bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Writer's Truth: Representation of Identities in Indian Fiction
Authors: Sethi Rumina
Published: November 2008

It is widely believed that nationalism in India stemmed from European domination. Imperialism, for the first time, generated the sentiment of ‘nationhood’ that brought together people of diverse religions, languages, and lifestyles to demand home rule. The process involved cultural revivalism, yet retained strong ties with the inheritance of two centuries of foreign domination. The spur to the writing of cultural tracts was sharp and the attempt to rewrite the ‘true’ history of their country became the leading preoccupation of intellectuals. Consequently, indigenous histories of different kinds emerged over a period of years preceding independence and in the years after 1947. Different generic models were used in an attempt to replace the ‘inauthentic’ historical accounts compiled by Europeans, featuring instead themes or motifs of writing that emphasized an assertion of a culture which was comparable, if not superior, to that of their European peers. Correspondingly, historiography and fiction-writing depicted national heroes, full of deeds of valour and bravery, engaged in wresting their ‘nation’ from the aggressor by an emphasis on indigenous themes. Models of writing structured around the earlier epics, the use of local dialects, the emphasis on ancient rituals and practices, all went into the making of a ‘pure’ tradition.
George Eliot, Other-Wise Marian Evans
Authors: Wolff Michael
Published: November 2008

My title, “George Eliot, Other-Wise Marian Evans,” is intended in the first place simply to remind us of the Marian Evans behind George Eliot and to get us to acknowledge afresh the strangeness of her situation as a woman living within a man's name. It also reminds us that she brought wisdom to her creation of George Eliot, a wisdom derived in part from her awareness of the complex history of her own life and in part from the intense dedication with which she practised her vocation of authorship.
Barrett Browning's Stories
Authors: Mermin Dorothy
Published: November 2008

Reviewing her career as a professional poet, Aurora Leigh describes her dubiously successful beginnings:

My ballads prospered; but the ballad's race

Is rapid for a poet who bears weights

Of thought and golden image ….

Barrett Browning's ballads had prospered too, and like Aurora she did not find their success particularly creditable, a judgment that has been emphatically shared by twentieth-century critics. But when Robert Browning told her in his first letter that he loved her poems, these were the ones he meant. The ballads are almost the only works of hers that he mentions in their correspondence, and he mentions them often. Gracious Lady Geraldine, bold and selfimmolating Duchess May, the lady disguised as a page who dies defending her husband from the Saracens - such heroines charmed a large and diverse company of Victorian admirers, including Mary Russell Mitford, Edgar Allan Poe, Harriet Martineau, Thomas Carlyle, and most of Elizabeth Barrett's friends and reviewers, in the years before her marriage when her reputation was made.
“Art's a Service”: Social Wound, Sexual Politics, and Aurora Leigh
Authors: David Deirdre
Published: November 2008

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh has become a key text for feminist critics concerned with nineteenth-century women writers. For some, Aurora Leigh is a revolutionary poem, a passionate indictment of patriarchy that speaks the resentment of the Victorian woman poet through a language of eroticized female imagery. For others, the poem is less explosive, and Barrett Browning's liberal feminism is seen as compromised by Aurora Leigh's eventual dedication to a life governed by traditionally male directives. In my view, however, Aurora Leigh is neither revolutionary nor compromised: rather, it is a coherent expression of Barrett Browning's conservative sexual politics, and I shall argue that female imagery is employed to show that the “art” of the woman poet performs a “service” for a patriarchal vision of the apocalypse. In Aurora Leigh woman's art is made the servitor of male ideal.
The Metaphysics of Pornography in The Ring and The Book
Authors: Brady Ann P.
Published: November 2008

Guido's marriage to Pompilia was a mismatch by age, class, education, and temperament. The disparity, however, runs much deeper than any of these elements. The rift between them is a disparity in the very quality of their souls and is the source of Guido's surpassing hatred and gratuitous malevolence toward his wife. The public, however, seems uninterested in the mysterious subtleties of this couple's spiritual drama. Though Count Guido Franceschini is on trial for murder, the issue is the virtue of his victim. Pompilia Comparini is on trial as an erring wife, a violator of husbandly honor. Because Guido's spiritual quality is reflected in society, that society has no problem supporting him in his defense of such an overt, cowardly, and heinous crime. The sympathetic bond between the nobleman and his auditors is the base for his brash, swaggering bravado about the murder by himself and four armed men of an old man, an old woman, and a seventeen-year-old girl recovering from childbirth. Hardly the stuff of heroism, yet Guido speaks from an eminence of security with the swagger of cheap heroics.
Sexual Polarities in The Defence of Guenevere
Authors: Boos Florence S.
Published: November 2008

