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A number of historical political systems of regional scale in varied locales across the globe have been described as confederacies, and some, such as those of Early Medieval Ireland, as chiefdom confederacies. In light of recent mulling as to whether some complex political systems of prehistoric and early historic North America could be considered to have been chiefdom confederacies (Pauketat 2007), this article surveys the political systems of the historic Iroquois league, Early Medieval Ireland, Late Iron Age Britain, Archaic Boiotia, Bronze Age and Iron Age Korea, and 19th 20th century Western Iran with the objective of determining the essential characteristics of chiefdom confederacies. Subsequent discussion is given over to the question as to whether the states that arose out of chiefdom confederacies possessed organizational characteristics attributable to their origins in them.

This study highlights the growing interdependence that exists between the financial markets of industrial and developing nations, by determining the role the Euromarkets have played in creating this dependence and by examining its effect on the stability of the international monetary system

AbstractThe UK intelligence system is engaged in three distinct roles – producing strategic assessments in the traditional way; acting as a 'global policeman' by monitoring terrorist and criminal networks; and raising the capability of other countries to defeat terrorist and insurgency groups. Counter-intuitively, it is perhaps the first role that is most questionable. The use of single source intelligence reporting, drawn from individuals selected principally for their willingness to share secrets, may not be the best way to analyse emerging issues such as climate change, energy security and financial stability. The Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) may be drawing on too narrow a range of reporting to compete with increasingly sophisticated assessments from the private sector, academia and NGOs. In any event, the JIC has less impact on policy than is often imagined. The second task of 'global networker' is better-suited to the intelligence community's ability to combine human intelligence with communications intelligence and bulk data gathering, and is producing results. The third task of helping other countries to enforce the law and resist insurgency is proceeding on an ad hoc basis with occasional successes, but requires co-ordination across Whitehall so that improvements in the capabilities of other countries' intelligence services are accompanied by improved police and justice systems and enhanced oversight. Joint Intelligence Committee perhaps ought to be a Joint Action Committee.