The next queries are about Rickard’s data.
Although Seeking Legitimacy: Why Arab Autocracies Adopt
studying subsidies provides a useful means to test a
complex problem, the level of aggregation and limited
comparisons bound the confidence of the tests. The first
set of regressions looks at subsidies to manufacturing as a
whole at the country level, contingent on their level of
concentration. As a result, it does not allow a test among
more or less concentrated industries. Intra-country and
cross-sectoral tests would provide that type of analysis, but
the Norway tests (chap. 6) cover just three sectors over five
years (n = 15). The discussion of the wine industry in
France and Austria (chap. 5) is another step in the right
direction, given that it compares the concentrated growers
in France with the diffuse markets in Austria. The case
study, however, does not complete the implied 2  2
matrix that would increase confidence in the findings by
showing that diffuse sections in France and concentrated
sectors in Austria failed to win subsidies. Chapter 7 also
leans toward the necessary intra-test by considering
whether spending on manufacturing subsidies is correlated
with regional vote margins. The dependent variable, how-
ever, has changed, and the test still does not differentiate
among sectors. In addition, the data are annual for a variable
(subsidies) that probably does not change much and only
includes a period with a consistent coalition government. As
such, the tests overstate the statistical power, and we do not
know whether another government would reset the subsid-
ies to fit their electoral priorities as the hypothesis suggests.
A final concern relating to the data is simply that there
needs to be more descriptive information about the fas-
cinating dependent variable. The book lacks much infor-
mation about the distribution of the variable (and there is
no online appendix), and it is therefore hard to grasp the
substantive implications and to match findings with con-
crete cases. In chapter 4, Rickard explains that industry
concentrations are generally quite low, with two-thirds of
cases having a concentration level, measured with an
entropy index, of less than 0.033. In the regression
analysis, she finds that PR and SMD systems differ when
the concentration rates are below that value, but not when
they are between that level and 0.054. It is unclear without
more understanding of these values why a party or a
legislature would care about differences of this level. The
book also fails to give details on the cases in the regression
analysis. There is mention that the data include two
decades of data and 14 countries, so perhaps the n in the
analysis is 20 years of observations for each of 14 countries
(which are not detailed), thus approximating the reported
n in the analysis (between 169 and 227).
In sum, Spending to Win provides a very useful approach
to empirically demonstrating the relation of electoral
institutions and political strategies. By providing a novel
and useful approach to operationalizing political spending
strategies through the analysis of subsidies, the study will
surely encourage future expansions and refinements.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001577 Published online by Cambridge University Press
Women’s Rights. By Aili Mari Tripp. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2019. 334p. $99.99 cloth, $29.99 paper.
doi:10.1017/S1537592720001577
— Lihi Ben Shitrit , University of Georgia
lben@uga.edu
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has
long had a reputation of being particularly bad when it
comes to women’s rights. Of course, such a broad gener-
alization is inevitably reductive. What do we mean by
women’s rights? How do we measure women’s equality?
And what about significant internal variation on different
measures of women’s rights within the region? Aili Mari
Tripp tackles these and other questions in unpacking the
subject of women’s rights in the Arab world. She starts
from an important puzzle: Why have the countries of the
Maghreb—Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria—undertaken
extensive constitutional and legislative reforms in support
of women’s rights in a way that has substantially set them
apart from the rest of the Arab world? Today, the Maghreb
countries boast the most progressive constitutions and
legislation in the region, with significant provisions on
gender equality, more equitable family law, guaranteed
parity in political representation, protection of reproduct-
ive rights, and legislation on violence against women.
Tripp aims to exploit this difference between the Maghreb
and the other countries of the MENA to answer a theor-
etically important question: Why do some authoritarian
regimes adopt women’s rights, even in the absence of a
popular demand for such reforms, while others do not?
Tracing the evolution of constitutional and legislative
reform in each of the Maghreb countries, Tripp offers a
nuanced answer that emphasizes the strategic choices of
key political actors in particular historical junctures.
The three major players in this strategic interaction are
the authoritarian regime, the Islamist opposition, and
women’s rights organizations. The most influential of
these is the regime, which monopolizes much of the power
to steer constitutional and legislative changes. In each of
the three countries, although in different historical
moments and to different degrees, authoritarian regimes
have been challenged by the growing popularity and
assertiveness of Islamist opposition. On the other side of
the ideological spectrum, women’s movements, which
were not as strong on the grassroots level as the Islamists
but nevertheless knew how to make demands, mobilize
resources, and collaborate with other transnational and
regional Maghrebi women’s groups, were tireless in their
advocacy with the regime to advance women’s rights. The
strategic interaction between these three actors resulted in
unprecedented advancements in women’s rights in the
Maghreb.
