Abengourou, with a population of 444,000 \n inhabitants, is one of the ten regions in Cote \n d'Ivoire. In this region, the fight against HIV/AIDS is \n enforced by a Regional Coordination Committee. What is \n special compared to other regional initiatives in the fight \n against HIV/AIDS is the organizational and community \n approach as well as the system established for financing activities.
This short note provides a framework for looking at public sector governance and productivity improvements. It argues that the role of government in enhancing productivity growth is two-fold. First, government should provide an environment that is conducive in improving total factor productivity in private sector production. Second, government should work to increase the productivity of the public sector itself. In terms of providing the appropriate economic setting that is favorable to private-sector-led development, government needs (1) to provide the macroeconomic and the microeconomic environment that will establish incentives for firms/individuals to act in accordance with the invisible hand had there been no market imperfection, (2) to provide the institutional infrastructure (i.e., property rights, law and order, rules and even application and enforcement of the same) that markets need to work efficiently; and (3) to ensure the financing/provision of adequate basic health care and education, and basic physical infrastructure (World Bank 1992). In particular, the instruments that government may use in this regard are include (1) direct government interventions in the product markets as defined by the regulatory structure in strategic sectors, and (2) economy-wide policies like financial liberalization, trade liberalization, and foreign investments liberalization. On the other hand, (1) budget reform (2) the installation of a system of performance measurement and incentive in the public sector, (3) the re-engineering of the bureaucracy, (4) the combating of corruption, and (5) decentralization are the key features of a program that will increase the productivity of government operations.
espanolEn ausencia de un margen significativo para la descentralizacion plena de los principales tributos en Venezuela, la consecucion de los beneficios esperados de la descentralizacion amerita discutir que tipo de diseno institucional deben tener sus mecanismos de financiamiento. En mi entender, el reto fundamental para los responsables de ese diseno consiste en incorporar en esos mecanismos los incentivos apropiados para que los distintos actores coordinen sus acciones y promuevan la participacion de la sociedad civil en la toma de decisiones colectivas. Esto exige desarrollar una cultura intergubernamental cooperativa. La viabilidad de una cultura intergubernamental cooperativa solo sera sostenible cuando se internalice la nocion de que los recursos generados por los tributos de administracion centralizada no pertenecen exclusivamente al gobierno nacional, sino que deben ser derramados en toda la extension del territorio venezolano, de acuerdo con una mezcla de criterios redistributivos, de eficiencia asignativa y respetando el desarrollo socioeconomico balanceado. Esto es mas probable si prevalece la perspectiva de que figuras como el situado, las asignaciones economicas especiales y el Fides representan mecanismos de coparticipacion en los ingresos fiscales del pais y no simples transferencias desde el gobieno central. Asi, al interpretar los mecanismos intergubernamentales de financiamiento como modalidades de coparticipacion sobre unos recursos fiscales generados en todo el territorio, las relaciones intergubernamentales se hacen mas horizontales, aun cuando se siga reconociendo al gobierno central como un primu inter pares. EnglishGiven the fact that there is not a significant margin for full decentralization of the main taxes in Venezuela, achieving the expected benefits of decentralization requires to discuss what kind of institutional design should have its financing mechanisms. In my view, the fundamental challenge for the policy-makers is to built-in these mechanisms with the appropriate incentives for different levels of government coordination and civil society participation in the process of collective decisions making. This requirement implies to develop an intergovernmental cooperative culture. The viability of an intergovernmental cooperative culture will be sustainable to the extent the venezuelan society internalize the notion that central administered taxes do not belong exclusively to the national government. On the contrary, these resources must be spread through the whole national territory, according to a blend of redistributive, assignative and economic equilibrium criteria. This is more likely if there is a prevalent perspective that policy instruments such as the situado, the special economic assignments and Fides represent revenue-sharing mechanisms, and not just transfers from the central government. In such a way, interpreting the ingovernmental financial mechanisms as co-sharing devises over the fiscal resources produced in the whole territory, the intergovernmental relations become more horizontal, although we recognize the central government as a primu inter pares.
