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.     

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.     

Book reviews

ACHIN VANAIK, The Furies of Indian Communalism: Religion, Modernity and Secularization (Verso, London, 1997), 374 pp., ISBN 1–85984–016–7

EDWARD REISS, Marx: a Clear Guide (Pluto Press, London & Chicago, 1997), 180 pp., ISBN 0–7453–1014–1 (pb)

ERNST FISCHER, HOW to Read Karl Marx (Monthly Review Press, New York, 1997), 192 pp., ISBN 0–85345–974–6 (pb)

CAROLINE KENNEDY‐PIPE, The Origins of the Present Troubles in Northern Ireland (Longman, Harlow, 1997), 204 pp., ISBN 0–582–1073–9

DUNCAN WATTS, Political Communication Today (Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York, 1997), 228 pp., ISBN 0–7190–4792–7 (hb), 0–7190–4793–5 (pb)

JACK HAYWARD (ed), Elitism, Populism and European Politics (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1996), 257 pp., ISBN 0–19–828035–1

JOHN GRAY and DAVID WILLETTS, IS Conservatism Dead? (Profile Books, London, 1997), x + 186 pp., ISBN 1–86197–042–0     

Reviews

Janos Kornai, Highways and Byways. Studies on Reform and Post‐Communist Transition. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 1995, xv + 241 pp., £26.95

Ha‐Joon Chang & Peter Nolan (eds), The Transformation of the Communist Economies: Against the Mainstream. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1995, xii, + 438 pp., £47.50.

Paul Cook & Frederick Nixson (eds), The Move to the Market?: Trade and Industry Policy Reform in Transitional Economies. London: Macmillan, 1995, xvi + 280 pp., £45.00.

Tom Gallagher, Romania after Ceausescu. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995, viii + 267 pp., £16.95.

Carol Barner‐Barry & Cynthia A. Hody, The Politics of Change. The Transformation of the Former Soviet Union. New York: St Martin's Press, 1995, xi + 371 pp., £14.99.

Daniel Orlovsky (ed.), Beyond Soviet Studies. Washington: The Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1995, xi + 349 pp., £20.50.

Aleksandr Gurov, Krasnaya Mafiya, Moscow: Samotsvet, 1995, 328 pp., no price.

Beatrice F. Manz (ed.), Central Asia in Historical Perspective. Boulder and Oxford: Westview Press, 1994, x + 245 pp., £40.95.

H. B. Paksoy (ed.), Central Asia Reader—The Rediscovery of History. Armonk and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1994, ix + 206 pp., $60.00 h/b $21.95 p/b.

Peter Ferdinand (ed.), The New States of Central Asia and Their Neighbours. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, for The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1994, 120 pp., $14.95.

Michael Mandelbaum (ed.), Central Asia and the World—Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1994, 251 pp., $16.95

Stephen Kotkin & David Wolff (eds), Rediscovering Russia in Asia: Siberia and the Russian Far East. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1995, xxiii + 356 pp., $65.00 h/b, $24.95 p/b.

Suzanne Goldenberg, Pride of Small Nations: The Caucasus and Post‐Soviet Disorder. London: Zed Books, 1994., xvi + 233 pp., £14.95.

Levon Chorbajian, Patrick Donabedian & Claude Mutafian, The Caucasian Knot: The History and Geo‐politics of Nagorno‐Karabagh. London: Zed Books, 1994, xxi + 198 pp., £14.95.

Shireen T. Hunter, The Transcaucasus in Transition. Nation‐building and Conflict. Washington, DC: The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1994, xiii + 223 pp., $19.95.

Edward Allworth (ed.), Muslim Communities Reemerge. Historical Perspective on Nationality, Politics and Opposition in the Former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, trans. Caroline Sawyer. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 1994, xii + 365 pp., £57.00 h/b, £23.50 p/b.

S. Frederick Starr (ed.), The Legacy of History in Russia and the New States of Eurasia. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1994, xiii + 313 pp., $22.95.

Vladimir Shlapentokh, Munir Sendich & Emil Payin (eds), The New Russian Diaspora: Russian Minorities in the Former Soviet Republics. London: M. E. Sharpe, 1994, xxv + 221 pp., £48.00 h/b, £19.00 p/b.

