Understanding the Shortcomings of Commodity‐based Technology in Input–Output Models: an Economic‐Circuit Approach

Abstract.  The Make‐Use Model serves as a basis for most national accounting systems as the System of National Accounts (SNA) and is acknowledged as the most suitable model for interregional analysis. Two hypotheses are traditionally made featuring either industry‐based technologies (IBT) or commodity‐based technologies (CBT). While industry‐based technologies can be easily interpreted in terms of a demand‐driven economic circuit, it will be shown that: (1) commodity‐based technologies cannot be interpreted as a demand‐driven economic circuit because this involves computing the inverse of a matrix (the matrix of industry output proportions), which is either impossible or generates negative terms; (2) the only way to obtain a plausible explanation of CBT is to convert it into a supply‐driven model. This provides a new reason for rejecting CBT: either IBT is adopted but violates Kop Jansen and ten Raa's axioms, or CBT is chosen but must be converted into a poor or unrealistic supply‐driven model.     

Operation Binnacle: British plans for military intervention against a 1965 coup in Kenya

In April 1965, the rumour of a potential Kenyan coup was brought to British attention. This was a moment of raised tensions in the government of President Jomo Kenyatta, who secretly asked the British government for a military commitment to support his government if a coup was attempted by Kenyan Vice President Oginga Odinga. The British military responded by making an extensive military plan to intervene, code-named Operation Binnacle. They sent ships to Mombasa and put troops on alert. This article assesses these plans as a case study of the logic, and limits, of British military interventionism in the years after decolonization. It highlights the importance of studying plans, even when not carried out, and of taking seriously the attitudes and fears of contemporaries. Although a coup was highly unlikely, British reactions are revealing of their concerns about independent Kenya, including possible Soviet involvement. Operation Binnacle was a serious British response to the threat, as they saw it, which a coup would cause to their interests. These were extensive enough that the British government was prepared to intervene militarily, during a brief moment when military interventionism in Africa was still seriously considered as a possible policy choice.