If they set clear standards and guidelines, then teams of people can undertake a task without centralised control.

ECONOMIST: The changed nature of work

They argue for replacing centralised control over the police with contracts spelling out what people can expect of local coppers.

ECONOMIST: CRIME

With Egypt's traditions of centralised control and consensus among the ruling elite, most observers expect that the succession will follow constitutional rules.

ECONOMIST: Egypt��s waiting game

That pattern met the needs of centralised political control and the policy of import substitution pursued until 1982.

ECONOMIST: All roads lead to Mexico City

Greenpeace Russia has criticised the Russian authorities for poor handling of the catastrophe, and mainly for abolishing a centralised woodland fire control system several months ago.

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He wants a centralised incomes policy to control inflation.

ECONOMIST: John Maynard Keynes

Well it's doubtful that France, with its strong Gaullist traditions, will ever surrender sufficient control over budget-making to a centralised extra-territorial authority (Brussels or Berlin, depending on where you think the power would in practice reside).

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