Ireland 1785–1795

The Changing Peasantry of Eastern Europe by Joseph Obrebski, edited by Joel &; Barbara Halpern. Schenkman Publishing Company, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1976. Pp. 102. $11.25 (cloth), $5.95 (paper).

The Green Flag, Polish Populist Politics, 1867–1970, by Olga A. Narkiewicz. Croom Helm Ltd., London, 1976, Pp. 313. (index and bibliography). £7.95.

Agrarian Reform and Peasant Organisation on the Ecuadorian Coast, by M. R. Redclift, University of London, Institue of Latin American Studies Monographs 8, London: The Athlone Press, 1978, Pp. xi 186, £8.

Jhagrapur: Poor Peasants and Women in a Village in Bangladesh by Jenneke Arens and Jos van Beurden, Amsterdam, 1977. Pp. 189. Np.

Wort und Begriff ‘Bauer’. Zusammenfassender Bericht über die Kolloquien der Kommission für die Altertumskunde Mìttel‐ und Nordeuropas edited by Reinhard Wenskus, Herbert Jankuhn and Klaus Grinda. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck &; Ruprecht, 1975. Pp. 262. DM 69.00.     

Water Policy in a Time of Climate Change: Coping with Complexity

The unpredictable impacts of climate change, combined with significant social and economic changes, mean that policy analysis is becoming inordinately more complex. Coping with this increasing complexity while engaging with a full range of stakeholders and the community requires a new approach to leadership and governance. Water planners (and others involved in the planning processes) need new skills in active listening and constructive cultural behavior, and all agencies need to recognize that thinking and acting only in the interests of their own silo of responsibilities will inevitably produce suboptimal outcomes. Leadership focused on constructive behavior that recognizes and rewards generosity of spirit across disciplines and between organizations is the foundation of this new approach.     

Postretrenchment Politics: Policy Feedback in Chile's Health and Pension Reforms

Through a comparison of three periods of health and pension reform in Chile, this article develops an explanation for the incremental form of social policy change that some Latin American nations have witnessed in recent years, despite the dramatic rise of left governments. It describes “postretrenchment politics,” which constitutes a realignment in the way politics plays out in countries that have undergone social policy retrenchment. In postretrenchment politics, the strengthened position of private business interests, combined with political learning legacies and lock‐in effects generated by reforms, results in incremental political change, despite renewed efforts by left parties to address inequality. Global capital also plays an important contextual role, and may influence postretrenchment politics. In postretrenchment politics, newly reformed systems may achieve greater equity, but they do so in fragmented form.