Among other things, pastoral nomadism permits societies to exploit the variable and patchy resources of the steppe.

Until recently, the record on evaluating responses to humanitarian emergencies has been patchy at best. CARE, as both a relief and development agency, can take a long term approach to disasters, matching emergency relief with a rehabilitation and recovery phase.

The upshot is that the eurozone as a whole is likely to struggle with a zombie banking system, with only patchy efforts to restructure banks decisively and fairly. Worse, the north south, core periphery divide will harden, with taxpayer backed banks on one side and banks that must fend for themselves on the other.

Not surprisingly, these states typically have weak conflict management institutions patchy law enforcement, limited adherence to democratic principles, and few meaningful checks and balances on the government. Similarly, Dani Rodrik of Harvard University has found that the countries that experienced the sharpest declines in growth after 1975 had divided societies and weak conflict management institutions.

Here, too, the record since 1980 has been patchy, despite the huge deflationary pressure exerted by low wage competition from Asia. Inflation in 1950 1973 and 1980 2007 was about the same just over 3 while inflation targeting has failed to prevent a succession of asset bubbles that have brought recessions in their wake.

Sadly, fidelity to judicial independence and the rule of law cannot be guaranteed as thoroughly in the other cases. Bangladesh, the world s fourth largest Muslim democracy, has historically had a patchy record in this regard, suggesting scope for political intervention in the case against Zia, if only by officials eager to curry favor with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.