Engineering Art and Telling Tales: Anish Kapoor at the Royal Academy

Anish Kapoor has become well known for his enormous architectural installations and for his use of vibrant colour. Much of his work depends critically on good engineering and he has collaborated closely with engineers for many years. I discuss several of Kapoor's large works, approaching them from an engineer's perspective. I also show how Kapoor weaves layers of narrative in some of his work: so that a naïve understanding of a piece's construction is a falsehood layered over the true engineering solution. The story seems initially obvious to the audience but a little digging, a little thought, reveals that it is a fiction and that reality is something other.     

The Illegal Excavation and Trade of Syrian Cultural Objects: A View from the Ground

The illegal excavation and trade of cultural objects from Syrian archaeological sites worsened markedly after the outbreak of civil disturbance and conflict in 2011. Since then, the damage to archaeological heritage has been well documented, and the issue of terrorist funding explored, but hardly any research has been conducted into the organization and operation of theft and trafficking of cultural objects inside Syria. As a first step in that direction, this paper presents texts of interviews with seven people resident in Syria who have first-hand knowledge of the trade, and uses information they provided to suggest a model of socioeconomic organization of the Syrian war economy regarding the trafficking of cultural objects. It highlights the importance of coins and other small objects for trade, and concludes by considering what lessons might be drawn from this model to improve presently established public policy.     

Book reviews

Paul Cammack, David Pool and William Tordoff, Third World Politics. A Comparative Introduction. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 1988. xi+308pp. $22.95

Naomi Chazan, Robert Mortimer, John Ravenhill and Donald Rothchild. Politics and Society in Contemporary Africa. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 1988. xi+459pp. $29.95.

Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba (eds). The Civic Culture Revisited. Newbury Park: Sage, 1989. 422pp. £39.95 (cloth), £15.75 (paper).

John R. Gibbins (ed). Contemporary Political Culture. Politics in a Postmodern Age. Newbury Park: Sage, 1989. 266pp. £27.50 (cloth), £10.95 (paper).

Kusuma Snitwongse and Sukhumbhand Paribatra (eds). Durable Stability in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1987. xiii+237pp. $S44 (cloth), $S32 (paper).

Lawrence C. Mayer. Redefining Comparative Politics. Promise Versus Performance. Newbury Park: Sage, 1989. 303pp. £29.50 (cloth), £13.95 (paper).

Amin Saikal (ed.). Refugees in the Modern World. Canberra: Department of International Relations, Australian National University, 1989‐ 125 pp. No price given.

W. Michael Reisman and Andrew R. Willard (eds). International Incidents: The Law That Counts in World Politics. Princeton: Princeton Unversity Press, 1988.xii+278 pp. $US35.00 (cloth), $US12.95 (paper).

Samuel B. Payne, The Conduct of War: An Introduction to Modem Warfare. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988. xiv+309 pp. $49.95.

Jane F. Marceau. A Family Business? The Making of an International Business Elite. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. x+247 pp. $65.00

Kenneth Hoover and Raymond Plant. Conservative Capitalism in Britain and the United States: A Critical Appraisal. London: Routledge, 1989. xvii+341 pp. $98.95.

David Carlton, Britain and the Suez Crisis. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989‐ 174 pp. $27.95.

Michael Dockrill. British Defence Since 1945. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988. 171 pp. $24.95.

Yves Boyer, Pierre Lellouche and John Roper (eds). Franco‐British Defence Co‐operation: A New Entent'e Cordiale?. London: Routledge, 1989‐ 194 pp. $89.95.

Kristian Gerner and Stefan Hedlund. Ideology and Rationality in the Soviet Model. A Legacy for Gorbachev. London and New York: Routledge, 1989. xii+455 pp. $105.00.

Boris Kagarlitsky. The Thinking Reed. Intellectuals and the Soviet State from 1917 to the Present. London: Verso, 1988. x+370 pp. $29.50.

Alan B. Sherr. The Other Side of Arms Control: Soviet Objectives in the Gorbachev Era. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988. xviii+325 pp. $US42.00.

David Childs, Thomas A. Baylis and Marilyn Rueschemeyer (eds). East Germany in Comparative Perspective. London & New York: Routledge, 1989. xvi+238 pp. $105.00

Tony Judt (ed.). Resistance and Revolution in Mediterranean Europe, 1939 ‐ 1948. London and New York: Routledge, 1989. iv+229 pp. $105.00.

Yoshihara Kunio. The Rise of Ersatz Capitalism in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988. xiii+297 pp. $24.95.

Chin Kin Wah (ed.), Defense Spending in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. 1987. ix+326pp. $US 20.00.

