Terminating federal research and development programs

The barriers to terminating federal research and development vary with the type of program (manpower resource creation, basic or applied research, hardware development) and the functional sector in which it is lodged (defense or civilian). Each has a public/private constituency of sponsors and performers. Some constituencies are much more potent than others. Hence, to kill an R&D program, one must weaken the constituency behind it. Useful strategies for would-be terminators include decremental funding and the amalgamation of competing R&D programs within the same agency.     

China and the competition for oil and gas in Asia

While its economic dynamism stimulates continued growth in Asia, China's increasing demand for energy is creating intense competition, particularly with Japan, over international sources of supply. Domestic fields have generally been disappointing, as have efforts to pipe gas from Central Asia and Russia to the east coast. Consequently, China is not only paying greater attention to potential petroleum resources in the East and South China Seas, but also considering the vulnerability of its sea-lanes to the Middle East and beyond. Its need to diversify has promoted closer relations with Central Asia, the Middle East, and the oil producing countries of Africa and Latin America, but the jury is out on whether China's concerns for secure energy supply will lead to international cooperation against terrorism or fuel the already heated competition for oil and gas. As China continues to assure its future energy security in Asia and many areas of the world, sustained bilateral and multilateral diplomacy to reconcile disputes and avoid conflict will become more important than ever.     

Formal and Informal Institutions Under Codecision: Continuous Constitution-Building in Europe

Current approaches examining the effect of institutions on policy processes have difficulty in explaining the results of the legislative process of codecision between the European Parliament and Council within the European Union. The formal Treaty changes that gave rise to codecision have, in turn, given rise to a plethora of informal institutions, in a process that is difficult to understand using dominant modes of analysis. This article provides a framework for analyzing the relationship between formal and informal institutions, showing how the two may be recursively related. Formal institutional change at a particular moment in time may give rise to informal institutions, which may, in turn, affect the negotiation of future formal institutions. The article applies this framework to the codecision process, showing how the codecision procedure has led to the creation of informal institutions and modes of decision-making, which have affected subsequent Treaty negotiations. Through strategic use of the relationship between formal and informal institutions, the European Parliament has been successful in advancing its interests over time and increasing its role in the legislative process.     

Budget Redirection in Georgia State Government

Budget redirection in Georgia state government represents a change from the expectation of continuous budget growth to an expectation that budget expansion will be accompanied by compensating budget reductions through an ongoing process of priority assessment. Its essential features are: the requirement that state agencies identify a minimum of 5 percent of their current year's budget which becomes the primary means for funding new programs and services in the coming fiscal year; and a limit, based upon revenue projections, on the amount an agency may request above the current year's budget. Like budget reforms in any era, it emanated from a combination of fiscal, managerial, and political objectives.     

Plantations and modes of exploitation

Persistent Poverty. Underdevelopment in Plantation Economies of the Third World by George L. Beckford. New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1972. Pp. xxvii + 303, Index; £3.45 (hardback) and £1.40 (paperback).     

Gender-specific differences – first results from a survey on dental surgery

This study focuses on dental surgery from the perspective of practicing dentists through a nationwide survey among practicing dentists in Germany. Subjects were surveyed with respect to patient care and their training in dental surgery. With respect to surgical activity, this survey confirms male dominance in the field and that female dentists may be inclined grade surgical interventions as ‘complicated and risky’. Male dentists appear to be willing to take the same risks with greater self-confidence, whereas female dentists appear to overrate their personal uncertainty by underestimating their real technical capabilities. Though dental treatment in general is increasingly dominated by women, surgery is still dominated by male dentists. This can be viewed through observed gender differences with respect to risk perception and we advocate additional professional training of risk competence as mandatory for the future.     

Valence,Policy Ideas,and the Rise of Sustainability

This article introduces to policy studies the concept of valence, which we define as the emotional quality of an idea that makes it more or less attractive. We argue that valence explains why some ideas are more successful than others, sometimes gaining paradigmatic status. A policy idea is attractive when its valence matches the mood of a target population. Skilled policy entrepreneurs use ideas with high valence to frame policy issues and generate support for their policy proposals. The usefulness of the concept of valence is illustrated with the case of sustainability, an idea that has expanded from the realm of environmental policy to dominate discussions in such diverse policy areas as pension reform, public finance, labor markets, and energy security. As the valence of sustainability has increased, policy entrepreneurs have used the idea to reframe problems in these various policy areas and promote reforms.     

The Relation of Antisocial Behavior Patterns and Changes in Internalizing Symptoms for a Sample of Inner-city Youth: Comorbidity within a Developmental Framework

Research examining the relationship between internalizing symptoms and antisocial behaviors has generally been cross-sectional in design. Thus, although extant data have substantiated a strong correlation between internalizing symptoms and antisocial behaviors, few studies have focused on describing the nature of the co-occurrence over time. This study examined the relation between growth in internalizing symptoms and longitudinal patterns of antisocial behavior in a sample of 283 inner-city males and their caregivers assessed as part of a longitudinal developmental risk study. Participants were assessed annually in four waves. Non-offenders and escalating offenders had lower levels of internalizing problems at wave 1 than did chronic minor and serious-chronic-violent offenders. Results revealed a developmental trend of decreasing internalizing problems across study years for most participants, as would be expected, with adolescents participating in serious, chronic, and violent patterns of antisocial behavior displaying greater internalizing problems than those participating in stable patterns of less serious or no antisocial behavior. Further, when there was escalation of seriousness and frequency of antisocial behavior, there also was increased internalizing problems relative to non-escalating juveniles. Results are discussed in the context of developmental psychopathology.