Most countries in Latin America have undertaken decentralization processes over the last twenty years with the intention of improving the effectiveness and accountability of government. Transport and in particular roads, represents a difficult sector to decentralize because roads are an important part of a country's economy, are expensive to maintain, cross different jurisdictions and, for different types of roads, there are different management tasks and financing mechanisms. In Latin America the experience with road decentralization has been mixed, with some countries following more or less consistent and well-focused processes, while others have had to reverse some of the measures taken. One case the authors consider worth analyzing in more detail, given its characteristics and results, is that of Bolivia. There, decentralization took place very rapidly and aggressively, moving from a highly centralized system to one totally decentralized, although, from a political point of view, this process was not complete given that Departmental Government Heads (Prefectos), continued to be chosen by the President. During this period road management went into such disarray that it forced policy makers to undertake some partial recentralization reforms that affected almost exclusively the primary network. The entire process (decentralization and partial recentralization) did not affect the municipal roads that continued under the responsibility of municipal governments. Therefore, with respect to Bolivia, this study concentrates on the primary and secondary networks, and on the few tertiary networks that were under the central administration and were transferred to the Departmental Governments. This paper analyzes several cases of road decentralization in selected countries, in order to draw lessons of experience, and examines these in the Bolivian context. The cases included are Colombia, Spain, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru.
The social norm movement in criminal justice has received a lot of attention in academic and public policy circles. This essay critically examines social norm writings and explores some of the implications for methods of proof and research design in the social sciences. In the process, the essay offers an alternative theoretical approach. This alternative focuses on the multiple ways in which the social meaning of practices (such as juvenile gun possession, gang membership, or disorderly conduct) and the social meaning of policing techniques (such as juvenile snitching policies, youth curfews, or order-maintenance policing) may shape us as contemporary subjects of society. This alternative theoretical approach has its own important implications for methods of proof and research design, and the essay develops these implications into a four-prong research agenda.
This paper examines the relative pricing performance of the Asay (1986) futures option pricing model on the All Ordinaries Share Price Index Futures Call Option contract over the period January 1993-September 1995. A dataset of 8092 matched tick-by-tick transactions in SPI future options is examined, and the Asay model is used to generate pricing estimates for the options. This theoretically derived data is then compared against the real price data, and pricing anomalies are observed. Pricing biases are categorised in terms of time to maturity, and examined in terms of unit error and absolute percentage error. Conclusions are drawn as to the relative efficiency of the model with regard to systematic errors.
The central task in developing a plausible normative theory of contract law is to specify the appropriate role of the state in regulating incomplete or relational contracts. Complete contracts (to the extent that they exist in the real world) are rarely, if ever, breached since by definition the pay-offs for every relevant action and the corresponding sanctions for non performance are prescribed in the contract. In the case of incomplete (or relational) contracts, however, parties have incentives to breach by exploiting gaps in the contract. Making the verifiable terms of the contract legally enforceable and regulating incompleteness in a consistent manner reduces, but does not eliminate, these incentives to breach. There still remains the fundamental question: Should the law seek to complete the contract for the parties? And, if so, from what vantage point should the contractual gaps be filled? Determining the answers to these questions has preoccupied contract law scholars for the past fifteen years. In this paper, I review the academic debate and outline the core arguments for (and difficulties with) three alternative strategies for interpreting relational contracts. Thereafter, I evaluate each strategy in terms of the lessons that are available to us from theory and experience. In particular, I examine the insights from the recent theoretical literature on the economics of incomplete contracting and test those insights against the results of an analysis of the cases interpreting disputed contracts under the significantly different regimes of the Uniform Commercial Code and the common law over the past thirty years. As the title of the paper implies, the case for formalism in interpreting relational contracts emerges out of this analysis. The contract theory literature suggests that the activist role courts traditionally have been asked to assume in specifying default rules ex ante and/or adjusting contractual risks ex post may be far less useful in a complex, heterogeneous economy. Moreover, the invitation to courts to create broadly useful default rules or to undertake equitable adjustment of apparently harsh contract terms threatens a parallel goal of predictable, transparent interpretation of explicit contract terms. If, as theory suggests, the state is simply incapable of supplying parties in a complex economy with useful defaults ex ante or imposing fair outcomes ex post, the better instrumental strategy is for courts to accept the limits imposed by legal formalism and interpret the facially unambiguous verifiable terms of disputed contracts literalistically. Not only would a rigorous application of the common law plain meaning and parol evidence rules preserve the value of predictable interpretation, but the analysis suggests as well that common law formalism has an heretofore unrecognized role in expanding the menu of legally blessed standard form terms and clauses that further reduce contracting costs for most parties. At bottom, the merits of these theoretical speculations turn on the empirical realities. While much of the available evidence is anecdotal, it does point unambiguously to a contrast between the functionalist interpretation of the Uniform Commercial Code and the formalist interpretation that is retained by many common law courts and by the private arbitral regimes of trade associations and other intermediaries. The formalist approach seems to have created a more hospitable environment; one that appears to support both reliable interpretation of contract language and the evolutionary production of standardized and appropriately tailored contract terms. Evidence that commercial parties, whose contracts nominally fall under the jurisdiction of the Code, opt instead for private regimes that employ formalist modes of interpretation further challenges the unquestioned assumption of most contemporary scholars that functionalism is a priori superior to formalism. While the case for formalism is a tentative one, the evidence is sufficient to shift the intellectual burden of proof to those who would defend the activist strategies unleashed by the Uniform Commercial Code.
