Word: reformer
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...already evolving into a market state, though the process will take decades to complete. For example, a market state shifts reliance from the law-and regulation-based approach of the nation-state to the incentives of the marketplace. Already industry is being deregulated; welfare reform has replaced more generous unemployment compensation with education intended to enable the unemployed to compete in the labor market; an all-volunteer army has replaced the draft...
...Reform in Japan is like Lucy and the football. Each time Lucy persuades Charlie Brown that she won't yank the ball away as he runs to kick it, but at the last minute she always does. Gullible Charlie once again falls in the mud. It's much the same with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who plays Lucy to the beleaguered country's Charlie Brown. Koizumi convinced everyone during his election campaign in April 2001 that he would embark on drastic reforms "with no sacred cows." But his reforms are now mired in compromise and dealmaking...
...there may be wisdom in Raffarin's go-slow strategy. In 1995, France's last conservative government provoked crippling month-long strikes with its steamroller approach to reform. The fury unleashed by that effort cost the rightist government of Prime Minister Alain Juppé its parliamentary majority in 1997 elections, won by a previously floundering coalition of leftist parties united under Socialist Party leader Lionel Jospin. Aware of France's dimming economic outlook, Chirac and Raffarin are now opting for caution over collision?and have backed down when their measures have generated opposition. The tact is apparently working: approval ratings...
...come at a price. Not only are reformists like Seillière cry-ing foul, but government spin control has at times been dizzying. Raffarin cabinet members have issued clashing policy pronouncements, forcing the Prime Minister to officiate and clear the air. Sometimes the government shows signs of wanting reform but lacking the stomach to go through with it. Last week, for example, after a junior minister provoked a storm by revealing job reductions planned for France's mammoth public school system, Education Minister Luc Ferry rushed to placate teachers' unions with assurances that only administrative posts would...
...from the 35-hour week instituted by Jospin. Then the government leaked its 2003 budget, which would reduce income taxes and employer-paid benefits but raise minimum wages and maintain the state's status as France's largest employer, providing one of every four jobs. "Raffarin previously flirted with reform, but that's changing with this budget," says political analyst Alain Duhamel. "On areas like decentralization, tax reduction and even modifying the 35-hour week, he is proving reformist. On the issues more likely to provoke explosion?reducing civil servants and public services, for starters?he's looking as unenthusiastic...