Taking alleged dictatorship more seriously: Rejoinder to Fried

Fried (in Public Choise, this issue, 2013) claims that Quesada (in Public Choise 130:395–400, 2007) is wrong in showing that the dictator in a dictatorial social welfare function does not necessarily enjoy absolute decision power. This reply revisits, and illustrates by means of an example, the framework where Quesada’s result is obtained. It is argued that Fried’s counterfactual analysis conducted to invalidate Quesada’s conclusion relies on untenable presumptions: (i) that the rules to identify the values of a social welfare function say something about how these values must have been obtained; and (ii) that counterfactual analysis can be conducted in an environment where causes and effects cannot be unequivocally established.     

Italy and the community after thirty years of experience

Convincing the Pakistani military to focus its attention on the Afghan Taliban and associated groups has so far proved unsuccessful. The Obama administration's reliance on economic incentives and regional peace initiatives, such as a dialogue with India on Kashmir, has failed to deliver tangible results. Instead, India's footprint within Afghanistan has expanded, leaving Pakistani elites ever more anxious. Balancing Indian and Pakistani interests in South Asia remains a top priority for Western governments, and most importantly the US. In the current milieu this will require shifting Western bureaucratic focus from the age old and seemingly intractable Kashmir dispute to maintaining the peace within Afghanistan. This article outlines why this shift should be considered, and how the India--Pakistan trust deficit might be bridged.     

Literary reviews

Autobiographies of the townships. Gone with the Twilight: a story of Sophiatown. Don Mattera London: Zed Press. 1987. 151pp. £19.95hb/£5.95pb

Kaffir Boy: growing out of apartheid. Mark Mathabane London: Pan. 1987. 354pp. £3.50pb

Subtle dissent: Malawi's poetry of protest. Nightwatcher, Nightsong. Frank M Chipasula Peterborough, UK: Paul Green. 1986. 25pp. £1.50pb

Napolo Poems. Steve Chimombo Zomba, Malawi: Manchichi Publishers. 1987. 55pp n/p

Selective blindness. Women in African Literature Today, Vol. 15. Edited by Eldred Jones, Eustace Palmer and Marjorie Jones London: James Currey/Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press. 1987. 162pp. £7.50/$8.95pb

Ngambika: studies of women in African literature. Edited by Carole Boyce Davies and Anne Adams Graves Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press. 1986. 298pp. $35.00hb/$11.95pb

Form and content. Reading the African Novel. Simon Gikandi London: James Currey. 1987. 172pp. £8.95pb

West African Poetry: a critical history. Robert Fraser Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1986. 351pp. £35hb/£12.50pb

Textual adventure. Around the Day in Eighty Worlds. Julio Cortázar Translated from the Spanish by Thomas Christensen San Francisco: North Point Press. 1986. 293pp. J22.50hb

A Change of Light and other stories. Julio Cortazar Translated from the Spanish by Gregory Rabassa London: Arena. 1987. 275pp. £3.50pb

Master of the fantastic. The Dream of Heroes. Adolfo Bioy Casares Translated from the Spanish by Diana Thorold London: Quartet Books. 1987. 212pp. £9.95hb

Popular heroes. I Dreamt the Snow was Burning. Antonio Skarmeta Translated from the Spanish by Malcolm Coad London/New York: Readers International. 1985. 220pp. 57.95/£4.95pb

Burning Patience. Antonio Skarmeta Translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver London/Methuen. 1988. 126pp. £9.95hb

Struggling towards a voice. Angel. Merle Collins London: The Women's Press. 1987. 294pp. £12.95hb/£4.95pb

Nowhere to hide. The Arkansas Testament. Derek Walcott London: Faber & Faber. 1988. 117pp. £3.95pb

Unity of the spirit. Modern Arabic Poetry: an anthology. Edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi New York: Columbia University Press. 1987. 498pp. Hb n/p

Defiant creativity. Let It Be Told: essays by Black women writers in Britain. Edited by Lauretta Ngcobo London: Pluto Press. 1987. 146pp. £12.95hb London: Virago Press. 1988. 176pp. £4.50pb

Charting the Journey: writings by Black and Third World women. Edited by Shabnam Grewal, Jackie Kay, Liliane Landor, Gail Lewis and Pratibha. Parmar London: Sheba Feminist Publishers. 1988. 322pp. £7.95/$10.95pb     

