Compiling edited collections is notoriously difficult because editors and contributors frequently work from a different script. The result is that instead of producing a coherent volume which addresses a particular theme, readers are often left with a collection of scholarly papers that share little in common. What may have started as a project with a single goal and focus can quickly disintegrate into a patchwork quilt. This major problem has been avoided in Leslie Pal and Kent Weaver's edited book, The Government Taketh Away: The Politics of Pain in the United States and Canada, a sophisticated and richly detailed analysis of how decision-makers in the two countries attempt to introduce policies that may adversely affect the economic, social and political interests of various groups while trying to minimize political fallout. As the title of this book suggests, the editors are not concerned about why policy makers reward certain sectors and groups in society. After all, common sense dictates that politicians need votes and attempt to acquire them by appealing to the broadest segment of the population. In this book, the focus is on how policy makers, when faced with potential opposition from different groups, make strategic decisions that result in the imposition of losses. Although the editors do not offer a concrete definition of loss, examples include policy decisions that result in the de-indexation of old age pensions, the closure of military bases and the retraction of tax benefits. This book is not an indictment of government—the editors acknowledge that in democracies politicians must often make difficult choices that will help some and hurt others. Rather, it is a thorough exploration of how decision makers make these decisions and how various groups and sectors react.

As with any major contribution to the scholarly literature, the strength of this book is in its detail. In the more than 300 pages devoted to the politics of loss imposition, readers are rarely given a chance to catch their breath. Those looking for a Reader's Digest treatment of the politics of loss imposition should not pick up this book. The editors and contributors realize that explaining the phenomenon of loss imposition is difficult, challenging, and no pun intended, painstaking. However, by situating this issue in the larger context of political decision making and group mobilization, they make it interesting and compelling. Once readers have jumped aboard, there is little incentive to disembark.

Having written several texts on comparative public policy, Pal and Weaver understand the importance of constructing a rigorous theoretical framework which enables scholars to ask and answer timely and relevant questions. They also understand the importance of bringing together experts who can discuss complicated issues in a straightforward and lucid manner. In this study, they have achieved both. The theoretical framework outlined in the book's introduction leaves few stones unturned. It carefully explains why the institutional differences between a Westminister parliamentary democracy and a republican government based on separate branches sharing power may account for a greater willingness on the part of Canadian policy makers to inflict losses on various groups and sectors. “Westminster systems, with their emphasis on collective cabinet responsibility and party discipline, tend to concentrate power in the hands of leaders … and offer fewer veto points to interest groups than does the U.S. system.” (5). But even more importantly, when the party in power holds a majority of seats in the House of Commons, the government is offered more secure insulation from societal interests determined to prevent losses.

While the Executive and Congress are often required to take away benefits previously granted to interest groups and corporations, the editors argue that compared to their Canadian counterparts, American policy makers are less inclined to impose losses. More specifically, given the absence of strong party discipline in the United States, members of Congress are unlikely to impose losses on groups, particularly those that wield power and influence in their district. After all, the primary responsibility of those serving in Congress is not to support the President's agenda, but to get elected and stay elected.

In the introductory chapter, the editors also go to great lengths to identify the many possible responses groups in both countries may pursue when confronted with governments contemplating imposing losses. The type of response we can anticipate from groups will ultimately depend on the nature of the loss. Types of losses can include geographically diffuse but group-specific losses, geographically concentrated losses, losses imposed on business, and symbolic losses.

In each of the eight case studies which focus on issues such as old age pensions, health care, telecommunications deregulation, gun control and abortion, the contributors adhere closely to the book's theoretical parameters. The cases are well constructed and carefully documented and lend even stronger support to the initial arguments made in the book. Among the many interesting observations made about the case studies is that “the politics and outcomes within sectors, across countries, are more alike than politics and outcomes across sectors, within countries” (328). Put simply, when confronted by losses, groups in specific sectors in both countries react in a similar way, despite the different political systems they inhabit.

This book helps fill an important void in the comparative literature on interest groups and political decision making. For students of Canada and the United States in particular, it offers fresh insight into how governments make difficult policy choices and why some groups are better positioned and equipped than others to mobilize opposition to proposed losses. It also reminds students of public policy that policy makers cannot afford to make decisions without understanding the consequences of their actions.

A note of caution: this is not a book that one can easily flip through riding the subway to work or in the few minutes we have before classes. It requires and deserves sustained attention with few, if any, distractions. Given the strength of this study, it is a commitment worth making.