Book reviews

Australian. J. S. Western and Colin A. Hughes, The Mass Media in Australia. Use and Evaluation, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1971, pp. 178, $6.50.

R. G. Casey, Australian Foreign Minister: Diaries 1951–60, ed. T. B. Millar, Collins, Sydney, 1972, pp. 352, $7.95.

Ian Bellany, Australia in the Nuclear Age: National Defence and National Development, Sydney University Press, 1972, pp. 144, $6.00.

J. A. La Nauze, The Making of the Australian Constitution, Melbourne University Press 1972, pp. 369 + xi, $15.00.

Scott Bennett, The Making of the Commonwealth, Cassell Australia, Melbourne, 1971, pp. xi + 244, no price.

Commonwealth Parliamentary Library, Parliamentary Handbook of the Commonwealth of Australia, 17th ed., 1971, Australian Government Publishing Service Canberra 1972, pp xiii + 954, $11.50.

Naomi Turner, Sinews of Sectarian Warfare? State Aid in New South Wales 1836–1862, Canberra, Australian National University Press, 1972, pp. 272, $8.50.

Niall Brennan, John Wren Gambler, Hill of Content, Melbourne, 1971, pp. xii + 259, $6.95.

Irwin Young, Theodore His Life and Times, Alpha, Sydney, 1971, pp. 189, $4.50.

Don Whitington, Twelfth Man?, Jacaranda Press, Brisbane, 1972, pp. 180, $4.95.

J. E. Menadue, A Centenary History of the Australian Natives’ Association, 1871–1971, Horticultural Press, Melbourne, n.d., 1972, pp. x + 425, no price.

I. McKay, R. Boyd, H. Stretton and J. Mant, Living and Partly Living, Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1972, pp. 195, $10.95.

Robin Boyd, The Great Great Australian Dream, Pergamon Press, Sydney, 1972, pp. 395 + xviii, $5.95.

Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers of Australian Government Publications, 2nd ed., Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1972, pp. 417 + xiv, $9.95.

Other. Marian W. Ward (ed.), Change and Development in Rural Melanesia: Papers Delivered at the Fifth Waigani Seminar, The University of Papua and New Guinea, Port Moresby, and the Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University, A.N.U. Press, Canberra, 1972, pp. ix + 556, $6.00.

L. Cleveland and A. D. Robinson (eds.), Readings in New Zealand Government, Reed, Wellington, 1972, pp. 314, $NZ5.30.

Richard Crossman, Inside View, Jonathan Cape, London, 1972, pp. 117, $6.50.

Humphrey Berkeley, Crossing the Floor, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1972, pp. 170, $9.30.

Eleanor Kapp, Eleanor Marx, Volume I Family Life 1855–1883, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1972, pp. 319, £4.50 (English price).

U. Bronfenbrenner, Two Worlds of Childhood: U.S. and U.S.S.R., George Allen and Unwin, London, 1971, pp. xii + 190 (plus 4 blank pages), $10.60.

R. J. Mokken, A Theory and Procedure of Scale Analysis, with Applications in Political Research, Mouton, The Hague, 1971, pp xiii + 353, 45 guilders.     

What Can Causal Process Tracing Offer to Policy Studies? A Review of the Literature

Causal process tracing (CPT) has emerged as an important method of causal inference in qualitative social science research, most notably in case study research designs. There is now a considerable literature on the aims, philosophical groundings, and methods of process tracing. This paper reviews the CPT literature to assess what new directions it may suggest for policy studies. The first part of the paper sets out the methodological advantages CPT offers in building and testing theories of policy change, most notably in supporting a theoretical pluralism to address the problem of complexity in policy studies. Building on recent scholarship across the social sciences, the second part examines step by step the recently minted “best practice” for undertaking CPT in policy studies. This part includes discussion of the possible pitfalls of CPT as a method; common errors involved in its use are set out and minimization strategies offered. In particular, while acknowledging the usefulness of Bayesian tests for causality as heuristic devices, we emphasize the limitations of applying such tests in practice. Possible correctives are suggested. The final part of the paper speculates more generally on the potential of CPT to improve our investigation of patterns of policy change over time.     

The Women of Brassempouy: A Century of Research and Interpretation

  The discovery of female figurines at Brassempouy in the 1890's would launch more than a century of debate and interpretation concerning Paleolithic representations of women. The figurines emerged from the ground into a colonial intellectual and socio-political context nearly obsessed with matters of race. This early racial interpretive frame would only be replaced in the mid 20th century, when prehistorians turned to questions such as fertility and womanhood. The first figurines were discovered in 1892 under rather tortured circumstances in which their very ownership was the subject of a heated dispute between Edouard Piette and Emile Cartailhac. Their toxic relationship would lead Piette, in his subsequent excavations, to be extremely precise about issues of stratigraphic and spatial provenience. Piette's publications and archives enabled Henri Delporte to confirm the Gravettian attribution of the figurines and have allowed the present author to create a map of their spatial distribution within the site. Technological and microscopic analysis of the Brassempouy figurines resolves some lingering questions about the sex of certain of the figurines and suggests an original context of figurine fabrication and the abandonment of unsuccessful sculpting attempts.

Struggling with the Past

Many postprocessual archaeologists have argued that active individuals make history. The apotheosis of the individual has been achieved under the rubric identity, the most pervasive theoretical term of the last few years. This focus obscures the fundamental idea that individuals do not exist in isolation. The relational concept of struggle will help us past this theoretical impasse. This concept has many components including real struggles in the past, our struggles to know the past, and using the past to struggle in the present. Our goal is to struggle past identity politics and the individual by focusing on peoples' real struggles in real cases.     

Local Government Policymaking and Management in Russia

Local government in Russia is characterized by the collapse of traditional relationships between legislative and executive powers and between different levels of executive and legislative hierarchies. The re-definition of these relationships involves a struggle for power pursued against a backdrop of radical systemic change in the economic and social spheres. These changes are accompanied by a breakdown (and gradual realignment) of the system of distribution, which has accelerated the process of economic and social destabilization in the larger cities. The response of local administrations to the problems generated has been hampered by the fiscal crisis that affects both national and local levels of government. This article reviews the changing relationship between governmental levels and between legislative and executive powers in the context of these broader developments, and in the context of Russian and Soviet traditions of local government. Overall the article notes the perceived failure of the democratization of the legislature at local level to deal with the crisis, and the consequent shift of power towards a strengthened executive.