Significant recent empirical research in commercial law involves interviewing participants in commercial transactions. This comment posits that, in evaluating the findings of these studies, we should pay attention to whether those interviewed were lawyers or nonlawyers. Most people have a tendency to overstate their importance to the work that they do. Thus, one would expect that lawyers would overstate the importance of law (or at least the need for them to manage the law) whereas nonlawyers would have a bias toward understating law's significance. This suggests that lawyers are more likely to view expenditures on negotiating contract terms than are nonlawyers. Professor Dan Keating's recent work on the "battle of the forms" is consistent with these conclusions.
It is well known that contract incompleteness can arise from the impossibility of planning for all future contingencies in a relationship (e.g. Williamson (1975)). In this paper it is shown that whether or not such imcompleteness constrains the efficiency of the contract is very sensitive to assumptions concerning the timing of the resolution of uncertainty. It is shown that when agents must respond to an unforeseen contingency before being able to renegotiate the contract, then contract complexity is a binding constraint, a case that is called ex post hold-up. Secondly, it is suggested that the amount of multi-tasking can provide a measure of contract complexity. When complexity is low, contingent contracting is efficient, while subjective performance evaluation is more efficient when complexity is high. In this case the optimal contract for ex post hold-up is based upon the ability of humans to make subject judgements that are in some cases more informative than explicit performance measures. Moreover, the efficiency of the contract is not sensitive to human error per se, but is an increasing function of the correlation in judgements between the contracting parties.
A new software technology, mobile agent technology (MAT), is gaining momentum in the field of telecommunications. Introduces a network platform based on mobile agent and provides a secure authentication mechanism based on zero knowledge proof in the mobile communication system. In this way, service providers can provide the new services rapidly, expediently and safely.
After local government finance having been compared among China,some advanced countries and transitional countries,it is showed that the expenditures of local government finance are exaggerated and twisted,but local economic development cant be financed by the fiscal revenue of local government under decentralization in China.If the fiscal order is disciplined,fiscal decertralization must be developed,and supervision on local government finance must be strengthened.
New methods of contractor procurement and project development are evolving. From turnkey to the latest design-build-operate-maintain (DBOM) processes, this evolution focuses on reducing costs, shortening project duration, and better allocating risk among private and public participants. One of the newest developments in the evolving DBOM procurement process is described. The process is being developed and refined in several projects in New Jersey. This new approach is a major change in project initiation and motivation—a more bottom-up, decentralized project development and implementation process. Beginning as a public-private partnership bill (A-2560) in New Jersey’s statehouse, as an effort to quickly advance a wide array of transportation initiatives, the new procurement process modified the state transportation statute to encourage more initiative and participation by the private sector in transportation projects. In consultation with private-sector interests, rail transit operators, and New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) leaders, the chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee crafted the bill. After approval by both houses and signature by the governor, the new statute was used to solicite project proposals. Various consortia responded, representing 13 initiatives, two of which are considered rail transit new starts. The North Jersey Rapid Rail (NJRR) proposal, as a case study, demonstrates how the bottom-up, “beyond DBOM” process is working. NJRR is an initiative of a consultant-contractor consortium working with two transit-dependent counties (Bergen and Passaic) and NJDOT. A freight railroad is part of the team. The initiative is a devolution of risk and responsibility to a more local level and a reversion to earlier private partnerships. During the first half of the 20th century, most of the rail transit infrastructure in North America was designed built, operated, and maintained efficiently by private-sector consortia consisting of finance, transit operating, utility, and construction interests. From the vantage point of one millennium ending and a new one beginning, this research is retrospective as well as futuristic.
