Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Slovak Nationalism: Model Or Mirage?, Caroline Barker

New England Journal of Public Policy

In the face of an increasing number of bloody dissolutions of states around the world, the "velvet divorce" between Czechs and Slovaks has often been cited as evidence that such excesses can be avoided. This article, written before the October 1998 elections that saw the end of the government of Vladimir Meciar, seeks to explain that the peaceful split of these two nations is not an instance that can be replicated elsewhere but grows from the unique nature of Slovak nationalism. The article traces the historical evolution of Slovak nationalism and challenges the view that it has ever been a …

Monitoring Elections In El Salvador And Nicaragua, Jack Spence

New England Journal of Public Policy

I observed the February 1990 elections in Nicaragua as a member of both the Latin American Studies Association observation team and that of Hemisphere Initiatives, a group with which I have worked. In El Salvador I headed the Hemisphere Initiatives team. I visited Nicaragua five times during the electoral period, and for El Salvador, for once my academic calendar coincided with Salvadoran history. A sabbatical in the last academic year allowed me to be there during the electoral period.

I should say by way of comparison with Fred Gamst's presentation about Ethiopia that Nicaragua and El Salvador are ethnically and …

Kenya's 1997 Elections: Making Sense Of The Transition Process, Rok Ajulu

New England Journal of Public Policy

The transition process in Kenya appears to be getting nowhere. Six years after the opening of democratic space, politics, political institutions, and governance remain predominantly stuck in the authoritarian quagmire of the past. Lack of broader participation in decision-making processes and absence of consensus around important issues of governance appear to be the norm rather than the exception. Indeed, Kenya's democracy experiment appears to defy conventional democratization models and discourse. It refuses to comply with prescriptive models developed by various Western scholars as the so-called liberal democratic values stubbornly refuse to take root in the country. This article attempts to …

Citizen Views Of Peace Building And Political Transition In Angola, 1997, Carrie Manning

New England Journal of Public Policy

In November 1994, Angola began what became an often circular struggle to implement the Lusaka Protocol, the second of two peace agreements meant to put an end to more than thirty years of civil strife. Four years later, the Lusaka peace process appears to have come unraveled. Just past midway between these two points, the National Democratic Institute carried out a series offocus groups in Angola that sought to gauge citizens' attitudes toward and understanding of key aspects of the war-to-peace transition and the new political system. This article discusses the results of the survey. Initially intended to provide the …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

This is the next to last issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy before we usher in the new millennium. In the coming year the word itself will go through many uses, many permutations of meaning, be subject of so much tendentious punditry, idiotic speculation, inane commentary, and pompous prognostications that it will have been sucked dry of meaning, and we will be left with a plethora of "millennium specials" and "the top one hundred of the millennium" in everything from cat food to human diet fads, and of course your perennial millennium "special sales" and "personalities of …

What Have We Learned About Postconflict Elections?, Larry Garber, Krishna Kumar

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article suggests that postconflict elections are a unique subset of transition elections which deserve special attention. The authors describe the evolution of postconflict elections, identify some of their more salient characteristics, and offer preliminary lessons drawn from the recent experiences.

Election Monitoring In Oromia: What Are The Conditions For Democracy?, Frederick C. Gamst

New England Journal of Public Policy

Professor Gamst, a member of the Joint International Observer group (JIOG), reports the problems he monitored during the 1992 electoral campaign and voting activities in the strife-ridden region of Oromia in Ethiopia. His analyses illuminate the background institutional barriers and the politically competitive reasons for the failure of the elections. Gamst discusses the nature of the multitudinous Oromo people and the consequences of any election victory by them for the destiny of Ethiopia. He also describes the sometimes violent aftermaths of the failed election of 1992 and its follow-up election of 1994, in which the Oromo were again denied reasonable …

Monitoring Elections: Philippines, South Africa, And Mozambique, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

Padraig O'Malley was a member of international delegations monitoring elections in the Philippines, South Africa, and Mozambique. These delegations were organized by the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), Washington, D.C. O'Malley's opinions, observations, and reflections on these elections are entirely his own and in no way reflect the opinions of NDI.

Democratic Change And Transition In Africa And The Dilemma Of Nigeria, Leonard Robinson Jr.

New England Journal of Public Policy

The 1990s witnessed profound political change throughout the continent of Africa. Tired and frustrated with one-party, autocratic, and often military rule, ordinary African citizens in country after country began to voice and demonstrate their discontent in 1990. As the former Soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe broke ranks with the Soviet Union to claim their independence, these extraordinary events served as an added catalyst to African civil servants, market women, taxi drivers and peri-urban inhabitants to rise up against what they increasingly viewed as repressive governments and regimes, which had done little or nothing to improve their living standards and …

Snapshots From Jerusalem, Ellen Weiss

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article is about the author's visit to Jerusalem during her sabbatical. She discusses the history of as well as the modern ethnic tensions in the city and what this means for daily life there. Weiss also explores both the Israeli and Arab elements of the city, and provides cases in which both groups are coming together to work and live together peacefully.

Cambodia's 1998 Elections: The Failure Of Democratic Consolidation, Peter M. Manikas, Eric Bjornlund

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article examines why Cambodia 's transition to democracy faltered in the years that followed the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia period despite the international community's assistance to two "democratic" elections.

