bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Voluntary Corporate Environmental Initiatives: A Typology and Preliminary Investigation
Authors: Labatt S , Maclaren V W
Published: October 2006

Voluntary corporate environmental initiatives are any nonstatutory initiatives that aim at improving corporate environmental performance. These types of initiatives have emerged as an important new policy tool for environmental management in North America. The focus of this paper is on the merits and shortcomings of three major categories of voluntary initiative: self-regulation, the voluntary agreement, and the voluntary challenge. Using data collected from eighteen new and two previously documented case studies of voluntary initiatives, the authors present some of the key characteristics of these types of initiatives and speculate on their role in North America's environmental policy regime. Industry respondents in the case studies identified the threat of regulation, public image, financial considerations, and peer pressure as key motivating factors in their decision to participate in a voluntary initiative. From a policy perspective, issues of concern are the effectiveness of nonstatutory initiatives relative to regulations, the degree of flexibility that they offer, and the role of public involvement. It is concluded that considerable research is still needed to confirm the contentions of proponents or opponents of voluntary initiatives.
Macroeconomic Control of Subcentral Governments: Experience from the USA and Scandinavia
Authors: Blom-Hansen J
Published: October 2006

Subcentral governments have gradually become more and more important in the general level of public economic activity in Western nations, To an increasing extent, macroeconomic management implies that the economic activity of subcentral governments is taken into account. But how can central governments coordinate the economic activity of numerous subcentral governments? What kind of intergovernmental arrangement is necessary? The author argues that fiscal federalism, the traditional approach to this problem, cannot answer these questions satisfactorily. The focus of fiscal federalism is on economic incentives in intergovernmental relations. The author argues that this is not sufficient. Fiscal federalism must be supplemented by a focus on political methods of influence. An analysis of Scandinavian and US ways of involving subcentral governments in macroeconomic management shows that the role played by subcentral government associations is crucial in the effectiveness of macroeconomic management.
The Changing Role of the Development Plan in Managing Spatial Change
Authors: Hull A , Vigar G
Published: October 2006

The authors examine the role of development plans in managing spatial change, The impact of the enhanced status of the development plan in the UK context is assessed with the aid of research material drawn from detailed case studies in Lancashire and Kent. Two governance ‘episodes’ are highlighted: a highly structured game within the mainstream planning system; and an innovative private-sector-led approach to planning for an area with the potential for rapid change. By means of these two illustrations the authors indicate the importance of the processes of development-plan preparation in the local context, the political tensions inherent to the land-use planning system in managing growth, and explore notions of plans being a store of local consensus about future spatial change.
Private Tenants and ‘Perverse Incentives’ in the Housing Benefit Scheme
Authors: Kemp P A , McLaverty P
Published: October 2006

The authors examine whether private tenants receiving housing benefit have sought to take advantage of the perverse incentives which exist in the scheme. They look at recipients' reasons for moving to their present accommodation, whether they shopped around for accommodation, whether they moved upmarket to better accommodation, and whether they paid a premium for their accommodation compared with nonrecipients. It is concluded that, despite the perverse incentives, recipients had not generally moved to take advantage of the scheme, had shopped around for accommodation, and were not paying a ‘housing benefit premium’. Although some recipients were paying over the odds for their accommodation this reflected their poor position in the housing market compared with nonrecipients rather than a deliberate attempt to take advantage of the scheme.
Planning and Pollution: An Unusual Perspective on Central—Local Relations
Authors: Scott P , Miller C , Wood C
Published: October 2006

Disputes between the pollution-control and land-use-planning authorities concerning air pollution from unpopular developments such as incinerators offer an unusual perspective on central—local government relations. Central government policy guidance, intended to clarify the boundary between planning and pollution controls over air pollution, was a central issue at the Shell Green inquiry after the local planning authority's refusal of planning consent for a wastewater sludge-processing centre. The success of the developer's appeal is discussed within the context of an emerging centralisation of decisionmaking over very unpopular land uses such as incinerators.
Not-So-New Public Management and the Denial of Geography: Ontario Health-Care Reform in the 1990s
Authors: Hanlon N T , Rosenberg M W
Published: October 2006

