NGO strategies beyond aid: Perspectives from Central and South America and the Philippines

Though unevenly spread, many developing countries are experiencing a decline in aid flows. This paper explores and compares NGDO responses in regions and countries in or entering a 'beyond-aid scenario'. The comparison shows that, despite a diversity of contexts and histories, the quest for self-sustainability has become a common and dominant concern. Within a framework of options, examples show what is being attempted in terms of NGDOs altering their resource profile and the problems they encounter in doing so. Emerging evidence suggests that NGDOs are more likely to sustain themselves if they (a) look beyond finance to adopt an integrated, capacity-based approach to sustainability and internal organisational reform and (b) put effort into making good their 'relational deficit' with a wider array of domestic constituencies.     

Ten years of infitah: class,rent, and policy stasis in Egypt

The Political Economy of Income Distribution in Egypt. Edited by Gouda Abdel‐Khalek and Robert Tignor. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1982. $55. ISBN 0 8419 0633 5.

Employment Opportunities and Equity in Egypt: A Labour Market Approach. By Bent Hansen and Samir Radwan. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1982. $25.65 and $19.95. ISBN 92 2 102995 6 and 102996 4.

Egypt: Politics and Society, 1945–1981. By Derek Hopwood. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1982. £12.50. ISBN 0 04 956011 5.

An Economic History of the Middle East and North Africa. By Charles Issawi. London: Methuen, 1982. £12.50. ISBN 0 416 34330 9.

Population and Development in Rural Egypt. By Allen C. Kelley, Atef M. Khalifa, and M. Nabil El‐Khorazaty. Durham, NC: Duke Press Policy Studies, 1982. $22.75. ISBN 0 8223 0475 9.     

Book notes

Housing Year Book 1983, Longman Community Information Guides, Longman, 1983, pp. 440, £22.00.

Public Expenditure and Leisure: A Study of Central‐Local Relations, W.D. Hamilton, Polytechnic of North London, Papers in Leisure Studies No. 8 1983, pp. 35 £1.50.

Local Authorities and Land Supply, Susan Barrett and Gill Whitting, School for Advanced Urban Studies, Occasional Paper No. 10, University of Bristol, 1983, pp. 87, £5.35.

Speed, Economy and Effectiveness in Local Plan Preparation and Adoption, C. Fudge, C. Lambert, J. Underwood and P. Healey, School for Advanced Urban Studies, Occasional Paper No. 11, University of Bristol, 1983, pp. 150, £7.40.

The Capitalist State, Bob Jessop, Martin Robertson, 1982, pp. 296, £17.00 hardback, £5.95 paperback.

Homes Fit for People, Family Services Unit Discussion Paper, 1983, pp. 48, £1.00.     

Community councils in Wales

One set of problems facing anyone trying to track public expenditure programmes is how to handle the intergovernmental aspects. This can be illustrated by Rose and Davies's study of public expenditure in Britain. Amongst these problems are changes to the system of grants from central government to local authorities and transfers of functions between local and central government. There are also problems in the consistency with which Rose and Davies use central government grant or all of relevant expenditure in devising programmes. As a result, Rose and Davies findings about local government expenditure programmes lack consistency over time or between programmes. These discrepancies occur in what in some cases are the largest programmes in their policy area, so they also undermine the empirical and theoretical conclusions drawn about policy change as a whole in Britain. Alternative approaches and data may provide a more meaningful tracking of policy change.     

Creating and contesting meanings of place and community in the Ylay Talaa Valley of Kyrgyzstan

Formal schooling was virtually non-existent before the Soviet power in nomadic Kyrgyzstan, as communal life and learning was organized informally at the household and clan level. During the Soviet period, however, educational success became an avenue to a new form of upward social and geographical mobility, and the school provided new and prestigious positions for local teachers and administrators. This paper explores how the externally imposed Soviet collectivization policies reshaped the understandings and meanings of place and community during the twentieth century, a reshaping that centrally involved redefining education and the importance of ‘the school’. In the post-Soviet period, the utility of secondary and higher education in local and national labour markets has diminished, as has the power and prestige of educators. Yet the appeal of education lingers on. The authors seek to document these claims using oral histories, ethnographic interviews and participant observations in the Ylay Talaa Valley of the Kyrgyz Republic.     

Do Perceptions of Ballot Secrecy Influence Turnout? Results from a Field Experiment

Although the secret ballot has been secured as a legal matter in the United States, formal secrecy protections are not equivalent to convincing citizens that they may vote privately and without fear of reprisal. We present survey evidence that those who have not previously voted are particularly likely to voice doubts about the secrecy of the voting process. We then report results from a field experiment where we mailed information about protections of ballot secrecy to registered voters prior to the 2010 general election. Consistent with our survey data, we find that these letters increased turnout for registered citizens without records of previous turnout, but they did not appear to influence the behavior of citizens who had previously voted. The increase in turnout of more than three percentage points (20%) for those without previous records of voting is notably larger than the effect of a standard get‐out‐the‐vote mailing for this group. Overall, these results suggest that although the secret ballot is a long‐standing institution in the United States, beliefs about this institution may not match the legal reality.     

Influencing Public Opinion of Space Policy: Programmatic Effects Versus Education Effects

The public is generally supportive of space policy, but less supportive of spending for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) compared to other government programs. Previous research has helped identify who is more likely to be supportive of NASA spending, but not why. This study seeks to understand the causal mechanisms that influence support for NASA. Using natural between-survey and induced within-survey experiments, this study attempts to identify factors influencing changes in public support for NASA spending. Short-term programmatic and related media effects appear to have no influence on public support for NASA spending. However, correcting information asymmetries in regard to NASA's budget appears to have a significant positive effect on public support for NASA spending. The findings speak to the importance of the public being well informed on policy issues in order to make a correct policy choice, and demonstrate that individual programmatic aspects may not be as important as overall agency direction.     

Singaporean foreign policy and the Asian Values Debate, 1992–2000: reflections on an experiment in soft power

Between 1992 and 2000, the international order witnessed a clash of discourses not seen since the height of the Cold War when both superpowers engaged in propaganda offensives to assert the superiority of their respective governing ideologies. However, unlike the Cold War, the Asian Values Debate did not involve a supporting cast of armed occupations, insurgencies and the preaching of revolution. It involved instead statements of difference couched in intellectual and material terms, and also relied heavily on persuasion by words and symbolic deeds. This article seeks to evaluate Singaporean foreign policy in the Asian Values Debate by using the concept of soft power as described by Joseph Nye. However, soft power, as the ability to obtain foreign policy ends through attraction or convincing rather than through coercion, is itself vulnerable to instances where the ideas propounded diverge from the practices they purport to inspire. Singapore’s role in the Debate will be examined through three events at its zenith between 1992 and 2000: the clash between Asia and the West at the 1993 United Nations World Conference on Human Rights at Vienna, the Michael Fay Caning Affair which directly pitted Singapore against the US in 1994, and the fate of the Asian exceptionalist argument in the face of the 1997–99 Asian Financial Crisis. The conclusion suggests that Singaporean foreign policy’s experiment in soft power has had its successes, but it remains qualified in its applicability to other Asian foreign policies by certain limits inherent in the Singaporean discourse.