Reviews

Crisis Response: Humanitarian Band‐Aids in Sudan and Somalia by John Prendergast. London: Pluto Press, 1997. 180pp.

In the Shadow of Marriage: Gender and Justice in an African Community edited by Anne M.O. Griffiths. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1997. ix plus 310pp including notes, references and index.

From Reserve to Region: Apartheid and Social Change in the Keiskammahoek District of (former) Ciskei, 1950–1990 edited by Chris de Wet and Michael Whisson. Institute of Social and Economic Research, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, 1997. xiv plus 343pp. including tables, figures, appendices, maps. Paperback.

Japan and Africa: Big Business and Diplomacy by Jun Morikawa. First published (in Southern Africa) by Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg, 1997. xii plus 298 pp. including contents, figures, a list of Japanese terms and abbreviations, photographs, appendices, select bibliographies and an index. Paperback.

Conflict and its Resolution in Contemporary Africa edited by Harry G. West. University Press of America, Lanham, 1997. xv plus 140pp.

A Different Kind of War Story by Carolyn Nordstrom. The University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1997. xviii plus 254pp. including illustrations, notes, bibliography and index. Paperback.     

Risking Housing Need

It is commonly suggested that social housing is allocated on the basis of 'need'. The authors, however, suggest that the concept of risk provides a much better explanation of the complex interplay of interests involved in the allocation process. In particular, risk explains developing allocation methods in low-demand areas. The thesis is exemplified by drawing upon data derived from the authors' original research on the rehousing of sex offenders.     

From doves to hawks: A spatial analysis of voting in the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England

This article examines the making of monetary policy in the United Kingdom between 1997 and 2008 by analysing voting behaviour in the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). It provides a new set of measures for the monetary policy preferences of individual MPC members by estimating a Bayesian item response model. The article demonstrates the usefulness of these measures by comparing the ideal points of outgoing MPC members with their successors and by looking at changes over time in the median ideal point on the MPC. The analysis indicates that the British Government has been able to move the position of the median voter on the MPC through its appointments to the Committee. This highlights the importance of central bank appointments for monetary policy.     

Why Are the Poor More Vulnerable to Bribery in Africa? The Institutional Effects of Services

Whereas most studies find the poor in Africa to be more vulnerable to bribery because of their lower socio-economic status, this paper proposes institutional differences as an alternative explanation. Because poor people are unable to afford privately provided services, they must use public services. In relying on the state more often, the poor become more vulnerable to bribery. Analyses of Afrobarometer data show that the poor are not more likely to pay bribes for state monopolised services. The poor’s disproportionate vulnerability to bribery for choice services is a function of their greater likelihood to have contact with the state.     

Dynamics of protest and electoral politics in the Great Recession

This article links the consequences of the Great Recession on protest and electoral politics. It innovates by combining the literature on economic voting with social movement research and by presenting the first integrated, large-scale empirical analysis of protest mobilisation and electoral outcomes in Europe. The economic voting literature offers important insights on how and under what conditions economic crises play out in the short-run. However, it tends to ignore the closely connected dynamics of opposition in the two arenas and the role of protests in politicising economic grievances. More specifically, it is argued that economic protests act as a ‘signalling mechanism’ by attributing blame to decision makers and by highlighting the political dimension of deteriorating economic conditions. Ultimately, massive protest mobilisation should, thus, amplify the impact of economic hardship on the electoral losses of incumbents and mainstream parties more generally. The empirical analysis to study this relationship relies on an original semi-automated protest event dataset combined with an updated dataset of electoral outcomes in 30 European countries from 2000 to 2015. The results indicate that the dynamics of economic protests and electoral punishment are closely related and point to a destabilisation of European party systems during the Great Recession.     

Being Underway,Not in Delay,on Climate Change-Related Disclosure

Confusion among companies over what is adequate in environmental disclosure, in general, sets an unfortunate stage for contemplating the newer matter of climate change-related disclosure. Companies waiting for new legislative and regulatory outcomes before contending with climate change disclosure, however, are in exposed and inadvisable delay on the matter. Existing regulations and standards pertain and instruct, if indirectly, on what is to be disclosed and accrued, and when. Their requirements, the possibility of enforcement actions, and recent evidence of costly consequences to former executives from improper environmental financial disclosure reinforce corporate management's need for disclosure diligence, including on climate change. The future is here.