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Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States By Sara Diamond. At Amazon.com.

Customer Review #1:

"Doesnt understand the community about which she writes.

"Sara Diamond is somewhat more responsible and restrained than other Leftist writers, like Chip Berlet and Skipp Porteous, who think that conservative Christianity poses a threat to democratic traditions in America. But in the end, Diamond falls victim (or willingly perpetuates) the same lie: that mainstream evangelical Christians are evil and part of a plot to abolish democracy because they tend to vote Republican.

"To reach these conclusions, Diamond (as well as the other aforementioned Mother Jones contributors) dwells on the fringe of American religion (Christian Reconstructionists, independent fundamentalists, Kingdom Now charismatics). All told, these groups probably dont even add up to 1 million people - small change in a country as big as America - and the bulk of them (independent fundamentalists) are relatively apolitical, however authoritarian and anti-intellectual they are within their own communities. These groups and their agendas cannot be extrapolated to mainstream Evangelicalism, the 20-30 million Christians represented by the National Association of Evangelicals and similar denominational entitie ."

Customer Review #2:

" Great information, needs better sociological framework.

"Diamonds book contains a great wealth of information about right wing movements and any one interested in the history of anti-communism, conservative Christianity or other related movements should read it. Even a casual glance at the book reveals the enormous amount of time and effort that went into the book.

"In this review, Ill focus on more sociological issues. First, I see this book as a contribution to the sociology of social movements. One of the strengths of the book is that it shows the importance of mobilization and organization building, a theme emphasized in recent social movements research.

"However, one thing I found interesting is that the book doesnt draw much from the "social movement cycle" literature, which argues that movements reach a peak and then decline. Diamond depicts a set of movements that looks like they are on the road to world domination.

"Since the publication of the book, we have a little more perspective on right wing movements. They did gain an enormous amount of power, but there were limits and the movements are now in decline. Consider these simple facts: no GOP presidenial candidate has beat 50% of the vote since Bush 88, the Senate has slid back into the Democrat column and the House will probably revert to the Dems. Tonight, conservative gubernatorial candidates in Jersey and Virginia have gone down in defeat. Prayer has not been re-instituted in all American public schools, creationism is still taught in few places and women still have the right to choose.

"We have not encountered a theocratic pusch. What can be said is that right wing movements have done very well considering that they are in the numerical minority and that liberal politics dominated up until the mid-1970s. They did so using organizational techniques now copied by all sorts of movements (like PACS, mail lists, etc.), a point hammered home by Diamonds book.

"Another criticism of the book is that it too easily adopts the left/right dichotomy. Should one really classify conservative Christians with atheistic pro-capitalist Ayn Rand cyberlibertarians?

"One lesson that weve learned from political sociology is that left/right distinctions can really mask deep differences. For example, it would be folly to lump together Green movements, labor movements and student movements. Diamond does discuss differences in right wing movements in detail, but insists on retaining the "right/left" framework, much to my dismay. I really wish that she had reshaped the rhetoric of the book to fit the data that she produced.

"Maybe instead of "right wing," she should work out a general sociological theory that would predict why Ayn Rand libertarians are frequently to be found with conservative christians. It is suggested at some points that christians are manipulated by big business, which is the "masses are duped by the oppressor" theory of social movements. Ive never bought this theory.

"The real intellectual challenge is to explore how the cognitive framework of these movements allowed for such divergent groups to cooperate, and "theyre the pawns of big business" seems a cop out. Maybe a network analysis will do the job, or a David Snow style framing argument. Maybe everything does boil down to "big business" rules the world, but there needs to be some more testing of different theories. I feel that the level of detail allows the evasion of theory building and hypothesis testing.

"Diamond has the data and talent for this kind of project, but can she move away from the activist audience, which demands accusation, to a scientific audience, which demands clear hypotheses and tests against data?

"To summarize: great data, fantastically detailed research, could use a better or more subtle sociological framework."

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Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, July 2004.
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