Book reviews

Innovation, Networks and Learning Regions?. J. Simmie (Ed.). Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London, 1996, 200 pp., £16.95, ISBN 1 85302402 3 (pb).

The Urban Order: An Introduction to Cities, Culture, and Power. John Rennie Short. Oxford and Massachusetts, Blackwell Publishers, 1996, 506 pp. £14.99 (pb), ISBN 1 55786 360 1 (hb), ISBN 1 55786 361 X (pb).

Multinationals and European Integration; Trade, Investment and Regional Development. Regional Policy and Development Series 14. Nicholas A. Phelps. London, Regional Studies Association/Jessica Kingsley, 1997, 200 pp., £18.95 pb, ISBN 1 85302 353 1.     

Estimation Bias in Spatial Models with Strongly Connected Weight Matrices

This article shows that, for both spatial lag and spatial error models with strongly connected weight matrices, maximum likelihood estimates of the spatial dependence parameter are necessarily biased downward . In addition, this bias is shown to be present in general Moran tests of spatial dependency. Thus, positive dependencies may often fail to be detected when weight matrices are strongly connected. The analysis begins with a detailed examination of downward bias for the extreme case of maximally connected weight matrices. Results for this case are then extended by continuity to a broader range of (appropriately defined) strongly connected matrices. Finally, a simulated numerical example is presented to illustrate some of the practical consequences of these biases.     

Agents of casualization? The temporary staffing industry and labour market restructuring in Australia

This article presents a study of the Australian temporary staffingindustry. It explores how temporary staffing markets are manufacturedthrough the interactions between industrial relations and regulatorysystems, on the one hand, and the structures and strategiesof domestic and transnational temporary staffing agencies onthe other. The article draws on secondary datasets and semi-structuredinterviews with government departments, labour unions, staffingagencies and their trade bodies to analyse the size, structureand characteristics of the Australian temporary staffing market.It argues that the Australian market differs in important waysfrom those other ‘neoliberal’ labour market regimes—suchas those in Canada, UK and USA—with which it is oftencompared. The article argues for an approach that seeks to explorethe (often gradual) mutual transformation of temporary staffingorganizations and the institutional and regulatory systems inwhich they are embedded, rather than privileging one at theexpense of the other.     

Avoiding Disaster: Diversification and Risk Management among East African Herders

This article addresses processes of livelihood diversification among pastoralists in the rangelands of northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia. The objectives of the article are threefold: (1) to suggest a theoretical framework for addressing income diversification among pastoralists with reference to current literature and databases; (2) to present a case study on pastoral income diversification based on preliminary field research in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia; and (3) to summarize current understandings of pastoral diversification while pointing to additional empirical research needs. By showing how comparative analyses in the region have been constrained by theoretical and data deficiencies, the article explores ways in which income diversification differs by what are termed conditional, opportunity, and local response variables. Climate, distance to market towns, gender, wealth, and education are attributes covered by these variables and discussed in the article. The conceptualization and case study provide useful bases for conducting comparative research on pastoral diversification in East Africa specifically, and in sub‐Saharan Africa generally.     

Globalization and the politics of local and regional development: the question of convergenc

Globalization, and the increased exposure to international competition that it has supposedly induced, has led to expectations of institutional convergence in, among other things, local and regional development policy and the politics surrounding it. There have been changes in the United Kingdom, but not of the decentralizing, neo-liberalizing form anticipated. A comparison of the British with the very different, highly decentralized, American case seeks to shed light on this. Emphasis is placed on both the strongly embedded nature of institutions and on misunderstandings about the strength of the forces of globalization.     

The open method of coordination and policy mainstreaming: the European employment strategy and regional conversion programmes in the UK

This article is a critical exploration of the issues raised by the attempt to integrate aims and concerns derived from one European Union (EU) policy domain into another. It does this via an examination of the ways in which the European Employment Strategy (EES) has been taken into account in the design and initial implementation of Structural Fund programmes in the 2000–2006 round. In particular, it examines the nature of this ‘mainstreaming’ relationship in terms of the structures and mechanisms associated with current Objective 1 programmes operating in the UK. It maps out the vertical and horizontal linkages between European, national and regional levels, and assesses the extent to which strategic frameworks, programme guidance and programme content have successfully integrated EES considerations. The article concludes by identifying some implications for theories of European governance.     

The Problem of the Epoch? Labour and Housing, 1918-51

As one of the salient political issues in twentieth-centuryBritain, housing helped define the differences between the mainpolitical parties but also gave rise to tensions and conflictingapproaches within them. This article traces some of these tensionsand anomalies as they manifested themselves in Labour's housingpolicies between the first and second world wars. While withinthe Labour movement there was a common acceptance of the needfor expanded public housing provision, the ways in which thisneed was to be met were the subject of considerable dissension.In the early inter-war period, Labour's housing policies werestrongly influenced by the building unions' notions of industrialself-government, ranging from guild socialism and the BuildingGuild to the corporatist inflexions of the Wheatley HousingAct of 1924. In the short term, there was little evidence ofthe marriage of industrial innovation, modernist aesthetics,and socialist politics that characterized responses to the housingproblem in other parts of Europe. However, by the time of theSecond World War the ascendancy of a professional modernizingdiscourse within the Labour Party, along with the emergenceof a younger generation of left-wing architects and planners,led to the marginalization of the building unions within Labour'spolicy-making apparatus. Increasingly restive at the developmentof Labour’s housing policy, union leaders continued toarticulate notions of economic citizenship rooted in guild socialism.These were largely disregarded, and have remained so in theliteratures both on housing policy and the Labour Party itself. ^* Kevin.morgan{at}manchester.ac.uk. Interviews cited in this articlewere recorded as part of a research project funded by the ESRC,award no R000237924.