The perils of hyper-vigilance: the war on terrorism and the surveillance state in South-East Asia

The analysis examines the puzzle as to why the intelligence structures of South-East Asia largely failed to detect the evolving threat of violently inclined radical Islamic groups, despite the existence of elaborate and pervasive internal security arrangements within the states of the region. The article explores this issue by positing contending viewpoints about how authoritarianism in South-East Asia might have affected the awareness of such threats. Answers to these questions enable an assessment of the current ASEAN response to the ‘war on terrorism’ and to discern whether South-East Asia's elites will move either to improve the quality of their intelligence and threat analysis in the future, or whether they will, instead, extend the instruments of authoritarian rule, further curtailing civil and political space under the rubric of combating terrorism. The evidence so far suggests that the latter outcome is the more likely.     

Alternative theories of sharecropping: Some tests using evidence from northeast India

The recent debate concerning the efficiency of sharecropping contracts yields a number of testable hypotheses, four of which can be examined in the light of some primary data for a group of sharecroppers in northeast Bihar. The salient feature of the empirical analysis is the comparison of the resource allocation patterns on owned and rented land cultivated by the same farmer, which provides a more powerful test of inefficiency than those advocated previously. Broadly speaking, the findings support the ‘Marshallian’ position that such contracts do involve inefficiency—in the Bihar context, at least.     

TMT contracts: Avoiding termination and achieving positive realignment: How legal counsel can make a difference - A UK perspective

“The task of a leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been” Henry A. KissingerWith stuttering growth in the Western economies where major sourcing and TMT (Technology, Media & Telecoms) contracts are pervasive, it is perhaps not surprising that internal and external legal counsel are increasingly being called upon to advise clients on termination options and strategies to effect or oppose a threatened termination for breach of contract. This short paper considers why this has happened and the other factors which are in play which have meant that advice on termination and the renegotiation of contracts in this context has become more common. Expertise in this area is part of an IT lawyer’s tool kit and we consider that this is an area where internal and external legal counsel can make a substantial difference in delivering solutions to their clients.In this paper I talk about termination and renegotiation interchangeably. The reason for this as will become clear is that all forms of termination, whether they are consensual or contested, will involve some form of renegotiation of the terms of the contract between the parties. This is because it is almost impossible except perhaps in the simplest of installations to predict the nature in which a supplier or a customer may wish to change the services provided, and consequently even the most carefully crafted of exit and transition clauses, schedules and plans will require some form of post-contract negotiation between the customer, the outgoing supplier and potentially a new supplier or suppliers. This will necessarily involve some form of renegotiation of the terms of the contract between the parties.This paper looks at renegotiation in the context of a termination scenario rather than dealing with renegotiation during the normal course of operation of the contract.     

State Performance‐Based Budgeting in Boom and Bust Years: An Analytical Framework and Survey of the States

The authors examine the track record of applying performance‐based budgeting (PBB) across three time periods within a sample of U.S. state governments: (1) throughout the 1990s, (2) in the early 2000s, and (3) during the Great Recession. State‐level PBB is analyzed according to four elements: (1) the development of performance measures, (2) its applicability to budgeting and management processes, (3) its utility across the business cycle, and (4) its usefulness for budget players. An analytical framework is devised that highlights the “publicness” of American government, draws on the principal–agent model, and considers incentive mechanisms theory. Findings confirm that a good performance measurement system takes time to develop and operate well and that PBB functions more effectively for executive management than legislative purposes. PBB is used more by the states during strong economic times as opposed to during economic downturns. More importantly, PBB is only selectively applied by legislators in most states, whereas top executive policy makers, middle managers, and staff embrace and utilize PBB systems more extensively.