Uncertainty and the Outcome of a Development Situation

Dans plusieurs sociétés industrielles, les décisions concernant linvestissement rurale se prennent dans un contexte dune planification rationnelle a niveau central et dune prise de décision au niveau local. Lorsque le changement provoqué sexprime dans un projet de développement économique sur un territoire donné conçu par rapport à des résultats anticipés précis en courte période, il est utile de concevoir le processus de développement économique comme un processus social dinteraction entre les concepteurs et les clients de telle sorte quil soit possible de comprendre les différences qui existent entre les attentes des premiers et les réalisations des seconds dans la situation de développement. Larticle entreprend de mettre en parallèle les décisions dinvestissement des planificateurs centraux qui veulent transformer les fondements de lindustrie dexportation des bananes dans la vallée de Waidina Fiji, sur une période de cinq ans, et celles des villageois producteurs durant la même période.
Rural investment decisions in many postcolonial societies take place within a framework of rational central-planning and local-level decision-making. When induced change occurs in the form of an economic development project over a defined area for a specified short-term outcome, it is fruitful to view the economic development process as a social process of interaction between developers and developed in order to understand the discrepancies between the expectations of the former and the attainments of the latter in the development situation. This article examines the central planners investment decision to change the production base for the banana-export industry in the Waidina valley, Fiji, over a five-year period, and the investment decisions of village producers during this same period.     

Inflation and Presidential Popularity

Current Research: This section of POQ is reserved for brief reports of researchin progress, discussions of unsolved problems, methodologicalstudies, and public opinion data not extensively analyzed orinterpreted. Succinct case histories are welcomed, as well ashypotheses and insights that may be useful to other studentsof public opinion. Usually, material in this section is shorter,more informal, and more tentative than in preceding pages     

PROTECTIONIST PRESSURES AND AGGREGATE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS: COMMENT ON TAKACS

This paper explores the influence of U. S. macroeconomic conditions and the international trade position on protectionist pressures as measured by escape clause cases brought before the International Trade Commission. Several possible difficulties with Takacs' pioneering empirical study of this topic are considered. It is argued that while further support is found for her principal conclusion that the state of the domestic economy is a significant determinant of such protectionist pressures, the quantitative strength of such aggregate factors is less than was suggested by Takacs' original study.     

A Part-Whole Strategy for the Study of Opinions

An empirical counterpart was sought to a theoretical typologyof the orientation of Arabs in Israel to their minority statusin a Jewish-Zionist state. The indications were that such anorientation was complex and that the construction of unidimensionalattitude scales would not suffice. A set of 60 opinion statementswas used in a five-step procedure in order to arrive at second-orderunidimensionality. The procedures involved a principal factoranalysis, Guttman scaling, principal component analysis, smallestspace analysis, and summated ratings. A comparison between thecomponents and the final scale of orientation is made.