William Morris's early poetry is striking for its erotic intensity and powerful evocations of passionate and unhappy women. Indeed, his portrayals of confined, alienated, and dependent women are so sharp that they pose some obvious questions. Do they, in the end, simply stylize and project some of the most destructive conventions of Victorian patriarchy? Or do they actually provide some “defence” of female passion and sexuality, against the social hierarchies and emotional suffocation they depict?
The Ubiquitous Rise of Economists
Authors: Markoff John , Montecinos Verónica
Published: November 2008

Professional economists have for a long time had significant roles as advisers to policy makers. In recent years they have gone well beyond this in many countries and have come to occupy the highest positions in government. While their technical knowledge is an important reason for their influx into governments, their acquisition of the highest positions of authority, we contend, is to an important degree a ceremonial display. The symbolic aspect of the appointment of high-level economist-politicians is as significant as any specific stock of knowledge they bring to political life and is a part of an emerging transnational political culture in which economists occupy a sacerdotal role.
From Policy Beliefs to Policy Choices: The Resurgence of Tariff Retaliation in the U.S. Pursuit of Fair Trade
Authors: Friman H. Richard
Published: November 2008

Policymakers hold and seek to act on beliefs concerning trade strategies as well as those concerning trade tactics and instruments. In contrast to prominent hypotheses in the literature, this article argues that constraints placed on specific dimensions of trade policy by societal groups and state institutions appear to play a greater role in shaping the impact of beliefs on policy choices than overall shifts in discretion accorded to policymakers. Insights into the resurgence of the retaliatory tariff in U.S. trade policy during 1985–88 are at the interaction of policy beliefs and variation in executive discretion. Although lending support to scholarship focusing on the interaction of ideas and institutions, these findings raise questions concerning prominent claims about the significance of policy beliefs.
The Financial System and Corporate Governance in Germany: Institutions and the Diffusion of Innovations
Authors: Wever Kirsten S. , Allen Christopher S.
Published: November 2008

Germany's economic resilience, even in the face of the extreme pressures of unification, cannot be explained by the neoclassical economic approach. Its social market institutions induce the major actors in the political economy to negotiate over the terms of economic and political adjustment in such a fashion as to diffuse innovative new organizational and institutional practices broadly and thoroughly throughout the economy and polity. The reorganization of the financial sector and the spread of new forms of workplace organization and corporate governance are used to illustrate this dynamic. The paper concludes with implications for how we think about regulation.
The Single European Market, Multinationals and Concentration: The Case of Food Manufacturing
Authors: Pollert Anna
Published: November 2008

This paper examines the logic and implications of the Single European Market for the food manufacturing sector. It points to the role of multinationals in this sector and the process of concentration through merger and acquisition as a central growth strategy. It suggests that rather than encourage further concentration, European policy should concern itself with the benefits as well as the problems of regional differentiation and the complementarity rather than the conflict of different scales of production and distribution.
The Politics of Monetary Policy: A Critical Review
Authors: Woolley John T.
Published: November 2008

The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States is a pre-eminent banking institution, and an institution that has been subject to scrutiny from a wide variety of scholarly perspectives. The object of this article is to review prominent works dealing with the politics of the Federal Reserve, particularly its relations with other institutions and their effects on monetary policy. The review shows that the formal legal independence of a central bank such as the Fed does not mark the end of monetary politics, and its record suggests a greater measure of modesty and caution on the part of enthusiasts for independent central banks.
Electoral Cycles, Budget Controls and Public Expenditure
Authors: Alt James , Chrystal K. Alec
Published: November 2008

This paper presents the results of tests of a number of models of public expenditure growth which have achieved wide currency. The main types of models examined are a permanent income model, electoral cycle models, and stabilization policy models. The models are tested with data from Britain and the United States of America and the results are compared with evidence from other countries. The paper concludes that government expenditure grows in proportion to national income because politicians find it convenient to plan that way; electoral-cyclical factors are relatively unimportant in determining public expenditure; there appears to be a limited role for public expenditure in economic stabilization policy; in a comparative context institutions of expenditure control are important in determining relative rates of growth of public sector consumption expenditure.
Professionalism and Political Conflict: A Developmental Model
Authors: Wirt Frederick
Published: November 2008

