Innovation policy at the local and national levels: The case of Emilia‐Romagna

The article describes the main Italian policy instruments for innovation and how these have been used by companies located in the Region of Emilia‐Romagna. It also describes the role played by structures set up at the local level in the enactment of innovation policies in Emilia‐Romagna. In the first part, the article analyzes the current organization and legislation of Italian innovation policy; and in the second part, it examines the reasons which have led to the recognition of the importance of the local level of innovation policy, looking more closely at innovation initiatives in the Region of Emilia‐Romagna. In the third part, it draws the conclusions. In particular the article underlines that Italian local governments, even without legislative and financial autonomy, can play an important role in modernizing the industrial system through initiatives which do not require vast sums of money but which identify and meet specific local needs.     

The Central Scotland airport: Transport policy‐making in Scotland

The recognition that the central belt of Scotland will exhaust its existing airport capacity by 2020 has provoked serious and at times acrimonious debate, both economic and political, whether capacity should be expanded at Edinburgh Airport or at Glasgow Airport. This paper confronts the question of whether an entirely new single airport in the central belt, requiring the closure of Edinburgh and Glasgow Airports, should be built. Clearly, megaprojects on this scale, require a national decision‐making framework involving, amongst others, the Department for Transport, the Civil Aviation Authority, the Treasury and the British Airports Authority plc. However, regional bodies such as the Scottish Executive, Scottish Enterprise Network, and local authorities are involved in confronting local issues concerning ground transport, the environment, economic development and labour market shifts.     

Negotiating the regulation of the structural funds: Italian actors in EU regional policy‐making

The role of Italy in the reform process of the regulations concerning EU regional policy has traditionally been weak. Since 1998, however, Italian actors in Brussels started to play an increasingly more central role. Looking at the 1998 Regulation, we analyse the internal and external factors that explain this improved performance and conclude that this change might lead to an even more active and creative role being adopted by Italian institutional actors in the current negotiations which will lead to the reform of the regulation of the Structural Funds for 2007–13.     

De‐mystifying the poor and the peasants: Women making reproductive choices

Ward, Martha C. Poor Women Powerful Men: America's Great Experiment in Family Planning. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1986. xvii +189 including index and references. $33.00 cloth, $14.95 paper.

Simonelli, Jeanne M. Two Boys, a Girl, and Enough! Reproductive and Economic Decision‐Making on the Mexican Periphery. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1986. xxii + 231 including index and references. $19.50 paper.     

A review of China's foreign policy decision‐making during the Cold War

In the past 10 years or so, gradual declassifications of official foreign policy documents in the Soviet Union, in China and in the United States have provided opportunities for research in the various fields concerned. More importantly, in the realm of China's international relations theory this has been a period for “letting a hundred flowers bloom” through translation, study, argument, and reflection. Particularly worth noting is that in recent years, research in China's decision‐making in foreign policy, which had hitherto been off‐limits, has been gradually opening up, resulting in many publications. An example is China's Foreign Policy Decision‐Making during the Cold War written by Professor Niu Jun of The School of International Studies of Peking University, and published by Japan's Chikura Publishing Company in September 2007.     

Accelerators and national security the evolution of science policy for high‐energy physics, 1947–1967

Historical analysis of the evolution of science policy for high‐energy physics from 1947–1967 shows how national security concerns played a role in this branch of fundamental science. The Manhattan Engineer District (MED) of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers supported particle accelerators after World War II demonstrated the military utility of particle accelerator technology for isotope separation, the transferability of technological skills from accelerator building to other technologies such as radar development, and the usefulness of particle accelerators in making the physical measurements required in the early stages of the design of nuclear weapons.

Although the Atomic Energy Commission initially was disinclined to support further particle accelerator development, it was persuaded to support accelerator projects to advance understanding of the nuclear forces that underlay fission and other nuclear processes, to promote the health of the AEC Laboratories, and to ensure a supply of trained scientific personnel.

The bond between accelerator development and national security tightened during the Korean War an AEC‐Department of Defense (DoD) program studied uses of accelerators for defense and to produce nuclear materials.

Accelerators contributed to another form of national security: national prestige in the international technological competition with the Soviet Union under the Atoms for Peace program and after the President's Scientific Advisory Committee (PSAC) was created in 1958 to respond to Sputnik. Particle accelerators also continued to develop in the AEC weapons laboratories up to the new emphasis placed on them by the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO). Links to national security concerns helped programs traditionally thought to be “pure” science efforts win support, and applications from such programs found their way into applied programs.     

Neo‐liberalism,policy networks,and policy change: Agricultural policy reform in Australia and Canada

Developments favouring the liberalisation and globalisation of economic exchange and increasingly rigid constraints on domestic fiscal policy have provided support for neo‐ liberal policy ideas. Neolibcralism challenges the logic of embedded liberalism that underscored trade multilateralism in the post‐second world war period, and the exclusion of sectors like agriculture from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Focusing on agricultural policy, the article examines the pace and extent to which neo‐liberal ideas have been able to gain hold and displace non‐liberal domestic policies in Australia and Canada. The article shows that neo‐liberal ideas have been more easily translated into domestic policy change in Australia than in Canada. A significant part of the explanation for this cross‐national difference is found in the differing domestic political‐institutional arrangements, including federalism, bureaucratic arrangements, the presence or absence of a neo‐liberal epistemic community, and trie structure of interest intermediation systems. These factors, in turn, have their impact on policy change through their effects on the structures of agricultural policy networks and policy communities.