New public management (NPM) has become the mantra for public sector restructuring in OECD nations. We critically examine NPM in the context of recent public sector restructuring initiatives in the province of Ontario, Canada. Two NPM-inspired reform mechanisms employed by the Ontario government—the benchmarking of hospital-utilization indicators and the offloading of a greater share of patient-care responsibilities to the private sector—are examined as they impact on the economically disadvantaged city of Thunder Bay in the province's remote Northwestern region. We argue that the health reforms pursued by the Ontario government are focused on a one-dimensional notion of efficiency which denies important socioeconomic and health-service-environment dimensions that account for local differences in health-services utilization. Although this type of reform approach achieves short-term cost savings, we question whether the longer term effects on health and social services are efficient and equitable from a systemwide perspective. Ultimately, we question whether NPM will solve the problems inherent in publicly supported health and social services or will generate a new set of problems linked to the belief in the primacy of market mechanisms.
The Effectiveness of Active Labour-Market Policies: Latest Evidence from the National Development Programme
Authors: Fletcher D R
Published: October 2006

The persistence and pervasiveness of long-term unemployment across Europe has led to a renewed interest in active labour-market policies by policymakers. In the United Kingdom the new government has recently announced its proposals for the ‘New Deal’ aimed at getting young people (aged 18–24 years) and the long-term unemployed into work. This has stimulated a growing debate about the effectiveness of such policies. The author contributes to that debate by discussing the findings of a recent evaluation of the National Development Programme undertaken for the Employment Service.
Chambers of Commerce and Local Development in France: Problems and Constraints
Authors: Waters S
Published: October 2006

As public-law organisations, French chambers of commerce benefit from extensive powers and resources, far surpassing those of their private-law counterparts in Britain. French chambers are powerful organisations in formal terms and have a unique potential for local economic development. Yet public-law status also creates a particular set of problems and difficulties for the French chambers. In this paper, the author examines the economic performance of chambers in France, focusing on the problems and constraints associated with public-law status. It is shown that, if the chambers derive considerable advantages from public-law status, this also imposes severe constraints on their activities. Indeed, these constraints have prevented the chambers from assuming a more dynamic role within the local economy.
The Geography of Earnings and Incomes in the 1990s: An Overview
Authors: Green A E
Published: October 2006

To date detailed analyses of geographical variations in earnings and incomes in Great Britain have been frustrated by a lack of spatially disaggregated data. The author reviews the scope, strengths, and weaknesses of available data sources and outlines some of the methodologies used to generate estimates of earnings and incomes at the local level. An overview is provided of the main regional and subregional patterns of ‘raw’ earnings differentials and of the underlying ‘deep wage structure’—once variations in workforce composition have been controlled for. A distinctive regional pattern with the highest wages in London and the South East is evident, although there are also some significant variations in wage levels between neighbouring local areas within regions. As the demand for spatially disaggregated data on earnings and incomes remains unsatisfied despite recent increases in data supply, important concerns about the quality of the information remain.
Economic Performance across the UK Regions: Convergence or Divergence?
Authors: Evans J L , Pentecost E J
Published: October 2006

The authors examine the evolution of UK regional gross domestic product (GDP) per capita since the mid-1970s, with particular emphasis on the degree of divergence or convergence of real GDP per head. They investigate three types of convergence, known as sigma convergence, beta convergence, and conditional beta convergence. They find little evidence of a diminution in the differences in the levels of regional incomes over the sample period, although the standard deviation in regional incomes docs vary over time. There is also some limited evidence of mobility of regions, indicative of beta convergence.
The US Acid Rain Program: Design, Performance, and Assessment
Authors: Svendsen G T
Published: October 2006

The US Acid Rain Program (ARP) has since 1990 allowed 1000 major electric utilities all over the USA to trade SO2 emission permits. Historical emission rights have heen grandfathered and the target level is a 50% reduction in SO2 emissions. Market performance has been successful, with much trade activity and unexpectedly low permit prices. Property rights to permits have been well defined, strictly enforced, and sources have been allowed to trade freely without the need for administrative approval for each transaction. Ignoring source location in this way has kept transaction costs at a minimum. In conclusion, the policy design of the ARP is recommendable for future environmental regulation where source location may be ignored, for example, for creating CO2 markets in the USA and the European Union.
Institutional Capacity Building in a Strategic Policy Vacuum: The Case of the Korean Company LG in South Wales
Authors: Phelps N A , Tewdwr-Jones M
Published: October 2006