This essay is an introduction to a little studied aspect of a world-wide phenomenon, the political environment of the professions. In the absence of any model of political interactions between the environment and professions, a deductive developmental model is set out below, detailing the stages of conflict between the professionals and the non-profesionals, or ‘laity’, whom they serve. Its evidence is adduced from primarily the United States, but also from elsewhere in the English-speaking world; its application should be even wider. A concluding section briefly suggests explanatory propositions for this conflict. Throughout, the focus is not upon professionals as such, but upon (a) the potential for conflict which lies in the grant of autonomy given them by the society, and (b) the current crisis when the autonomy of even the most powerful profession is under challenge.
Rationality in Writing: Linear and Curvilinear
Authors: Wildavsky Aaron
Published: November 2008

A long time ago I received a letter from Rex Stout inviting me to join the Authors' Guild, a letter no doubt sent to all who had books published. I didn't join because I didn't think of myself primarily as a writer, but as an aspiring scholar who merely set out the results of investigations that, so to speak, wrote themselves. Writing was incidental, not essential. Some years later a similar letter arrived. By then, having spent several hours a day writing most days, I joined. I had become a writer, if not by accomplishment, at least by occupation. Only recently, however, have I thought of myself as a writer by vocation, as a person who cares about the quality and craft of writing as inseparable from the content of whatever I am trying to communicate. Indeed, for me, writing has become an integral part of thinking.
Entrepreneurship and Government Policy: The Case of the Housing Market
Authors: Farmer Mary K. , Barrell Ray
Published: November 2008

This article discusses the use made of the ‘Austrian’ concept of entrepreneurship in the present British government's policy discussions, and, using an ‘Austrian’ method of argument, demonstrates that there is a deep-seated inconsistency in its policies which suggests that it, along with the administrations of a number of other western democracies including the United States, has not fully understood the implications of the doctrines to which it appears to have committed itself. This inconsistency relates to its continued support for the existing structure of subsidies in the UK housing market which, it is argued, have made private home-buying so profitable an activity for entrepreneurial individuals as to substantially reduce the attractiveness of the option of setting up new businesses. Whether or not the government is right to believe that, in an economic environment with greater incentives, there would be a great expansion in individual entrepreneurial effort in ‘productive’ activities, this is not likely to happen whilst, amongst other things, the structure of housing subsidies remains substantially unchanged. We suggest, in the light of comparative international evidence, that a better alternative is available.
Promoting the Industries of the Future: The Search for an Industrial Strategy in Britain and France
Authors: Green Diana
Published: November 2008

This article analyses and contrasts recent attempts by the governments of Britain and France to devise an industrial strategy for the next two decades, prompted by, and in a bid to come to grips with, the uncertain international economic environment. It is in three main parts. The first part comprises a brief resumé of the main features of industrial policy in the two countries over the last two decades. The next section examines the main features of the new industrial strategies being put together in each country, based on the so-called ‘industries of the future’, supplementing (rather than replacing) other forms of selective intervention. The third part discusses the problems involved in attempting to devise and launch strategies based on picking industrial ‘winners’. It suggests that if, as French experience seems to show, technocratic dictatorship is the price of success, this is a price which most industrial democracies would be unwilling to pay.
Applied Social Research? The Use and Non-use of Empirical Social Inquiry by British and American Governmental Commissions.
Authors: Bulmer Martin
Published: November 2008

Governmental commissions are an established part of the British and American systems of government. To what extent are they a means by which social science can have an impact upon policy-making? To what extent do they use empirical research methods to gather evidence which influences the commissions' deliberations? What factors hinder the effective use of social science research by governmental commissions? Drawing on case studies of British Royal Commissions and Departmental Committees, and American Presidential Commissions, this article suggests that the potential effectiveness of social science is reduced by the political context in which commissions work, their preferred modes of taking evidence, the way in which commissions are staffed, and the internal dynamics of their workings.
Inappropriate Comparisons as a Basis for Policy: Two Recent Examples from the Social Experiments
Authors: Burtless Gary , Greenberg David
Published: November 2008

This paper examines the problem of inappropriate comparisons in evaluating social programs and the erroneous policy conclusions which can be derived from such comparisons. The paper examines two cases from the United States of America which fail to meet the criterion that comparison groups (if necessary after statistical adjustment) should be identical in all essential respects except in their exposure to the program. In the first of the two cases, involving the measurement of work-effort reduction in negative income tax (NIT) experiments, the inappropriate comparison was made in conducting a statistical analysis of program effects. In the second case, involving the analysis of changes in housing consumption in a housing allowance experiment, the statistical analysis of program effects appears valid, but the correctly measured program outcomes were themselves inappropriately used by policy-makers in drawing policy inferences. The conclusion draws out major lessons for policy analysis and policy-making.
Black Minority Participation in the USA and Britain
Authors: Jacobs Brian
Published: November 2008

