Book reviews

Bill Jordan, The New Politics of Welfare (Sage, London, 1998), 260 pp., ISBN 0–7619–6022–8 (pb)

Michael Cox (ed.), Rethinking the Soviet Collapse. Sovietology, the Death of Communism and the New Russia (Pinter, London, 1998), 294 pp., ISBN 1–85567–321–5 (hb), 1–85567–322–3 (pb)

Adrian Little, Post‐industrial Socialism: Towards a New Politics of Welfare (Routledge, London, 1998), 190 pp., ISBN 0–415–17193–8 (hb), 0–415–17194–6 (pb)

Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity (Verso, London and New York, 1998), 143 pp., ISBN 1–85984–222–4 (pb), 1–85984–864–8 (hb)

Adrian Guelke, South Africa in Transition. The Misunderstood Miracle (I. B. Tauris, London, 1999), 224 pp., ISBN 1–86064–343–4 (hb)

Ryan Bishop and Lillian S. Robinson, Night Markets: Sexual Cultures and the Thai Economic Miracle (Routledge, London and New York, 1998), 278 pp., ISBN 0–415–91429–9 (pb)

Frank Field, Stakeholder Welfare (Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 1996), 114 pp., ISBN 0–255 36390–7 (pb)

David G. Green, Reinventing Civil Society; the Rediscovery of Welfare without Politics (Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 1993), 166 pp., ISBN 0–255 36279‐X (pb)

David G. Green, Benefit Dependency; how Welfare Undermines Independence (Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 1998), 49 pp., ISBN 0–255 36433–4 (pb)

Will Hutton, Stakeholding and its Critics (Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 1997), 102 pp., ISBN 0–255 36396–6 (pb)

Lawrence M. Mead, From Welfare to Work; Lessons from America (Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 1997), 155 pp., ISBN 0–255 36399–0 (pb)     

Mothers' and Fathers' Perceptions of Their Adolescent Daughters' Shape, Weight, and Body Esteem: Are They Accurate?

This study examined parents' awareness of their daughters' attitudes, beliefs, and feelings about their bodies. Sixty-six daughters aged 12–15 years completed the Stirling Eating Disorder Scale, a body figure rating scale, and made ratings of their shape and weight. They also completed a more comprehensive measure of body satisfaction, the Body Esteem Scale (BES). Mothers and fathers estimated their daughters' shape and weight, and completed the BES with instructions to complete the measure from their daughters' perspective. While there were few differences between mothers' and fathers' reports, parent–daughter congruence scores varied according to methodology and attribute measured. That is, parents' ratings of objective daughter characteristics on single-item rating scales were more congruent with daughters' self-reports than parents' estimates of daughters' feelings about their bodies using a more comprehensive measure. Greater discrepancies between parents' estimates of daughters' body esteem and daughters' self-reported body esteem were associated with greater body dissatisfaction in daughters.     

THE AMERICAN STATES AND THE SHIFTING LOCUS OF POSITIVE ECONOMIC INTERVENTION

While there has been a turn away from positive government intervention in the economy at the national level, we have witnessed an embrace of this strategy in may of the American states. What impact, if any, have these efforts by state governments had on their economies? The paper focuses on variations in party control, competition, and ideology, the institutional capacities of governors and legislatures, and policy measures, while controlling for a variety of alternative influences on state economies. For the period from 1968–1979 states were dominated by the national economy and other forces over which they had little or no control, and thus had little or no effect on their economies. However, for the 1980–1985 period, party, political capacity, and policy exerted a statistically significant influence on state economic performance.     

Administrative ethics and organizational learning in Kuwait and the united states: an empirical approach

This article explores how a sample of public agencies in Kuwait respond to ethics failure. The learning response is examined in detail, in order to understand how these agencies attempt to inquire into the organizational causes of ethics failures and implement organizational changes in response to the inquiry. This study builds upon a previous methodology for measuring the strength of the organizational learning response. The data from Kuwait is compared to an earlier, similar study of organizational ethics learning conducted in the United States. The sampled agencies devote only moderate efforts to learning from ethics failure.     

South Africa and the global economy: We need to talk about ‘how’

Baker, P., Boraine, A. and W. Krafchik (eds) South Africa and the World Economy in the 1990s The Brookings Institution, in association with IDASA and the Aspen Institute published by David Philip, Cape Town: 1993. 263 pages including bibliography and index. Price: R54.95.     

Fiscal decentralisation and IDC economic growth: An empirical investigation

The impact of fiscal decentralisation on LDC economic growth and development is widely debated in the development literature. Notwithstanding this, there has been little attempt to test systematically this relationship. Accordingly, in this note we present an empirical examination of the relationship between the level of fiscal decentralisation and economic growth rates across a sample of twenty‐three LDCsfrom 1974 to 1991. We fail to find, however, any strong, systematic relationship between the two among our sample of LDCs.