Organisation and political analysis

The advent of the Hawke government may not warrant the title of ‘The Revolution in Australian Politics’, but it has raised questions about organisation and power, and the way in which these are handled in political science. This paper begins by identifying what is considered problematic in the political practices which are seen as distinctive in the Hawke government. It outlines the elements of the paradigm of organisation which underlies much political science, and identifies the way in which these are challenged by ‘corporatist’ or ‘Hawkeish’ forms of political activity. It argues that this paradigm of organisation is under attack on both conceptual and empirical grounds, and outlines an alternative paradigm of organisation and the way in which it applies to government. It concludes with a consideration of the implications of this approach for theorising about the state.     

The Queensland Difference

Allan Patience (ed.), The Bjelke‐Petersen Premiership 1968–1983: Issues in Public Policy, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1985, pp. 286, $18.95 (paper)     

THE PUBLIC LIFE OF ECONOMIC INCENTIVES

Many current proposals for policy reform call for the use of economic incentives. The growing application of economic incentives in a number of policy areas necessitates continuing critical examination of the claims for and the criticisms of their use. Early empirical evidence on the implementation of incentive schemes serves to shed light on the validity of some of the supporting and opposing arguments. By continuing the assessment of the viability of economic incentives, this study reveals that incentive alternatives face obstacles to use stemming from implementation problems, but political and philosophical issues pose greater threats. Nevertheless, the use of incentives can best be defended on political and moral grounds. Political resistance can be overcome and incentives can be employed effectively, if incentive schemes are understood as fostering one form of social interaction in a mixed regime.     

Fire and its roles in early hominid lifeways

Discovery of the uses and later the invention of fire-making are fundamental to humanity. Following reports over the last decade of traces of fire found on Lower Pleistocene archaeological sites in eastern Africa, the dating of the control of fire by hominids has become a controversial issue. In this paper we critically review the contexts and, in the light of a battery of archaeometric techniques, the nature of reported instances of fire from Koobi Fora and Chesowanja in Kenya, and from Gadeb and the Middle Awash in Ethiopia. We conclude with a discussion of the roles fire may have played in the lifeways of early Pleistocene savanna-living hominids.

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Résumé La découverte des usages du feu et ensuite de sa préparation est fondamentale pour l'humanité. Suite à des rapports au cours de la dernière décennie signalant des traces de feu relevées dans des sites archéologiques du Pléistocène inférieur dans l'est de l'Afrique, la datation du contrôle du feu par les hominiens est devenu une source de controverse. Dans cet article, nous révisons d'un oeil critique les contextes et la nature des cas de feu signalés à Koobi Fora et à Chesowanja au Kenya, et à Gadeb et dans l'Awash moyen en Éthiopie, à la lumière d'une suite de techniques archéometriques. Suit en conclusion une discussion sur les rôles qu'aurait pu jouer le feu dans les modes de vie des hominiens vivant dans les savannes du Pléistocène inférieur.

     

MEASURING THE DEVELOPMENT IMPACT OF A TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM: A SIMPLIFIED APPROACH*

The Multiregional Variable Input-Output (MRVIO) model is introduced to measure the development impact of a transportation system. The MRVIO model is a theoretically flexible, computationally simple, and cost-responsive model. Under the MRVIO model, regional input-output coefficients, trade coefficients, and trade flows become cost responsive and easy to compute. The MRVIO model is employed to measure the development impact of the Arkansas waterway during the period of 1974 to 1978. In the study, the U.S. economy is disaggregated into 3 regions and 35 industrial sectors. The MRVIO model estimates the economic conditions of these 3 regions with and without the waterway in terms of industrial output, income, employment, and trade flows.     

Progress in the human geography of the Maghreb

Sutton and Lawless review a selection of the prolific literature on the Maghreb's human geography published from the late 1970s onward. The pedigree of the discipline in Maghreb was established by several notable geographers who lived, researched, and wrote there. Augustin Bernard's writings on rural settlement, his atlas, and study of Algeria are still cited. Jean Despois's regional study with Raynal and his work on Tunisia, together with the detailed rural research of Jean Poncet, provides a particularly rich coverage for that country. Jean Dresch's early work on Morocco exemplified an early critique of the contemporaneous uncritical colonial human geography. The Sahara's fascination also inspired pioneering studies by Robert Capot-Rey. The work of these notables and others provided a solid background of geographical literature on the Maghreb to be supplemented, criticized, and challenged by more recent researchers, sometimes pupils of the above individuals, and increasingly North African by birth. The tradition of general texts on the Maghreb has continued, though increasingly with systematic approaches replacing regional appraisals. The geography of the decolonization of the Maghreb by Isnard has been replaced by a study summarizing recent collaborative work by a team of French geographers. The Saharan extensions of the Maghreb states have often been linked in general works, sometimes being juxtaposed against the Maghreb as in the essays offered to Jean Despois. Lawless and Findlay's collaborative study juxtaposes geographical studies of each country's economic development with political scientists' evaluations of their sociopolitical development. This review limits itself largely to geographers and geographical journals, only occasionally including significant works from other subject areas, and to 1977-1978 publications, with a few notable exceptions. The spatial juxtaposition of contrasting approaches to economic development, liberal market economy approaches by Tunisia and Morocco arguably leading to dependency, and centrally-planned strategies by Algeria and Libya resulting in bureaucratic constraints serves to offer the Maghreb as a pertinent case-study region for the applied geographer of developing countries.