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An article on how the Flemish government has used the new legislation to found its own international cultural policy and if its aims were solely cultural, or mixed with political and/or economic gains. Up till now cultural policies have been mainly policies of subvention and not enough autonomous, since political and economical aims were found too important. Regarding autonomy, the results have not been brilliant; international subventions, regulated by external factors, have been mainly of a political and economical nature, which diminishes the structural practices, leaving a tight budget for an autonomous, authentic policy. However, compared with Holland and the Walloon provinces, the results seem better. The functionality in Walloon remains highly influenced by international merchandising goals, and Holland has accepted the existing and hard to avoid co-relation with other domains, but their idea of an autonomous policy seems rather individualistic. As regards the EU: its nature is too economical to make for a successful autonomy. Future aims seem worthwhile however in a cooperation of a Dutch language union, an international cooperation thus, between the Netherlands and Flemish cultural strategies. It is a costly business, but promoting Dutch language contributions to the international scene provide some good basics for an internationalized policy, to which the Flemish-Dutch Cultural Policy Committee (Commissie Cultureel Verdrag Vlaanderen-Nederland) has given its approval. References. O. van Zijl

La desaparicion del campo socialista ha tenido efectos significativos sobre la economia cubana. La estrategia actual para enfrentar el desbalance financiero externo - desarrollo del turismo y fomento de las exportaciones tradicionales y de nuevos renglones - solo podra compensar parcialmente el impacto negativo de las cambiantes relaciones economicas con los paises socialistas. Sin embargo, Cuba tiene la capacidad para resistir la crisis economica actual y para reanimar la economia, siguiendo los acuerdos que fueron adoptados por el IV Congreso del Partido Comunista de Cuba. (Cuban Studies/DÜI)

A CRITICAL REEXAMINATION OF PREVALENT ASSUMPTIONS IN INTERNATIONAL LITERATURE IS PRESENTED. THE TRADITIONAL MODEL OF THE INTERSTATE SYSTEM, WHICH GIVES THE NATIONSTATE A PROMINENT PLACE AS ACTOR & UNIT OF ANALYSIS & CONCEIVES OF THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM AS A COLLECTIVITY OF STATES AIMING AT EQUILIBRIUM, HAS BEEN GENERALLY ACCEPTED BY SCHOLARS (IE BALANCE OF POWER THEORY). DEVELOPMENTS IN INTERNATIONAL REALITY SEEM TO CONTRADICT THESE ASSUMPTIONS. THEY ARE SUMMARIZED IN THE CONCEPTS OF THE 'NUCLEAR AGE' & THE 'TRANSNATIONAL SYSTEM' & COMBINED IN THE NOTION OF INTERDEPENDENCE CHARACTERIZING THE PRESENT INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM. THESE DEVELOPMENTS POINT TO THE INCREASING CONVERGENCE OF RATIONAL & INTERNATIONAL POLITICS. IN RECENT INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS LITERATURE, THE TRADITIONAL HORIZONTAL, TERRITORIALLY-BASED ORGANIZATION OF THE POLITICAL PROCESS IS CONTRASTED WITH ITS INCREASINGLY VERTICAL, TRANSNATIONAL CHARACTER, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME THE EQUILIBRIUM MODEL OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS IS SUPERSEDED BY A VIEW OF THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM BASED ON RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE & SUPREMACY. THESE NEW INSIGHTS ARE COMBINED IN A MODEL OF A WORLD POLITICAL SYSTEM THAT IS GLOBAL IN ITS GEOGRAPHICAL DIMENSION. HA.

The author provides an overview about the field of international political economy (IPE) along metatheoretical lines. The IPE communities in the United States and Western Europe exhibit more differences than commonalities in their ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions. While the U.S. perspective is solidly based on a materialist ontology, methodological individualism, and neopositivism as its epistemological foundation, the European IPE community is considerably more heterogeneous in its theoretical, epistemological and methodological approaches. The article ends with a view towards the future introducing three possible scenarios for the IPE sub-discipline.

A profile of the careers of Belgian ministers since WWII is presented, drawing on data from various studies. The ministers are predominantly French-speaking, M, U-educated, & of UMc or Mc origin. The most frequent professional occupations are lawyer, U professor, & business executive. The political career leading to a ministerial post is most likely to go through the legislative bodies (city council, county council, & parliament); a secondary route is via the political parties (district & then national party leader). After their ministerial careers ended, 39% of the ex-ministers continued to play a prominent part in parliament. These findings are compared with those for the Netherlands, West Germany, & France. The main difference is the importance of the bureaucratic component in the structure of the ministerial elite in those three countries; in Belgium this is not very important. 10 Tables. Modified HA

It is hypothesized that a subordinate position in the international goods & capital markets retards economic development. A model of relationships among trade dependency, stock of foreign capital, flow of foreign capital, state strength, level of economic dependency, & economic growth is formulated, & estimated for a sample of 94 nations. Multiple regression analysis identifies: a strong curvilinear relationship between level of economic development & economic growth; a positive effect of flow of foreign capital on economic growth; a negative effect of stock of foreign capital on economic growth; weak interaction effects of intensity of trade & structure of trade on economic growth; & no effect of state strength on economic growth. 2 Tables, 3 Appendixes, 60 References. Modified HA