Power Transitions,Status Dissatisfaction,and War: The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895

Although power transition theory offers a powerful model of international conflict, scholars have not adequately operationalized the theory's key variable of satisfaction/dissatisfaction with the status quo. We argue that status dissatisfaction is an important component of a rising state's overall dissatisfaction with the system. We apply our revised power transition framework to the 1894–1895 Sino-Japanese War. Japan's revisionist foreign policy was driven by economic and security threats posed by China's control over Korea, dissatisfaction with Japan's place in the China-dominated East Asian hierarchy, the hope for recognition as a great power by the West, status-related domestic pressures, and by belief change that was endogenous to shifting power. Despite several earlier crises, Japan made the decision for war only after it had achieved parity with China, which is consistent with power transition theory's hypothesis that under conditions of shifting power, parity is a necessary condition for war.     

Can ICT-enabled real-time data contribute to adaptive management in development programming?

This article aims to explore whether ICT-enabled real-time data (RTD) systems can help to improve the operationalisation of adaptive management of international development programmes. Using a qualitative multi-method approach consisting of 48 semi-structured key expert interviews and four exploratory case studies, we found that RTD can successfully inform rapid tactical adaptive management in development programmes but is, on its own, of only limited use for most strategic adaptive management. The research identified multiple contextual barriers to the use of RTD for adaptive management. These barriers need to be addressed to realise the full potential of real-time adaptive management of programmes.     

The Essence of the “Market Army”

Western armies have undergone substantial organizational‐cultural transformations since the end of the Cold War. Two main themes have been suggested to describe these transformations: postmodernity and post‐Fordism. This article analyzes these profound shifts. The author portrays the new Western army as a “market army,” distancing itself from the “citizen army,” and envisions a continuum between these extreme types. The market army emulates market practices in order to adapt to modern strategic, economic, political, and cultural constraints. What typifies the market army is the subjection of military doctrine to the market, a post‐Fordist structure, a network‐centric hierarchy, market values borrowed by the military profession, the convergence of military and civilian occupations, the commodification of military service, and new contractual forms of bargaining between soldiers and the military. Israel serves as a critical case with which to develop the theory of the market army.     

The hierarchy of military death

The Israeli government's hesitation during the Second Lebanon War (2006) and before the 2009 Gaza War to launch widespread ground operations that might result in the loss of the lives of hundreds of Israeli soldiers sparked criticism that the government had become overly sensitive to soldiers' lives. This criticism contended that the government considered the soldiers' lives more valuable than the lives of civilians. How can this inversion be explained? I argue that the political reality differs from the normative one, ranking soldiers rather than citizens higher on the hierarchy of risk. The hierarchy of risk on which the state positions its citizens and soldiers results from the encounter between two variables: the degree of choice available to those whom the state designates for possible death, and the political cost resulting from the choice, especially when the state fails to justify their death. The higher the group's rank in the hierarchy, the more protected it is because the state tries to minimize its exposure to risk. When the state cannot mitigate the tensions inherent between its duties toward groups placed on the highest rungs in the hierarchy, it may use excessive lethality that claims more civilian casualties from its enemy.     

Israel's violated republican equation

Historically, Israel's ability to sustain a situation of armed conflict for a long time was predicated on the republican equation in which the dominant group – the secular Ashkenazim – exchanged military sacrifice for social dominance. Nonetheless, an imbalance between military burden and social rewards, which emerged during the 1970s and1980s, led the middle-class Ashkenazim to undertake collective action aimed at reducing the burden of military service through protest and peace movements, along with more individual tactics. These modes of action, together with the attenuated status of the military, spurred on national-religious and Mizrachi groups to integrate themselves into the traditional equation, or to formulate an alternative one (the Gush Emunim and the Orthodox route). Arguably, the status of each group in the military, which itself saw an erosion in its social status, played a major part in shaping the nature, scope and strategy of each group's collective actions. The groups capitalized on the opportunities that the military offered them in accordance with their capacity to utilize the resources they had at their disposal.     

Eu Programme Management 1977‐96: A Performance Indicators Analysis

Measuring the performance of public services and programmes is now a generally accepted part of the scenery of public management. In practice, it is often honoured more in the breach than the observance owing to well‐known technical and epistemological problems. In the absence of reliable performance data, normative assumptions may prevail on policy makers and managers alike which are at variance with objective reality. The critique and attempted reform of EU programme management is often based on such assumptions. This paper attempts to provide an empirical and epistemological basis to the judgment of EU programme management by identifying appropriate performance indicators, collecting data on them from audit reports over a 20‐year period and constructing a methodology for analysis. Criteria for reliable sources and the effect of intervening variables on the results are discussed. The paper reviews the evidence of the aggregate data collected for the five major EU spending areas, and suggests some conclusions questioning both commonly held assumptions about, and models for, the reform of EU programme management.     

The evaluation of corporate contributions

This paper reviews the rationales expressed by businessmen for corporate philanthropy as an alternative to both individual charity and government provision of some types of charitable services. Three hypotheses explaining the aggregate level of corporate giving are then tested. The paper concludes with a list of potential hypotheses to be tested about corporate philanthropy when the data become available.     

Books in review

the author of numberous works in U.S. Jewish history and culture. Her most recent book is The Wonders of America: Reinventing Jewish Culture, 1880–1950.     

Obstacles to desegregating public housing: Lessons learned from implementing eight consent decrees

Between 1992 and 1996 the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) settled a number of legal cases involving housing authorities and agreed to take remedial action as part of court‐enforced consent decrees entered into with plaintiffs. These housing authorities faced significant obstacles that impaired their ability to comply swiftly and fully with all of the elements in the desegregation consent decrees. The obstacles fell into two broad categories: contextual obstacles (racial composition of waiting lists and resident populations, lack of affordable rental housing, and inadequate public transportation), and capacity and coordination obstacles (conflict among implementing agencies and ineffective monitoring by HUD). Findings presented here highlight the sizable potential delay between the time a legal remedy is imposed and when plaintiffs in public housing segregation disputes realize any benefits. They also reinforce the argument that implementation problems will be legion when policies impose a significant scope of required changes on a large number of actors who must collaborate, yet are not uniformly capable or sympathetic to the goals being promoted. © 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.