Think Tank Library

While prophesies of an `African Renaissance` were over-optimistic, out of the headlines some African countries have been doing relatively well. Lion Cubs brings together an international group of contributors in four case studies. Botswana demonstrates how Africans should manage natural resources; Tanzania the difficulty of moving to privatisation and de-regulation; Rwanda and Mozambique the importance of broad-based, inclusive government for successful conflict resolution.

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During the past generation, a large environmentalist movement has emerged committed to showing that the world is a bad place and is growing progressively worse. This movement is headed by individuals such as Paul Ehrlich and David Pimental, and by organisations such as the World Wide Fund for Nature, Greenpeace, Worldwatch, and many others.

To view the Economic Note, click here (English)
To view the Economic Note, click here (French)

The study explores the ideas behind DARPA`s controversial Policy Analysis Market research project by comparing it to more traditional futures markets. An idea futures market is supposed to provide policy makers with more robust and complex information based on individual knowledge, represented by the individual investments. But PAM fell prey to the problem it was thought to cure; misinformed politicians chose to shut down a project that was portrayed as "gambling on terrorism".

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In The Decline and Fall of Local Democracy: A History of Local Government Finance, the first part of a major study into local government financial reform, Professor Tony Travers of the LSE and Lorena Esposito of Policy Exchange examine the history of local government funding in England and Wales, from feudalism through the Victorian period to today. The authors show how the current system of highly centralised control is a product of the government`s desire to maintain uniformity and fiscal discipline.

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The current technological and medical development is increasing individuals` ability to change their physique. We do not at present have the cultural, political or ethical conventions to keep up with the speed of this development.

Regulation prohibiting certain technologies does not provide the individual with protection against being forced into changing themselves in way they do not agree with. Morphologic freedom will help healthcare organizations, public and private, to design suitable healthcare solutions for the individual.

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In this pamphlet, Prof Steven Schwartz, Vice Chancellor of Brunel University, asks what the future of higher education in Britain should be. How can we increase access to university? Should we continue our centralised, state-funded approach, or move to a market-led university system? This timely pamphlet argues that if the slide into mediocrity is to be stopped and access made fairer, a modern, market-led approach must be implemented.

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Over the past decade, there has been a sustained fall in the number of people who are unemployed. In Spring 1992, there were around 2.8 million unemployed people in Britain. That figure is now down to 1.5 million. What is much less well known is that this drop in unemployment has been accompanied by a rise in the number of people who are neither employed nor officially unemployed – a group described as economically inactive. Over 7.7 million people of working age now count as economically inactive, up from 7.3 million in 1992 and 7.6 million in 1997.Who they are, and what more can be done to help them, are the main themes of this paper.

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On 12 June 2003, a press release on a Cabinet reshuffle declared as a footnote that the Office of Lord Chancellor was to be abolished and that a new Supreme Court would replace the House of Lords as the Highest court in the UK. Off With Their Wigs!: Judicial Revolution in Modern Britain seeks the views of constitutional experts in a critical analysis of the Government`s plans, including their desired abolition of the QC system.

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