Managerial Strategies for Spontaneous Privatization

Two Western economists examine the rapid changes in property and business forms of enterprises in the former Soviet Union using evidence from intensive interviews conducted through December 1991 and involving 80 industrial and commercial organizations. After reviewing the reforms that provided the legal basis for the process, they describe different managerial strategies employed in spontaneous privatization and examine the ensuing changes in contractual relations of firms with other entities such as ministries or banks. The authors also interpret spontaneous privatization on the basis of literature covering property rights and identify several groups that lose or derive benefits from the transformation. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: P20, L2.     

Law as the articulation of the state in Western Germany: A German tradition seen from a British perspective

The main purpose of this paper is to consider why in the Federal Republic of Germany legal categories are still so important in expressing what is understood by ‘the State’. This discussion is not, however, pursued solely in terms of concepts and traditions derived from German legal and political experience. Nor is the matter looked at just within the German context. There is in addition an attempt to look at the problem of law and the state in the Federal Republic against the background both of English legal theories and of contemporary arguments in Britain about constitutional issues. Thus what is offered is also a modest exercise in comparative political analysis.     

A conversation with former DCI William E. Colby: Spymaster during the ‘Year of the Intelligence Wars’

In this previously unpublished interview, William Colby, former US Director of Central Intelligence, discusses the Intelligence Community's relationships with Congress and the White House, the value and conditions for effective human intelligence, the challenges of managing the Central Intelligence Agency, and his experience leading the Agency during the domestic spying scandals of the 1970s. Colby argues that the attentiveness of congressional intelligence committees waxes and wanes, just as it does for any other oversight committee. He states that Congress and the press, along with the integrity and initiative of individual citizens working in the intelligence community, provide the strongest guards against abuse. The interview was conducted in 1991, the last year of the Cold War.     

The Church Committee Investigation of 1975 and the Evolution of Modern Intelligence Accountability

Since 1975, lawmakers have displayed four responses to the call for greater intelligence accountability on Capitol Hill. Some have taken the approach of ‘ostriches’, content to bury their heads in the sand and continue the earlier era of trust when members of Congress deferred to the decisions of the executive branch within the domains of intelligence. Others – indeed, a majority – have chosen to become unalloyed boosters for intelligence –‘ cheerleaders’ who view their job primarily as one of explaining the value of intelligence to the American people and supporting intelligence missions with robust funding and encouragement. Taking the opposite approach, another set of lawmakers – the ‘lemon-suckers’ – have consistently found fault with America's attempts to spy on adversaries or overthrow regimes that fail to accommodate US interests. Finally, some lawmakers have been ‘guardians’, striking a balance between serving as partners of the intelligence agencies on Capitol Hill and, through a persistent examination of budgets and operations, demanding competence and law-abiding behavior from these agencies. The guardian model fits best into the framework of democratic theory.     

Spymaster Richard Helms: an interview with the former US Director of Central Intelligence

In this previously unpublished interview with Richard Helms in 1990, the former US Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) offered his views on a wide range of intelligence issues. Contrary to conventional wisdom, he argued that members of Congress had maintained rigorous accountability over the secret agencies in the years before the major spy scandal of 1975, when the Central Intelligence Agency was found to have spied on American citizens. He emphasized, too, the vital importance of human (as opposed to technical) intelligence, and expressed cynicism about the effectiveness of large-scale covert actions. For Helms, the DCI's most important job was to bring the facts to the table at high policy meetings.