Constructing the Market: Commercialization and Privatization in the Royal Mail

The public sector in the UK has become the object of constant reform and change as part of the government's project to increase the remit of the private sector and the role of markets. There is much debate about the effect such a move to market relations has on public services. There is increasing concern with the way market–based reforms are linked to a new pattern of organizational structure and strategy that negates and/or opposes the traditional political processes associated with the public sector. This article focuses on the case of the Royal Mail to explore how such a transformation is both complex and contested. It reveals how 'the market' within the public sector is to a large extent politically constructed, and that the public–private dichotomy over–simplifies what is a complex process of negotiating meaning, forming alliances, lobbying for support, handling conflict and exerting influence. It demonstrates how various readings of 'the market' emerge, and that any solutions of how to become more commercial can be the result of political machinations. The implications of this analysis go beyond Royal Mail and can be generalized across the public sector.     

Factor similarity of the Conflict Tactics Scales across samples,spouses, and sites: Issues and implications

Wide variations in prevalence estimates of marital aggression point to the absence of a uniform and adequate definition of marital aggression. To focus on the construct validity of Straus' (1979) Conflict Tactics Scales, the most frequently used measure of marital aggression, two studies were conducted. Based on responses to the Conflict Tactics Scales, two consistent factors (viz. Physical and Psychological Aggression) emerged in separate samples of 187 couples seeking therapy for marital problems, and 398 nonclinic couples in beginning marriages. The factor structure was consistent across clinic and nonclinic samples, sex, geographical sites, time, and socioeconomic status. Implications for the measurement of interspousal physical aggression are raised (e.g., mild, moderate, and severe aggression load on the same factor) and appropriate directions for further research on the construct validity of the Conflict Tactics Scales are suggested (e.g., conducting similar factor analyses on aggressive couples).     

Mr. Winterkorn’s Pay: A Typology of Justification Patterns of Income Inequality

This article develops a typology of justification patterns of income inequality by means of analysing the discourse surrounding executive pay in Germany. The case of a public debate about the record salary of the car manufacturer VW’s CEO, Martin Winterkorn, in 2012 and 2013, is identified as a rich source for a reconstruction of specific argumentative patterns and their underlying premises. The typology presents five justification patterns, (1) equality of opportunity, (2) desert, (3) procedure of salary determination, (4) harmful consequences of income inequality and (5) need. Further cross-patterns are identified. A key finding is the crucial—but often not explicit—role of factual, definitional or behavioural premises. It is argued that unveiling the structure of justification patterns of income inequality can provide a key tool in scrutinizing as well as in further analysing public debates about income inequality.     

Accounts and accountability: Theoretical implications of the right-to-information movement in India

The work of a small and unusual activist group in the north Indian state of Rajasthan has raised a series of practical and theoretical issues concerning the best means for combating specific instances of corruption, and for promoting accountability more generally. The Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS)-literally-:Workers' and Farmers' Power Organisation-has waged a campaign to secure the right of ordinary people to gain access to information held by government officials. In the process of experimenting with methods of compiling, sharing and verifying expenditure data at very local levels-thus far, in the absence of a statutory entitlement to such informationthe MKSS has developed a radical interpretation of the notion that citizens have a right both to know how they are governed and to participate actively in the process of auditing their representatives. This article examines the process by which this campaign emerged and the means by which it pursues its goals. It then analyses the implications of the MKSS experience, and the larger movement it has spawned, for contemporary debates in three areas: human rights, participatory development and, of course, anti-corruption.     

The Transformative Impact of Unarmed Civilian Peacekeeping

ABSTRACT

Civilians, working together, and using non-violence to protect themselves and others from direct violence, challenges widespread assumptions that peace and protection can only be delivered by the military and with the threat of force. Unarmed Civilian Peacekeeping (UCP), with 35 years of evidence from projects worldwide, demonstrates that the assumption that an armed actor will not yield to anything except a weapon is false, therefore, challenging the exclusive role of military in peacekeeping. This paper explores (i) by conceptualising UCP as part of peacekeeping new insights into the approaches and mechanisms for preventing violence are revealed, (ii) the transformative capacity of UCP though the relationship with nonviolence theory. Using evidence from the practice of UCP from the organisations involved (including Peace Brigades International and Nonviolent Peaceforce) this paper sets out how we can create different approaches to peacekeeping.