ARE WE ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS ABOUT ATTACHMENT?

Everett Waters is involved in a wide range of longitudinal research projects and educational programs that advance the Bowlby‐Ainsworth tradition of attachment study. His empirical and theoretical knowledge is far reaching. Here, Waters explores the family law field's hopes and expectations of attachment theory, identifies a number of myths about attachment theory that may influence divorce decision making, and challenges why we ask the questions we do. His views encourage hardened supporters and detractors of attachment theory alike to identify a middle ground where the essence of attachment knowledge might best inform family law practices in divorce and separation matters.     

Effective Corporatisation Legislation: The Fundamental Issue in Port Management

It is now some seven years since the restructure of Australian ports and their transformation into corporatised entities. This strategy was adopted in an endeavour to improve efficiency by distancing government from day to day operations - that element that was perceived to be the cause of sub-optimal performance. While there is widespread agreement that port performance has improved significantly, dissatisfaction persists and the belief that continued political intervention is preventing ports' commercial potential from being realised. This paper investigates these issues but argues that political intervention per se should not be the focus of research as the fundamental cause of sub-optimal performance. Rather political intervention is an effect of a more fundamental problem — an inappropriate legislative framework — and the focus of research should be on the legislation and corporatisation model in which political intervention is mandatory.     

Jurisdictional and constraints on effective competition: The case of rail access regimes

The Commonwealth Government in November 2002 released the AusLink Green Paper which is a blue print for a long term national land transport plan. The release of this document followed the Review of the National Road Transport Commission Act 1991 which recommended the abolition of the Australian Road Transport Commission and to replace it with a National Transport Commission – the new body which would have the responsibility for a national approach to both road, rail and intermodal development. AusLink was established in July 2004 and while an excellent government strategy, a national land transport plan demands the inclusion of an integrated rail network. Prior obstacles to the development of a national focus in rail have been overcome – gauge standardisation of the track and the abolition of state government monopolies. Despite deregulation, however, and the removal of the physical and jurisdictional constraints, other impediments are now appearing which are likely to prevent the effective implementation of a national focus. This is a product of the mechanism of deregulation itself and the development of state based and state focused access regimes which are now a barrier to the effective implementation of national network.     

Supply chain arrangements: The ABC to GDPR compliance—A spotlight on emerging market practice in supplier contracts in light of the GDPR

With ever increasingly complex and disaggregated sourcing supply chains and in the wake of the GDPR application deadline, this article shines a spotlight on early emerging market practice in supplier contracts.     

Cracking the whip: spatial voting with party discipline and voter polarization

The spatial voting theory literature has generally focused on either parties or candidates as the unit of analysis and ignored strategic interactions between them. I study a game theoretic spatial model of elections with many heterogeneous constituencies in which both party and candidate behavior are modeled. Parties choose a platform and a ‘whip rate,’ representing the proportion of final policy that will be made by the party, as opposed to by the successful candidates. Candidates are office-motivated and can choose both a platform and a level of advertising in order to defeat their opponent. It is shown that the introduction of whipping as a choice variable can cause party platforms to diverge and that parties will whip on some but not all issues, reflecting the empirical reality of parties influencing rather than determining policy outcomes exclusively. Further, parties respond to sharper voter polarization by reducing the power of the whip as well as distinguishing their platforms from one another, while more voter uncertainty has the opposite effect. Other real-world phenomena, including ‘safe seats’ and legislators voting with their party even when unwhipped, are also shown to be predicted by the model.