CONTINUITY / DISCONTINUITY

Starting from issues Wang Hui raises in “The Dialectics of Autonomy and Opening” (Critical Asian Studies 43:2), the authors of this article focus on the problematic coexistence of continuities and discontinuities in modern and contemporary Chinese politics. China's present role in the international scene, they argue, cannot be assessed in terms of economic performance, but requires new perspectives for rethinking the search of China for an original path in domestic politics, as well as the universalistic attitude toward the various forms of thinking coming from all over the world.     

Book reviews

Cook P &; C Kirkpatrick (eds), Privatisation in Developing Countries. International Library of Critical Writings in Economics. Cheltenham: Elgar Reference Collection, 2000. 120pp. ISBN: 1–85898–358–4 (Two volume set).

Entman RM &; A Rojecki, The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.305pp. US$26.00. ISBN: 0–26–21075–8.

Jalilian H, Tribe M &; J Weiss (eds), Industrial Development and Policy in Africa. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2000. 292pp. ISBN: 1–84064–120–7

Jing J (ed.), Feeding China's Little Emperors: Food, Children and Social Change. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. 279pp. ISBN: 0–8047–3134–9. US$17.95. http: //www. sup. org

Kleinen J, Facing the Future Reviving the Past: A Study of Social Change in a Northern Vietnamese Village. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1999. 239pp. ISBN: 981–230–039–2. US$29.90. http: //www.iseas.edu.sg/pub.html

Kebede JA, The Changing Face of Rural Policy in Tanzania: From Collectivism to Capitalism. London: Minerva Press, 2000. 86pp. ISBN: 07–5410–828–7. £8.99

Lane RE, The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies . New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. 465pp. ISBN: 0–300–07801–3. £22.50

Madsen W, Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa : 1993–1999. Lampeter, Ceredigion, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press, 1999. 568pp. ISBN 0–7734–8002–1.

Mankekar P, Screening Culture, Viewing Politics: An Ethnography of Television, Womanhood and Nation in Postcolonial India. Durham and London: Duke University Press. 429pp. 1999. ISBN: 0–8223–2390–7.

Mathoma P, Mills G &; J Stremlau (eds), Putting People First: African Priorities for the UN Millennium Assembly. Johannesburg, SANA, 2000. 129pp. ISBN: 1–919819–14–5

Nurnberger K, Prosperity, Poverty and Pollution: Managing the Approaching Crisis. Cluster Publications, 1999.487pp. ISBN: 1–875053–15–8.

Harvey D, Limits to Capital , Verso, 1999. 478pp. ISBN: 1–85984–714–5

O'Conner JS, Orloff AS &; S Shaver, States, Markets, Families: Gender, Liberalism, and Social Policy in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, and the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 280pp. ISBN: 0–521–63881‐X. £15.95. h ttp: //www. cup. cam.ac.uk

Oi J &; A Walder (eds), Property Rights and Economic Reform in China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. 354pp. ISBN: 08047–3788–6. £13.95. http: //www.sup.org

Parenti C, Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis. London: Verso, 1999. 244pp. ISBN: 1–85984–3034. £15.00

Townsend RF, Agricultural Incentives in Sub‐Saharan Africa: Policy Challenges , World Bank Technical Paper no.444. Washington DC: World Bank, August 1999. ISBN: 0–8213–4528–1. Available from World Bank offices and Oxford University Press.

Verdery K, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies, Reburial and Postsocialist Change. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. 185pp. ISBN: 0–231–11230–0. US$25.00. http: //www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup

Zouev A (ed.) Generation in Jeopardy: Children in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. New York: Unicef, 1999. 206pp. ISBN: 0–7656–0290–3. US$19.95. http: //www.unicef.org     

Perineal‐Vaginal Injuries in Children: Accident or Abuse?

Abstract: A large number of conditions have been mistaken for abuse. Differentiating accidental injuries from inflicted injuries is important in the management of injured children. In this work, the authors describe two cases of accidental perineal‐vaginal injury in children. In case 1, a 4‐year‐old girl suffered a vaginal tear caused by violent stretching during play; in case 2, a 3‐year‐old girl had minor lacerations of labia minora and majora. The intervention of a multi‐specialist team including a forensic pathologist and forensic psychiatrist was the key factor in being able to exclude abuse by third parties in the described cases.. This leads to the appropriate recommendations to be adopted in the forensic medicine setting.     

