Social,economic and political dilemmas of reform in Yugoslavia

All of the communist party‐ruled states of Eastern Europe, from the elder brother of the ‘socialist family’, the Soviet Union, to non‐aligned, sui generis Yugoslavia, are in some degree of economic crisis. Gone are the once loudly trumpeted assurances that the socialist ‘economic formation’ by its very nature — its centrally planned and directed economy, its leadership by a communist party armed with the ‘scientific’ social and economic theory of Marxism‐Leninism and its foundation on the principles of proletarian social justice — excluded the possibility of economic ailments such as sluggish growth rates, inflation, social inequality and unemployment. It is now admitted that precisely these problems currently threaten virtually all communist systems. The principal issue for the political elites in these countries (with the perhaps temporary exception of relatively prosperous East Germany and Czechoslovakia and perennially contrary Romania) is not whether radical reform is necessary, but how to implement the requisite economic, social and quasi‐political reforms without undermining the foundations of ‘socialism’ and of the communist party's domination that they identify with it Yugoslavia is a valuable test case of the general project of reform in communist systems, since it consciously undertook to dismantle the of Stalinist system it had been establishing under Soviet tutelage at the end of World War II in response to Stalin's ostracism of Tito in June 1948. From its inception the Yugoslav reform process was informed by a commitment to return to the sources of Marxian social and economic theory in order to build an authentic socialist system untrammeled by the structures and immoral practices of Stalinist ‘etatism’. Worker self‐management, ‘market socialism’, the decentralisation of political and economic decision‐making, periodic rotation in office, and a number of other formally democratic, participatory socio‐political processes, most of which Gorbachev and his supporters have been discussing under the rubric of perestroika, glasnost’ and demokratizatsiia, have all been tried in one form or another in Yugoslavia during the past four decades.     

Reviews

Australian

Bateman W. R. G. and Ward M. W. (eds), Australia's Offshore Maritime Interests, Canberra, Australian Centre for Maritime Studies, 1985, pp. 122. $15.00 (paper)

Stephen Castles, Mary Kalantzis, Bill Cope and Michael Morrissey, Mistaken Identity: Multiculturalism and the Demise of Nationalism in Australia, Sydney, Pluto Press, 1988, pp.152. $14.95 (paper)

Roger Gibbins, Federalism in the Northern Territory; Statehood and Aboriginal Political Development, Darwin, North Australia Research Unit, Australian National University, 1988, pp. 148. $14.00 (paper)

Dean Jaensch and Peter Loveday (eds), Challenge From The Nationals: The Territory Election 1987, Darwin, North Australia Research Unit, Australian National University, 1987, pp. 226. $20.00 (paper)

Constance Lever‐Tracy and Michael Quinlan, A Divided Working Class, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1988, pp. 338. $29.95 (paper)

Peter Loveday and Peter McNab (eds), Australia's Seventh State, Darwin, The Law Society of the Northern Territory and the North Australia Research Unit, Australian National University, 1988, pp.322. $24.00 (paper)

Geoffrey Skene, Specialities of the House, Department of the Parliamentary Library/Australasian Political Studies Association, 1988, pp.59. $10.00 (paper)

Comparative and international

Chris Bellamy, The Future of Land Warfare, London and Sydney, Croom Helm, 1987, pp.302. £29.95 (cloth)

Cathy Downes Strategic and Defence Studies Centre Research School of Pacific Studies The Australian National University

Melanie Beresford, Vietnam: Politics, Economics and Society, London, Frances Pinter, 1988, pp.242. $19.95 (paper)

Vernon Bogdanor (ed.) Constitutions in Democratic Politics, Gower, for the Policy Studies Institute, Aldershot, 1988, pp.395. $59.00 (cloth)

Barry Coldrey, Faith and Fatherland: The Christian Brothers and the Development of Irish Nationalism 1838–1921, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 1988, pp. 338. £27.50

John Connell, New Caledonia or Kanaky? The Political History of a French Colony, Canberra, Australian National University, National Centre for Development Studies, Pacific Research Monograph No. 16,1987, pp.493. $25.00 (paper)

Michael Spencer, Alan Ward and John Connell (eds), New Caledonia: Essays in Nationalism and Dependency, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1988, pp.253. $ 19.95 (paper)

Leon Epstein Political Parties in the American Mold, Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Press, 1986, pp. 440. $US27.00 (cloth).

Keith Ewing, The Funding of Political Parties in Britain, Cambridge, U.K., Cambridge University Press, 1987, pp. 264. $70.00 (cloth)

Richard Higgott (ed.), New Directions in International Relations? Australian Perspectives, Canberra, Department of International Relations, Australian National University, 1988, pp. 223. $10.00 (paper)

Michael J Sheehan, Arms Control; Theory and Practice, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1988, pp. 188. $34.95 (paper)

Political theory and methodology

Boris Frankel, The Post‐Industrial Utopians, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1987, pp. 303. $29.95 (paper)

P. Gottfried and T. Fleming The Conservative Movement. Boston, Twayne Publishers, 1988, pp.125. US$7.95 (paper)

Peter C. Ordeshook, Game Theory and Politics: An Introduction, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp.511. $47.00 (paper)

A. Teichova, M. Levy‐Leboyer & H. Nussbaum (eds), Multinational Enterprise in Historical Perspective, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp. 396. $107.00 (cloth).     

Culture as a variable in comparative politics: A review of some recent literature

Bringing culture into the analysis remains a problem for comparative political science. The notion is too vague and elusive — we are reluctant to evoke that amorphous mass of beliefs, institutions and actions which comprise the political culture of any nation when trying to compare policy processes. Only when the interplay of familiar political variables fails to correlate is culture introduced as an explanation of last resort

Recent work seeks more rigour for a cultural variable. Drawing on the anthropology of Mary Douglas and the public policy of Aaron Wildav‐sky, ‘cultural theory’ argues that groups fashion their world in limited and predictable ways. Regime, belief and economy are subsumed by more fundamental choices about the organisation of collective life. Culture is people sharing values which justify social relations.

This paper sketches the premises and findings of cultural theory. It suggests some possibilities for comparative research — and the problems of testing this ambitious reformulation of political culture.     

John Paul Vann and the End of "Informal Empire"

Review in this Article
Neil Sheehan. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam . New York Random House, 1988. 861 pp.