The place of corporate ownership and management in local government anti‐poverty strategy in Britain

Since devolution in 1999, the Welsh Government has developed a distinctive approach to the management of local government policy. Alongside an emphasis on welfarism and partnership, local authorities have been exhorted to put the citizen at the centre of public service delivery. Drawing on the notion of assemblage, developed in the governmentality literature, this paper identifies two different rationalities running through Welsh Government policy documents. On the basis of a series of interviews with government officials and their counterparts in the Welsh Local Government Association we find evidence of important tensions in the Welsh approach. While the emphasis on the citizen has worked in building a ‘political rationality’, the evidence from our interviews suggests that it works less well as a ‘government technology’.     

The Role of Power in EU–Russia Energy Relations: The Interplay between Markets and Geopolitics

Abstract

Energy trade is an essential factor in EU–Russia relations. This essay argues that Russia and the European Union have deployed two types of power in their post-Cold War energy relationship. Russia has predominantly exerted geopolitical power through the sale of its vast energy resources and selected strategies to channel them to partners. With a large market but lacking fossil fuels, the EU attempted to achieve its aims mostly through regulatory power. However, both the Russian and the EU external energy policy strategies have recently become more nuanced. This evolution in their approaches has resulted in Russia’s gradual acceptance of the regulatory and market principles promoted by the EU.     

The local agenda 21 issue commission in bath and North‐East Somerset: Review of a community consultation exercise towards sustainability

Local authorities in the UK have come under renewed pressure from central government both to adopt Local Agenda 21 and to advance participative democracy. In late 1996/early 1997, the (then) new unitary authority of Bath and North‐East Somerset Council set up a Local Agenda 21 Issue Commission to review its ‘sustainability’ performance and policy development practice with the direct involvement of the community. The way in which the commission was conceived and conducted resulted in difficulties in identifying and carrying out its task. Nonetheless, it kick‐started significant steps towards LA 21 within the council, and provided valuable insights into LA 21 implementation, and the nature of meaningful consultation.     

The Europeanization of social movements in the Czech Republic: The EU and local women’s groups

The goal of this paper is to analyze the impact the EU has had on Czech women’s groups since the 1990s. Drawing on both Europeanization and social movement theories, the first section defines the theoretical framework of the paper. The second section is focused on the impact of changes in the funding of women’s groups which, since the end of the 1990s, have relied more than before on European funding. The third section analyzes the shift in the political context and the domestic political opportunity structure in the Czech Republic that has occurred in connection with the accession process. The fourth section analyzes transnational cooperation for which new opportunities have appeared with the EU’s eastward expansion. The paper concludes by summarizing its main findings.     

Aspects of local government and politics in china: 1955–58

This study, based on work in six villages, seeks insights into the likely effect of the introduction of prospective land‐, water‐, and crop‐management technologies, being researched at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi‐Arid Tropics, on the existing village labour‐use patterns in one major relevant region: peninsular India. Explicit attention is given to the similarities and differences between small and large farms and their relevance to the adoption of the prospective new technologies.

Regional variation in labour utilisation reveals a tremendous employment‐creating potential in the existing tank and well irrigation systems in the Alfisols of peninsular India. The prospective technologies should increase employment, compared with existing technologies, by at least 100 per cent in the Alfisols and by over 300per cent in the deep Vertisols— but with some increase in the seasonal variability of labour demand. Given the existing availability of labour, there will be, with the improved watershed technologies, major farm labour bottlenecks. These should eventually generate increased wage rates and employment potentials. However, even temporary adverse effects on the timelessness of operations could be critical to the success of a double‐cropping and/or intercropping technology aiming at greatly increased yields. This would create demands for selective mechanisation, for example, of threshing.     

From peasant community to production co‐operative: An analysis of recent government policy in Peru

Discussions concerning rural development in Peru since the military coup of 1968 have focused mainly on the large‐scale land reform programme under which the coastal estates and many of the livestock and agricultural haciendas in the highlands have been expropriated [Petras and Rimensnyder, 1970, Quijano, 1971, and Hobsbawm, 1971]. This has tended to deflect interest from other important aspects of rural development policy. It would be wrong to assume that, prior to the latest reforms, the Peruvian scene consisted almost entirely of latifundia agriculture, for a substantial proportion of the productive agricultural land in both the highlands and coastal valleys was, and remains, in the control of smallholder farmers, or is held under communal ownership by peasant communities. In an attempt to incorporate these non‐hacienda zones into the plan for national development [Plan del Peru: 1971–1975], the government is encouraging the expansion of smallholder commercial production, the establishment of new, or the improvement of existing, marketing and servicing co‐operatives, and is promoting a re‐organisation of peasant communities with the long‐term objective of transforming them into modern production or multipurpose co‐operatives. This paper outlines recent legislation aimed at reforming these peasant communities and examines the social consequences of the new policy, particularly as it affects smallholder regions. We address ourselves mainly to two problems: Firstly, we wish to assess the effectiveness of the policy in transferring the benefits of community resources to the poorer strata of the rural population, a central aim of the reforms; and secondly, we want to isolate the factors which inhibit the emergence of viable modes of co‐operative organisation and which limit the role that community institutions can play in promoting local development. It is necessary in a paper of this length to confine ourselves mainly to an analysis of the situation in one district of the Mantaro Valley of Central Peru—that of Matahuasi—for which we have detailed data; although many of our conclusions, we believe, raise problems of general significance for interpreting the types of development strategies and priorities favoured by the present government.     

The Role of Competition in Best Value: How Far Does it Differ from CCT?

This article investigates the role of ‘competition’ within Best Value (BV) and compares it with that of Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT). Utilising results of a survey of BV lead officers, the article reveals that ‘competition’ is not being used as widely as may have been expected. However, in terms of outcomes, services subject to BV seem to be at least as likely to be provided externally as would have been the case under CCT. Further analysis also considers the impact that party political control and service type have on the use and outcomes of competition.