Decentralized planning in Kenya

In 1983 the Government of Kenya embarked on an accelerated programme of decentralization known as ‘District Focus’. This exercise in devolution is aimed at promoting more effective and efficient use of scarce domestic resources through efforts to strengthen planning capacity at the district level, improve horizontal integration among operating ministry field agents, and expand authority to district heads of operating ministries for managing financial and procurement aspects of local project implementation. Given the importance of this initiative to the economic growth of Kenya and the current search for administrative reforms that could help accelerate rural development in Africa, District Focus merits close attention by development experts. This article reviews the historical background, content, and implementation progress of District Focus.     

The local state and urban local government in Zambia

It is argued, with reference to urban local government in Zambia, particularly in Lusaka, that recent debates on the form and functions of the national state in Africa may be used to illuminate the working of the urban local state. Available evidence on the class interests represented in the urban local state is reviewed, and these interests and their actions with respect to personal accumulation and political clientelism are found to be similar to those found at the national level. The urban local state in Zambia performs functions similar to those which have been revealed by analyses of other countries, although the nature of these functions, and the extent to which they are successfully performed, is influenced by the political and economic context, the institutional framework and especially the constraints imposed by central government on local autonomy. The changes proposed in the 1980 Local Administration Act are outlined, and a preliminary assessment made of the extent to which they are likely to change the form and functions of the urban local state.     

B. Reviews

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF ARABIC LITERATURE. Volume 1: Arabic Literature to the End of the Unayyad Period. Edited by A.F.L. Beeston, T.M.Johnstone, R.B.Serjeant and G.R.Smith, pp.xvi, 547. Cambridge University Press, 1983. £37.95.

AL‐MAQRIZI'S “BOOK OF CONTENTION AND STRIFE CONCERNING THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE BANU UMAYYA AND THE BANU HASHIM”. Translated into English, with an introduction and commentary by C.E.Bosworth. (Journal of Semitic Studies, Monograph No.3), Manchester, Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Manchester, 1980. pp.157.

ARABIC CULTURE THROUGH ITS LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. By M.H. Bakalla. London, Kegan Paul International, 1984. pp.371, 51, plates, maps.

ARABIC LINGUISTICS: AN INTRODUCTION AND BIBLIOGRAPHY. By M.H. Bakalla. London, Mansell, 1983. pp.742.

LA RELATION DE THOMAS PELLOW: UNE LECTURE DU MAROC AU 18^e SIÈCLE. By Magali Morsy. (Synthèse No.12), Paris, Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1983. pp.254, 17pl. FF.129.

ESPANA Y EL NORTE DE AFRICA: EL PROTECTORADO DE MARRUECOS (1912–56). By Victor Morales Lezcano. Madrid, Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia, 1984. pp.249. Photos., maps, diagrams. 600.00 ptas.

EGYPT AND THE PALESTINE QUESTION 1936–1945. By Thomas Mayer. Berlin, Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1983. pp.391 (paperback).

SUDAN. By M.W.Daly. (World Bibliographical Series, Vol.40.) Oxford (UK) & Santa Barbara (USA), Clio Press, 1983. pp.xvi, 176, 1 map. £19.50.

THE OTHER FACE OF OPEC: FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TO THE THIRD WORLD. ENERGY RESOURCES AND POLICIES OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA. By Ibrahim F.I. Shihata. London, Longman, 1982. pp.281 (paperback).

DEVELOPING EDUCATION SYSTEMS IN THE OIL STATES OF ARABIA: CONFLICTS OF PURPOSE AND FOCUS. By J.S.Birks and J.A.Rimmer. (Occasional Papers Series, No.21: Manpower and Migration Series, no.3). University of Durham, Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, 1984. pp.33. E2.50.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL GUIDE TO IRAN: THE MIDDLE EAST LIBRARY COMMITTEE GUIDE. Edited by L.P.Elwell‐Sutton. Sussex, The Harvester Press/New Jersey, Barnes & Noble Books, 1984. pp.462.

ARABISCHE UND PERSISCHE PRIVATURKUNDEN DES 12. UND 13. JAHRHUNDERTS AUS ARDABIL (ASERBEIDSCHAN). By Monika Gronke. (Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, Bd 72), Berlin, Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 182. pp.555.

MYSTICISM AND DISSENT: SOCIORELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN QAJAR IRAN. By Mangol Bayat. Syracuse, N.Y., Syracuse U.P., 1982. pp.xvii, 228. $25.00.

SOCIAL DISINTEGRATION AND POPULAR RESISTANCE IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 1881–1908: REACTIONS TO EUROPEAN ECONOMIC PENETRATION. By Donald Quataert. New York, Columbia U.P., 1983. pp.xxii, 205. $45.50.     

Political Parties,Australia and the U.S. Alliance: 1976-2016

ABSTRACT

What causes variation in the foreign policies of U.S. allies regarding their desired U.S. military role in their region and their troop commitments to U.S. military interventions? This paper addresses this question through documenting and explaining the sources of variation in Australia’s foreign policies regarding these issues over four decades. Treating the two major political parties in Australia and their respective leaders who self-select into them as endogenous, the paper argues that Australian foreign policy, whilst always supportive of the U.S. alliance, has systematically varied. This variation has correlated with the political party in power while the late Cold War and post-Cold War balances of power remained constant. While the Labor party has only been willing to send combat troops to large U.S. military interventions when the latter have a supporting United Nations Security Council Resolution, the conservative Liberal party has been willing to military intervene without this multilateral support. The Labor party, unlike the Liberal party, has also frequently proposed the formation and consolidation of multilateral regional institutions. These preferences render the U.S. to have been necessary for the Labor Party but sufficient for the Liberal party. Future Sino-U.S. armed conflict would provide a harder test of these hypotheses.