Choices Matter

Conflict or war between the United States and China is not inevitable, even if China continues its swift economic and military ascendance. “The future is not fully determined by factors beyond the control of policymakers in both countries,” James Steinberg and Michael O’Hanlon write; the “outcome is contingent” (p. 3). The books reviewed here reject the fatalistic pessimism of those who view U.S. and Chinese security interests as irreconcilable. Rather than anticipating Cold War-style competition, balancing, and possibly a war for regional hegemony, the authors join those who see grounds for optimism in the expanse of ocean separating the United States and China, mutual nuclear deterrence, and the benefits China derives from the existing international order. ^{Footnote 4}

Several courses of action may make the difference between peace and war: first, effectively combining demonstrations of resolve with credible reassurance; second, welcoming Chinese contributions to global governance and leadership; and third, reforming Chinese domestic political institutions to allay foreign suspicions about China’s intentions.

In Strategic Reassurance and Resolve: U.S.–China Relations in the Twenty-First Century, Steinberg and O’Hanlon focus on strategy and tactics, recommending that shows of resolve be mixed with credible reassurance, voluntary restraint, transparency through dialogues and exchanges, and measures to reduce vulnerability and crisis instability. They lay out a number of hair-raising scenarios in which American and Chinese leaders could mitigate the risk of escalation and avoid war over Taiwan, Korea, and islands and sea-lanes around China. The book summarizes the intellectual and historical underpinnings of American and Chinese grand strategy before describing what strategic reassurance might look like in the twenty-first century. As the book does not examine cases where these strategies were employed and whether they succeeded or failed, it is difficult to know whether the strategies they advocate will be effective or how likely they are to be adopted.

In The China Challenge, Thomas Christensen provides much of this history, tracing in three chapters the twists and turns in American policy toward China from the end of the Cold War in 1991 to 2014. Like Steinberg and O’Hanlon, Christensen emphasizes that striking the right balance between resolve and reassurance is critical to successful coercive diplomacy. For example, U.S. policy before the 1995–1996 Taiwan Straits Crisis illustrates how a deficiency of resolve and botched reassurances escalated to a crisis in which China fired missiles near Taiwan and the United States dispatched aircraft carriers to the area (p. 190–93). In contrast, several years later, U.S. assurances and public opposition to a Taiwan referendum on independence helped persuade China against another show of force (p. 209–16).

Both books argue for preserving American forward-deployed forces and security partnerships in Asia, regarding them as assets more than liabilities to American security. ^{Footnote 5} Christensen calls American alliances “one of the biggest military advantages that the United States enjoys in comparison with China” (p. 89), while recognizing that they are also “a source of vulnerability to Chinese punishment” (p. 96). As Steinberg and O’Hanlon note, “the growing threat from North Korea and continued uncertainty around Taiwan … have provided a strong rationale for continued deployment” (p. 183). Were the United States to withdraw, both Japan and South Korea would likely arm themselves, sparking additional tensions in the region.

Christensen highlights another consequential choice: free-riding or contributing to global governance. The most difficult challenge that the United States faces in dealing with a rising China is Beijing’s tendency to shirk responsibility, Christensen argues. “How do we persuade a large but still developing country with a nationalist chip on its shoulder to contribute to the international system?” Given recent changes in U.S. political rhetoric, Chinese leaders may now be asking themselves the same question. Many of the most pressing global problems require both American and Chinese cooperation, from nuclear proliferation to climate change. Christensen criticizes those analysts who focus on zero-sum power competition between China and the United States, arguing that cooperation on global governance may be the best way to reduce strategic distrust while “channel[ing] China’s nationalist ambitions into cooperation rather than coercion” (p. xxii).

Christopher Coker goes further, writing in The Improbable War that the United States might “eventually crack under the weight of its global responsibilities,” as Britain did in the nineteenth century (p. 79). Coker argues that the United States should welcome Chinese input and assistance: “All the lessons of history suggest that the US needs to share the burden with China if both countries are to avoid a conflict; the two sides urgently need to enter into a dialogue to also decide which if any of the ‘rules’ need to be changed” (p. 79).

