Books in review

She initiates and manages education and policy projects that examine Japan’s evolving role as a world leader.     

Do School Report Cards Produce Accountability Through the Ballot Box?

Public education has been transformed by the widespread adoption of accountability systems that involve the dissemination of school district performance information. Using data from Ohio, we examine if elections serve as one channel through which these accountability systems might lead to improvements in educational quality. We find little evidence that poor performance on widely disseminated state and federal indicators has an impact on school board turnover, the vote share of sitting school board members, or superintendent tenure, suggesting that the dissemination of district performance information puts little (if any) electoral pressure on elected officials to improve student achievement.     

A Cold War Creature which Sat out the War

A substantial body of literature argues that government funding motivated by the Cold War shaped (or distorted) the content of the American academic disciplines. This article tests the impact of such funding on the academic study of the Soviet economy, a small field created to help fight the Cold War. It documents the amount of attention given by researchers to the military sector of the Soviet economy, the topic of central importance for the Cold War, and finds that their publications largely ignored it. Considerations other than the interests of the sponsors determined the choice of topics in the discipline.     

The Slovenian Armed Forces and Patriotism

Patriotism needs understanding as a positive feeling that in its narrowest sense determines the relationship towards one’s country as basic living space of family members and, at the same time, represents the foundation for a variety of actions by individuals. A high level of patriotism amongst members of a state’s security system who are consequently providers of national safety is to be expected, and the members of the armed forces have perhaps the highest level of patriotism. Since its beginnings in June 1991, the Slovenian Armed Forces have been going through various reform processes and transformations. These developments have included changes in staffing the armed forces and a simultaneous constant reduction of the defence budget, both of which undoubtedly affect the satisfaction of each service member about their attitude towards the motherland and the system to which the service belongs. This analysis offers the results of a study of the members of the Slovenian Armed Forces that, first, identifies the level of patriotism amongst those members and, second, establishes their attitudes towards patriotism.     

Corruption,the power of state and big business in Soviet and post-Soviet regimes

The growth of corruption after 1991 was probably unavoidable. The privatization of the state economy created favorable conditions for corruption, which did not exist before. The feudalization of a society, with its weakening of the state and the high autonomy of its office holders, was another major factor behind the outburst of corruption. However, while these “objective” factors account for a great part of corruption's growth, the transformation of the leaders of the country to people who encouraged corruption for their own benefit—one of the major elements of feudalization—also played an extremely large role in spreading corruption inside the country.Corruption poses greater concerns to society in the long term. Russian corruption undermines labor ethics, particularly among younger generations. Russian youths firmly believe that bribes and connections are the best and perhaps only way to become successful. Widespread corruption creates a parallel, semi-feudal chain of command that competes with the official hierarchy. The weakness of law enforcement agencies, as well as the army—now almost totally demoralized—is, to a great extent, the product of corruption.