Uber in Queensland: From policy fortress to policy change

Emerging technologies are challenging the regulatory systems and industry policy settings that were settled during the microeconomic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s. In 1994, in the absence of credible competition in the taxi industry, Queensland legislation constructed a protective ‘policy fortress’ that benefited taxi licence holders in return for specific service standards. This entrenched a policy–industry nexus upheld by all political parties for two decades. But in 2014–2016, using disruptive digital platforms, Uber and similar organisations directly challenged the policy regime by rapidly expanding their unlicensed operations for personalised passenger bookings. Queensland policy-makers were eventually shocked into establishing a major review, leading to the termination of the protective regime. Drawing on interviews and policy documents, we identify the contextual and ideational factors that facilitated the unlocking of policy change. As consumers became more ‘tech-savvy’, the policy ideas championed by powerful new agents of change came to highlight consumer convenience, flexibility, and the ‘sharing economy’. Such narratives reframed the economic disruptions flowing from new technologies as opportunities to lower service costs.     

China in Africa: presence,perceptions and prospects

This article reports and analyzes China's presence in Africa with an emphasis on how that has been perceived by the Africans. Based on the findings from surveys and field research conducted in eight sub-Saharan African countries and interviews with scholars and practitioners from other African countries as well as Chinese and Americans in Africa, we outline the diverse, complicated and evolving African perceptions about China's explosive presence in general and the booming Chinese business activities in particular that now range from love to suspicion. Our findings about how China is perceived in Africa suggest that Beijing has acquired substantial goodwill in Africa yet is developing deep issues and facing uncertain challenges and growing obstacles.     

Donor-induced depoliticisation of development implementation: the case of Ghana’s Compact I

Based on empirical evidence from a donor-funded project in Ghana, this article demonstrates that when development implementation is depoliticised, targets will likely be achieved within budget and on time. Funded and supervised by the Millennium Challenge Corporation of the United States, Ghana Compact I has been recommended as a model for future development implementation. This article is an attempt to explain this success, compared to select social programmes. It argues that Compact I was implemented successfully because it was insulated from political interference, and suggests that donor-induced depoliticisation offers a route to successful development implementation in recipient countries.     

A psychological perspective on moral reasoning,processes of decision-making,and moral resistance

ABSTRACT

This article presents a psychological approach on the development of social and moral judgments that has relevance for the topics of public justification and world politics. In contrast with approaches assuming that morality is primarily determined by emotions and non-rational, the research discussed shows that moral development involves the construction of thinking about welfare, justice, and rights. In parallel with judgments in the moral domain, individuals construct judgments about conventions in the social system and areas of personal jurisdiction. Research documents that moral and social decisions involve processes of coordination, or weighing and balancing, moral and non-moral considerations and goals, as well as different moral goals. Processes of coordination are also involved in decisions about cultural practices that include social inequalities and relationships between those in dominant and subordinate positions in social hierarchies. Judgments about the fairness of practices entailing inequalities produce social opposition and moral resistance.     

The survival of oral streptococci on human skin and its implication in bite-mark investigation

Ten-microlitre aliquots of whole saliva applied to human skin were sampled for periods up to 6.25 h. The rate of loss of recoverable bacteria was 45–50% per hour. After 6.25 h, viable oral streptococci could be recovered. The implications for using a “fingerprint” typing method for these bacteria with regard to the identification of bite-marks are discussed.