In Fateful Transitions: How Democracies Manage Rising Powers, from the Eve of World War I to China’s Ascendance, Daniel Kliman places the burden of adjustment on China, arguing that China must reform politically if it wants to allay the fears of the United States and other established democracies, including its traditional East Asian rival, Japan. Examining three historical power transitions and U.S. and Japanese responses to China’s rise, Kliman argues that secrecy and centralized decision-making make it difficult for rising autocracies to prevent established democracies from hedging against or even seeking to contain their development. If China were more democratic, Kliman argues that China’s intentions would be more transparent and outsiders would have more opportunities to influence China’s trajectory. Although Kliman suggests that there are political reforms that Washington could encourage that would not “inherently threaten the Chinese Communist Party,” (p. 4) it is unclear what kind of measures exist that would meaningfully reassure the United States and not be perceived by the Chinese Communist Party as “deeply hostile” (p. 146) to continued one-party rule.

The Debatable Relevance of Historical Parallels

What patterns and prescriptions might history yield? Many scholars have looked to the past to frame the present moment and anticipate what pathways might lead the United States and China into unwanted conflict. While informative, the utility of past parallels is limited, a conclusion broadly shared by most of these authors. Many factors make conflict less likely today than in the pre-1945 international system, including nuclear weapons, the globalization of economic production, a relatively open set of international institutions, and the end of colonialism and the diminished value of territorial conquest.

Christensen persuasively makes this argument in the chapter “This Time Should Be Different: China’s Rise in A Globalized World.” Drawing on work by Stephen Brooks and Edward Steinfeld, Christensen notes that China sits at the center of a transnational production network in Asia. China’s export-oriented economy relies heavily on foreign investment, which while “no guarantee against war,” is “still a major force for peace” (p. 46). Despite escalating disputes over islands and rocks in the East and South China Seas, the territorial stakes are not critical to each claimant’s survival as they were understood to be in 1914. Christensen is also skeptical that China will want to overturn existing international institutions as its power grows. China may be cheating on some of the rules, but that is different from seeking to replace them.

The Next Great War? The Roots of World War I and the Risk of U.S.–China Conflict looks in greater detail at the outbreak of war in 1914 and possible lessons for the present transition. Overall, the book is circumspect about drawing parallels to today, joining admonitions against the casual use of historical comparisons (p. 10). As Richard Cooper quips, “it is doubtful whether one can learn lessons from history. But if there are any to be learned, they may be the wrong ones” (p. 69). In “Thucydides Dethroned,” David Richards writes that the twenty-first century “calculus of war, though not perfect, is much more stable than it was in ancient Greece or pre-1914 Europe,” arguing that today “there is little point in wars of conquest in a world where trading systems are open for nearly all basic commodities” and nuclear weapons focus leaders’ attention on how to “prevent nuclear war, to avoid mistakes, to monitor control over the weapons” (p. 82). Steven Miller notes that a pervasive “cult of the offensive” was a key contributor to war in 1914, one that is not present today in China or the United States, in part because “neither is worried about a large-scale invasion of the homeland” (p. xviii).

While overall comparisons between the contemporary period and the World War I era point toward conflict being less likely today, ominous notes from that period can still be heard. First is the complicating role of third parties and “the danger of entrapping alliances” (p. xxi). As Charles Maier points out, Athens and Britain went to war (with Sparta and Germany, respectively) because of commitments that “led them to wager on force to avoid their allies’ defeat” (p. 94). American influence in Asia rests on a network of alliances and security commitments to Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, among others. Despite China’s frosty relationship with North Korea, Beijing might still feel compelled to assist if it fears that a Korean crisis might bring instability and American troops to China’s border.

A second cautionary note is the role of bellicose, hypernationalist ideas. Such ideas already exist on both sides of the Pacific and could become more influential—particularly if the gap between American and Chinese power continues to narrow, if China continues to assert its claims and coercive influence in Asia, and if American fears overtake American hopes for China’s continued development. Etel Solingen emphasizes the importance of domestic coalitions, noting that Germany on the eve of World War I was dominated by a coalition that emphasized “armed buildup, economic self-reliance, and territorial expansion” (p. 137). In contrast, China today leans heavily on an “internationalizing strategy” of peaceful development and “reform and opening” to the outside world. By co-opting and controlling inward-looking forces (p. 139–40), the Chinese leadership has so far succeeded in preventing the takeover of “more rabid nationalism that could derail or disrupt internationalization” (p. 141). A challenge for this approach is measuring the influence of warmongers and predicting their future importance as coalitions shift. As Solingen notes, “nationalism is not always controllable; it can breed unintended consequences and subvert domestic civil-military balances with ominous implications” (p. 141).

