The DutchAlgemene Rekenkamer and its role in light of practical experience

TheAlgemene Rekenkamer functions in the area around government and parliament. This chapter focuses on two questions: How does theRekenkamer ascertain loss of efficiency and effectiveness within government, and how does theRekenkamer restrict loss of efficiency and effectiveness within its own organization?

The goal of theRekenkamer is to provide parliament with reasonable assurances of the validity of expenses incurred and to promote the efficiency of the ministries and the effective spending of state funds. TheRekenkamer pursues a policy aimed at achieving these goals. Some central elements in this active policy are

• ? An independent position,

• ? Optimum reliability,

• ? Strategic planning,

• ? Both regularity and performance audits.

• ? The political and social relevance of research subjects, and

• ? Dialogue between parliament and theRekenkamer.

With regard to the audit theory of W.J. Van Braband, some suggestions for improvement are given.

     

Reviews

Aleksei Ulyukaev, Reforming the Russian Economy 1991–1995. London: The Centre for Research into Post‐Communist Economies, 1996, x + 138 pp., £9.95.

Joseph R. Blasi, Maya Kroumova & Douglas Kruse, Kremlin Capitalism. Privatizing the Russian Economy. Ithaca: ILR Press/Cornell University Press, 1997, xix + 249 pp., $16.95.

Grigory Ioffe & Tatyana Nefedova, Continuity and Change in Rural Russia: A Geographical Perspective. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997, ix + 315 pp., $59.95 h/b.

Patrick Artisien‐Maksimenko & Yuri Adjubei (eds), Foreign Investment in Russia and Other Soviet Successor States. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996, xxi + 277 pp., £45.00.

Kazimierz Poznanski, Poland's Protracted Transition. Institutional Change and Economic Growth 1970–1994. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, xl + 337 pp., £50.00 h/b, £16.96 p/b.

Padraic Kenney, Rebuilding Poland: Workers and Communists 1945–1950. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996, xx + 360 pp., £31.50.

Minton F. Goldman, Revolution and Change in Central and Eastern Europe: Political, Economic and Social Changes. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1997, xiv + 497 pp., $32.95.

Jeffrey T. Checkel, Ideas and International Political Change. Soviet/Russian Behavior and the End of the Cold War. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997, xiv + 191 pp., £18.00.

Roger E. Kanet & Alexander V. Kozhemiakin (eds), The Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation. London: Macmillan, 1997, xii + 208 pp., £40.00.

Vladimir Baranovsky (ed.), Russia and Europe: The Emerging Security Agenda. Oxford: Oxford University Press/Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 1997, xviii + 582 pp., £45.00.

Walter L. Hixson, Parting the Curtain: Propaganda, Culture, and the Cold War, 1945–1961. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, xvi + 283 pp., £45.00 h/b, £16.99 p/b.

Kevin McDermott & Jeremy Agnew, The Comintern: A History of International Communism from Lenin to Stalin. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996, xxv + 304 pp., £13.99.

Geoffrey Hosking, Russia: People and Empire, 1552–1917. London: HarperCollins, 1997, xxviii + 548 pp., £20.00.

John P. LeDonne, The Russian Empire and the World, 1700–1917: The Geopolitics of Expansion and Containment. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, xxii + 394 pp., £19.99.

E. A. Rees (ed.), Decision‐making in the Stalinist Command Economy, 1932–37. London: Macmillan, 1997, xv + 331 pp., £40.00.

James Hughes, Stalinism in a Russian Province: Collectivization and Dekulakization in Siberia. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996, xi + 271 pp., £45.00.

Jonathan D. Smele, Civil War in Siberia. The Anti‐Bolshevik Government of Admiral Kolchak 1918–20. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, xix + 759 pp., £50.00.

G. A. Bordyugov (ed.), Istoricheskie issledovaniya v Rossii: tendentsii poslednikh let. Moscow: AIRO‐XX, 1996, 464 pp.

Peter Waldron, The End of Imperial Russia, 1855–1917. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, viii + 189 pp., £37.50 h/b, £11.99 p/b.

Catherine Evtuhov, The Cross and the Sickle. Sergei Bulgakov and the Fate of Russian Religious Philosophy, 1890–1920. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997, x + 278 pp., £33.50.     

The ADA at three years: a statute in flux

In the three years since the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted, significant developments have occurred in the form of new administrative and judicial interpretations of the Act. The new guidelines and decisions will assist employers in complying with the ambiguous, and sometimes confusing, provisions of the ADA. Recent developments in areas such as the definition of a disability and the permissibility of medical inquiries, along with continuing developments in the areas of mental disabilities and defining reasonable accommodations, give employers insight into the obligations created by the ADA. These developments are a good starting point to understanding the ADA, but there is still a long way to go. This article surveys the recent developments in the law and examines the considerations that have become important to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the courts in interpreting the ADA's provisions.     

Reviews

David W. Lovell, From Marx to Lenin. An Evaluation of Marx's Responsibility for Soviet Authoritarianism. London: Cambridge University Press, 1984, xii + 231 pp. £19–50.

A. J. Polan, Lenin and the End of Politics. London: Methuen, 1984, vi + 229 pp. h/b £12–95, p/b £5–95.

David Lane, State and Politics in the USSR. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985, xv + 398 pp. h/b £27–50 p/b £8.95. Soviet Economy and Society. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985, xiii + 342 pp. h/b £27–50 p/b £8.95.

Curtis Keeble, ed., The Soviet State. The Domestic Roots of Soviet Foreign Policy, London: Gower, 1985, 244 pp. h/b £17.50 p/b 8.95.

Adam B. Ulam, Dangerous Relations: The Soviet Union in World Politics, 1970–1982. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983 vi + 325 pp., £5–95.