The convergence on women’s rights in the Maghreb
was not inevitable; at independence, each country started
September 2020 | Vol. 18/No. 3 969
 Book Reviews | Comparative Politics
off from a very different point. What the three did have in
common were a legacy of French colonialism and a unified
legal system, which was not bifurcated between civil courts
and religious, or sharia, courts. But politically the coun-
tries could not have been more different. Morocco was a
monarchy in which the king drew on religious and cultural
traditions to legitimate his rule and accommodated at
various points some limited degree of political pluralism.
Tunisia was ruled by a secular regime that used women’s
rights as a cornerstone of its modernizing image, while
being significantly more repressive of political pluralism
than Morocco. Finally, Algeria had a secular authoritarian
regime that made significant concessions to Islamists in the
area of women’s rights since the 1960s, but which later, in
the 1990s, waged a bloody civil war against them, in the
process engaging in brutal repression of all opposition, not
just of Islamists.
Where the story of convergence begins, according to
Tripp, is in the early 2000s. In all three countries, the
regimes came to see women’s rights as an increasingly
useful tool that could help on two fronts. Internationally,
promoting women’s rights could improve the regime’s
image abroad. Domestically, adopting women’s rights
would marginalize Islamist extremists. Seizing on this
new regime calculus, women’s organizations in the Magh-
reb exploited various moments of crisis—from Islamist
terrorist attacks to the Arab uprisings—to push for more
progressive reform. Being more organized and more linked
across the Maghreb in comparison to their counterparts in
the rest of the Arab world, they were in a better position to
take advantage of political opportunities.
Perhaps the most fascinating part of this story is the
reaction of the Islamist opposition. At least in Morocco
and Tunisia, there has been a profound shift within the
leading Islamist parties on the matter of women’s rights. As
political liberalization allowed them to move from the
opposition to forming or being a part of the government,
the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) in
Morocco and Enahda in Tunisia went from being among
the main voices of opposition to reforms that enhanced
women’s equality to accepting them or, in some cases,
presenting themselves as their champions. In Algeria,
Islamists have been so marginalized politically that they
have had little say on recent reform, but there is some
indication that Algerian moderate Islamists are taking
their cues from the experience of their counterparts in
the two other countries and changing their positions on
women’s rights.
Tripp’s study has many strengths that are too numerous
to fully list here. Three highlights provide a sample of some
of the many contributions the book offers, which make it
required reading for anyone concerned with women’s
rights in the MENA region specifically and, more broadly,
in the context of authoritarianism. First, the book makes a
very convincing case for rejecting go-to explanations for
970 Perspectives on Politics
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001577 Published online by Cambridge University Press
the relative progressiveness in the Maghreb in comparison
to the rest of the Arab world. For many observers, cultural
differences would be a default assumption. The Maghreb
is sometimes romantically imagined as more secular, as
more pluralist, or as having a softer or more tolerant
Muslim culture. The French secular legacy, Sufism and
“moderate” religiosity, and the presence of a significant,
non-Arab Amazigh ethnic minority could all lead one to
believe that the people of the Maghreb simply have more
progressive attitudes. This is far from being the case. Tripp
shows us that, when surveyed on their attitudes, Maghre-
bis are often as conservative as their MENA counterparts,
and Amazigh minorities are often as conservative as their
Arab counterparts. As Tripp explains, “the way in which
women’s rights reforms have been implemented [in the
Maghreb], often in a top-down fashion, makes popular
attitudes less relevant” (p. 93). Structural explanations are
also rejected. For example, Tripp shows that, in terms of
the gender gap in economic participation and educational
attainment, the Maghreb countries do worse than several
of their MENA neighbors and better than some others
(p. 121).
Another tremendously important contribution is the
book’s extensive interviews with protagonists involved in
the strategic contestations that have led to constitutional
and legislative reform. Tripp draws on conversations with
“leaders and members of a variety of Islamist, feminist, and
Amazigh women’s rights organizations; human rights
organizations; members of parliament; leaders of the
women’s legislative caucuses; women’s ministry represen-
tatives; party leaders; lawyers; religious leaders; academics;
journalists; and representatives of donor and UN agencies”
(p. 25). However, perhaps one shortcoming in this regard
is the preponderance of feminist voices quoted in the book
and the dearth of regime and Islamist voices. This leaves
some questions regarding the factors underlying these
latter actors’ evolving calculus. Most importantly, was
the monumental transformation in Islamists’ positions
on women’s rights only a result of pressure from the
regime and of strategic calculations, or did deeper internal
currents within Islamist movements also contribute to this
evolution? In addition to interviews, Tripp also compiles
an original database of legislation and constitutional
reforms pertaining to women’s rights in the entire MENA
region since independence, an invaluable resource for
scholars interested in this subject.