Little attention has been paid to the comparative study of the politics and administration of race in the USA and Britain. There exist certain important similarities between the two countries particularly with regard to the way in which even militant leaders are willing to co-operate with centrally funded community agencies and to moderate their demands to gain political and economic returns for their organisations from government. There are, however, structural differences between American and British community bodies which affect the success of those institutions in obtaining the allegiance of community militants and in more fully integrating moderate leaderships into local level participatory processes. In the USA the system encourages an apparently high degree of ‘voluntarism’ and ‘independence’ from direct central control through relative institutional autonomy. This is more conducive to group co-operation than Britain's more centralised community relations framework with its closer direct association with government and the so-called ‘white power structure’. Because, therefore, of the American version of ‘independence’ groups there are actually more effectively integrated than the British into governmentally funded institutions.
Why Have Government Statistics? (And How to Cut their Cost)
Authors: Thomas Ray
Published: November 2008

Intra-orgartisationally statistics are commonly perceived, both in government and in other organisations, as a tool of management. But the dominant function of statistics is to contribute to inter- and intra-organisational coordination. The value of statistics lies in their use as an instrument of self-management. The paper identifies an unacknowledged degree of participation by users in statistical systems and advocates an ought-to-know principle for the design of such systems. The ought-to-know principle should guide the distribution of statistics within governmental organisations and policy for statistical publication. Contributor and user organisations (e.g. local government and private firms) should play a greater part in deciding what statistics should be collected and how they should be distributed and could well share responsibility for meeting the costs.
Taxation and Housing: A Comment
Authors: Barrell R.
Published: November 2008

In his paper Dr Ittig argues that the tax position of home ownership is not particularly protected or privileged. His argument rests on the demonstration that home owners do pay taxes in relation to their homes, and he argues that they therefore cannot be subsidised.
Whither Environmental Regulation?
Authors: Daneke Gregory A.
Published: November 2008

Despite all the rhetoric, efforts to reform environmental regulation in the United States offer little promise of relief. Incapacitating the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and shifting responsibilities to the states hardly insures a less burdensome situation for the business community. At best, basic reform strategies merely add on various efficiency devices (bubbles, cost-benefit analyses, etc.) without addressing issues of overall regulatory performance. Moreover, none of the reform strategies, thus far, get at the underlying statutes and processes of environmental regulation which tend to generate a highly combative milieu. This discussion explores these weaknesses, and forwards an alternative approach, which is similar to regulatory processes in Europe and Canada (involving reduced litigation and increased negotiation).
Bureaucrats and Budgeting Benefits: How do British Central Government Departments Measure Up?
Authors: Hood Christopher , Huby Meg , Dunsire Andrew
Published: November 2008

Many economics-based theories of bureaucracy build on the assumption that public bureaucrats reap utility from a large budget. This article examines what evidence may be marshalled for bureaucratic appropriation of budgetary funds, by reference to measurable changes in British central government departments from the early 1970s to the early 1980s, both at the civil-service-wide level and at the level of departments taken separately and severally. This evidence indicates that, while the budget/utility approach cannot be dismissed entirely, the link between budgetary increases and bureaucratic utility is neither clearly demonstrable nor universally applicable. At the least, a more refined type of budget/utility theory seems to be called for.
Market Strategies as Policy Tools: The Search for Alternative Approaches to Urban Revitalization
Authors: Hula Richard C.
Published: November 2008

This paper explores a broad range of programs which claim to use market forces to generate urban development. It begins with a typology of program types based on a set of programmatic assumptions as to how markets can be manipulated. A series of alternative theoretical positions are then introduced which represent different visions of the market, urban development, and appropriate intervention techniques. It is asserted that each of the program types falls crudely into one of the theoretical perspectives. The paper concludes with the suggestion that program evaluation is relevant to issues other than whether the program ‘worked’. Evaluation can also serve as a test of internal assumptions on which the program is based. Finally, evaluation of concrete programs can be used to assess the relative power of alternative conceptualizations of development and of the market itself.
Undesigned Consequences of Purposive Legislative Action: Alternatives to Implementation
Authors: Dexter Lewis Anthony
Published: November 2008

