Supervising the Implementation of Legislation on Land Use

For a long time, land use in the Russian Federation (RF) lacked a proper legal foundation. On October 30, 2001, the Land Code of the Russian Federation entered into force. In many respects it has facilitated a positive solution to questions of land use. The experience of application of the law accumulated over the period of its effect was analyzed by the procurators of subjects of the Federation, who in the first half of 2003 on the instructions of the General Procuracy of the RF conducted a verification of the implementation of the Land Code of the RF.     

The political parties in Trans‐Jordania

Japan. An Economic Survey 1953–1973. By Andrea Boltho. London, Oxford University Press, 1976. P. xii +204. Figures. Tables. Index. £5.00 (paper £2.75).

Choices for the Japanese Economy. By Hiroshi Kitamura. London, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1976. Pp. 205. Tables. Index. £7.00.

The Japanese Economy in International Perspective. Edited by Isaiah Frank. Baltimore and London, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975 (paper £2.55).     

Pro-Government Militias and the Repertoires of Illicit State Violence

Most studies of pro-government militias (PGMs) take a narrowly functionalist approach. This article sees PGMs as the product of broader processes of state formation and regime dynamics that generate distinctive repertoires of violence. The article uses a cross-national dataset to shows that low state capacity is singularly correlated with the appearance and activity of all forms of PGMs. Once militias are active, they tend to endure even after initial conditions change, suggesting a strong measure of path dependence in how states PGMs evolve. Democracy curbs the activity of semi-official PGMs but not informal ones. Different authoritarian regime sub-types have varying propensities for militia activity. These findings have major implications for efforts to address state frailty.     

Information warfare and nuclear conflict termination

This study considers the possible implications of information warfare for efforts to terminate a nuclear war, or a war between nuclear armed states that is about to go nuclear. Information warfare could interfere with some of the requirements for nuclear conflict termination in at least five ways: by increasing the difficulty of accurate communication between heads of state; by decreasing the likelihood of military compliance with terms of ceasefire or settlement; by reinforcing mass images of the enemy that make it more difficult for leaders to negotiate; and by making battle damage assessment more complicated; and by increasing the amount of uncertainty within an already chaotic government decision‐making process and within a possibly acephalous military instrument.     

Process Matters: Conflict and Cooperation in Sequential Government-Dissident Interactions

Competing hypotheses on the relationship between government and dissident behavior emerge from both formal and empirical models. Yet, the current literature lacks a comprehensive theoretical account of such contradictory effects. This study develops a theory to account for a large number of competing hypotheses within a single framework. The theory explains various government and dissident tactical choices over the course of an internal political struggle by focusing on leaders, their motivations, and the link between their motivations and actions. The theory gives rise to a process model of sequential government-dissident interactions that is used to test several implied hypotheses. Empirical sequential time-series models of government and dissident behavior find support for most of the theory's implied hypotheses in Israel (1979–2002) and Afghanistan (1990–99).