Cash Transfers and Citizenship: Evidence from South Africa

Theoretical research has assumed a role for cash transfers in forging a state-citizen contract, yet evidence is scarce regarding whether social protection promotes citizenship among claimants in practice. The article explores the implications of cash transfers for notions of citizenship in the narratives of transfer recipients in Johannesburg, South Africa. Cash transfers created a space for state-citizen exchange, helping topersonalise views of the state, and giving citizens grounds for holding the state accountable. However, boundaries between state and citizens' responsibilities were contested, suggesting that expectations of a contractual relationship with the state were weak. Cash transfers are an important but partial means of promoting citizenship.     

Creating Legal Space for the Unborn

This article explores how the unborn moved from inhabiting an implicit mother-centric space, tacitly expressed in the Irish constitutional order, to a separate legal space created first by the Eighth Amendment and later through public discourse, judicial interpretation and failed constitutional referenda. The article opens with a brief examination of the relationship between law and space in recent scholarly works. It goes on to assess the impact of post-colonial and gender discourse in producing the first legal space in which the unborn was tacitly understood. This is followed by an exploration of how cultural and gender rhetoric gave birth to a definite legal space in which the right to life for the unborn was protected by the Constitution and the government’s subsequent attempts to solve the legal limbo by shifting the debate to the social policy space. The paper concludes by discussing the extent to which a wider, more universal space, that of human rights discourse, may have an impact on the legal space created for the unborn, by either protecting or weakening its right to life.     

A La Recherche Du Sens Perdu

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique -     

The Commission's AstraZeneca decision: delaying generic entry is an abuse of a dominant position

The European Commission's recent AstraZeneca decision introducesabuse of the patent system as a novel type of infringement ofArticle 82 EC.     

Intellectual property rights on creativity and heritage: the case of the fashion industry

Recently, as different projects aiming to define and reinforce property rights in the fashion industry have been elaborated and discussed, a lot of papers have been dedicated to the question of property rights in this industry. Our paper considers the problems from a specific point of view; it focuses on the relation between property rights and creativity. If property rights allow the allocation of the majority of standard industrial goods without any special difficulty, however, when they are applied to creative goods, new problems arise. Then, for us, the persistence of a low system of IPRs in the fashion industry does not mainly derive from its efficiency but from the characteristics of the inputs that are used in the creative production process. They constitute strong constraints for defining, entitling, legitimating, enforcing, valuating and exchanging property rights. Thus, the different economic actors develop different kinds of strategic behaviour in order to obtain earnings and can try to protect copyrights, trademarks, new assets, old assets (heritage), private or collective assets, and so on. The institutional characteristics of this specific industry—such as the models of management, the type of ownership, the size of the firms, … lead to different historical models of management through IPRs. Peculiarly, the financial groups that integrate fashion into the new luxury industries currently try to implement new IPRs and to move towards a stronger system of IPRs but the management model of the street fashion puts an obstacle to this project.     

The politics of hosting Chinese investment in Europe—an introduction

Though still a small percentage of the total stock of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) present in European countries, FDI coming from China has risen dramatically in the European Union (EU) since 2009. This introduction to the special issue on “The Politics of Hosting Chinese Investment in Europe” examines the political fears aroused by this recent surge and by the prospect of continued Chinese direct investment in European economies. After surveying patterns of Chinese investment in the EU, this introduction asks what is distinctive about the potential economic and political consequences of Chinese FDI and lays out the argument for and against treating Chinese FDI as sui generis.     

Past victimizations and dating violence perpetration in adolescence: the mediating role of emotional distress and hostility

This study aimed to understand the nature of the relationships between three forms of past victimizations (exposure to interparental violence in childhood, sexual harassment by peers since beginning high school, prior experience of dating violence), physical dating violence perpetration by adolescents, and anger-hostility and emotional distress. The sample was composed of 1,259 high school students aged between 14 and 19 years who answered self-report questionnaires. Mediation analyses were conducted according to Baron and Kenny's approach. Logistic and linear regression analyses reveal that being victim of sexual harassment by peers and of dating violence are associated to physical dating violence perpetration via a partial mediating effect of hostility in girls. Contrary to results with girls, there is a complete mediating effect of emotional distress for boys. Results suggest that dating violence prevention and intervention strategies could be adapted according to gender and that sexual harassment should be addressed.     

La réforme administrative au gouvernement du Québec: étude du processus de changement sur la culture organisationneIIe

Sommaire: Plusieurs gouvernements ont mis en place des processus de réformes qui se traduisent par un processus de changement visant la modernisation de l'État. Ces processus cornportent une dimension axiologique influencée par la Nouvelle gestion publique. Considérant la réforme comme un phénomène psychosocial et culturel, cet article expose la perception d'acteurs clés vis‐à‐vis des processus de changement qu'implique la modernisation de la fonction publique quebecoise (Loi sur l'administration publique). Cette recherche, basée sur vingt entrevues réalisées auprès de direc‐teurs des ressources humaines de ministères et organismes, démontre que les perceptions de la réforme sont diverses et que l'influence de la politique dans les réformes se situe davantage dans les objectifs que dans le design. En plus de faire ressortir les principales initiatives et quelques obstacles au changement, la recherche illustre que la perception qu'ont les drh sur la nature réelle des changements est variable, et permet de les regrouper sous trois catégories. Enfin, cette recherche présente différents types de cultures témoignant de l'importance d'ajuster les modes d'implémentation pour le succès des réformes. Elle illustre l'importance de soigner la mise en cruvre des réformes plutôt que d'essayer de définir un modèle idéal. Un regard sur l'avenir vient enfin compléter cette étude. Abstract: Many governments have implemented reform processes that lead to modernizing the state. These experiences involve a value dimension influenced by new public management. Stating administrative reform as a cultural and psychosocial phenomenon, this article exposes the perception that key actors have of the change processes entailed by the Quebec public administration's modernization (Loi sur l'administration publique). This research, based on twenty interviews of human resources directors from ministries and public organizations, shows that the perceptions of the reform are diverse and that the political influence of the reforms appears more in the objectives than in the design. In addition to showing the principal facilitating initiatives and a few obstacles to change, the research illustrates that the human resources directors' perception of the changes' actual nature is variable and permits grouping them into three categories. Finally, this research presents different types of cultures, showing the importance of adjusting implementation modes for the reforms' success. It illustrates the importance of taking care of the implementation rather than trying to define an ideal model. A look at the future completes the study.