This paper is an attempt to make more specific the familiar sociological notion of the ‘unanticipated consequences of social action’. Reasons for the relative neglect by practitioners and analysts of the side-effects of legislative action are suggested. The discussion of unintended and unanticipated social action is related to the work of classic sociologists, to theorists of diffusion, and to the study of innovations and inventions. Previous studies of Congress (including those by the author) are shown to have focussed on process and representation at the expense of the legislation itself and its consequences, examples of which are considered in this paper. An economic law about the creation of demands by legislation, explaining the development of many side-effects, is proposed. The relationship between rules expressed in enactments and the whole system of formal and informal rules in the life of a society is explored. A number of considerations for future work are outlined, and the paper concludes by arguing that greater awareness of the problem of side-effects will have two valuable consequences: (1) the identification of general tendencies may help to avoid gross perversion of purposes; (2) even where there are no clear regularities of response, the observation of patterns of side-effects and their correlation with other factors may enable analysts to anticipate likely side-effects and suggest readjustments.
The Determinants of Program Success and Failure
Authors: Wolman Harold
Published: November 2008

Recent social science research – particularly evaluation research and cost-benefit analysis – has produced a substantial and very useful literature on the impact of public policy and on the relationship of program inputs to outputs and outcomes. However, the explicit focus of these analytic techniques on impacts and outcomes does not systematically yield useful information on why programs have been successes or failures. Policy-makers faced with an evaluation of program success or failure obviously need to know something about the why question if they are to make needed adjustments in the program or carry the lessons of one program to other areas. This article attempts to present a comprehensive framework for explaining and understanding program performance. It is meant to have two uses and to serve two clienteles. First, it presents for social scientists a set of research questions to guide research into the determinants of program performance. Second, it provides public policy-makers with a set of action questions which should be asked and answered appropriately in the actual formulating and carrying out of public policy, as a means of enhancing the chances of program success. The framework is divided into two parts, the formulating process and the carrying out process, although these two processes may overlap considerably, both in time and in terms of substantive concerns. Program success may be impeded by problems or inadequacies in one or more of the components in either the formulating stage or the carrying out stage or in both.
Macroeconomic Policy Rules Versus Discretion: Some Analytical Issues
Authors: Sayer S. T.
Published: November 2008

In the extensive literature on the rules versus discretion debate three related, but logically distinct, areas of debate are frequently confused: the active versus passive policy debate, the rules versus discretion debate proper, and the open-loop (i.e. fixed) rule versus closed-loop (i.e. contingent) rule debate. Section 2 of this paper examines the nature of and interrelations between these three areas of debate. In section 3 the contributions of economic analysis to the debate are explored in an apolitical framework, in particular, the arguments for rules proposed by Friedman and Kydland and Prescott are assessed. Section 4 extends this framework to take into account the political dimension and the rules versus discretion debate is viewed as a cost-benefit problem involving both political and economic factors. A general conclusion is that since the rules versus discretion debate is an exercise in political economy, the debate cannot be properly assessed in the sterile apolitical framework of pure economic analysis.
Personal Information Policies in the United States and Britain: The Dilemma of Implementation Considerations
Authors: Regan Priscilla M.
Published: November 2008

This article examines how issues of policy implementation affected the formulation and adoption of personal information policies in the United States and Britain. The analysis suggests that when implementation questions are raised during policy formulation, programmatic goals will be compromised to the interests bureaucracies have in implementation. In this case, the goal of protecting the privacy of personal information was sacrified to an implementation framework that protected bureaucratic needs. This poses a dilemma for policy analysts: when implementation questions are left unresolved in policy design, bureaucratic concerns dominate the implementation stage; yet, when implementation questions are resolved in policy design, bureaucratic concerns dominate the formulation stage.
Select Your Social Scientist with Care
Authors: Wyatt Ray
Published: November 2008

A public policy-oriented research project in Australia is used to point out the connections between typical social science motivations, such as moral criticism, truth-seeking and policy-guidance, and the research styles which such motivations produce, such as advocacy, impracticality and expediency. Each style's reliability, fundamentalism and policy applicability are discussed and suggestions are made for testing research validity. Finally, it is shown how policy makers can interpret advice from the different sorts of social scientist more intelligently.
Two Cheers for the Welfare State: Public Opinion and Private Welfare
Authors: Taylor-Gooby Peter
Published: November 2008

