Rethinking political development: A look backward over thirty years,and a look ahead

The article analyzes the rise of the political development approach in comparative politics and the reasons for it. It traces the history of the political development literature and its emergence as the dominant paradigm in the field. It then presents and assesses the critiques, that have been levelled against political development. It also assesses the various alternative approaches that came to supplant political development. The article next presents the factors that have led to a renaissance in political development. It concludes by suggesting that while the political development approach was based on some erroneous assumptions in the short term, from a longer-term perspective that approach looks considerably better. Howard J. Wiarda is Professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst; associate of the Center for International Affairs. Harvard University; adjunct scholar of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research; and associate of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. This article is based on a paper presented at the Fourteenth World Congress of the International Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., August 28–September 1, 1988. A somewhat revised version of this article was presented at the Conference on “Comparative Politics: Research Perspectives for the Next Twenty Years,” sponsored byComparative Politics and the Ph.D. Program of the City University of New York, September 7–9, 1988. It will also be published under the title “Concepts and Models in Comparative Politics: Political Development Reconsidered-and Its Alternatives” in Kenneth Paul Erickson and Dankwart Rustow (eds.),Comparative Political Dynamics: Research Perspectives for the Turn of the Century (New York: Harper and Row, 1990).     

The transformation of the operating mechanisms in Chinese agriculture

At the end of 1978, the economic reform in agriculture in the People's Republic of China began. As the sector at that time involved 80 per cent of the population and provided more than one‐third of net national income, the changes had a strong impact on the development of China as a whole. This article will, first, give an overview of the operating mechanisms in agriculture prior to the reform. Second, the effects of the reform in agriculture on production, resource allocation and income distribution will be briefly discussed. Third, present problems which substantially impair the further development of agriculture will be examined and finally possible countermeasures will also be referred to.     

Farm size and land productivity in Indian agriculture: A reappraisal

This paper seeks to assess the significance of the celebrated inverse relationship between farm size and land‐productivity in the context of Indian agriculture. It is argued that the inverse relationship does not reflect a superiority of peasant production over wage‐labour‐based production as is often supposed. It exists independently of production relations and thus reflects only a static superiority of small‐scale over large‐scale production. An essential precondition for this superiority, however, is a backwardness of technology. With technological progress involving the introduction of chemical fertilizers, labour‐saving machinery and modern irrigation equipment, the inverse relationship is, therefore, likely to disappear     

O& M : A new look at one of the older professions

Any evaluation of O&M should be based on the constraints of its “real world” problem-solving environment, as well as the character of techniques of data collection and project analysis. The demands of several conflicting roles, time pressures, and internal and external conflicts all influence, even bias, the problem-solving process. Traditional scientific management methods and techniques of social science research are used, but both have serious problems either of logic or of applicability to OU's needs. Given the circumstances and problems, O&M analysts can only “satisfice”, relying heavily on informed insight based on the best available methods. Recognizing that O&M is not research or scientific, improvement must come by concern for selecting techniques better suited to Om's needs, better project planning, and more flexible study execution.     

细看美国人口变迁

今年10月17日,美国人口普查局宣布,美国东部时间当日上午7点46分,美国的第三亿个人诞生了,其人口增长速度令世人瞩目.     

俄罗斯军队『新式武器』扫描

不久前,俄总统普京在首都莫斯科召开的年度新闻发布会上称,俄拥有可击穿任何防御体系的导弹,这种神秘的导弹就是普京总统2002年下令研制的"最新式武器".据称,2010年前俄军将研制成功并部署这些"新式武器".     

Privatization morphs into 'publicization': businesses look a lot like government

Private companies become like public agencies because competition for contracts is keen and they must be perceived by the contacting agent, government, as being agreeable with the government's demands in order to be contracted with again. Government makes suggestions, sets requirements, and provides recommendations to private companies which, over time, cause the private companies/facilities to look more and more like government agencies – and company managers are left pressed between their need to re-contract and the business instincts and acumen for which they've presumably been contracted with in the first place.
This paper will briefly visit the common arguments for and against privatization. Additionally, the results of a limited study of the effect of publicization on private prison companies operating nationally in the US will be examined.     

Regional growth linkages from agriculture

Pioneering research on downstream linkages from agriculture is said to demonstrate that consumption links rather than production links are the main source of indrect growth effects, that these consumption links take the form of labour‐intensive goods and services produced locally, and that the largest farm enterprises are most locally multiplicative of activities mopping up surplus rural labour. This article has two purposes. First, the methodologies, assumptions and data base for the quantification of the local and non‐local regional multiplier effects from agricultural development are examined. Second, the contradictory interpretations for agricultural policy which have arisen from these exercises of quantification are discussed and an attempt made to explain their bases.     

Work participation,gender and economic development: A quantitative anatomy of the Indian scenario

This article analyses forces which influence the degree of participation of population in economic activity in a developing economy. In the first stage the relationship between economic development and work participation is examined. The core of the analysis is based on a cross‐sectional study of 306 districts of India, using a composite index of development. The entire analysis is conducted separately for males and females on the one hand, and the rural and urban segments on the other. The oft‐referred‐to inverse relationship between female work participation and economic development emerges to be true in initial stages of development in the rural segment, but not so in the case of the urban segment. In the second stage the role of key socioeconomic and demographic factors, in addition to that of development, has been investigated using a recursive multi‐equation regression model. Finally, keeping in mind the crucial role of education in this context, work participation is analysed in terms of ten disaggregated educational categories.