The four Visegrad states — Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia (until 1993 Czechoslovakia) and Hungary — form a compact area between Germany and Austria in the west and the states of the former USSR in the east. They are bounded by the Baltic in the north and the Danube river in the south. They are cut by the Sudeten and Carpathian mountain ranges, which divide Poland off from the other states. Poland is an extension of the North European plain and like the latter is drained by rivers that flow from south to north west — the Oder, the Vlatava and the Elbe, the Vistula and the Bug. The Danube is the great exception, flowing from its source eastward, turning through two 90-degree turns to end up in the Black Sea, forming the barrier and often the political frontier between central Europe and the Balkans. Hungary to the east of the Danube is also an open plain. The region is historically and culturally part of western Europe, but its eastern Marches now represents a vital strategic zone between Germany and the core of the European Union to the west and the Russian zone to the east.

Economy and Society

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics

Citizen and subject: contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism

The Theory of Incentives I: The Principal-Agent Model

Chairman's Report of Proceedings 1. Attached is the Chairman's Report of Proceedings of the Meeting of the Consultative Group for Haiti held in Paris, January 30-31, 1995. The following annexes are attached to this report (in order of appearance at the meeting): Annex I: List of Delegates Annex II: Agenda Annex III: Statement by Mr. Smarck Michel, Prime Minister of Haiti Annex IV: Statement by Mr. Enrique Iglesias, President of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Annex V: Report of Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General Annex VI: Statement by Ms. Marie-Michele Rey, Minister of Economy and Finance of Haiti Annex VII: Statement of Mr. Edilberto L. Segura, Director, International Development Association (IDA) Annex VIII: Statement by Mr. John Thornton, Deputy Division Chief, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Annex IX: Statement by Mr. Philippe Lietard, Director, Corporate Finances Department, IFC Annex X: Statement by Mr. Jean-Marie Cherestal, Minister of Planning and External Cooperation Annex XI: Statement by Mr. Miguel E. Martinez, Manager Regional Operation Department II, IDB Annex XII: Statement by Mr. Fernando Zumbado, Assistant Secretary General, UNDP Annex XIII: Press Releases 2. Comments or corrections should be sent to the Vicc Presidcnt and Secrctary or Deputy Secrertary of the Bank by May 26, 1995.

https://calhoun.nps.edu/bitstream/10945/12373/1/internationalban00cook.pdf

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development

Most governance arrangements involve spatial units with highly unequal powers, for example, a feudal monarchy and its principalities, an empire and its colonies, a formal empire and an informal empire (or sphere of influence), a national government and its subnational entities, or a regional government and its local entities. In this situation, the dominant unit ( A ) usually enjoys some discretion about how to institutionalize its authority over the subordinate unit ( B ). An important element of this decision concerns how much authority should be delegated to the weaker unit. The authors simplify this dimension of governance along a continuum of “direct” and “indirect” styles of rule. Why, in some cases, does one find a relatively direct (centralized) system of rule and in others a relatively indirect (decentralized) system of rule? While many factors impinge on this decision, the authors argue that an important and highly persistent factor is the prior level of centralization existing within the subordinate unit. Greater centralization in B is likely to lead to a more indirect form of rule between A and B , all other things being equal. The authors refer to this as an institutional theory of direct/indirect rule. Empirical analyses of this hypothesis are applied to patterns of direct and indirect rule (1) during the age of imperialism and (2) across contemporary nation-states. The article concludes by discussing applications of the theory in a variety of additional settings.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/273A5AF537FBBD0D1A7C4959D3DE83A0/S0043887111000104a.pdf/div-class-title-an-institutional-theory-of-direct-and-indirect-rule-div.pdf

Johan Van Gorp

Papers

An Institutional Theory of Direct and Indirect Rule

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