Rumour and politics

This article contends that rumour—the circulation of unverified information —is an important form of political communication which deserves more attention from political scientists. To illustrate this claim a study is made of the part played by rumour in the ‘destabilisation’ of Malcolm Fraser's position as leader of the Liberal Party in August to October 1981. Health is a natural subject of rumour, and rumours about Mr. Fraser's health were used as the basis for speculation about a possible leadership challenge by Mr. Andrew Peacock. The collective character of parliamentary party politics, the artificial nature of media ‘facts’ and the predominance of certain types of news value in the media all encourage such rumours to flourish. The rumours had the effect of destabilising Mr. Fraser's position by creating and then enlarging a climate of uncertainty and anxiety within the Liberal Party and the electorate. Mr. Peacock was thereby enabled to test the strength of his potential support without being obliged to risk an open challenge. The author concludes that the most apt model of rumour to this case is that of ‘milling’, on the analogy of a ‘milling crowd’.     

Book reviews

CHINA

YI‐TSI MEI FEUERWERKER. Ideology, Power, Text: self‐Representation and the Peasant ‘Other’ in Modern Chinese Literature. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998. 321 pp. $A90.00, hardcover.

PO‐CHING YIP and DON RIMMINGTON. Basic Chinese: a Grammar and Workbook. London: Routledge, 1998. vii, 221 pp. £12.99, paper.

MARY ANN FARQUHAR. Children's Literature in China: from Lu Xun to Mao Zedong. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1999. $US62.50, hardcover.

RAY HUANG. Broadening the Horizons of Chinese History. Discourses, Syntheses, and Comparisons. Armonk, NY; London, England: M. E. Sharpe, 1999. viii, 274 pp. Tables, graphs, notes, index. US$56.95, hardcover; US$22.95, paper.

GLORIA HEYUNG CHUN. Of Orphans and Warriors: inventing Chinese American Culture & Identity. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000. 198 pp. Introduction, notes, bibliography, index. US$59.00, hardcover; US$19.00, paper.

JAPAN, KOREA

PURNENDRA JAIN (ed). Australasian Studies of Japan: essays and Annotated Bibliography (1989–1996). Rockhampton, Queensland: Central Queensland University Press, 1998. 341 pp. Introduction, essays, annotated bibliography, index. $A34.95, paper.

SOUTH, WEST & CENTRAL ASIA

S. R. N. MURTHY. Vedic View of the Earth — aGeological Insight into the Vedas. Reconstructing Indian History and Culture, no. 14. New Delhi: D. K. Printworld, 1997. xxvi, 306 pp. Preface, figures, glossary, bibliography, index. Rs 400, hardcover.

SUBRATA K. MITRA and V. B. SINGH (eds). Democracy and Social Change in India: a Cross‐Sectional Analysis of the National Electorate. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1999. 339 pp. Introduction, tables, figures, appendices, bibliography, index. Rs 425, hardcover.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

ALBERT LAU. A Moment of Anguish: Singapore in Malaysia and the Politics of Disengagement. Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1998. viii, 312 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. US$39.00, hardcover; US$25.00, paper (outside ASEAN and Hong Kong).

MICHAEL D. BARR. Lee Kuan Yew: the Beliefs Behind the Man. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press. Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Monograph Series no. 85, 2000. £40.00, hardcover.

GENERAL ASIA

HUNG‐MAO TIEN and TUN‐JEN CHENG (eds). The Security Environment in the Asia‐Pacific. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000. 368 pp. Tables, index. A$24.95, paper.     

Determinants of the Uneven Regional Participation of Firms in European Technology Programmes. The 'Low R&D Trap'

Technology is of key importance to the growth of regional firms and economies. Research has shown the association between low technology development or take-up and regional disparities. Hence technology policy is moving closer to the heart of regional policies. European innovation programmes are intended to involve firms, large and small, in international technology research and development networks. The paper focuses on the involvement of Spanish firms in such programmes. Participation tends to be low if business R&D, presence of large firms, and the development of regional innovation systems are also low. Creation of R&D infrastructure through the Structural Funds has now to be prioritized at EU level and also define a new scheme of sectoral priorities in order to support R&D innovation activities in fields diverse from high-tech, if regions are to escape the 'low R&D trap'.     

Origins of formation waters in the Llanos foreland basin of Colombia: geochemical variation and fluid flow history

Wells located in the Colombian Andean foreland often produce biodegraded hydrocarbons and relatively fresh water (total dissolved solids concentrations of 2000 mg l^?1 dominate across most of the basin). The ratio of water to hydrocarbon in the produced fluids is high and has often been interpreted by explorationists and simulation engineers as being due to massive meteoric water invasion. To challenge this hypothesis, previously published and existing data are compiled here, along with 68 new water samples collected from both the surface (rivers) and subsurface (production wells), which are analyzed for major elements, salinity, and stable isotope compositions. The data indicate a mixed origin for the water, which involves formation water, meteoric water, and a third source that we interpret as being related to diagenetic processes (such as clay dehydration). Analyses of the variation of the parameters from north to south and west to east allow us to define the mixtures as coming from waters of different origins and make it possible to determine the relative contribution of each source.     

Dissecting Policy Designs: An Application of the Institutional Grammar Tool

An enduring challenge for the policy and political sciences is valid and reliable depiction of policy designs. One emerging approach for dissecting policy designs is the application of Sue Crawford and Elinor Ostrom's institutional grammar tool. The grammar tool offers a method to identify, systematically, the core elements that comprise policies, including target audiences, expected patterns of behavior, and formal modes of sanctioning for noncompliance. This article provides three contributions to the study of policy designs by developing and applying the institutional grammar tool. First, we provide revised guidelines for applying the institutional grammar tool to the study of policy design. Second, an additional component to the grammar, called the oBject, is introduced. Third, we apply the modified grammar tool to four policies that shape Colorado State Aquaculture to demonstrate its effectiveness and utility in illuminating institutional linkages across levels of analysis. The conclusion summarizes the contributions of the article as well as points to future research and applications of the institutional grammar tool.     

Appropriate remedial action? medical students, medical schools, and smoking and health education in New York and the United States, 1964-87

The Surgeon General's 1964 report on smoking and health, which declared that cigarette smoking was a cause of lung cancer, is considered a landmark in the history of medicine and public health. This article examines the impact of the report on medical student education by reviewing how the relationship between smoking and lung cancer was presented in medical school textbooks and syllabi between 1964 and 1987, changes in hospital smoking regulations and doctors' attitudes toward smoking following the publication of the report, and medical students' smoking patterns and attitudes toward cigarette smoking in the years after 1964. Although it provided some advanced students with additional insight into mechanisms of pathogenesis related to smoking, the education that many medical students received seems to have been neither a primary influence on their smoking patterns nor an important source of their scientific understanding of the causal link between smoking and lung cancer for at least a decade following the publication of the Surgeon General's report.