Cable television refranchising studies: an important role for citizen surveys

Approximately 1,700 communities granted cable television (CA franchises in the decade of the 1970s; more than 4,000 have done so in the 1980s. As original franchise terms expire, the question of refranchising becomes an increasingly salient issue in communities: across the country. Although specialized consultants are often hired to analyze technological, financial, and legal aspects of CATV operations, consumer input may nof be assessed as comprehensively or as systematically. In this article, adaptations of the citizen survey methodology that make it applicable to a CATV inquiry are addressed The product of those adaptations is offered as one vehicle for tapping CATV consumer experience and perceptions that can be an important component in refranchising deliberations.     

Problems in evaluating economic development politics : an urban perspective

The central concern in this paper is with the way we think about economic development at the local level. I turn first to a look at the local context of economic development policymaking, then to the strategy derived from this context and the resultant “politics of growth”. Finally, I focus on the need for a theoretically grounded model to evalate the economic development efforts of local public officials. Mayors and scholars alike must begin the task of building such a model by first recognizing the importance of conducting their work within a theoretical framework which places the city within the larger political, social, and economic context which defines it. The central reality of that wider context, I argue, is that the business community dominates economic development politics: businessmen Issue commands (as a condition of investing in the local economy) and politicians offer inducements (in competition with other politicians for that investment).     

Administrative development issues in china's economic reform: an introduction

This introduction article provides the background information about the present symposium and the summary of the articles addressed in the symposium. On the background information, the article reviewed the process of economic reform and key measures of administrative reforms. On the symposium summary, the article explained issues and conclusions of the following articles: administrative decentralization and state-society relations, the role of government in economic development, ethical codes in China's civil service, transportation infrastructure and regional economic development, characteristics of recent financial reforms, and privatization of urban housing provision.     

现代传媒是政党生存和发展的重要条件

现代传媒体现了社会信息化的程度,是社会信息化的重要标志之一.作为人们社会生产生活中无所不在的一种重要力量,现代传媒在社会进步和全球化中的作用越来越突出,已成为人类生存发展必不可少的条件.对各国政党,特别是对执政党而言,如何处理好自己与现代传媒之间的关系,如何发挥其作用,日显重要.     

An exploratory analysis of governance dynamics,institutional reforms and development: a comparative study of India and Bangladesh

Governance has become a prominent issue over the last three decades or so in the intellectual and practical domains of public administration. Significant debates have proliferated about the significance, domains and types of governance and their implications for democracy and development, particularly in developing countries. Amidst the debates on the relationship between governance and development, political settlements analysis has become quite prominent that focuses on the implications of political settlement for reforming and enforcing institutions leading towards negative/positive economic development. This article aims to examine how the interlocked relationships among the members of the dominant power coalition in the governing system help reform the institutions, distribute privileges, maintain stability and affect economic development with particular reference to India and Bangladesh.     

Using and abusing the concept of the Third World: geopolitics and the comparative political study of development and underdevelopment

This article argues that, while the notion of a ‘Third World’ retains relevance and usefulness in the context of geopolitical analysis, generalisations about Third World politics are no longer helpful or justifiable. It begins by reviewing the historic rationales for the notion of the Third World together with criticisms made of these arguments. It then considers reasons why the term may retain some value at a geopolitical level: in signalling a major axis of inequality, providing a symbolic basis for collective action and, possibly, as an alternative to less attractive perspectives. The article then turns more specifically to the field of comparative politics, suggesting that in the past the notion of a Third World could be justified pragmatically as a response to the insularity of Western political science and because there was, up to a point, a common paradigm of Third World politics. Such justifications have been undermined by the growth in specialist knowledge of individual Third World countries or regions together with increasing differentiation among them.     

The changing roles of free economic zones in development: A comparative analysis of capitalist and socialist cases in East Asia

Free economic zones (FEZs) play important roles in industrialization and economic development of both capitalist and socialist countries in various regions of the world, and thus have become a major subject of study in the development literature. Theoretical debate and empirical analysis have focused narrowly on the positive and negative economic effects of export processing zones (EPZs) in capitalist Third World countries, without giving sufficient consideration to why, when, and how different types of FEZs in both capitalist and socialist economies adapt their roles in achieving development objectives under changing international and domestic conditions. In this article, I systematically compare the dynamic development roles of three FEZs in two different systems—the state capitalist economies of Taiwan and South Korea and the reforming socialist economy of China—during 1966–1990. The comparative findings are interpreted from competing and complementary perspectives of major development theories. Finally, I use the comparative evidence to refine a lifecycle model of the evolution and prospect of EPZs in capitalist newly industrializing countries, and suggest an alternative scenario for FEZs in socialist economies. Xiangming Chen is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, affiliated with the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago, and a research fellow at the IC² Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. His current research focuses on the interface between urban and economic development from a comparative perspective, with a central focus on China. He has recently published several papers on urbanization, urban housing reform, commodity chains, and regional development in China in a number of social science journals and edited books.     

