Book reviews

Slums of Hope: shanty towns of the Third World. Peter Lloyd, Harmondsworth, England: Penguin. 1979. 246 pp. £1.25 pb.

Agrarian Revolution: social movements and export agriculture in the underdeveloped world. Jeffery M Paige, London: Collier Macmillan. 1978. 435pp. £5.25 pb.

Population and Development: high and low fertility in poorer countries. Edited by Geoffrey Hawthorn, London: Frank Cass. 1978. 210pp. £11.00.

Theory of International Politics. Kenneth N Waltz, Reading: Addison‐Wesley. 1979.304 pp. £2.50.

The Commonwealth Office 1925–68. Joe Garner, London: Heinemann. 1978. 478 pp. £19.50.

Commodity Conflict: the political economy of international commodity negotiations. L N Rangarajan, London: Croom Helm. 1978. 390 pp. £12.95.

Global Fracture: the new international economic order. Michael Hudson, New York: Harper &; Row. 1977. 296 pp. £12.50

The Evolution of the International Economic Order. W Arthur Lewis, Princeton University Press. 1978. 81 pp. £5.00

The Newly Industrialising Countries and the Adjustment Problem. Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London: FCO. 1979. 96 pp.

Nuclear Weapons and World Politics: alternatives for the future. David C Gombert et al, New York: McGraw Hill. 1977. 370 pp. £5.20 pb.

Poverty, Wealth of Mankind. Albert T Tévoèdjrè, Oxford: Pergamon. 1979. 200 pp. £10.00. £5.00 pb.

Hosts and Guests: an anthropology of tourism. Edited by Valene L Smith, Oxford: Blackwell. 1978. 254 pp. £8.00.

Taxation and Economic Development: twelve critical studies. Edited by J F J Toye, London: Frank Cass. 1978. 299pp. £11.50.

The OPEC Market to 1985. Farid Abolfathi et al. Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Books (distributed in the UK by Teakfield). 1977. 406 pp. £15.00.

Mosquitoes, Malaria and Man: a history of the hostilities since 1880. Gordon Harrison, London: John Murray. 1978. 314pp. £8.50.

Minerals in African Undervelopment. S A Ochola, London: Bogle‐L'Ouverture. 1975. 148 pp. £5.00. £1.50 pb.

Mineral Economics and Basic Industries in Asia. K P Wang and E Chin, Boulder, Colorado: Westview (distributed in the UK by Ernest Benn). 1978. 358 pp. £16.10.

International Resource Flows. Edited by G and L A Garvey, Lexington, Massachusetts: D C Heath (distributed in the UK by Teakfield). 1977. 202 pp. £13.75.

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney, London: Bogle‐L'Ouverture Publications. 1972. 316 pp. £0.65 pb.

Britain, the EEC and the Developing World. Matthew McQueen, London: Heinemann Educational. 1977. 115 pp. £1.25 pb.

African History. P Curtin, S Feierman, L Thompson, and J Vansina, London: Longman. 1978. 612pp. £9.75.

African Historical Studies. E A Ayandele, London: Frank Cass. 1979. 314pp. £12.00.

Nigerian Historical Studies. E A Ayandele, London: Frank Cass. 1979. 305pp. £12.00.

West African Resistance: the military response to colonial occupation. Edited by Michael Crowder, London: Hutchinson. 1978. 314pp. £3.75.

The Population of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Simeon Ominde, Nairobi, Kenya: Heinemann Educational. 1975. 124 pp. £2.50

The Widening Gulf: Asian nationalism and American policy. Selig S Harrison, New York: The Free Press. 1978. 468 pp. $15.95.

US Strategy in the Indian Ocean: the international response. Monoranjan Bezboruah, London: Praeger. 1977. 268 pp. £12.50.

Zionism and the Palestinians. Simha Flapan, London: Croom Helm. 1979. 361 pp. £11.95.

The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company 1660–1760. K N Chaudhuri, Cambridge University Press. 1978. 629 pp. £37.50.

A Shaft of Sunlight. Philip Mason, New Delhi: Vikas. 1978. 240 pp.

Bhutan: the dragon kingdom in crisis. Nari Rustomji, Delhi: Oxford University Press. 1978. 150pp. £4.50.

Sons of the Soil: migration and ethnic conflict in India. Myron Weiner, Princeton University Press. 1978. 383 pp.

Energy and Economic Development in India. R K Pachauri, New York: Praeger. 1977. 185 pp. £14.00.

Frogs in a Well: Indian women in purdah. Patricia Jeffery, London: Zed Press. 1979. 187 pp. £7.50. £2.95 pb.

Land and Power in South America. Sven Lindqvist, Harmondsworth, England: Penguin. 1978. 333 pp. £2.25 pb.     

“These People Have an Irrevocable Right to Self-Government”: United States Policy and the Palestinian Question, 1977–1979

Upon entering office, Carter Administration officials placed a heavy emphasis on integrating human rights into United States foreign policy. They also sought to contain festering Arab–Israeli tensions in the Middle East. The intersection of these two issues was the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This article examines the Administration's attempts to solve that conflict and to bring peace to the region. It argues that policymakers developed a sincere dedication to safeguarding Palestinian rights, but that their understanding of those rights was limited in scope and defined through the lens of United States security and strategic interests. In spite of a good-faith effort to satisfy Palestinian desires while maintaining a constructive relationship with Israel, the Administration ultimately failed to alter the status quo because of regional developments. As Washington's strategic thinking changed, so did the urgency of Palestinian rights.     

