The Impact of EU Export Refunds on the African Continent: An Impact Assessment

The EU’s export refund policy has long been a source of controversy for its perceived impacts on third country markets. However, the EU Commission maintain that these concerns are largely historic as CAP reforms mean that export refunds are now used infrequently. The purpose of this article is therefore to assess the impacts of refunds in the wake of the 2003 reform of the CAP using two complementary analyses: first, an analysis using a computable general equilibrium model and second, two case studies to assess the potential impact of export refunds in selected African developing countries.     

Book Notes

Encyclopaedia of the Third World. George Thomas Kurian, London: Mansell. 1979. 1694 pp. £40.00.

Year Book of Labour Statistics 1978. International Labour Office Geneva: ILO. 1978. 675 pp. S Fr 95.00.

Documents of the Gatherings of Nonaligned Countries 1961–78. Medjunarodna Politika, Belgrade: Jugoslavenska Stvarnost. 1978. 274 pp.

Strategic Survey. International Institute of Strategic Studies, London :IISS. 1979. 140 pp. £2.25 pb.

The Far East and Australasia 1978–9. London: Europa. 1978. 1311 pp. £26.50.

Britain and Latin America: an annual review of British‐Latin American relations 1979. Latin American Bureau, London: LAB.1979. 189 pp. £2.50 pb.

Latin American Annual Review and the Caribbean 1979. World of Information, Saffron Walden, England: WoI. 1978. 222 pp. £11.50.

Register of Research on Trade and Development Issues. UNCTAD, New York. UNCTAD. 1978. 96 pp.

Register of Development Research Projects in Africa: liaison bulletin. OECD, Paris: OECD Development Centre. 1979. 106 pp. $6.50.

Landsat Index Atlas of the Developing Countries. Washington DC: The World Bank. £6.25.

African Studies: a handbook for teachers. Edited by Margaret Killingray, London: School of Oriental and African Studies. 1979. 81 pp. £2.00.

Women in the Development Process: a selected bibliography on women in the sub‐Saharan Africa and Latin America. S S Saulniers & A Rakowski, Austin, Texas: University of Texas. 1977. 287 pp. £4.90.

Women and World Development: an annotated bibliography. Mayra Buvinic, Washington DC: Overseas Development Council. 1976. 162 pp. $2.50.

Development as if Women Mattered: an annotated bibliography with a Third World focus. May Rihani, Washington DC: Overseas Development Council. 1978. 137 pp. $3.00.

America in Asia: research guide on US economic activity in Pacific Asia. Asia‐North America Communications Center, Hong Kong: ANACC. 1979. 165 pp. $10.00 pb.

Changing Approaches to Population Problems. Margaret Wolfson, Paris: OECD Development Centre. 1979. 193 pp. $9.50 pb.

Planning for Growing Populations. Edited by Robert Cassen and Margaret Wolfson, Paris: OECD Development Centre. 1979. 227 pp. $11.50 pb.

Food Aid for Development. Harmut Schneider, Paris: OECD Development Centre. 1979. 130 pp. $6.75 pb.

Traveller's Guide to Africa 1980. Edited by Richard Synge, London: International Communications. 1979 (third edn). 400 pp. £5.95.

Traveller's Guide to the Middle East 1980. Edited by Richard Synge, London: International Communications. 1979 (second edn). 300 pp. £5.95.

Arabic Historical Writing 1975 and 1976: an annotated bibliography. Fawzi Abdulrazak, London: Mansell. 1979. 210 pp.

Calligraphy in the Arts of the Muslim World. Anthony Welsh, London: Dawson. 1979. 216 pp. £15.00.

Big Business and the Mass Media. Bernard Rubin, Lexington, Massachussets: Lexington. 1977. 185 pp.

Making News: a study in the construction of reality. Gaye Tuchman, New York: The Free Press. 1978. 244 pp. £9.75.

India: resources and development. B L C Johnson, London: Heinemann Educational. 1979. 211 pp. £6.90.     

Policy making/implementing activities of elected county executives and appointed county administrators: Does form of government make a difference?

This article undertakes a comparative analysis of the policy making/implementing behavior of elected county executives and appointed county administrators. While both sets of actors are engaged considerably in the policy making and implementing processes, the manner in which they undertake these activities varies, suggesting that form of government and method of (s)election do make a difference in how counties are governed.     

Inside perceptions of public policy making in france: preliminary analysis

The study, based on interviews in Paris with government officials from the Office of the Pres-identify, Prime Minister's Cabinet, cabinets of five important ministries including that of the Economy, grands corps members, and Leaders of the trade unions, seeks to determine the reality of the process of goverrimentai policy making in the Fifth Republic and, most importantly, the influence of the major participants in policy formulation.

