Preferences for Water Policy in the Ogallala Region of New Mexico

In the late-1970s, Congress formed the High Plains Study Project to assess and study various management and water supply strategies for the Ogallala basin. In the early-1980s, the High Plains Study Council released its findings and recommendations, which in turn stimulated numerous interpretive critiques. A decade has passed since the High Plains Study Council report, yet water management problems persist. Using data from a survey of water experts in New Mexico, we identify the determinants of support and opposition to three water management options: voluntary conservation, mandatory regulation, and water importation. Preference for water management strategies is a function of how policy is perceived (regulatory vs. distributive). Water users in the Ogallala East region of New Mexico tended to oppose mandatory regulatory policies that provide the best option for conserving ground water resources for future generations; voluntary conservation-the least effective option—enjoyed the strongest support from respondents. The findings of this research should be of interest to persons concerned with the future of the Ogallala aquifer and to students of public policy.     

Book reviews

The Political Economy of Spanish America in the Age of Revolution. 1750–1850. Edited by KENNETH J. ANDRIEN and LYMAN L. JOHNSON. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994. Pp. viii, 263.

Mexico in the Age of Democratic Revolutions, 1750–1850. Edited by JAIME E. RODRIGUEZ O. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1994. Pp. xiii, 330.

Transiciones hacia el sistema colonial andino. By CARLOS SEMPAT ASSADOURIAN. Lima: El Colegio de México—Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1994. Pp. 304.

El Comercio Libre en el Perú. Las estrategias de un comerciante criollo: José Antonio de Lavalle y Cortés Conde de Premio Real, 1775–1815. By CRISTINA ANA MAZZEO. Lima: Fondo Editorial de la Universidad Católica, 1994. Pp. 279.

Barbarie y canibalismo en la retórica colonial. Los indios Pijaos de Fray Pedro Simón. By ALVARO FELIX BOLAÑOS. Bogotá: CEREC, 1994. Pp. 243.

America in European Consciousness, 1493–1750. Edited by KAREN ORDAHL KUPPERMAN. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Pp. xiii, 428.

After Colonialism: Imperial Histories and Postcolonial Displacements. Edited by GYAN PRAKASH. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. Pp. viii, 352.

A Plague of Sheep: Environmental Consequences of the Conquest of Mexico. By ELINOR G. K. MELVILLE. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pp. xiii, 203.     

THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE GROWTH/NO-GROWTH DEBATE*

This theoretical analysis focuses on the properties of conservative, liberal, and radical paradigms in social science and their application to the growth/no-growth debate in environmental policy literature. We find conservatives working with an evolutionary model of society which suggests that environmental problems are imperfections to be remedied by science, technology, and the free market. Liberals recognize the benefits and costs of growth, and they articulate ways to minimize the costs through state regulation and planning. Radicals argue for state ownership of the means of production and new cultural values about growth as the only effective environmental policies. This analysis closes with a discussion of the future of the growth debate in terms of these paradigms.     

‘I think we cannot refuse the order’: Britain,America, nuclear non-proliferation,and the Indian Jaguar deal, 1974–1978

This article sheds light on the way in which British negotiations with India over the potential purchase of the Jaguar strike aircraft during the 1970s complicated global nuclear non-proliferation diplomacy. It argues that this case demonstrates British unwillingness to subordinate the economic well-being of the state to the requirements of non-proliferation diplomacy, even under pressure from the US government. Despite internal and external criticism (most notably from the administration of President Jimmy Carter) of the sale focusing on non-proliferation, it was the economic contentions of internal supporters arguing against a background of fiscal crisis that eventually won the day. Through analysis of this overlooked incident, this article adds to the complexity of nuclear non-proliferation history in the 1970s, offering an example of the interactions between the domestic priorities and the non-proliferation policy of an outwardly ‘leading’ anti-proliferationist state.     

Using Multilevel Models to Model Heterogeneity: Potential and Pitfalls

Within the last few years, geographers and researchers in other cognate disciplines with geographic concerns have begun to use multilevel models. While there are several useful existing introductory accounts of these models in the geographical literature, this paper seeks to extend them in three main ways to clarify and emphasize further the substantial opportunities they afford. First, it focuses on how multilevel models are centrally concerned with modeling population heterogeneity as a function of predictor variables. Second, it considers and illustrates a number of specific interpretive issues that can arise when conducting multilevel analyses of place effects. Lastly, it traces some more general, conceptual issues surrounding the use of multilevel models in geographical research. The arguments made are illustrated through an analysis of variations in drinking behavior using data from a typically complex, large‐scale survey; particular attention is given to the inclusion of categorical predictors.     

Stating the Difference: State,Discourse and Class Reproduction in Uttar Pradesh,India

Much development literature concerned with state–society relations operates with a simplistic state–people dichotomy. In contrast, this article focuses on the intersection between state and society and argues that this plays an important part in class reproduction in ‘civil society’. This issue is explored with reference to the role of the local state in class reproduction in the Indian countryside. The focus is on the means by which rural social groups negotiate access to the local state and discourses surrounding the state. The balance of colonization, co‐option and opposition that characterizes the relationship between dominant rural classes and local state officials/institutions is examined against the impact of the rise of a populist low class party. It is argued that the intersection between ‘class’ and ‘state’ is closer than even critical studies of state–society relations have posited. Moreover, the state can, within certain limits, be brought to serve interests other than those of the dominant classes.     

Global Governance: Poorly done and Poorly Understood

A set of ethical issues—tensions between democratization and globalization, about some ways in which the global inequalities have increased, and about gross failures of contemporary international cooperation—provide reason to consider our understanding of global governance and the political forces organized to support or transform it. Many scholars agree on the existence of a global polity characterized by the dominance of neo-liberalism, the growing network of both public and private regimes that extend across the world's largest regions, the system of global intergovernmental organizations, and transnational organizations both carrying out some of the traditional service functions of global public agencies and working to create regimes and new systems of international integration. Scholars who emphasize the historically contingent social construction of human institutions and who focus on the transformative potential of transnational social movements have provided the greatest insight into what can be done to confront the ethical issues raised by contemporary global governance. Almost all analysts agree that the current great powers cannot be relied upon to facilitate progressive change, although that is only one reason why global governance is likely to remain inefficient and incapable of shifting resources from the world's rich to the poor, even though it may continue to play a role in promoting liberal democracy and the empowering of women.