Terrorism

Christopher Dobson and Ronald Payne, War Without End: The Terrorists ‐ an Intelligence Dossier (London: Harrap, 1986). Pp.279. £9.95.

James Adams, The Financing of Terror (London: New English Library, 1986). Pp.293. £12.95.

Benjamin Netanyahu (ed.) Terrorism: How the West Can Win (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986). Pp.254. $18.95.     

British intelligence from Fenian Dynamite to the Docklands bomb,by way of two world wars,one cold war,and a jungle full of snakes

Michael Smith, New Cloak, Old Dagger: How Britain's Spies Came In From The Cold (London: Gollancz, 1996) Pp.276, 4 illus., 24 photos. £20. ISBN 0–575–06150–2.     

Judicialization of politics or politicization of the judiciary? Considerations from recent events in Thailand

Abstract

Courts are becoming major players in the political landscape of Southeast Asia. This paper seeks to examine the causes and consequences of this new trend with particular reference to Thailand. Our study primarily analyzes the behavior of the Thai Constitutional Court during the political crisis in 2006–2008; the findings suggest that recent judicial activism and assertiveness in political matters, while partly explained by the interests of judges themselves and by the constitutional rules guiding their activities, is best understood as a direct consequence of the intervention of the monarchy, to which the judiciary has traditionally been closely aligned. Accordingly, the Thai case not only provides new evidence about what may be driving the new judicialization trend, it also draws attention to problematic aspects of this trend, namely the gradual politicization of the Thai judiciary and with it the erosion of the rule of law in Thailand and its replacement with rule by law. Our findings may also illuminate some larger issues at the intersection of politics and the courts throughout the region in ways that advance the theoretical understanding of both.     

Global commodity chain analysis and the French filière approach: comparison and critique

This article reviews two approaches to the study of economic restructuring which focus on commodity-specific dynamics of change. The first is the global commodity chain (GCC) approach, which has been developed primarily for the analysis of industrial commodities.The second is the francophone filière tradition, which has been applied mostly to agricultural commodities originating from former French colonies. The article finds that the GCC approach has a more coherent framework than the filière approach, although it is still far from constituting a fully fledged 'theory'. The authors provide a number of suggestions for improving some of its key concepts. They also suggest that the GCC approach can be enriched by some of the insights gained in filière work, especially in terms of improving historical coverage and depth, enlarging the analysis to agricultural commodities, better handling of regulation issues, and including quality convention issues in analysing commodity chain structure and restructuring.     

The Bio-economy and the Competition State: Transcending the Dichotomy between Coordinated and Liberal Market Economies

This article examines the role of the state in the emerging bio-economy. The starting point is that state interventions, including supportive regulatory arrangements and the shaping of public attitudes, constitute core assets in the evolution of bio-industrial complexes. Public policy in the bio-economy, across advanced industrial countries, is well captured by the “competition state” concept. This type of state takes different forms, analogously with the historical variants of the Keynesian welfare state. The article compares patterns of governance of the biotechnology sector in Finland and Sweden, the USA and the UK, and Australia. It is concluded that the bio-industry sector does not fit with the “models of capitalism” paradigm which postulates coherence within, and systemic divergences between, national models of economic governance. The bio-economy displays trends toward convergence, in particular mounting public investments in health care and in research and development. On the other hand, countries differ in their approach to market regulation, industrial support, and ethical restrictions. These differences do not follow the dichotomy between “liberal” and “coordinated” models of capitalism.     

Book reviews

William Pelz, THE SPARTAKUSBUND AND THE GERMAN WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT, 1914–1919. (Lewiston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1987)

Bogdan Denitch. THE END OF THE COLD WAR: EUROPEAN UNITY, SOCIALISM AND THE SHIFT IN GLOBAL POWER. (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1990.)

Terry Eagleton, ed., RAYMOND WILLIAMS: A CRITICAL READER (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1989)

Michel de Certeau, THE PRACTICE OF EVERYDAY LIFE (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988)

Judith Marcus and Zoltan Tarr, eds., GEORG LUKÁCS: THEORY, CULTURE AND POLITICS (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1989).

Ian Shapiro, POLITICAL CRITICISM. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990), xii; 338pp.     

Functional regulatory spaces

This article develops the concept of “Functional Regulatory Space” (FRS) in order to analyze the new forms of State action addressing (super) wicked problems. A FRS simultaneously spans several policy sectors, institutional territories and levels of government. It suggests integrating previous policy theories that focused on “boundary-spanning regime,” “territorial institutionalism” or multi-level governance. The FRS concept is envisaged as a Weberian “ideal-type” of State action and is applied to the empirical study of two European cases of potential FRS: the integrated management of water basins and the regulation of the European sky through functional airspace blocks. It will be concluded that the current airspace regulation does match the ideal-type of FRS any better than the water resource regulation does. The next research step consists in analyzing the genesis and institutionalization of potential FRS addressing other (super) wicked problems such as climate change and economic, security, health and immigration issues in different institutional contexts as well as at various levels of governance.     

The Politics of Budget Consolidation in Britain and Germany: The Impact of Blame Avoidance Opportunities

According to important parts of the literature, blame avoidance opportunities, i.e. the necessity and applicability of blame avoidance strategies, may differ between countries according to the respective institutional set-ups and between governing parties according to their programmatic orientation. In countries with many veto actors, a strategy of ‘Institutional Cooperation’ between these actors is expected to diffuse blame sufficiently to render other blame avoidance strategies obsolete. In contrast, governments in Westminster-style democracies should resort to the more unilateral strategies of presentation, policy design and timing. At the same time, left-wing parties are expected to have an easier time implementing spending cuts while right-wing parties are less vulnerable when proposing tax increases. Evidence from the politics of budget consolidation in Britain and Germany does not corroborate these hypotheses. Instead, it seems that party competition conditions the effects institutions and the partisan complexion of governments have on the politics of blame avoidance.     

Strategic Management in the Public Sector: How Tools Enable and Constrain Strategy Making

ABSTRACT

Strategic management (SM) has become prominent on the agenda in several public organizations due to new public management (NPM) reforms. Nevertheless, there are few studies investigating how public organizations apply SM in practice and what tools are used. As a result, calls have been made for such studies. This article can be seen as an attempt to meet this call by presenting a qualitative case study of how SM has been applied in the Swedish Transport Administration (STA), a central government agency in Sweden, and what tools it used in strategy making. By analyzing the micro processes of strategizing at STA, our results indicate that public organizations need to be aware of at least three specific tensions that can enable or constrain strategy making. These tensions are: short v. long-term, parts v. whole, and reactivity v. proactivity.