A third concern is underestimating the risk of conflict. As Arthur Stein notes, “one reason for thinking war unlikely was that 1914 Europe had weathered multiple crises” (p. 19), crises that had hardened the losing side’s desire for restitution and the victorious side’s desire to win again. Coker also worries about complacency, arguing that war in 1914 “was largely ‘inevitable’ because the politicians did not take the prospect of war seriously enough [and] eventually took too many risks because they genuinely believed that great power conflict was unlikely” (p. 8–9). However, Jack Snyder argues that it was pessimism about the future rather than optimism that led the Great Powers to choose war in 1914. Such “better now than later” thinking could arise again if China perceives windows of opportunity, such as an impending declaration of Taiwan independence, an “episodic rift” between the United States and one of its security partners, or the imminent proliferation of nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula—all of which are plausible scenarios that “could spur China to act ‘too soon’ in the trajectory of its rise” (p. 44).

Both repeated crisis dynamics and inaccurate beliefs may help explain the 2012 crisis between China and Japan in the East China Sea. In 2010, the Japanese coast guard detained a Chinese fishing captain near the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Japan eventually released the captain without pressing charges, unleashing a domestic outcry at Japan’s apparent capitulation to international pressure. Two years later, this domestic anger fueled the Japanese government’s resolve to stand firm against Chinese pressure in a new crisis over the islands’ sale in 2012. In Beijing, the government had been lulled by its prior success and Japanese assurances into believing that Japan would again defer to Chinese objections. Instead, the Japanese government went ahead with the sale, apparently sensing a closing window of opportunity to purchase the islands before the new Chinese leadership came to power. ^{Footnote 6} China reacted furiously, sending unprecedented patrols to challenge Japan’s administration of the islands. Any false sense of security disappeared in early 2013 when a Chinese naval frigate locked weapons-targeting radar on a Japanese helicopter, helping both sides realize the need to avoid inadvertent escalation.

Efforts to avoid complacency and unwarranted optimism are pervasive today. China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has emphasized the importance of developing a “new type of great power relations” (xin xing daguo guanxi) to avoid the recurrent pattern of power transitions leading to conflict. But few U.S. observers give this rhetoric much credence, seeing it at best as empty talk and at worst as a demand for unilateral American concessions on China’s core interests. ^{Footnote 7} For example, Graham Allison cites China’s “hide your strength, bide your time” maxim as evidence that realizing China’s goals will “inescapably upend the international order” (p. 74), a cynical interpretation that is debated even within China. ^{Footnote 8} Others have disagreed on whether U.S. military supremacy provides grounds for optimism. On the one hand, Steven Miller and Richard Rosecrance regard U.S. primary or “overbalance” in Asia as a “path to peace because tests of strength are unnecessary and unattractive when the discrepancy in power is clear” (p. xix). On the other hand, China can pose problems for the United States even without becoming a “peer competitor” on the global stage, as Christensen points out. A relatively weak China may still choose to use force, particularly if politics and perceptions call into question the United States’ commitment to assist its partners and allies from afar. ^{Footnote 9}

These debates suggest that complacency and unearned optimism are being appropriately questioned and challenged, both by academics and policymakers. While comparisons are useful if cases are carefully chosen, the differences between 1914 and the present transition are so numerous and consequential that a direct analogy is awkward. In addition, focusing on the similarities and differences between the present and past transitions also risks shortchanging important details of China’s ongoing development and the U.S. reaction. As Ian Chong and Todd Hall put it, there is “more value in focusing on the trees instead of seeking to see the forest.” ^{Footnote 10}

Getting the Details Right

Even if the United States and China are earnest about avoiding an all-out war, apparently minor events can quickly escalate to become crises. “Little things,” Richard Rosecrance argues, “were more responsible than enduring structural characteristics of the European or international system” (p. 212) for triggering war in 1914. Under what conditions are minor events likely to have major consequences? Once a crisis erupts, what factors will affect whether it escalates to war? Answering these questions is the hard but necessary task of understanding whether the United States and China will “sleepwalk” into war and what can be done to prevent it. This section highlights several factors: preemptive incentives to strike first; strategic beliefs about nuclear and conventional applications of force; and perceptions of resolve, reputation, and national honor.

