Budget-Making for Social Purposes

A theory of the budgetary process within public resource allocation has to recognize two basic properties of budgetary behavior and budgetary interaction: variation over time and program variation. Our results indicate that the hypothesis of program variation is worthy of effort, as we find different decision mechanisms operating in the six programs studied, which belong to different categories of public resource allocation. Variation over time is particularly difficult to accommodate within the framework of incrementalist notions: incremental decision rules imply structural stability over time slices. We find the opposite to be true in two of the program types analyzed, the transfer programs and the service programs. Bureaucratic programs may look incremental; however, that may only be an appearance, as a closer analysis of the data indicates that the decision mechanism involves the occurrence of shift-points or non-incremental changes. A theory of the public expenditure process has to take into account both incremental decision strategies and non-incremental ones, which requires an econometric methodology based on the possibility of structural variability. Such a methodology includes the use of both test statistics and estimation techniques suitable to the occurrence of structural variability.     

Observations from practice: support group membership as a process of social capital formation among female survivors of domestic violence

This article explores the authors' practice observations of female domestic violence survivors' journey from first agency contact to active participation in a support group process. The authors have witnessed female victims of domestic violence challenging the social isolation imposed by their dominant partners as they search for meaning in their lives. As practitioners, they have observed women building trustful relationships and establishing supportive networks during the group process. In this article, the authors suggest that the support group process facilitates trust and network formation indicative of social capital.     

International Organisation as Coordination in N-Person Games

One major problem in global governance is the specification of decision-making rules for international and regional organisations to coordinate the states of the world. Various organisations use different decision-making rules, and the properties of these rules may be compared systematically in terms of the power index approach. The power index solution concept of N-person games may be employed to display a basic problem in global governance, namely, the fundamental trade-off between state veto on the one hand and the capacity of the organisation or groups of states to act, meaning its decisiveness, on the other hand. Thus, when states coordinate through the setting up and running of international organisations, they then face a trade-off between their own control over the organisation and the capacity of the organisation to act. States make this trade-off in different ways depending upon the nature of the international or regional organisation as they reflect upon what is most important, to wit, own control or the capacity of the group to act.     

Politics, Economics and the Measurement of Power

To what extent is political power fundamentally different from or, alternatively, comparable to economic power? While it is true that the basic institutions of democratic political life - the electoral arena and the sovereign representative assembly - differ from such capitalist economic institutions as the market and the joint-stock company, the logic of the power game which takes place in both settings is quite similar. In both institutions power will be a function of the capacity to enter decisive coalitions with other players: individuals, political parties, stockholders or groups of stockholders. Power indices may therefore be employed in order to reveal aspects of the strategic gaming that takes place both in representative assemblies and at yearly stockholders' meetings. This article discusses and compares various quantitative measures of voting power in the two kinds of voting bodies.     

Reviews

Rosalinde Sartorti, Pressefotografie und Industrialisierung in der Sowjetunion. Die Pravda 1925–33. Berlin and Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. 1981. 339 pp. 58 DM.

P. G. Hare, H. K. Radice and N. Swain (eds.), Hungary: A Decade of Economic Reform. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981. xiv+257 pp. £15.00.

Philip Hanson, Trade and Technology in Soviet‐ Western Relations. London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1981. xiv + 271 pp. £20.

Peter Wiles (ed.), The New Communist Third World. London and Canberra: Croom Helm, 1982. 392 pp. £15.95.

Arthur J. Klinghoffer: The Angolan War: a study in Soviet policy in the Third World. Colorado: Westview Press Inc., 1980. viii + 229 pp. $22.50.

Morris Rothenberg: The USSR and Africa: new dimensions of Soviet global power. Washington: Advanced International Studies Institute, 1980. viii + 280 pp. $8.95 and $ 12.95.

Seweryn Bialer (ed.), The Domestic Context of Soviet Foreign Policy. Studies of the Research Institute on International Change, Columbia University. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press/London: Croom Helm, 1981. xviii + 441 pp. £14.95.

Igor Birman, Secret incomes of the Soviet state budget. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981. 313 pp. DFL. 180.00, US $78.50.

James R. Millar, The ABCs of Soviet Socialism. University of Illinois Press, 1981. xvi + 215 pp. £8.72 paperback.

