Commonwealth & Comparative Politics articles from November 2003

Commonwealth & Comparative Politics archives from November 2003

Editors' note.(Editorial)
November 1, 2003... This issue of CCP opens with two articles which focus directly on the Commonwealth, and includes a third, on Public Accounts Committees, which implicitly invokes the Commonwealth as its frame of reference. As Editors we welcome this indication...

Towards 'New Multilateralisms'? Globalisation, anti-globalisation and the Commonwealth.
November 1, 2003... The inter- and non-state Commonwealths may be more necessary in the unilateralist world of the early twenty-first century than in the somewhat multilateral "new worm order' of the post-bipolar 1990s. But neither official nor unofficial...

Complaisance or compliance with Commonwealth principles? An evaluation of CMAG.
November 1, 2003... The Commonwealth in 1995 established a Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) to monitor adherence to the values in its Harare Declaration, but only in the context of the political principles and not in response to the many economic and social...

Principles and patterns of financial scrutiny: public accounts committees in the commonwealth.
November 1, 2003... Public Accounts Committees (PACs) are ubiquitous features of the legislative landscape in the Commonwealth. Based on a broad comparative overview and specific examples, this article looks at the role of PACs in financial scrutiny. It unpacks...

Globalisation and the African state.
November 1, 2003... The World Bank and its critics are approaching consensus on central issues in the African development debate. That Africa must become more integrated into the globalising world economy, and that to do so effectively it will need more capable...

Electoral choices for divided societies: multi-ethnic parties and constituency pooling in Africa.
November 1, 2003... The third wave of democratisation has given new impetus to the debate about the choice of electoral system in divided societies. The growing preference for proportional representation has been dented by Horowitz's advocacy of 'vote pooling'...

Losing the Blanket: Australia and the End of Britain's Empire.(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... by David Goldsworthy (Carlton South: Melbourne University Press, 2002, pp.viii + 209, 10.16[pounds sterling] pb). Strands of the blanket remain, to be sure. Though in 2000 John Howard, as prime minister, was able to say that 'Australians no...

Continental Drift: Australia's Search for a Regional Identity.(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... by Rawdon Dalrymple (London: Ashgate, 2003, pp.250, 45 [pounds sterling] hb). Australia's foreign policy concerns can be subsumed under the heading 'security': strategic security, economic security and, underpinning these, political...

Malaysia: State and Civil Society in Transition.(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... by V. Verma (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002, pp.253, 46.50 [pounds sterling] hb). Verma's book concisely yet substantively captures the expanse of both fundamental and avant-garde information related to contemporary Malaysian...

The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia.(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... by Tai Yong Tan and Gyanesh Kudaisya (London and New York: Routledge, 2000 (pb 2002), pp.xiv + 322, 40 [pounds sterling] hb; 12.99[pounds sterling] pb). The decolonisation process has left its hubris behind and it continues to tax...

Time Warps; Silent and Evasive Parts in Indian Politics and Religion.(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... by Ashis Nandy (London: Hurst & Company, 2002, pp.x + 244, 14.95 pb; 35[pounds sterling] hb). The book offers a new critique of the politics of secularism bent on exposing the flaws of the view of history offered by this universal ideology...

Competing Nationalisms in South Asia.(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... edited by Paul R. Brass and Achin Vanaik (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2002, pp.297, 29.95[pounds sterling]). The concept of nationalism was once considered contraventionist for the development of what came to be termed liberal democracy....

Contemporary Pakistan: Political Processes, Conflicts and Crises.(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... by Veena Kukreja (New Delhi/Thousand Oaks/London: Sage Publications, 2003, pp.348, 14.99 [pounds sterling] pb). The nation state project is a complex of several processes which are set in motion by new states to gain control and authority...

Aid to Africa: French and British Policies from the Cold War to the New Millennium.(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... by Gordon Cumming (Aldershot: Ashgate 2001, pp.xi + 446, 52.50 [pounds sterling] hb). This is a complex work which has a range of objectives in its comparative study of French and British aid to Africa since the fall of the Berlin Wall. On...

Crime and Policing in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Transforming under Fire.(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... by Mark Shaw (London: Hurst & Co., 2001, pp.xiv + 169, 18.10 [pounds sterling] pb). Why are the levels of crime in South Africa so high; what have been the policing responses, commercial, public and informal and how effective have they...

Transnationalism and New African Immigration to South Africa.(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... edited by Jonathan Crush and David A. McDonald (Cape Town: Southern African Migration Project, 2002, pp.i +185). The xenophobia and violence unleashed by South African citizens on the rapidly increasing numbers of (im)migrants to South...

African Interventionist States.(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... edited by Oliver Furley and Roy May (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002, pp.xx + 286, 45 [pounds sterling] hb). As the editors put it, this volume's 'origins' can be traced to 'a desire to explore the role of African states as assertive actors......

Transforming Mozambique. The politics of privatization, 1975-2000.(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... by M. Anne Pitcher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp.293 + xxiii, 35.97 [pounds sterling]). I have been reading books on Mozambique for about ten years; Transforming Mozambique will be a book that remains with me for a good...

Democracy in the Third World.(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... by Robert Pinkney (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2nd edn, 2003, pp.x + 261, 41.50 [pounds sterling] hb; 14.95 [pounds sterling] pb). The first edition of Pinkney's book appeared in 1993, at a time when there was...

Democracy in Divided Societies: Electoral Engineering for Conflict Management.(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... by B. Reilly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp.xiv + 217, index and bibliography, 40 [pounds sterling] hb; 14.95 [pounds sterling] pb). This is a welcome contribution to the debate on how electoral systems shape political...