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Studies on the military in Vietnam today see a concurrence between the changing role of the army—its growing economic role as well as its role as a tool to control the Vietnamese population—and the changing economy and international environment. How do we make sense of this evolution and its impact on civil—military relations in terms of power relations and authority? This study seeks to provide an analytical framework that shows how the military is not a homogeneous entity but rather is made up of various groups that derive uneven benefits from the post—cold war situation. The author's contribution is primarily at the conceptual level, stressing the dynamics of power relations among the military, society, and state from a Weberian perspective. Doi moi, as an era of economic and social change, has redefined power relations. The author also emphasizes the generational and historical elements in civil—military relations that are specific to Vietnam.

AbstractAvian influenza, or 'bird 'flu' arrived in Norfolk in April 2006 in the form of the low pathogenic strain H7N3. In February 2007 a highly pathogenic strain, H5N1, which can pose a risk to humans, was discovered in Suffolk. We examine how a local newspaper reported the outbreaks, focusing on the linguistic framing of biosecurity. Consistent with the growing concern with securitisation among policymakers, issues were discussed in terms of space (indoor–outdoor; local–global; national–international) and flows (movement, barriers and vectors) between spaces (farms, sheds and countries). The apportioning of blame along the lines of 'them and us'– Hungary and England – was tempered by the reporting on the Hungarian operations of the British poultry company. Explanations focused on indoor and outdoor farming and alleged breaches of biosecurity by the companies involved. As predicted by the idea of securitisation, risks were formulated as coming from outside the supposedly secure enclaves of poultry production.

Reviewing has long been recognized as a critical part of the academic process of knowledge creation, development, and dissemination. However, as evidenced by recent findings from focus groups and an international survey, the relative lack of effective formal training in management PhD programs on how to review is surprising given the impact that reviewing has on the management field. Despite the importance of reviewing to the success of the management field and the careers of those in our profession, many scholars still learn how to review by the inefficient method of trial and error. In response to recent criticisms and calls for the rehabilitation of the review process, the authors discuss why doctoral students need to be educated in order to be effective reviewers, what major topics should be covered in this training, and how certain techniques can be used to educate students while also enhancing their human capital and future career success.

AbstractScholars and the international media often allude to a putative "African view" of Africa–China links, constructed from anecdotal evidence. Using random sample and university-based surveys, we elaborate the first empirically based study of what Africans think of their relationships with China. We reach three conclusions. First, African views are not nearly as negative as Western media make out, but are variegated and complex. Second, the survey results are at variance with the dominant Western media representation that only African ruling elites are positive about these links. Third, we find that the dominant variation in African perspectives is by country, compared with variations such as age, education and gender. The differences among countries in attitudes towards China are primarily a function of the extent to which national politicians have elected to raise the "Chinese problem" and, secondarily, the extent of Western media influence in African states.

This paper aims to test the relationship between export and economic growth in the Malaysian economy from 1960 to 2005. Combining production function, and international trade and development theories, a five variable model is specified and estimated by using cointegration tests and error correction model. Multivariate cointegration results revealed that there exists a single cointegrating vector in the estimated system. This means that these variables are linked together in achieving their steady state equilibrium in the long run. From the estimation of the specified model, we reported that there is a positive relationship between export and economic growth in the long run and short run at 5 percent significance level in the Malaysian economy. Besides, our results suggest that capital has positive impacts on economic growth in the short-term and long-term but labor has an impact on economic growth only in the long run. For imports, it is proven that it has a negative relationship with economic growth.

AbstractIn contemporary times,Hundihas collected countless labels; the international press has spurned innumerable villainous descriptions, the bulk of which have helped to perpetuate a dense fog of notoriety. The critical problem lies in definition. As there is an incomplete understanding of hundi's form and remit, there is also a rather limited understanding of why the system persists, set against the backdrop of modern banking. In many ways the problem of definition presented legal and financial authorities of the early and late twentieth century with core issues which remain unresolved and problematic for authorities in the twenty-first century. By drawing on archival and other historical material pertaining to the system's usage amongst Indian merchants, this paper attempts to tackle much of the confusion and many misconceptions surrounding hundi. The discussion explores the idea that hundi is more accurately described as an indigenous banking system endowed with a complex range of functions, but whose central purpose is trade.

AbstractThis article critically reflects on today's dominant articulation of corporate responsibility (CR) in terms of thinking, practice, content and consequences. We examine what has and has not changed since a seminal critique of the notion of business social responsibility put forward by Theodore Levitt 50 years ago. We illustrate our argument with the case of Botnia in Uruguay, which has recently generated much discussion in international media, and other examples that are illuminating on the problematic nature of contemporary CR. We find that little in fact has changed between the 1958 and 2008 versions of CR except for the context of (global) business, especially the threat posed by sustainability questions and the more systematic ideological rejection of regulation. As opposed to these contemporary evolutions, we call for alternative, regulation‐based articulations of CR, which would improve corporate accountability on social and environmental questions. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

This article argues that the concept of private government contributes to an elegant framework for understanding the public and private nature of American civil society. Private government has two distinct elements comprised of the interests of businesses and nonprofit organizations that exercise power to interact with government to achieve their specific goals and objectives. This new, yet familiar, lens on which to consider the role of the nonprofit sector in the United States and the manner in which it interacts with government policy makers and business decision makers adds clarity to the muddle of terminology scholars have assembled to classify and characterize one of American society's most distinguishing features. The article will be of interest to domestic and international scholars seeking yet another tool to compare nongovernmental organizations and the particular character of civil society in countries that do not have the same political traditions as the United States.

