Turbulent Stasis: Comparative Reflections upon Intercommunal Violence and Territoriality in the Israel/Palestine Conflict

From (at least) the Balfour Declaration of 1917 right down to the present day, the Zionist-Palestinian conflict has been sculpted by external forces. But never entirely so: grassroots patterns of confrontation have also been vital. This article therefore adopts a “bottom-up” approach to the evolution of the conflict since the early twentieth century.     

An extempore government in Syria

Radical Politics in West Bengal. By Marcus F. Franda. Cambridge, Mass, and London, The M. I. T. Press, 1971. Pp. xiv+287. Index. £5.85.

The Urbanization Process in the Third World: Explorations in search of a Theory. By T. G. McGee. London, G. Bell and Sons, 1971. Pp. 179. £2.25.

Economic Theory and the Underdeveloped Countries. By H. Myint. New York, London, Toronto, Oxford University Press, 1971. Pp. xii+353. Index.

Tropical Development 1880–1913: Studies in Economic Progress. Edited by W. Arthur Lewis. London, George Allen &; Unwin, 1970. Pp. 346. Index. £3.25.

Modernization without Development: Thailand as an Asian Case Study. By Norman Jacobs. New York, Washington, London, Praeger Publishers (Praeger Special Studies in International Economics and Development), 1971. Pp. ix+420. Bibliog. £7.75.

Russian Agriculture: A Geographic Survey. By Leslie Symons. London, G. Bell and Sons, 1972. Pp. xii+348. Maps. Bibliog. Index. £4.00.

Agricultural Change and the Peasant Economy of South China. By Evelyn Sakakida Rawski. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1972. Pp. xi+282. Bibliog. Glossary. Index. £5.25.     

How U.S. decision-makers assessed their control of multilateral organizations, 1957–1982

Although quantitative studies have identified relationships between the interests of powerful, wealthy states and the lending patterns of international financial institutions, they do not illuminate influence processes that give rise to these patterns. Three closely held internal assessments by the U.S. government of its influence over decisions in various international organizations are now declassified; they provide information about internal processes unlikely to be obtained through interviews of current officials or observation of public behavior. Their findings overlap to some degree academic research on this phenomenon, but also reveal hitherto unsuspected facets of U.S. diplomacy as well as candid internal assessments of U.S. successes and failures.     

The role of competition in health care: a Western European perspective

The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice 2004 report Improving Health Care: A Dose of Competition expresses a clear allegiance to competition as the organizing principle for health care. In Europe, by contrast, the key organizing principle of health care systems is solidarity. Solidarity means that all have access to health care based on medical needs, regardless of ability to pay. This is not to say that competition is not important in Europe, but competition must take place within the context of solidarity. This article critiques the report from a European perspective, describes the role of competition in Europe (focusing in particular on European Union law), and suggests that the United States could learn from the European perspective.     

Reintegrating seriously violent and personality-disordered offenders from a supermaximum security institution into the general offender population

Offenders who have committed serious violent acts while incarcerated are often segregated and housed in supermaximum security facilities. Given the highly restricted regime under which they are detained, it is often difficult to decide if they are safe enough to be discharged. However, there is a need to reintegrate them into the general offender population in a lower security institution for humane, correctional, and financial reasons. We propose a transitional strategy to facilitate their reintegration by way of a maximum-security step-down treatment-oriented facility within which both their security requirements and treatment needs could be adequately met. The present study reports the results of such an approach. More than 80% of the offenders (n = 31) were reintegrated into a lower-security facility without relapsing and being returned to the supermaximum institutions within a follow-up period of 20 months. They also have lower institutional offense rate postreintegration compared to prereintegration.