In recent work on collaborative planning arguments have been made for the land-use planning system and local government to be considered within a broader context of local systems of governance and institutional capacity building. We consider the impact of the planning system upon a major inward-investment project within a system of governance in Wales which is unique in the sense that there is a vacuum of formal strategic planning. The investment by the Korean company LG, at Newport, South Wales, has prompted a degree of strategic collaboration between some of the institutions and organisations of local governance in South Wales. However, the LG case reveals some important limits to such strategic collaboration. The extreme flexibility required of the planning system by major inward investors promotes a rather impoverished form of strategic collaboration which is hierarchical in nature and select in its coverage both of the relevant institutions and organisations of governance and of the planning issues involved. In conclusion we identify some of the implications of the rather limited way in which the planning system currently impinges on inward investors through local systems of governance.
Business Link Services to Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: Targeting, Innovation, and Charging
Authors: Priest S J
Published: October 2006

Since the 1970s the provision of business support to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Britain has been through quite separate organisations. The Business Link (BL) network, launched in England in 1992, is the latest initiative by which the government has sought to integrate support to SMEs and to shift the primary focus from start-up to established firms with growth potential. In this paper the author examines the provision of business support services available through BL. She reviews the underlying concepts of BL, the associated debates surrounding the initiative, and then presents new survey evidence from BLs on their target market, innovation, and charging strategy. It is found that: (1) the markets are being shifted from the desired targets of larger growth firms towards smaller firms; (2) personal business advisers (PBAs) are being relied on as the main method by which BLs identify potential growth firms; (3) the development of new local services is a low priority for BLs at this stage in their development; and (4) there is an inherent unwillingness to charge for services. The author concludes that the effect of the Department of Trade and Industry's intervention has been to ‘nationalise’ the system of business support. This has had a desirable effect of increasing the level of service availability and service quality, but has also had the effect of reducing local diversity.
Client and Advisor Management Styles: Influence on the Effective Provision of Advisory Services to Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
Authors: Chaston I
Published: October 2006

Over the last few years, the UK government has sought to assist more effectively small and medium-sized enterprise (SME)-sector firms through the creation of Training and Enterprise Councils and Business Links. These organisations undertake assessment of client satisfaction. Most of their measurement tools, however, do not permit determination of the factors which are key influences of client attitudes. Research on customer behaviour both in industrial markets and in service environments has caused some academics to posit that, in many situations, the application of traditional transactional-market-research tools is often ineffective. Accordingly, they propose that satisfaction measurement should encompass the influence of a relationship-management orientation because the processes designed to build long-term customer loyalty may be a more appropriate philosophy through which to gain understanding of SME-sector attitudes to services delivered by suppliers. The aim, therefore, is to examine the relevance of applying a relationship-management research tool to assess client satisfaction in small-business-advisory scenarios. Interviews with advisors and owner/managers have been used to construct a qualitative model of factors influencing the client-advisor relationship. The implications of the study are discussed in relation to the future operation of not-for-profit support agencies seeking to optimise the effectiveness of service provision. Proposals are made concerning the need for further research.
Taxation and Small Firms: Creating Incentives for the Reinvestment of Profits
Authors: Chittenden F , Poutziouris P , Michaelas N , Watts T
Published: October 2006

In this paper we examine, using the NatWest/Manchester Business School (MBS) tax models, the impact of taxation on the small business sector over the last few years. Because it is known that a small number of growth businesses provide most of the new wealth and additional employment created by the small firms sector, consideration is given to the combined effect of the different elements of the tax regime on small firms, with particular reference to the tax implications of business growth. The NatWest/MBS tax models, for incorporated and unincorporated small businesses, contain accounting data for a stratified random sample of almost 4000 small UK firms. These data are employed to estimate the total tax burden borne by small firms in the United Kingdom, including the total value of taxes collected from this sector by the Exchequer and the aggregate value of compliance costs borne by small businesses. Unincorporated firms employing fewer than 20 staff contribute just 5% of government revenues, and small limited companies with fewer than 100 employees provide 15% of total taxes collected. These figures of total tax revenues together with estimates of the compliance costs borne by small firms are assembled into tax indices for incorporated and unincorporated firms, set at 100 in 1994/95. Changes to the total tax burden are traced from 1994/95 (the base year in the models) up to 1996/97 in the light of the changes introduced in successive budgets. Although the index for small companies falls by 2.5 points across this period the position of unincorporated firms remains virtually unchanged. The reasons for these differential effects are considered and explained. We identify three important areas in which the growth and development of small business is restrained by the tax regulations currently in force: sales growth, employment generation, and investment for the future, We conclude that the fiscal barriers in these areas could be reduced by raising the VAT registration limit (initially to £100 000), by compensating small businesses for the cost of collecting tax on behalf of government and by reducing the level of taxation on profits reinvested in small businesses.
The Funding of Constituency Party General Election Campaigns in Great Britain
Authors: Johnston R J , MacAllister I , Pattie C J
Published: October 2006