Cumulatively, the responses point out that the president and prime minister are viewed as the top arbiters of public policy, in the general and social and economic areas. They are followed, in decreasing order , by the Minister of the Economy, the ministers of important ministries, National Assembly, higher civil servants (especially members of the grands corps), Senate, and trade unions. Characteristically, all groups of participants interviewed have tended to rate their own part in the policy process more highly than the other groups had rated it.

In general, the preliminary analysis up-holds and corroborates the strength of the executive in the Fifth Republic.     

The effect of green taxes and carbon tax shifting on the state of Minnesota

Although it is well established that taxes have a distortionary and negative effect on the economy, not all taxes are equally deleterious. This study examines the effect of a revenue neutral tax on Carbon Emissions, using the Energy 2020 and REMI models. The revenue raised by the carbon tax is off-set by corresponding reductions in other taxes (property and payroll taxes). The results indicate that the carbon emissions tax may or may not be as negative to economic growth as the taxes that they replace were. Therefore, it is possible to tax pollution, and only minorly slow or even stimulate the economy     

Myths,Measures and Modernisation: A Comparison of Local Authority Performance in England and Wales

Local Authority performance in Wales is widely perceived as inferior to that in England. We analyse statistical evidence on current levels of performance and rates of improvement in the two local government systems, and find few significant differences between English and Welsh councils. Adverse judgements on Welsh local government seem to reflect perceptions of their management processes and methods of service provision rather than their substantive achievements. This may in turn be symptomatic of UK central government's assumption that public service improvement cannot be achieved unless organisations follow the specific model of ‘managerial modernisation it is currently promoting.     

THREATENING HISTORIES

This article contributes to recent scholarship on modern Vietnamese historiography by examining the ways in which twentieth-century historians have manipulated their representations of collective actions during the French colonial period. Following studies by Patricia Pelley, Christoph Giebel, Peter Zinoman, and others, the author offers a critical reading of narrative accounts of the period between the late nineteenth century and the late 1930s. The article is inspired by Prasenjit Duara's work on modern Chinese historiography, in which he showed how early twentieth-century Chinese historians viewed their history through the simplifying lens of the nation-state. Here the author argues that most post–1954 communist historians in Viet Nam were influenced by similar impulses, leading them to construct a highly teleological account of this period, obscuring its true complexity. The author uses case studies of the representations of secret societies, ethnic minority groups, and new religious movements to demonstrate how this obscuring has worked, while suggesting alternate readings of the collective actions by these groups that place them outside of a convenient teleology leading directly to the triumph of the Communist Party. The author argues that the complex histories of these groups were a challenge to the Marxist dialectic and were thus regarded as a threat to the narrative. As such, modern historians had to reimagine or even erase these complexities for political purposes. The author concludes by suggesting that historians must continue to probe these types of collectivities as complex actors in a complicated historical landscape, rather than accepting them as part of a linear narrative.     

A comparison of the neuropsychological profiles of adult male sex offenders and non-offenders with a learning disability

Abstract

The present study compared the neumpsychologlcal pmfiles of a group of adult male sex offenden with a laming disability (n-42) with a group of adult male non-offenders with a learning disability (n-42) using the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale - Revised (1986). The groups wen matched for full-scale IQ. Thc study found that the non-offender group had significantly higher Verbal 1Q scorn than the sex offender group. No significant differences wen found for Performance IQ. The non-ofinder group was also found to have significantly hlgher scores on the Vocabulary sub-test than the sex offender group and the sex offender group was found to have significantly higher scores on the ObJecr Assembly subtest than the non-ofinder group. Finally. the sex offender group was found to have a significantly lower Verbal IQ than Performance IQ. No significant Verbal-Performance discrepancy was found for the non-offender group. Possible implications of these findings are dlscusscd.     

Knowledge & attitudes towards felon-voting rights: an examination of the untapped perspectives of HBCU college students

Past punishment-related attitudinal research has focused on criminal sanctions and certain collateral consequences of conviction; however, few studies have examined attitudes towards felon disenfranchisement. Fewer studies have used a sample consisting of Historically Black College and University (HBCU) students to examine attitudes towards consequences of conviction. This research examines views toward felon-voting prohibitions in a state that has one of the most restrictive laws in this area. It utilizes a modified version of a previously used national survey instrument, which measured attitudes toward felon enfranchisement based on variations of the correctional status of a convicted offender. The implications of the findings are contextualized by examining the role of public views on policy in a democracy; the significance of examining the attitudes of a sampling of students at an HBCU, and the need for more comprehensive research in this area.