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For the vast majority of people around the world, Central America is a small group of countries bridging the gap between the Mayan ruins of Guatemala and the Panama Canal. The names of those countries are only recognized when the major contending ideologies of capitalism and communism clash in one of them, or when an international figure of ill or good repute establishes some sort of link with them. A football game that leads to war also catches the eye of the media. An example of the first situation would be the ousting of the communist regime of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala by Honduran troops backed by the United Fruit Company and the CIA in 1954; another would be the rise of the marxist regime in Nicaragua in 1979. The second is evident in the establishment in Costa Rica of the international fugitive Robert Vesco around 1970, as well as in the visit of Pope John Paul II to each of the five nations in 1983. The last refers to the 'soccer war' between El Salvador and Honduras in 1967. In each instance the countries concerned made headlines around the world for a short time and people learned their approximate geographical location even if in a passing fashion.

Far and away the most powerful force in the political life of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is the Popular Democratic party (Partido Popular Democrático, or PPD). Since 1945 elected representatives of the party have held the office of Resident Commissioner in Washington and more than two-thirds of the seats in both houses of the insular legislature. Since the election of 1948 the president of the party, Luis Muñoz Marín, has been Governor of the island. Inasmuch as there are no other elective officials in the executive branch, gubernatorial appointees loyal to the party and its program fill all the top policy-making and administrative posts. And because the Governor also appoints all judges, the percentage of Populares on the Commonwealth bench is understandably high.The party's control over the insular government is a direct result of its extraordinary showing at the polls. Its island-wide candidates have never received less than 60 per cent of the total vote in any election save that of 1940, the first in which a Popular Democratic ticket was on the ballot. In the most recent election, that of November 4, 1952, the Popular candidate for Governor received a record 65 per cent of the votes cast.

Taking Our Own Road: Building the People's Health in Socialist China / Liping Bu -- Public Health as an Ideology for Socialistic Transformation of the Environment in North Korea, 1945-1961: The Case of Paragonimiasis Eradication / Junho Jung -- Towards Economic Growth: The Development of Public Health Activities in South Korea from 1961-1988 / Park Yunjae -- Health Insurance Policy and Its Stakeholders in Japan during the Cold War: Toward the Introduction of Universal Health Care / Takakazu Yamagishi -- Foreign Aid, Virus Research and Preventive Medicine in India during the Cold War: 1950-1962 / Shirish N Kavadi -- Indonesian Health Policy Between the Old and the New Orders, 1949-1998 / Vivek Neelakantan

This essay is a reflective overview of Aboriginal and Islander sport, locating their sporting achievements across the decades and in the contexts of several policy eras: the genocidal period, the protectionsegregation regime, the assimilation and integration ages, the present era of 'autonomy'. The essay focuses on the obstacles in the way of sporting success to the point where these minorities have not only become predominant in the 'stadium sports' but have come into their own in sports either previously closed to them or not readily accessible. While sport has done much for individuals, sport as such has had little impact on many communities now in states of distress.

This essay is a reflective overview of Aboriginal and Islander sport, locating their sporting achievements across the decades and in the contexts of several policy eras: the genocidal period, the protectionsegregation regime, the assimilation and integration ages, the present era of 'autonomy'. The essay focuses on the obstacles in the way of sporting success to the point where these minorities have not only become predominant in the 'stadium sports' but have come into their own in sports either previously closed to them or not readily accessible. While sport has done much for individuals, sport as such has had little impact on many communities now in states of distress.

In a much-cited paper Fernandez and Rogerson (1995) suggest that public spending on higher education is politically sustained by middle- and high income groups voting for a policy which is positive but not generous enough to allow lower income families to overcome the financial constraints that prevent their participation. Using a quantitative model, calibrated to the UK economy, we find that current public spending on post compulsory education corresponds to a political equilibrium. Support for the equilibrium policy comes primarily from low- and middle income groups, indicating that the policy needn't be highly regressive. Credit constraints play a minor role. [Copyright Elsevier B.V.]

First published in 1984, this book considers, from the vantage point of the authors considerable experience of a wide range of evaluation, the ways in which they, and others, have coped with ethical and political problems that inherently arise during the evaluation process, particularly that of the responsive or democratic type.

