Reviews

Seweryn Bialer ed. Politics. Society and Nationality inside Gorbachev's Russia. Boulder, London: Westview Press, 1989. xv + 255 pp., £22.50 h/b., £11.00 p/b.

Jan Winiecki, The Distorted World of Soviet‐Type Economies. London and New York: Routledge, 1988, xi + 130 pp., £33.00.

Jan Adam, Economic Reforms in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe since the 1960s. London: Macmillan, 1989, xvi + 242 pp. £29.50.

Alexander George, Philip J. Farley and Alexander Dallin, eds. U.S.‐Soviet Security Cooperation. Achievements, Failures, Lessons. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, xi + 746 pp., £30.00.

Thomas M. Cynkin, Soviet and American Signalling in the Polish Crisis. London: MacMillan Press, 1988, ix + 263 pp., £35.00.

Stephen Lewarne, Soviet Oil: The Move Offshore. Boulder and London: Westfield Press, 1988, xiv + 190 pp. Price not indicated.

Margaret Chadwick, David Long and Machiko Nissanke, Soviet Oil Exports: Trade Adjustments, Refining Constraints and Market Behaviour. Oxford: OUP 1987. xviii + 263 pp. £29.50.

James H. Bater, The Soviet Scene: A Geographical Perspective. London: Edward Arnold, 1989, xv + 304 pp., £30.00 h/b., £11.95 p/b.

Raymond Hutchings, Soviet Secrecy and Non‐Secrecy. London: Macmillan, 1987, vii + 292 pp., £29.50.

Bryan Ranft and Geoffrey Till, The Sea in Soviet Strategy. 2nd Edition, London: Macmillan, 1989, xviii + 284 pp., £35.00.

Robert Desjardins, The Soviet Union through French Eyes, 1945–85. Foreward by Archie Brown, St Antony's/Macmillan series, Macmillan Press, London, 1988, xiii + 199 pp., £33.00.

Linda R. Killen, The Soviet Union and the United States: A New Look at the Cold War. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1989, xv + 195 pp., $24.95 h/b., $12.95 p/b.

Anne D. Rassweiler, The Generation of Power. The History of Dneprostroi. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, viii + 247 pp., £24.00.

Stephen White, The Bolshevik Poster. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988, viii + 152 pp., £19.95, $39.95.

János Timár, Idö és munkaidö (Time and Work Time), Közgazdasági és Jogi Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 1988, 297 pp.

Tamara Dragadze, Rural Families in Soviet Georgia. A case study in Ratcha Province. International Library of Anthropology, Routledge, London and New York, 1988, xii + 226 pp.

Thomas A. Oleszczuk, Political Justice in the USSR: Dissent and Repression in Lithuania, 1969–1987. Boulder, Colorado: East European Monographs, 1988, viii + 221 pp., $34.50.

Nora Levin, The Jews in the Soviet Union since 1917: Paradox of Survival. New York: New York University Press, 1988, 2 vols. xxxiv + 1013 pp., $55 each vol., $100 the set; foreign prices $69 and $125.

Benjamin Pinkus, The Jews of the Soviet Union: The History of a National Minority. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, xvii + 397 pp., £30.00, $34.50.

Marko Milivojevi?, John B. Allcock and Pierre Maurer, eds. Yugoslavia's Security Dilemmas: Armed Forces, National Defence and Foreign Policy. Oxford: Berg Publishers Limited, 1988, viii + 324 pp., £35.00.

German Institute for Economic Research, ed. GDR and Eastern Europe. A Handbook. Avebury, Gower Publishing Company Limited, 1989, xxi + 383 pp., £32.50.

Daniel N. Nelson, Romanian Politics in the Ceausescu Era. London: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1988, xvii + 244 pp., $69.00.

The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the Russian Revolution, Edited by Harold Shukman, Basil Blackwell, 1988, xv + 418 pp.     

Reviews

Vladimir Shlapentokh, Soviet Intellectuals and Political Power: The Post‐Stalin Era. London: I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 1990, xiv + 321 pp., £19.95

Jadwiga Staniszkis, The Dynamics of the Breakthrough in Eastern Europe. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991, xiii + 303 pp., £25.00, $35.00.

