Agrarian reform and the struggle for labour‐power: A Peruvian case study

This paper examines conflict over labour‐power, and argues for its centrality to an understanding of class struggle taking place in the Peruvian province of La Convención during the pre‐ and post‐reform era. Initially, this conflict involved landlord and tenants over the issue of labour‐rent. When additional land became available as a result of the expropriation of the landlord class, the implementation of the agrarian reform deprived the peasant enterprise of labour‐power necessary for its cultivation. The increasingly acute struggle between different peasant strata for access to and control over labour‐power in the post‐reform period accordingly involved the intensification of the debt bondage mechanism and avoidance of political office‐holding by better‐off peasants.     

Tweaking the Lion's Tail: Edgar J. Tarr,the Canadian Institute of International Affairs,and the British Empire, 1931–1950

In its first 2 decades the Canadian Institute of International Affairs (CIIA), Canada's premier foreign policy think tank, never functioned merely as a neutral and apolitical research organization. Under the leadership of Edgar Tarr, president of the Monarch Life Assurance Company, and in its capacity as the Canadian Council of the transnational Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR), in the 1930s and 1940s the CIIA became an instrument that championed Canadian national autonomy and sought to expand Canada's international role, while challenging British imperialism, racism, and Anglo–Saxon dominance. Prominent Canadian diplomats and other officials were complicit in this enterprise, which reached its apogee at the IPR conference held at Mont Tremblant, Quebec, in December 1942. The CIIA's activities during this period revealed the porosity and imprecision of the boundaries in Canada between the state and non-state realms. Throughout World War II, DEA and other Canadian government representatives attended CIIA and IPR conferences as “official non-officials,” effectively cooperating with private individuals in a network of purportedly non-governmental organizations that enabled Canada to exert leverage on the British government, reject British leadership, align itself with the United States, and secure a greater world role. CIIA leaders and Canadian officials also consciously encouraged nationalist forces in India, China, and Southeast Asia that sought to reject colonial rule and Western dominance. CIIA activities thus became part of a web of diplomatic interactions across a transnational network of think tanks within and outside the British Empire that had their own impact upon international affairs.     

Understanding employee commitment in the public organization: a study of the juvenile detention center

This study examined the relationship between organizational commitment and several personal, role, professional, job and organizational factors among juvenile detention workers. The study revealed that (1) commitment is significantly correlated to role ambiguity, supervisor trust, rile matment-oriented attitude toward the detainee, job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational trust, and (2) organizational trust, the treatment attitude. role ambiguity, and job involvement are major predictors of employee commitment to the detention center. Implications concerning the results of this study are discussed.     

Retrospective and perspective on China's administrative reform

To promote China's modernization and development, the post-Mao Chinese leaders have implemented several reform measures that gradually changed the country's traditional cadre system. This study examines the experience of China's post-Mao administrative reform implemented since the late 1970s. First, the study reviews the background and scope of the administrative reform. It then analyzes several issues that may affect the future development of administrative reform. The implications of the Chinese experience are provided.     

Municipalities’ Contracting Out Decisions: An Empirical Study on Motives

Municipalities have various motives behind their decisions about the modes of their task execution. Empirical studies have not yet provided a fully satisfying explanation for municipalities’ contracting out decisions. Therefore, we interviewed several Dutch principal municipal managers to evaluate the causes and motives for the choices of the current structures for the delivery of their services. This study investigates the relevance of common public choice and transaction cost motives on contracting out and explores the relevance of additional institutional and pragmatic motives. We found that municipalities do not regularly evaluate the service provision of their activities and the potential benefits of outsourcing. In fact, if the activity has an adequate performance level and complaints from municipal employees, local politicians or inhabitants do not occur, a catalyst for a discussion on the contracting out of this activity is, in general, lacking. Principally in the case of structural underperformance municipalities consider a change of service provider, and then the efficiency motive is most relevant. Thereby, institutional motives – such as the stability of service provision – and pragmatic motives are also relevant. Institutional pressures in particular initiate the evaluation of organisational performance, whereas both economic motives as institutional and pragmatic motives are used to compare alternative service providers.     

The EU–Russia Strategic Partnership: Challenging the Normative Argument

Russia–EU relations have often been presented in terms of a normative gap, with the EU appearing as a normative and Russia as a non-normative actor. This article critically analyses this ‘normative argument’ which sees this gap as the cause of tensions. Pleading for a less dichotomous approach to norms and interests, it challenges the normative argument on the basis of the assumed congruence between the norm-driven input and norm-promoting output of European foreign policy. As an alternative, the article explores how the normative agenda in Eastern Europe serves instrumental purposes. Selective norm promotion has the potential to change the hierarchy of identities among post-Soviet states.     

Book reviews

Privatisation and Liberalisation in the Middle East edited by Iliya Harik and Denis J. Sullivan. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992. Pp.vi + 242; index. £30 (hardback); £12.99 (paperback). ISBN 0 253 32697 4 and 0 253 20748 7

Prospects for Democracy: North, South, East, West edited by David Held. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993. Pp.412; index. £45 (hardback); £14.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 7456 0988 0 and 0 7456 0989 9

The Road to Post‐Communism, Independent Political Movements in the Soviet Union 1985–1991 by Geoffrey A. Hosking, Jonathan Aves and Peter F.S. Duncan. London and New York: Pinter Publishers, 1992. Pp.x + 236; bibliography; index. £37.50 (hardback); £12.99 (paperback). ISBN 1 85567 080 1 and 1 85567 081 X