Gerald Segal, ed., The Soviet Union in East Asia: Predicaments of Power. London: Heinemann, 1983. x + 150 pp., h/b £14–50 p/b £6–50.

Bruce D. Porter, The USSR in Third World Conflicts: Soviet Arms and Diplomacy in Local Wars 1945–1980. Cambridge, London, New York, New Rochelle, Melbourne, Sydney: Cambridge University Press, 1984, viii + 248 pp., £20–00, $29.95.

Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., and Uri Ra'anan, eds., National Security Policy. The Decision‐making Process, Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1984, xiv + 311 pp. £35.30.

Yosef Avidar, The Party and the Army in the Soviet Union. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1983, 340 pp., h/b $25.00.

William Moskoff, Labour and Leisure in the Soviet Union: The Conflict Between Public and Private Decision‐Making in a Planned Economy. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984, xv + 225 pp., £25.00.

Raymond Hutchings, The Soviet Budget. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1983, x + 204 pp., £25.00.

Gary Littlejohn, A Sociology of the Soviet Union. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1984, ix + 286 pp., h/b £18–00, p/b £6–95.

J. P. Cole, Geography of the Soviet Union. London: Butterworths, 1984, xiv + 452 pp., £14.95.

Robert G. Jensen, Theodore Shabad and Arthur W. Wright eds., Soviet Natural Resources in the World Economy. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1983, xix + 700 pp., £92.00.

Olympiad S. Ioffe and Peter B. Maggs, Soviet Law in Theory and Practice, London, Rome, New York: Oceana Publications, Inc., 1983, 237 pp., $35–00.

V. I. Smolyarchuk, Giganty i charodei slova. Russkie sudebnye oratory vtoroi poloviny XIX—nachala XX veka. Moscow, 1984, 272 pp., 65 kop.

Dina Kaminskaya, Final Judgement. My Life as a Soviet Defence Lawyer. London: Harvill Press, 1983, 364 pp., £12.95.

Dina Kaminskaya, Zapiski advokata. Vermont: Khronika Press, 1984, 345 pp., no price.

Gabriel Gorodetsky, Stafford Cripps’ Mission to Moscow 1940–42, Cambridge: the University Press, 1984, 377 pp., £25.00.

E. H. Carr (Edited by Tamara Deutscher), The Comintern and the Spanish Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1984, xx + 111pp., h/b £17–50, p/b £6.95.

David Mandel, The Petrograd Workers and the Fall of the Old Regime: From the February Revolution to the July Days 1917. London: Macmillan, (in association with the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham), 1983, xii + 210 + 10 pp., £25.00.

David Mandel, The Petrograd Workers and the Soviet Seizure of Power: From the July Days 1917 to July 1918. London: Macmillan, (in association with the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham), 1984, xv + 227 + 12 pp., £25.00.

Geoffrey Swain, Russian Social Democracy and the Legal Labour Movement, 1906–14. London: Macmillan, 1983, xiv + 239 pp., £25.00.

Benjamin Pinkus, The Soviet Government and the Jews 1948–1967. A Documented Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, xvi + 612 pp., £35.00.

Jakub Blum and Vera Rich, The Image of the Jew in Soviet Literature: the Post‐Stalin Period. New York: Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 1984, 276 pp., No price quoted.

Yaacov Roi ed., The USSR and the Muslim World. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1984, xv + 298 pp., £25.00.

Michael Bruchis, Nations ‐ nationalities ‐ People: A Study of the nationalities policy of the Communist Party in Soviet Moldavia. Boulder Colorado: East European Monographs, distributed by Columbia University Press, New York, 1984, iv + 230 pp., No price quoted.

Michael J. Sodaro and Sharon L. Wolchik eds., Foreign and Domestic Policy in Eastern Europe in the 1980s: Trends and Prospects. London: Macmillan, 1983, x + 265 pp., £25.00.

Adam Zwass, The Economies of Eastern Europe in a time of change. London: Macmillan, 1984, ix + 170 pp., £20.00.

R. Dietz, Die Energiewirtschaft in Osteuropa und der UdSSR. Vienna and New York: Springer‐Verlag, 1984, 248 pp., $17.90, DM 49.—.

Ferenc Feher and Agnes Heller, Hungary 1956 Revisited. The Message of a Revolution—a Quarter of a Century After. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983, xviii + 174 pp., £15.00.

Ray Taras, Ideology in a Socialist State; Poland 1956–83. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1984, x + 299 pp., £25.00.

Fred Singleton, A Short History of the Yugoslav Peoples, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, xiii + 309 pp., h/b £22.50, p/b £7.50.

Martin McCauley, The German Democratic Republic since 1945. London: Macmillan, 1983, xiv + 282 pp., £25.00.

Raymond Bentley, Technological Change in the German Democratic Republic. Boulder, Colorado and London: Westview Press, 1984, xx + 296 pp., $25.00.

Paul‐Gunther Schmidt, Internationale Wahrungspolitik im sozialistischen Staat, Stuttgart, New York: Gustav Fischer Verlag, 1985, xii + 447 pp., DM 48.

R. H. Haigh, D. S. Morris, A. R. Peters, eds., German‐Soviet Relations in the Weimar Era. Aldershot: Gower, 1985, viii + 206 pp., £15.00.

Mireille Maqua, Rome‐Moscou, l'Ostpolitik du Vatican, Liège: Cabay publishers, 1985, 248 pp., 580 F.B.

Ian Nish, The Origins of the Russo‐Japanese War, (Origins of Modern Wars Series: General Editor, Harry Hearder), Longman, London and New York, 1985. xiii + 274 pp. £6.95 paper.