Commission Newsletter: Winter 1981

I.A.A. Thompson: Crown and Cortes. Government, Institutions and Representation in Early‐Modern Castile (Variorum, Collected Studies Series CS 427, Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, 1993, pp. 352; ISBN 0–86078–393–6; £49.50)

Janusz Mallek: Preußen und Polen: Politik, Stände, Kirche und Kultur vom 16. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1992. Schriften der Mainzer Philosophischen Fakultätsgesellschaft Nr. 12, pp. 207; ISBN 3–515–05943–1; DM 58)

Cristiana Senigaglia: Il gioco delle assonanze: a proposito degli influssi hobbesiani sul pensiero filosofico‐politico di Hegel (Florence, La Nuova Italia, 1992, pp. 235)     

Management 2000

Public Management 2000 will need to do much more if it is to perform more effectively in an increasingly difficult and challenging environment likely to emerge in the next decade. To make any appreciable difference, it must prepare itself now by internationalizing public service attitudes, adapting to the changing role of the state in society and assimilating the new public managerialism which is beginning to take hold in Western countries. Furthermore, it needs to be much less tolerant of public maladministration, it must improve its public relations image, and it should strengthen its commitment to public service. Above all, public managers must take their own professional commitments more seriously and their professional associations must play a bigger role in promoting better performance. But integrating science and practice will be worthless without professional integrity. Otherwise, Public Management 2000 will just follow Business Management 2000 and remain the poor relative doing an inferior job.

Public managers will look back on the 1980s with some nostalgia. Compared with the numerous challenges that will confront them long before the year 2000, the past decade will appear in retrospect to be a rather peaceful period of adjustment. True, they had to cope with a severe crisis in the downturn of public resources, the quest for external funds and internal economies, the demand for privatization and the divestment of state monopolies, and pressure for improved public sector productivity. In some parts of the world they had acute problems of political instability, civil war, insurrection, economic paralysis, foreign intervention and institutionalized corruption.

Those who look to the 1990s for relief have not had much cause for optimism. The new decade did not begin well. Two specific events stood out. One was the collapse of bureaucratic centralism and the disinte-gration of the East Bloc, presenting an ideological challenge to the Left when the ground was virtually cut from under its feet. The other was yet another Middle East crisis threatening world energy reserves, military confrontation and international intervention that changed the rules of the former world order.

Another ominous trend was the corruption revealed in the transaction of public affairs all around the world, ranging from the stock market scandals in the United States and Japan to illegal international trade in narcotics and armaments, from the collapse of unworthy banking houses to the kleptocracy of dictators. These undermined public confidence in public institu0tions and revealed how government and public admini-stration could not be trusted to protect public interests. Managerialism cannot do much against greed. As Scott and Hart conclude⁽³⁾:

Greed appears to be the hallmark of our times, when corporate raiders loot perfectly sound companies or raid government programs for no other reason than that they are there to be looted and raided. ⁽³⁾

All these problems crowd in on public management and make managing the public's business much more difficult and uncertain.

The 1990s will be volatile and no doubt there are more startling events in store as the world heads into the 21st century. Nothing can be taken for granted any more; there are few givens. Only brave or foolish persons can claim to predict the future, and they are likely to be wrong. Like everyone else, they will be caught off guard by any number of surprising and unexpected happenings, beyond current imagination. The only certainty is that the future will not resemble the present; it will not be a mere continuation of the past. Public sector managers more so than their private sector counterparts will just have to be ready for anything, particularly the hidden twists and turns and cope the best they can in the circumstances. But there is a world of difference between facing the future blind and ignorant or aware and wise (or at least clued-in) and perhaps prepared. If they do not start preparing themselves now, they will certainly be unprepared by the year 2000. One thing is clear -- unless public managers take themselves more seriously, their future will be determined largely by others and that usually means following the business route.     

Land grabbing in Latin America and the Caribbean

Land grabbing has gained momentum in Latin America and the Caribbean during the past decade. The phenomenon has taken different forms and character as compared to processes that occur in other regions of the world, especially Africa. It puts into question some of the assumptions in the emerging literature on land grabbing, suggesting these are too food-centered/too food crisis-centered, too land-centred, too centred on new global food regime players – China, South Korea, Gulf States and India – and too centred on Africa. There are four key mechanisms through which land grabbing in Latin American and the Caribbean has been carried out: food security initiatives, energy/fuel security ventures, other climate change mitigation strategies, and recent demands for resources from newer hubs of global capital. The hallmark of land grabbing in the region is its intra-regional character: the key investors are (Trans-)Latin American companies, often in alliance with international capital and the central state. Initial evidence suggests that recent land investments have consolidated the earlier trend away from (re)distributive land policies in most countries in the region, and are likely to result in widespread reconcentration of land and capital.     

Demand for tea in the UK 1874–1938: An econometric study

The main objective of this study is to provide estimates of price and income elasticities of demand for tea in order to explain the growth in tea consumption over the period 1874–1938. Numerous other factors, both economic and social, may contribute to changing patterns of consumption. Indeed, such factors as demographic and organisational changes and different social habits may exert an influence on price and income elasticities. A subsidiary aim of this study is to examine the influence of these factors on the differences in income and price elasticities in demand for tea over various sub‐periods between 1874 and 1938.