Contrasts in Development in Bihar: A Tale of Two Villages

Abstract

The article investigates the economic and social changes that have occurred over the last 30 years in two villages in Bihar, one of the poorest states in India. The two villages are on different development paths: one based on agricultural diversification and local non-agricultural employment, the other dependent on migration to distant labour markets. They therefore connect with India’s overall growth in different ways. Neither development model delivers clearly superior outcomes in terms of incomes, nor are they exhausted, but the long-term sustainability of a migration-led model remains debatable.     

A Tale of Two Kazakhstans: Sources of Political Cleavage and Conflict in the Post-Soviet Period

Departing from some prominent scholarship on Kazakhstani politics, the author argues that competition between financial–industrial groups over scarce economic and political resources—rather than inter-clan or centre–periphery rivalries—largely determines who gets what, when and how. While clan politics and regional grievances may still influence struggles over the distribution of power and wealth, their importance has diminished in recent years. Instead, observable political conflict has centred around competing financial–industrial groups, which represent the diverse, and at times clashing, interests of Kazakhstan's business and political elites.     

"共产党要接受监督"与党的执政方式的转变

“共产党要接受监督”是党的八大提出和邓小平特别强调的一个重要思想,是对权力监督理论的一项重大发展,同时也是对共产党执政方式转变提出的根本要求。当前最主要的,是要正确处理党的领导与党要接受监督的关系,“党”与“民”的关系,“不搞群众运动”与群众监督的关系,“党的喉舌”与舆论监督的关系等。     

印共(马)在西孟加拉邦的执政实践

印共(马)在印度东部重镇西孟加拉邦三十多年的执政实践领导该邦走出了一条独具地方特色的发展道路,在农业和农村发展、地方工业化、社会和谐与稳定、民权保护等方面取得了明显成效.其地方执政也面临着诸多现实问题的挑战:工业化进程正遭受阻力,印共(马)坚持改革取向与保持其多元支持基础之间具有相悖性,左翼阵线内部存在分歧,应对反左势力的挑战.     

The State and the Internet: A Call for Collective Responsibility

The other great transformation in the world besides the rising power of the emerging economies has been the ever deeper penetration of the Internet in civil society and the economy. Alone among world leaders, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has sought to address the sticky issue of how to “civilize the Internet” in the G‐8, a key forum of global governance which France chairs this year. As a kind of historical document, in this section we publish Sarkozy's speech to the leading information technologists and entrepreneurs he gathered in Paris in May for the first “e‐G‐8” Summit. Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, was among the attendees. We include his report to the 21st Century Council of the Nicolas Berggruen Institute.     

The Responsibility to Responsibilize: Foreign Offices and the Issuing of Travel Warnings

What are the connections between personal risk-management and governmental responsibility toward citizens? This paper argues that governments in neoliberal societies increasingly acknowledge a responsibility to help citizens make "informed choices" in order to reduce or avoid risk. A key feature within this framework is the issuing of official governmental advice to the citizens. But such advice does not merely carry information that citizens are free to accept or decline. Rather, it also consists of a conscious effort on part of governments to construct individuals as calculating, prudent, and rational persons that know how to manage risk (to "responsibilize" them). Below I examine the practice of governmental advice as an effort of responsibilization in the case of travel warnings issued by foreign offices to international travelers.     

Reshaping Public Administration: The Spanish Experience Compared to the UK

This paper analyses the nature and extent of the policies of modernizing Spanish public administration. Successive Spanish governments have been involved in modernizing public administration with the stress on customer focus, improving service delivery and implementing quality awards, service charts and information technologies.
As a basis for assessing the reforms, we compare Spanish New Public Management (NPM) developments with the initiatives undertaken in the UK. The paper evaluates the usage of NPM concepts in the Spanish and UK experiences and cultural differences based on public and common law traditions respectively, locating these reforms in a comparative context. We focus on why similar concepts and initiatives could provide such different results in each country and how the cultural and institutional features produce differences in the way that NPM postulates are defined, implemented, monitored and evaluated. The answer is probably rooted in the context in which the initiatives have been developing.     

The Changing Nature of Rationing in the UK National Health Service

This paper presents findings from empirical research exploring recent developments in healthcare rationing in the UK, and how far these were influenced by the National Health Service (NHS) internal market. Results suggest explicit rationing has continued to spread, but the focus has shifted from exclusions of whole treatments from NHS provision towards a reconciliation of implicit and explicit approaches. There is growing interest in explicit criteria to guide decision making, within which clinicians exercise discretion in indi-vidual cases. The market contributed to the growth in explicit rationing, notably by decoupling healthcare purchasers (health authorities and GP fundholders) and providers (hospital and community health services) from their previously shared responsibility to manage resources. However, other factors have been influential, especially concern to control rising expenditure. Having originally prompted more explicit decisions (especially exclusions), resource pressures are now rekindling interest in fixed provider budgets and implicit clinical decision making. The paper concludes by considering the implications for rationing of proposals to abolish the NHS internal market.