FIM: A Business Information System for Intelligence

Three to Read and Keep

S. Steven Powell: Covert Cadre: Inside The Institute for Policy Studies Green Hill Publishers, Ottawa, Ill., 1987, 469 p., $29.95.

James Adams: Secret Armies: Inside the American, Soviet and European Special Forces Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 1987,440 p., $19.95.

Steven Emerson: Secret Warriors: Inside the Covert Military Operations of the Reagan Era G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1988, 256 p., $17.95.

Dangerous Dossiers

Herbert Mitgang: Dangerous Dossiers: Exposing the Secret War Against America's Greatest Authors Donald I. Fine, New York, 1988, 331 p., $18.95.

Crossing Paths in Belgium

Paul Thomas: Le KGB en Belgique Editions J. M. Collet, Brussels, 1987, 207 p., PB.     

The most important question

Terrorism and the Liberal State, by Paul Wilkinson. London: Macmil‐lan, 1977, and New York: New York University Press, 1979.

The Weapons of Terror, by Christopher Dobson and Ronald Payne. London: Macmillan, 1979.     

Culture in the post-2015 development agenda: the anatomy of an international mobilisation

Throughout 2012–15 several actors were advocating that culture be explicitly integrated within the post-2015 UN development agenda. My article offers an anatomy of the recent international mobilisation in order to understand the cleavages and the contrasting visions. In doing so, it seeks to analyse the policy process through which the agenda is made, why and how a critical mass of actors is attempting to embrace the inclusion of culture in the post-2015 agenda and the political reactions vis-à-vis this mobilisation. The article argues, on the one hand, that the promotion of culture in the post-2015 agenda is largely based on UNESCO’s will to advance its policy agenda and enhance its position within the UN system and, on the other hand, that this mobilisation lacks political support from the most influential governments; therefore its chances of success are more than contingent.     

Rhetoric in municipal amalgamations: a comparative analysis

ABSTRACT

There is a large literature that seeks to evaluate municipal amalgamations ex post, but a relative dearth of scholarly inquiry into the practical political task of persuading the public to accept amalgamations ex ante. We address this important gap in the literature by conducting a rhetorical analysis to ascertain what types of arguments are believed to be efficacious for persuasion on amalgamation. We find evidence to suggest belief in the efficacy of persuading the public through recourse to various projected dreadful consequences, particularly amongst opponents of amalgamation. We conclude by considering some of the reasons behind the observed rhetorics and briefly outline one possible solution.     

Classical Marxism and Maoism: A comparative study

The issue of the Marxist character of “Mao Zedong Thought” has never really been resolved. The present work is a comparative analysis of the classical Marxism of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and the ideology of Mao Zedong. The argument is made that whatever Marxism there was in Maoism was the “creatively developed Marxism” of V. I. Lenin—which allowed for socialist revolution in retrograde economic circumstances—something that had been specifically rejected by Marx and Engels. That led to the theoretical idiosyncrasies that characterized Maoism throughout its history, and ultimately resulted in the form rejected by Deng Xiaoping and post-Maoist China.     

The African Political Business Cycle: Varieties of Experience

We seek to understand both the incidence and the impact of the African political business cycle in the light of a literature which has argued that, with major extensions of democracy since the 1990s, the cycle has both become more intense and has made African political systems more fragile. With the help of country case studies, we argue, first, that the African political business cycle is not homogeneous, and occurs relatively infrequently in so-called ‘dominant-party systems’ where a pre-election stimulus confers little political advantage. Secondly, we show that, in those countries where a political cycle does occur, it does not necessarily cause institutional damage. Whether it does or not depends not so much on whether there is an electoral cycle as on whether this cycle calms or exacerbates fears of an unjust allocation of resources. In other words, the composition of the pre-election stimulus, in terms of its allocation between different categories of voter, is as important as its size.