In a democratic society, public policy must claim to provide what people want. One clue to this is the evidence of opinion surveys. Yet, in the field of welfare, surveys set policy analysts a puzzle: evidence about attitudes to what government should be providing displays an ambiguity. Some surveys demonstrate popular preferences for market provision, suppressed to a considerable extent by the coercive system of tax-financed state welfare, and others reveal a high level of satisfaction with and support for existing public welfare services. Both sets of opinions are tinged with a moralistic concern about the regulation of state services for stereotyped undeserving scroungers. The paper suggests that this ambivalence in findings is not simply the result of methodological difficulties: it may reflect an ambiguity in many people's attitudes in this area that is founded on the contrast between the ideology of individual self-interest prevalent in a market society and awareness of common needs for collective provision. Both aspects contribute to people's framework of ideas about the proper role of the state. Evidence from a recent survey is analysed to highlight the contradiction, and support this interpretation.
Strike costs and public policy
Authors: Enderwick Peter
Published: November 2008

Strike costs provide incentives for bargaining parties to seek agreement by effective negotiation. To perform this role efficiently both the magnitude and distribution of such costs are crucial. Despite the apparently low aggregate costs of strikes the extreme concentration of stoppages indicates that costs may be sufficient. The burden of such costs appears inefficient in certain situations. In such cases government intervention may be required. Impending legislative changes in Britain contribute little to strike containment and are likely to manifest their effect in bargaining outcomes as opposed to the bargaining process. Increases in the strike costs suffered by one side in wage negotiations serve only to increase the relative bargaining power of the other side. Reductions in state subsidies to the strike costs suffered by labour appear more effective as a device for controlling wage growth than strike activity. A poor level of understanding of the strike process makes this an area where public policy must incorporate gradualism and pragmatism.
The Home Office and Race Relations Policy: Coordinator and Initiator?
Authors: Nixon Jaqi
Published: November 2008

This article attempts to analyse why, to quote a recent report from the Home Affairs Committee of the British House of Commons, ‘in the vacuum caused by the Home Office's reluctance to be seen to be interfering, ethnic minority concerns go by default’. It first examines the reasons for placing responsibility for race relations policy with the Home Office and then goes on to detail events within the Home Office in the two years following the introduction of the 1976 Race Relations Act. The article concludes by suggesting that a lack of preparedness for the implementation stage of the policy, together with a diminution of political commitment and the limitations on special funding, discouraged the Home Office from playing a more active and more effective role in coordinating and initiating within central government policies for racial disadvantage.
Management of Industrial Change in a Small Country: The Netherlands
Authors: Tulder Rob Van
Published: November 2008

The awareness of the structural rather than cyclical nature of economic problems caused a fundamental rethinking of the institutions and instruments of industrial policy in most OECD countries. However, studies have concentrated on a limited number of large countries, with only marginal use being made of the experience of the smaller OECD countries. The need for comparative material becomes relevant since the large economies are increasingly facing the same structural problems as the smaller ones. This article analyses the experience of the Netherlands in comparison with other small European economies. The Netherlands economy is highly intertwined with the other economies of the European Community, particularly Germany. Multinationals (many home-based in the case of the Netherlands) dominate certain sectors of the economy and exports, but smaller companies provide the bulk of employment. The loss of employment since 1970 has mostly resulted from the restructuring of large firms. Government subsidies grew considerably, and proliferated in form, in the 1970s and most went to industries experiencing structural problems. Large firms have tended to benefit most. Criticisms have been made of rescue operations, the risky nature of development credits, the obstacles to the use of schemes by small firms and the cost and ineffectiveness of the investment subsidy account. Because of declining domestic investment, public subsidies accounted for 82 per cent of all private investment by 1982. In the 1980s there has been a move away from tripartite arrangements for discussing and administering industrial subsidies to commissions of ‘independent’ experts, and the degree of organisation in labour unions in the Netherlands, already low, has declined considerably in recent years. The prevalence of centre-right governments in recent years has made it easier to reduce support for individual firms, though large grants for modernisation are made to large firms. The Netherlands appears to be one of the small open countries in which the basic linkages in the model proposed by Cameron have been broken.
Public Expenditure and Economic Performance in OECD Countries
Authors: Saunders Peter
Published: November 2008

This paper presents data on the size and growth of general government expenditures and receipts relative to GDP in OECD countries over the 1960–81 period. A feature of these trends is the widespread appearance of budget deficits in the mid-seventies, following the sharp increase in government expenditures relative to GDP in the two years immediately after the first oil shock in 1973. Having presented these data, the paper tests several hypotheses relating the size and growth of government to macroeconomic performance using an international cross-section framework. The economic performance indicators used are the rate of economic growth, the rate of consumer price inflation and private sector employment growth. Overall, the results provide little evidence that government size and growth have been detrimental to economic performance, particularly in the period since 1975, although an inverse relation existed in the sixties between government size and economic growth.
The Penetrability of Policy Systems in a Developing Context
Authors: Hofferbert Richard I. , Erguder Ustun
Published: November 2008

Drawing primarily from the Turkish example, this essay examines the fit of the input-output policy model, widely used in West, to less developed countries (LDCs). Three hypotheses are explored. In LDCs, compared to the West: (1) Policy patterns are more subject to political penetration; (2) once implemented, policies have a higher probability of penetrating social conditions; and (3) implementation structures and practices are less penetrable by policy directives.

