The effects of fiscal contraction on innovation in the public sector

Beginning in the mid-1970s, fiscal limitation laws, shrinking revenue bases in older cities, and reductions in state and federal grants all have reduced the resources available to carry out the functions of local government. What do these changes portend for the amount of innovation in local government, the types of innovations that are introduced, and the processes of introduction? This paper examines these questions by reviewing the literature on factors related to innovation in public service agencies and reorienting its implications in the new fiscal environment. We conclude that on the whole the innovative process in the public sector has fallen on hard times. Yet, we identify those factors that a creative, innovative administrator can use to advantage in a period of fiscal constraints to bring about innovation. We also identify types of innovations that are likely to succeed.     

MPs and web technologies: an untapped opportunity?

MPs have not previously been assigned a major role in electoral campaigning, being considered only one element of a political party's ‘marketing’ tools for winning votes. Evidence now suggests that the relationship between MPs and their constituents is changing. The concept of ‘constituency service’ implies that individual MPs can have a much greater influence on local voters and so possibly buck national trends. At the same time the concept of the ‘permanent campaign’ is transforming political campaigning whereby the political elite needs ever‐greater control of the tools used to provide messages to voters. The internet is a potential battleground between MPs who want greater control of their own local campaigning and the party elite who want to ensure a consistent, coherent and controlled message. The Internet is a new addition to the campaigning armoury, yet the focus so far has been on e‐government, e‐democracy and election campaigns. By concentrating on how and why MPs use their websites this paper considers whether MPs have fully understood and utilised this new medium. Key questions include whether their websites are ‘sticky’, interactive and a means of creating a targeted message. The findings of this detailed study of MPs' websites show that apart from a few pioneers, MPs have not progressed beyond using the Internet as ‘shovelware’ — the vast majority view their website as an electronic brochure and not a new form of two‐way communication. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

The onset of suicidal ideation in childhood and adolescence

Event history analysis is used to address questions about the timing of first suicidal ideation during preadolescence and adolescence. Are suicidal thoughts atypical during development? Does the age trajectory of suicidal thoughts parallel that of suicidal actions? Do factors that moderate the risk of suicidal actions also moderate the risk of suicidal thoughts, and does their influence vary by developmental stage? Based on life history data from 364 college students, results indicate that suicidal thoughts in childhood are typical and that the risk of such thoughts begins to increase by age nine. Risk rates are affected by demographic factors (gender, race) and by the experience of parental absence. However, the influence of these factors depends on developmental stage, with whites being at increased risk only during adolescence, and parental absence having its strongest effect during preadolescence. In sum, this study suggests that many children and adolescents contemplate suicide, that the risk of doing so begins to increase at an early age, and that clear similarities exist between those groups at heightened risk for suicidal thought and those at heightened risk for suicidal action. Moreover, this study illustrates the power of employing an analytic technique suitable for modeling transitions. Finally, it highlights the need to model differential influences on suicidal ideation at different stages in development.     

Reviews

Zhores A. Medvedev, Soviet Agriculture, New York, London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1987, xiv + 464 pp. $27.50.

Abel Aganbegyan, The Challenge: Economics of Perestroika, London: Hutchinson, 1988. xxvii + 248 pp. £20.00 h/b, £8.95 p/b.

Maurice Friedberg and Heyward Isham eds. Soviet Society Under Gorbachev: Current Trends and the Prospects for Reform. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe Inc. 1987, xiv + 159 pp. $28.50 h/b, $12.95 p/b.

Martin McCauley ed. The Soviet Union under Gorbachev. London: Macmillan Press in association with the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 1987, 247 pp. £29.50 h/b, £9.95 p/b.

David A. Dyker ed. The Soviet Union under Gorbachev: Prospects for Reform. London: Croom Helm, 1987, 227 pp. £25.00 h/b.

Alexander Yanov, The Russian Challenge and the Year 2000. Translated by Iden J. Rosenthal. Oxford and New York: Basil Blackwell, 1987, xvi + 302 pp. £19.50.

Margot Light, The Soviet Theory of International Relations. Sussex: Wheatsheaf Books, 1988, 376 pp. £35.00.

James R. Millar, Politics, Work, and Daily Life in the USSR: A Survey of Former Soviet Citizens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, xiv + 423 pp. £12.95.

Thomas G. Hart, Sino‐Soviet Relations: Re‐examining the Prospects for Normalisation. Aldershot: Gower Publishing Company, 1987, xiii + 128 pp., £18.50.

Donna Bahry, Outside Moscow: Power, Politics, and Budgetary Policy in the Soviet Republics. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987, ix + 236 pp. £15.50.

Jerry F. Hough, Opening up the Soviet Economy. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1988, ix + 100 pp. $8.95 p/b.

Padma Desai, The Soviet Economy: Problems and Prospects. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1987, viii + 281 pp. £29.50.