The issues of political party campaign expenditure and funding sources are again high on the British political agenda. Most attention is focused on the amounts raised and spent by the parties nationally, with much less being devoted to the separate local parties in the 641 parliamentary constituencies—where the amounts that can be spent on general election campaigns are subject to legal constraints. Little is known about the sources of funds for those campaigns, and research on the 1997 general election has shown that for most parties the legal requirement to disclose where they obtain their income does not result in the disclosure of original sources of their income. As at previous elections, however, the amounts spent in the constituencies have an impact on the outcome, sustaining the case for regulation; much is spent outside the legal constraints, however, and it is difficult to envisage ways in which this might be regulated.
Management Training and Networking in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Three European Regions: Implications for Business Support
Authors: Kitching J , Blackburn R
Published: October 2006

The authors aim to develop a better understanding of small-business owners' attitudes towards, and experiences of, management training through a study of small mechanical engineering firms and key support providers in three European regions: Stuttgart (Germany), Aarhus (Denmark), and South London (England). Important differences between the three regions in support networks are highlighted. The limited networking between small-business owners and training providers in South London is explained by a lack of embeddedness of UK small engineering firms in the institutional framework supporting business. The absence of a critical mass of engineering businesses, the limited experiences of business owners and the weak business-support network in South London are mutually reinforcing and perpetuate the isolation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from external training providers. Drawing on experience in Stuttgart and Aarhus, some policy proposals are offered which are aimed at increasing the take-up of management training by UK SMEs.
From Policy Insider to Policy Outcast? Comité des Organisations Professionnelles Agricoles, EU Policymaking, and the EU's ‘Agri-Environment’ Regulation
Authors: Clark J R A , Jones A
Published: October 2006

Recent studies of the role of lobby groups in European Union (EU) policymaking have drawn attention to the concept of ‘multilevel governance’ as a powerful explanatory tool in analysing how these organisations exert political influence on EU institutions. One of the longest standing of these groups is the Comité des Organisations Professionnelles Agricoles (COPA). Until the mid-1980s, COPA was regarded as being remarkably successful in influencing the content and direction of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), More recently, however, commentators have noted a marked decline in COPA's influence, citing as evidence the organisation's abortive attempts to blunt the radical edge of the 1992 reform package of the Common Agricultural Policy. In this paper the authors use Grande's conception of multilevel governance to provide a thorough examination of why COPA carried little influence with the European Commission's Agriculture Directorate, Directorate-General VI (DGVI) during the 1992 reforms. An illustrative case study is presented of a minor though notable element of these reforms, the so-called ‘agri-environment’ regulation, EU 2078/92. In explaining COPA's slight effect on the final text of the regulation, Grande's notion of multilevel governance emphasises the eclectic positions adopted by COPA's constituent farming unions towards the regulation, and the complexities of a negotiating process transacted simultaneously with different EU institutions, each requiring the tailoring of specific lobbying strategies by COPA's secretariat. The authors conclude that the negative outcome of COPA's lobbying resulted not only from disarray among this organisation's national policy constituencies, but also from skillful counterlobbying mounted by DGVI to prevent COPA from derailing the delicate CAP reform process.
Regional Development Agencies and English Regionalisation: The Question of Accountability
Authors: Harding A , Wilks-Heeg S , Hutchins M
Published: October 2006

The English Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) are an uneasy halfway house between a standard quango, answerable to Parliament through a Secretary of State, and the regionally accountable development agencies they will become if the government ultimately tackles the democratic deficit in the English regions by creating new, directly elected regional authorities. The accountability arrangements for RDAs are ambiguous as to whether the agenda of the new agencies will primarily reflect the views of their boards and executives, regional stakeholders, or government ministers and departments. The authors put the current debate about RDA accountability into historical perspective and review its main features. They argue that the debate risks ignoring some important factors which affect the success of RDAs if it does not also (a) examine the issue of accountability within and between the broader constellation of organisations whose efforts must underpin the realisation of regional economic strategies, and (b) address a broader debate about the role of regional institutions— elected or not—in encouraging regional economic innovation and development.
Privatisation in Central Europe: Different Legacies, Methods, and Outcomes
Authors: Williams A M , Balaz V
Published: October 2006