Even without a pervasive “cult of the offensive” in military thinking, leaders in Beijing and Washington may face “use or lose” pressures to adopt what Steinberg and O’Hanlon call “aggressive war-winning strategies early on” (p. 131), influenced by geography and the tactical vulnerability of military capabilities. In a potential conflict over Taiwan, for example, “China would have an incentive to strike not only U.S. warships but airfields in Guam and possibly U.S. forces in Japan as well. The United States would itself have a strong incentive to attack Chinese submarine ports, antiship missile launcher sites, and airfields” (p. 133). Similarly, Christensen notes that

Both states’ possession of nuclear weapons may not be fully stabilizing, other than to deter an all-out nuclear attack. Despite China’s official no-first-use pledge, China may “lower the threshold” for nuclear deterrence under circumstances of grave conventional threat. According to authoritative People’s Liberation Army writings that Christensen cites, China might “tak[e] the initiative to implement a powerful nuclear threat, thereby blocking through coercion the stronger enemy’s sustained conventional air strikes against our side’s important strategic targets” (p. 104). Steinberg and O’Hanlon go further to argue that in a conflict over Taiwan, “if China were losing the conventional battle, and also fearing a possible American attack against its nuclear assets (perhaps with conventional weapons), Beijing might decide to take a desperate step … such as launching a demonstration attack with one nuclear weapon” (p. 136).

In addition to preemptive, first-strike incentives, Avery Goldstein notes that Chinese strategic doctrine and beliefs also favor using limited force to signal resolve, including the use of antiship ballistic missiles. ^{Footnote 11} Targeting errors mean that intentional signals of resolve could produce inadvertent escalation. Given how quickly “tactical engagement” could put reputational pressures on the United States and China to “up the stakes,” Steinberg and O’Hanlon conclude that “both countries need to look for ways to emphasize non-military responses to various possible provocations or perceived provocations” (p. 122), including economic and political sanctions. To mitigate the risk of conflict escalation, the United States should pursue limited and proportionate military responses first, such as restricting counterattacks to the local area (rather than more generally targeting Chinese naval bases).

At the strategic level, Steinberg and O’Hanlon recommend a possible “dynamic equilibrium that accepts a long-term relative, but declining advantage for the United States” (78). They join former Pacific Command chief Joseph Prueher and several other scholars and former officials in arguing that “the solution is not for the United States to double down militarily, spending vast amounts of money in a futile attempt to remain militarily predominant across all of maritime East Asia … [but instead should aim] at stabilizing the military balance with China at a level both sides can live with. Each side would possess capabilities sufficient to deter the other from using force to resolve serious differences, but would lack the clear superiority that could, in the eyes of the other, foster aggressive intentions or stimulate an arms race.” ^{Footnote 12}

A more intangible but equally important variable is resolve, or the willingness to fight over a particular issue. Resolve is partly influenced by observable characteristics of a dispute, such as the material or commercial value of the disputed territory. But resolve often depends on many unobserved or difficult-to-measure factors, such as concern for reputation and honor. These subjective factors can vary from event to event in ways that are difficult to forecast and may only be understood after a crisis escalates. Perceptions here are critical, highlighting the importance of leader beliefs, media attention, and nationalist narratives. All of these shape how national leaders and their domestic political constituents interpret a sudden international event. If a foreign incident or action is perceived as a test of the nation’s resolve or a threat to the national honor, a crisis may ensue. But if a similar incident is perceived as an accident or an unfortunate error by a well-intentioned partner, it may be forgiven and a full-blown crisis averted.

These dynamics highlight the importance of studying what drives the perceived stakes that leaders face in a crisis, as well as how these stakes can be mitigated or manipulated. As Goldstein notes, “the most worrisome possibility is a crisis in which the United States and China fail to grasp each other’s view about the importance of its interests at stake.” ^{Footnote 13} In addition, overlapping sovereignty claims in the East and South China Seas mean that “all the actors involved have such emotional and strategic incentives to stand firm,” Christensen points out. “There does not need to be a clear aggressor for there to be trouble” (p. 106–7).

