Hispania and the Atlantic Route in Roman Times: new Approaches to Ports and Trade

This paper explores the role of Hispania in the Atlantic route in Roman times. We analyse the different Atlantic Iberian territories along this route, based on recent archaeological advances and discoveries related to trade as well as the shipping infrastructure. The aim is to explain the origin and evolution of a new maritime area that was completely integrated with the political and commercial structure of the Empire, with trade routes that followed the coastal areas of the Iberian Peninsula all the way to the Mediterranean.     

Reviews

DYNAMICS OF WORLD POLITICS: STUDIES IN THE RESOLUTION OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT. Linda B. Miller (ed.). Prentice‐Hall, 1968. Pp. viii + 294. $5.40.

THE UNITED NATIONS AND UNITED STATES SECURITY POLICY. Ruth B. Russell. The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 1968. Pp. ix + 510. $10.00 (U.S.).

THE POLITICS OF PEACE‐KEEPING. Alan James. Studies in International Security: 12. Chatto & Windus, London, for The Institute for Strategic Studies, 1969. Pp. 452. £.3.3.0.

INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION CENTER ON PEACE‐KEEPING OPERATIONS MONOGRAPHS NOS. 6–8. Paris, 1968. $1.00 each.

No. 6 CHARACTERISTICS AND SOME ASPECTS OF LAUNCHING U.N. PEACE‐KEEPING FORCES. Lieut.‐General P. S. Gyani. Pp. 13.

No. 7 PEACE‐KEEPING AND SELF‐DEFENCE. Dr Kjell Goldmann. Pp. 60.

No. 8 THE AUTHORIZATION OF PEACE‐KEEPING OPERATIONS IN TERMS OF THE NATURE OF THE CONFLICT. Albert Legault. Pp. 62

CANADA AND THREE CRISES. Robert W. Reford. Toronto, Canadian Institute of International Affairs, 1968. Pp. xii + 246. $5.00 (Canadian).

SYSTEMS, STATES, DIPLOMACY AND RULES. J. W. Burton. Cambridge University Press, 1968. Pp. xii + 251. $7 (U.S.).

GERMAN FOREIGN POLICY IN TRANSITION. BONN BETWEEN EAST AND WEST. Karl Kaiser. Issued under the joint auspices of the Harvard University Center for International Affairs, the Twentieth Century Fund's ‘Tocqueville Series’ and the Royal Institute of International Affairs. London, Oxford University Press, Oxford Paperbacks No. 159, 1968. Pp. x + 153. $2.00.

PEOPLE'S WAR. THE CONDITIONS AND THE CONSEQUENCES IN CHINA AND IN SOUTH‐EAST ASIA. J. L. S. Girling. London, Allen and Unwin, 1969. Pp. 244. $6.65.

ASIAN CONTRACT LAW. David Allan (General Editor). Melbourne University Press, 1969. Pp. xiii + 237. $9.60.

MODERN FEDERALISM. G. F. Sawer. The New Thinker's Library, No. 29. London, C. A. Watts & Co., 1969. Pp. 204. 15/‐ (U.K.).     

Characterization of Glass,Shell, and Fishbone Beads on Ibo Island (Northern Mozambique) in the Context of the Indian Ocean Trade

African Archaeological Review - A set of beads made of glass, gastropod mollusk shell, and fishbone from a Swahili occupation level on Ibo Island (northern Mozambique) is dated to the eleventh and...     

1989: THE CHRONOPOLITICS OF REVOLUTION

A failed effort at “reform from above” or a dramatic reassertion of “people power”? Almost thirty-five years on, studies of the Revolutions of 1989 continue to be framed by these two polarities. However, this historiographical focus has meant that scholars have often overlooked the actual content and character of protest itself. This article argues that one way of reinjecting agency and ideas back into our historical understanding of 1989 is through examining the chronopolitics of revolution: that is to say, by addressing how the control and interpretation of time became a political battlefield, a site of contention and negotiation, between Communist regimes, on the one hand, and political activists and society, on the other. Investigating events in the German Democratic Republic and Czechoslovakia, the article contains two central claims: first, that an interrogation of the concept of “chronopolitics” can provide a new angle by which to grasp the revolutionary character of “1989” and the democratic transformations that resulted and, second, by way of inversion, that a study of the temporal experiences across 1989 and the early 1990s can in turn shed light on the analytical value of “chronopolitics” more generally.     

Evidence on economies of scale in local public service provision: A meta-analysis

The standard theory of optimal jurisdictional size hinges on the existence of economies of scale in the provision of local public goods and services. However, despite its relevance for forced local amalgamation programs and related policies, the empirical evidence on the existence of such economies of scale remains elusive. The main goal of this paper is to produce an updated and comprehensive quantitative review of the existence of economies of scale in the provision of local public goods using a meta-analysis approach to systematize the wide range of empirical approaches and modeling frameworks found in the previous literature. Our analysis confirms the presence of moderately increasing to constant returns to scale in the provision of local services with no reduction in the average costs of production in the delivery of most local public services beyond a certain, modest jurisdictional size, which many studies have estimated at 10,000 residents. Also, the potential for economies of scale differs at least across three traditional services: education, water and sanitation, and garbage collection, being highest for education and lowest for garbage collection. Our analysis also offers guidelines for future empirical research in this area. Physical output and production cost data should be used, together with translog specifications for the modeling of cost functions. Last, we find evidence that the determinants of output cost elasticity include bidirectional publication bias and population density but do not include the presence or absence of modern “lean” production technologies or the (perceived) capital intensity of the sector, contrary to conventional wisdom. These findings have significant policy implications for countries considering jurisdictional consolidation programs.