Do Online Election Campaigns Win Votes? The 2007 Australian “YouTube” Election

Studies of Web use during elections have focused mainly on the content of Web sites and on the major factors driving parties' and candidates' adoption of the technology. Evaluations of the electoral impact of Web campaigns have been more limited. This article examines the nature and extent of Web use by voters and parties in the 2007 Australian federal election, focusing particularly on the consequences of Web 2.0 campaigning for candidate vote share. The findings show differing levels of commitment to older and newer e-campaigning technology across parties and their supporters and significant electoral advantages are associated with minor parties candidates using Web 2.0 campaign tools. The results confirm existing studies' findings about the impact of Web campaigns on contemporary elections, but that these effects are moderated by the type of Web tools used and party using them.     

Illiberal democracy and violent conflict in contemporary Indonesia

When Indonesia's President Suharto was forced to resign in 1998, the accompanying uncertainty triggered serious communal violence in five regions. As the nation's politics and economy stabilized from 2002, so did those provinces. Identity-based conflict is now the rare exception rather than the rule in democratic Indonesia. Yet puzzlingly, despite the consolidation of democracy, ethnic clashes and mob violence against religious minorities continue to occur. While such events are now far smaller than those in the first years of democratization and occur only occasionally, their persistence requires analysis given the potential for escalation and what it tells us about Indonesia's reform process. In this article I compare recent incidents with that of the initial post-authoritarian era, and find that identity-based collective violence persists because many important causes of conflict have not been removed by democratic consolidation. As found by numerous scholars, many illiberal characteristics of the authoritarian state have segued neatly into democratic Indonesia. I assert that this has left several main causes of group violence firmly in place. I further contend that the failure to remove these phenomena partly has its origins in the order of democratic reforms chosen in the years after Suharto's resignation.     

The impact of the Owen falls hydro‐electric project on the economy of Uganda 1

Inflation induced by an increase in the money supply may be conducive to economic growth, because it can be positively related to the savings ratio. This relationship is, however, limited by a certain rate of money supply which is associated with the maximum overall savings ratio. Treating money as a consumers’ good based upon Levhari‐Patinkin [1968], this study estimates a quadratic‐form savings function using international cross‐section data. It shows that the optimal rates of money supply are 11–12 per cent and 6–8 per cent in underdeveloped and developed countries respectively.     

Threads intertwined: German national egoism and liberalism in adolf fischhof's vision for Austria

Bulgarian majority and Turkish minority relations have remained peaceful in the post Communist era despite a significant potential for civil strife. These antagonisms were a product of Bulgaria's historical political development.The most recent episode of forced assimilation policies under the Communist regime was a critical grievance contributing to the democratic transition in 1989. Unlike in neighboring Yugoslavia, communal ethnic conflict did not escalate to violence with political liberalization and the emergence of democratic political competition. A critical factor in the political formula for maintaining interethnic peace in Bulgaria has been Turkey's comparatively constrained behavior as a “motherland state” with regard to the Turkish Diaspora in Bulgaria.     

Globalisation studies and the developing world: making international political economy truly global

For all the rhetoric surrounding globalisation, its meaning remains both vague and elusive and symbolises a host of different things to different people. In the main, however, most studies are marked by a restricted theoretical and empirical base, which precludes such studies from being truly global. They are generally predicated on selected examples from the core, with an occasional nod in the direction of experiences outside the familiar. While there are sporadic references to Asia and Latin America (invariably in the context of collapsing currencies and capital flight) there is almost no mention at all of Africa, South Asia, the Pacific region or Central Asia. That this neglect impoverishes the discipline of International Political Economy (ipe) is self-evident. It is argued that an ipe that is comparative by nature and takes into account the multi-variegated nature by which globalisation affects the global political economy, in particular recognising that the developing world has been, to a large extent, left out of the debate, is required if we are to make ipe truly global in scope.     

Feature reviews

Africa: prospects of a rebirth?

The Politics of Africa's Economic Recovery. by Richard Sandbrook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993

Hemmed In: Responses to Africa's Economic Decline. edited by Thomas M Callaghy” &; John Ravenhill New York: Columbia University Press, 1994

Policy Reform for Sustainable Development in Africa: The Institutional Imperative. edited by Louis A Picard &; Michele Garrity Boulder, Co: Lynne Rienner, 1994

Social Change and Economic Reform in Africa. edited by Peter Gibbon. Uppsala: The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1993

A Blighted Harvest: The World Bank and African Agriculture in the 1980s. by Peter Gibbon, Kjell J Havnevik and Kenneth Hermele London: James Currey; Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1993

Unmasking Makiya: Iraq and Arab intellectuals

Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising, and the Arab World. by Kanan Makiya. London: Jonathan Cape, 1993 pp 367, £18.99

New developments in development thinking

Beyond the Impasse: new directions in development theory. by Frans J Schuurman (ed). London: Zed Press, 1993, ppix + 233, £13.95 pbk, £32.95 hbk

Changing Paradigms in Development—South, East and West; a meeting of minds in Africa. by Margareta von Troil (ed). Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1993, pp 200, £9.95     

Reshaping Employment Relations in the UK Voluntary Sector: an Exploratory Study into the Impact of Best Value

This paper provides exploratory insights into the impact of the UK government's Best Value policy on employment policies in voluntary organisations. Best Value is one of a number of institutional pressures on HR policies within the sector: many of which have positive implications for the conduct of HR and delivering care. However, the data also reveal tensions in this institutional environment with regard to meeting demands of twenty-four hour care and family-friendly policies for the workforce. Moreover, continuation of aspects of the New Public Management agenda within Best Value means that pressure on pay and conditions in the sector persist, raising concerns regarding worker morale and quality of care.     

INTERNAL RESETTLEMENT IN LAOS

In this response to an article by Holly High, “The Implications of Aspirations: Reconsidering Resettlement in Laos,” published in Critical Asian Studies in December 2008 (vol. 40, no. 4, pp. 531–50), the authors do not dispute the notion that many people in Laos have aspirations for modernity and development. However, they are at odds with High in two key ways. First, she only presents a selective reading of authors who have written critically about highland to lowland resettlement in Laos, thus misrepresenting some of their ideas. Second, the empirical evidence High provides is insufficient or inappropriate to support her argument that people who are being resettled from the uplands to the lowlands in Laos are supportive of these state-sponsored schemes because they fit with their aspirations for modernity. The authors are concerned that High's article may inadvertently serve to justify the views of those who advocate and fund centrally planned resettlement of ethnic minorities in Laos and who believe that non-participatory and top-down resettlement is acceptable if increased funding is available and better planning is conducted, even when those targeted for relocation would rather not move.     

The Classification of Inkjet Inks Using AccuTOF™ DART™ (Direct Analysis in Real Time) Mass Spectrometry—A Preliminary Study

A novel approach for the analysis of inkjet inks is being reported. A time‐of‐flight mass spectrometer, coupled with a Direct Analysis in Real Time (DART?) ion source (AccuTOF? DART?), was used to determine if inkjet inks from various manufacturers and models of printers could be reliably differentiated, characterized, and identified. A total of 217 ink standards were analyzed. As inkjet printing often involves the use of multiple colors (e.g., cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) to form an image or text, two different approaches to creating a library of standards and sampling methods were evaluated for implementation in a standard operating procedure. This research will show that a microscopic examination of the region of interest is requisite to identify what colors were utilized during the printing process, prior to comparing with known standards. Finally, blind testing was administered with 10 unknown samples to assess the validity and accuracy of the methodology.