Trevor Buck and John Cole, Modern Soviet Economic Performance. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987, viii + 192 pp., £27.50.

Adam Zwass, Market, Plan, and State: The Strengths and Weaknesses of the Two World Economic Systems. Armonk, New York and London: M. E. Sharpe Inc., 1987, x + 198 pp., $32.50.

Peter Gey, Jiri Kosta and Wolfgang Quaisser, Crisis and Reform in Socialist Economies, Boulder, Colorado and London: Westview Press, 1987, xi + 196 pp., £28.50.

Ian Jeffries and Manfred Melzer eds. The East Germany Economy. London: Croom Helm, 1987, 329 pp., £35.00.

Andras Raba and Karl‐Ernst Schenk eds. Investment System and Foreign Trade Implications in Hungary, Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer Verlag, 1987, 260 pp., DM44.00.

Malcolm R. Hill and Richard McKay, Soviet Product Quality, Basingstoke: Macmillan Press in association with Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham, 1988, xv + 205 pp. £29.50.

Carl G. Jacobsen ed. The Soviet Defence Enigma. Estimating Costs and Burden. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987, xvii + 189 pp. £25.50.

Jacques Sapir, Le Système militaire soviétique, Paris: Editions la Découverte, 1988, 343 pp, 150 FF.

Genia K. Browning, Women and Politics in the USSR. Consciousness Raising and Soviet Women's Groups. Brighton and New York: Wheatsheaf Books and St. Martin's Press, 1987, ix + 178 pp. £25.00.

George Avis, ed., Soviet Higher and Vocational Education from Khrushchev to Gorbachev. Bradford: the University; Bradford Occasional Papers no. 8, 1987, vi + 136 pp. £5.50.

J. Muckle, A Guide to the Soviet Curriculum: What the Russian Child is Taught in School. London: Croom Helm, 1988, ix + 213 pp. £22.50.

Michael Reiman, The Birth of Stalinism: The USSR on the Eve of the ‘Second Revolution’. Translated by George Saunders. London: I. B. Tauris & Co., 1987, xii + 188 pp. £24.50 h/b. £9.50 p/b.

Alan M. Ball, Russia's Last Capitalists: the NEPmen 1921–1929, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London. xvii + 226 pp. $32.50.

Robert M. Slusser, Stalin in October: The Man who Missed the Revolution. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987, xiv + 282 pp. £20.25.

Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War. Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1987, xvi + 351 pp. £30.00 h/b, £12.95 p/b.

Teodor Shanin, Russia, 1905–1907: Revolution as a Moment of Truth. London: Macmillan, 1986, xiv + 378 pp. £9.95.

Jadwiga Koralewicz, Ireneusz Bialecki and Margaret Watson eds. Crisis and Transition: Polish Society in the 1980s. Oxford: Berg, 1987, 184 pp., £21.00

Joni Lovenduski and Jean Woodall, Politics and Society in Eastern Europe. London: Macmillan Education, 1987, xiii + 432 pp, £30.00 h/b. £8.50 p/b.

Ray Taras, Poland, Socialist State, Rebellious Nation. Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press, 1986, xviii + 200 pp. £27.50.

Geoffrey Hamilton ed. Red Multinationals or Red Herrings? The Activities of Enterprises from Socialist Countries in the West. London: Frances Pinter 1987, 202 pp., £18.50.

Gérard Duchêne, L'Economie de l'URSS, Paris: Editions La Découverte, 1987, 127 pp., No price.

Klaus Ziemer, Polens Weg in die Krise. Eine politische Soziologie der ‘Ära Gierek’. Frankfurt am Main: Athenaum, 1987, 491. DM68.00.

Sandor Szakály, A magyar katonai elit. 1938–1945 (Military Elite in Hungary 1938–1945) Budapest: Magvetö Publishing House, 1987, 275 pp., 28Ft.

Jan A. Pichna Sociologicke Problemy Vynalezcovskeho a Zlepsovatelskeho Hnutia v Priemyselnom Podniku, (Sociological Problems of the Invention and Improvement Movement in the Industrial Enterprise). Bratislava: Praca Vydavatel?tvo a Nakladatel?tvo ROH, 1987, 240 pp., Kcs. 25.

William Chase and J. Arch Getty, The Soviet Data Bank. Version 1.0. 1986, $100.00.     

Reviews

Barrington Moore Jr, Authority and Inequality under Capitalism and Socialism—USA, USSR and China. Oxford: OUP and Clarendon Press, 1987, x + 142 pp. £15.00.

Allen Lynch, The Soviet Study of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, xii + 197 pp., £25.00 h/b. $34.50.

Frederick C. Barghoorn and Thomas F. Remington, Politics in the USSR. Third Edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1986, xiii + 530 pp., £8.95.

Charles E. Ziegler, Environmental Policy in the USSR. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1987, xiii + 195 pp., £18.50. $25.00.

