Does Race Matter?

Abstract. This essay contends that behaviour can only be understood within an evolutionary framework that gives equal weight to genes and environment. Our cultural environment itself evolved, in part through natural selection of genes and in part through other mechanisms. Racism, however, involves association of genetically caused differences in physical appearance with characteristics to which they are wholly unrelated. Yet this association has a biological cause: fitness maximisation through nepotism. This association, therefore, has an effect upon the life chances and reproductive success of genetically different groups and, therefore, upon the process of human evolution.     

Book reviews

H.E. Chehabi and Alfred Stepan (eds). Politics, Society and Democracy. Boulder: Westview Press, 1995. xxii + 414 pp. $US64.95.

Ronald Rogowski (ed.). Comparative Politics and the International Political Economy Vols I & II. Hants: Edward Elgar, 1995. xxi + 992 pp. £170.00 (cloth).

Martin Wight. International Theory: The Three Traditions. Edited by Gabriele Wight and Brian Porter. London: Leicester University Press, 1994. xxvii + 286 pp. No price given.

Martin Shaw. Global Society and International Relations. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994. vii + 197 pp. £UK39.50 (cloth). £UK11.95 (paper).

Alvin and Heidi Toffler. War and Anti‐War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1993. xiii + 302 pp. $US22.95 (paper).

Coral Bell (ed.). The United Nations and Crisis Management: Six Studies. Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, 1994. 144 pp. $17.50 (paper).

Kevin Dements and Christine Wilson (eds). UN Peacekeeping at the Crossroads. Canberra: Peace Research Centre, Australian National University, 1994. xi + 176 pp. $15.00 (paper).

Rosemary Righter. Utopia Lost—The United Nations and World Order. New York: The Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1995. x + 421 pp. $US29.95 (cloth).

Kevin Clements and Robin Ward (eds). Building International Community: Co‐operating for Peace Case Studies. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1994. xiv + 354 pp. $19.95 (paper).

International Commission on Peace and Food. Uncommon Opportunities—An Agenda for Peace and Equitable Development. London: Zed Books, 1994. xiii + 210 pp. $19.95 (paper), $55.00 (cloth).

Jonathan Dean. Ending Europe's War: The Continuing Search for Peace and Security. New York: Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1994. xv + 439 pp. $US34.95 (cloth).

G. Wyn Rees (ed.). International Politics in Europe: The New Agenda. London: Routledge, 1993. viii + 191 pp. $32.95 (paper).

Hugh Miall (ed.). Minority Rights in Europe: The Scope for a Transnational Regime. London: Pinter, 1994. 120 pp. No price given.

Geoffrey Ponton. The Soviet Era: Soviet Politics from Lenin to Yeltsin. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1994. viii + 293 pp. $39.95 (paper).

Russell Trood and Deborah McNamara (eds). The Asia‐Australia Survey 1994. South Melbourne: Macmillan, 1994. xi + 340 pp. $79.95 (cloth).

Sheldon W. Simon (ed.). East Asian Security in the Post‐Cold War Era. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1993. x + 230 pp. No price given.

Robert S. McNamara (with Brian Van DeMark). In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1995. xviii + 414 pp. $US27.50 (cloth).

Donald Kirk. Korean Dynasty. Hyundai and Chung Ju Yung. Hong Kong: Asia 2000/Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1994. 383 pp. $US25.00 (paper), $US65.00 (cloth).

Pradeep Taneja. Hong Kong and Australia: Towards 1997 and Beyond. Australia‐Asia Papers, Number 70. CSAAR, Brisbane: Griffith University, 1994. 40 pp. $8.00.

Ming K. Chan (ed.). Precarious Balance: Hong Kong Between China and Britain 1842–1992. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1994. xi + 235 pp. $US22.00 (paper), $US55.00 (cloth).

Shinya Sugiyama and Milagros C. Guerrero (eds). International Commercial Rivalry in Southeast Asia in the Interwar Period. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale Center for International and Area Studies, 1994. ix + 222 pp. No price given.

Sarvepalli Gopal (ed.). Anatomy of a Confrontation: Ayodhya and the Rise of Communal Politics in India. London: Zed Books, 1994. viii + 240 pp. £9.95 (paper), £29.95 (cloth).

Richard Evans. Deng Xiaoping and the Making of Modern China. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1993. x + 339 pp. $39.95 (cloth).

Virginia Matheson Hooker (ed.). Culture and Society in New Order Indonesia. Kuala Lumpur Oxford University Press, 1993. xxiii + 302 pp. $49.95 (cloth).

Howard Dick, James Fox and Jamie Mackie (eds). Balanced Development: East Java in the New Order. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1993. xxi + 367 pp. $64.95 (cloth).

Young Whan Kihl (ed.). Korea and the World: Beyond the Cold War. Boulder Colorado: Westview Press, 1994. xii + 371 pp. $21.95 (paper), $64.00 (cloth).

Christopher Tremewan. The Political Economy of Social Control in Singapore. New York: St Martin's Press, 1994. 252 pp. $88.00.

Francis T. Seow. To Catch a Tartar: A Dissident in Lee Kuan Yew's Prison. Monograph 42, New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Southeast Asian Studies, 1994. xxxiii + 293 pp. $50.00.

Anthony Milner. The Invention of Politics in Colonial Malaya: Contesting Nationalism and the Expansion of the Public Sphere. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. vii + 328 pp. $75.00 (cloth).

David McKnight. Australia's Spies and Their Secrets. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1994. xvii + 350 pp. $24.95 (paper).