The major bottleneck to innovative policy formation and delivery in LDCs is the implementation process. Bureaucratic resistance and hesitancy to innovate are due to a control rather than service orientation, stemming from the peculiar sequencing of development of state apparatuses vis-a-vis the marketplace. These historical-institutional peculiarities do not appear to detract from the input-output model's ability to spot targets of opportunity for useful policy inquiry in LDCs.
Citizens Strike a Balance: Discontent With Taxes, Content With Spending
Authors: Hadenius Axel
Published: November 2008

This article presents the findings of a public opinion survey of the level of taxation in Sweden. The study demonstrates that opinions depend to a large extent on the framing of the problem. On general questions regarding taxes, the answers are usually negative. But when asked about both taxes and benefits, people normally express a positive attitude to both. The opinions about different kinds of taxes vary greatly, but the variation does not correspond to the predictions of the fiscal illusion theory. Opinions about taxes can be assigned to three underlying attitude dimensions. A comparison with an earlier Swedish survey shows that discontent with the level of taxation has not increased since the 1960s, with but one exception, marginal taxes.
Comparative Public Policy at the Crossroads
Authors: Heidenheimer Arnold J.
Published: November 2008

This article seeks to acquaint the reader with the intellectual landscape of comparative policy studies, and to raise the level of self-consciousness of scholars active in the field. To this end it discusses why comparative policy studies emerged when and where it did in the 1970s. Then it grapples with the reasons and possible effects of the fact that the very term ‘comparative policy’ is so difficult to translate into non-English languages, and links this to a discussion of problems of conceptual cohesion. The last part assesses the prospects of a field which is seeking to gain and retain intellectual coherence and respect, though not nestled comfortably within a single discipline, and is subject to contending pulls from national and international academic, political and bureaucratic forces.
National Styles and Policy Sectors: Explaining Structured Variation
Authors: Freeman Gary P.
Published: November 2008

A vigorous tradition in comparative politics argues that national policymakers develop characteristic and durable methods for dealing with public issues, that these can be linked to policy outcomes, and that they can be systematically compared. More recently, a number of scholars have suggested reversing the direction of causality, claiming that the nature of political issues themselves causes the politics associated with them. This policy sector approach implies that there should be cross-national similarities in the way issues are treated, whatever the styles particular nations adopt. The two approaches need to be integrated into a common framework built around a research strategy that investigates policymaking within specific sectors across multiple national cases. Such an approach can transcend the often sterile debate over whether the policies of nations are unique or are converging by seeking to explain how the nature of issues structures the variation among the policies of nations.
State-owned Enterprises Between Autonomy and Dependency
Authors: Anastassopoulos Jean-Pierre
Published: November 2008

The relationship between the state and its own enterprises may be analyzed at three different levels: a rational-economic level, where what is good for the state-owned enterprise may oppose what is good for the state as a whole; an organizational level, where such conflicts are aggravated by a power struggle; and a political level, where the arbitrating authority is seen as an individual member of the government. If state-owned enterprises are to serve national goals and be efficiently managed, their relationship with the state must be improved. First, the state should set the state-owned enterprise's general objectives, approve its proposed strategy, and refrain from intervening any further in its management. Second, the state-owned enterprise should report to one authority only for an approval, and submit to effective strategic control. Third, political interventions should be few, and should consist of middle-range agreements signed between a member of government and the state-owned industry's top manager, avoiding partisan or too detailed considerations.
Starting Over in Pensions: The Challenges Facing Central and Eastern Europe1
Authors: Holzmann Robert
Published: November 2008

