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POLITICS OF EUGENICS: PRODUCTIONISM, POPULATION,
AND NATIONAL WELFARE1
BY: ALBERTO SPEKTOROWSKI AND LIZA IRENI-SABAN
John Glad*
VVVVVIn more ways than one, Alberto Spektorowski and Liza Ireni-Saban's book, Politics of Eugenics, is a remarkable, bellwether text to have come to us from Israeli scholars. (Spektorowski is a Senior Lecturer in Political Science at Tel Aviv University, and Saban is an Assistant Professor in the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy in Herzliya.) It is devoted largely to the biological interface of political science and economics. Although eugenics has been much discussed by political scientists, it has been largely avoided for over three decades by mainstream economists (except occasionally under the code phrase ‘human capital”), who studiously pretend not to notice the enormous, undeniable role played in economic processes by genetic diversity, or, for that matter, to speculate as to their past and/or future consequences for economic development. has been made in the fight against petty corruption, the issue of embedded elite corruption persists in the Republic of Georgia. Although civil society has strengthened, and Euro-Atlantic values have taken root, there remain significant obstacles until Georgia can be considered a fully successful post-Soviet state.research is based on significant primary research conducted in the Republic of Georgia in February 2014, primarily in the form of interview data with such stakeholders as Transparency International, the Eurasian Partnership Foundation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, and the European Union Special Representative to Georgia. Additional secondary research has also been undertaken in order to ground this paper in the current literature on post-Soviet transition and European enlargement. It has been found that while significant progress has been made in the fight against petty corruption, the issue of embedded elite corruption persists in the Republic of Georgia. Although civil society has strengthened, and Euro-Atlantic values have taken root, there remain significant obstacles until Georgia can be considered a fully successful post-Soviet state.This research is based on significant primary research conducted in the Republic of Georgia in February 2014, primarily in the form of interview data with such stakeholders as Transparency International, the Eurasian Partnership Foundation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, and the European Union Special Representative to Georgia. Additional secondary research has also been undertaken in order to ground this paper in the current literature on post-Soviet transition and European enlargement. It has been found that while significant progress has been made in the fight against petty corruption, the issue of embedded elite corruption persists in the Republic of Georgia. Although civil society has strengthened, and Euro-Atlantic values have taken root, there remain significant obstacles until Georgia can be considered a fully successful post-Soviet state. Christian religious leaders who no longer represent the views of much of the populace. Such a development empowers multiculturalism’s critics and indicates a flaw in its practicality over time, as it calls into question the value of an inflexible system that identifies individuals’ interest in an issue—here education—along a single, religious axis.
*John Glad is the former Director of the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, Woodrow Wilson International for Scholars.
8881. Alberto Spektorowski and Liza Ireni-Saban, 2013, Routledge, London and New York, 228 pages, ISBN: 978-0-415-81431—7 (hbk); ISBN: 978-0-203-74023-1 (ebk)
THE JOURNAL OF POLITICAL STUDIES
JULY 2014
REVIEWS
VOL. 1
NO. 4