Over the years there has been an increase in the number of bank failures in both centralized and decentralized economies (Saunders, 1994; Williams, 1995; The Economist, 1992; European Bank of Reconstruction, 1993). Internal reasons given for the bank failures include reckless lending, corruption, non-use of prudent classification risk assessment methods, fraud and management deficiencies. External factors such as deregulation; lack of information among bank customers; homogeneity of the banking business, connections among banks do cause bank failure. For centrally planned economies government and political interference in the banking operations and policies also contribute to bank failure. Tanzania, which until recently was characterized by a centrally planned economy, and the government having majority (51%) share holding in parastatals and banks also experienced bank failure in form of non-performing assets (NPAs). In Tanzania, bank policies reflected government directives and policies as well as political motives. Due to the dual government ownership of the bank and the parastatals, bank lending policies, procedures and regulations favored parastatal firms and agricultural marketing boards. For example, at the end of 1998, out of 78% NBC loan portfolio the majority went to parastatals and cooperative unions, with only 3% going to private firms. The majority of parastatals and cooperative unions were frequent loss makers and financially distressed. For continued existence they had to depend on the government subvention, which proved to be a heavy burden to the government. As a result, when the parastatals were experiencing financial difficulties and unable to pay the bank loans, the government solved the problem by directing the National bank of Commerce (NBC), the only commercial bank, to offer loans to the troubled parastatals and cooperative unions. By 1991, due to increased lending to financial distressed parastatals and cooperative unions, the NBC suffered large non-performing loans (NPAs) equal to 70% of the total bank NPAs. Considering the high rate of NPAs suffered by NBC, this paper has tried to show that government and political interventions and the non-use of prudent credit scoring methods had contributed to the NBC failure. African Journal of Finance and Management Vol.9(1) 2000: 14-30
At the fundamental level, there are remarkable parallels between developed and less developed countries in problems of providing safe drinking water in rural areas, but of course, they differ greatly in degree and in the opportunities for resolution. Small water supplies frequently encounter difficulty accessing sufficient quantities of drinking water for all domestic uses. If the water must be treated for safety reasons, then treatment facilities and trained operating personnel and finances are always in short supply. Ideally, each solution should be sustainable within its own cultural, political and economic context, and preferably with local personnel and financial resources. Otherwise, the water supply will be continuously dependent on outside resources and thus will not be able to control its destiny, and its future will be questionable. The history of success in this regard has been inconsistent, particularly in less developed but also in some developed countries. The traditional and ideal solution in developing countries has been central water treatment and a piped distribution network, however, results have had a mixed history primarily due to high initial costs and operation and maintenance, inadequate access to training, management and finance sufficient to support a fairly complex system for the long term. These complete systems are also slow to be implemented so waterborne disease continues in the interim. Thus, non-traditional, creative, cost-effective practical solutions that can be more rapidly implemented are needed. Some of these options could involve: small package central treatment coupled with non piped distribution, e.g. community supplied bottled water; decentralized treatment for the home using basic filtration and/or disinfection; higher levels of technology to deal with chemical contaminants e.g. natural fluoride or arsenic. These technological options coupled with training, technical support and other essential elements like community commitment provide opportunities that should be explored both for rural small communities and in rapidly growing periurban areas in developing countries.
