Comptes Rendus Book Reviews

This article follows the efforts of white settlers to impose cotton as an export crop in Natal and Zululand. Touted as a commodity capable of remaking land and life in the region in the 1850s, the 1860s, and again in the 1910s and 1920s, cotton never achieved more than marginal status in the region's agricultural economy. Its story is one of historical amnesia: although faith in the region's cotton prospects dipped following each spectacular failure, it was routinely resurrected once previous failures had been accounted for, or memories of them had faded.

Two crucial issues are at the centre of this episodic history. First, I explore the logistics of planned expansion, and the reasons for the repeated collapse of cotton-growing schemes. Second, I unravel the side effects of these difficult and disappointing efforts and argue that, despite repeated failure, cotton facilitated important structural changes to the region's agricultural, political and economic landscape.     

Governed interdependence: Rethinking the government‐business relationship in East Asia

Analyses of East Asia's high‐performance economies have highlighted the advantages of a coordinated approach to market failures. With states dominating the process, both public and private agencies are increasingly involved. The recent literature sees public‐private cooperation as a limit to state capacity and thus a challenge to statism. Within an institutionalist framework, this paper proposes a fresh view of the government‐business relationship which avoids the statist premise of domination, but without relying on ‘weak state’ arguments. Through an examination of key organizational features of state and industry in Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, the paper proposes a theory of ‘governed interdependence’ in which both state and capital are taken seriously; where both strong state and strong industry go hand‐in‐hand; and where the capacities of both are mutually enhanced. The article identifies four principal types of government‐industry cooperation in the East Asian experience — some apparently ‘state‐led’, others apparently ‘business‐led’ — all of which can be accommodated by the theory.     

Developmental states in transition: adapting,dismantling, innovating,not ‘normalizing’

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increasingly vigorous debate by a wide range of participants over the past, present and future of Japanese security and the national defence policy. Ever since the end of the Cold War, international relations theorists have cast their gaze to Japan, and have been given to re-examining ‘comprehensive security’ with a particular eye for the meaning of ‘security’. The 1990s were a particularly interesting time for this scholarly revisionism, while events of September 2001 have cast an entirely different spectre on the nature and expectations of Japanese security, both domestically and internationally. This article is particularly concerned with the developments in the 1990s as scholars sought to reassert the ‘defence’ component of the comprehensive security policy hitherto pursued by Japan. This re-examination has elevated former Japanese Defence Agency (JDA) bureaucrat Kubo Takuya as the key architect in crafting Japan's security policy. Tsuyoshi Kawasaki's contributions to the debate are especially interesting on this point. He rightly challenges the short-comings of the so-called ‘domestic-constructivists’, especially Berger and Katzenstein. However, in attempting to demolish their cases for ‘selective biases’ he then proceeds to selectively argue a similarly biased case in asserting the superiority of yet another derivation of the realist cause – ‘postclassical realism’. His key premises are based on his interpretations of the architect of Japan's National Defence Program Outline, Kubo, and in doing so ‘proves’ the military aspect of Japan's security policy and its ‘inherent superiority’ as an explanatory framework. Equally, one can mount a case for the ‘comprehensive security’ proponents by citing the work and presence of the late Okita Saburo in his contributions to understanding post-war security policy. This article will demonstrate a similar argument to that of Kawasaki's based on an analogous analytical framework which grounds Japanese security consciousness in a deeper historical context. It is part of a larger project which seeks to give empirical substance to constructivist interpretations of Japanese security.     

Book reviews

This article addresses the concern that democratization may contribute to the reproduction of neo-patrimonialism, rather than to counteract it. The article reports the result of a survey among members of parliament in Ghana regarding their election campaigns. Total spending, sources of funds, and their usage are analysed in the context of the consolidation of liberal democracy. The survey results are supplemented with data collected in 34 interviews with MPs. The data show that MPs are involved in patron-client relationships to a significant degree to reproduce their political power. Furthermore, the prevalence of patronage politics among MPs in Ghana has increased throughout the period of democratic rule. This persistent pattern of patronage politics threatens the very heart of democratic consolidation. Vertical accountability and legitimacy is threatened by alternative pacts of loyalty, expectations of corruption, and tendencies to delegative mandates. Horizontal accountability risks pervasion by 'big man' interventions, and by insufficient allocation of time to monitoring the government and legislative activities.     