Privatisation and the redistribution of property rights are key features of the transformation of the economic and political space of Central Europe. Within this region there have been important national differences in the experiences of privatisation: in terms of the legacies of the state-socialist period, in the methods of privatisation, and in the outcomes in terms of property rights. We explore three major aspects of privatisation. First, we revisit the path-dependent nature of privatisation, as a process which is influenced above all by national economic and political structures, including relationships in and around the state. Second, we argue that with emphasis on path dependency there is a failure to give sufficient attention to the way in which there was a significant shift in course of transformation in the range of strategics available to the main agents in the privatisation process; in particular, a high degree of control over property rights was achieved in the ‘third wave’ of privatisation by a small number of agents in the context of weak reregulation and corporate governance. Third, we investigate the nature of the third wave of privatisation through the functioning of networks of firms in the Czech and the Slovak Republics.
Goal Conflicts in Political Decisionmaking: A Survey of Municipality Politicians' Views of Road Pricing
Authors: Johansson Lars-Olof , Gustafsson Mathias , Falkemark Gunnar , Gärling Tommy , Johansson-Stenman Olof
Published: October 2006

An ongoing discussion concerns road-pricing schemes as measures to abate traffic congestion and air pollution in metropolitan areas. If such measures are to be effective, road-pricing fees must be set sufficiently high However, municipalities are likely to have other goals besides reducing car use, such as upholding fairness among citizens and financial goals such as creating revenues. If conflicts prove to exist between different goals, road-pricing schemes are not likely to achieve the environmental goal. To investigate the degree to which these goal conflicts exist, members of the local governments in the three major metropolitan areas of Sweden responded to a survey questionnaire. In the questionnaire they rated a number of principles guiding the setting of road-pricing fees hypothesized to correspond to the three goals. The results showed that, for the political majority, the hypothesized goal conflicts existed in that no single goal was optimized. It is concluded that in particular fairness may prevent road pricing achieving the environmental goal.
The Hoover® in the Garden: Middle-Class Women and Suburbanization, 1850–1920
Authors: Miller R
Published: October 2006

Between 1850 and 1920 the roles of women were dramatically transformed. As participation in public activities became more socially, politically, and economically feasible, changes in domestic life limited the ability of many middle-class women to take advantage of these opportunities. The three processes of suburbanization, growth of social mobility, and an industrial economy increasingly based on domestic consumption, including innovations in household technology, all had the potential to unburden and enrich women's lives. Interrelationships among the three processes, however, worked to the detriment of some middle-class women with limited financial resources. A structurationist perspective is used to examine the interrelationships between social processes that affected women and the responses of individual women to these processes. The role of ideology, which made it acceptable for some middle-class women to do domestic work in 1920, whereas the opposite was true in 1850, is singled out for special attention.
Regional Restructuring: Class Politics and Popular Protest in South Wales
Authors: Cooke P
Published: October 2006

The question of whether class or territory is the stronger basis of social mobilisation is examined. It is suggested that the economic problems being experienced by many older industrial areas can give rise to regional coalitions that seek to transcend class antagonisms in order to press for state investment to improve regional growth and employment prospects. But it is further argued that, because of the heterogeneity of the sociospatial base in such regions, supralocal coalitions will be vulnerable to the effects of allocative decisions favouring particular within-region locations. The notion of the vulnerability of regional social bases to the expression of local class interests is explored in the context of industrial South Wales. This region has been subject to successive attempts at economic revival, often in response to an apparently coherent regional voice pressing for state regional interventions. Important parts of various policies for restructuring the regional economy have been defeated in the past, precisely because of the impotence of regional coalitions to carry disadvantaged local class groupings along with them. On occasions, such local class groupings have been capable of mobilising popular support, indicating more the defensive than offensive nature of their power.
Deconstructing the Tiebout Hypothesis
Authors: Whiteman J
Published: October 2006

Tiebout's pure theory of local expenditures is analysed in terms of: (1) the theory of individual choice left implicit in the model; (2) the problems posed by the internal logic of the model; and (3) the inability of the model to explain patterns and events that we see. It is shown that the conception of equilibrium maintained by Tiebout cannot be sustained within the workings of reasonable adjustment mechanisms. A contextual argument is advanced to demonstrate the link between individual choice and the context of mobility, The implications of the Tiebout model and the proposed contextual theory of choice and mobility are both explored with respect to the equality of outcomes and public policy.
Closed Space and Political Practice: Frederick Jackson Turner and Halford Mackinder
Authors: Kearns G
Published: October 2006

