SOUTH AFRICAN LAND REFORM: CASE-STUDIES IN 'DEMAND' AND 'PARTICIPATION' IN THE FREE STATE

This article offers an ethnographic cross-section in one provinceof South Africa's new land reform programme. ‘Demand’and ‘participation’ are the rhetorical keywordsof the programme. Demand for land redistribution, however, cannotbe understood in abstraction from the political and economicconditions of its supply. Similarly, ‘participation’is a managed process involving many institutional intermediaries.A series of illustrative case-studies is presented, relatingto the allocation of state-owned land; state-facilitated ‘market’access to privately-owned land; the reconstruction and partialprivatization of a para-statal development agency, which havebrought into question the viability of a ‘community conservation’project and also exposed the agency to political cross-fire;and, finally, some intricacies of the possibility of land restitutionto people dispossessed under apartheid, which raises the questionof whether the concept of indirect racial discrimination maybe applied in the South African context. Several contradictionsof the process of land redistribution are analysed: for example,the massive financial costs, direct and indirect, of bringingprojects to fruition in the short term, without resolution ofthe need for long-term support; the divergence between nominaland actual beneficiaries; political and institutional conflicts,both inside and outside the state; and routine incompatibilitybetween the diverse aspirations of beneficiaries and the ‘businessplans’ required by bureaucrats and suppliers of credit.     

Regulating the computer: comparing policy instruments in Europe and the United States

Abstract. The introduction of information technology to governmental agencies has raised considerable concern for the erosion of personal privacy in most advanced democratic states. This article compares and tries to explain the choice of policy instrument in four key countries (Sweden, the United States, West Germany and the United Kingdom) to enforce the protection of personal data. Five options were available from the 'international repertoire' of solutions: voluntary control, subject control, licensing, a data commissioner and registration. The Swedes opted for licensing, the Americans rely on subject control, the Germans established a data commissioner and the British chose a registration scheme. In no state, however, were these decisions made from a synoptic analysis of all possible options. Nor did a process of policy diffusion occur. Rather, a combination of domestic constraints seemed to filter out unacceptable options and produce a bias in favour of the resulting policy instrument. In the United States and Sweden, this bias resulted from perceived constitutional imperatives; in West Germany and Britain, the position and power of the respective national bureaucracies produced stiff resistance, a conflictual policy process and resulting policy instruments with few, if any, precedents in their respective systems.     

Books: British Politics

P. Cosgrave, Thatcher: the First Term (London, The Bodley Head, 1985)
A. King (ed.), The British Prime Minister (second edition) (London, Macmillan, 1985)
A. Ranney (ed.) Britain at the Polls 1983 (Durham, N.C., Duke University Press, 1985)
D. S. Bell (ed.), The Conservative Government 1979–84: an Interim Report (London, Croom Helm, 1985
S. Fothergill and J. Vincent, The State of the Nation (London, Pan, 1985
Philip Norton (ed.), Parliament in the 1980s (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1985
Leo Pliatzky, Paying and Choosing: the Intelligent Person's Guide to the Mixed Economy (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1985)
John Grieve Smith (ed.) Strategic Planning in Nationalised Industries (London, Macmillan, 1984)
E. Durbin, New Jerusalem (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985)
Geofrey Foote, The Labour Party's Political Thought (London, Croom Helm, 1985)
D. Selbourne, Against Socialist Illusion: a Radical Argument (London, Macmillan, 1985)
J. Grigg, Lloyd George—From Peace to War (London, Methuen, 1985)
David Dutton, Austen Chamberlain: Gentleman in Politics (Bolton, Ross Anderson Publications 1985)
Norman Flynn, Steve Leach and Carol Vielba, Abolition or Reform? The GLCand the Metropolitan County Councils (London, George Allen & Unwin, 1985)     

THE ‘NEW PUBLIC GOVERNANCE’ AND EMPLOYABILITY SERVICES IN AN ERA OF CRISIS: CHALLENGES FOR THIRD SECTOR ORGANIZATIONS IN SCOTLAND

Third sector organizations (TSOs) have emerged as key players in the delivery of public services to assist jobless people to improve their employability and move from welfare to work. Drawing on in‐depth research with employability providers in Scotland, this article explores how TSOs have responded to the challenges of a rapidly changing public services environment. Specifically, we use the concept of the ‘New Public Governance’ to explore TSOs' relationships with UK, devolved and local government stakeholders. TSOs demonstrated a pragmatic approach to shaping their services to reflect the priorities of public funders, and identified some opportunities arising from the new emphasis on ‘localism’. However, the evidence suggests that opportunities for collaboration at times remained constrained by certain forms of ‘contractualism’ and top‐down performance management. Based on the evidence, lessons for future policy and practice are considered.     

