Trends in explosive contamination

This study sought to assign a rough order of magnitude for the amount of explosive residue likely to be available in real-world searches for clandestine explosives. A variety of explosives (TNT, TATP, HMX, AN, RDX, PETN) in various forms (powder, flake, detonating cord, plastic) were carefully weighed or cut into containers, and the amount of residue inadvertently remaining on the work area, hands, or containers was quantified. This was used to evaluate the spillage potential of each explosive. The adhesion of each explosive to a glass surface was quantified from amount of explosive adhering to the inside of a glass vial into which the explosive had been placed and then removed by vigorous tapping. In powdered form, most of the explosives--TNT, PETN, RDX, HMX, and TATP--exhibited similar spillage and adhesion to glass. However, PETN as sheet explosive and plasticized RDX (C-4), showed very little potential to contaminate surfaces, either by spillage or adhesion to glass.     

Grey Power: Towards a Political Economy of Older Voters in the UK

The impact of age on voting behaviour and political outcomes has become an issue of increasing interest, particularly in the UK. Age divides in voter turnout and political preferences have led to claims that age is the ‘new class’. In this article, we contrast existing ‘cultural backlash’ and political economy explanations of the age divide in politics, and challenge the view that older people are predominantly ‘left behind’, culturally or economically. We show that older people have distinct material interests, related to housing wealth and pensions’ income, that are visible in their political preferences. We argue for the development of a new political economy of age.     

Beveridge at Eighty: Learning the Right Lessons

The eightieth anniversary of the Beveridge inquiry is a timely moment to consider how the landmark report is used within contemporary UK politics. Calls for a ‘new Beveridge’ reflect a desire for a rupture with the past and the creation of a radical new welfare consensus. But this reflects a misunderstanding: Beveridge's approach was organic in nature, building on decades of experimentation, politically contested rather than consensual, and intellectually pluralist rather than moored to a single ideological worldview. The real insight Beveridge offers us today flows not from his substantive agenda—which was rooted in a particular set of historic circumstances—but as an approach to securing social reform. Successful welfare advances over the last generation have drawn on these ‘Beveridgean instincts’. Rather than calling for a new twenty-first century blueprint to be handed down from above, reformers should build on experimentation and successful incremental change, from within the UK and abroad.     

Fiscal Consolidation and Australia's Public Debt

Australia has experienced one of the fastest growing public debt levels in the world post‐Global Financial Crisis due to a series of large federal budget deficits driven by high government spending. In this paper we examine the balance sheet implications of this escalating public debt, before proposing some macro‐fiscal objectives for determining its sustainable level. These objectives are to (i) restore the federal government's solvency; (ii) eliminate foreign public debt; and (iii) achieve budgetary balance over the business cycle. Empirically, we first examine how much fiscal consolidation is required for debt stabilisation at current levels, before considering what sized budget balances are needed to achieve the target debt to GDP ratios consistent with the proposed objectives. The results show that no target debt to GDP level consistent with the optimal levels will be met on current fiscal settings in the medium term. This implies significantly greater fiscal consolidation is required to minimise future fiscal risk.     

Promoting the Information Society: The EU Directive on Electronic Commerce

On 8 June 2000, the EU adopted the landmark 'electronic commerce' directive, a legal framework for the development of information society services. This article examines the rationale and evolution of EU policy for e-commerce and the key features of the directive. These include establishing the responsibilities of service and intermediary service providers, procedures for concluding on-line contracts and redress and enforcement mechanisms. It also explores the extent to which the directive clarifies the national law applicable to cross-frontier transactions and the relationship between the directive and private international law. The directive makes an important contribution to encouraging trust in the new technologies by establishing an EU-wide model for e-commerce, but it is by no means clear that it goes far enough. The continuing divergence of consumer protection policies and uncertainties about jurisdiction, securing redress, the liabilities of service providers and the status of contracts based upon web-site advertisements may continue to discourage the development of e-commerce in the Community.     