Turner's frontier thesis and Mackinder's heartland thesis are examples of closed-space thinking, Closed-space theories were current at the beginning of this century when public debate was penetrated both by biology and by geography. This conjuncture allowed spatial concepts to form the basis for the theoretical arguments advanced for political positions. The internal structure of closed-space theories allowed them to promote political conclusions, because the three central terms of those theories (environment, history, recent fundamental changes) were ‘essentially contestable1 and capable of interpretations which supported particular political arguments. The specific political arguments promoted by Turner and Mackinder dictated the interpretations they chose and thus the internal structure of their theories. The political significance of their work was tied to the existence of two inherently unstable political alliances riven with economic contradictions, This emphasis on the internal structure of these theories enables one to appreciate how they could convince, and both the content and the logic of these approaches are amenable to contextual interpretation.
Devaluing Place: ‘People Prosperity versus Place Prosperity’ and Regional Planning
Authors: Agnew J A
Published: October 2006

A distinction between people prosperity and place prosperity is common in the regional economics and urban policy literatures. In this paper, I criticize the distinction on the grounds that a radical distinction between people and place can only be made if one adopts an economic ideology that ‘commodifics' people and places. Government policies that rest on the distinction are presented from England, Canada, and the United States of America to illustrate the consequences of this type of thinking and the justification it provides for antisocial private and governmental investment decisions.
Rethinking Gentrification: Beyond the Uneven Development of Marxist Urban Theory
Authors: Rose D
Published: October 2006

In this paper, I make a critical assessment of the ways that issues relating to the ‘gentrification’ of inner-city neighbourhoods have been conceptualised, especially in North America, in both positivist and extant marxist work, I aim to rethink the processes generating ‘gentrification’ and ‘gentrifiers' and our ‘ways of seeing’ the results of these processes, First, I address epistemological problems of neoclassical and marxist approaches to this subject. Second, I critically appraise the problématique of marxist work on gentrification, emphasising its lack of attention to the interrelationships of employment restructuring and changes in the reproduction of labour power. From this, I argue that gentrification is a ‘chaotic concept’ and that the processes and elements it comprises need to be thought through again. I begin tills task by attempting to disaggregate the concept with empirical reference to North American metropolitan inner cities, I hypothesise that the upsurge of renovation activity by and for moderate-income households and those with so-called alternative life-styles is produced by the interaction of changes in production and reproduction. Further research is needed in this area. Finally, I explore the possibility that such ‘marginal gentrifiers' and those they now displace may have similar needs that could be met by different kinds of neighbourhood revitalisation.
The Centre-Periphery Model and Industrial Development in Portugal
Authors: Ferrão J , Jensen-Butler C
Published: October 2006

A critique of the use of the centre-periphery model in explanation of intranational regional development based upon Marxist and neo-Marxist economic theory is presented. Seemingly different approaches use the same basic explanatory structure. The history and structure of the model arc discussed, followed by a theoretical and epistemological critique of the explanatory content. Empirical evidence for key economic variables in the industrial sector in Portugal is presented, which casts further doubt upon the validity of the model. Portugal exhibits an apparent centre-periphery structure in patterns of regional industrial development, but closer analysis reveals that underlying patterns found in these key variables do not conform.
The Crisis of the State and the Region: Regional Planning Questioned
Authors: Becker B K
Published: October 2006

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the political significance of the alternatives for regional development in which community participation and the decentralization of decisionmaking power are proposed. Although their discourses are similar, they have different ideological motivations and content. These proposals, together with the crisis in regional theory and planning are associated with the contradictions inherent in the economic globalization of the contemporary world: the conflict between the corporation and the state; the crisis of the state and the region; and the intensification of protest movements organized on a territorial basis. The central question is the sharpening of the contradictions of the state, which ensures bourgeois domination but is also (in countries of peripheral capitalism) the only force capable of (a) ensuring social investments on the necessary scale and (b) confronting global capitalism. This question is denied both in proposals for decentralization and in the criticism made of them by political economists, which thus hampers identification of political priorities. In Brazil, which is a country of continental size and advanced industrialization, economic crisis is accompanied by a crisis of legitimization of the state. The solution of the crisis and the democratization of the country demand not its fragmentation but a national power legitimized by full participation of all segments of society at different levels.
Political and Technical Moments in Development: Agropolitan Development Revisited
Authors: Friedmann J
Published: October 2006

