Democracy,Equity and Common Property Resource Management in the Indian Subcontinent

This article addresses the relationship between democracy, equity and common property resource management in South Asia, both at the national and at the local level. Its substantive focus will be largely on forests, and its geographical concentration mostly on India, although other sectors (primarily water) and areas (Nepal and Bangladesh) will also be included. The article opens by looking at Garrett Hardin's (1968) three strategies to preserve the commons. It finds that democratic politics is compatible with both privatization and centralization as conserving strategies (although not necessarily successful). With the third approach—local control—democracy has at best a problematic relationship, for where governmental units are the relevant actors, there tends to be more interest in consuming than in conserving or preserving resources at the local level. Local user groups, however, do much better at common property resource management, because they can restrict membership and thus avoid free riders, and they can establish a close linkage in their members' minds between benefits and costs of participating in group discipline to maintain the resource.     

Naturwissenschaft und Religion in den Niederlanden um 1600

Dutch science flourished in the late sixteenth and in the seventeenth century thanks to the immigration of cartographers, botanists, mathematicians, astronomers and the like from the Southern Netherlands after the Spanish army had captured the city of Antwerp in 1585, and thanks to the religious and the socio-economic situation of the country. A strong impulse for practical scientific activities started from the Reformation, mainly thanks to its anti-traditional attitude, which had an anti-rationalistic tendency. Therefore, in the Northern Netherlands there was no ‘warfare’ between science and religion and the biblical arguments leading to Galileo's condemnation were not used. Although the growth of the exact sciences and of technology in the late sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries in Protestant cirles may be partly attributed to the expansion of trade, industry, navigation and so on, this does not explain why there was also at the same time a great interest in subjects as botany and zoology, which had no immediate economic utility. There were discussions about Copernicanism and Cartesianism. So a number of astronomers and theologians rejected the earth's movement on scientific and religious grounds, but there were also those who did not reject the Copernican system on biblical grounds. In the seventeenth century there was much discussion between science and religion in the Northern Netherlands, but that discussion was not followed by censure by the Church of the State. In the Republic there was a large amount of intellectual freedom in the study of the natural sciences, thanks to practical and ideological considerations. In the eighteenth century the seventheenth century tension between science and religion changed into a physicotheological natural science. It was believed that investigations into the workings of nature should lead to a better understanding of its Creator. So Bernard Nieuwentijt in his well-known book: The right use of-world views for the conviction of atheists and unbelievers (1715) intended to prove the existence of God on the basis of teleological arguments.     

PONAPE: A PACIFIC ECONOMY IN TRANSITION: A REVIEW ARTICLE

Ponape: A Pacific Economy in Transition. A Review Article. By William R. Bascom. Anthropological Records, Vol. 22. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, U.S.A., 1965. Pp. 156. Price $US; 3.     

Book review

R.K.I. Quested, Sino‐Russian Relations: A Short History. George Allen & Unjvin, Sydney, 1984, pp. 194. $22.95 (cloth), $10.95 (paper).

Jonathan Steele, The Limits of Soviet Power: The Kremlin's Foreign Policy — Brezhnev to Chernenko. Revised and updated edition. Penguin Books Australia, Ringwood, Vic., 1984, pp. xii + 290. $8.95.

Joseph L. Nogee and Robert H. Donaldson, Soviet Foreign Policy Since World War II. Second edition. Pergamon Press, New York, 1984, pp. vii + 352. No price given.

Jiri Hochman, The Soviet Union and the Failure of Collective Security, 1934–1938. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1984, pp. 253. $74.95.

Robert V. Daniels, Russia: The Roots of Confrontation. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1985, pp. xiii + 411. No price given.

Wolf Mendl, Western Europe and Japan Between The Superpowers. Croom Helm, London and Sydney, 1984, pp. 181. $31.95.

G. Flynn and H. Rattinger, The Public and Atlantic Defense. Rowman and Allanheld, and Croom Helm, London, 1985, pp. xviii + 398. No price given.

The United Nations Library and the Graduate Institute of International Studies, The League of Nations in Retrospect. Walter de Gryter, Berlin, 1983, pp. xii + 427. $74.70.

T.B. Millar with Robin Ward (eds), Current International Treaties, Croom Helm, London and Sydney, 1984, pp. 558. $59.95.

Susan Strange (ed.), Paths to International Political Economy. George Allen Unwin, London, 1985, pp.xi + 209. $45.00 (cloth), $17.95 (paper).

Andrew J. Pierre (ed.), Europe‐America: vol 2, Unemployment and Growth in the Western Economies. Council on Foreign Relations, New York, 1984, pp x + 142. $US5.95.

