Volume 8 Number 3 July 1976
Edited by: Robin Luckham
Why imperialism? This issue of the IDS Bulletin is largely about the impact of the central capitalist countries of Western Europe and North America upon the Third World.
Sometimes this is talked of in terms of the 'dependence' of the latter upon the former. 'Dependence', however, connotes a certain passivity or want of will. Whereas imperialism conveys more clearly that this dependence has been imposed; and further that present dependence is historically linked to past domination.
And new tactics? A deliberate ambiguity: both new tactics and forms of domination, and new tactics, new room for manoeuvre against it.
Volume 8 Number 2 May 1976
Edited by: Ronald Dore
New York artist Ben Shahn, "is Actones, Episodes, Nodes, Nodal Chains, Scenes, Serials, Nomoclones, Permaclones, Paragroups, Nomoclonic Types, Permaclonic Types, Permaclonic Systems and Permaclonic Supersystems. Culture is also Phonemes, Morphemes, Words, Semantically Equivalent Utterances, Behaviour Plans and many other things".
The lecturer, under his academic robes, is a solemn, long-necked, myopic stork. Only a birdbrain, is the message, could be capable of such stupendous gobblydegook. It is sad that a concept should be so abused as the word "culture" is, both by those who so enthusiastically make a living out of it, and by those stern British sociologists and anthropologists who are about as ready to admit that culture has a legitimate part to play iii social explanation as a Luther that indulgences might be a means to salvation.
Though they have mellowed somewhat recently, there was a time when if you called a British social anthropologist, a "cultural anthropologist", he would react with contemptuous amazement, unable to believe that anyone could fail to recognise the difference between a scientific student of social structure such as himself and, say, a Margaret Mead or some other purveyor of entertaining speculations to the Book of the Month Club. Nor have their sociologist cousins been immune from the feeling that culture, attitudes, value systems are somewhat improper concerns.
A recent Ph.D. thesis on the British engineering profession devoted its first, and only eloquent, chapter to pouring scorn on the notion that the low status accorded to engineers in British society might in any way be explained by the cultural ethos of Oxbridge in particular or of the British upper middle class in general.
Volume 8 Number 1 January 1976
Edited by: Raymond Apthorpe
For the first time, this issue of the Bulletin is written and edited by colleagues from another British institution working on development problems. Similar guest issues will appear from time to time the next, for example in March 1977, produced by the Department of Administrative Studies at the University of Manchester. IDS hopes that this innovation will help to broaden knowledge about British development research within the country and overseas, and thus also help to fulfil our function as a national centre of development studies.
Volume 7 Number 4 October 1975
Edited by: Gamani Corea
Over the past few years the world has witnessed major developments which have vastly altered the international scene. One of these is the deep crisis that has afflicted the international economic order as we have known it up to now the crisis that was reflected in the break up of the international monetary and financial system and in the emergence of such disruptive forces as inflation and recession in virtually all the industrialised countries of the West. Another major development has been the emergence of the developing countries themselves as a significant force on the world stage a phenomenon that is evidenced by the greater assertiveness, greater self-awareness and the greater capacity for action of these countries. The concerted action of the oil producing countries, themselves developing countries, in respect of the price of oil is a manifestation of these changed circumstances. These developments have served to create a new awareness of the need for change, of the inadequacy of prevailing structures, and, above all, of the key importance of the development issue as a factor of international relations.
Volume 7 Number 3 July 1975
Edited by: Dudley Seers
Social scientists have come to rely very heavily on statistics. in retrospect the crucial step was probably the development of national income accounts in the 1930s to illustrate the Keynesian model of macro-economics. By bringing out the connections between various components of demand and supply, this made it possible to estimate the effects of policy variables,(especially tax revenues and government investment) on output (and therefore employment) and on the balance of payments. Economists gained much more insight into how an industrial economy operated and this increased their usefulness to politicians and administrators. National income accounting had practical uses for demand management by governments intent on avoiding unemployment after the war, and the system of national accounts could later be adapted to quantify Harrod-Domar growth models, forming the core of most of the 'development plans' of the post-war period.
