Decision Aiding,Not Dispute Resolution: Creating Insights through Structured Environmental Decisions

Public participation in environmental decisions has become commonplace. A favored model for public input is to use the tools of dispute resolution to seek consensus among members of a multi‐party stakeholder group. The authors believe that a focus on dispute resolution and consensus building can pose impediments to the creation of insights for decisionmakers and lead to the adoption of inferior policy choices. Instead, they advocate an alternative approach to stakeholder participation characterized as “decision aiding” through a structured process based on constructive, multi‐attribute techniques and value‐focused thinking. In this paper some of the major difficulties posed by a dispute‐resolution approach are articulated, the principles of a decision‐aiding process reviewed, and this alternative approach illustrated by describing a stakeholder consultation involving water‐use planning for a hydroelectric facility on the Alouette River in British Columbia, Canada. © 2001 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

A note on the timing of investments in litigation contests

Allowing the plaintiff and defendant to choose the order in which they invest effort into trial, we show that the timing of litigation efforts is critically dependent on the level of defendant fault. For a high (low) level of defendant fault, the plaintiff invests after (before) the defendant’s investment choice. The equilibrium order of litigation efforts in turn is decisive for (a) the level of total litigation effort, (b) justice achieved by the litigation contest, and (c) plaintiffs’ incentives to bring suit. As a result, the endogenous timing bears vital implications for policy makers.     

The prospects of egalitarian capitalism in the global South: Turkish social neoliberalism in comparative perspective

Abstract

This paper studies the transformation of economic and social policy in Turkey during the 2000s. The policy mix that has emerged can be usefully conceptualized as social neoliberalism, combining relatively orthodox neoliberal economic policies and retrenchment of the protective welfare state (e.g. labour market institutions) with a significant expansion, both in terms of public spending and population coverage, of the productive welfare state (e.g. public health care). Therefore, social neoliberalism as a development model is distinct both from social democracy and orthodox neoliberalism. Its rise in Turkey during the 2000s is arguably best understood with reference to the interests of the AKP's support coalition, the salience of inequalities in access to public services, and the disconnect of social policy-making from civil society mobilization. Turkey's experience with social neoliberalism provides an important reference point for theorizing the ‘social turn’ that since the 2000s has occurred in many late-developing countries with now maturing welfare states, including Brazil, South Africa, Mexico and Chile.     

The development of Singapore and Malaysia in regional context

Singapore. City‐State in South‐East Asia, by Philippe Régnier. Hurst & Company, London, 1991. xv + 301 pp. £27.50. ISBN 1–85065–053–5.

Growth Triangle. The Johor‐Singapore‐Riau Experience, edited by Lee Tsao Yuan. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies and Institute of Policy Studies, Singapore, 1991. x + 119 pp. $23.95. ISBN 981–3016–11–6.

The Malaysian Economy. Pacific Connections, by Mohammed Ariff. Oxford University Press, Singapore, Oxford and New York, 1991. xx + 216 pp. £27.50. ISBN 0–19–588564–3.     

Southeast Asia in the study of international relations: The rise and decline of a region

Three features stand out from the literature on Southeast Asia's international relations, written over the last fifty years: the dominance of extra‐regional scholarship; an overwhelming emphasis on regional security, and a related preponderance of realist perspectives; and the appearance, consolidation, and ebbing of the perceived utility of Southeast Asia as a useful analytical region. During the 1990s, there has been a questioning of the realist assumptions which have underlain international relations writing on the region, and there has been increased emphasis on economic issues. Southeast Asians are making an increasingly important contribution to the study of their own region's international relations, though mainly in terms of policy‐oriented research. The most important recent development has been the questioning of Southeast Asia's usefulness as an analytical region, in view of the growing intensity of economic and security relations between Northeast and Southeast Asia.     

Book reviews

Gray Brechin, Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

Michael Goldman, ed., Privatizing Nature: Political Struggles for the Global Commons. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998.     

The New Feudalism: Globalization,the Market,and the Great Chain of Consumption*

Drawing on a substantive connection between liberalism and feudalism, I argue that in spite of a nominal commitment to democracy, the American political system is not substantively democratic. On the contrary, the increasing commitment to neoliberal ideology over the past 30 years is having the effect of establishing a private government, one that is strikingly similar to feudalism, where the few rule the many in the interests of the few and status arrives via consumption and market connections. Furthermore, the internationalization of the American politico-economic model, largely via transnational corporations, promises the extension of this New Feudalism throughout the world. Despite the claims that "liberal democracy" promises the end to history, in other words, the future of democracy looks particularly bleak.     

Women Police in Post‐Fitzgerald Queensland: A 20 Year Review

The Fitzgerald report was the catalyst for major reforms to Queensland's system of government and criminal justice, and included explicit recommendations related to women in policing. Reforms led to the removal of discriminatory barriers and significant improvements in the recruitment and promotion of women. However, these changes provoked a backlash in the 1990s that led to reductions in female recruitment. A return to less discriminatory policies eventually ensued, with steady improvements on key equity indicators. This paper provides a historical perspective on developments over the two decades since Fitzgerald, and includes a critical analysis of the implementation of contemporary equity and diversity strategies within the policing context. Recruitment of women police in Queensland has plateaued at one‐third and progress in the overall number of sworn women and women in management is slow. The paper concludes by emphasising the wider lessons for a more developed and proactive gender equity program in public sector employment and policing.