All countries in Central and Eastern Europe require rapid and drastic restructuring of their public pension schemes for macro- and microeconomic reasons. While initial considerations were geared towards streamlining the unfunded scheme, reducing many distortions and making it financially sound, some transition economies initiated reform plans for a move from unfunded to funded retirement income provision. The paper reviews the need for reform and surveys the discussion and current plans before addressing three central open questions: How to structure the first and unfunded tier? How to finance the transition toward the second and funded tier? What are the minimum financial sector requirements before funded provisions can be initiated? The success of the current pension reform efforts in Central Europe will have an important bearing on developments throughout Europe. A failure in one transition economy caused by bad design, unprojected deficits, or insufficient financial market preparation could discredit a funded pension system in the whole region; a successful move towards an unfunded-funded multi-tier pension scheme in Eastern Europe could positively stimulate the discussion of pension reform in the European Union.
British Indutrial Policy: Structural Change, Policy Inertia
Authors: Grant Wyn , Wilks Stephen
Published: November 2008

The structural weaknesses of the UK industrial economy are discussed and it is argued that the policy response does not match the scale of the crisis. Whether there should be an industrial policy is politically contentious. Aid has been directed towards the declining sections of manufacturing industry. Policy adaptation has been ad hoc and decision-making on industrial policy and programme administration is fragmented. Reform is difficult because of genuine policy disagreements between the main political parties, the inherent tendency to return to cautious middle-ground policies defined by the bureaucracy and the persistence of a laissez-faire tradition that leads to an institutional isolation of business and government. The unsatisfactory nature of British industrial policy is related to factors deeply embedded in the political system and a pessimistic view is taken of the possibility of profound change.
Danish Industrial Policy: Persistent Liberalism
Authors: Sidenius Niels Chr.
Published: November 2008

Danish industrial policy reflects a ‘liberalistic’ paradigm, with industrial subsidies being general rather than selective, and based on profitability. There was an increase in the number of industrial policy instruments introduced in the second half of the 1970s, and in particular there seems to have been an increase in subsidies for technological innovation. The amount of money allocated for industrial subsidies has increased, especially during the economic recession. However, Danish industrial policy can only be conceived of as a crisis response policy in a relatively diffuse way, with only a few arrangements directly targetted at firms in difficulties, whereas most aim at making the surviving firms expand, innovate and increase their exports. Similarly, with few exceptions Danish industrial policy can be seen as anticipatory only in a very general way. The administration of industrial policy is characterised by close cooperation between state, industry and labour in tripartite boards and committees that take decisions about the administration of industrial policy or advise the government. The widespread use of such tripartite bodies hampers changes in industrial policy because all partners have to acquiesce in the changes. Innovation in Danish industrial policy is likely to be a gradual process, with most existing arrangements surviving, and a desultory increase in the use of more selective measures.
Irish Industrial Policy: The Constraints and Opportunities of an Open Economy
Authors: Girvin Brian
Published: November 2008

Irish industrial policy is of recent origin. Free trade has replaced an earlier reliance on protection to generate industrial growth. For the past 25 years Irish industrial policy has been characterised by the attraction of foreign capital, export-led industrialisation, and state intervention. The Industrial Development Authority has been the major agency in orchestrating this policy of development. Multinational corporations have made a significant contribution to this process. The current recession has led to a deeper involvement by the state in industrial policy. Corporatist instruments have been devised which retain considerable influence. Industrial policy is experiencing further change. There is a new emphasis on the generation of an independent Irish industrial sector, while monetary constraints are imposing restrictions on the range of policy options open to the state.
Economic Success without an Industrial Strategy: Austria in the 1970s
Authors: Müller Wolfgang C.
Published: November 2008

Starting from the relative success of the Austrian economy in the 1970s the problems of industrial policy and the position of industrial policy in the context of economic policy are examined. Policies directed towards improving the industrial structure have had a lower priority than policies aimed at producing sufficient total economic growth to avoid unemployment and disputes over the distribution of the GNP. The structure of Austria's foreign trade shows that Austria still has not achieved the industrial structure appropriate for a small industrial country in an exposed geographical position. In Austria the problems of industry are regarded as legitimate affairs of government and, although there is criticism of the details of government intervention, the economic responsibility which is conferred on the government is an extensive one. Austria's political culture exhibits both consociationalist traits, with most laws being passed with the support of the two big parties,, and ‘social partnership’ in the form of voluntary co-operation between the unions and employers' associations. The political consensus means that discussion tends to revolve round technical rather than fundamental issues of industrial policy. Since the early 1970s the preservation of full employment has become the dominating industrial policy goal of the Austrian government; as a result, policy is mainly reactive rather than proactive. Fiscal investment aids are by far the most important industrial policy instrument, though their use has been criticised. There are also direct expenditure schemes, aimed at particular sectors as well as the general stimulation of investment; these aids have also been criticised. The prospects for the introduction of industrial policies more focussed on qualitative changes in industrial structure are not considered good, but political stability seems assured.