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Discusses the impact of regulatory and enforcement action on banking and financial services, focusing on Switzerland, which is one of the most developed financial centres. Describes the recent increase in legislation which introduces corporate criminal liability, plus the far‐reaching Money Laundering Ordinance with its stronger due diligence requirements. Points out that in the field of financial services, liberalisation and globalisation have been met with more rather than less regulation. Concludes that, while greater regulation can be viewed as a reasonable price to pay for globalised financial services, the over‐regulation of Swiss financial services needs to be rationalised.

Crisis management (prevention, preparedness, response, and reconstruction) is a tough task for political and bureaucratic leaders. This article documents the persistent tensions between the expectations and realities of crisis leadership. It explores the popular notion that crises provide key opportunities for reform. The very occurrence of a crisis is then thought to expose the status quo as problematic, making it easier to gain momentum for alternative policies and institutions. We argue that the opportunities for reform in the wake of crisis are smaller than often thought. The prime reason is that the requisites of crisis leadership are at odds with the requirements of effective reform.

This paper describes, analyzes and compares two cases of major policy and institutional reform in economic policy: Australia's 1983 decision to float its currency and Sweden's 1990 decision to align itself economically and politically by applying for EU membership. Both involved the overturning of long-standing policy commitments and deeply held beliefs on the part of the social-democratic governments that took these steps. We argue that notwithstanding the major institutional differences between the two countries, both changes are explained by the exercise of change-oriented leadership along the lines set out in five propositions that have been derived from the literatures on policy change and comparative government.

Rapidly increasing area of research •Comprehensive and wide-reaching volume •Contributions from leading international scholars in the field Political leadership has made a comeback. It was studied intensively not only by political scientists but also by political sociologists and psychologists, Sovietologists, political anthropologists, and by scholars in comparative and development studies from the 1940s to the 1970s. Thereafter, the field lost its way with the rise of structuralism, neo-institutionalism, and rational choice approaches to the study of politics, government, and governance. Recently, however, students of politics have returned to studying the role of individual leaders and the exercise of leadership to explain political outcomes. The list of topics is nigh endless: elections, conflict management, public policy, government popularity, development, governance networks, and regional integration. In the media age, leaders are presented and stage-managed—spun—as the solution to almost every social problem. Through the mass media and the Internet, citizens and professional observers follow the rise, impact, and fall of senior political officeholders at closer quarters than ever before. This Handbook encapsulates the resurgence by asking, where are we today? It orders the multidisciplinary field by identifying the distinct and distinctive contributions of the disciplines. It meets the urgent need to take stock. It brings together scholars from around the world, encouraging a comparative perspective, to provide a comprehensive coverage of all the major disciplines, methods, and regions. It showcases both the normative and empirical traditions in political leadership studies, and juxtaposes behavioural, institutional, and interpretive approaches. It covers formal, office-based as well as informal, emergent political leadership, and in both democratic and undemocratic polities. Readership: Academics, researchers, and graduate students in Politics, and across the social sciences.

Friedreich's ataxia (FA) is the most common form of autosomal recessive spinocerebellar ataxia and is often associated with a cardiomyopathy. The disease is caused by an expanded intronic GAA repeat, which results in deficiency of a mitochondrial protein called frataxin. In the yeast YFH1 knockout model of the disease there is evidence that frataxin deficiency leads to a severe defect of mitochondrial respiration, intramitochondrial iron accumulation, and associated production of oxygen free radicals. Recently, the analysis of FA cardiac and skeletal muscle samples and in vivo phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy (31P-MRS) has confirmed the deficits of respiratory chain complexes in these tissues. The role of oxidative stress in FA is further supported by the accumulation of iron and decreased aconitase activities in cardiac muscle. We used 31P-MRS to evaluate the effect of 6 months of antioxidant treatment (Coenzyme Q10 400 mg/day, vitamin E 2,100 IU/day) on cardiac and calf muscle energy metabolism in 10 FA patients. After only 3 months of treatment, the cardiac phosphocreatine to ATP ratio showed a mean relative increase to 178% (p = 0.03) and the maximum rate of skeletal muscle mitochondrial ATP production increased to 139% (p = 0.01) of their respective baseline values in the FA patients. These improvements, greater in prehypertrophic hearts and in the muscle of patients with longer GAA repeats, were sustained after 6 months of therapy. The neurological and echocardiographic evaluations did not show any consistent benefits of the therapy after 6 months. This study demonstrates partial reversal of a surrogate biochemical marker in FA with antioxidant therapy and supports the evaluation of such therapy as a disease-modifying strategy in this neurodegenerative disorder.