The intensity of these territorial disputes has waxed and waned, not yet escalating to armed conflict. This variation underscores the value of understanding face-saving strategies that leaders can employ to back down or exercise restraint. By avoiding explicit threats and preventing nationalist mobilization, leaders can mitigate short-run pressures that may tie their hands. Moreover, leaders may choose to signal or act in private, eschewing public statements and actions that may tempt them or their adversary to escalate. ^{Footnote 14}

The value of private diplomacy reflects the often-distortionary public echo chamber. As Iain Johnston notes, phrases such as “China’s new assertiveness” can become memes, defining and distorting collective perceptions of Chinese behavior, and in doing so exacerbate the security dilemma. ^{Footnote 15} Similarly, Christensen warns against the “melodramatic language” sometimes used in Washington to describe China’s threat to U.S. military access in the western Pacific. “The hyperbole is intellectually inaccurate and politically counterproductive,” Christensen writes, for it aids China’s strategic efforts to wear down the psychological resolve of its physically superior opponent (p. 98–9), the United States.

Words have power to shape perceptions. Calling existing international institutions “Western” is counterproductive, Christensen argues, because it gives Chinese nationalists reason to distrust them and obscures the enormous benefits China has already derived from them. Erickson also warns against overblown rhetoric on China’s part, noting that the phrase “Cold War mentality” does a disservice to Washington’s policies of engaging and assisting China (p. 201). Scholars also have a responsibility to choose their words carefully, recognizing their normative connotations and providing empirically- and theoretically-grounded definitions of their usage. ^{Footnote 16} Coker’s and Christensen’s descriptions of the United States and China make clear how subjective the terms “revisionist” and “status quo power” are. Coker calls the United States “a status quo power whose instincts, though they may often lead to war and conflict, are not necessarily belligerent” (p. 6). In contrast, Christensen calls China a “conservative force for protecting twentieth-century rules of the international order” (p. 59) against American-led efforts to use force, even on humanitarian grounds, in defense of existing norms of state sovereignty against external intervention. The Improbable War is erudite but unabashedly partial in its analysis. Coker writes that “bias is inescapable in a work such as this, and my sympathies are largely with the United States” (p. 5). At times, the book also betrays an air of condescension. After acknowledging that “I am a political scientist, not a Sinologist,” Coker asserts that “there are two important principles in ancient Chinese military thought which the Chinese themselves may be in danger of overlooking” (p. 133). This finely wrought book would have credibility with a larger audience if it worked harder to overcome its admitted preference for the United States.

The Importance of Domestic Politics

Domestic politics in both China and the United States will affect the present power transition and warrant more sustained and systematic attention. How will internal developments influence Chinese ambitions, perceptions, and the trajectory of China’s military and economic growth? How will the U.S. presence in Asia and willingness to welcome or resist Chinese influence be shaped by American domestic politics? These books offer insight into the domestic ideas and challenges that may shape China’s future, but they spend relatively little time identifying or analyzing the domestic factors that will influence U.S. strategy and policy.

Rigorously theorizing or evaluating the domestic-international connection in Chinese foreign policy does not take center stage, even though the works reviewed here draw attention to the domestic challenges that China faces and potential international linkages. As Sutter notes, “more often than not domestic politics have served as a serious obstacle or protracted drag that has complicated progress in cooperation between the two governments” (p. 233). Callahan vividly describes a diverse set of views or “dreams” about China’s future but does not aim to measure or predict their influence on policy or public opinion. Solingen describes the coalitional basis for China’s internationalist orientation over the past few decades, but it is unclear how stable this equilibrium is or how quickly it could give way to a different coalition of interests within China. Liebman notes the redirection of resources away from the formal legal system since the 2000s toward nonlegal conflict prevention and settlement mechanisms. The foreign policy implications of the Chinese Communist Party’s instrumental approach to the rule of law are drawn elsewhere, as in Isaac Kardon’s work on China’s participation in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Daniela Stockmann describes the dilemma Chinese government faces in choosing how much to control the media, sacrificing a measure of credibility and feedback in order to guide public opinion, but it is unclear how these dynamics might shape China’s foreign policy and crisis behavior. These illuminating chapters on China’s domestic challenges provide the backdrop but not the foreign policy connection that others have theorized and evaluated. ^{Footnote 17}

Taking a macroscopic approach, Kliman argues that China’s authoritarianism constitutes a key source of distrust in U.S.–China relations, claiming that transparency and access allow democracies to “rise and reassure while autocracies cannot” (p. 1). Kliman’s argument would be more persuasive if the differences between autocracies and democratic regimes were presented as difference in degree rather than difference in kind. An important body of scholarship has shown that there are more similarities between the international relations of autocratic and democratic regimes than previous dichotomies have allowed. Indeed, there may be as much variation within democratic and autocratic regime types as across them. ^{Footnote 18}

