The Tunisian Revolt: Where Have All the Islamists Gone?

The Great Arab Revolt of 2011 has moved swiftly from the peaceful overthrow of autocrats in the nation‐states of Tunisia and Egypt to brutal repression in the tribal societies of Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen. Meanwhile, the wired youth bulge of the Middle East that brought change is dissipating into an impotent diaspora while the organized interests of the old regimes and the once‐suppressed Islamists charge ahead to power. This section examines the revolt, the reaction and the power struggles in its aftermath.     

Revisiting Politicization: Political Advisers and Public Servants in Westminster Systems

In recent times much has been made of the threat some argue is posed by political advisers to the impartiality of the Westminster civil service. Drawing on survey of senior New Zealand civil servants, this article examines the degree to which political advisers are perceived as a threat to civil service neutrality and describes the form taken by that threat as variously perceived. On the evidence reported, it is suggested that traditional understandings of “politicization” need to be reconceptualized if they are to fully account for the nature of the relationship between political and civil service advisers. To existing conceptions of politicization, therefore, the article proposes adding another: “administrative politicization,” allowing for different gradations of politicization to be identified, and enabling a nuanced assessment of the nature and extent of a risk to civil service neutrality that, the data suggest, is not as great as is sometimes alleged.     

European Writers on Their Meetings with Stalin

The Constitution of the Russian Federation states that citizens are to exercise their rights of local self-government by means of referendums, elections, and other forms of direct expression of their will through electoral and other local self-government bodies. The Law on General Principles of Organization of Local Self-Government in the Russian Federation of 28 August 1995, adopted as an extension of constitutional norms, defines the following: the role of local self-government in establishing democracy; the legal, economic, and financial foundations of local self-government; and the general principles of its organization.