Cervical Arterial Injury After Strangulation—Different Types of Arterial Lesions

After strangulation, cervical arterial injuries (CAI) are uncommon. We report three unusual cases where strangulation induced immediate stroke. CAI were examined using brain CT scan and Doppler ultrasonography in the three cases and then by autopsy in one of the victims. One of the two victims who survived the attempted strangulation had a unilateral carotid dissection, whereas in the other victim, no arterial dissection or thrombosis was observed. As regards the deceased victim, the autopsy confirmed the bilateral dissection showed on CT scan and Doppler ultrasonic examination and revealed that both carotid arteries were dilated up to two times the normal diameter. Microscopic examination showed a major bilateral hemorrhagic dissection of the media with obliterating fibrous endarteritis lesions associated with inflammatory damage. CT scan with arteriography does not demonstrate all the different types of arterial injury, particularly atheromatous embolism, direct compression, or prolonged spasm. Thus, traditional autopsy remains an essential forensic tool after strangulation to show the type of CAI.     

Methadone-related deaths in Norway

IntroductionThe use of methadone in opioid maintenance treatment (OMT) is potentially associated with a number of adverse effects and the risk of fatal toxicity. Increased methadone availability may lead to an increase in methadone-related deaths. We have investigated methadone-related deaths in Norway over the period 2000–2006.Materials and methodsMethadone-positive samples over the period 2000–2006 were identified from forensic toxicological investigations, and demographic and toxicological data were retrieved. The cases were cross-linked with the Norwegian Cause of Death Registry and regional OMT registers.ResultsA total of 312 individuals had died after taking methadone over the period 2000–2006, predominantly men with a mean age of 36. In 85% of cases (n = 264), the deceased had died of a methadone-related intoxication, most often in combination with other drugs, including benzodiazepines, cannabis and other opioids. Only 22% of the deceased had been in OMT at the time of death. A larger proportion of OMT patients had died of causes other than intoxications compared to those not in OMT (30% vs. 8%, respectively), most commonly related to disease.ConclusionsOne methadone-related death occurred, on average, every week over the time period investigated. Only 22% of the deceased were registered in opioid maintenance treatment (OMT) programs. The findings underline the need to control diversion of medication from OMT programs.     

Internet-initiated incitement and conspiracy to commit child sexual abuse (CSA): The typology,extent and nature of known cases

Abstract

This paper presents the first research on cases where offenders initiate contact with other individuals over the internet and incite, or conspire (IIIC) with, them to commit child sexual abuse (CSA). Interviews and record searches were carried out among local police services in the UK. IIIC cases were found to be diverse in terms of their typology but rare with regard to the extent of known cases. They were similar to other CSA in relation to victim and offender characteristics but were distinct with regard to offenders’ modi operandi. IIIC cases should be viewed as an additional and serious category of internet-related CSA, and one about which there needs to be much more awareness and research.     

Sustaining multilateral trade cooperation in a multipolar world economy

The deadlock in the WTO Doha Round has been accompanied by an increased focus on the negotiation of preferential trade agreements, including so-called ‘mega-regionals’. This paper discusses possible implications for—and possible responses by—excluded countries that have little prospects of participating in most of the mega-regionals. A number of complementary avenues are identified through which such countries might attenuate the potential downsides of preferential trade liberalization among large countries, as well as some proposals that would expand the scope to pursue cooperation on regulatory policies in the WTO as opposed to PTAs.     

Das Individuum und die Vermischung der Genres

By considering cultural practices and preferences in terms of intra-individual behavioral variation it is possible to construct a model of the social world which does not neglect individual singularities and avoids the cultural caricature of social groups. Thus, it becomes clear that the boundary between ??cultural legitimacy?? and ??cultural illegitimacy?? does not only separate different social classes, but divides up the cultural practices and preferences of individuals themselves across all classes. Without challenging the existence of social inequalities in terms of the most legitimate forms of culture, such a scientific point of view allows to establish the marked statistical frequency of individual cultural profiles composed of heterogeneous or dissonant elements. The article considers the socio-historical conditions that produce heterogeneous cultural profiles and shows that these frequent cultural dissonances allow to reinterpret the social functions of culture and to highlight the importance of the study of intra-individual behavioral variations within the framework of a sociology of dispositional and contextual plurality.