Mary Buckley, ed. Soviet Social Scientists Talking. An Official Debate about Women. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1986, 107 pp. £25.00 h/b, £8.95 p/b.

Alex Pravda and Blair A. Ruble eds. Trade Unions in Communist States. Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1986, xiii+281 pp. $34.95, £22.50.

Paul R. Rogers, Insurance in the Soviet Union. New York: Praeger, 1986, 211 pp., £31.99.

Charles Gati, Hungary and the Soviet Bloc. Durham: Duke University Press, 1986, 244 pp. £34.00 h/b, £12.70 p/b.

Roman Serbyn and Bohdan Krawchenko eds. Famine in Ukraine 1932–1933. Edmonton: University of Alberta, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1986, 192 pp. No price.

Richard J. Crampton, A Short History of Modern Bulgaria. London, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, 221 pp. £20.00, $34.50 h/b, £7.95, $12.95 p/b.

Alena Heitlinger, Reproduction, medicine and the socialist state. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1987, 318 pp., £29.50.

Vladimir Wozniuk, From Crisis to Crisis. Soviet‐Polish Relations in the 1970s. Iowa State University Press‐Ames, 1987, x + 176 pp., $12.95.     

The hijacking of a new corporate form? Benefit corporations and corporate personhood

Benefit corporations are a new type of corporate entity developed to remedy antisocial corporate behaviour by enabling mission-driven investors, managers and entrepreneurs to prioritize social values and contest the idea that profits are the only and best measure of corporate performance. To resocialize the corporate entity, the benefit corporation movement built enabling discourses and evaluation practices into the dominant model of corporate governance, shareholder value ideology. These discourses and practices expand both the purpose of the corporate entity and shareholders’ power to enforce that purpose. However, this paper argues that the effort to ‘re-embed’ the corporate entity by making it subject to non-economic claims expands the scope of corporate personhood and that doing so within extant power relations of the firm opens the door to alternative projects that undermine the benefit corporation movement's goal of fostering corporate social responsibility.     

Interdiction and Indoctrination: The Counter‐Terrorism and Security Act 2015

Lying behind the recent Counter‐Terrorism and Security Act 2015 is the phenomenon of foreign terrorist fighters which has sparked international and national attention. The 2015 Act deals with many facets of counter terrorism legislation, but its two principal measures are singled out for analysis and critique in this paper. Thus, Part I of the Act seeks to interdict foreign terrorist fighters by preventing suspects from travelling and dealing decisively with those already in the UK who pose a risk. Part V of the Act implements the second, broader aspect, of legislative policy, reflecting the UN emphasis on ‘Countering Violent Extremism’, through the statutory elaboration and enforcement of the ‘Prevent’ element of the long‐established Countering International Terrorism strategy, which aims to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting violent extremism. These measures are explained in their policy contexts and set against criteria of effectiveness, personal freedom, and accountability.     

Book reviews

Iran and the Former Soviet South, Edmund Herzig, London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, Former Soviet South Project, 1995, ix, 60 pp, £9.50

The Party of Unbelief: The Religious Policy of the Bolshevik Party 1917–1929, Arto Luukkanen, Helsinki: Societas Historica Finlandiae, Studia Historica 48, 1994, 274 pp

Russians Beyond Russia. The Politics of National Identity, Neil Melvin, London: Pinter/Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1995, 170 pp

The Russian Policy Debate on Central Asia, Irina Zviagelskaia, London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1995, 41 pp

From the Gulf to Central Asia. Players in the New Great Game, Anoushiravan Ehteshami (editor), Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1994, 242 pp, £14.95

Empires in Conflict: Armenia and the Great Powers 1895–1920, Manoug J. Somakian, London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 1995, 276 pp, £39.50

Turkey and the New States of the Caucasus and Central Asia, Buent Gokay and Richard Langhorne, London: HMSO, 1996, 35 pp, £5

Central Asia, A Lonely Planet travel survival kit, John King, John Noble and Andrew Humphreys, London and Hawthorn, Australia: Lonely Planet, 1996, 539 pp, £11.99

Ornament and Amulet. Rings of the Islamic Lands, Marian Wenzel, London: the Nour Foundation in association with Azimuth Editions and Oxford University Press, 1993, 304 pp, illus., biblio., index, £135     

The voluntary provision of a pure public good with diminishing marginal returns

In experiments investigating the voluntary provision of a pure public good, participants consistently allocate resources to this good when the Nash prediction is to allocate nothing. This paper explores the robustness of this result when the Nash prediction calls for a division of resources between the private and public goods. We consider how a change in individual resource endowments and supplemental earnings information affect allocations to the public good. Results indicate that, under both the high and low endowment conditions, groups continue to allocate more resources than the Nash prediction. However, providing participants with detailed instructions that describe the declining marginal benefit to the public good leads to a significant decrease in allocations to the public good.