Michael Rywkin, Moscow's Lost Empire. New York & London: Armonk, M. E. Sharpe, 1994, xiii + 214 pp., £40.00 h/b, £16.00 p/b.

Tobias R. Philibin III, The Lure of Neptune. German‐Soviet Naval Collaboration and Ambitions, 1919–1941. University of South Carolina, 1994, xxi + 192 pp., $34.95.

Yu. L. Dyakov & T. S. Bushueva, The Red Army and the Wehrmacht. How the Soviets Militarised Germany, 1922–1933, and Paved the Way for Fascism. New York: Prometheus Books 1995, 348 pp., £21.00.

Iosif Stalin v ob"yatiyakh sem'i: iz lichnogo arkhiva (Sbornik dokumentov), compiled by Yu. G. Murin, edited by V. N. Denisov. Moscow: Rodina, 1993, 222 pp., no price.

Donald Rayfield, The Literature of Georgia. A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994, xvi + 360 pp., £35.00.

Susan Layton, Russian Literature and Empire: Conquest of the Caucasus from Pushkin to Tolstoy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, xiii + 354 pp., £40.00.

Arto Luukkanen, The Party of Unbelief: The Religious Policy of the Bolshevik Party 1917–1929. Helsinki; Studia Historica 48, 1994, 274 pp., no price.

John Fennell, A History of the Russian Church to 1448. London: Longman, 266 pp., £12.99.     

Coastal zone management in Canada: purposes and prospects

Abstract. Coastal zone management (czm ), though a relatively new concept in Canada, has become the dominant approach to coastal planning in the United States. Its saliency has much to do with the fact that it represents an acceptable blend of views of environmentalists and public administrators, especially those concerned with land use control and natural resource management problems in coastal areas. Although not aggravated to the same degree by urban congestion, these problems in Canada are becoming sufficiently serious to require a close look at the possible benefits of czm in this country. The timeliness of this concept is underlined by the fact that Canada has just entered the ‘economic zone’ phase of ocean management with the extension of its limits of national jurisdiction for fishery purposes to 200 miles. Under the existing system of allocation of powers in this country, it is impossible to envisage any ambitious czm scheme for Canada except on the basis of joint federal-provincial undertakings, in which federal agencies would tend to have a predominant involvement in maritime activities and provincial agencies in land use issues. Moreover, the spatial conception of a single uniform zone for coastal management presents considerable difficulty. For these reasons it seems futile to recommend the sweeping organizational changes that would be desirable in order to bring about a fully systematic approach to coastal management in Canada. In particular, it would be unrealistic at this early stage to attempt to establish a single comprehensive agency to direct the diverse functions of a broad-based system of coastal management. But although a high degree of unifunctionalism will have to be maintained within the existing system of public administration, the urgency of many coastal resource problems requires that a much higher degree of inter-agency coordination be attained as a matter of national priority. To this end it is suggested initially that three Coastal Zone Commissions should be established. The mandate of each would be to identify and appraise the managerial requirements of the coastal areas within the designated region with a view to influencing policy discussions at all three levels of Canadian authority, and also perhaps those at the international level. Each Commission should also be empowered to address recommendations for further initiatives to the appropriate agencies. Sommaire. La gestion de la zone cǒtière (gzc ), concept relativement nouveau au Canada, est devenu l'objet principal de la planification cǒtière aux Etats-Unis. La prédominance de cette notion vient de ce qu'elle représente un amalgame acceptable des points de vue des spécialistes de l'environnement et d'administrateurs publics, et plus particulièrement de ceux qui s'occupent de l'usage des terres et des problèmes de gestion des ressources naturelles dans les régions cǒtières. Bien que ces problèmes ne soient pas trop compliqués par la congestion urbaine, ils sont néan-moins suffisamment sérieux pour justifier un examen approfondi des avantages éventuels de la gzc dans ce pays. Le fait que la Canada vienne d'entrer dans la phase «économique » de la gestion océanique, avec l'extension des limites de sa juridiction nationale pour la pěche à 200 milles, accroǐt la pertinence de ce concept à un moment opportun. Dans le cadre du système existant de répartition des pouvoirs dans ce pays, il n'est possible d'envisager un programme ambitieux de ce genre pour le Canada, que comme entreprise conjointe fédérale-provinciale, avec participation dominante des organismes fédéraux pour les activatés maritimes et des agences provinciales pour les questions concemant l'usage des terres. De plus, la concession spatiale d'une zone uniforme unique présente des difficultés considérables. Pour ces raisons, il semble futile de recommander le boulversement nécessaire pour adapter la gestion cǒtière au Canada de façon absolument systématique. Il serait particulièrement peu réaliste à ce stade de créer un organisme général unique pour diriger les différentes fonctions d'un large système de gestion cǒtière. Il faudra done maintenir dans une grande mesure l'unifonctionnalisme dans le cadre du système actuel d'administration maritime, mais l'urgence de nombreux problèmes concernant les ressources cǒtières exige beaucoup plus de coordination entre les organismes, coordination qui devrait constituer une priorité nationale. Pour ce faire, on a proposé initialement la création de trois commissions de zones cǒtières. Elles auraient pour mandat de dégager et d'évaluer les besoins administratifs des zones cǒtières dans les différentes régions, afin d'influencer les débats politiques aux trois niveaux gouvernementaux et peut-ětre aussi au niveau international. Chacune des commissions aurait aussi pour function de faire des recommandations aux organismes affiliés afin de formuler d'autres mesures applicables à l'avenir.     

