Book reviews

United States Development Assistance Policy: The Domestic Politics of Foreign Economic Aid. By Vernon W. Ruttan. Baltimore, MD and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. Pp.xxiv + 657. £54. ISBN 0 8018 5051 7

India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity. By Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Pp.292. £25. ISBN 0 19 829012 8

Regaining Marxism. By Ken Post. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press for Institute of Social Studies, 1996. Pp.x + 393. £45. ISBN 0 333 65444 7

Inflation and Investment Controls in China: The Political Economy of Central‐Local Relations during the Reform Era. By Yasheng Huang. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp.xviii + 371. £40. ISBN 0 521 55483 7

The Village Concept in the Transformation of Rural Southeast Asia: Studies from Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. Edited by Mason C. Hoadley and Christer Gunnarsson. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1996. Pp.xviii + 229. £35. ISBN 0 7007 0350 0

African Industry in Decline: The Case of Textiles in Tanzania in the 1980s. By Peter de Valk. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996. Pp.xii + 370. £45. ISBN 0 333 65445 5

The Urban Opportunity: The Work of the NGOs in Cities of the South. Edited by Nicolas Hall, Rob Hart and Diana Mitlin. London: Intermediate Technology Publications, 1996. Pp.xv + 128. £9.95 ISBN 1 85339 347 9

Doctrines of Development. By M.P. Cowen and R.W. Shenton. London: Routledge, 1996. Pp.xv + 554. £18.99. ISBN 0 415 12516 2

Democracy, Development and the Countryside: Urban‐Rural Struggles in India. By Ashutosh Varshney (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Pp.xi + 214. £35. 0 521 44153 6

Ethnicity and Development: Geographical Perspectives. Edited by Dennis Dwyer and David Drakakis‐Smith. Chichester: J. Wiley &; Sons, 1996. Pp.296. £35. ISBN 0 47196354 2

Indigenous Organizations and Development. Edited by Peter Blunt and D. Michael Warren. London: Intermediate Technology Publications, 1996. Pp.xv + 253. £16.95. ISBN 1 85339 321 5

Sustainable Tourism in Islands and Small States: Issues and Policies. Edited by Lino Briguglio, Brian Archer, Jafar Jafari and Geoffrey Wall. London: Pinter, 1996. Pp.xiii + 226. £45. ISBN 1 85567 371 1

Sustainable Tourism in Islands and Small States: Case Studies. Edited by Lino Briguglio, Richard Butler, David Harrison and Walter Leal Filho. London: Pinter, 1996. Pp.xiv + 317. £45. ISBN 1 85567 371 1

Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. By Mahmood Mamdani (Princeton Studies in Culture/Power/History). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996. Pp.xii + 356. (Also published: Kampala: Fountain Publishers. ISBN 9970 02 090 0; Cape Town: David Philip. ISBN 0 85255 399 4; London: James Currey. £14.95. ISBN 0 852555 399 4)     

Do Social Protection Transfers Reduce Poverty and Vulnerability to Poverty in Pakistan? Household Level Evidence from Punjab

Empirical studies in different developing countries have investigated the impact of social protection (SP) on ex-post poverty; however, few studies analysed the impact of SP on ex-ante vulnerability to poverty (VtP). This paper contributes to the literature by evaluating the impact of SP on vulnerability to poverty (VtP) and poverty rates among households in the Punjab province of Pakistan. A hierarchical modelling approach is used to analyse the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS-2011) data of about 90,000 households. Matching methods and simultaneous endogenous switching regression are used to control for potential selection bias and estimate average treatment effects. Our results show that SP has a positive impact in reducing household poverty and VtP, but this impact is mainly driven by a short-term flood relief cash transfer programme, pension of government employees and households’ regular purchase from utility store network.     

Open Government: Origin,Development, and Conceptual Perspectives

The term “open government” is frequently used in practice and science. Since President Obama’s Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies in March 2009, open government has attracted an enormous amount of public attention. It is applied by authors from diverse areas, leading to a very heterogeneous comprehension of the concept. Against this background, this article screens the current open government literature to deduce an integrative definition of open government. Furthermore, this article analyzes the empirical and conceptual literature of open government to deduce an open government framework. In general, this article provides a clear understanding of the open government concept.     

