Work Roles,Domestic Roles,and Marital Quality: Perceptions of Fairness Among Dual-Earner Couples

Previous studies on the role of spouses' perceptions of fairness within marriage have typically dealt with the effects of those within the realm of the division of household labor. Using data from the 1993 National Survey of Families and Households, this study posits that the predominance of dual-earner couples necessitates the consideration of perceptions of fairness in both spouses' paid labor and domestic roles. Issues of fairness are shown to significantly affect husbands' and wives' evaluations of marital quality, yet these effects are limited to a noncomparative form (e.g., wives' evaluations of marital quality are not substantially affected by husbands' perceptions of unfairness). Implications of these findings for contemporary couples are discussed.     

Democratization in turmoil? Elections in Hong Kong

The first SAR Chief Executive, Tung Chee‐hwa, in his speech at the SAR Establishment Ceremony, said: ‘Democracy is the hallmark of a new era for Hong Kong. The SAR Government will resolutely move forward to a more democratic form of government in accordance with the provisions in the Basic Law’. Butler, Penniman and Ranney, however, cautioned that ‘the critical difference between democratic and nondemocratic regimes is to be found in whether or not they hold elections, and if they do, what kind’. Indeed, electoral changes made to the 1998 LegCo elections are found to be anti‐democratic and retrogressive, as well as unnecessary. The authors conclude that electoral systems matter because they are one of the central mechanisms in modern democracies to give substance and content to democratic governance. If electoral systems are designed in such a manner that they obstruct the exercise of popular sovereignty, ride rough‐shod over the principle of political equality, undermine the extent of representation, complicate relationships of accountability as well as delimit opportunities for participation, then such systems should have little place in genuine democratic reform. To bring Hong Kong's democratization forward, a hard look at the electoral system, which should be more informed by the principles and practices of democracy will be mandatory.     

Identity,dignity and development as trajectory: Bihar as a model for democratic progress in Nepal? Part II. Nepal’s promise

Part I of this article traced the experience of India’s Bihar state as it shifted in the last decade of the twentieth century from a region dominated by landowning upper castes and plagued by entrenched poverty to one led by newly emergent middle castes. In a two-step process, these groups first attained a significant dignity and self-respect and then it became possible in the 2000s to turn to economic growth and improvement in living standards. Part II makes a case that Nepal, long suffering under conditions similar to those hobbling Bihar until recently, might follow a similar two-stage path of dignity and then development.     

Reviews

Kazimierz Z. Poznanski, Technology, Competition, and the Soviet Bloc in the World Market, Berkeley; University of California Press, 1987, ix + 226 pp. $13.95 p/b.

Philip Hanson, Western Economic Statecraft in East West Relations, Chatham House Papers, No. 40, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1988, vi + 85 pp., £6.95 (paperback).

Iliana Zloch‐Christy, Debt Problems of Eastern Europe, Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, New York, New Rochelle, 1987, xix + 220 pp., £25.00, $37.50.

Franklyn D. Holzman, The economics of Soviet bloc trade and finance. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988, xi + 215 pp., $33.50.

Ed A. Hewitt, Reforming the Soviet Economy: Equality versus Efficiency, Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1988, xi + 404 pp., £36.95 h/b, £16.95 p/b.

Bob Arnot, Controlling Soviet Labour: Experimental Change from Brezhnev to Gorbachev. London: Macmillan Press, 1988, xv + 305 pp., £35.00.

Elizabeth Teague, Solidarity and the Soviet Worker. London, Croom Helm Publishers Ltd. 1988, 378 pp., £30.00.

Fred Singleton ed. Environmental Problems in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Boulder, London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1987, viii + 208 pp., £24.00.

Robert J. Mclntyre, Bulgaria: Politics, Economics and Society. London: Pinter Publishers, 1988, xxii + 201 pp., £25.00 h/b, £8.95 p/b.

Ingemar Lindahl, The Soviet Union and the Nordic Nuclear‐ Weapons‐Free‐Zone Proposal. Foreward by Vojtech Mastny. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988, xii + 227 pp., £33.00.

William Zimmerman, Open Borders, Nonalignment, and the Political Evolution of Yugoslavia. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1987, ix + 158 pp., £14.70.

Helmuth Dahm, Sozialistische Krisentheorie. Die Sowjetische Wende—ein Trugbild. Sammlung Wissenschaft und Gegenwart, Munchen: Erich Wewel Verlag, 1987, 292 pp. DM48.00 p/b.