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Geographically and strategically, Southeast Asia represents the natural extension of China's interests in the region. In the course of discussing China's role in four regional organizations, ASEAN, ARF, ASEAN+3, and EAS, its interactions with the United States, Japan, and India will be reviewed as well. The goal of this paper is to consider whether or not China has maintained and is maintaining a dominant position within these fora. (China Perspect/GIGA)

Casas Grandes and Its Hinterland: Regional Organization in Northwest Mexico. Michael E. Whalen and Paul E. Minnis. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001. 250 pp.

The six major regional organizations (ROs) covered in this special issue all originated prior to the rise of liberal internationalism, and were repurposed by it. After 1989 they converged towards a common discourse on democratic conditionality, and developed a capacity to discipline and sanction non-compliance, preferring persuasion and appeals to regional norms rather than coercion. This concluding overview highlights the relevance of such metaphors as ecosystem, family resemblance, and peer review; and directs attention to the temporal and spatial scope conditions of the cases considered; and to the bargaining involved. As the ecosystem of liberal internationalism and regional democratic solidarity has faded, 'pushbacks' have appeared from regimes 'targeted' for sanctions and/or 'shaming.' Since states must coexist in permanent interaction with their neighbors, and because the democratic 'like-mindedness' of regions fluctuates, such RO stigmatization cannot be a one-shot game. Rather, it will be interactive, and contextually negotiated over time.

Since the end of the Cold War, international organizations and states have developed programs to promote (good) governance at the country level. Regional organizations have gained an important role in governance transfer because they constitute an intermediary level of agency between the nation-state and global institutions. This paper maps the governance transfer of nine regional organizations in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. We analyze the objectives, approaches, and instruments used to promote the creation and transformation of governance institutions in target countries. This comparison shows that similar standards and instruments have been adopted throughout the areas of study, in line with the notion of a global governance script. At the same time, we find important differences with regard to when and how the regional organizations prescribe and promote "good" governance institutions at the national level. Research on diffusion and comparative regionalism is ill- equipped to account for this double finding of increasing similarities and persisting differences. The paper calls for a more agency-centered approach that conceptualizes governance transfer as an institutional choice by states. We identify factors that elicit states' demand for governance transfer, on the one hand, and that shape its institutional design, on the other. ; Seit Ende des Kalten Krieges haben Internationale Organisationen und Staaten Programme entwickelt, um "Gutes Regieren" in Mitgliedstaaten und Drittländern zu fördern. Regionalorganisationen sind als Vermittler zwischen nationalen und globalen Institutionen wichtig für solche Governance-Transfers. Dieses Papier erfasst den Governance-Transfer von neun Regionalorganisationen in den Amerikas, Afrika, Asien und im Nahen Osten. Dabei analysieren wir die Ziele, Ansätze und Instrumente für die Schaffung oder Veränderung von Institutionen in Zielländern. Dieser Vergleich zeigt Ähnlichkeiten bei Standards und Instrumenten, was auf die Ausbreitung eines "globalen ...

Government capacity helps explain variance in public sector organizations' performance, and measuring capacity helps identify deficiencies that may be addressed in order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of these organizations. This study examines the capacity of regional economic development districts to leverage federal grant funds in the counties they serve, controlling for additional sources of potential capacity and demand for federal grants. A decade of data reflecting federal grant funding to counties in one state was compiled from the Federal Awards Data System and analyzed using pooled cross‐sectional time‐series analysis with panel‐corrected standard errors. The results indicate that regional economic development districts demonstrate varied but significant capacity to leverage federal grant funds in the counties they serve. The results suggest that similarity in the purpose and structure of regional economic development districts within a state are not enough; we need to better understand the resources within the organization and the mission that determines how those resources are applied.

Co-operative movements, collectives and alternative institutions existing within a larger environment of opposing values have limited success in maintaining egalitarian and co-operative practices. When these collectives attempt to form centralized organizations they confront patterns of bureaucratization and stratification common to the institutions of the dominant society. Theoretical issues of the inevitability of increasing organizational hierarchy, standardization and routinization are addressed in the study of three kibbutz regional institutions. Based on fieldwork conducted in the 1970s, the study indicates that regional advances have caused conflicts for kibbutz social structure. The co-operative system will never transform capitalist society. To convert social production into one large and harmonious system of free and co-operative labour, general social changes are wanted, changes of the general condition of society... K. Marx, Capital, Vol. 1

The history of Canadian interaction with American states both unilaterally and through the Pan-American Union and Organization of American States is reviewed. The author argues that Canada has historically and continuously supported the OAS, and its member states, at a distance. Canada demonstrates a dichotomy of involvement; in few areas, Canada is deeply involved, and in many other areas, Canada is not at all involved. Canada's pattern of involvement appears to suggest a focus on non-reciprocal regional development as opposed to reciprocating involvement. This is dispite several calls from different levels of government that a broader, more involved level of involement would serve the OAS and its member states better.

GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS ARE UNDER PRESSURE TO INCREASE EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS AND TO REDUCE STAFF NUMBERS. THE RAYNER SCRUTINY PROGRAMME IS PART OF THIS PRESSURE; AND IT HAS ENCOURAGED GREATER USE OF INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATORS AND CHANGE CATALYSTS WITHIN DEPARTMENTS. THIS BREED OF INTERNAL CRITICS OFTEN OPERATE WITHIN, BUT AT THE LIMITS OF, OFFICIAL TOLERANCE, LIKE BUREAUCRATIC PHILIP MARLOWES WHOSE SOLUTIONS MAY BE ACCEPTED, BUT RARELY WITH GRATITUDE. DESPITE THESE DEVELOPMENTS EXTERNAL CRITICS HAVE CONTINUED TO DOUBT THE CAPACITY FOR SELF-CRITICISM AND INNOVATION WITHIN GOVERNMENT. THE POPULAR TELEVISION PROGRAMME 'YES MINISTER' HAS ENCOURAGED SUCH A VIEW. THIS ARTICLE DESCRIBES ONE DEPARTMENT'S ATTEMPT AT USING INTERNAL CHANGE AGENTS TO REVIEW THE HANDLING OF BUSINESS AND TO IMPLEMENT MAJOR CHANGES IN AN ORGANIZATION EMPLOYING OVER 60,000 PEOPLE. THE EXERCISE SUGGESTS THAT BUREAUCRATIC INERTIA CAN BE OVERCOME INTERNALLY, ALTHOUGH THE CHANGE PROCESS IS DIFFICULT AND SOMETIMES PAINFUL FOR THOSE INVOLVED.

Government departments are under pressure to increase efficiency and effectiveness and to reduce staff numbers. The Rayner scrutiny programme is part of this pressure; and it has encouraged greater use of independent investigators and change catalysts within departments. This breed of internal critics often operate within, but at the limits of, official tolerance, like bureaucratic Philip Marlowes whose solutions may be accepted, but rarely with gratitude. Despite these developments external critics have continued to doubt the capacity for self‐criticism and innovation within government. The popular television programme'Yes Minister' has encouraged such a view. This article describes one department's attempt at using internal change agents to review the handling of business and to implement major changes in an organization employing over 60,000 people. The exercise suggests that bureaucratic inertia can be overcome internally, although the change process is difficult and sometimes painful for those involved.