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For Edward Hallett Carr in his seminal work, The Twenty Years' Crisis (1939), "the true problem of peaceful change is, in national politics, how to effect necessary and desirable change without revolution and, in international politics, how to effect such changes without war." This work will establish a 'power-benefits ratio' which reflects the changing dynamics of international power created by differing rates of economic growth among great powers. When the rising and increasing power of one political entity, relative to other members of an international system, is not adequately reflected in an increase in benefits conferred, that power tends toward dissatisfaction. Left without recourse to address a perceived injustice, the rising power, given the differential in economic rates of growth, soon becomes powerful enough to force change. Hence, as the rising power becomes dissatisfied and now in possession to do something about it, the probability of systemic conflict increases. A hypothesis is that the creation of a peaceful mechanism for international change begins with the acknowledgement of the changing power-benefits ratio and the need for effective and peaceful adjustment. A stable international system requires what E. H. Carr called 'a common feeling of what is right,' and as a result establishing morality as a guiding principle of the newly emerging global order. Necessary, but for Carr insufficient, the nature and significance of power must also be incorporated into the peaceful change mechanism. Incorporating these ideas, the paper will present a political policy spectrum based on power transition theory and leading toward the establishment of a mechanism for effective change in global politics and security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Performance management necessarily involves establishing program goals and measuring performance toward goal attainment. Superior public management systems differentiate among inputs, outputs, and outcomes in measuring performance and efficiency. This otherwise straightforward effort is complicated where program goals are multiple, vague, or in conflict, and where implementation is delegated to third parties whose interpretive view of program goals may further depart from those intended by policymakers (Frederickson & Frederickson, forthcoming). Exemplary of recent policy change has been relaxation of transparency requirements for particular programs through exemptions from transparency laws. Most notable among these are economic development policy and homeland security policies. Within the policy subsystems for both economic development and homeland security there are clear goals, though often not clearly prescribed courses of action. Overarching constituent policy such as open records and open meetings laws (like state freedom of information acts), while not in direct conflict with economic development policy, interferes with the competitive recruitment process at the state level. On the other hand, transparency conflicts directly with the goals of U.S. federal and state policies intended to prevent and respond to emergencies such as terrorist attacks. This paper examines recent policy change in these two policy areas and suggests a theoretical framework to explain how different models of change apply to each as a result of differences between direct and indirect applicability of transparency to policy goals. The paper concludes by examining the role of goal conflict as the impetus for policy change and its implications for performance management. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As states get stronger, they are expected to be more successful in suppressing the active insurgency and limiting their activities against the state. This study examines the relationship between an important dimension of state capacity, namely extraction of resources and civil war onset. The ability of the state to extract resources from the society is of great importance because all states need financial resources to enforce is will over citizens and to govern effectively. Revenue is not only essential to strengthen the military capabilities that will suppress the insurgency or fight with external enemies, but also to control the territory and the population, to implement state policies and carry out various goals (national security, economic development, financing of macroeconomic stabilization programs), and to provide public goods and other services (e.g. justice, health care, education, job training and infrastructure). As a result we expect states with higher levels of tax revenue to have a lower risk of civil wars. Utilizing time-series, cross-nation data for the 1975-1995 period, the empirical findings suggest that as the level of the government extraction increases, the likelihood of civil war onset declines significantly, controlling for several other economic, demographic, and political factors. Our findings demonstrate that the state's extractive capacity is vital for the maintenance of peace and that higher levels of tax revenue have a strong pacifying effect on civil war. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]