This article theorizes about the implications for domestic climate politics of three distinct roles countries play in the global carbon supply chain: fossil fuel producer, manufacturer of carbon-intensive goods, and final consumer. Because international responsibility is assigned to territorial emissions, countries at either end of the global supply chain effectively evade environmental responsibility by shifting fossil fuel combustion to manufacturing countries. In so doing, they lessen the political challenges of reducing domestic emissions. Although exporters of carbon-intensive goods are reluctant to disadvantage local producers, importers can craft policies that both reduce territorial emissions and create local jobs. Ironically, fossil fuel exporters can emerge as leaders in reducing their own territorial emissions, a finding illustrated by case studies of British Columbia and Norway. The conclusion argues that shifting responsibility for carbon emissions to the point of either final consumption or fossil fuel extraction could facilitate an international climate agreement.

In multiracial and multicultural societies, the author argues, the practice of political solidarity has been indelibly shaped by the social fact of race. The starting point should thus be the existence of racialized solidarity itself - how can we create political solidarity when racial and cultural diversity are more or less permanent?

In multiracial and multicultural societies, the author argues, the practice of political solidarity has been indelibly shaped by the social fact of race. The starting point should thus be the existence of racialized solidarity itself - how can we create political solidarity when racial and cultural diversity are more or less permanent?

Cross-sectional time-series data from fourteen stock markets, from 1973 to 1996, are used to study how political institutions compare in affecting party governments' incentives to enrich one group of industries at the expense of another. Using measures of cross-sectoral variance of price changes within stock markets as a proxy for change in redistributive policy, I show that political change is important in both proportional representation (PR) and majoritarian systems. As parties shift in and out of government, trade and industrial policy is redistributed to favour the parties' industrial supporters. Such changes in policy increase the cross-sectoral dispersion in price changes, with newly advantaged industries seeing their stock increase, while the price of those losing favourable policy declines. The temporal impact of redistribution differs across electoral systems, with the impact of political change being more immediate in majoritarian systems and the effect being more diffuse in PR systems. Majoritarian systems are also more responsive to economic shocks, while changes in economic conditions have few discernable effects on the dispersion of stock prices in PR countries. PR systems, however, experience overall higher levels of dispersion. I contrast these results with the dominant extant arguments of radical policy shifts in majoritarian systems and policy stability in PR systems. (British Journal of Political Science / FUB)

"The mystery of the appearance of a new being, a great mystery and an inexplicable one", as Shatov describes the birth of his wife's son, is one of the great unanswered questions in Dostoevsky's Demons. A baby boy is born to free-spirited former governess Maria Shatova just hours before her husband is killed by a secret clique of would-be revolutionaries. Shatov's murder and Kirillov's suicide precipitate the new mother's fatal illness and, consequently, the infant's death within three days of entering the world. Legally Shatov's son, biologically Stavrogin's, this nameless baby represents one of several apparently unfinished subplots within Demons. Why produce a child with such complicated origins, only to kill him off? Why transform a universal symbol of hope into banal tragedy? My paper examines the metonymy between the child's brief life and the novel's theme of abortive radicalism, both of which are linked by the figure of the nihilist midwife, Arina Prokhorovna Virginskaia.

At their Maastricht summit, heads of state of the European Community (EC) countries agreed to establish a single currency and a common central bank by the end of the century. For students of international political economy, the treaty on monetary union offers intriguing puzzles: Why did EC governments commit themselves to such a far-reaching sacrifice of sovereignty? Why did national political leaders in some cases outrun public opinion in their enthusiasm for monetary integration? This study seeks a political explanation of the choices that produced the late-1980s movement for monetary union in Europe. It examines the conversion to monetary discipline in several EC states during the 1980s, arguing that the shift toward anti-inflationary rigor was a necessary precondition for discussions on monetary union. The article outlines three general options for a European monetary regime, based variously on unilateral commitments, multilateral arrangements, and full integration. Treating national preference formation as endogenous and requiring explanation, the article weighs five propositions that explain the motives and preferences of national leaders.