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

Readers of this journal will have noticed an increasing emphasis on the impacts of globalization in recent issues. Not only has it become the mantra of the last years of the dying millennium, it is being presented as an elixir of unbounded possibilities, a process that will, with the help of some undefined alchemy, make the twenty-first century fulfill the promises and potential that somehow got lost or marginalized in the tumultuous upheavals of the twentieth. Yet its implications are largely unknown, the pace and speed of change are laboratory equations, and the unintended consequences of our hubris in our …

Cambodian Political Succession In Lowell, Massachusetts, Jeffrey Gerson

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article asks, What factors have in the past affected and will continue to affect the degree of Cambodians' participation and representation in Lowell politics? Gerson argues that five key factors, three internal — coming to terms with the legacy of mistrust resulting from the holocaust wrought by Pol Pot's murderous regime; lacking a tradition of democratic participation in their home country; and generational differences between those who regard themselves as Cambodian and the American-born — and two external — Lowell's two-tiered political system and the response of the city's elected officials to the influx of Southeast Asians that began …

Governing Massachusetts Public Schools: Assessing The 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act, John Portz

New England Journal of Public Policy

The Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 created a number of important changes in public education. In the area of local governance, the act was guided by a corporate model in which authority and responsibilities were reallocated among school committees, superintendents, principals, and newly created school councils. School committees in particular assumed a policymaking role, and superintendents became the chief executive officers of their school districts. This article, based on responses to a mail survey, is an early assessment of the act's governance changes. Superintendents are most satisfied with their role, especially their authority over principals and teachers. School committee …

The Politics Of Three Case Studies Industrialization, Eve S. Weinbaum

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article analyzes the grassroots efforts of the working and unemployed poor of three Appalachian communities to improve their towns ' devastated economy in an era of rapid economic change and globalization. While all three were beset by plant closings, their forms of political mobilization, both before and after the shutdown, differed. Each group of workers mounted a communitywide campaign designed to convince the company to stay, to induce local government action, to receive pay and benefits due, and to influence state legislation and economic development policy. Mobilization in the wake of a plant closing is rather extraordinary, especially in …

Industrial Policy: Federal, State, And Local Response, Zenia Kotval

New England Journal of Public Policy

During the past twenty years, many economists and policymakers have strongly advocated that the United States formulate a national industrial policy to improve the competitiveness of American firms in the global marketplace. These proposals call for both direct and indirect assistance to specific industrial sectors. Some would contend that U.S. industrial policies are being challenged by newer growth theories that shift the focus from the nation as the basic unit of industrial geography to regions and municipalities. There is little argument about the need for industrial policies that tie national, state, and local initiatives together. However, confusion and disagreement exist …

Is Boston Becoming A Branch-Plant Town?, Lawrence Franko

New England Journal of Public Policy

A decade ago, Boston appeared to be emerging as a headquarters city for a large number of world-class enterprises. Notwithstanding the recovery from the early-1990s recession, and a thriving entrepreneurial economy of business acorns, Boston today seems on its way to becoming largely a branch-plant town. None of the 1980s Massachusetts Miracle saplings or the more recent acorns have grown into mighty corporate oaks headquartered here. This article discusses the risks of having our current prosperity increasingly based on branch plants acquired or established by firms centered elsewhere. Its concern is based on the proposition that having big-business corporate headquarters …

Institutional Design And Regulatory Performance: Rethinking State Certificate Of Need Programs, Robert Hackey, Peter Fuller

New England Journal of Public Policy

The success of state efforts to control rising health care costs depends on the incentives contained in the legislative design of regulatory policies and in the administrative capacity and autonomy of state agencies. States have regulated the construction and expansion of health care facilities and services for more than two decades through "certificate of need" (CON) programs designed to limit the diffusion of expensive new medical technologies and to avoid the duplication of health care facilities. Although the cost-control record of state certificate of need programs has been widely criticized, Rhode Island's experience with a reformed CON process from 1985 …

What Predicts Success In Jtpa?: Test Of A Three-Component Model, Carolyn Ball

New England Journal of Public Policy

The Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), an education and training program to assist the economically disadvantaged, is one of sixty or more programs Congress is considering consolidating. This program had great success in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but its value and support have been declining. This author examines whether JTPA should continue through a test of three employment theories: discrimination, signaling, and human investment using data from Maine's JTPA program. Findings indicate that while the program can reduce discriminatory barriers and negative signals such as welfare status, it does not consistently succeed as a training investment. Enrollment in …

The Professional Decline Of Physicians In The Era Of Managed Care, Aimee E. Marlow

New England Journal of Public Policy

Physicians have long enjoyed prestige, power, and autonomy, but the rise of managed care organizations has drastically changed their status. Many doctors are in thrall to the financial well-being of the corporations that employ them, their knowledge and expertise controlled and manipulated in the interest of profit maximization. This article investigates the professional decline of physicians, citing the use of gag clauses, incentives to withhold care, and the breakdown of their authority. In an effort to regain some measure of control, physicians have taken their concerns to the public, supporting state and federal legislation that attempts to curb questionable managed …

Citizen Participation And Strategic Planning For An Urban Enterprise Community, Michael Leo Owens

New England Journal of Public Policy

Public policies rarely have single objectives. For the federal Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities initiative, bettering the socioeconomic opportunity structure among a collection of the nation's low-income areas is only one of its goals. Another initiative objective is to foster the representation of common citizens, especially residents, in the planning and implementation of strategies and programs designed to redevelop these low-income areas. Strategic community planning was the method chosen by the initiative's designers to achieve both objectives. This article, which makes use of the case study approach, addresses strategic community planning as an instrument of advancing citizen representation in urban …