From Slavery to Abolition in Peru: Four Recent Contributions

Agentes de su propia libertad. Los esclavos de Lima y la desintegración de la esclavitud, 1821–1854. By CARLOS AGUIRRE. Lima: Fondo Editorial Universidad Católica, 1993. Pp. 333.

Slavery and Abolition in Early Republican Peru. By PETER BLANCHARD. Delaware: Scholarly Resources, 1992. Pp. xx, 247.

Paying the Price of Freedom: Family and Labor among Lima's Slaves, 1800–1854. By CHRISTINE HÜNEFELDT. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Pp. xi, 269.

Safari africano y compra‐venta de esclavos para el Perú (1412–1818). By FERNANDO ROMERO. Lima: IEP‐UNSCH, 1994. Pp. 275.     

Reducing Toxic Chemical Releases and Transfers: Explaining Outcomes for a Voluntary Program

Relatively little is known about the possibilities and limitations of voluntary public programs. The so-called 33/50 Program for reducing releases of certain toxic chemicals into the environment provides a useful instance for examination. In an investigation of toxics-reduction outcomes, with states as units of analysis, economic and policy variables help to explain the results. In particular, channels and approaches used In communicating policy intentions are related to outcomes. Voluntary programs can make a difference, but the details of execution, including the extent and nature of field efforts, influence outcomes.     

Regional economies,interactive television and interorganizational networks: A case study of an innovation network in Baden‐Württemberg

This paper explores attempts to establish a network of firms and organizations to develop the multimedia industry at a regional level. The paper sets out its review in the context of the regional economy, and then details the nature of the networking process under investigation. An evaluation of networking in this context is provided, based on detailed empirical research. Lessons are drawn from the experiences of seeking economic modernization through organizational networks.     

Bergen and Seattle: A tale of strategic planning in two cities

Strategic planning, as developed in the military and business sectors, offers a procedural model with important differences from the earlier comprehensive approach. Economic and physical development strategies, often called for by national planning legislation in European countries, frequently have little in common with the model proposed by Steiner for private firms, or espoused for the public sector by Bryson and others: there appears to be confusion resulting from use of similar terms. This paper investigates efforts to employ at least the major features of strategic planning in two institutionally and culturally different contexts, nearly half a world apart. In Bergen, Norway, these principles have informed economic development planning and planning for a major district of the city. In the case of Seattle, Washington, USA, the new comprehensive plan is based on framework policies developed during a 2‐year public process, and now that the city‐wide plan is adopted, Seattle is turning to developing neighbourhood plans which will provide more operational detail for guiding public and private investments. Comparison of these two cases both provides contrasts and similarities stemming from the two different contexts, and help to evaluate the transférability of strategic planning from the private to the public sector.     

Using television: Programme content and need gratification

It is shown that audience members actively select amongst available programmes on television. This selection is based upon the social role and situational characteristics of the viewer and it is also directly related to the reasons given by viewers for watching television.

Patterns of programme selection are related to three clusters of needs and reasons. The two most important of these are composed of needs relating to information and diversion. The least important cluster is concerned with the self and social contact.

Escape and diversion needs are satisfied by almost any programme; selection is minimal by those viewers expressing these needs. Information needs are best satisfied by news and other informational programmes, while social and self needs are best satisfied by quiz and variety programmes, popular drama and movies.     

The moral acceptability of nuclear deterrence: A critique

Theorists within the just war tradition of ethics differ in their conclusions about nuclear warfare and nuclear deterrence. This paper examines three arguments for the conditional moral acceptability of nuclear deterrence—those of the U.S. National Conference of Catholic Bishops in their pastoral letter, of J. Bryan Hehir, and of Michael Walzer—and argues that none of the three constitutes intellectually compelling and practically useful moral advice. The bishops fail to convince us that nuclear use can ever fulfil the requirements of proportionality, and therefore that the intention to use nuclear weapons can ever be justified. Hehir fails to convince us that nuclear deterrence policies in fact distinguish categorically between intention and use. Walzer's case that deterrence is bad but necessary is more convincing but it, like Hehir's, does not constitute coherent moral advice for the citizen, soldier or government official. I conclude that, given the inadequacy of attempts to justify nuclear deterrence, even conditionally, we have a strong moral obligation to pursue alternatives.

The level of citizen concern about the dangerous possibility of nuclear war has become greatly heightened in Europe and the United States in the 1980s. This is probably due to at least three factors: the significant technological developments in nuclear weaponry that have occurred during the last decade, the increased fear of Soviet military strength, and the concentration of recent U.S. administrations on developing and improving a nuclear war‐fighting capability. But even before the growth of the peace movement since 1980, a ‘new debate’ about the morality of nuclear weapons and deterrence policy had begun in academic and theological circles. In this paper, I will analyze three arguments of moral philosophers and theologians, all working within the ‘just war’ tradition, about whether nuclear deterrence, in any form, can be morally justified.