The Encyclopedia provides a detailed and comprehensive account of the subject known as public choice. However, the title would not convey suf- ciently the breadth of the Encyclopedia’s contents which can be summarized better as the fruitful interchange of economics, political science and moral philosophy on the basis of an image of man as a purposive and responsible actor who pursues his own objectives as efficiently as possible. This fruitful interchange between the fields outlined above existed during the late eighteenth century during the brief period of the Scottish Enlightenment when such great scholars as David Hume, Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith contributed to all these fields, and more. However, as intell- tual specialization gradually replaced broad-based scholarship from the m- nineteenth century onwards, it became increasingly rare to find a scholar making major contributions to more than one. Once Alfred Marshall defined economics in neoclassical terms, as a n- row positive discipline, the link between economics, political science and moral philosophy was all but severed and economists redefined their role into that of ‘the humble dentist’ providing technical economic information as inputs to improve the performance of impartial, benevolent and omniscient governments in their attempts to promote the public interest. This indeed was the dominant view within an economics profession that had become besotted by the economics of John Maynard Keynes and Paul Samuelson immediately following the end of the Second World War.

Although the issue of offender decision-making pervades almost every discussion of crime and law enforcement, only a few comprehensive texts cover and integrate information about the role of decision-making in crime. The Oxford Handbook of Offender Decision Making provide high-quality reviews of the main paradigms in offender decision-making, such as rational choice theory and dual-process theory. It contains up-to-date reviews of empirical research on decision-making in a wide range of decision types including not only criminal initiation and desistance, but also choice of locations, times, targets, victims, methods as well as large variety crimes including homicide, robbery, domestic violence, burglary, street crime, sexual crimes, and cybercrime. Lastly, it provides in-depth treatments of the major methods used to study offender decision-making, including experiments, observation studies, surveys, offender interviews, and simulations. Comprehensive and authoritative, the Handbook will quickly become the primary source of theoretical, methodological, and empirical knowledge about decision-making as it relates to criminal behavior.

In this first major assessment of EC decision-making at the highest levels for ten years, Emil Kirchner examines the Council Presidency's role in European integration. The author demonstrates how the EC Council Presidency plays a crucial role in the integration process enhanced by the Single European Act and the two Intergovernmental Conferences on EMU and Political Union. He evaluates the balance and distribution of power between national and Community actors, and asks whether the Council Presidency is primarily an instrument to maintain national control of EC decision-making, rather than a device for promoting integration. He sheds light on the negotiations which led to the SEA and the two Intergovernmental Conferences, and argues for a new interpretation of the relationship between the EC and its constituent states. EC decision-making is not characterised by a transfer of powers from the national to the EC level, but by a sharing of competences between national and Community institutions and a 'pooling of sovereignties' among member governments that is analogous to 'co-operative federalism'. Decision-making in the European Community will be vital reading for political scientists and students interested in the EC; and for all those seeking to understand European integration, potentially the 1990s' most important political development.