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.     

EVALUATION OF THE MANGANESE ESR METHOD OF MARBLE CHARACTERIZATION

Results suggest that ESR studies of Mn⁺² in marble can provide an excellent discriminator for the determination of marble provenance. In comparison with other methods of quantitative analysis for manganese such as AA or NAA, the ESR method determines only Mn⁺² rather than total Mn, is inexpensive and rapid with no chemical preparation required, and does not consume the sample.     

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.

     

Australian liberalism and corporatism

George Brandis, Tom Harley and Don Markwell (eds), Liberals face the Future: Essays on Australian Liberalism, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1984, pp. 386, $14.99 (paper) and Katharine West, The Revolution in Australian Politics, Melbourne, Penguin Books, 1984, pp. 116, $4.95 (paper).

John Rickard, H.B. Higgins: the rebel as judge. Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1984, pp.350. $29.95 (cloth).

Stuart Macintyre, Militant: the life and times of Paddy Troy, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1984, pp.225. $19.95 (cloth), $9.95 (paper).

Alan Metcalfe, In Their Own Right: The Rise to Power of Joh's Nationals, St. Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1984, pp.268. $20.00 (cloth)

Peter Love. Labour and the Money Power: Australian Labour Populism 1890–1950, Melbourne University Press, 1984, pp.240. $9.95 (paper).

L.F. Crisp, George Houston Reid: Federation Father; Federal Failure? Canberra, ANU, 1979; The Later Australian Federation Movement 1883–1901: Outline and Bibliography, 1979; George Richard Dibbs: Premier of New South Wales, Prophet of Unification, 1980; Federation Prophets Without Honour: A.B. Piddington, Tom Price, H.B.Higgins, 1980; The Unrelenting Penance of Federalist Isaac Isaacs, 1897–1947, 1981; Charles Cameron Kingston: Radical Federationist, 1984.

Philip Toyne and Daniel Vachon, Growing Up the Country: The Pitjantjatjara struggle for their land, Melbourne, Penguin Books and McPhee Gribble, 1984, pp.157. $6.95 (paper)

Jim Kemeny, The Great Australian Nightmare, Melbourne, Georgian House, 1983, pp. 130. $14.95 (paper).

Peter Sekuless, The Lobbyists, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1984, pp. 145. $14.95 (paper).

Jennifer Aldred (ed.), Industrial Confrontation, Sydney, Allen and Unwin and Australian Institute‐of Political Science, 1984, pp.111. $15.95 (cloth), $7.95 (paper).

Glenn Withers (ed.), Bigger or Smaller Government? Papers from the sixth symposium of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, 1982, Canberra, Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, 1983, pp. ix, 115. $8.50 (paper)

Commonwealth Grants Commission, Equity in Diversity: Fifty Years of the Commonwealth Grants Commission, Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service, 1983, pp. 180. $15.60 (cloth), $9.90 (paper).

Robin Walker, Under Fire: A History of Tobacco Smoking in Australia, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, pp. 155. $19.50 (cloth).1

Hugh Saddler, Energy in Australia: Politics and Economics, Sydney, Allen and Unwin,1981, pp.205. $7.95 (paper)

Brian Kennedy, A Tale of Two Mining Cities: Johannesburg and Broken Hill 1885–1925, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1984, pp. 146. $25.00 (cloth)

Basile Kerblay, Modern Soviet Society, London, Methuen, 1983, pp.321. $37.50 (cloth), $23.95 (paper).

Gary Littlejohn, A Sociology ofthe Soviet Union, London, Macmillan, 1984, pp.286. $16.95 (paper).

Talal Asad and Roger Owen (eds), Sociology of “Developing Societies”: The Middle East, London, Macmillan, 1983, pp.264. $11.95 (paper).