Huntington's disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disease caused by an abnormally expanded (>36) CAG repeat within the ITI5 gene encoding a widely expressed 349-kd protein, huntingtin. The medium spiny neurons of the caudate preferentially degenerate in Huntington's disease, with the presence of neuronal intranuclear inclusions. Excitotoxicity is thought to be important in the pathogenesis of Huntington's disease; the recently described mitochondrial respiratory chain and aconitase defects in Huntington's disease brain are consistent with this hypothesis. A transgenic mouse model (R6/2) of Huntington's disease develops a movement disorder, muscle wasting, and premature death at about 14 to 16 weeks. Selective neuronal death in these mice is not seen until 14 weeks. Biochemical analysis of R6/2 mouse brain at 12 weeks demonstrated a significant reduction in aconitase and mitochondrial complex IV activities in the striatum and a decrease in complex IV activity in the cerebral cortex. Increased immunostaining for inducible nitric oxide synthase and nitrotyrosine was seen in the transgenic mouse model but not control mouse brains. These results extend the parallels between Huntington's disease and the transgenic mouse model to biochemical events and suggest complex IV deficiency and elevated nitric oxide and superoxide radical generation precede neuronal death in the R6/2 mouse and contribute to pathogenesis.

Books reviewed in this essay: K.J. Bade and M. Weiner (Eds), Migration Past, Migration Future: Germany and the United States R. Munz and M. Weiner (Eds), Migrants, Refugees, and Foreign Policy: U.S. and German Policies Towards Countries of Origin K. Hailbronner and D.A. Martin (Eds), Immigration Admissions: The Search for Workable Policies in Germany and the United States K. Hailbronner, D.A. Martin and H. Motomura (Eds), Immigration Controls: The Search for Workable Policies in Germany and the United States P. Schuck and R. Munz (Eds), Paths to Inclusion: The Integration of Migrants in the United States and Germany

Bureaucratic politics—for example, the “political” interaction between individuals and organizations in the executive branch of government—is a potentially significant force affecting the course and outcomes of governmental policymaking processes. In this article, an empirical and normative model and operationalization of bureaucratic politics is developed, treating it as a variable rather than as an immutable (and by definition problematic) property of policy decision-making. A conceptual model, linking the nature and intensity of bureaucratic politics in advisory systems to the characteristics of the political leaders served by them, is also developed. On the basis of earlier studies of presidential leadership (e.g., Preston, 1996), the leader's need for power, cognitive complexity, and prior policy experience/expertise are hypothesized to affect the organization and operation of the advisory system in terms of bureaucratic politics. Using Hermann's (1983) Personality Assessment-at-a-Distance (PAD) coding technique, theoretical assertions are illustrated in a detailed case study of two critical episodes in U.S. decision-making in the conduct of the Vietnam war in 1965 and 1968.

Switzerland is a traditional financial centre with an uninterrupted record of success so far. If the three main banking centres of the country (Zurich, Geneva and Lugano) were pooled, Switzerland would appear as the third banking centre in the world after New York and London. A few years ago it was reckoned that between 5 and 8 per cent of the total world volume of foreign exchange transactions were handled by the Swiss financial market, mostly through inter‐bank transactions. According to an estimation made in 1989 by the Swiss Federal Customs Administration at the request of an inter‐ministry group of experts dealing with money‐laundering issues, it was reckoned that approximately CHF135m (approximately USS100m) poured into Switzerland every week.

