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The development of the concept of Islamic Public Administration (IPA) requires consideration of its portability across spatial and temporal contexts as well as secular-religious divides. The content of IPA has shifted over time, and debate over its meanings and key attributes has been a consistent feature of the history of Muslim societies. This means a hard-edged IPA concept constituted by immutable structural features to enable valid and reliable observation over time is likely to be defeated. This article argues instead for a thematic IPA framework that is relatively underspecified to allow for context sensitivity and facilitates the analysis of enduring historical dilemmas of Islamic governance. Such a framework helps show how IPA differs from other public administration traditions; specifically, its self-conscious reinvention by appeals to Islamic theology, law and ethics; and its grounding in values that are not commensurable with secular, liberal "public" values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9701.2008.01148.x Byline: Robert Ackrill (l), Adrian Kay (2) Abstract: The Uruguay Round Agreement made significant changes to the governance of international trade. Trade rules and dispute settlement mechanisms were altered and a series of specific agreements provided for liberalisation across economic sectors. The Agreement on Agriculture, arguably the most difficult and contentious to negotiate, permitted the continued use of trade-distorting instruments, both domestically and at the border. Rule-enforcement in agriculture therefore relies crucially on the clarity of the rules. This paper provides an in-depth study of a unique and critical case for understanding the new rules: the EC sugar regime. This policy was challenged unsuccessfully under the pre-Uruguay Round rules, but successfully under the new rules. This case is particularly valuable in allowing us to isolate the effect of the Uruguay Round on agricultural trade disputes: the policy under challenge was essentially unchanged and the legal actions addressed the same concern - excessive export subsidisation. Drawing on primary and secondary materials and interviews with key policy actors, sugar is used to illustrate how those involved in the multilateral process learned from particular rule weaknesses revealed in earlier cases, revising those rules in the Uruguay Round in such a way that dispute panels can more readily and objectively determine rule breaches. Author Affiliation: (l)Nottingham Trent University (2)Griffith University, Brisbane

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-7976.2008.00137.x Byline: Robert Ackrill (1), Adrian Kay (2), Wyn Morgan (3) Abstract: In 2008, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reached its fiftieth birthday. It has been a constant factor in directing resources to the EU agricultural sector, but the means of channelling these resources have changed considerably over time. This article charts the evolution of the CAPs principal policy instruments and analyzes the welfare effects of its major reforms. It also analyzes these changes in terms of the institutional context of the principal reform pressures, namely international trade obligations and EU budget concerns. We will show that the link between these two pressures was never one of simple determinism: the CAP and its reform can only be understood in light of these pressures and of endogenous vested interests to the policy. En 2008, la Politique agricole commune (PAC) celebre ses 50 ans. Cette politique a ete un facteur constant de l'orientation des ressources vers le secteur agricole de l'UE, mais les moyens utilises pour acheminer ces ressources ont change considerablement au fil du temps. Le present article retrace l'evolution des principaux instruments de la PAC et analyse les effets de ses grandes reformes sur le bien-etre. Elle analyse aussi ces changements dans le contexte institutionnel des pressions de la reforme, a savoir les obligations commerciales internationales et les preoccupations quant au budget de l'UE. Nous montrons que le lien entre ces deux types de pression n'a jamais ete d'un determinisme simple: la PAC et sa reforme ne peuvent etre comprises qu'en examinant ces pressions et les droits acquis endogenes qu'elles generent. Author Affiliation: (1)Division of Economics, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, Burton Street, Nottingham NG1 4BU, UK (corresponding author: phone: +44 115 848 4234; fax: +44 115 848 4707; e-mail:robert.ackrill@ntu.ac.uk). (2)Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Department of Politics & Public Policy, Griffith Business School, Nathan, Brisbane QLD 4111, Australia (phone: +61 (0)7 3735 5401; fax: +61 (0)7 3735 7737; e-mail:a.kay@griffith.edu.au). (3)Associate Professor in Economics and Director of Teaching and Learning, School of Economics, B3, Sir Clive Granger Building, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK (phone: +44(0)115 9515473; fax: +44(0)115 9514159; e-mail:wyn.morgan@nottingham.ac.uk).

The article discusses the tense policy layering and promotion of artificial standards in Australian health-care politics in the 1990s. It also analyzes the reforms introduced to support private health insurance in Australia at the end of the 1990s.

Reviews of devolution in Wales have been focussed so far on empirical description and positive analysis; there has been almost no discussion of how it should be judged or evaluated. I redress this imbalance by considering the arguments for devolution and the various normative values that may be used to evaluate the process. The arguments for devolution are of two basic kinds. Some are consequentialist: that devolution is desired on the grounds that it is believed to have good or desirable effects. Others are deontological: that devolution is thought to be intrinsically valuable. Any attempt to justify and evaluate devolution by consequentialist reasoning amounts to post hoc ergo propter hoc rationalisation. The social sciences are a long way from allowing the prediction of the global long-term net equilibrium effects of a major institutional change such as devolution in Wales. I further argue that the nonconsequentialist value of autonomy is the underlying justification for the devolution process. Devolution should be judged according to how it appeals to, supports or embodies this value.