Book reviews

Books for review should be sent to the Book Review Editor, D.V.E. Royall, at Lanchester College of Technology, Coventry.

SALE OF GOODS by G.H.L. Fridman, published by Sweet & Maxwell, Ltd., at 50s.

PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE by Rowland G. Witchell, (1966) published by Oyez Publications at 37s. 6d.

COMPANY LAW by Kenneth Smith and Denis J. Keenan. (1966) published by Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd. at 30s.

BUILDING LAW by J.R. Lewis published by Allman & Son, Ltd., at 18s 6d.

BUSINESS LAW by Neil Merritt and E.G. Howard Clayton (1966) published by Sweet & Maxwell Ltd. at 35s (hardback) and 18s: 6d. (paperback).

HILL AND REDMAN'S LAW OF LANDLORD AND TENANT (14th Edn) by W. J. Williams, published by Butterworths & Co. Ltd. at £9. 17. 6 (main work with supplement); supplement alone £1. 7. 6d.     

Psychological Assessment of Chief of Police Candidates: Scientific and Practice Issues

This report examines issues associated with the selection of a Chief of Police. A review of the literature indicates minimal progress in specifying appropriate objective selection procedures for the Police Chief. This is attributable to a research focus on broad leadership styles, rather than specific competencies, and an inattention to the unique needs of individual jurisdictions. As a potential alternative, a hiring process model is offered that includes a systematic job analysis within the given jurisdiction, and the use of a reliable and well-validated instrument to assess job candidates’ leadership potential and skills. This approach is illustrated by a case study of a medium-size city that followed the recommended procedures to make a hiring decision that has been sustained across more than a year’s time, and which appears to be working out. The uses of testing results to help the Chief of Police to enhance personal capabilities within the new position also are discussed.     

The perils of hyper-vigilance: the war on terrorism and the surveillance state in South-East Asia

The analysis examines the puzzle as to why the intelligence structures of South-East Asia largely failed to detect the evolving threat of violently inclined radical Islamic groups, despite the existence of elaborate and pervasive internal security arrangements within the states of the region. The article explores this issue by positing contending viewpoints about how authoritarianism in South-East Asia might have affected the awareness of such threats. Answers to these questions enable an assessment of the current ASEAN response to the ‘war on terrorism’ and to discern whether South-East Asia's elites will move either to improve the quality of their intelligence and threat analysis in the future, or whether they will, instead, extend the instruments of authoritarian rule, further curtailing civil and political space under the rubric of combating terrorism. The evidence so far suggests that the latter outcome is the more likely.     

Punctuated Equilibrium in Comparative Perspective

We explore the impact of institutional design on the distribution of changes in outputs of governmental processes in the United States, Belgium, and Denmark. Using comprehensive indicators of governmental actions over several decades, we show that in each country the level of institutional friction increases as we look at processes further along the policy cycle. Assessing multiple policymaking institutions in each country allows us to control for the nature of the policy inputs, as all the institutions we consider cover the full range of social and political issues in the country. We find that all distributions exhibit high kurtosis values, significantly higher than the Normal distribution which would be expected if changes in government attention and activities were proportionate to changes in social inputs. Further, in each country, those institutions that impose higher decision-making costs show progressively higher kurtosis values. The results suggest general patterns that we hypothesize to be related to boundedly rational behavior in a complex social environment.     

The Future of Renewable Energy in Australia: A Test for Cooperative Federalism?

In the context of the Australian federal system industry development will be influenced by the policies of each sphere of government. When announcing a set of policies in 1997 to develop the renewable energy industry the Australian federal government acknowledged the need for a cooperative approach between all governments and industry. The objective of this article is to analyse the government policies over the 1997–2007 period to promote the development of the renewable energy industry in Australia. The article highlights a number of factors that have served as barriers to the development of the industry. The research provides important insight into the difficulties associated with establishing cooperative national arrangements in areas of state government responsibility in the Australian federation. The lessons also inform the current debate on the policy initiatives needed to more effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions from stationary energy from the increased availability of renewable energy .