularly our understanding of our enemies, affects our self-understanding of America as a democracy and our studies of politics.

The book is divided into an introduction, a conclusion, and four substantive chapters. The introduction and conclusion try to develop a critical perspective for viewing political science as a social science discipline. Oren questions the consistency of political scientists' commitment to both American democratic values and to scientific objectivity. According to the author, political scientists have forgotten the lesson of Max Weber that social science is grounded in a particular historical perspective and, thus, have failed to appreciate the ideological dimensions to their enterprise. Only by understanding how the study of politics depends upon various ideological visions of the United States and the world can we grasp the limitations and biases of our studies of the political world. After identifying three such ideological visions of America—an oppositional view that looks at American democracy critically, a nationalistic view that champions American institutions, and an accommodationist view that supports domestic reform based upon an understanding of other countries—he explains how the work of various political scientists has moved from one vision to another and the implications that this has for their professional work.

The four substantive chapters investigate four episodes in the history of political science. In the first, Oren discusses how World War I led to a reconfiguration of our understanding of imperial Germany. Once looked at favorably by such scholars as John Burgess and Woodrow Wilson, praise for German institutions and reforms based upon them went into decline, as did the theory of the state that was built upon an accommodationist vision.

In Chapter 2, Oren ferrets out similar themes from the thirties by describing how certain political scientists, such as Charles Merriam, tried to make sense of the phenomena of fascism and Nazism. A science of politics that began with an accommodationist vision in the early thirties was displaced during the early forties by an uncritical nationalistic political science that rejected many of the assumptions about politics and administration held during the earlier period. According to the author, the intellectual crisis that continues to grip the subfield of public administration has its origins in the failure of the field to fully come to terms with the movement from a reform-based accommodationist to an uncritical nationalistic vision of the world. Chapters 3 and 4 carry this argument through the Stalinist and post-Stalinist eras, showing how the ideas of totalitarian societies and of a civic culture were more a product of particular historical and political contexts than they were of detached social science observation.

There is much to praise in Our Enemies and Us. Oren provides fascinating biographical accounts of leading figures in the discipline, such as Merriam, Harold Lasswell, and Gabriel Almond, as well as numerous other lesser-known lights. He shows how their work was affected by their involvement in government agencies seeking to solve certain problems in America and in the world, and how changes in America's role in the international order caused fundamental shifts in political scientists' studies of that world.

There are, however, some weaknesses with the book. Oren presses too hard in arguing that political scientists have not been very self-reflective about their discipline. The many books and articles cited in his excellent footnotes provide solid evidence to the contrary. I also find it difficult to accept his contention that political scientists have failed to heed Weber's concerns about the importance of one's contextual perspective in social science. Some individuals may have fallen short, but to condemn the entire discipline is going too far. This last point raises a broader question about the relationship between the individual political scientist and the discipline as a whole. Oren paints in broad strokes and moves all too quickly from analyzing the careers of individual political scientists to making generalized statements about “the discipline.” Although sensitive to the claim that no one of these individuals speaks for the discipline, he nevertheless suggests that some individuals speak with a hegemonic voice for the disciplinary discourse of their times (see p. 99). Being a prominent member in a prestigious political science department or a former president of the American Political Science Association hardly makes one a hegemonic spokesman for the discipline. To claim that the discipline as a whole is trapped in political biases of these individuals ultimately demands an explanation of the rise and development of the discipline as a profession that is missing here.

These points aside, Oren has written an informative book that encourages political scientists to consider how their work may be biased in subtle ways through funding mechanisms, political commitments, and direct involvement in American state institutions.