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Eadington (1995) has pointed out that places
eager for the economic benefits of casino
tourism development often overlook the
associated costs of establishing and maintaining
an adequate policy and regulatory framework.
Resource constraints alone, however, do not
fully explain the experience of northern Cyprus.
As McMillen (1996b) points out, to approach
casino tourism development solely from the angle
of costs, benefits and technical management
solutions ignores the radical transformations in
social, cultural and economic relations into
which casino tourism destinations are thrust,
and in which the state, out of necessity, plays
a central part as the source of legitimation,
legislation and public policy. The history of
northern Cyprus's involvement with casino
tourism provides a telling illustration of
McMillen's further observation, that governments
are "constrained and complex forums for
competing ideas, rather than the autonomous and
single-minded organisations assumed from a
paradigm of economics and public choice" (1996b:
31).
What is most striking in the northern Cyprus
case are not the financial barriers to achieving
regulatory efficiency, but the state's inability
to reconcile conflicting internal and external
political and ideological pressures (exacerbated
by its symbiotic relationship with Turkey and
dependence on developments there); its failure
to send out clear signals to the competing
interest groups and the general public and its
unwillingness to engage the casino sector
seriously, from a position of strength. The
example of northern Cyprus suggests that the
obstacles to economic development which
characterise peripheral regions, and which are
rooted in conditions of dependency,
vulnerability and uncertainty, are likely to be
intensified rather than alleviated by the
relationship with the footloose, global casino
industry.
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