Four years of the Ghana district assemblies in operation: Decentralization,democratization and administrative performance

Ghana's District Assemblies were created in 1989 as ‘integrated’ decentralised authorities, combining oversight of deconcentrated line Ministries with the revenue powers and functions of devolved democratic local government. The frequently invoked but little studied relationships among democratisation, decentralisation and changes in the performance of government institutions are analysed on the basis of two case-study Districts, defining performance as output effectiveness, responsiveness and process acceptability. Although development output did increase after democratisation, it remained inadequate and did not show any significantly closer responsiveness to popular needs. This was mainly because local accountability was undermined by continuing central control over staffing and finances, the clash with national policies of retrenchment and the continued power of central government agents. The communal, non-party basis of representation also had a perverse effect on the ability of elected representatives to enhance the legitimacy of local taxation, particularly as the system embodied an unresolved contradiction between notions of community based self-help and representative district government. One of the lessons of the Ghanaian experience is that genuine local autonomy in an agreed area-the basic condition for effective accountability-is better based on more modest, local-level authorities, leaving larger, expensive functions as well as supervision of a deconcentrated civil service to more powerful regional administrations.     

Long‐term Geophysical Monitoring of Simulated Clandestine Graves using Electrical and Ground Penetrating Radar Methods: 4–6 Years After Burial

This ongoing monitoring study provides forensic search teams with systematic geophysical data over simulated clandestine graves for comparison to active cases. Simulated “wrapped,” “naked,” and “control” burials were created. Multiple geophysical surveys were collected over 6 years, here showing data from 4 to 6 years after burial. Electrical resistivity (twin electrode and ERI), multifrequency GPR, grave and background soil water were collected. Resistivity surveys revealed that the naked burial had low‐resistivity anomalies up to year four but then difficult to image, whereas the wrapped burial had consistent large high‐resistivity anomalies. GPR 110‐ to 900‐MHz frequency surveys showed that the wrapped burial could be detected throughout, but the naked burial was either not detectable or poorly resolved. 225‐MHz frequency GPR data were optimal. Soil water analyses showed decreasing (years 4 to 5) to background (year 6) conductivity values. Results suggest both resistivity and GPR surveying if burial style unknown, with winter to spring surveys optimal and increasingly important as time increases.     

Experience of a financial reforms project in Bangladesh

This article reviews the efforts of the Government of Bangladesh aimed at reforming the public sector financial management system as part of overall public administration reforms through a technical assistance project jointly sponsored by the government and the Department for International Development, Government of the UK. It has evolved through initial setbacks into a highly successful project delivering tangible outputs over the last three years, with prospects for future extension until reforms are internalized and become self‐sustaining. Attempts have been made in this article to analyse and evaluate the underlying reasons for the problems in the first year of implementation as well as the factors that contributed to the recovery of the image of the project and its continuing successes in successive phases. The article highlights the lessons learned from the project in its bad as well as good times and suggests that this experience can be of great value to those undergoing the same type of reform experiment. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Recovery and STR amplification of DNA from RFLP membranes

Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) techniques were utilized in the forensic DNA community until the mid 1990s when less labor-intensive polymerase chain reaction short tandem repeat (PCR STR) techniques became available. During the transition from RFLP technology to PCR-based STR platforms, a method for comparing RFLP profiles to STR profiles was not developed. While the preferred approach for applying new technology to old cases would be to analyze the original biological stain, this is not always possible. For unsolved cases that previously underwent RFLP analysis, the only DNA remaining may be restriction cut and bound to nylon membranes. These studies investigate several methods for obtaining STR profiles from membrane bound DNA, including removal of bound DNA with bases, acids, detergents, various chemicals, and conventional cell extraction solutions. Direct multiplex STR amplification of template in the membrane-bound state was also explored. A partial STR profile was obtained from DNA that was recovered from an archived membrane using conventional extraction buffer components, indicating promise for recovering useful STR information from RFLP membranes that have been maintained in long-term frozen storage.     

Party Politics,Political Competition and Coming to Terms with the Past in Post-Communist Hungary

This article considers processes involved in coming to terms with the past in the early years of post-communist Hungary. It addresses the impacts of ‘soft’ late socialism, ‘negotiated’ post-socialist transition, and the intense inter-party and intra-party competition in which Hungary’s first democratically elected government operated. It concludes that claims that Hungary failed to confront the past in the early 1990s miss the mark. The past was confronted openly and aggressively by political actors, but the public will, as reflected in parliamentary legislation, was in favour of measures that resonated with ‘soft’ late socialism and a smooth post-socialist transition rather than political retribution.