Diversity on Campus: A Reassessment of Current Strategies1

The underrepresentation of minorities in higher education evokes a widely shared sense of urgency among educational policymakers. Allan Oster, president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, has described the persistent gap between minority and white participation rates as "[o]ne of the most pressing issues facing higher education today" (American Council on Education, 1988b, p. iv). Eliminating the gap and overcoming the other educational inequalities faced by minorities "is not an option, but a necessity; and the need is not eventual, it is immediate" (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1990, p. 14). Failure to take timely and decisive action not only threatens the moral and intellectual integrity of higher education as a whole, but our nation's economic well-being (American Council on Education, 1988b, p. 1). As officials at Smith College so eloquently said, "[i]t is no exaggeration to say that the future of the nation and the future of higher education depend on the ability of the educational establishment to become more inclusive" (Smith College, 1989, preamble).     

INFORMING WILDERNESS POLICY: THE DISTRIBUTIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF WILDERNESS CONSERVATION1

Abstract: Over the last two decades wilderness conservation has resurfaced to become one of the most contentious issues currently on the public agenda. The "politics" of wilderness preservation has been extensively reported in the media, but academic analysis has been on a superficial level and usually by the supporters of "conservation". This analysis has not proved particularly helpful for policy practitioners in this field.     

THE POLITICS OF MICROECONOMIC REFORM: STRUCTURING A GENERAL MODEL1

Abstract: This paper examines the current endeavours to render the Australian economy more economically efficient. While the case for microeconomic reform is clear in economic theory, Australian public policy analysts are less sanguine about the possibilities for its long-term success. This paper seeks to develop the parameters of a simple general model to explain both why microeconomic reform proposals are dominant today on the Australian policy agenda and, more importantly, what the conditions are for their success or failure. This general model provides a framework that will allow further elaboration in case studies of particular episodes of microeconomic reform.
The paper concludes pessimistically; micro-economic reform has been subsumed into the normal political agenda contests of Australian party politics. The pressures of such "politics" inclines Australian reforming towards incrementalism, rather than the Simon-style rationalism implicit from micro-economics. This mode of policy implementation will inhibit microeconomic reform in the longer term.     

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     

Accountability in World Politics1

World politics has never been a democratic realm. Now, with interdependence and globalization prompting demands for global governance, the lack of global democracy has become an important public issue. Yet the domestic analogy is unhelpful since the conditions for electoral democracy, much less participatory democracy, do not exist on a global level. Rather than abandoning democratic principles, we should rethink our ambitions. First, we should emphasize, in our normative as well as our positive work, the role played by information in facilitating international cooperation and democratic discourse. Second, we should define feasible objectives such as limiting potential abuses of power, rather than aspiring to participatory democracy and then despairing of its impossibility. Third, we should focus as much on the powerful entities that are the core of the problem, including multinational firms and states, as on multilateral organizations, which often are the focus of criticism. Finally, we need to think about how to design a pluralistic accountability system for world politics that relies on a variety of types of accountability: supervisory, fiscal, legal, market, peer and reputational. A challenge for contemporary political science is to design such a system, which could promote both democratic values and effective international cooperation.     

Sammelbesprechung: Gerechte Eugenik oder das Ende aller Moral? Zu Jürgen Habermas: Die Zukunft der menschlichen Natur. Auf dem Weg zu einer liberalen Eugenik?; Allen Buchanan/Dan W. Brock/Norman Daniels/Daniel Wikler: From Chance to Choice. Genetics & Justice

Ohne Zusammenfassung