Adam B. Ulam, Russia's Failed Revolutions: from the Decembrists to the Dissidents. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1981. vii + 453 pp. £10.00.

Richard B. Day, The ‘Crisis’ and the ‘Crash’: Soviet Studies of the West, (1917–1939). London: NLB, 1981. x + 300 pp. £9.50.

Bogdan Szajkowski (ed.), Marxist Governments: A World Survey, 3 vols. London: Macmillan, 1981. xix + 822 pp. £20 per volume, £50 the set.

Thomas Remeikis, Opposition to Soviet Rule in Lithuania 1945–1980. Chicago: Institute of Lithuanian Studies Press, 1980. 680 pp. $15.00.     

The Child in European Human Rights Law

This article examines the category of ‘the child’ in European human rights law, based on an analysis of the child‐related jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. It argues that a full account of legal selfhood is constructed through the notion of ‘the child’ in this jurisprudence. The two notions – of ‘the child’ and ‘the self’ – are, from the outset, mutually dependent. The conceptualisation of ‘the child’ in human rights law is underpinned by an account of the self as originating in another and childhood is cast as enabling self‐understanding by making possible the formation of a narrative about the self. The vision of ‘the self’ that emerges is one of ‘the narrative self’, and I assess the implications of this both for the idea of childhood in which this narrative originates and for the vision of the human condition that is expressed in European human rights law more broadly.     

Global Capitalism and the Transformation of State Socialism

The article outlines the footprint of international economic interests under state socialism, and considers in more detail the economic integration of the postcommunist countries into the world system in the post-1989 period of the building of capitalism. The focus of the article is on the extent of economic globalization of countries and their economic corporations. It is contended that the globalization of capitalist companies and the direct role of global economic forces had little importance under state socialism. Since 1989, policy in the former state socialist countries has been geared to “joining” the world system, optimistically its core. Important differences have developed between the postsocialist states with respect to economic penetration and exposure to the world market. The outcomes have not fulfilled the expectations of early advocates of transformation and entry to the world economy. Although the new member states of the European Union have entered the world economy as formal members of the “core,” they are not economically equal to the dominant “old” members of the EU. In all the postcommunist countries, there is an absence of large scale global companies, of comparable levels of innovation, research and development. Russia is a resources rich country, a “hybrid” social formation containing elements of state economic control, national capitalism, and global capitalism. I conclude that the semi periphery is not a transient category in the world economy; it has potential for persistence and renewal.     

The political economy of Australian regulatory reform

The problem of regulatory accumulation has increasingly been recognised as a policy problem in its own right. Governments have then devised and implemented regulatory reform policies that directly seek to ameliorate the burdens of regulatory accumulation (e.g. red tape reduction targets). In this paper we examine regulatory reform approaches in Australia through the lens of policy innovation. Our contributions are twofold. We first examine the evolutionary discovery process of regulatory reform policies in Australia (at the federal, intergovernmental, and state levels). This demonstrates a process of policy innovation in regulatory mechanisms and measurements. We then analyse a new measurement of regulatory burden based on text analytics, RegData: Australia. RegData: Australia uses textual analysis to count ‘restrictiveness clauses' in regulation – such as ‘must’, ‘cannot’ and ‘shall’ – thereby developing a new database (RDAU1.0). We place this ‘restrictiveness clauses’ measurement within the context of regulatory policy innovation, and examine the potential for further innovation in regulatory reform mechanisms.     

Patient Profiles of Criminal Behavior in the Context of Traumatic Brain Injury

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can lead to significant post‐traumatic disturbances in mood and behavior, with the frontal lobes playing a key role in emotional and behavioral regulation. Injury to the frontal lobe can result in disinhibition and aggression which can result in police intervention and/or incarceration. We highlight four adult cases with a history of severe TBI with frontal lobe injuries and the presence of post‐TBI criminal behaviors. There is evidence to support an anatomical basis for aggressive behaviors, yet there are other risk factors to be considered. Behaviors must be investigated thoroughly by obtaining adequate pre‐ and post‐TBI psychiatric and psychosocial histories. By having a comprehensive understanding of aggression while appreciating the complex relationship between TBI, aggression, and premorbid risk factors, clinicians can more adequately treat patients with TBI, with the aim of potentially preventing criminal behaviors and recidivism.