The understanding of mitochondrial biology and, subsquently, the role of mitochondrial pathology in human disease has increased exponentially over the past 30 years. As insight has increased, so attention has begun to shift to the possibilities for treating mitochondrially based disorders. There are a number of archetypal mitochondrial diseases, each associated with specific mitochondrial DNA mutations, deletions, or depletions. In addition there are a number of disorders, mainly neurodegenerative in nature, in which mitochondrial dysfunction appears to play a pivotal role. Mitochondrial structure and function are discussed. Treatment of the archetypal mitochondrial disorders and other neurogenerative conditions is reviewed, with specific emphasis on the prospects for neuroprotection. (C) 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Developments during this decade have transformed the character of the European security setting from one of relative political stability to a condition of considerable turbulence within its Central and Eastern regions. With clear trends toward increased interdependence across national boundaries and between sector areas, turbulence in any part of Europe will tend to generate conditions of considerable political concern also for governments in the rest of the continent. The strong impact of modern, transnational media coverage accentuates and widens the impact of such crisis-generating events. As a topic for collaborative European political science research, international crisis studies stand out as theoretically important and practically relevant.

This article critically examines Janis's recommendations for preventing groupthink in high-level policymaking. It puts forward three models of small group functioning in government, each of which highlights different dimensions of collegial policymaking and distinct criteria for evaluating group performance. Each model also inspires different proposals for groupthink prevention and improvement of group performance in general. Proposals for designing and managing high-level groups in government need to take into account these multiple perspectives. Furthermore, their proponents should be aware of the institutionalized and competitive context in which political decision groups operate. Evaluations of their performance and proposals for reforming them are inevitably tied up in this process. This has important implications for the feasibility of recommendations set forth by small group analysts. The article concludes with an agenda for increasing the policy relevance and practical feasibility of research on political decision groups. Copyright 1998 Academic Press.

This article describes and reflects upon practical experiences in using simulations to increase the crisis preparedness of policy makers and government agencies in the Netherlands. Basic issues in crisis simulation design are discussed in view of the various functions that simulations may perform in crisis management planning. A concrete example of simulation is provided to explain its design and modus operandi. The article concludes with a number of practical recommendations.

This chapter characterizes the role of prime ministers as public leaders: of the government, their parties, and the nation. It reviews the current state of knowledge about prime ministers, signals its limitations and sets out the research agenda of the study. It argues that understanding and evaluating how prime ministers perform their leadership function requires delving into the interplay between personal, institutional and contextual factors. It maps out the design of the collaborative and comparative research project the remainder of the book reports on.

This article argues that the extent to which political office-holders can effectively attain and wield authority is a function of the stock of 'leadership capital.' Drawing on the concept of political capital, we define leadership capital as aggregate authority composed of three dimensions: skills; relations; and reputation of a leader. Leadership capital ebbs and flows over time within a trajectory of acquisition, expenditure and inevitable depreciation. We present a Leadership Capital Index (LCI) that systematically maps out the three broad areas combining concrete measures with interpretive aspects. This can be used as a tool for systematically tracking and comparing the political fortunes of leaders in a way that is both more nuanced and robust than exclusive reliance on the latest approval ratings. We offer an illustrative case study of Tony Blair demonstrating the LCI. We conclude by discerning several promising paths for future development of the LCI.

Friedreich's ataxia (FRDA) is an autosomal recessive disorder that causes ataxia, sensory loss, cardiomyopathy, skeletal abnormalities, and, in a proportion of patients, diabetes and optic atrophy. It is the most common inherited ataxia with an estimated prevalence of 1:29 000. Carrier prevalence is between 1:60 and 1:90. The responsible gene and its gene product, frataxin, have both been identified. Ongoing investigations into the function of frataxin and the pathophysiology of FRDA are opening up new avenues for therapeutic intervention in this devastating neurodegenerative disorder.

