Trans‐border European networking: Shifts in corporate strategy?

The disappearance of man‐made borders and the need for increased international cooperation seem to prelude a removal of unnecessary obstacles between actors in different countries. This article is concerned with the relationship between political borders, economic development of border regions and networking of companies located there. It presents a ‘state of the art’ of research on border region development and trans‐border networking by companies. Based upon this research, the article concludes with a discussion on conditions that influence the emergence of new corporate networking in border regions, including effective policy action.     

The Social Regulation of Markets: Why Microcredit Fails to Promote Jobs in Rural South India

There is growing evidence that microcredit does little to support self‐employment. Two main explanations are typically emphasized: from a microeconomic perspective, the poor have been argued to lack the skills, resources and motivation to start their own businesses; from a macroeconomic perspective, local markets are often saturated. This article uses first‐hand data from rural South India to explore a third explanation which focuses on the social regulation of markets. Drawing on a household survey, the authors show that self‐employment and microcredit are uncorrelated, and that women and lower castes have a significantly lower chance of starting up a business. The businesses they do start tend to be smaller, less profitable and based in very specific sectors. Qualitative insights into the workings of local economies show that caste and gender‐based social regulations influence local markets determining who can produce or sell what, to whom, and at what price. The authors observe that real markets are affected by power relations and structured through social institutions rather than being the sum of interactions between free and competitive individuals. These findings show the importance of integrating self‐employment programmes into broader policies for transforming the social regulation of markets and for eradicating discrimination against women and lower castes.     

Determining the Provenance of Cayo Pottery from Grenada,Lesser Antilles,Using Portable X‐Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry

Portable XRF was used to analyse the chemical composition of 52 indigenous Cayo ceramics from excavations and from private collections on Grenada, Lesser Antilles. Initially, a comparative baseline of data representing three different islands (Grenada, St Vincent and Trinidad) was created by analysing with pXRF ceramic material that had previously been analysed both chemically and petrographically. The field data, when compared to the laboratory baseline data, indicated that the majority of the ceramics were made with clay local to Grenada. Four samples were potentially made with clay from another, as yet unidentified, source.     

Diffuse Authority in the Beedi Commodity Chain: Naxalite and State Governance in Tribal Telangana,India

Although the Naxalite (Maoist) influence in India stretches from the north of Bihar to the south of Andhra Pradesh, their impact on the political economy of the Indian countryside — and specifically the tribal livelihood economy — remains understudied. This article examines how resource access is mediated in areas where both the state and the Naxalites hold some degree of public authority, using as a case study the trade in tendu leaves, used to make beedi cigarettes. This low‐profile, lootable resource provides the single most important source of income both for the tribals in North Telangana (during the summer season), and for the Maoists. The article presents a commodity chain framework, adapted to the concerns of multiple public authorities, to throw light on the linkages both between tribal procurement and Naxalite taxation and between government and Naxalite authority. The author argues that in a situation of long‐term conflict, relatively stable joint extraction regimes can be organized, by which all parties can benefit from multiple authority over certain resources.     

Reviews

The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906–1911: Grassroots Democracy, Social Democracy, and the Origins of Feminism , Janet Afary, New York: Columbia University Press, 1996, xxi + 448 pp., Bibliography, Index.

Surveyors of Persian Art: A Documentary Biography of Arthur Upham Pope & Phyllis Ackerman , Jay Gluck and Noel Siver, eds., Ashiya, Japan: SoPA and Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda, 1996, xxii + 658 pp., illustrations, Bibliography, Index.

Syria and Iran: Rivalry and Cooperation , Hussein J. Agha and Ahmad S. Khalidi, London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1995, xii + 126 pp.

Iran and the Muslim World: Resistance and Revolution , Nikki R. Keddie, New York: New York University Press, 1995, ix + 303 pp.

Études safavides , Jean Calmard, ed., Bibliothèque Iranienne 39, Paris and Téhéran: Institut Français de Recherche en Iran, 1993, xiv + 389 pp., 58 plates.

Women and Fundamentalism: Islam and Christianity , Shahin Gerami, Women's History and Culture, Vol. 9, New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1996, xiii + 178 pp.

The Persian Revolution , Edward G. Browne, Abbas Amanat, ed., New Edition, Washington: Mage Publishers, 1995, Ixiv + 470 pp., Introduction, correspondence, reviews.

Iran After the Revolution: Crisis of an Islamic State, Saeed Rahnema and Sohrab Behdad, eds., London and New York: I.B. Taurus, 1995, xii + 292 pp., Index.

Mediaeval Isma^cili History and Thought ,Farhad Daftary, ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, xviii + 331 pp.

A Journey to Persia: Jean Chardin's Portrait of a Seventeenth‐Century Empire , R.W. Ferrier, ed., London and New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996, 256 pp., illustrations.

George Ball: Behind the Scenes in U.S. Foreign Policy ,James A. Bill, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.

Shi^ca Islam: From Religion to Revolution , Heinz Halm, translated by Allison Brown, Princeton, New Jersey: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1997, 176 pp.

Iran and the Former Soviet South , Edmund Herzig, London: Royal Institute for Foreign Affairs, 1995.

Torture and Modernity: Self, Society and State in Modern Iran , Darius M. Rejali, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1994, xviii + 289 pp.     

Long-term clay raw material selection and use in the region of Classical/Hellenistic to Early Byzantine Sagalassos (SW Turkey)

A provenance study was carried out on coarse ceramics from the Classical/Hellenistic to Mid-Byzantine city of Sagalassos, SW Turkey. The ceramics were sampled from the excavations of the city, and clay raw materials were sampled throughout its ancient territory. Used techniques were optical microscopy and electron microprobe analysis on thin sections, geochemical analysis (fusion ICP/MS and mineralogical analysis (X-ray diffraction). The geochemical/mineralogical diversity in the ceramics is not as wide as for the clay raw materials. It seems that even at the restricted scale of this study, the resources were limited to the area around the ancient site. The differences between the ceramics are likely due to the use of different ophiolitic clay bodies being exploited for their production.