Public Sector Labour Relations in Western Australia – An Overview

The election of a LiberalNational Coalition government in 1993 heralded a period of significant and sustained change in Western Australian public sector labour relations. As legislator, the Coalition government embarked upon a program to decentralise and deregulate the Western Australian industrial relations system; as an employer, the government has had to respond to the economic imperatives which have faced most employers in recent years. The result has been a period of major change in the public sector – employment levels have declined as services have been privatised or contracted out; the proportion of non-permanent and part-time employees has risen significantly. Individual workplace agreements have been introduced; individualised performance-related management and reward systems have increased; and the scope for union involvement has diminished, as has the level and density of union membership. The experience of the public sector therefore reflects many of the workplace changes that are also found in the private sector. It also brings the government's industrial relations policies into sharper focus.     

A worldwide consensus on nudging? Not quite,but almost

Nudges are choice‐preserving interventions that steer people's behavior in specific directions while still allowing them to go their own way. Some nudges have been controversial, because they are seen as objectionably paternalistic. This study reports on nationally representative surveys in eight diverse countries, investigating what people actually think about nudges and nudging. The study covers Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, Russia, South Africa, and South Korea. Generally, we find strong majority support for nudges in all countries, with the important exception of Japan, and with spectacularly high approval rates in China and South Korea. We connect the findings here to earlier studies involving Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Our primary conclusion is that while citizens generally approve of health and safety nudges, the nations of the world appear to fall into three distinct categories: (i) a group of nations, mostly liberal democracies, where strong majorities approve of nudges whenever they (a) are seen to fit with the interests and values of most citizens and (b) do not have illicit purposes; (ii) a group of nations where overwhelming majorities approve of nearly all nudges; and (iii) a group of nations that usually show majority approval, but markedly reduced approval rates. We offer some speculations about the relationship between approval rates and trust.     

When rights collide: land grabbing,force and injustice in Uganda

The realisation of rights and enforcement of correlative duties through practice and politics legitimate the use of force against some, to protect and fulfil the rights of others. When a conflict occurs, whose rights and which rights should take priority require clarification. Land grabs represent a conflict not just between use and exchange values but also potentially between different types of rights – such as property rights and the right to the means of subsistence. In such cases, it seems that the dictum ‘between equal rights force decides’ seems to be particularly applicable. This paper explores recent experiences of displaced people in the Karamoja and Teso regions of North Eastern Uganda in order to examine this phenomenon. A socially inclusive and just epistemic perspective requires that we extend our gaze to take account of the local political dynamics and impacts on, and voices of, people who have been displaced and how their basic rights have been affected – ‘putting the last first’. The analysis suggests that the transition to formalised property regimes based on liberal conceptions of ‘rights’ represents a case where the language of rights is usurped to serve the interests of the powerful and privileged rather than challenging social injustice.     

Differentiating Forms and Functions of Aggression in Emerging Adults: Associations with Hostile Attribution Biases and Normative Beliefs

The purpose of this study was to extend the current literature on forms (i.e., physical and relational) and functions (i.e., proactive and reactive) of participants’ cognitions and beliefs about aggressive behavior. Participants included an ethnically diverse group of emerging adults (N = 165; M = 19.05 years; SD = 1.55) and completed a battery of self-report instruments. Gender differences for subtypes of physical aggression were found. Impulsivity was associated with all subtypes of aggression. Results showed that reactive physical aggression was uniquely associated with hostile attribution biases for instrumental provocation situations. Reactive relational aggression was uniquely associated with hostile attribution biases for relational provocation scenarios. Findings indicated links between self-reported subtypes of aggressive behavior and normative beliefs of aggression. Ways in which this study extends the extant literature are discussed.

Swapping One Tech Hub For Another

When I moved to Beijing’s Haidian District in August 2019 to begin my studies at Peking University,I hadn’t foreseen how my lifestyle would be so fundamentally altered by the citys deep technological interconnection.Yet only a few months later,the thought of handling payments with cash or debit/credit cards instead of WeChat China’s popular multipurpose app,via a QR code seems practically arcane.In the United States,we often still use chip readers and sign our receipts,drawing puzzled looks from Chinese tourists.     

Writing Histories of Law and Emotion

In recent years the study of emotions in the past has received considerable attention. At the same time, many historians of law have shown reluctance to acknowledge and systematically explore emotions in legal sources and legal contexts. This issue of the Journal of Legal History addresses this imbalance and demonstrates how emotions have played important roles in legal reasoning, legal doctrine, the behaviour of legal actors, and the development of law over time. This article investigates recent developments in the study of the history of emotions and of emotions in contemporary law, before assessing the challenges of writing law and emotions histories. It argues for the importance of utilizing both legal and extra-legal source material to uncover the relationship between legal rationality and emotion; to gain insights into the emotional worlds of those participating in legal systems; and to provide a deeper understanding of the workings of the law.     

西方青少年的反社会行为问题

各种研究结果显示,年轻的罪犯,尤其是经常犯罪的年轻人,有心理障碍的比例较高.Gunn等人(1991)发现,有1/3年龄在16-18岁之间被判有罪的男孩被诊断有心理障碍.……