Abstract. We present an efficient and fair protocol for secure two-party computation in the optimistic model, where a partially trusted third party T is available, but not involved in normal protocol executions. T is needed only if communication is disrupted or if one of the two parties misbehaves. The protocol guarantees that although one party may terminate the protocol at any time, the computation remains fair for the other party. Communication is over an asynchronous network. All our protocols are based on efficient proofs of knowledge and involve no general zero-knowledge tools. As intermediate steps we describe efficient verifiable oblivious transfer and verifiable secure function evaluation protocols, whose security is proved under the decisional Diffie-Hellman assumption. 1
This thesis examines teachers' perceptions of the relationship between teachers and \ngovernment in the field of curriculum development, in the light of changes in the mode of \ncurriculum control under which teachers carry out their work in Korea and England. In \nboth countries, major recent legislation has brought about fundamental revisions of the \ncurriculum. In Korea, the 1992 sixth National Curriculum declared a decentralization of \ncurriculum development, ostensibly attempting to decrease government control over \nteachers. In England, the 1988 Education Act imposed a national curriculum: this \nrepresented an increase in government control over teachers. \nThe thesis begins with a review of theoretical work relating to modes of curriculum control \nand professionalism. It then offers accounts of the historical and cultural context of \ncurriculum development and professionalism in Korea and England, providing overviews \nof curriculum development, teacher education relating to curriculum development, \nteachers' organizations, hierarchies in society and schools, gender differences in the \nteaching profession, inspection of teachers, and teachers' relations with parents. \nA central issue for the thesis is the idea of teachers' professionalism in relation to \ngovernment intervention in curriculum development. It is the main assumption of the study \nthat teachers' professionalism in the field of curriculum control can be best analysed \nthrough an examination of the context in which it is embedded. Thus, this thesis involves \nempirical studies of structured samples of six primary schools in Korea and nine primary \nschools in England; questionnaires, interviews and case studies were administered in both \ncountries. These investigations focus on comparing the teachers' perceptions of curriculum \n&-YQlppment. and professionalism in their different cultural contexts. Comparison serves \nto improve contextual understanding of teachers' professionalism within two different \ntrends: centralization and decentralization. \nExamination of the empirical data reveals both similarities and differences between \ndifferent teachers within each country, and also between teachers in the two countries. \nOverall, Korean teachers feel that they have only a restricted role in implementing the new \ncurriculum in their own classroom, despite the recent change which introduced some \ndecentralization in curriculum policy.. Compared with this situation in Korea, despite \ngovernmental intervention in curriculum development the majority of English teachers may \nbe characterized as still having an autonomous role in implementing the curriculum. \nAlthough there were different orientations and degrees of control among both groups of \nteachers, the belief in the desirability of teacher control of the curriculum has been a \ndominant perspective with widespread acceptance in the two countries. \nThis thesis supports the view that teachers' professionalism is shaped by social, political, \neducational and institutional cultures in a very complicated fashion, and cannot be \nexpected to change quickly or easily. It also demonstrates that teachers' professionalism \ncannot be conceptualized simply in terms of movement along the continuum between \ncentralization and decentralization. The thesis argues that teachers' professionalism in \nrelation to government intervention is affected much more by-what teachers think, which \nis shaped in their own cultural contexts, than by the nature of the change itself as defined \nby the legislation/Accordingly, it suggests that the strategies for enhancing teachers' \nprofessionalism in relation to curriculum development should be considered with reference \nto the cultural contexts within which they are practised.
The “region”, sub-national entity in Europe, plays some more important roles in a place of Nation-States in a context of European integration. However, “island regions” around European Continent have a risk to be more marginalised by the economic integration advanced by the central regions. The island region in Europe has a special socio-economic backwardness caused by its remoteness from the Continent and this special character is called “insularity”.Political autonomy is, I think, one of the best choices that activate an island region without delete its insularity. Thus European insular regions have a special status that is different from the regions in the Continent, that rules their political autonomy. However, there are many cases that island regions have a heterogeneous historic-cultural fact and a strong identity that could appeal to nationalism or separatism from the mainland country. So that autonomous status of island region in Europe is not homogeneous.Corsica, Mediterranean island region that belongs to France, has not been autonomous for a long time because of its special socio-political situations, Corsican nationalism and “clan”, one of patriarchal formations typically observed in some Mediterranean insular regions.In 1982, by the decentralization policies of socialist President Mitterrand, France was reorganized into 22 more autonomous “regions” from the “prefecture” whose prefect has been nominated by the Ministry of Interior, French administrative. Corsica was ruled by an act as a region with a special status. The Regional Assembly of Corsica consisted of 61 representatives elected by the islanders was created in this year and could vote projects of program on mainly Corsican