Reviews

Hillel Ticktin, Origins of the Crisis in the USSR. Armonk, NY and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1992. ix + 192 pp., $45.00 h/b, $19.95 p/b. Walter D. Connor, The Accidental Proletariat: Workers, Politics, and Crisis in Gorbachev's Russia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991, xvi + 375 pp., £25.00. $39.50.

Archie Brown, ed., New Thinking in Soviet Politics. London: Macmillan, 1992, xii + 115 pp., £30.00 h/b, £9.99 p/b.

Vadim Bakatin, Osvobozhdenie ot illyuzii. Kemerovo: Kemerovskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo, 1992, 183 pp.

Robert T. Huber & Donald R. Kelley, eds., Perestroika‐Era Politics: The New Legislature and Gorbachev's Political Reforms. New York and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1991, viii + 246 pp., £39.95.

Gavin Peebles. A Short History of Socialist Money. London and Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1991, xiii + 170 pp., £30.00 h/b, £11.95 p/b.

Vitalii A. Naishul’, The Supreme and Last Stage of Socialism, Centre for Research into Communist Economies, New Series 2, 1991, 48 pp., £3.50.

Anders Aslund, ed., Market Socialism or the Restoration of Capitalism? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, x + 215 pp., $49.50, £30.00.

Anthony Jones & William Moskoff, Ko‐ops: The Rebirth of Entrepreneurship in the Soviet Union. Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991, xvii+ 153 pp., £20.00 h/b, £9.50 p/b.

Marshall I. Goldman, What Went Wrong with Perestroika. London: W. W. Norton & Company Ltd, 1991, 258 pp., £12.95.

Leah A. Haus, Globalizing Gatt: The Soviet Union's Successor States, Eastern European and the International Trading System. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1992, x + 141 pp., $38.95 h/b, $10.95 p/b.

Frederic J. Fleron, Jr., Erik P. Hoffman, Robbin F. Laird, eds, Soviet Foreign Policy: Classic and Contemporary Issues. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1991, xviii + 857 pp., DM 178 h/b, DM 98 p/b. Also published as Frederic J. Fleron, Jr., Erik P. Hofmann, Robbin F. Laird, eds, Classic Issues in Soviet Foreign Policy: From Lenin to Brezhnev. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1991, xvi + 349 pp., DM 48 p/b; and Frederic J. Fleron, Jr. Erik P. Hoffmann, Robbin F. Laird, eds, Contemporary Issues in Soviet Foreign Policy: From Brezhnev to Gorbachev. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1991, xviii+ 521 pp., DM 54 p/b.

Steven Kull, Burying Lenin. The Revolution in Soviet Ideology & Foreign Policy. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992. xvi + 219 pp., £10.95 p/b.

Lowell Dittmer, Sino‐Soviet Normalisation and Its International Implications, 1945–1990. Seattle, WA, and London: University of Washington Press, 1992, vii + 373 pp., $35.00.

Haim Shemesh, Soviet‐Iraqi Relations, 1986–1988: In the Shadow of the Iraq‐Iran Conflict. London: Lynne Rienner Publisher, 1992, x + 285 pp., £31.95.

Larry E. Holmes, The Kremlin and the Schoolhouse: Reforming Education in Soviet Russia, 1917–1931. Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press (Distributed in UK by Open University Press), 1991, xv + 215 pp., £18.50.

Beatrice Farnsworth & Lynne Viola, eds, Russian Peasant Women, New York: Oxford University Press, 1992, 304 pp., £13.50 p/b.

George Sanford, ed. and transl., Democratization in Poland, 1988–90. London: Macmillan, 1992, xv + 203 pp., £40.00.

Tania Konn, ed., Soviet Studies Guide. London: Bowker‐Saur, 1992, xvi + 237 pp., £39.00 h/b.     

Schoolhouses,courthouses, and statehouses after Serrano

The constitutionality of public school finance systems has been challenged in 43 states in the 25 years since the landmark Serrano decision. Using data on revenues from more than 16,000 school districts over the 1972-1992 period, this article assesses the impact of court-mandated reform on the role of the states in school finance. We find that resources from the state increased while revenues from local districts were roughly unchanged after successful litigation. States also followed a more aggressive redistribution policy in the aftermath of court-mandated reform; after successful litigation, state aid to the poorest districts increased and aid to the wealthiest districts remained unchanged. Finally, we find that reforms that were initiated by the states without judicial prodding were typically ineffective.     

Nonkilling 101 — Is a nonkilling society possible?

ABSTRACT

Following the definition presented by Paige, nonkilling refers to the absence of killing, threats to kill, and conditions conducive to killing in human society. How can education contribute to bringing about such societies? As the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) called upon the global community to ‘significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere’ by 2030, a growing need exists to understand the educational measures and transformations relevant to building societies where human killing is greatly reduced and eventually absent. Just as scholars, practitioners and policy-makers in other areas have had to rethink their impact in contributing to this global goal, in 2015 the “Vasa Statement on Education for Killing-Free Societies” was adopted, proposing concrete recommendations. The articles put together in this special issue of the Journal of Peace Education provide grounds to sustain the crucial role of education in curving the global epidemic of lethal violence.     

Generalised estimates of diffusion rates for the oxygen blown steel process: An international comparison

The purpose of this study is to build on the results recently obtained by Poznanski (1990). First, the estimation technique is generalised by removing both the symmetric restrictions and the effects of autocorrelated errors that are present in simple logistic functions. Secondly, attention is drawn to the existence and consequences of multicollinearity when non linear techniques are applied to a general exponential. Thirdly, an attempt is made to quantify the importance of market structure and time lags in adoption as determinants of diffusion speed. Finally, a comparison between these generalised results and Poznanski's is made. The study concludes that, by generalising the estimation technique, some significant changes take place. Changes occur in the ordering and magnitude of diffusion speeds, especially amongst the developing and centrally planned economies. Changes also occur in the nature of the diffusion process, and in the importance attributed to market structure and diffusion lags in determining the rate of diffusion. It is also shown that, for some countries, multicollinearity imposes constraints on the type of generality that can be obtained.     

Predicting symmetry in female/male crime rates

This paper examines changes in female criminality. Data were obtained from 1943 through 1998 on six index crimes: murder, robbery, assault, burglary, auto theft, and larceny. Rape and arson are not included because rape is almost exclusively a male crime, while statistics for arson have not been consistent for the period studied. A review of the literature on female crime is presented. Percentage differences between males and females were obtained for specific crimes for each year. A regression line was computed for this difference by year. Each line is characterized by R², as a measure of confidence in future predictions and “b” levels to determine slope, and the expected year in which male and female crime will achieve equality if current trends continue. The authors also suggest using the year generated as an index on which to compare growth or decline of female crime.