Richard Sakwa, Gorbachev and his Reforms, 1985–1990. London: Philip Allan, 1990, xiv + 459 pp., £35.00 h/b, £12.95 p/b.

Julian Cooper, The Soviet Defence Industry: Conversion and Reform. London: Pinter Publishers, 1991, ix + 111 pp., £22.50 h/b, £8.95 p/b.

Elizabeth Winiecki & Jan Winiecki, The Structural Legacy of the Soviet‐Type Economy. London: CRCE, 1992, 133 pp., £6.50 p/b.

Marsha Siefert, ed., Mass Culture and Perestroika in the Soviet Union. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, 200 pp., $35.00.

Anne White, De‐Stalinization and the House of Culture. Declining state control over leisure in the USSR, Poland and Hungary, 1953–89. London and New York: Routledge, 1990, x+195 pp., £30.00.

Deborah Adelman, The ‘Children of Perestroika’. Moscow Teenagers Talk About Their Lives and the Future. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe Inc., 1991, xxiii + 256 pp., $24.95.

Michael Marrese & Sándor Richter, eds, The Challenge of Simultaneous Economic Relations with East and West. London: Macmillan, 1990, xviii + 216 pp., £45.00.

David W. Hunter, Western Trade Pressure on the Soviet Union. Basingstoke: Macmillan Academic and Professional Ltd, 1991, xii + 163 pp., £45.00

Pierre Maurer, La Reconciliation Sovieto‐Yougoslave, 1954–1958: Illusions et Disillusions de Tito. Cousset, Fribourg: Editions Delval, 1991, 474 pp., no price.     

Assessing the impact of decentralization on governance: A comparative methodological approach and application to Tunisia

The relationship between decentralization and governance has not been adequately explored in the literature. Many past studies have failed to assess fully the impact of decentralization because of the lack of a set of independent, comparative indicators of the quality of decentralization being implemented in a given country. The authors adopt the working hypothesis that decentralization, both as a process and as an end state in terms of organization and operations, is closely related to the quality of governance in developing countries. In order to provide an empirical basis for a comparative assessment, the authors have developed a model based on the scope, intensity and commitment to decentralization in a country. Each of these concepts is operationalized in terms of a set of empirically measurable variables. The method is then applied to the case of Tunisia and assessed as a tool for the comparative study of decentralization and governance. Decentralization in Tunisia is shown to have an important relationship to the quality of governance in that country. The methodology developed here for the analysis of the quality of decentralization appears, based on the examination of a significant case, to be worth pursuing cross-nationally.     

Decentralizing supervision to attain higher productivity: the case of the ecuadorian health system

There is growing interest in developed and developing countries about how to best administer public programs in order to maximize the return on invested resources. This paper examines the extent to which decentralized supervision can help improve health worker productivity. Data on health workers in Ecuador are analyzed. The results suggest that local (or decentralized) supervision is conducive to higher productivity and more hours worked per day by Ecuador's health promoters. The implications for higher health status, and for improving health care in other developing countries are discussed.     

产业扶贫缘何难以为继:目标嵌入与行动“脱嵌”--基于一个地方案例

产业扶贫在脱贫攻坚与乡村振兴的进程中面临难以为继的困境。以项目制为基础的产业扶贫方式使政府得以将企业作为国家资本“代理”嵌入贫困村参与扶贫;为了激发村庄的内生发展能力,地方政府以政治精英下沉嵌入和村庄内生嵌入的方式,引导扶贫干部、合作社、大户三大重要的扶贫力量参与到产业扶贫中,带动贫困村产业发展和解决贫困问题。但基层政府对“短平快”效果的追求、企业纯粹逐利进入、村庄共生关系淡化及贫困户被动的策略性接受,破坏了这种嵌入性带来的结构性转变,造成产业扶贫中产业发展与脱贫目标的靶向偏离、贫困户实际创收有限、产业扶贫难以为继,形成一种脱嵌式产业扶贫。因此须构建一套完整的对产业扶贫参与主体的监督、考核、激励机制,努力探索开发扶贫目标下农户能普遍获得资源和项目成果公平性分享的制度安排,以期实现乡村产业兴旺、农民生活富裕。