Richard Mulgan, Democracy and Power in New Zealand: a study of New Zealand politics, Auckland, Oxford University Press, 1984, pp.171. $A12.99 (paper)

Rex Mortimer, Stubborn Survivors, ed. H. Feith and R. Tiffen, Monash Papers on South East Asia No. 10, 1984, pp.xvii, 180. $6.00 (paper).

Philip Lowe and Jane Goyder, Environmental Groups in Politics, London, Allen and Unwin, 1983, pp. 208. $18.95 (paper)

John Surrey (ed.), The Urban Transportation of Irradiated Fuel, London, Macmillan, 1984, pp. 336. $14.95 (paper)

Ian Hancock, White Liberals, Moderates and Radicals in Rhodesia 1953–1980, London and Sydney, Croom Helm, 1984, pp.230. $31.95 (cloth).

Peter Hain, Political Trials in Britain, London, Allen Lane, 1984. pp 318. $29.95 (cloth).

Anthony Hyman, Afghanistan Under Soviet Domination, 1964–1983, London, Macmillan, 1984, pp. 235. $18.95 (paper).

Ivor Crewe and Anthony Fox, British Parliamentary Constituencies: A Statistical Compendium, London, Faber and Faber, 1984, pp.397. $67.95 (cloth).

Frederick C. Teiwes, Leadership, Legitimacy, and Conflict in China: From a Charismatic Mao to the Politics of Succession, London, Macmillan, 1984, pp.167. $21.95 (paper)

John Wong, The Political Economy of China's Changing Relations with Southeast Asia, London, Macmillan, 1984, pp.246. $14.95 (paper)

Adrian Leftwich (ed.), What is Politics? The Activity and its Study, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1984, pp. 172. $25.00 (cloth), $11.95 (paper).

Ted Benton, The Rise and Fall of Structural Marxism: Althusser and his Influence, London, Macmillan, 1984, pp. 259. $14.95 (paper).

Ben Fine, Marx's Capital, London, Macmillan, second edition, 1984, pp. 87. $9.95 (paper).

Stefan Collini, Donald Winch and John Burrow, That Noble Science of Politics: A Study in Nineteenth‐Century Intellectual History, Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 385. $25.00 (paper).

William W. Bostock, Approaches to Political Explanation, Melbourne, RDI Press, 1983, pp.123. $9.00 (paper).

Ronald Beiner, Political Judgment, London, Methuen, 1983, pp. 199. $17.95 (paper).

John F. Wilson, The Politics of Moderation: An Interpretation of Plato's Republic, New York, University of America Press, 1984, pp.213. $12.25 (U.S.) (paper).

Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution, trans. P.J. Rhodes, Penguin Books, 1984, pp. 198. $6.95 (paper).

Carol O'Donnell, The Basis of the Bargain: Gender, Schooling and Jobs, Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1984, pp.186. $19.95 (cloth), $9.95 (paper).

Dorothy H. Broom (ed.), Unfinished Business: Social Justice for Women in Australia, Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1984, pp.213. $24.95 (cloth), $10.95 (paper).

S. Fabian and M. Loh, The Changemakers: Ten Significant Australian Women. Milton, Jacaranda Press, 1983, pp. 190. $14.25 (paper).     

The regulation of direct foreign investment in the Australian mining sector

Although Australia has relied on foreign capital and multinational corporations to develop its mining sector, it has been successful in restricting foreign ownership and control to 50 per cent The Australian experience provides a valuable case study because its successive minerals and energy booms in the last two decades occurred before and after restrictions were imposed and the Foreign Investment Review Board established in the mid‐1970s. During the prior minerals boom when there were virtually no restrictions, levels of foreign ownership and control increased from less than 30 to 50 per cent. During the second energy boom, in the late 1970s to early 1980s, a firm policy of 50 per cent Australian participation in all mining projects was successfully implemented. Australia did not become a ‘client state’ of international capitalism, nor did its federal system preclude the regulation of foreign investment The article summarises the results of Australia's regulatory policy and examines the political and policy reasons for its success.