The dynamics of intractability, frame multiplicity and intense controversy not only characterize policy formation struggles, as described by Schon and Rein, but also affect the evaluation of policies and government action. Policy analysts play an important part in the politics of policy evaluation. This article demonstrates that they tend to produce very different explanations for controversial, failing policies. Such differing explanations imply different causal attributions, different allocations of blame, and different lessons for future policy-making. Such differences are not random occurrences; they are embedded in the analytical frames that evaluators use to reconstruct policy processes and to explain their outcomes. It is shown that at least three deep-rooted frames can be reconstructed: fiascoes as failures of public problem solving, fiascoes as institutional imbalances, and fiascoes as system artefacts. One of the great epistemological challenges is how to deal with multiple analytical frames. The final part of the article discusses various strategies.

In this article Schon and Rein’s views about policy controversies and their resolution are introduced and critically examined. The broader context of their argument can be found in the emergence of the “negotiatory state,” where public policy is made in coproduction between interdependent actors in shared-power settings. Policy controversies, conceived of as conflicts rooted in clashes between the action frames that actors employ when they define problems and propose solutions to public issues, constitute a challenge to this institutional logic of policy-making. Schon and Rein’s book is largely devoted to identifying ways to resolve them. This article revisits their conceptualization of controversies, reassesses their implications for the integrity of the policy-making process, and places their proposed philosophy of “design rationality” in a broader repertoire of ways to cope with frame multiplicity and frame conflict in public policy-making.

A crucial set of timing issues in international conflict management pertains to the moment and mode of entry to the conflict by a third party. Current middle-range theories on timing of third-party intervention focus on the identification of `ripe moments' in the evolution of a conflict when it can be most successfully dealt with by mediation. In contrast, it will be argued in this paper that one cannot treat time as an independent variable in international conflict. The role of temporal factors and the timing is embedded in a broader theory on the nature and importance of international mediation, which, in turn, rests on normative foundations and empirical assertions about the nature and study of international politics. The purpose of this paper is to lay the foundation for such theories on international mediation and in particular the role of temporal factors and timing herein. The mediation attempts in the Falklands/Malvinas conflict between Argentina and Great Britain will serve as an illustration of our theoretical argument.

Background Preliminary studies suggest that desflurane and isoflurane potentiate the action of muscle relaxants equally. However, variability between subjects may confound these comparisons. A crossover study was performed in volunteers on the ability of desflurane and isoflurane to potentiate the neuromuscular effect of vecuronium, to influence its duration of action, and on the magnitude and time course of reversal of potentiation when anesthesia was withdrawn. Methods Adductor pollicis twitch tension was monitored in 16 volunteers given 1.25 MAC desflurane on one occasion, and 1.25 MAC isoflurane on another. In eight subjects, vecuronium bolus dose potency was determined using a two-dose dose-response technique; the vecuronium infusion dose requirement to achieve 85% twitch depression also was determined. Also in these subjects, the magnitude and time course of spontaneous neuromuscular recovery were determined when the anesthetic was withdrawn while maintaining a constant vecuronium infusion. In the other eight subjects, the time course of action of 100 micrograms/kg vecuronium was determined. Results Vecuronium's ED50 and infusion requirement to maintain 85% twitch depression were 20% less during desflurane, compared to isoflurane, anesthesia; vecuronium plasma clearance was similar during the two anesthetics. After 100 micrograms/kg vecuronium, onset was faster and recovery was longer during desflurane anesthesia. When the end-tidal anesthetic concentration was abruptly reduced from 1.25 to 0.75 MAC, twitch tension increased similarly (approximately 15% of control), and time for the twitch tension to reach 90% of the final change was similar (approximately 30 min) with both anesthetics. Decreasing anesthetic concentration from 0.75 to 0.25 MAC increased twitch tension by 46 +/- 10% and 25 +/- 7% of control (mean +/- SD, P < 0.001) with desflurane and isoflurane, respectively; 90% response times for these changes were 31 +/- 10 min and 18 +/- 7 min (P < 0.05), respectively. Conclusions Desflurane potentiates the effect of vecuronium approximately 20% more than does an equipotent dose of isoflurane.