A Clinical Comparison,Simulation Study Testing the Validity of SIMS and IOP-29 with an Italian Sample

The Inventory of Problems–29 (IOP-29) was recently introduced as a brief, easy-to-use measure of non-credible mental and cognitive symptoms that may be applied to a wide variety of contexts or clinical conditions. The current study compared its validity in discriminating bona fide versus feigned (via experimental malingering paradigm) psychopathology against that of the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS). Specifically, 452 Italian adult volunteers participated in this study: 216 were individuals with mental illness who were asked to take the SIMS and IOP-29 honestly, and 236 were nonclinical participants (experimental simulators) who took the same two tests with the instruction to feign a psychopathological condition. Two main, broad categories of symptom presentations were investigated: (a) psychotic spectrum disorders and (b) anxiety, depression, and/or trauma-related disorders. Data analysis compared the effect sizes of the differences between the patients and experimental simulators, as well as the AUC and classification accuracy statistics for both the SIMS and IOP-29. The results indicate that the IOP-29 outperformed the SIMS, with the differences between the two tools being more notable within the psychotic (IOP-29 vs. SIMS: d?=???1.80 vs. d?=???1.06; AUC?=?.89 vs. AUC?=?.79) than within the anxiety, depression, and/or trauma related subgroup (IOP-29 vs. SIMS: d?=???2.02 vs. d?=???1.62; AUC?=?.90 vs. AUC?=?.86). This study also demonstrates that the IOP-29, with its single cutoff score, is generalizable culturally and linguistically from the USA (English) to Italy (Italian).     

Mayoral Quality and Local Public Finance

In most local developing settings, the political leader and the municipal manager are embodied in the same figure, the directly elected mayor. This research explores the impact of mayoral quality on local public finances in a developing country. Mayoral quality is operationalized as educational background and job-related expertise to analyze its impact on two local financial indicators: property tax collection and social spending per capita. The mayoral quality thesis is tested across 40 Colombian municipalities over five years (2000–2004). After considering other political, economic, and external influences, the findings reveal that mayoral quality is associated with greater property tax collection and more social spending per capita. This positive influence, however, decreases under external constraints—such as presence of illegal armed groups. This study demonstrates how much influence the mayor can have when circumstances permit. The findings point to the significance of electing qualified mayors, as decentralization may not directly improve subnational finance. Instead, through decentralization, qualified mayors contribute to improved local public finance.     

Geographic proximity and university–industry interaction: the case of Mexico

This paper analyses whether geographic proximity favours specific channels of university–industry interaction when firms collaborate with universities and with government research centres. Our study also provides insights regarding the relationship between the associated channel and the role of firms’ absorptive capacities. Our results show that firms with higher levels of absorptive capacities tend to interact more independently of their location. Additionally, interaction with non-local universities generally includes the transfer of codified forms of knowledge, while links with local universities includes more tacit forms of knowledge. Policy implications derived from this analysis focus on fostering interaction at local and non-local levels.     

The transition from central planning to a market economy: A computable general equilibrium model

This paper develops a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of the transition from a central planned economy to a market economy. The model is an extension of Wellisz and Findlay's (1986) model of the Soviet ‘second economy.’ By distinguishing alternative assumptions about the disposition of the government budget, two model variants — the ‘activist’ and ‘non-activist’ — are analyzed. Equilibria of these model variants are computed for various parameter specifications of the Kantorovich ray, which represents the stringency of central planners' direction of the economy. The paper shows that increasing efficiency of the private sector, while it reduces the size of government subsidies to the state sector, does not necessarily increase the net government budget.     

Equity, international trade and climate policy

The literature of welfare-maximising greenhouse gas emission reduction strategies pays remarkably little attention to equity. This paper introduces various ways to consider efficiency and equity simultaneously. Lower (higher) discount rates lead to higher (lower) emission reduction. Higher (lower) inequity aversion leads to higher (lower) emission abatement, unless one also considers the negative effects of OECD emission reduction on the exports of developing countries; in that case, the effect of inequity aversion is ambiguous. In the absence of international co-operation, higher (lower) risk aversion leads to lower (higher) emission abatement. With international co-operation, the effect of risk aversion is ambiguous because the higher risk aversion gives more weight to poorer regions and poorer generations. We analyse four ways to introduce compassion in a non-cooperative setting. If observed development aid is a guide, international altruism is small and has little impact on optimal emission control. If countries act as if they 'feel' but not 'physically experience' the climate impact of the most vulnerable country, optimal emission reduction increases, but not substantially so. However, if countries actually have to pay for the damage done, they would prefer to reduce their emissions to much lower levels. Finally, if countries pay as much for emission reduction as other countries suffer from climate change, (that is, if climate policy restores the income distribution to what it would have been without climate change), emissions are rapidly cut to very low levels.