Liberal Democracy and Neoliberalism: A Critical Juxtaposition

In this essay I argue that neoliberalism is both an economic and a political doctrine and that its historical trajectory, both conceptual and political, especially in the United States, is better understood in relation to its complex relationship of affinity with liberal democracy. The intersection between liberal democracy and neoliberalism is thus better apprehended from the perspective of the separation of the economic and the political in capitalism and the relative autonomy that it structurally grants to each field of power. Liberal democracy has provided a depoliticized framework that nurtures neoliberalism, while providing it with a cloak of legitimacy. Stated somewhat differently, the historical trajectory of liberal democracy, as a theory and as a practice of power, betrays an anti-democratic tendency that leads to depoliticization and has quelled the democratic politics that once gave credence to it, thus paving the way for the rise of neoliberalism.     

Nobody Knows Best: Alternative Perspectives on Forest Management and Governance in Southeast Asia

In this paper we propose a framework for understanding how dominant perspectives, or worldviews, influence the crafting of institutions, and how these, in turn, constrain the functions and goals of knowledge systems. Alternative perspectives carry their own set of assumptions and beliefs about who should be making the rules, where the best knowledge lies to guide decisions, and about where more knowledge is needed. Initially, four contrasting perspectives are elaborated: state-, market-, greens-, and locals-know-best. We illustrate the framework by exploring the recent history of forest governance in Southeast Asia, finding several examples of battles of perspectives leading to a new dominant perspective. In each case the dominant perspective itself, old or new, is shown to be defective in some critical way and was, or should be, replaced. The problem is that each of the perspectives considers the world as knowable, manageable, and relatively constant, or at most changing only slowly. Ecological and socio-political crises, however, are recurrent. Management plans and regulations or policies that aim to establish the land-use allocation, the best crop, the best forest management system or the best price or system of incentives, are doomed to failure. If uncertainties are accepted as fundamental, solutions as temporary, and scientific knowledge as useful but limited, then Nobody Knows Best is a modest, but effective heuristic for forest governance.     

Results of the 2003-2004 GEP-ISFG collaborative study on mitochondrial DNA: focus on the mtDNA profile of a mixed semen-saliva stain

We report here a review of the seventh mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) exercise undertaken by the Spanish and Portuguese working group (GEP) of the International Society for Forensic Genetics (ISFG) corresponding to the period 2003-2004. Five reference bloodstains from five donors (M1-M5), a mixed stain of saliva and semen (M6), and a hair sample (M7) were submitted to each participating laboratory for nuclear DNA (nDNA; autosomal STR and Y-STR) and mtDNA analysis. Laboratories were asked to investigate the contributors of samples M6 and M7 among the reference donors (M1-M5). A total of 34 laboratories reported total or partial mtDNA sequence data from both, the reference bloodstains (M1-M5) and the hair sample (M7) concluding a match between mtDNA profiles of M5 and M7. Autosomal STR and Y-STR profiling was the preferred strategy to investigate the contributors of the semen/saliva mixture (M6). Nuclear DNA profiles were consistent with a mixture of saliva from the donor (female) of M4 and semen from donor M5, being the semen (XY) profile the dominant component of the mixture. Strikingly, and in contradiction to the nuclear DNA analysis, mtDNA sequencing results yield a more simple result: only the saliva contribution (M4) was detected, either after preferential lysis or after complete DNA digestion. Some labs provided with several explanations for this finding and carried out additional experiments to explain this apparent contradictory result. The results pointed to the existence of different relative amounts of nuclear and mtDNAs in saliva and semen. We conclude that this circumstance could strongly influence the interpretation of the mtDNA evidence in unbalanced mixtures and in consequence lead to false exclusions. During the GEP-ISFG annual conference a validation study was planned to progress in the interpretation of mtDNA from different mixtures.     

Is the ICC Still Having Teething Problems?

The world community had, and still has, high expectations forthe impartial rendering of justice by the International CriminalCourt (ICC) which, unlike other international criminal tribunals,bears a universal scope and is charged with administering justicein a non-selective manner. However, the first situations broughtbefore the Court and their handling by the Prosecutor give riseto a number of concerns. The practice of self-referrals by statesinvolved in civil wars, who tend to accuse their rebel enemies,may cause misgivings. In addition, the overly cautious attitudeof the Prosecutor with regard to the situation in Darfur, referredto him by the UN Security Council, cannot fail to baffle allthose who take the cause of effective and expeditious justiceto heart.