Physician recruitment and retention: A rural-suburban comparison

This study examined the recruitment and retention experience of medical group practices (MGPs), based on a 1991 national survey of all administrators of MGPs who are members of the Medical Group Management Association. Specifically, we compared rural (n=269) and suburban (n=169) MGPs regarding their recruitment and reten tion experience to assess the relevancy of physician recruitment theories that focus on the characteristics of the physician, practice, or community. The results indicate that, in terms of physician personal characteristics, rural MGPs were more likely to view rural background and exposure to rural practice as important to both recruitment and retention than suburban MGPs. The finding that both rural and suburban MGPs needed family practice physicians most and found it difficult to recruit them suggests the need for more primary care tracks in medical schools and the enhancement of primary care physician reimbursements relative to other specialties. In terms of practice characteristics, our study shows most rural and suburban MGPs were concerned about the financial aspects of the practice environment and provided generous recruiting benefits. In terms of community characteristics, physician's spouse and family was identified as an important factor particularly by rural MGPs.     

Ist Durkheims Religionsverständnis mit dem Glauben vereinbar?

Does Emile Durkheim’s sociology of religion pose a challenge to the faithful? Durkheim said no in debate with contemporary non-believers and believers, portraying religion not as mere illusion but as consisting in moral forces that command, comfort and strengthen the faithful, forces generated and regenerated within them by the collective effervescence of rituals. Thus empowered, the faithful imagine in symbolic form “the society of which they are members and the obscure yet intimate relations they have with it”. Durkheim’s answer is shown to have three components: a critique of naturist and animist “error theories” of religion; a method of “deep interpretation”, uncovering the reality beneath the symbolism; and an explanation of why the meaning of religion thus interpreted should have been for so long unacknowledged by the faithful. It is argued that, in principle, they can, on certain assumptions, accommodate his sociology of religion. But this, in turn, makes key assumptions and claims that have been seriously questioned: notably, that “religion” names a unified phenomenon and that Durkheim’s definition captures it. Recent revised “Durkheimian” accounts of religious thought and practice are considered, accounts that abandon these assumptions and also his “social realism”, while seeking to preserve his insights. It is argued that these too need not directly challenge religious belief in the way that the cognitive science of religion does.     

Germany: A Changing Country of Immigration

Despite being one of Europe's most significant destinations for migration, Germany has long wrestled with the notion that it may or may not be a ‘country of immigration’. Approaching this question from a positive rather than a normative perspective, this article explores how Germany is changing in this respect, by examining changes over the past two decades in terms of migration flows, the policy framework and the degree of societal and institutional adaptation to migration. It argues that Germany has become much more diverse and also notes the major policy developments that have taken place after the change of government in 1998. While the dominant theme of migration policy has moved on from prevention to integration, Germany's impending demographic transformation poses a major new challenge, which will require governments to look once again to more active recruitment of labour migration.     

Decrees,Laws, and Inter-Branch Relations in the Russian Federation

A UK-based political scientist presents a systematic analysis of the basic philosophical arguments and intellectual origins of fundamental conservative thought in Russia. Positing that fundamental conservatism seeks to displace interpretations of Western modernity in Russia with a culturally specific Russian version, she then probes more deeply into the methods and tasks of fundamental conservatism, before examining its main theoretical arguments. The fact that such thinking is increasingly prominent in Russia, including within political circles, is noted as a basis for the need to better understand it as a search for new forms of rationality and new forms of citizenship rooted in the Russian sociohistoric context.     

The Nepali State and the Dynamics of the Maoist Insurgency

In contrast to existing quantitative studies of the civil conflict in Nepal, we argue that combinations of motive and opportunity were crucial for the development of the Maoist insurgency and that these conditions stem largely from the nature of the Nepali state. The decade-long insurgency was characterized by two distinct dynamics. In the initiation period of the war (1996–2000), the insurgency was driven largely by newly enabled Maoist organizers capitalizing on the caste, ethnic, and economic divisions that had been codified over time by autocratic state-building efforts. In the more violent and geographically widespread maturation period of the war (2001–2006), the insurgency depended less on historical grievances than on the motivation of rebels and sympathizers by the often-indiscriminate violence perpetrated by the besieged Nepali state. We provide empirical evidence for this argument in a narrative section that contextualizes the Maoist insurgency as well as in a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) of data for the 75 Nepali districts in the two periods of the insurgency. fsQCA allows for the assessment of how combinations of the largely state-generated motivations and opportunities affected the dynamics of the insurgency.     

Book reviews

Magocsi has held the Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto for three decades during which he has devoted himself to both Ukrainian and Rusyn history. Critics of Magocsi, particularly in the Ukrainian diaspora in North America, focus on his Rusyn publications while ignoring his great contribution to Ukrainian history which remains unparalleled among other Western historians of Ukraine and other Chairs of Ukrainian History and academic institutions.