The 1998 Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics, the tenth anniversary, was held at the Bank on April 20-21, 1998. The discussions focused on four areas of inquiry:1) the role of geography in countries'success, 2) the role of effective competition and regulatory policies, 3) the causes of financial crises and ways to prevent them, and 4) the effects of ethnic diversity on democracy and growth. The welcoming address by World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn, the opening remarks by chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz, and the tenth anniversary address by the International Monetary Fund Deputy Managing Director Stanley Fischer all focused both on the role of the conference and on the changing perspectives for development.

These books grew out of the perception that a number of important conceptual and theoretical advances in research on small group behavior had developed in recent years, but were scattered in rather fragmentary fashion across a diverse literature. Thus, it seemed useful to encourage the formulation of summary accounts. A conference was held in Hamburg with the aim of not only encouraging such developments, but also encouraging the integration of theoretical approaches where possible. These two volumes are the result. Current research on small groups falls roughly into two moderately broad categories, and this classification is reflected in the two books. Volume I addresses theoretical problems associated with the consensual action of task-oriented small groups, whereas Volume II focuses on interpersonal relations and social processes within such groups. The two volumes differ somewhat in that the conceptual work of Volume I tends to address rather strictly defined problems of consensual action, some approaches tending to the axiomatic, whereas the conceptual work described in Volume II is generally less formal and rather general in focus. However, both volumes represent current conceptual work in small group research and can claim to have achieved the original purpose of up-to-date conceptual summaries of progress on new theoretical work.

Ethnocentrism works to reinvigorate the study of ethnocentrism by reconceptualising ethnocentrism as a social, psychological, and attitudinal construct. Using a broad, multidisciplinary approach to ethnocentrism, the book integrates literature from disciplines such as psychology, political science, sociology, anthropology, biology, and marketing studies to create a novel reorganisation of the existing literature, its origins, and its outcomes. Empirical research throughout serves to comprehensively measure the six dimensions of ethnocentrism—devotion, group cohesion, preference, superiority, purity, and exploitativeness—and show how they factor into causes and consequences of ethnocentrism, including personality, values, morality, demographics, political ideology, social factors, prejudice, discrimination, and nationalism. Ethnocentrism is fascinating reading for scholars, researchers, and students in psychology, sociology, and political science.

This book brings together internationally known scholars from a wide range of disciplines and theoretical traditions, all of whom have made significant contributions to the field of race and ethnic relations. As well as identifying important and persistent points of controversy, the collection reveals a complementary and multifaceted approach to theorisation. The theories represented include contributions from the perspective of sociology. These range from the established perspectives of Marx and Weber through to the more recent interventions of rational choice theory, symbolic interactionism and identity structure analysis.

Ethnocentrism—our tendency to partition the human world into in-groups and out-groups—pervades societies around the world. Surprisingly, though, few scholars have explored its role in political life. Donald Kinder and Cindy Kam fill this gap with Us Against Them, their definitive explanation of how ethnocentrism shapes American public opinion. Arguing that humans are broadly predisposed to ethnocentrism, Kinder and Kam explore its impact on our attitudes toward an array of issues, including the war on terror, humanitarian assistance, immigration, the sanctity of marriage, and the reform of social programs. The authors ground their study in previous theories from a wide range of disciplines, establishing a new framework for understanding what ethnocentrism is and how it becomes politically consequential. They also marshal a vast trove of survey evidence to identify the conditions under which ethnocentrism shapes public opinion. While ethnocentrism is widespread in the United States, the authors demonstrate that its political relevance depends on circumstance. Exploring the implications of these findings for political knowledge, cosmopolitanism, and societies outside the United States, Kinder and Kam add a new dimension to our understanding of how democracy functions.