Making Disarmament Work: The Implementation of the International Disarmament Provisions In the League of Nations Covenant, 1919–1925

This article argues that, despite the eventual failure of the League to deliver the international disarmament that may believed would create peace, the early inter-war years showed signs of great promise. The League's early, often modest, efforts to establish the foundations of international disarmament, deserve greater credit than they are usually afforded because they have been overshadowed by the collapse of the World Disarmament Conference in 1934.     

Geography,Globalization, and Terrorism: The Plots of Jemaah Islamiyah

Globalization and terrorism have become connected in many people's minds. I argue that the technologies of globalization, such as cheap transportation and telecommunications, do not in many circumstances liberate terrorist groups to attack throughout the world or necessarily grant them more power vis-à-vis states. In politically open environments, terrorist networks can behave much like legitimate jet-setting transnational organizations. When terrorist groups face state hostility, many of the tools of globalization become unavailable to them, and their activities become dependent on routes over any advantageous topographical features along states' boundaries, such as thick jungle, treacherous mountains, and tiny, isolated islands. This not only limits the territorial scope of the group's activities, but also means that the lack of these advantages can lead to failure. To illustrate this argument, I trace how the Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) planned two plots in 2000 and 2001: the Christmas Eve 2000 bombings in Indonesia, which succeeded, and the Singapore plots in 2001, which failed. The technologies of globalization were a great deal of help to JI during periods of political openness, but when it came under political pressure, the importance of geography and borders returned, particularly with regard to logistics.     

Institutional and management building in sub-saharan africa: the role of training

In this essay, I intend to argue that in Mexico public administration as a discipline has not achieved the necessary theoretical cohesion, because rather than understanding and explaining the state, the government and the administrative structure, it has devoted itself to justifying the proposals made from the heights of power. The challenge facing public administration in countries such as Mexico is that of seeking a more specific space for study and creation. I believe this space should result from a deep analysis of the institutional capabilities that must be generated, and from the design and implementation of public, non-governmental policies, with the participation of different, so to make real the transit to democracy. From a brief review of some decisions derived from the political project of the Salinas Administration, I argue that public administration's concerns are absorbed by the issues that are set over them from the summit of power, thereby impeding the necessary distance that scientific proposals should take. This paper includes, therefore, a brief analysis of the issues that, since the governmental relay in December of 1988, have hold the attention of Mexican scholars in this field. The aim is to show that public administration's theoretic-methodological development cannot be solid and long-term as long as public administration studies are forced to justify or do justify the governmental proposals. Finding in public administration a true social science, with the complete theoretic structure social sciences must have, is a concern shared in many academic fields around the world. However, the problem facing the discipline in Mexico might be set forth as that of the “object” of public administration, which makes the concern for the requirement of a scientific character secondary. This does not hide public administration's limitations and conditioning factors, even as a not “heavily” scientific discipline.     

Public administration reform and the “new managerialism”: a comparative assessment of a fundamental challenge confronting canadian public administration

The “new managerialism” is becoming the new ortodoxy in public administration. It has challenged the classic assumptions about the nature of bureaucracy in democratic countries. However, it has not implied a great deal of serious debate. In Canada, it is challenging the model of constitutional bureaucracy around which public administration has been organized. Such a model involves two main principles: the ministerial Department and a neutral career public service. The former has meant that power flow in downward and responsibility and accountability upward (to the elected state authorities). The latter that, among other things, officials enjoy security of tenure in exchange for their willingness to serve governments of all partisan affiliations with equal loyalty and effectiveness. The new managerialism challenges both principles since it proposes to diffuse authority both horizontally and vertically, make accountabi1;ty run downward to “clients” and be more capable to substitute personell according to the needs of the moment. Since the new managerialism involves serious risks, the author ends up asking whether these two contending paradigms can or should be reconcilied, and warning not to overlook the past histories of Canadian and Western administrative and political institutions.     

Is Local Development Good Politics? Local Development Expenditures and the Re-Election of Governors in the Philippines in the 1990s

Abstract

Are incumbent governors who put more weight on development spending likely to be re-elected? To answer this question, an economic model of a re-electionist local chief executive is introduced and validated with a panel data of provincial governors who ran for another term of office during the election years 1992, 1995 and 1998 in the Philippines. It is found that incumbent governors improve their re-election chances with higher spending on economic development services, other things being constant. Moreover, governors who are members of political clans also have higher development spending especially when faced with rival clans. Thus, elections are still an effective disciplining device, more especially when rivalry is intense among political clans. The policy implication then is to enhance political competition rather than just ban political dynasties to improve the performance of elected officials under decentralization.     

Developing the representational role of elected members: Local involvement,local action in a Birmingham ward

This article focuses on the developing representational role of elected members in Birmingham as part of the wider modernisation agenda. It describes and analyses ‘Local Involvement, Local Action’, a local authority initiative to enhance democratic participation that was set up just prior to the publication of new political management arrangements. This initiative is typical of many local authority approaches, combining a desire to enhance the contribution of local citizens with a decentralisation programme to devolve decision making to the sub‐local level and begin to ‘join‐up’ the actions of a variety of local partners at neighbourhood level. The article highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the LILA initiative and identifies the wider potential and limits of such decentralisation initiatives to enhancing the representational role of elected members.