The problem addressed is one of strategy and practice: how to promote agricultural and rural development in peasant societies in ways that will benefit the large majority of the people. In a number of earlier essays, the author had proposed what he called a strategy of agropolitan development which would stress the importance of linking a self-generated process of dynamic change from within agricultural communities to the larger processes of central guidance by the state. The strategy involved a substantial devolution of power to small territorial units within the overall system of societal guidance. In the present paper the desirability of such a devolution is considered in terms of political, ecological, and technical–administrative arguments. As a political strategy, agropolitan development requires a commitment on part of national elites, and this may be difficult to obtain. Alternative strategies, on the other hand, although possibly successful when measured in terms of production, are unlikely to involve more than a small proportion of the peasant population. The political choice, then, would seem to be between planning for equality and political self-determination at the lowest levels of territorial governance or planning for inequality and political autocracy.
Integrated Regional Planning as an Agent of the State Vis-à-Vis the Local Community and the ‘Patria Chica’ (Homeland): A Summary of Central American Experiences
Authors: Sandner G
Published: October 2006

This paper is a critical analysis of the local community as an instrument in the integration of development policies. It is a tentative analysis, providing a critical reconsideration of some of the main options comparing ‘from the top down’ policies with ‘from the bottom up’ policies. This involves an awareness of a competing perspective (‘from below’) and of the questions ‘for whom?’ and ‘development to what extent?’. According to this perspective, the point of departure is the conflict existing in the local community, and the conflict between the local community and the state.
The Economic Crisis in Brazil
Authors: Silva S
Published: October 2006

In this paper are presented data on the behavior of the Brazilian economy in 1983 including the more immediate effects of the economic crisis and its links with the ‘national development model’. Economic development of the last decades has determined the core of the economic structure formed by the relationship between international capital, private national capital, and the public sector. The current crisis and, in particular, financial speculation are explained by the (contradictory) movement of the core. Finally, the political implications that are arising in the process of solving the economic crisis are stressed.
Seven Equivocal Theses about Amazonia
Authors: Velho O
Published: October 2006

This paper underlines the importance of the debate now being carried on in Brazil with reference to Amazonia and stresses the symbolical character with which it has been clothed. This debate is more than a clash between intellectual and political conceptions, the conflict-ridden encounter of the nation with its own destiny is dramatized within it. Seven theses stand out, representing the main prospects in question and their variants. In dismantling them one by one, the author proposes alternatives and above all suggests a kind of analysis epistemologically oriented by successive shiftings of viewpoint. This mobile approach makes it possible to reveal the partial truth of each thesis over the others. Theses (1) and (3) refer to the inexorable and all-encompassing character of capitalist expansion in rural areas, qualities which are regarded as likely to cause the reactive social movements themselves to succumb. It is shown that economic and political processes are often episodic, reversible, and subject to political interventions, especially to selective action on the part of the State. Theses (2), (4), and (5) affirm that the peasantry possesses its own conceptions of the land, that it is autonomous at productive level, and that it resists the advance of capitalism. It is demonstrated that these theses oversimplify, deny ambiguities, and are based on a logic that wrongly presupposes two homogenized social processes and blocs. Alternatively, the existence of multiple actors should be recognized, oriented by various strategies which are redefinable because they are not deterministically derived from socioeconomic conditions; the peasantry is not fighting to defend the essence of an idealized peasant being, but a particular series of ad hoc negotiable values, in the face of different concrete situations. In the discussions of theses (6) and (7), the author comes to grips, on the one hand, with the view that explains the apparent mobilizing success of the Roman Catholic Church through its ‘option on behalf of the poor’ and, on the other hand, the political criticisms usually directed at intellectuals who question traditional conceptions, when these supposedly favour the underprivileged.
The Neighbourhood Effect Revisited: Spatial Science or Political Regionalism?
Authors: Johnston R J
Published: October 2006

The neighbourhood effect in voting studies is defined as the concentration of votes for a party in a place which is greater than expected. It is usually accounted for as the consequence of biased flows of relevant information through local social networks, and no reference is made to the role of political parties in the manipulation of those flows and networks. Such a role was referred to in pioneer geographical studies, but has largely been ignored since, apparently because it does not readily fit into the spatial science paradigm. It is argued that the agenda-setting role of parties and the importance of local organisation are crucial influences on voting patterns. Parties are embedded in local cultures and are involved in their creation.
Comment on Dunleavy and Preteceille
Authors: Saunders P
Published: October 2006