linguistic and cultural education of a supplemental course in a school, regional transportation and development of new energy. The regional administration of Corsica could exert these programs.However, instability in the Regional Assembly because of lack of a strong core party and frequent elections, shortage of competence or finance of the Region of Corsica caused their dysfunction and discredit from the islanders.And in 1991, Corsican act was revised and Corsica changed a Territorial Collectivity, original local entity, from a region, common local entity. Though this renewal act defined Corsica as a “people”, Constitutional Council judged that this definition would be against the French Constitution that rules French national unity and its equality, and deleted Article 1 that contains this definition.However, Corsica was authorized to be more autonomous with an original competence. In addition to education and broadcasting of regional language and culture, special taxation and some economic development program are ceded to Corsica. And Corsican regional organization also was changed. Regional Assembly was divided into Corsican Territorial Assembly and Corsican Executive Council. The president and 6 members of Executive Council exert Corsican regional administrative and vote projects of budget and cultural and economic programs, and these members are elected from the representatives in the Territorial Assembly by election. Executive Councilors are obliged to make some annual reports on the executive situation and their results in the Assembly and to be credited by it. Thus after 1991, Corsica establishes its collegiality and responsibility for the smooth practice of the larger competence.It is doubtful whether Corsica has a political autonomy by the status reform in 1991. Because there is not any articles on Corsican status in the French Constitution though those of TOMs' status, French Overseas Islands, are in it, and those of Sicilian and Sardinian status are in the Italian Constitution. And Corsican Territorial Assembly can vote only motions, some taxation and programs of local cultural and economic development, but not any
Your business increasingly relies on computer-controlled systems vulnerable to intrusion and destruction. The recent distributed denial of service attacks against e-commerce companies showed that this vulnerability extends beyond your own corporate networks: the very infrastructure of the Internet is at risk. When infoterrorists use the networks' high connectivity and low security to launch attacks against critical information infrastructure systems, they can not only disrupt global e-commerce and communications, but can also adversely affect other critical infrastructure services such as energy, transportation, health care, finance, and water supply. How can organizations protect these systems from infoterrorism? They must leverage modern information technologies to create an infrastructure protection process that can operate quickly and seamlessly. We propose a six-stage protection process that involves intelligence gathering, analysis, interdiction, detection, response, and recovery. To implement this process, we've designed an underlying Web-like architecture that will serve as a platform for the decentralized monitoring and management of critical infrastructures.
The paper that tend to present at this conference would have to object to treat an issue in the field of Albania's legjslation for organizing and conducting the local government and legal spaces that he creates for local development in the district of Shkodra. For this reason paper will address these issues: The legal basis of the organization and conduct of local government: The Constitution of the RA law on local governance and rules of functioning of local government. Principles of decentralization and local autonomy. Elective bodies of local authorities. Local and regional authorities. Separation of powers. Local authorities: executive bodies and elected bodies. The structure, functions and powers. 2. Forecasting the Constitution and the legislation of Albania of the right to direct the exercise of government by citizens in their units of local government. Right: the referendum and other forms of direct exercise of local government. Report of the local authorities with regional authorities and central authorities. Principles that regulate the relation of powers. Local and regional bodies. The municipality, the municipality and county. Report of the local authorities and central government authorities. The authority of the prefect. Central government offices in the units of local qverisjes. Impact of legislation on the exercise of local government in the district of Shkodra.. Government authorities and regional / district of Shkodra.The exercise of local government in the district of Shkodra. The activity of executive authorities and local legislative authorities.Report of the powers between the bodies at the level of municipalities, municipal and county level. The paper will include conclusions and recommendations deriving to improve local governance in the region of Shkodra. Opening Albania is in a process of implementation of reforms, which aim to make itself more stable democratic system, to enhance government efficiency, stimulate the creation of a stable basis for economic development, make government more transparent and ensure citizen participation in public life at local and regional level. In their entirety these reforms can not and should not be regarded as wholly government initiatives, but as reforms that include the contribution and experience of all actors involved in the process, such as local government, civil society, international community and what is more important the citizens. I.The legal basis of local government in Albania. Constitutional provisions. Constitution of the Republic of Albania defines two principles upon which the existence of local government and the exercise of power of local government in Albania: a-principle of decentralization; b- principle of autonomy. 103 Local government has legal cause to the principle of decentralization of power. The Constitution says the government in Albania is decentralized.The exercise of decentralized power and governance in Albania is the intention to realize the governance a more close to citizens and a more effective citizen. For consistency the government in Albania is divided between the central and local bodies. Local governance is an autonomous government, self- government. The local units are entitled to self government, that have the right to decide for themselves. The local self - government units is guaranteed: a-through activity of the local government representative bodies, b-through local referendum. 104 They are independent in making decisions, namely the exercise of powers defined by the constitution. Legal basis. It became necessary to adopt a new law to regulate local government in accordance with the