HOW POLICY‐MAKERS (REALLY) UNDERSTAND GLOBALIZATION: THE INTERNAL ARCHITECTURE OF ANGLOPHONE GLOBALIZATION DISCOURSE IN EUROPE

There is a growing acceptance in the literature of a potentially significant causal role for ideas about globalization in shaping the trajectory of policy and institutional reform in contemporary Europe. Yet we still know remarkably little about policy‐makers' understandings of globalization, save those they choose to declare publicly. This paper contributes to the important task of operationalizing empirically this key set of ideational variables. Using factor analysis of new survey data collected by the authors it maps and compares UK and Irish policy‐maker's understandings of, and orientations towards, globalization. The analysis reveals considerable similarities in the ordering of assumptions and attitudes towards globalization between the two country cases and between civil servants and parliamentarians. Yet it also shows some subtle and intriguing differences between policy‐makers' responses in the UK and Ireland and between elected and unelected officials. Intriguingly, it also suggests a significant disparity between politicians' private understandings and public discourses of globalization, with the former less necessitarian in tone than the latter. Above all, it suggests that Anglophone globalization discourse in Europe is principally structured in terms of a number of dimensions which relate to the acceptance or rejection of a series of core neoliberal premises. In effect, the terms and internal architecture of globalization discourse in the UK and Ireland are defined by neoliberal assumptions, to the extent that they provide the core point of reference and orientation for even the most sceptical and critical of views.     

Making a difference: results of a pilot investigation into the impact of technical co-operation training on developing countries

This article reviews a recent innovation in the evaluation of training undertaken by the British Council on behalf of the Overseas Development Administration. It describes a pilot study carried out to assess the impact of training on personnel from a number of developing countries, six months after their return to work. The article explains briefly the context in which the exercise took place, and highlights its findings and implications for future work. First results, albeit from a limited sample, suggest positive benefits to the individual, the work group and their organization. Future analysis will in many cases be done overseas and will need to link more closely with overall project objectives to assess the impact of training. Evaluations will also need to take into account the increasing trend to supply training in-country or in a third country rather than the UK. They will also be able to check assumptions that the quality, cost and benefits to the project and host institutions are greater in these cases than for UK training.     

BUREAU SHUFFLING? THE REVIEW OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN NORTHERN IRELAND

The Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement of 1998 resulted in the return of devolved government to Northern Ireland and, with it, a decision by the Executive and Assembly to conduct a radical review of public administration. The review is now reaching its final stages and this paper considers the likely outcomes. It both argues that the parameters of the review will limit its impact and describes the reform proposals as either structural changes or administrative rationalization, both devoid of a wider modernizing approach to improving public services. In Northern Ireland, the on/off nature of devolution could result in ‘one of the major tasks for devolved government’ (according to the Northern Ireland Executive) being implemented by Direct Rule ministers.     

BRITISH 'WAR CABINETS' IN LIMITED WARS: KOREA, SUEZ AND THE FALKLANDS

In crises leading to a limited war, the Cabinet assigns responsibility for its detailed management to a 'War Cabinet'. For Korea the standing Defence Committee was used; the Cabinet's role was effectively limited to parliamentary and public relations. Smaller, ad hoc committees were used in the Suez and Falklands crises. At times of greatest pressure the Cabinet in each case had the formal opportunity to take major decisions; but in practice, especially during Suez, this amounted to an opportunity for a veto which was unlikely to be used. Two dangers facing a War Cabinet are those of tunnel vision and of the undue influence of military or technical considerations. The full Cabinet, best suited in principle to relate the problems of the war to the Government's other problems and goals, risks finding itself flanked by a War Cabinet too close to the war and by a Parliament which is too far away and too excitable.