Aid as a Catalyst

This article argues that aid is not the prime mover of development, but rather a catalyst. It might be used as a reward for good development governance. However, it will fulfil its catalytic function better by creating conditions for policy improvement. Better governance should be seen not only as a pre‐condition for development and for development aid, but also as a development objective in itself. This is particularly true for aid recipient countries in disarray.     

Voluntary Agencies as Development Organizations: Theorizing the Problem of Efficiency and Accountability

Co-operatives, NGOs and community groups are being increasingly used as development agencies by policy-makers, because they are thought to provide more accountable, effective and equitable services in many areas than public or private agencies. This article attempts to consider some of the theoretical and practical implications of this growing role by treating them as ‘value-driven’ organizations, and asking how this differentiates them, in terms of efficiency and accountability, from public or private agencies. It notes the lack of developed theoretical models capable of dealing with this question, and examines the relevance of existing theories (neo-classical economics, public administration and especially varieties of organization theory including the New Institutional Economics) in dealing with agencies which claim to be dominated by motivations based on democracy and altruism rather than self-interest. The author looks at problems associated with the measurement of efficiency and enforcement of accountability in organizational life and at the need for effective incentives and sanctions which provide a stable basis for maintaining commitment. He then considers the issues involved in the enforcement of accountability to ensure the efficient use of resources in producer co-operatives on the one hand and service delivery NGOs on the other. In the former, the focus is on the strengths and weaknesses of market competition and the costs of collective management; in the latter on the varied relationships between ‘principals and agents' involved in the production and management of services.     

Aid Fuels Faster Socio-Economic Development

In the past 40 years since the founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region, the area has developed at an extraordinarily fast rate. All this has taken place with the strong support of the Central Government and various fraternal provinces and municipalities directly under the Central Government. Blind to the situation, however, the 14th Dalai Lama and his clique, last April,again dished up the so-called Intemational Development Project in Tibet and Guidelines for Sustainable Development (hereinafter referred to as the Guidelines). The proposal contains lies and distorted facts,negating the great achievements in the social and economic development in Tibet, openly attacking national aid to the region and rejecting the idea of the Tibetan people accepting the socialist system.     

Social Reconstruction and the Radicalization of Development: Aid as a Relation of Global Liberal Governance

That democratic societies do not fall into conflict has become an axiom of contemporary international relations. Liberal societies, however, do not properly exist along the troubled margins of the global order. This absence has lent urgency to present efforts at social reconstruction. Whereas a couple of decades ago the principle of non–interference prevailed, this unfinished business has shaped a new will to intervene and transform societies as a whole. This article critically analyses the international will to govern through three interconnected themes. First, it examines accepted views on the nature of the new wars. These representations usually portray conflict as a form of social regression stemming from the failure of modernity. As such, they provide a moral justification for intervention. Second, an alternative view of the new wars — as a form of resistant and reflexive modernity — is developed. Made possible by the opportunities created by globalization, this resistance assumes the organizational form of network war. The essay concludes with an examination of the encounter between the international will to govern and the resistance of reflexive modernity. This encounter is the site of the post–Cold War reuniting of aid and politics. One important consequence has been the radicalization of development and its reinvention as a strategic tool of conflict resolution and social reconstruction. The use of aid as a tool of global liberal governance is fraught with difficulty; not least, the equivocal and contested nature of its influence. Rather than reconsideration, however, policy failure tends to result in a fresh round of reinvention and reform. The increasing normalization of violence is but one effect.     

Xi'an as an Inner China Development Model

An American geographer examines the recent economic resurgence of a historically significant city in China's interior as a result of a policy utilizing science and technology research institutions and the local labor force to "jump-start" technology-intensive growth. The study, based on a series of interviews and data gathered during field research in 2000 and 2002, reveals synergies among the city's pre-existing defense-related activities (electronics and aviation), its favorable financial and transport infrastructure, and the concentration of several large, prestigious technical universities, which have been utilized in the transformation of the city economy toward high-technology production for China's domestic market. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F23, H50, O18. 7 figures, 2 tables, 36 references.     

Aid Conditionality as a Tool for Peacebuilding: Opportunities and Constraints

Over the past decade, aid donors have pledged billions of dollars to support peacebuilding efforts in collapsed states and war–torn societies. Peace conditionality — the use of formal performance criteria and informal policy dialogue to encourage the implementation of peace accords and the consolidation of peace — could make aid a more effective tool for building peace. In Bosnia, for example, donors have attempted to link aid to the protection of human rights, co–operation with the international war crimes tribunal, and the right of people displaced by ‘ethnic cleansing’ to return to their homes. Yet the conventional practices and priorities of aid donors pose constraints to the exercise of peace conditionality. This article examines several of these constraints, including the reluctance of donors (particularly the international financial institutions) to acknowledge responsibility for the political repercussions of aid; the competing foreign–policy objectives of donor governments; the humanitarian imperative to aid people whose lives are at risk; and the incentive structures and institutional cultures of donor agencies.     

