Reviews

Christel Lane, Christian Religion in the Soviet Union: A Sociological Study. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1978. 256 pp. £10.00.

R. Amann, J. M. Cooper, R. W. Davies (eds.), The Technological Level of Soviet Industry. New Haven, Conn, and London: Yale University Press, 1977. xxxii +575 pp. £20.00.

M. M. Kostecki, East‐West Trade and the GATT System. London: Macmillan, for the Trade Policy Research Centre, 1979. xviii + 157 pp. £12.00.

Josef C. Brada and V. S. Somanath (eds.), East‐West Trade: Theory and Evidence. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University International Development Institute, 1978. xi + 178 pp. $10.00. No index.

Jeremy R. Azrael (ed.), Soviet Nationality Policies and Practices. New York: Praeger Publishers (Praeger Special Studies), 1978. xi + 393 pp.

Robert G. Wesson, Communism and Communist Systems. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice‐Hall, 1978. x + 227 pp.

Adam Bromke and Derry Novak (eds.), The Communist States in the Era of Detente, 1971–1977. Oakville, Ontario: Mosaic Press, 1978. 306 pp. $7.95.

Jaroslav Krejci, Social Structure in Divided Germany. London: Croom Helm, 1976. 262 pp. £7.95.

Miklós Molnár, A Short History of the Hungarian Communist Party. Boulder, Colorado & Folkestone: Westview, Dawson, 1978, 168 pp. £9.00.

Robert N. North, Transport in Western Siberia: Tsarist and Soviet Development. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press and The Centre for Transportation Studies, 1979. viii + 364 pp. $22.00.     

Chester I. Barnard: president of the uso, 1942-1945

This article focuses on a relatively unheralded dimension of Chester I. Barnard, author of the classic 1938 management text The Functions of the Executive. Barnard was President of the United Services Organization, Inc. (USO), a morale-enhancing volunteer organization for allied servicemen and women during World War II. The article's purpose is to describe and analyze Barnard's activities and accomplishments at the USO from 1942 to 1945, Barnard used the general management principles that he espoused through his writings in this volunteer management environment.     

A Reversal of Political Fortune: The Transitional Dynamics of Conservative Rule in the Brazilian Northeast

This study explains the erosion of conservative rule and the rise of leftist opposition at the subnational level in the Northeast of Brazil in recent electoral cycles. Compared with explanations based on economic modernization, social spending, and fiscal reform, the data best support the hypothesis that the organizational and spatial dimensions of leftist mobilization in these states have shifted to the detriment of conservative machines. Specifically, urban mobilization of leftist supporters has determined the electoral success of these oppositions. The study also explains where conservatives maintain a floor of support based on the continuation of clientele networks.     

PBB in American Local Governments: It's More than a Management Tool

Despite academic findings that performance information seldom is used in appropriations decisions, many professional organizations and governments continue to press for integrating performance information into local public management, planning, and budgeting processes. Is it possible to reconcile such inconsistencies? Looking beyond the executive–legislative relationship and departmental appropriations, the author examines the budget implications of applying performance information at the subdepartmental program level. Case analysis of Indianapolis’s IndyStat initiative underscores that performance measurement application is positively related to intradepartmental program budget changes. Hence, performance‐based budgeting (PBB) can improve local budgeting despite severe political constraints. Still, successful use of PBB requires strong executive leadership, and its effects remain less visible at the departmental level or within the wider political arena of legislative bargaining. The author concludes by recommending some rethinking of the current analytical focus of PBB both in future research as well as recommended practice.     

Les Occidentaux: Western Europe and the United States since the Second World War

In his recent book, Les Occidentaux, Alfred Grosser describes and analyses the complex conundrum of relations between the countries of Western Europe and the United States since 1945. In the late 1970s, this story is of course still incomplete, because there has been no ‘end of an era’ in transatlantic relations, in spite of the deep economic crisis which has affected all the countries involved. His study focuses not only on the facts, but also on how these facts were perceived by those involved; in so doing it poses, answers and provokes many questions. In the following edited and translated extract from the Conclusion of his book, Professor Grosser briefly re‐examines some of the more significant problems he has considered and takes another look at his solutions and their implications.