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BOOK REVIEWS 173 many foreign-born Jesuits in Venezuela, according to Levine, is responsible for the emphasis on emersion with the people by the priests in an effort to develop groups with a commitment to social action, and teach them to function independently , gradually loosening the ties. Also, different democratic experiences in each country have also impacted the CEBs in each country. However, a greater analysis ofthe differences between religious orders and diocesan priests would have proved interesting. Levine's main argument is that in order for religion to have a role in the transformation ofpopular culture, religion itselfmust change, not only in relation to other institutions, but also internally with transformations in beliefs, practices and spirituality. This internal change is the focal point of Popular Voices and is extremely relevant to understanding Latin American society. This book is the result of a massive undertaking on the part of the author. The interviews are integral in explaining and portraying the changes that have occurred within Latin American Catholicism. While his decision to study the popular voices of Colombia and Venezuela provides the reader with distinct national churches and political situations, it is unfortunate that research was not undertaken in a country with a reportedly much more liberationist church, such as Brazil or Chile. This is a dense book, but well worth the time and effort. Bureaucracy, Politics, and Decision Making in Post-Mao China. Edited by Kenneth G. Lieberthal and David M. Lampton. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. 401 pp. $45.00/Hardcover. Reviewed by Matthew S. Flynn, MA. Candidate, SAIS. Bureaucracy, Politics, and Decision Making in Post-Mao China is a collection of 12 conference papers presented by leading China scholars who have conducted intensive research on the post-Mao era. These papers investigate the nature of decision making in the Deng era in the areas of education, leadership decision making, the military, cadre retirement, taxation, finance, and state enterprise management. The authors use interviews and field work to measure the degree of compliance with policy and to consider points of friction within Chinese political relationships. The phenomenon of bargaining between actors is the thread that ties the majority ofpapers together. David M. Lamptom, in his contribution to this volume, notes that leaders of approximately equal rank bargain over shares of the budget, revenue investment allocation, and production rights. The farther removed a leader is from the point of decision, the less ability he or she has to influence policy. Conversely, the more distant a leader is from the point of implementation, the less power he or she has to ensure adoption of a given policy. This diffusion of power is dubbed the "fragmented authoritarianism" model by Kenneth Lieberthal in the introduction. He states that the three yardsticks of decentralization and centralization are "value integration, structural distribution ofresources and authority, and the process ofdecision making and policy implementation ." This volume ignores value integration and focuses on participants in the 174 SAIS REVIEW decision making and policy implementation process as rational actors engaging in bargaining to advance or maintain their own self interest. Lieberthal argues that the formal chain of command and the allocation of decision making authority is less important to the actual processes of decision making and implementation. Andrew Wälder, however, in his essay on individual state enterprises, points out that the behavior of actors is not necessarily defined, although it is certainly constrained, by the Chinese political-economic structure. He astutely notes that political scientists focus on the activity and consequences of bargaining while economists focus only on the consequences ofbargaining. Wälder prefers to ask the question: what are the bargaining relationships? This approach gives the reader a sense of the lay of the political landscape. The obvious question posed by most readers is: what is the process of reform in China? The course ofthis process is dictated by the same factors that Lieberthal cites as elements of centralization and decentralization: ideology (shared values), distribution of authority (structure) and power (influence on the decision-making and implementation process). Even if one wishes to argue that one element is the driving force of political reality in China, ignoring the other elements leads to a less...

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