Using GIS as an Aid to Understanding Urban Consolidation

Major initiatives to encourage urban consolidation in Sydney have been undertaken by the New South Wales Government in the last twenty years. The contribution of the research described in this article is to show the central importance of GIS in the methodology of analysing the policies, processes and outcomes of this urban consolidation activity. While the use of GIS to interrogate data from the Population Censuses conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) to describe spatial distributions and characteristics is reasonably common, it can be used with local records to build up a picture of the character and impact of building the different kinds of dwellings defined as constituting urban consolidation. In this way ABS data can be used as a context within which to place GIS analysis of the registers of development applications as indicated in studies of three local councils in the south and south–west of Sydney. This approach shows the usefulness of using similar but not completely congruent data sets to investigate complex phenomena such as urban consolidation. It also highlights the importance of classifying and recording local information about urban development and change in a form that enables more proactive programs of policy formulation and operation.     

The United States Manuscript Census as a Teaching Aid

Abstract

This article describes a new approach for analyzing data within national historical geographic information system databases that can be used to explore long-term trends in landscape evolution. The methodology is based on clustering together areas with similar demographic characteristics to define urban agglomerations whose territorial extents and populations vary over time. The resulting database can be used in a wide range of ways that allow the empirical study of urban growth and urban sprawl. The article is based on data for England and Wales but given the increasing availability of national historical geographic information system databases for countries around the world, the approach could be replicated for a wide range of different places.     

COPLOT Display Technique as an Aid to Climatic Classification

COPLOT, a new graphic display method for multivariate data analysis, is introduced and used to divide a geographical region into climatic subregions. This method, a variant of the BIPLOT technique, is applied here to study similarity among climatic stations, the correlation structure among climatic variables, and the mutual relationships between station observations and climatic variables. At this stage, this technique is used as a supplement to cluster analysis in the attempt to understand the covariance structure of the climatic data set. However, in the future, the final decision on area grouping will be based exclusively on visual inspection of the COPLOT output display.     

中外慈善团体援助欧洲来沪犹太难民史料（三）

１９．贝克致施肇基函 １９３９年６月１６日尊敬的施博士： 科奇兄弟俩今天早上来拜访我,言及到现在还没有能够找到任何工作。不过鲁道夫倒有点希望在某个教会医院谋个职位。但这种希望也非常不明确。 二位均住在华德路１３８号难民之家４号房。 听到他们身体健康、精神面貌很好的消息,相信你也同样会感到很高兴。 贝克谨启 ２０．贝克致张度①函 １９３９年６月１７日尊敬的张先生： 在上海的犹太难民中有很大一部份人具有机械技能,有些是汽车修理工,有些是电工,还有一些是机床工和“多面手”。另外还有一些化学工程师。 我正在派遣…     

The Evolution of American Colonial Assemblies as Legislative Organizations

I examine the organizational evolution of the American colonial assemblies. The assemblies, like their modern progeny, established organizational boundaries, created standing committees, adopted increasingly complex rules and procedures, evolved apprenticeship and seniority norms in regard to leadership positions, and acquired specialized staff and facilities. After documenting the rise of these common legislative features, I turn to the question of how we can explain their existence at a far earlier time than most political scientists realize. I conclude with an examination of the implications of these findings for our understanding of how legislative institutions evolve.     

The Principles of Parallel Development of Fiscal Capacity between State and Municipalities as Useful Benchmarks for the Determination of the Inter-governmental Grants in Germany

The conventional theoretical and empirical references related to the inter-governmental fiscal transfer system in Germany appear to heavily concentrate on the issues surrounding the measurement of local expenditure needs of a municipality and their coverage through the down-flow grants when the municipal tax revenue is insufficient to match the needs. This study introduces additional important research fields in this context. Firstly, it attempts to analyse the role of the development of tax revenue and fiscal power of the grant provider (the State) as well as the joint financial relationship between the State and (different types of rural and urban) municipalities in the determination of inter-governmental grants. Secondly, when the total volume of the State grants is determined, this study examines in the next step under the particular consideration of different tax capacities in varied categories of municipalities, how this amount should be horizontally distributed among these groups to achieve the equal growth of hypothetical per capita fiscal capacity.     

对外经济援助在战后日本国家发展中的地位

本文试图从国家发展战略的角度 ,通过对不同阶段、不同战略目标下 ,日本对外经济援助政策的特点分析 ,探讨对外经济援助在战后日本国家发展进程中的地位与作用 ,以揭示其对外援助的真实目的 ,并从一个侧面了解日本现代史的发展历程。文章指出日本对外经济援助政策的制订、实施及发展演变不但与其国家发展战略密切相关 ,而且始终是日本获取国家利益的重要工具。对外援助这种特殊的经济手段 ,在战后日本国家发展进程中起着军事力量无法替代的作用。日本之所以如此钟情于对外经济援助的“投入” ,归根结底源自于其对“产出”效果的执着追求。