Forgotten Conflicts: Need versus Political Priority in the Allocation of Humanitarian Aid across Conflict Areas

Despite a principled commitment to assist people in need equally, the allocation of humanitarian assistance across conflict and post-conflict states shows remarkable variation that is not easily explained by differences in the level of recipient-need. This paper attempts to explain these “forgotten conflicts“ by analyzing the determinants of humanitarian aid to civil war and post-civil war states. Using cross-national panel data on humanitarian aid provisions, I show that the most important determinants of international humanitarian assistance are not always demand-side factors measuring humanitarian need – as the principals of humanitarian action would dictate – but often strategic factors that reflect donors’ political interests in providing humanitarian assistance. Although humanitarian aid to ongoing civil wars appears to be substantially more humanitarian than strategic in its allocation, humanitarian aid provided to post-conflict states in the aftermath of civil war tends to go to conflicts where donors perceive important strategic and political interests. These results suggest that one important explanation for why some conflicts are essentially ignored or gradually neglected over time is that strategic interests of donors can dominate humanitarian concerns over time.     

Improving Reputation BIT by BIT: Bilateral Investment Treaties and Foreign Accountability

The literature on foreign direct investment (FDI) has paid an increasing interest to international institutions such as bilateral investment treaties (BITs), but whether BITs help attract FDI is an unsettled question. Building on the existing literature, this article argues that BITs can change investors’ perceptions and the corresponding investment they make because signing BITs signals the involvement of another powerful country that is able to compel the host government to comply. This implies that the effect of BITs is not constant across signatory countries: BITs are more effective when they are signed with rich and influential countries. Using monadic and dyadic FDI data, this article finds that BITs signed with powerful countries (defined as the top six largest economies) lead to an increase in FDI inflows (both from these signatory countries and from other countries). BITs signed with other countries, despite in a larger quantity, have little influence on FDI inflows.     

DNA Profiling Success Rates from Degraded Skeletal Remains in Guatemala

No data are available regarding the success of DNA Short Tandem Repeat (STR) profiling from degraded skeletal remains in Guatemala. Therefore, DNA profiling success rates relating to 2595 skeletons from eleven cases at the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala (FAFG) are presented. The typical postmortem interval was 30 years. DNA was extracted from bone powder and amplified using Identifiler and Minifler. DNA profiling success rates differed between cases, ranging from 50.8% to 7.0%, the overall success rate for samples was 36.3%. The best DNA profiling success rates were obtained from femur (36.2%) and tooth (33.7%) samples. DNA profiles were significantly better from lower body bones than upper body bones (p = <0.0001). Bone samples from males gave significantly better profiles than samples from females (p = <0.0001). These results are believed to be related to bone density. The findings are important for designing forensic DNA sampling strategies in future victim recovery investigations.