Reviewed by: The Return of King Arthur and the Nibelungen: National Myth in Nineteenth-Century English and German Literature William R. McKelvy (bio) The Return of King Arthur and the Nibelungen: National Myth in Nineteenth-Century English and German Literature, by Maike Oergel; pp. viii + 325. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1998, DM178.00, $106.00. From 1714 to 1917, British subjects were ruled by two Germanic dynasties, the houses of Hanover and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. George V ended this nominal Teutonic reign when he exchanged Saxe-Coburg-Gotha for Windsor in 1917. Victoria’s grandson did this because his subjects were deep in a bloody, muddy war against a Germanic alliance led by his first cousin (and another grandchild of Victoria), Wilhelm II. The commander of British forces, Douglas Haig, had a new war strategy (“kill more Germans,” as he put it) which was not chiming well with a king whose name (George Frederick Ernest Albert Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) sounded like roll call on the wrong side of the front. This is a dynastic way to illustrate the broad cultural arc inspiring this book. “Around the middle of the nineteenth century the English were quite convinced that they were just as Teutonic as their continental neighbors” (3), but (largely) because of World War I, this thriving Victorian Teutonism expired and then was retroactively repressed. The birth of the Windsors in 1917 is the most dramatic marker of this significant cultural pivot. This book in turn supplements a series of studies which have retraced Germanic aspects of British (and, in particular, English) intellectual life from about 1750 to 1918. Some of these earlier works have documented the invention of Germanic cultural and racial genealogies. Others have focused on reactions to innovative German developments in hermeneutics and, more generally, the rise of historicism. Oergel’s book covers both the ethnological and the philosophical fields staked out in these earlier studies. The best material is delivered up front in the two opening chapters, where Oergel summarizes a post-Enlightenment process in which “the status of both literature and history was elevated to a quasi-religious level” (11). In this part of the study, Oergel joins an increasing number of critics who are revising the standard secularization thesis. It has been a commonplace for some time now that the birth of the modern in the West had something to do with the death of God. But literary scholars interested in the formation and institutionalization of their own profession are discovering a more complex, metaphysically ambiguous process. As Oergel puts it, “the secularisation of the sacred texts,” a process normally described as the rise of modern historical criticism, “in turn generated the sanctification of secular literature” (11). The same critical tendencies which [End Page 525] undermined the historical accuracy of Scripture led to the sanctification of national literary and mythic traditions. As Christian scripture became mythic, national literary canons were sacralized, and history, as God’s new master narrative, became the living, universal gospel. These are important and persuasive generalizations, but Oergel, after setting the stage so well, rarely applies them in stimulating ways. The major innovations proposed in this study are an incorporation of Alfred Tennyson’s Idylls of the King (1859–91) into the cultural history of Teutonism and, more specifically, an insistence that Tennyson’s text took shape in response to the same cultural forces that produced Richard Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen (1869–76). This second point is too general to bear fruit from its proof, and one blushes for the author as this most tedious part of the argument commences with an earnest appeal to lifespans: “Initially there are some basic facts: Wagner (1813–1883) and Tennyson (1809–1892) were near contemporaries” (215). The first point about the ethnological significance of the Idylls is troubled by a complexity that Oergel does not handle well. Tennyson’s epic is about an explicitly non-Germanic hero whose primary business, after being cuckolded, is to kill more Germans (to borrow Commander Haig’s phrase). At times, Oergel addresses this difference, but almost as often, the author seems to be working hard to forget it. Despite the titular Arthur’s Saxon...
Alexander Gerschenkron argued that banks facilitate growth in “backward” countries, and modern theorists sometimes similarly claim that banks can promote growth by reducing informational asymmetries and improving the allocation of funds. Japan has played a part in these debates. In early twentieth‐century Japan, firms relied heavily on bank debt, observers argue. Those firms with preferential access to debt outperformed the others, and those that were part of the zaibatsu corporate groups obtained that access through their affiliated banks. In fact, Japanese banks did not play the role attributed to them. Japan was not a bank‐centered economy; instead, firms relied on equity finance. It was not an economy where firms with access to banks outperformed their rivals; instead, such firms earned no advantage. And it was not a world in which the zaibatsu manipulated their banks to favor affiliated firms; instead, zaibatsu banks loaned affiliated firms little more than the deposits those firms had made with the banks. During the first half of the last century, Japanese firms obtained almost all their funds through decentralized, competitive capital markets.