Feature reviews

Portraits of Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro: Nothing Can Stop the Course of History. Edited by Jeffrey M Elliott and Mervyn M Dymally. New York: Pathfinder Press. 1986. 258pp. £5.75pb

Fidel and Religion: Castro Talks on Revolution and Religion with Frei Betto. Frei Betto. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1987. 314pp. $19.95hb

Fidel: A Critical Portrait. Tad Szulc. London: Century Hutchinson. 1987. 585pp. £14.95hb. New York: William Morrow. 1986. 703pp. $19.95hb

Castro. Peter Bourne. London: Macmillan. 1986. 332pp. £14.95hb

Kwame Nkrumah and African liberation

The Closest of Enemies: A Personal and Diplomatic History of the Castro Years. Wayne S Smith. New York: W W Norton. 1987. 308pp. $19.95hb

The Rise and Fall of Kwame Nkrumah: A Study of Personal Rule in Africa. Henry L Bretton. London: Pall Mall Press. 1967. 232pp. n/p

Black Star: A View of the Life and Times of Kwame Nkrumah. Basil Davidson. London: Allen Lane. 1973. 225pp. n/p

Ghana's First Republic 1960–1966. Trevor Jones. London: Methuen. 1976. 366pp. £3.95pb

The likelihood of coups.

The Likelihood of Coups. Rosemary H T O'Kane. Aldershot, England: Avebury. 1987. 162pp. £18.50hb

The Iran‐Contra Affair

The Iran‐Contra Connection: Secret Teams and Covert Operations in the Reagan Era. Jonathan Marshall, Peter Dale Scott and Jane Hunter. Boston, Massachusetts: South End Press. 1987. 313pp. $11.00pb

The Tower Commission Report: The Full Text of the President's Special Review Board. John Tower, Edmund Muskie and Brent Scowcroft. New York: Bantam Books and Times Books (distributed in the UK by. Transworld). 1987. 550pp. £4.95pb

Perspectives on terrorism

Terrorism, Ideology and Revolution: The Origins of Modern Political Violence. Edited by Noel O'Sullivan. Brighton, England: Harvester. 1986. 224pp. n/p

Terrorism and the Liberal State. Paul Wilkinson. London: Macmillan Educational. 1986. 322pp. £20.00hb/£7.95pb

Terrorism: How the West Can Win. Edited by Benjamin Netanyahu. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson. 1986. 239pp. £14.95hb

Terrorism and International Order. Lawrence Freedman, Christopher Hill, Adam Roberts, RJ Vincent, Paul Wilkinson and Philip Windsor. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul for Royal Institute for International Affairs. 1986. 111pp. £5.95pb

Holy Terror: The Inside Story of Islamic Terrorism. Amir Taheri. London: Century Hutchinson. 1987. 301pp. £12.95hb

Invisible Annies: Terrorism into the 1990s. Stephan Segaller. London: Michael Joseph. 1986. 311pp. £15.95hb

Food, famine and future prospects for Africa

World Hunger: Twelve Myths. Frances Moore Lappé and J Collins. New York: Grove Press for Food First. 1986. 208pp. $7.95pb

World Recession and the Food Crisis in Africa. Edited by Peter Lawrence. London: James Currey/African Review of Political Economy. 1986. 314pp. £25.00hb/£9.95pb

Food in Sub‐Saharan Africa. Edited by Art Hansen and Delia E McMillan London: Frances Pinter. 1986. 410pp. £30.00hb

Drought and Aid in the Sahel: A Decade of Development Cooperation. Carolyn M Somerville. Boulder, Colorado: Westview. 1986. 306pp. n/p

Rural Vulnerability to Famine in Ethiopia, 1958–77. Mesfin Wolde Mariam. London: Intermediate Technology Publications. 1986. 191pp. £7.95pb

The Ethiopian Famine. Kurt Jansson, Michael Harris and Angela Penrose London: Zed. 1987. 196pp. £25.95hb/£6.95pb

South African history

South Africa: A Modern History. T R H Davenport. London: Macmillan. 1987 (third edition). 692pp. £45.00hb/£16.95pb.

History of Southern Africa. J D Omer‐Cooper. London: James Currey. 1987. 298pp. £25.00hb/£9.95pb

Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa: Politics and Popular Movements in the Transkei and Eastern Cape 1890–1930. William Beinart and Colin Bundy. London: James Currey. 1987. 326pp. £25.00hb/£9.95pb

Rural Transformations in Industrialising South Africa: The Southern Highveld to 1914. Timothy J Keegan. London: Macmillan. 1987. 302pp. £29.50hb

Our common environmental future

Environment and Development. Peter Bartelmus. London: Allen and Unwin, 1986. 96pp. £5.95pb

Our Common Future. The World Commission on Environment and Development Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1987. 383pp. £5.95pb

Learning from China? Development and Environment in Third World Countries. Edited by Bernhard Glaeser. London: Allen and Unwin. 1987. 282pp. £30.00hb