Communicating technology: An historical view

Technology development and transfer are long-time human activities. They precede history and extend to the edges of archeology. This article takes an historical (and, for a few paragraphs, imaginative) view of the application and diffusion of technology as a communication process. It begins with the use, perpetuation, and spread of simple inventions by some animals. The narrative carries through paleolithic and neolithic times showing that, rather than being a relatively modern phenomenon, technology transfer was the means by which our progenitors advanced from dependers upon nature to manipulators of nature, from nomads to cultivators and breeders, and from subsistence farmers to urbanites. In developing the key communications technologies of speech, writing, and translation, humankind accelerated the transfer of the many other technological underpinnings of civilization. The article pays special attention to navigation and the linking role the Arbs played in its development. It also describes the British-American exchange of textile technology first westward across the Atlantic and then eastward. While time, timing, technology, and cast of characters continually change, the basics of communication and technology transfer remain the same.     

FEDERALISM IS ALIVE AND SURPRISINGLY HEALTHY

Reading the comparative analysis of federations as different, constitutionally and culturally, as Canada, the USA, Australia, India and Nigeria, to mention only a few, is to agree with the title of this review. The words are taken from the Introduction to Bakvis and Chandler and this review argues that use of the word "surprisingly" is misplaced. Much of the writing critical of federalism has been labouring under a misunderstanding of its dynamic nature and its underlying strengths.     

Is technology transfer more than a “mechanical” process?

Editorial Advisory Board     

Toward the privatization of the CIS weapons industry: The ‘collectivist’ option

The Russian military-industrial sector, like the economy generally is undergoing a turbulent transformation. Property rights, institutional arrangements, regulatory mechanisms and procurement demand are in rapid flux. In 1992 weapons production declined drastically, variously estimated between 20 and 67 percent, but arms contracts for 1993 are reported to be double last year's volume. This essay attempts to illuminate key elements of Russia's military-industrial transition by analyzing how property rights, tax and regulatory reforms of the sorts advocated by Alexsandr Isaev and Anatoly Chubais are apt to effect efficiency and military-industrial conversion. It is shown that while collectivist ownership could enhance economic efficiency, despite the usual Ward-Domar effects, Yeltsin's market reforms may not be sufficient to foster large scale military-industrial conversion.     

Penal ideology, sentencing and the legitimacy of trial justice

The paper explores the link between penal ideology and international trial justice from the perspective of sentencing. The argument is based on the premise that the perceived legitimacy of punishment is directly related to effective governance in criminal justice. As such, loss of faith, or lack of moral empathy by individuals and communities with the ideologies, processes and outcomes of punishment compromises the ability of criminal trials to function effectively in maintaining the ‘rule of law’. The paper argues that more emphasis should be given explaining the moral foundations that underpin perceptions of ‘justice’ in sociological accounts of the ‘reality’ of sentencing, and proposes an analytical framework for conceptualising this. Adopting this approach, the paper draws on examples from national and international criminal justice to illustrate how the hegemony of penal ideology and its implementation compromises the ability of sentencing outcomes to resonate with the trial‘s ‘relevant audience’. The paper then focuses on how penal ideology influences the construction of the factual basis for sentencing in international criminal trials, and considers the consequences of this for the perceived ‘legitimacy’ of international trial justice.     

Review article: Realising realism's role in us policy towards Europe

Adam Bronstone, European Union ‐ United States Security Relations. Transatlantic Tensions and the Theory of International Relations. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997. Pp.viii + 282, biblio., index. £45. ISBN 0–333–69136–9.

Robert L. Hutchings, American Diplomacy and the End of the Cold War. An Insider's Account of US Policy in Europe, 1989–1992. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Pp.xx + 456, illus., biblio., index. £33. ISBN 0–8018–5620–5.

Thomas Risse‐Kappen, Cooperation Among Democracies. The European Influence on US Foreign Policy. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1995. Pp.x + 250, biblio., index. £30.50. ISBN 0–6910–3644–6.