Fiona Capp. Writers Defiled: Security Surveillance of Australian Authors and Intellectuals 1920–1960. Ringwood, Victoria: McPhee Gribble, 1993. 239 pp. No price given.

Errol Hodge. Radio Wars. Truth, Propaganda and the Struggle for Radio Australia. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 336 pp. $75.00 (cloth), $29.95 (paper).

Joan Beaumont (ed.). Australia's War 1914–18. St. Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1995. xxii + 195 pp. $19.95 (paper).

Peter Jennings. Searching for Insecurity: Why the ‘Secure Australia Project’ is Wrong About Defence. West Perth: Institute of Public Affairs, 1994. vi + 68 pp. $14.00 (paper).

Bjorn Hagelin. Arm in Arm: Swedish‐Australian Military Trade and Cooperation. Canberra: Peace Research Centre Monograph No.15, Australian National University, 1994. x + 164 pp. $15.00.     

New research on the Holocene settlement and environment of the Chad Basin in Nigeria

Recent investigations of three archaeological sites in the Nigerian part of the Chad Basin during the Holocene reveal key stages in the cultural development and environmental history of that region. At Dufuna, a dugout boat was dated to around 6000 BC, making it the oldest known boat in Africa and one of the oldest in the world. Boats may thus have contributed to the mobility of the population of the southern edge of the Sahara 8000 years ago and, thereby, to the cultural homogeneity of this period. The pottery site at Konduga is around a thousand years younger than Dufuna but still belongs to the time of Mega-Chad. The site is on the Bama Ridge, an old shoreline. Its pottery, decorated in the Saharan tradition, belongs to the earliest ceramic phase of the West African Later Stone Age, long before the beginnings of food production. Although this site was probably settled by pioneers advancing into a largely flooded landscape along the slightly raised shoreline, the human occupation of the area previously covered by Mega-Chad began along a broad front around 2000 BC. Archaeological and palaeoecological finds from two settlement mounds at Gajiganna are described as case studies for this phase, which predates the well-known site of Daima.

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Résumé Les résultats présentés proviennent de recherches récentes sur trois sites archéologiques, dont chacun représente un épisode clé du développement culturel et de l'histoire environnementale du Bassin nigérian du Tchad au cours de l'Holocène. A Dufuna, la découverte d'une pirogue monoxyle, datée d'environ 6000 ans BC, constitue le témoignage le plus ancien d'une embarcation en Afrique et l'un des plus ancien dans le monde. Ce moyen de transport indique la mobilité des populations de la marge sud du Sahara à l'Holocène inférieur et moyen; ce qui a dû contribuer à l'homogénéité culturelle de cette période. Le site à poterie de Konduga est le plus jeune d'un millénaire que Dufuna, mais appartient à l'époque du Méga-Tchad. Le site est installé sur une ancienne ligne de rivage, la Bama Ridge. Sa poterie, décorée selon la tradition saharienne, appartient à la plus ancienne phase à céramique du Later Stone Age ouest-africain, bien avant le début d'une production alimentaire. Vu que ce site ne devait étre occupé que par des pionniers aventurés dans un paysage largement amphibie à la faveur d'un mince cordon émergé, la colonisation de l'espace antérieurement couvert par le Méga-Tchad, débute le long d'un large front vers 2000 ans BC.Les trouvailles archéologiques et paléoécologiques de deux tertres anthropiques à Gajiganna sont décrites commes études de cas illustrant cette phase, qui précède celle du célèbre site de Daima.

     

Optimizing Productivity Through Privatization and Entrepreneurial Management

Efficiency and economy have become the forces driving both, public and private organizations in the 1990s. Competition and legal mandates constrict managers' abilities to use their traditional options in delivering goods and services to their citizens and customers. Privatization and entrepreneurial management are being utilized increasingly to improve productivity. This is creating a genuine transformation in the way we manage our organizations, it also changes the nature of the relationship between our organizations and their citizens, clients, and customers.
In this article we explore this unfolding transformation and analyze its significance. An entrepreneurial management productivity optimization model is also developed. Productivity is explored in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. The mechanisms for improving productivity, privatization, and entrepreneurial management are then examined. After noting the changing rotes that public policy and competition now play, the more prominent managerial models are explored, including reinventing and reengineering.
The article then presents examples of federal, state, and local entrepreneurial strategies and innovations. It concludes by alerting us to endangered public policy priorities and sets forth significant public management caveats to which we increasingly should become sensitive. The entrepreneurial management productivity optimization model has been developed to assist in clarifying and analyzing the issues involved in this article. It should also help those working in this arena to formulate optimal choices when building entrepreneurial management models for their own organizations or for those of their citizens, clients, or customers.     

Land Reforms at Centre Stage: The Evidence on West Bengal

The debate on the agrarian problem in developing countries has alternated between a stress on the necessity for land reforms and an emphasis on the introduction of productivity-enhancing technology, leading to a trickle-down effect. In the Indian state of West Bengal, the former strategy has been pursued since the mid-1970s. Most observers agree that this approach has stimulated a ‘virtuous circle’, leading to higher production, a decrease in poverty and in polarization, and a perceptible improvement of the human development index. This article addresses the causality sequence, namely, whether land reform or irrigation has acted as the kick-start mechanism to these improvements. The irrigation figures are not impressive, either in comparison with the outlay in other Indian states, or in terms of crop coverage. The explanation for activation of a virtuous circle may therefore be found in land reform, at least if land reform is considered and implemented in its comprehensive meaning: intervention in the relations of production, the forces of production and the broad social and political parameters.