After the first Bundestag elections in 1949, the Free Democratic Party (FDP) established itself as kingmaker either of the Christian Democrats or the Social Democrats. The entrance of the Green Party into the German Bundestag in 1983 brought about a significant change in the German political landscape, which challenged the German Liberals to redefine themselves. At present, it seems that the FDP is on its way back into the federal government after ten years of opposition, although "neoliberal" ideology is currently facing a severe international crisis. This constitutes a puzzling issue for political scientists, which is addressed in this article by analyzing the factors that can explain the German Liberal's latest success. Furthermore, the FDP's chances in comparison to the other two small parties (Left Party and Greens) are discussed. Finally, attention is focused on the characteristics of the FDP's election campaign and its coalition options for 2009 and beyond.

This article reviews the literature on the onset and dynamics of domestic terrorism, with special emphasis on the interactions between terrorist organizations, the state, and society. Because this literature has often been based on case studies, we seek to impose some structure to its findings. We challenge the distinction between domestic and international terrorism, which truncates the sample of violence, and we show that the actor-sense of terrorism (violence carried out by underground organizations) is the most appropriate model for causal analysis. Terrorist organizations tend to emerge in developed countries in which the state is able to prevent the loss of control over any part of its territory. Terrorists take advantage of the state's mistakes (when, for example, it is over-repressive or makes ineffective concessions) in order to boost their support. Terrorists cannot survive without some degree of support. Consequently, levels of violence and targets are determined by social constraints.

The Ethiopia-Eritrea border dispute is embedded within a set of domestic political conflicts in each state, is linked further through proxy conflicts to instability in Somalia and the Ogaden, and is skewed additionally by the application of Washington's global counter-terrorism policies to the region. Each of these arenas of contention has its own history, issues, actors and dynamic; however, each is also distorted by processes of conflict escalation and de-escalation in the other arenas. The intermeshing of domestic insecurities, interstate antagonisms, and global policies create regional 'security complexes' in which the security of each actor is intrinsically linked to the others and cannot realistically be considered apart from one another. Prospects for both the escalation and resolution of the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict are linked to domestic political processes (such as increasing authoritarianism), regional dynamics (such as local rivalries played out in Somalia) and international policies (such as US counter-terrorism policies).

We address two questions that are central to the literature on the emergence of democracy and economic globalization. First, does democratization foster higher levels of trade and capital account openness? Second, do trade and capital account openness increase the likelihood of democratization? We review the literature in international political economy and comparative politics that has theoretically and empirically addressed these questions. We then conduct some empirical tests in a sample of developing countries to briefly evaluate the empirical relationship between democracy and economic globalization. Our analysis reveals that evidence for the claim that democracy fosters trade and capital account liberalization is robust but that empirical support for the predicted positive effect of economic openness on democracy among developing countries is weak. More theoretical work is needed to clarify the link between democracy and economic liberalization, and to this end we provide possible topics for future research.

This article seeks to contribute to the study of political centralisation in Portugal under Salazar, focusing on the council of ministers and its decision-making role and exploring the links between the dictator and his ministers (193339). The authors discuss the centralist strategy
of the dictator based on a quantitative and qualitative study of Antnio de Oliveira Salazar's diaries: detailed accounts of his routines, audiences, meetings and even telephone calls. Our conclusions indicate Salazar perceived his cabinet more as a crisis management committee, as meetings
occurred irregularly and the agenda was considerably focused on internal and external crises and major international political events. The article also provides a more accurate notion of the main features of decision-making during the regime's institutionalisation by exploring Salazar's individual
relations with his ministers and inner circle. As Salazarism is often compared to its Iberian counterpart, Francoism, important differences between the two regimes in this domain are noted.

- In this article the author analyses the factors that have produced the rise in commodities prices, making exasperated a food crises that has been creeping for a long time. The tightly correlated evolution in prices for both agricultural and non agricultural commodities has called the attention on a specific financial instrument, the commodity index, that connects them to the futures market where international prices are fixed. To the commodity index make reference the major banks in Wall Street to manage their financial liquidity and that of institutional investors (pension funds, foundations, insurance companies), looking for new investment opportunities after the sub-prime crises. The speculations on both sub-prime and commodities show that, independently from the perspectives of accumulation, the over accumulated capital increases the rent by dispossessing the living conditions of millions of people.Key words: food crisis; financial speculation on food; accumulation by dispossession; agricultural futures; sub-prime; commodities index.

Today, what is called "Gender Mainstreaming" is the main strategy of the European Union to work toward gender equality. The definitions of Gender Mainstreaming explicitly include men, and there have been first efforts to integrate a men's perspective into this strategy. Referring approaches are outlined in this paper, and the respective chances and problems are addressed. Relevant aspects of the discussion in the German speaking countries and some practical experiences within Gender Mainstreaming projects are highlighted, with a focus on Austria. At the moment, an important stream of the discussion refers to the reallocation of paid labor and unpaid caring work among men and women. Thus, this thematic focus is maintained throughout the paper, as an example for a two-edged topic between emancipation and hetero-normativity. Inputs from Northern Europe as the model region concerning gender equality and important international sources from critical men's studies and queer theory are used as reference points.