Reviews

John N. Hazard, Managing Change in the USSR: The Political‐Legal Role of the Soviet Jurist, Cambridge: CUP, 1983, ix + 182 pp. £17.50.

Martin McCauley (ed.). The Soviet Union after Brezhnev, London: Heinemann, 1983 and New York: Holmes and Meier, 1983, xii + 160 pp. hardback £14.50, paperback £5.50.

Jonathan Haslam, Soviet Foreign Policy 1930–33: The Impact of the Depression, London: Macmillan, 1983, xii + 172 pp. £25.00.

Gavriel D. Ra'anan, International Policy Formation in the USSR: Factional ‘Debates’ during the Zhdanovshchina, foreword by Robert Conquest. Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1983. Distributed by Leicester UP, xi + 248 pp. £20.00.

Ivan Szelenyi, Urban Inequalities under State Socialism, Oxford: OUP, 1983, x + 158 pp. hardback £15.00, paperback £5.95.

Arvo Tuominen, The Bells of the Kremlin: An Experience in Communism, Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1983, xvi + 333 pp. $27.00.

Gregory Guroff and Fred V. Carstensen (eds.), Entrepreneur ship in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1983, 372 pp. hardback £34.50, paperback £11.30.

Robert C. Horn, Soviet‐Indian Relations: Issues and Influence, New York, Praeger, 1982, xviii+231 pp. hardback $24.95, paperback $8.95.

Stephen R. Sacks, Self‐Management and Efficiency: Large Corporations in Yugoslavia, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983, xi + 163 pp. £15.00.

C. K. Chase‐Dunn (ed.), Socialist States in the World System. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1982, 304 pp. hardback $28.00, paperback $14.00.

David Kideckel (ed.), Political Rituals and Symbolism in Socialist Eastern Europe. Special issue of Anthropological Quarterly, April 1983, vol. 56, no. 2, pp. 52–104. Anthropological Quarterly, 620 Michigan Avenue N.E., Washington D.C. 20064. $5.00.     

Unity and Disunity in the FMLN

Problems of unity can affect an armed opposition group at many stages of its existence—during the war, in peace negotiations, and in its transition to political party. This article assesses how internal divisions affected the performance of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador. It finds that while the FMLN suffered significant internal divisions in the early years of the war, it remained remarkably unified from 1983 on. Significant divisions began to appear during the later war years but were not exacerbated until after the war's conclusion, when repeated fracturing occurred. The FMLN began to present itself as a programmatically coherent party only in 2005, and this ideological homogeneity allowed it to establish a series of partnerships with moderate, non‐revolutionary sectors of Salvadoran society and to achieve victory in the 2009 presidential elections.     

Reforming election dates in Canada: Towards an explanatory framework

Since 2001, ten governments in Canada have passed fixed election date legislation. The typical assumption in the literature is that governments did so as a way to address public concerns about the undemocratic nature of calling and timing elections. This argument, however, does not explain the timing (that is, when the legislation was passed by each jurisdiction) of this policy change. We approach this puzzle deductively by applying the theoretical insights of multiple streams theory to the Canadian experiences. Our findings suggest that although all three streams were important, the political stream is crucial for explaining the timing of the legislation.     

Transition in agriculture: Empirical indicators and results (evidence from Punjab,India)

In this paper, the author studies the impact of agricultural transition on certain well‐known empirical relationships that have, so far, been identified with backward agriculture. The study tests the relation between farm size and productivity to see if the inverse relation breaks down with the advent of new technology. Farm size is also related to several other variables in an analysis of agricultural transformation. Using recent data the results indicate that: the historically more advanced regions exhibit a positive relation between farm size and productivity; in regions which have been recently transformed the relation is neither significantly negative nor positive, and in the relatively backward areas the inverse relation still prevails. Corresponding changes in other variables also tend to reflect the nature and extent of transition in agriculture.     

Evaluation of selected sorbent materials for the collection of volatile organic compounds related to human scent using non-contact sampling mode

Human scent can be collected by either contact or non-contact sampling mode. The most frequently used human scent evidence collection device known as the Scent Transfer Unit (STU-100) is a dynamic sampling device and is often used in a non-contact mode. A customized human scent collection chamber was utilized in combination with controlled odor mimic permeation systems containing five standard human scent volatiles to optimize the flow rate, collection material and geometry of the absorbent material. The scent collection method which yielded the greatest amount of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) detected included the use of a single layer of Johnson and Johnson gauze/multiple layers of Dukal gauze with the STU-100 on the lowest flow rate setting. The correlation of the resulting VOC profiles demonstrate that collection of standard VOCs in controlled conditions yielded reproducible VOC profiles on all materials studied with the exception of polyester. Finally, the method was tested using actual human subjects under optimized set of conditions.     

Instrumental Variables Estimation in Political Science: A Readers’ Guide

The use of instrumental variables regression in political science has evolved from an obscure technique to a staple of the political science tool kit. Yet the surge of interest in the instrumental variables method has led to implementation of uneven quality. After providing a brief overview of the method and the assumptions on which it rests, we chart the ways in which these assumptions are invoked in practice in political science. We review more than 100 articles published in the American Journal of Political Science, the American Political Science Review, and World Politics over a 24‐year span. We discuss in detail two noteworthy applications of instrumental variables regression, calling attention to the statistical assumptions that each invokes. The concluding section proposes reporting standards and provides a checklist for readers to consider as they evaluate applications of this method.