In this book, Rosemary O'Kane seeks to restore a political dimension to the comparative historical analysis of paths to democracy. Reacting against the focus upon social structure that has been so prominent in the analysis of democratic and nondemocratic regime trajectories, she attempts to provide an explanation of the paths to the contemporary situations of three countries, France, Germany, and Russia. She argues that these cases contrast with one another in ways that help to illuminate a range of hypotheses generally accepted about the relationship between democracy, on the one hand, and such variables as economic crisis, economic growth, industrialization, and urbanization, on the other. In broad terms, she sees the cases contrasting in the following ways: Russia contrasts with France and Germany in respect to democracy, Germany with France and Russia in respect to revolution, and France with Germany and the Soviet Union in respect to totalitarianism.

The book is introduced by an excellent discussion of the methodology of comparison. This is followed by a review of the meaning of democracy as discussed in contemporary empirical political theory, and this is then used to identify a range of hypotheses that “should not be applied to history in a rigorous way but be used simply to inform analysis, to offer guiding hypotheses” (p. 40). The following chapter discusses the part played by revolution in generating ideas that were then influential in shaping subsequent change. The remainder of the book comprises detailed studies of the development of the political systems in the three case study countries. This is a stimulating book, but it also has limitations.

One issue with the book concerns the nature of the so-called path to democracy. It is not clear what this means, apart from simply a description of the historical trajectory of particular countries. The discussion of the case studies occurs essentially in narrative form; it is largely in the form of descriptions of what happened, especially in the field of constitutional development. There is no dynamism in the accounts, nor is there any real explanation of why certain sorts of developments occurred. As a result, the notion of path possesses no explanatory significance at all. It may be the course of development the particular country has followed, but there is no sense that the path has any boundaries that were instrumental in keeping the country to a particular course. This is particularly clearly illustrated by the German case, where postwar German democracy was, in substantial part, a function of imposition by the victorious wartime powers. O'Kane acknowledges this, but without recognizing that it makes the notion of path problematic in anything but a passive, descriptive sense.

So if the notion of path has no in-built explanatory power, the question is, what can we take from this book? Essentially O'Kane seems to want to investigate what light the French, German, and Russian experiences throw on a number of hypotheses about democratization and what facilitates it. However, as she acknowledges, this number of case studies is insufficient either for grand theorization or for making substantive judgments about any direct relationship between the variables she notes and democratization more generally. This means that what we are left with is the accounts of individual national experiences against which we can compare the variables to see whether they are consistent. However, there are two problems with this approach. First, the variables are expressed in very general terms (eg., “the role of governments in waiting … the capacity of politicians to take personal responsibility … entrepreneurship,” p. 41) with little investigation of what these might mean in a practical sense. Second, when the variables are combined with the descriptive tenor of the case studies, their importance and the role they played is made unclear. Even if it can be shown that a democratic outcome was associated with some of these variables, the causal relationship (if any) is not demonstrated.

The lack of an explanatory dynamic is not the only problem in the discussion of the national histories. The focus on constitutional and institutional aspects of development may be appropriate, given the emphasis of the book, but it is also very narrow. Furthermore, in some instances it is incomplete. For example, in the discussion of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union under Stalin, no consideration is given to the position occupied by the dictator in each case, and yet this was crucial for the shaping of the regime. In both cases, heavy emphasis is given to the role of the security apparatus and forced labor, and yet in both countries, other institutional structures, such as the leader and the party, also played crucial governmental roles. In addition, there are whole historical debates bearing upon the issues discussed in this book that are not mentioned. For example, the debate over the sonderweg thesis has clear implications for an understanding of the German experience, while in Russia, the question of the relationship between the Lenin regime and that of Stalin is crucial to the interpretation O'Kane places on events. Furthermore, at times she gets some of the historical details wrong; for example, Vesenkha was not established in 1928 but in December 1917, and the Congress of People's Deputies was not strictly speaking bicameral but an assembly that met twice per annum and elected a standing body to fill in for it in between meetings.

Finally, the book really gives a conjunctural interpretation of the path to democracy, with the decisions of political actors playing an important part. Accordingly, it is curious that there is no mention of the democratization literature that has emerged over the past two decades, much of which has concentrated precisely on the role of elites in bringing about democratic change. Given the book's focus, this would seem to have been an obvious literature with which to engage.

So in sum, Paths to Democracy is an interesting book. Its discussion of the methodology of comparison is excellent, and the individual case studies are useful, but there is little by way of generalization that can enhance our understanding of democratization as a process.