TWO BOOKS ON FEDERALISM1

COMMUNISM AS A WAY OF LIFE
MAX BELOFF
Nuffield College, Oxford
LOCKE'S ATLANTIS ernesto de marchi
St. Antony's College, Oxford     

Shifting Dimensions of Citizen Control1

European politics is still dominated by representative and parliamentary national systems of policy making. These systems can be seen as chains of political delegation from citizens through parliamentarians and executive office holders to civil servants. In these chains, a major trend for the past thirty years, and more strongly during the second half of that period, is a strengthening of agents' accountability to the principals. But, simultaneously, citizens' ability to exercise accountability through parliamentary democracy is eroding because of a decline in political party cohesion. Concurrently, constraints external to both the constitutional chain and political parties are growing stronger.
The changes along these three dimensions lead to a situation in which democratic principals commonly decide more about less. Thus, while reforms have strengthened the constitutional parliamentary chain of governance, there is also an ongoing de-parliamentarisation of modern politics. The main motivation for this special issue is to investigate this general phenomenon through a set of focused case studies of the Nordic (here known as 'Scandinavian') countries. These analyses show important differences in how these trends have been manifest. In one country, Finland, the parliamentary chain has actually grown in strength and importance in the last decade.     

THE REGIONALISM ALTERNATIVE IN RURAL AREAS1

This study suggests that rural reigonal councils have greater support among public officials for continuing current program activities and services than their urban counterparts. It also suggests, however, that rural regionalism may have a better chance of survival in states where regional councils have a long history of service to local governments, especially in light of present federal cutbacks. Study results contrast Georgia and Michigan regional councils.     

Rational Choice and Community Power Structures1

The community power debate concluded with each side believing they had won. Political theorists have generalized power, making empirical investigation very difficult; urban scholars have turned their attention to more manageable empirical problems. Rational choice advances the debate, exposing the errors of all sides and facilitating a new approach which transcends structural versus individualist methods. By separating various aspects of power in urban contexts, complementary techniques such as network analysis in a bargaining framework, semi-structured interviewing and the use of text databases permits a comprehensive investigation of agenda-setting and the mobilization of bias. The paper demonstrates the utility of this approach by comparing it to 'regime theory', the latest paradigm of urban research.     

THE CHANGING NATURE OF RURAL AMERICA1

Rural regions are changing, both in terms of economic dispersal and population patterns. Rural growth is attributed to technological innovation, improving capacity to deal with impending problems as well as improving quality of life, and intercommunity linkage. For some communities, this means the prospects of indigenous economic development.