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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

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.

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

Van 5 tot en met 7 mei 2005 vond in Urbana-Champaign, op een paar uurtjes rijden van Chicago, het eerste internationale congres over qualitative inquiry plaats. De organisator en tevens congresvoorzitter was Norman Denzin, een grote naam voor al wie met kwalitatieve methoden vertrouwd is. Er waren 865 deelnemers uit 51 landen en er werden ongeveer 450 papers voorgedragen.

Zo'n 900 onderzoekers uit 55 verschillende landen zochten elkaar op in de University of Illinois om de conferentie Qualitative Inquiry bij te wonen. Het congres, dat sinds 2005 jaarlijks door de International Association of Qualitative Inquiry (IAQI) georganiseerd wordt, stond dit jaar in het teken van Qualitative inquiry and the politics of evidence, ofwel de zoektocht naar meer erkenning van en waardering voor een alternatieve manier van bewijsvoering door kwalitatief onderzoek binnen academische instellingen en faculteiten, beoordelingscommissies, onderzoeksfondsen, professionele organisaties en wetenschappelijke tijdschriften. Ik was er als junior onderzoeker op het terrein van patiëntenparticipatie in wetenschappelijk onderzoek voor het eerst bij en zal verslag doen van de bijgewoonde lezingen en workshops.