D.K. Forbes and P.J. Rimmer (eds), Uneven Development and the Geographical Transfer of Value. Human Geography Monograph 16, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, 1984, pp. xiii + 297. $12.00.

B.A. Santamaria, Daniel Mannix, The Quality of Leadership. Melbourne University Press, 1984, xi + 272, $27.50.

Stuart Harris (ed.), Australia's Antarctic Policy Options. CRES Mongraph 11. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, 1984, pp.xxi + 412. $15.95.

Ramesh Thakur, In Defence of New Zealand: Foreign Policy Choices in a Nuclear Age. Pamphlet No. 46, New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, Wellington, 1984, pp.164. $NZ9.95.

Paul G. Lewis (ed.), Eastern Europe: Political Crisis and Legitimation. Croom Helm, London and Sydney, 1984, pp. 202. $33.95.

George Sanford, Polish Communism in Crisis. Croom Helm, London and Canberra; St Martin's Press, New York, 1983, pp. 249. $27.50.

Eva Kolinsky, Parties, Opposition and Society in West Germany. Croom Helm, London and Sydney, 1984, pp. 357, $37.95.

Romuld J. Misiunas and Rein Taagepera, The Baltic States: Years of Dependence, 1940–1980. C. Hurst, London, 1983, pp. xvi + 333. $29.95.

Anthony Hyman, Afghanistan Under Soviet Domination, 1964–83. Second Edition. McMillan, London, 1984, pp. 247. $18.95.

David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch. Second edition. Faber and Faber, London and Boston, 1984, pp. 475. $29.95.

Ritchie Ovendale, The Origins of the Arab‐Israeli Wars. Longman, New York, 1984, pp. v + 232. $16.70.

Juliana Peck, The Reagan Administration and the Palestinian Question: The First Thousand Days. Institute for Palestine Studies, Washington, 1984, pp xi + 138. $US7.00.

Institute for Palestine Studies, The Karp Report (an Israeli Government Inquiry into Settler Violence against Palestinians on the West Bank). Institute for Palestine Studies, Washington, 1984, pp. 90. $US3.95.

Mohamed Heikal, Autumn of Fury. Deutsch, London, 1983, pp. 290. $19.95.

Anthony Payne, The International Crisis in the Caribbean. Croom Helm, London and Canberra, 1984, pp. 177. $29.95.

Anthony Payne, Paul Sutton and Tony Thorndike, Grenada: Revolution and Invasion. Croom Helm, London and Sydney, 1984, pp. 233. $35.95.

Ian Hancock, White Liberals, Moderates and Radicals in Rhodesia 1953–1980, Croom Helm, London and Sydney; St Martin's Press, New York 1984, pp. 230. $31.95.

A.J.Christopher, Colonial Africa. Croom Helm, London and Canberra; Barnes & Noble Books, New Jersey, 1984, pp. 232. $39.95.

T.B. Millar. South African Dilemmas. Canberra Studies in World Affairs No. 17. Department of International Relations, Australian National University, Canberra, 1983, pp. 82 $7.00.

J.K. Cilliers, Counter‐Insurgency in Rhodesia. Croom Helm, London, 1985, pp. 266. $33.95.

R.J. May and Francisco Nemenzo (eds), The Philippines After Marcos. Croom Helm, London and Sydney, 1985, pp. 239. $35.95.

F. Poole and M. Vanzi, Revolution in the Philippines: the United States in a Hall of Cracked Mirrors. McGraw‐Hill, New York, 1984, pp. 357. $US18.95.

Community Aid Aboard, The Third World War. The Philippines Front. Community Aid Abroad, Melbourne, 1984, pp. 51, plus Study Guide (pp. 24). $5.00, $2.00.

A.W. McCoy, Priests on Trial, Penguin Books Australia, Ring‐wood, Vic., 1984, pp. xii + 239. $6.95.

David K. Wyatt, Thailand — A Short History. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1984, pp. xviii + 350. $US27.50.

Leslie Russell Oates, Populist Nationalism in Prewar Japan: A Biography of Nakano Seigo. George Allen & Unwin Australia, Sydney, 1985, pp. 135. $14.95.

Robert W. Barnett, Beyond War. Japan's Concept of Comprehensive National Security. Pergamon‐Brassey's International Defence Publishers, Washington, 1984, pp. xv + 155. $21.00 (cloth), $14.00 (paper).

Stephen D. Cohen, Uneady Partnership: Competition and Conflict in U.S.‐Japanese Trade Relations. Ballinger Publishing, Cambridge, Mass., 1985, pp xvi + 228, $67.00.