This comment takes up the question, addressed by Dunleavy and Preteceille, of the economic, political, and cultural significance of consumption-based cleavages, It is accepted that such cleavages are related to the class system, but Preteceille's suggestion that the latter is necessarily primary is denied. Not only is access to consumption locations structured by factors such as household composition, life cycle, and the use of state power, as well as by class location, but consumption may also generate its own independent effects on the distribution of life chances, Furthermore, the cultural significance of consumption location is underemphasised by both writers, The public–private division is not simply ideologically constituted, as Dunleavy suggests, but reflects real and important variations in people's capacity to exert control and autonomy in crucial areas of their everyday lives, The division now opening up between private-sector and public-sector consumers thus has real and far-reaching economic and cultural foundations.
Concepts, Contexts and Comparison in the Study of Urban Movements: A Reply to M Castells
Authors: Pickvance C G
Published: October 2006

This reply to Castells's comment focuses on three central issues: the most appropriate concepts and typologies for understanding urban movements, the best way of characterizing the influence of the context in which movements develop, and the utility of comparative analysis. With a few exceptions, it is shown that in each case Castells's comment reflects misunderstandings and theoretical confusions, and docs not set out an effective alternative to the approach in the original paper.
Taking Los Angeles Apart: Some Fragments of a Critical Human Geography
Authors: Soja E W
Published: October 2006

This essay, is a presentation of a succession of brief, tentative, and often incongruous readings of the human geography of contemporary Los Angeles, an urban region of both telling uniqueness and compelling generalizability. Viewed as a comprehensive whole, Los Angeles brings to mind Jorge Luis Borges's perplexing encounter with The Aleph, “the only place on earth where all places are”, a limitless space of simultaneity and contradiction, impossible to describe in ordinary language. Extraordinary language is accordingly experimented with in describing Los Angeles as a place where everything seems to ‘come together’ in evocative fragments, Abstractions and concreteness are combined in verbal tours of the peripheral and central landscapes of Los Angeles, critical travelogs aimed at restructuring how we look at, interpret, and theorize the spatiality and historicity of contemporary urban society, how we read the urban con-text.
Global Capital and Local Knowledge: Books in 1985
Authors: Dear M J , Forbes D K , Jackson P , Thrift N J , Williams P R
Published: October 2006

This is the annual review of books appearing in 1985 and likely to be of interest to readers of Society and Space. The areas of work covered are, by and large, the same as last year.
Hong Kong 1997: The Transition to Socialism—Ideology, Discourse, and Urban Spatial Structure
Authors: Cuthbert A R
Published: October 2006

In this paper a complex and fascinating historical event is addressed; a political treaty between a dying imperialist power and a nation which has been responsible for one of the greatest social revolutions in human history. In 1984, Britain and The People's Republic of China (PRC) began negotiations which will determine the future of Hong Kong after 1997. The ensuing dialogue brings together the competing interests of two different cultures and modes of production. It also creates a theatre where the conceptual frameworks of radically different social histories coalesce as opposing ideological positions. These can only be resolved through the mediating principle of language. Within this context, two other agencies struggle for survival in their own terms. At the grass roots level, the identity and freedom of the Hong Kong people is at stake. In the stratosphere of global politics, the oblique yet strategic penetration of multinational corporate policy into the local marketplace demands both opportunity and protection. The problem is therefore presented as a confusion over incompatible realms of discourse, which both parties to the joint agreement are attempting to condense into one agenda. This materialises in the form of ‘the Basic Law’ as a monitoring system through which social and cultural assumptions and practices become codified. Implications for the urban process and the built environment, although seemingly unanticipated, are likely to have profound and enduring consequences.
Geographical Change: A Study in Marching Time or the March of Time?
Authors: Dodgshon R A
Published: October 2006

Discussions of long-term geographical change have tended to stress changes in landscape produced by the sustained or unfolding operation of particular processes rather than changes in the nature of the processes themselves. This paper calls for more study of the latter, It is argued that in the very long term, human spatial order has been organised around a succession of qualitatively different systems, each reflecting changes in the scale at which society was integrated and in its ideological constructs. A succession of five different systems of spatial order are examined, each replete with its own processes and forms of integration. It is further argued that exploring how one system gave way to another provides us with a geographical contribution to the wider debate on societal evolution, one in which the spatial structuring of the processes involved appears crucial to their operation.
The Social Space of Silence
Authors: Olsson G
Published: October 2006

It is in the physical concreteness of the social space of silence that it cannot be abstracted. The reason is that every text is permeated by the notion of self-reference. The impossible challenge is nevertheless to think-and-act in such a way that there is no difference between the languages I am writing in and the phenomena I am writing about. Eventually this raises inescapable questions about the power of language and the language of power, about the truth of silence and the silence of truth, about mental prefixes and linguistic experiments, about you and me.