Books in review

His publications include The Ways Out: Utopian Communal Groups in an Age of Babylonand Gone From the Promised Land: Jonestown in American Cultural History.     

Women,brokerage and transnational organized crime. Empirical results from the Dutch Organized Crime Monitor

This paper analyzes the role of women in various types of transnational organized crime and tests the ‘gendered markets’ hypothesis by Zhang et al. (Criminology 45(3):699–733 2007) for a wide cross-section of 150 cases from the Dutch Organized Crime Monitor. The main information sources for the Dutch Organized Crime Monitor are closed Dutch police investigations into criminal groups, often spanning a period of several years. Following four data sweeps, a wide cross-section of 150 cases was collected about various forms of organized crime (period 1994–2011): ‘traditional’ drug trafficking cases (cocaine, heroin, and cannabis), but also other—less frequently prioritized—phenomena such as synthetic drugs (production and export), human smuggling, human trafficking, and fraud and money laundering. The paper discusses several important theoretical perspectives from the organized crime literature: the gendered markets hypothesis; the social embeddedness of (transnational) organized crime: and the idea of brokerage. Furthermore, empirical data are presented on how often women play a (prominent) role in different types of criminal activities and which roles they play. These findings are related to the ‘gendered markets’ hypothesis and alternative explanations. Further qualitative analysis is presented on the transnational aspects which can be discerned in the studied cases: transnational marriage and transnational relationships; language and mediation; and migration and legal status. Finally, the main conclusions are discussed as well as their theoretical and empirical relevance.     

Internal or External Production and Satisfaction with the Chosen Sourcing in Danish Municipalities: Different Theoretical Explanations

Abstract

There is a large literature on both why local governments and public organisations choose internal or external production of services and what explains the performance of internal and external production. A range of different theories have been used to answer these questions. However, these studies show mixed results. In this study we investigate four theories: transaction cost economics, neoclassical economics, the resource-based view of strategy and institutional theory. Can these theories explain whether local governments choose internal or external production and can they explain the satisfaction with the internal and external production? Do the same variables explain the choice and the satisfaction? Based on a survey of four different service areas in Danish municipalities, it is shown that different theoretical variables explain the choice and satisfaction with the sourcing mode. Internal expertise is strongly related to the choice of internal or external production, whereas most transaction cost variables are unrelated to this choice. However, other variables such as supplier expertise and technological uncertainty are related to satisfaction with service production. The results corroborate the view that different variables are needed for explaining the performance of suppliers and the choice between internal and external suppliers. Furthermore, the results suggest that the study of local governments' sourcing may benefit from integrating theories focusing on internal expertise and markets. Studies may also benefit from integrating economic theories, which assume rationality, with institutional theory emphasising more unreflective and socially determined behaviour.     

Reviews and commentatry

CIAs inspector general — the DCI's independent eye: another view

Misplaced loyalties: the Pollards and “friends”

Wolf Blitzer: Territory of Lies: The Exclusive Story of Jonathan Jay Pollard: The American Who Spied on His Country for Israel and How He Was Betrayed. Harper & Row, New York, 1989, 336 p., $22.50.

Counterintelligence: hazards and goofs

Ronald Kessler: Spy vs. Spy: Stalking Soviet Spies in America Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1988, 308 p., $19.95.

The Lincoln assassination and the confederate secret service

William A. Tidwell, with James O. Hall and David Winfred Gaddy: Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, Miss., 510 p., HB $38.50, PB $17.95.

A brief tour of American intelligence

Bruce D. Berkowitz and Allan E. Goodman: Strategic Intelligence for American National Security Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1989, 232 p., $19.95.

Les miserables in modern dress

Peter Maas: Manhunt: The Incredible Pursuit of a CIA Agent Turned Terrorist Random House, New York, 196, 301 p., $18.75.

Yale at war

Robin W. Winks: Cloak & Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939–1961 William Morrow, New York, 1987, 322 p., $22.95.     

The success of a policy model: Irrigation management transfer in Mexico

Abstract

The Mexican policy of Irrigation Management Transfer has been widely propagated as a success and has become a model for other countries seeking to improve the performance of their irrigation systems while also cutting public expenditures. This article analyses the process of policy-making that has generated the policy model and follows the practices, means, and events through which it has achieved increasing transnational circulation, popularity, and support. The main argument of this article is that the success of a policy model is only a success within the cultural and ideological understandings of a policy network and given the means, practices, and events that generate and disseminate it. This particular case further suggests that success in policy-making, rather than being based on straightforward evidence of improved management performance, is often part of a cultural performance.