When marketing models clash with democracy

The application of marketing models in political and public sector contexts is examined. The assumptions in marketing of positive outcomes of (i) rapid responses to consumer concerns, (ii) the extension of choice and customisation in product development, and (iii) the application of market research techniques are considered in turn. This analysis suggests that in the political context, responding rapidly to public opinion is not necessarily a sound reaction; extending choice and customisation of products may not best serve public welfare, and applying market research techniques may not provide for the best system for policy decisions. The features of liberal representative democracy, particularly the role of deliberation, informed assent and accountability, have been neglected. Speed of response has been emphasised to the cost of democratic filters and checks on public opinion; enhanced choice, enabled by mass customisation, presents problems of social fragmentation; and the application of market research is no substitute for political discourse and engagement. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

Books in review

Her published work deals with citizenship and the administrative state. Her forthcoming books is Claiming Legitimacy: Feminism and Public Administration.     

Human Rights And Power

This paper is an initial attempt to link the concepts of human rights and power from a social constructionist perspective. It looks at aspects of the social history of natural and human rights and the relationship of this history to extant power relations. It suggests that conceptions of human rights have both challenged and sustained particular forms of power, thus playing a highly ambivalent role. The paper also examines and criticises the philosophical underpinnings of liberal and marxist approaches to the concept of human rights. In a concluding section it considers the possibility of constructing a power analysis which might provide a way of anchoring the concept of human rights in social practices.     

Decentralization and the implementation of rural development in Senegal: The role of rural councils

Decentralization efforts in Francophone African countries are both rarer and far less ambitious than those in Anglophone states. The decentralization programme launched by Senegal over a decade ago is an important exception. Since 1972, when the administrative reform law took effect, Senegal has been engaged in an effort to decentralize its administrative structures in order to promote rural development, to escape from the burdens of the remnants of an overly centralized colonial system and to stem the rising tide of rural opposition (malaise paysan). This new initiative, which led to the creation of local elected councils in rural communities (communautés rurales). has thus far achieved only marginal success. The 319 rural councils suffer from serious under-financing, and often from domination by administrative authorities, especially the sous-préféts. Based on an examination of the attitudes. perceptions and behaviour of a sample of rural councillors (n = 144), particularly regarding budgetary matters, it appears that the rural communities in fact provide the possibility for some popular input into local and regional planning.     

Stakeholder partnerships as collaborative policymaking: Evaluation criteria applied to watershed management in California and Washington

Public policymaking and implementation in the United States are increasingly handled through local, consensus‐seeking partnerships involving most affected stakeholders. This paper formalizes the concept of a stakeholder partnership, and proposes techniques for using interviews, surveys, and documents to measure each of six evaluation criteria. Then the criteria are applied to 44 watershed partnerships in California and Washington. The data suggest that each criterion makes a unique contribution to the overall evaluation, and together the criteria reflect a range of partnership goals—both short‐term and long‐term, substantive and instrumental. Success takes time—frequently about 48 months to achieve major milestones, such as formal agreements and implementation of restoration, education, or monitoring projects. Stakeholders perceive that their partnerships have been most effective at addressing local problems and at addressing serious problems—not just uncontroversial issues, as previously hypothesized. On the other hand, they perceive that partnerships have occasionally aggravated problems involving the economy, regulation, and threats to property rights. © 2002 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Reviews

Barrington Moore Jr, Authority and Inequality under Capitalism and Socialism—USA, USSR and China. Oxford: OUP and Clarendon Press, 1987, x + 142 pp. £15.00.

Allen Lynch, The Soviet Study of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, xii + 197 pp., £25.00 h/b. $34.50.

Frederick C. Barghoorn and Thomas F. Remington, Politics in the USSR. Third Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1986, xiii + 530 pp., £8.95.

Charles E. Ziegler, Environmental Policy in the USSR. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1987, xiii + 195 pp., £18.50. $25.00.

Mary Buckley, ed. Soviet Social Scientists Talking. An Official Debate about Women. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1986, 107 pp. £25.00 h/b, £8.95 p/b.

Alex Pravda and Blair A. Ruble eds. Trade Unions in Communist States. Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1986, xiii+281 pp. $34.95, £22.50.

Paul R. Rogers, Insurance in the Soviet Union. New York: Praeger, 1986, 211 pp., £31.99.

Charles Gati, Hungary and the Soviet Bloc. Durham: Duke University Press, 1986, 244 pp. £34.00 h/b, £12.70 p/b.

Roman Serbyn and Bohdan Krawchenko eds. Famine in Ukraine 1932–1933. Edmonton: University of Alberta, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1986, 192 pp. No price.

Richard J. Crampton, A Short History of Modern Bulgaria. London, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, 221 pp. £20.00, $34.50 h/b, £7.95, $12.95 p/b.

Alena Heitlinger, Reproduction, medicine and the socialist state. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1987, 318 pp., £29.50.

Vladimir Wozniuk, From Crisis to Crisis. Soviet‐Polish Relations in the 1970s. Iowa State University Press‐Ames, 1987, x + 176 pp., $12.95.     

Reviews

R. W. Davies, The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia 3: The Soviet Economy in Turmoil. 1929–1930. London: Macmillan, 1989, xx+601 pp., £47.50.

Peter Nolan, The Political Economy of Collective Farms: An Analysis of China's Post‐Mao Rural Reforms. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988, viii+259 pp., £29.50.

Adam Zwass, The CMEA: The Thorny Path from Political to Economic Integration. Armonk, NY: M E Sharpe inc., 1989, xiii+268 pp., $45.00.

Szymon Jakubowicz, Wer rettet Polens Wirtschaft? Das Ringen urn die Arbeiterselbstverwaltung. (Who will save Poland's Economy? The Struggle about Workers’ Self‐Management). Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder Taschenbuch Verlag, 1989, 334 pp., DM18.90.

Jim Riordan ed., Soviet Youth Culture. London: Macmillan, 1989, x+148 pp., £27.50 h/b, £9.95 p/b.

Richard Sakwa, Soviet Politics: An Introduction. London: Routledge, 1989, xvi+356 pp., £12.95 p/b.

Walter D. Connor, Socialism's Dilemmas: State and Society in the Soviet Bloc. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988, x+299 pp., $37.00.

R. W. Davies, Soviet History in the Gorbachev Revolution. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan in association with the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham, 1989, viii+232 pp., £29.50 h/b, £7.99 p/b.

Takayuki Ito, ed. Facing Up to the Past: Soviet Historiography under Perestroika. Sapporo: Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University, 1989, 290 pp.

Seweryn Bialer and Michael Mandelbaum, The Global Rivals: The Soviet‐American Contest for Supremacy. London: I. B. Tauri's, 1989, 220 pp., £14.95.

Matthew Evangelista, Innovation and the Arms Race. New York: Cornell University Press, 1988, xvi+ 300 pp., $32.95.

Steven Merritt Miner, Between Churchill and Stalin: The Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the Origins of the Grand Alliance. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1989, 319 pp., $39.60.

Olimpiad S. Ioffe, Soviet Civil Law, ser. Law in Eastern Europe, no. 36. Dordrecht, Boston, MA, Lancaster: Reidel, 1988, ix+382 pp.

Stephen White, Soviet Communism: Programme and Rules. London and New York: Routledge, 1989, vii+141 pp., £25.00.

Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A History. Toronto, Buffalo, NY, and London: The University of Toronto Press in association with the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1988, xii+666 pp., £35.00, $57.50.

Francesco Benvenuti, The Bolsheviks and the Red Army, 1918–1922, translated by Christopher Woodall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, viii+264 pp., £27.50, $44.50.