Explaining Capitalism: The Method of Marx's Political Economy

The central thesis of this article is that Marx's explanation of the significant phenomena of the capitalist economy draws upon a basic theoretical syntax of a determinist/latent functionalist type. This conclusion has three consequences. First, it extends the range of functionalist explanation in Marx beyond its traditional loci, namely the theory of history and the analysis of the role of the state and other institutions in stabilizing capitalism, into the very heart of Marx's project, his political economy. Secondly, it has a powerful, though indirect, impact on our understanding of what might loosely be called the normative component of Marx's writings in as much as it identifies a specific sort of unfreedom peculiar to capitalist society. Thirdly, it shows just how great a challenge is mounted against Marx's project by those who seek to recast its method of explanation along methodological individualist lines. For if the first two points are accurate, rational-choice Marxists are drawn into a critique of both the explanatory and normative core of Marxism.     

Money,mail and markets: Reflections on direct mail in American politics

Direct mail has become one of the orthodox stage properties of America's campaigns, and its successes include the transformation of Republican contributors from a rich coterie to a broad base of donors. But while its role is acknowledged, it has not been fully explained: rather, the mail is treated as a magical if somewhat erratic panacea.This article attempts to remedy that deficiency. Direct mail succeeds because unlike other media it can deliver a specialized message to distinctive groups, made personal through the agency of new technology and therefore engendering unique loyalties. The mail represents activism for the inactive, bringing political expression and influence to an alienated provincial conservatism, and it works by the diligent discovery of names and personal details of prospective supporters. But success is not inevitable. When time is short, or where obscure local candidates solicit national support, direct mail will give its employers disappointing results.     

Reviews

Tsuyoshi Hasegawa & Alex Pravda, eds, Perestroika: Soviet Domestic and Foreign Policies. London: Sage Publications, 1991, xxi+276 pp., £27.50 h/b, £11.95 p/b.

Ronald J. Hill & Jan Ake Dellenbrant, eds, Gorbachev and Perestroika: Towards a New Socialism? Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1989, 234 pp., £32.50

Uri Ra'anan & Igor Lukes, eds, Gorbachev's USSR: A System in Crisis, London: Macmillan, 1990, xxi+154 pp., £35.00.

Martin McCauley, ed., Gorbachev and Perestroika. London: Macmillan, 1990, xii+222 pp. £35.00 h/b, £14.99 p/b.

Pawel Dembinski, The Logic of the Planned Economy: The Seeds of Collapse. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991, xii+249 pp., £30.00.

Mildred Turnbull, Soviet Environmental Policy and Practice. Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing Company, 1991, xiv+215 pp., £35.00

Chandran Kukathas, David W. Lovell & William Maley, eds, The Transition from Socialism: State and Civil Society in the USSR. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1991, vii+227 pp., $24.99.

Vladimir Tismaneanu, In Search of Civil Society: Independent Peace Movements in the Soviet Bloc. London: Routledge, 1990, x+191 pp., £30.00.

John Feffer, Beyond Detente. New Options on East‐ West Relations. London: I. B. Tauris & Co., 1990, xviii+238 pp., £14.95

Robert Hall, Soviet Military Art in a Time of Change: Command and Control of the Future Battlefield. London: Brassey's (UK), 1991, xix+203 pp., £22.50, $40.50 h/b.

Alfred D. Low, Soviet Jewry and Soviet Policy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990, 249 pp., $37.50     

Getting the fundamentals wrong: woes of public–private partnerships in solid waste collection in three Ghanaian cities

Until over a decade ago, concerted efforts at involving private agents to deliver solid waste collection services did not feature in local government's (LG's) policies and practices in Ghana. The LGs had over the years directly delivered the services with their labour, materials and equipment. The purpose of entering into partnerships with private contractors was to improve service delivery. This comes at a time when the private sector is generally viewed as more efficient and effective than the public sector. There is abundant literature on potential benefits of private sector participation in public service delivery; yet, figures of efficiency gains are often accepted without challenge. More advantages but fewer disadvantages are cited and anecdotal evidence is used only to illustrate successful applications of the concept of public–private partnerships (PPPs). Using research data from three cities (Accra, Kumasi and Tema) in Ghana, this article exposes the contrast between policy expectations and outcomes of PPPs. The article argues that simply turning over public service delivery to private agents without ensuring that the fundamentals that make them successful are put in place leads to a worse situation than portrayed in literature about the benefit of PPPs. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The End of the Beginning? The Freedom of Information Bill 1999

With the publication of its plans for a Bill on Freedom of Information, the new Labour government has been accused of abandoning its promise of greater openness in the way government is conducted in this country and its proposals are seen as a departure from the highly applauded contents of the White Paper published in December 1997. The draft Bill has been pilloried by friend and foe alike. It is seen as a litmus test of Blair's government and where it really stands on the citizen/state relationship and how the future balance will lie between the executive and Parliament. The authors examine the events surrounding the publication of the Bill and its scrutiny by the pre-legislative select committees in the Commons and Lords. The Home Secretary has hinted at possible concessions in the light of fierce criticism. Is this a Bill worth saving and how can it be improved to capture a more appropriate balance between confidentiality, secrecy, and openness in the conduct of modern governance?     

"Cold Storage": British Policy and the Beginnings of the Irian Barat/West New Guinea Dispute

During the struggle for independence, the British had sought to bring the Dutch and the Indonesians together: they wanted the friendship of the Dutch, their neighbours in Europe, but also believed that the Western powers could stay in Southeast Asia only if they came to terms with nationalism. The 1949 agreement that transferred sovereignty postponed the question of Irian Barat/West New Guinea. The British rather hoped that the Dutch would stay but,particularly as the Cold War intensified, did not wish to alienate the Indonesians. If no agreement could be reached on the issue, they wanted to put it into "cold storage" for a number of years. The Australian government was not satisfied with these policies. It opposed an Indonesian takeover, or indeed any Indonesian role in West New Guinea. Its aim was thepreservation of the status quo: even "cold storage" was insufficient.     

Centripetal forces in spatial voting: On the size of the Yolk

The yolk, the smallest circle which intersects all median lines, has been shown to be an important tool in understanding the nature of majority voting in a spatial voting context. The center of the yolk is a natural ‘center’ of the set of voter ideal points. The radius of the yolk can be used to provide bounds on the size of the feasible set of outcomes of sophisticated voting under standard amendment procedure, and on the limits of agenda manipulation and cycling when voting is sincere. We show that under many plausible conditions the yolk can be expected to be small. Thus, majority rule processes in spatial voting games will be far better behaved than has commonly been supposed, and the possible outcomes of agenda manipulations will be generally constrained. This result was first conjectured by Tullock (1967).     

Environmental belief systems among Japanese and American elites and publics

This paper compares the environmental belief systems of elites and publics in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, and Spokane County, Washington State. The central question posed is whether the shared forces of postindustrialism generate similar belief structures among elites in nations with quite distinct cultural, political, and historical backgrounds. As a prototypical postindustrial policy area, natural resource/environmental politics is used as the specific issue domain of study. The results emerging from this comparative inquiry reveal substantial differences between the Japanese and American local area elites in the structuring of environmental beliefs, especially in the role of postindustrial orientations. The results also suggest much larger differences in belief system content and structure between elite and general public samples in the Spokane area than in Shizuoka Prefecture.