Research and productivity in wheat in Israel

The introduction of the new Green Revolution wheat varieties to Israel is reviewed and analysed. It was found that the first stage varieties (developed from local Mexican wheats) did not have a significant impact on yields in Israel. Dwarf varieties and new crosses bred in Israel from Mexican genetic material contributed significantly to yield increases. Returns to local research are estimated. Conclusions about the role of the International Research System are drawn.     

Factors Associated with the Performance of User Groups in a Participatory Forest Management around Dodola Forest in the Bale Mountains,Southern Ethiopia

This study analysed and determined factors associated with performance in collective action of a forest under participatory forest management in Southern Ethiopia. Data were collected in 22 user groups and a performance index was computed using indicators including forest cover change, households' perception of the change and satisfaction in their livelihoods, management activity, and length of overdue rent payment. The results show that heterogeneity, level of forest dependence and geographical variables such as altitude and distance to town are important variables that may affect the performance of user groups. The findings indicate the importance of taking into account the needs of members of user groups, differences among local people in dependence on forest income, and differences in values attached to the forest in the design of participatory forest management.     

Credit access,human capital and class structure mobility

This article examines the impact of microenterprise credit programmes on class structure mobility in developing countries. It develops a model that endogenously generates an eight‐fold class structure. Class membership is determined by optimal choice of labour activity, which is a function of access to credit and human capital endowments. Predictions from the model suggest that better access to credit will foster upward class mobility among self‐employed entrepreneurs, and that this upward class mobility will be accentuated among entrepreneurs with high levels of human capital. Theoretical predictions from the model are compared with data on class structure mobility collected first‐hand in western Guatemala. Empirical results show that upward class structure mobility increases substantially with access to credit, and also suggest that the combined effect of innate entrepreneurial ability and credit access has a greater impact on upward class structure mobility than the interaction between formal schooling and credit access.     

Book Reviews

If studies of conflict and terror involve understanding their causes and if the notion of “causes” is ultimately a philosophical concept (from Aristotle to Kant), then philosophy can make a unique contribution to studies of global ethnic conflict. Without delving deeply into philosophical ideas underlying the conflict, this article nevertheless examines how it largely stems from a cold war ideology of the Left. Moreover, a New Left is not only distinguished from politics and political philosophy but, dismayingly, traced to cold war western democracies, in which it continues, paradoxically, to flourish and be used to extinguish what it inflames.     

A Review of: “The War for Muslim Minds”

Terrorism: Threat, Reality, Response. By Robert Kupperman and Darrell Trent. (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press), 1979, 450 pgs., $14.95.     

Professionalization within a traditional political culture: A case study of south carolina

This article examines the progress of professionalization within a highly traditional political and social setting. The impact of such characteristics as a decentralized personnel system, fragmented political authority, and an absence of top-level support is assessed in the context of current initiatives to upgrade the professional orientations and capabilities of the state's workers. The primary theme is that, despite the lack of an integrated professionalism movement in state government, remarkable advances have occurred, and are continuing at an impressive pace. The impetus for these changes is found to be in the various employee groups that are striving to enhance their professional skills and status.