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31 Pol'y Stud. J. vii (2003)

handle is hein.journals/plyssjnl31 and id is 1 raw text is: A New Journal and a New Agenda: The Need for More Inspired Work in Policy Studies Paul Rich, President, Policy Studies Organization This first issue of a newly redesigned, reconsidered Policy Studies Journal marks a recommitment by the Policy Studies Organization to serve the international community. An international search is being launched for a new permanent editor, and ambitious plans are being made for the Internet and Web aspects of the journal. International studies will receive attention. The Iraq photos show one method. Looking through past issues of PSO publications, one area that has received little attention is the comparison of policy issues as experienced in different countries. Our provincialism in the United States about policy issues is amazing. In coop- eration with our new partner, Blackwell, we are going to do our best to be less provincial and more ecumenical. The journal will contain some surprises, as the photos of Iraq and photo section Another Face to Policy should indicate. We certainly invite more international work for our PSO conferences and in our publications. A good example of how productive the international method can be is the subject of the collapse of East Germany and the subsequent efforts to incorporate the region into the greater Germany that have now emerged. Reuni- fication of Germany involved staggering amounts of aid, with little doubt at the time that major policy changes and massive transfers were needed to bring East Germany into the world of neoliberal capitalism. The German situation is an excellent launching pad in the classroom or in the boardroom for more discussion about the global economic situation. The poverty was evident, and the remedy seemed obvious. The medicine for East Germany, capital investment, has seemed to be the preferred treatment for all underdeveloped situations. But granting the emergence of a global economy, the question that has not received enough attention is whether it can be demonstrated that policies favoring economic incentives to participate in that world are inevitably effective? Compare, for example, the German experience with the current situation in Mexico. In Germany, there was no doubt in the minds of planners about the need to encour- age entrepreneurship in the eastern area. In contrast, in Chiapas in the south of the country, where there is a long-running insurrection, the offer of a boost into the free market economy has not brought an end to the uprising, and policymakers are having second thoughts. Disturbingly, the rebels seek something else. The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan are perhaps our best reminders that policies offering economic incentives are not a new tool of statecraft;-but the end of the Cold War and the heightened interest in democratization issues