Rather than assuming categorical differences, scholars would be better served by identifying relevant mechanisms and investigating how they operate across the spectrum of authoritarian and democratic regimes. In both regime types, some foreign policy decisions are highly centralized—often in crises or secret diplomatic missions—while other decisions are more decentralized, such as international trade and economic policy. Foreign governments have difficulty discerning the intentions of both types of regimes, with partial transparency creating perverse reputational incentives for leaders to take tough action. ^{Footnote 19} As such, it is premature to conclude that democracies can rise and reassure and autocracies cannot.

On the whole, democracies may have more domestic institutional mechanisms for reassurance, but rising autocracies can use other signals and commitments to demonstrate their benign intent. Although Kliman notes that the United States has “had little recourse but to take behavior as a primary indicator of Chinese ambitions” (p. 115), the theory does not give weight to international actions that rising states can employ to reassure others. In some cases, China’s leaders have repressed nationalist protests—a very illiberal tactic—in order to reassure their democratic counterparts of their willingness to resolve crises with minimal acrimony. ^{Footnote 20} Other self-restraining strategies, such as international institutions and commitments, may also help China alleviate concerns about its intentions. China’s leaders could also take domestically costly actions that might over time change public attitudes towards its neighbors and the United States, such as revising domestic textbooks and media coverage to deemphasize China’s past victimization by foreign powers and underscore the positive benefits China has reaped from participating in the post-World War II international system.

Focusing on regime type also downplays the preferences and interests that are channeled through these institutions. For example, Kliman argues that the British appeasement of the rising United States was due to democratic openness and access, not shared economic or cultural ties (p. 55–8). Coker disagrees, arguing that the British accommodation was “normative”—“it had little to do with the balance of power and everything to do with intrinsic beliefs” (p. 96). A convergence of beliefs and interests could make war unthinkable or at least widen the set of mutually acceptable compromises that both would prefer to war.

Could the United States and China develop the kind of shared beliefs and interests that would make accommodation plausible, despite very different political systems? China Dreams sheds light on what kind of China the United States may have to accommodate or confront in the future. On the whole, Callahan describes in China a “shift in normative power from the West to the East” and the emergence of many different indigenous visions of a post-American future (p. 7, 46). The book toggles between plural and singular views of “the Chinese,” (p. 4) but in aggregate these “plural futures for many Chinas” converge on a singular note: “the China dream is for national rejuvenation” (p. 12–3).

Of the twenty different Chinese visions of the future that Callahan describes in China Dreams, a few are oddly amenable to a cosmopolitan world of racial mixing and cooperation, at least among the “silver-colored” and “gold-colored” peoples. Kang Youwei, who died in 1927, suggested “smelting and amalgamating” black and brown people through intermarriage with whites and Asians (p. 113). In a more recent novel, the author Jiang Rong suggests that Chinese people’s soft, “sheep-nature” be strengthened with “transfusions” of foreign blood from “civilized wolves” in the West (p. 116). Of the dreams that Callahan surveys, only Taiwan’s Lung Ying-tai proposes a cosmopolitan vision that transcends racial mixing, describing her national identity as rooted in civic values, including tolerance, equality, and freedom (p. 123).

Nonetheless, it is difficult to know how influential these voices are with the government or the mass public. These “citizen intellectuals are interesting because they can give us a strong sense of the parameters within which foreign policy discussions take place,” Callahan notes (p. 45). By reserving for future analysis those who “are not provoking key debates in China” (p. 15), the book does not include marginal voices that could become important in the future, or those whose ideas are so fundamental that their views are not currently provoking debates. While China Dreams helpfully sketches some possibilities, it does not provide a topographical map of the routes that China might take: what the path of least resistance might look like, or which ideas are unlikely to become mainstream.

The book is best read as a conversation of ideas—making accessible the contours of this conversation in an engaging, highly readable style. Less clear is what alternative conversations could have been carved out, as well as how these views have been shaped by or in resistance to government rhetoric and guidance. While noting that there is a “productive tension between the state and civil society” (p. 14) the book does not explore this interaction, instead illuminating and interweaving the voices that the state must compete with in the marketplace of ideas.