The Anti-Axial Age

Karl Jaspers famously characterized the period from the beginning of the eighth to the end of the third century before Christ as an “Axial Age” in which intellectual freedom and creativity blossomed as never before. This article argues that it was followed, five hundred years later, by an “Anti-Axial Age”, which devised a novel formula for intellectual and political repression. Its essence was the state’s capture of the millenial narrative, which had first been developed as religious doctrine within Zoroastrianism and Christianity. Involving the two great classical empires of Western Eurasia, Persia and Rome, and then empowering the expansion of Islam, the Anti-Axial Age left an ideological legacy that continues to haunt the contemporary world.     

Police Perceptions of Irrational Unstable Behaviours and Use of Force

Police identification of people experiencing mental illness is usually based on either the person having an official contact history with police or through observing behavioural indicators commonly associated with mental illness during an encounter. Police have voiced concerns with their ability to identify and respond to people experiencing mental illness in a timely way and report that they commonly resort to more coercive tactical options to resolve encounters. The present study employed a mixed method design to examine 286 police use of force incidents to investigate the association between force used on and by offenders displaying irrational-unstable behavioural characteristics. The irrational-unstable offenders were two times more likely to be perceived by police to have an apparent mental disorder and almost four times more likely to have a known mental health history; one in six had an official record of contact with mental health services. There were few differences in police and offender use of force, considering force as both a categorical and a continuous variable, while incident-level comparisons suggested that police force was generally proportional to offender resistance. Implications are discussed in terms of the need to redress limitations with the traditional police approach style.     

On Jordan Peterson,Postmodernism, and PoMo-Bashing

Jordan Peterson says that postmodernists say no interpretation is better than another. I would no sooner identify Peterson’s adversaries as those who have been misled by “postmodernism” than I would identify them as misled by “sustainability,” “diversity,” “multiculturalism,” or “intersectionality.” Such fare is mainly symptomatic. “Postmodern” invocations are often like “sustainability” invocations: inessential. This piece is not a defense of postmodernism. It is a critique of PoMo-bashing.     

President-Elect Trump: Is the Past Prologue?

There is worldwide interest and concern over the pending US Presidency of Donald Trump. This article recounts the experience of the author and entrepreneur Merv Griffin with Trump in his business career and suggests clues for examining his exercise of the power of the Presidency. His choices for his cabinet and his advisers may well determine his success or failure. The evidence thus far is troubling.     

Effects of Budgetary Constraints on HR Reforms in Central Public Administrations and the Importance of Institutional Context

A standard criticism toward New Public Management has been its focus on efficiency and cost saving. As a consequence, other important reform objective aspects and administrative values such as quality, fairness, engagement, trust, and sustainability would be neglected. In the field of HRM, this again would result in many (un-)intentional reform effects, such as more demotivation, less engagement, and less trust of the workforce in leadership. Unfortunately, many of these claims have not been tested empirically.Especially in the field of HRM, there is very little comparative evidence on how costs are being cut on a grand scale in different institutional contexts, Human Resource Management policies, with regard to different HR instruments and how these cuts impact on Human Resource Management.This study investigates the current HR reforms in central public administration in 32 OECD countries. Using recent OECD data (OECD Data Set, 2015), the study analyses the impact of budgetary constraints with regard to 40 HR issues and HR instruments. These issues were grouped into different HR bundles. The analysis reveals a strong correlation between budgetary constraints and cost-cutting measures. As a consequence, HRM as such is changing dramatically in some countries. Whereas the past reform trends in most OECD countries were characterized by a move away from the classical bureaucratic model, the present focus is on the implementation of ad hoc reforms in order to save resources. Neither is there a common trend toward one alternative high-work performance model nor a reformed universal “bureaucracy-lite mode.” Overall, data show that HR management is not seen as a strategic factor in the reform process in many countries. In fact, most countries have focused on cost reductions and downsizing and not on responsible restructuring.