It is not uncommon for analyses of the transatlantic relationship to refer to the social and cultural bonds between Europe and America. It is, however, quite out of the ordinary for a volume to focus on this subject. This fine collection of essays does so to good effect.

“The purpose of this book,” write the organizers of the project, Jeffrey Kopstein and Sven Steinmo, “is to offer a deeper understanding of the sources of cohesion and division both within and between the developed democracies in North America and Europe.” The volume succeeds in this task partly because it “does not offer a singular and straightforward answer to complicated questions”; rather, it presents “a set of fascinating essays” (p. 2) encompassing sometimes “discordant findings” (p. 21)—findings that are generally marked by nuance, and occasionally even by counterintuitive insights.

Consider the excellent opening chapter on “The Religious Divide,” where Steven Pfaff employs a political economy approach for understanding cross-national differences in the market for religion. Resisting commonplace references to Europe as a spiritually dead continent, Pfaff convincingly demonstrates that the demand side of this market is, in fact, reasonably similar on both sides of the Atlantic—at least once faith is distinguished from forms of religious behavior and observance. After all, “there are only a handful of countries—Sweden, Germany, Estonia, and the Czech Republic—in which less than 60 percent of the population professes belief” (pp. 32–33). What does profoundly differ is how demand for spiritual goods and services is met; hence, Pfaff turns to the supply side of the equation, or cross-national differences in the structure of the religion “industry.”

Here, the United States is genuinely anomalous, with very few restrictions on religion and an abhorrence of government sponsorship of particular churches. Elsewhere in the world—including in Europe—the state is far more involved, very often subsidizing the activities of preferred providers and almost always restricting (though to varying degrees) the behavior of potential rivals. The resulting sheltering of state churches from competition is part of the story of why European religious “firms” are relatively anemic, as Pfaff explains, but not the whole story. In addition, secular rivals to established religion “can suppress religious demand by raising the cost of consumption,” as was the case in the former communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. This strategy can sometimes backfire, however, as was the case in Poland; in such instances, “regulations that impinge on the doctrinal authority or organizational autonomy of religious firms provoke countermobilization that challenges the secularism of the polity” (p. 51).

The resulting framework allows Pfaff not only to account for well-known differences in religious practice across the Atlantic but also to provide a useful disaggregation of the European experience. This is critical, since contemporary European religious divides form an important background condition influencing politics within the European Union as well as across the Atlantic.

Other analyses are equally insightful. For example, Steven Teles and Daniel A. Kenney provide a careful exposition of the manner in which conservative ideas are transmitted across the Atlantic and around the world: “In contrast to many accounts of conservative organizational mobilization, however, ours is anything but a story of ‘diabolical competence’” (p. 137). Instead, they identify numerous barriers to the successful dissemination of conservative ideals and political coalitions.

Central to their account is the distinction between social conservatism—which has traveled mostly at the mass level, primarily by means of missionary outreach efforts, without yielding much change in either elite opinion or governmental policies—and economic conservatism—which has been transmitted at least in part by means of an international network of libertarian think tanks that, by contrast, actively target elite opinion. As a consequence, the conservative coalition that has proved so successful in U.S. politics—including business interests, economic conservatives, and social conservatives—has not successfully reproduced itself elsewhere, with U.S. business reluctant to evangelize abroad and social conservatives doing so primarily among the powerless. Even libertarians have experienced limited success in their proselytizing activities, as Teles and Kenney document, in part because of their principled rejection of government assistance in spreading the gospel of small-government conservatism, a self-imposed restriction not shared by their left-wing competitors, many of whom are either funded by or embedded in state bureaucracies.

The chapter on immigration by Randall Hansen is equally absorbing. Despite widely varied national policy histories, recent migrants now represent roughly similar proportions of the population in the United States, Canada, and Europe. In a sense, this is hardly surprising: While “all European countries pursued until recently the chimerical goal of zero immigration” (p. 171), attracting migrants now represents the obvious solution to Europe's demographic implosion. European policymakers are nevertheless “in a bind” (p. 191), however, because “whereas North America integrates immigrants into work, Europe integrates them into welfare” (p. 172). These outcomes represent rational responses to “the incentive structure[s] faced by migrants and their children” (p. 189) on the two sides of the Atlantic, and in particular to the relatively generous provision of social benefits in Europe. The consequence, however, is that Europe's recently liberalized immigration policies are not currently on course to address the budgetary problems deriving from continental depopulation. Moreover, “tough love” policies (p. 190) aimed at encouraging integration into work instead of welfare are likely to encounter stiff opposition from both European publics and judiciaries.

In each of these contributions, the authors explode certain myths about societies on the two sides of the Atlantic, the ties that bind them, and the differences between them. That said, do the contents of the volume support the proposition that Europe and the United States are “growing apart”? It hardly seems so, as acknowledged by the question mark that follows the title of both the book itself and the editors' introductory chapter.

Tellingly, the only two international relations specialists in the volume—Daniel W. Drezner and Laurent Cohen-Tanugi—explicitly reject this thesis. Drezner argues persuasively that the diplomatic rupture between Europe and the United States, though exacerbated by unstatesmanlike behavior on both sides, was in large measure the consequence of a deliberate strategy adopted by the administration of George W. Bush, a strategy that had largely been abandoned by the administration's second term. For his part, Cohen-Tanugi repudiates the “separatist theory” that the United States and Europe are “headed for a strategic and ideological divorce of historic significance” (p. 215). Instead, “within the Western world, the major historical development of the last half-century has indeed been the convergence of the European and American models around the now-shared norms of the market economy, free trade, political freedoms, and regulation through law” (p. 220).

Cohen-Tanugi's characterization of the big picture remains sensible. After all, the diplomatic rupture of 2002–3 rested upon two fundamental presumptions: that the U.S. unipolar moment would extend indefinitely, and that it was incumbent upon Europe to provide the basis of a counterbalance. Neither of these conceits has worn particularly well, and meanwhile, the election of Barack Obama and the economic crisis now gripping the world have altered the terms of debate. Fortunately, the book's focus on underlying variables—including religion, immigration, and the diffusion of ideas—gives its contents continued appeal even in the face of these rapidly changing events.