P.J. Soedjati Djiwandono & Young Mun Choeng (eds). Soldiers and Stability in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. 1988. ix+354 pp. $US22.00.

Greg Lockhart. Nation in Arms: The Origins of the People's Army of Vietnam. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, in association with the Asian Studies Association of Australia, 1989‐ xiv+314pp. $29.95 (cloth), $24.95 (paper).

John Overton. Land and Differentiation in Rural Fiji. Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, 1989. vii+152 pp. $20.00.

Walter Manshard and William B. Morgan (eds). Agricultural Expansion and Pioneer Settlements in the Humid Tropics. Tokyo: United Nations University, 1988, 305 pp. $US20.00.

Robert H. Bruce (ed). The Modern Indian Navy and the Indian Ocean: Developments and Implications. Perth: Centre for Indian Ocean Regional Studies, Curtin University of Technology/Australian Institute of International Affairs, x+168 pp. $22.50.

Rasul B. Rais. The Indian Ocean and the Superpowers, London: Croom Helm, 1988.215 pp. No price given.

Roy Mottahedeh. The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran, Harmonsworth: Penguin Books, 1987. 418 pp. $22.95.

Max G. Manwaring and Court Prisk (eds). El Salvador at War: An Oral History. Washington D.C.: National Defence College, 1988. liv + 500 pp. No price given.     

Panchayati Raj in West Bengal: Popular Participation for the People or the Party?

Since 1978 the Left Front government in West Bengal, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) — CPI(M) — has pursued a strategy of decentralized planning through locally elected panchayats (councils) in the countryside. The stated ideological commitment of the CP1(M) is to support and eventually empower the poor and oppressed and this has resulted in Panchayati Raj assuming the status of not just a state sponsored decentralization strategy, but the institutional forum for the mobilization of the poor and the expansion of the party's base. However the CPI(M)'s strategy is to some extent ambiguous in that it combines a need to maintain an electoral status as a party leading a state government within the Indian Union and a political status as a party promoting the conditions for, and the transition to, a people's democracy and thereby socialism.     

The Equity and Legitimacy of Markets for Ecosystem Services

Markets for ecosystem services are being promoted across the developing world, amidst claims that the provision of economic incentives is vital to bring about resource conservation. This article argues that equity and legitimacy are also critical dimensions in the design and implementation of such markets, if social development goals beyond economic gains are to be achieved. The article examines this issue by focusing on two communities involved in a project for carbon sequestration services of forests in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. The perceived legitimacy of the activities and the distribution of economic outcomes and project‐related information are found to be mediated by organizational allegiances and the history of social relations regarding access to property and forest resources. Political affiliation determines the project's legitimacy, while the poorest farmers and women have been excluded from project design and implementation. The authors argue that pitfalls such as these contribute to reinforcing existing power structures, inequities and vulnerabilities, and suggest that this is a product of the nature of emerging markets. Markets for ecosystem services are, in effect, limited in promoting more legitimate forms of decision making and a more equitable distribution of their outcomes.     

New Perspectives on the Bell-Beaker Culture

Bell-Beaker culture artefacts are not unequivocal expressions of male status, but helped instead to maintain ritual and symbolic demarcations of gender difference. The gendered nature of cultural production explains part of the variability seen in Beaker assemblages. More generally the spread of the Bell-Beaker culture cannot be explained by regional trajectories of social evolution or structuration. It is a spatially extensive phenomenon and interpretations/explanations must recognise this. A scenario is presented which links the eastwards spread of Beaker pottery in central Europe to the importation of copper metallurgy into north-west Europe.     

A Voice for Black Interests: Congressional Black Caucus Cohesion and Bill Cosponsorship

This study enhances our understanding of the vexing dilemma (i.e., the crosspressures emanating from individual goals and collective aspirations) confronting black legislators. Extant research based on roll call votes or on interest group scores that are also based on roll call votes is limited in what it can tell us about African-American representation in Congress. By examining African-American representatives' cosponsorship of legislation, this study uses a more accurate measure of members' legislative behavior and thus overcomes the "censored sample problem" associated with roll call data. Bill cosponsorship is a good indicator of a representative's intensity of commitment to constituent interests. We examine public bills cosponsored by African-American representatives from 1971 through 1993. The analysis finds that the cohesiveness of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) transcends policy arenas, notwithstanding higher rates of cosponsorship on social issues, and that the number of bills cosponsored by the CBC is noticeably higher after 1982. In addition, analysis suggests that CBC members, just like all members of Congress, respond to the structure that governs the House and the political forces that shape their electoral fortunes.