Why institutional reforms in forestry? Lessons from international experience
Profound changes have taken place, worldwide, during the last decade. These political, economic, and institutional changes have contributed to redefine the role of the state in all sectors, including natural resources. This article discusses traditional shortcomings of forest departments and new challenges they face arising from the changes in national policies and global concerns. Worldwide trends, such as civil service reforms, decentralization of government, increased local community involvement in resource management, and divestiture of state-owned enterprises impact the forestry sector, already faced with shrinking forest areas, decreased revenues, and government downsizing. To survive, forest departments need to form strategic partnerships with other stakeholders, get out of forest activities where they do not have a comparative advantage, and focus on core functions that governments do best. Examples are given from countries in Asia and the Pacific. Two country case studies are presented discussing Nepal's experience with Forest User Groups and New Zealand's experience with privatization of forestry.
FOREST RELATED RURAL LIVELIHOOD STRATEGIES IN NATIONAL AND GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT
ABSTRACT The main emphasis of the paper is on a diagnostic reappraisal of the co-evolution between development policy and forest policy in tropical countries, concentrating on poverty alleviation and the contribution of forest production to livelihoods. The level of livelihood support from forests as well as the appearance of the livelihood approach as a new development paradigm are critically questioned. The analysis, based on the retracing of historical stages, provides insights into the short life span of dominant development themes and priorities. The livelihood approach has important predecessor models like the basic needs approach and the Farming Systems Analysis. The rich experience gained from the application of these models and, especially, the knowledge of their limitations have been ignored as inputs for further model development. In order to avoid the perpetuation of local subsistence production and poverty, a far reaching integration with other forest related development models, such as industrial forestry, and with macroeconomic development is suggested.
The Bastille: A History of a Symbol of Despotism and Freedom
This book is both an analysis of the Bastille as cultural paradigm and a case study on the history of French political culture. It examines in particular the storming and subsequent fall of the Bastille in Paris on July 14, 1789 and how it came to represent the cornerstone of the French Revolution, becoming a symbol of the repression of the Old Regime. Lusebrink and Reichardt use this semiotic reading of the Bastille to reveal how historical symbols are generated; what these symbols’ functions are in the collective memory of societies; and how they are used by social, political, and ideological groups.

To facilitate the symbolic nature of the investigation, this analysis of the evolving signification of the Bastille moves from the French Revolution to the nineteenth century to contemporary history. The narrative also shifts from France to other cultural arenas, like the modern European colonial sphere, where the overthrow of the Bastille acquired radical new signification in the decolonization period of the 1940s and 1950s. The Bastille demonstrates the potency of the interdisciplinary historical research that has characterized the end of this century, combining quantitative and qualitative approaches, and taking its methodological tools from history, sociology, linguistics, and cultural and literary studies.