Finally, the book addresses symbolic aspects of women’s
rights: visibility, bodies, presence and representation, and
the interpretive stakes that all the key players invested in
them. This helps explain why women’s rights are such a
central arena of contestation in the Maghreb and also more
broadly in the MENA. In addition, and crucially, Tripp
cautions us not to take the Maghreb’s experience as a
simple tale of the triumph of women’s rights. The dilem-
mas of feminist bargaining with autocrats haunt Tripp’s
 narrative. Given how much reform has been implemented
from the top down in the region, and how tainted the
subject of women’s rights is by its association with authori-
tarian regimes’ strategizing, the advancements women
have achieved in the Maghreb may not be as enduring as
we might hope.
Mobilization and Conflict in Multiethnic States. By
Manuel Vogt. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. 300p.
$74.00 cloth.
doi:10.1017/S1537592720001541
— Idean Salehyan, University of North Texas
Idean.Salehyan@unt.edu
Why do some ethnic movements choose to resort to armed
violence, whereas others focus on nonviolent means of
resistance? Why did disadvantaged ethnic groups in Côte
d’Ivoire fight a bloody civil war, while indigenous com-
munities in Ecuador peacefully campaigned for greater
rights and recognition? Much of the existing literature
examines civil war and nonviolent protest separately,
although there is a growing body of work that addresses
various forms of contention and the choice between the
two. This fantastic book by Manuel Vogt adds to this
literature by offering a compelling theory and careful
empirical analyses to develop a comprehensive study of
violent and nonviolent ethnic mobilization.
The core of the argument is that patterns of European
colonialism significantly affect ethnic relations to this day.
In colonial settler states, large numbers of European
migrants and their descendants created an ethnic hierarchy
with white settlers at the top and with the indigenous
community politically marginalized and economically dis-
advantaged. Many Latin American countries are “settler
states,” in which a European and mestizo elite controlled
post-independence institutions, but so are South Africa
and Zimbabwe (Rhodesia). By contrast, in “decolonized
states,” which are mostly in Africa, relatively equal ethnic
communities vied for power and influence following the
retreat of European powers. In countries without signifi-
cant European settlement, no single group could claim
absolute control of the state after independence.
A purely grievance-based explanation would predict
that indigenous communities in Latin America would be
most likely to resort to armed conflict given generations of
economic, political, and social discrimination. Yet, Vogt
adds insights from resource mobilization and political
opportunity theories of contentious politics to argue the
opposite. Settler colonialism led to stable between-group
hierarchies and to considerable social integration through
assimilation into the dominant linguistic and religious
tradition. In contrast, decolonized states in Africa largely
consist of segmented ethnic groups, who live in zones
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001577 Published online by Cambridge University Press
separated by geography, language, and often religion. This
has made it much harder for poor indigenous communities
in settler states to successfully mobilize the resources
necessary for armed violence, particularly as the coercive
capabilities of the state rest firmly in the hands of elites of
European descent. By contrast, equally matched seg-
mented groups in Africa are more likely to be caught in
a bitter struggle over dominance of state institutions.
Therefore, Vogt hypothesizes that civil war is more
likely in decolonized states, whereas peaceful activism will
be more prevalent in settler states. Although this aspect of
the theory is a macro-historical, structural argument, he
also offers a micro theory of how these conditions shape
the strategies of ethnopolitical organizations and the out-
comes of mobilization. Ethnic organizations are more
likely to fight armed contests for political dominance in
segmented, unranked societies, whereas they are more
likely to mobilize for emancipation and political inclusion
in highly stratified societies. Although it is commendable
that Vogt attempts to offer some micro-foundations to his
theory, this argument still seems to suggest that macro-
level patterns of ethnic relations play a determining role in
shaping organizational strategies.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this book is its
empirical analysis. Vogt combines large-N statistical tech-
niques using a variety of data sources with several months
of fieldwork in Latin America and Africa. The first empir-
ical chapter (chap. 4) offers a global analysis of armed
conflict onset, armed conflict intensity, and group protest.
Although the core of the theory focuses on patterns of
decolonization, the book also offers insights for other
multiethnic states, such as the titular nation-states of
Eurasia. He argues that their systems of ethnic relations
should most resemble the decolonized (i.e., nonsettler)
states. The analysis offers convincing evidence that armed
conflict is most likely (and more severe) in decolonized
states, followed by other multiethnic states, with the settler
countries being least likely to experience civil war. Instead,
this last set of countries is marked by more frequent
protest. Vogt also successfully rules out alternative explan-
ations, such as years since independence. Finally, he delves
into the mechanisms behind the theory by incorporating
data on years of ethnic dominance and the degree of
linguistic segmentation between groups to directly test
his argument regarding ethnic hierarchies and group
integration.
The subsequent empirical chapters focus on Africa and
Latin America through a combination of statistical and
case-study analyses, backed by months of field research
and elite interviews. Chapter 5 examines the role of
political parties in Africa in attaining and preserving ethnic
dominance. Vogt observes that ethnic parties in Africa are
often connected to military mobilization efforts and that
groups with strong parties are more likely included in
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