Integrity management in post-1997 Hong Kong: Challenges for a rule-based system

Unlike some of its Western counterparts, where the first line of defence against corruption and unethical behavior has been a reliance on a public service ethos, the Hong Kong government has traditionally relied on strict compliance with rules and regulations in its successful drive against bureaucratic malpractices. Since 1997, however, a changing political, economic and administrative environment has also seen efforts to introduce a more value-based approach to integrity. This article examines the factors that have led to the modification of the Hong Kong government??s strategy and evaluates its success in the wider theoretical context of the relationship between a predominantly rule-based and a value-based approach to integrity management.     

Suing "the welfare": the diminishing immunity for child protection authorities

Until recently, child protection authorities enjoyed significant levels of immunity in respect of civil actions arising from their action or inaction. However, the tide has turned in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The decision of Redlich J of the Victorian Supreme Court in the complex case of SB v New South Wales (2004) 13 VR 527; [2004] VSC 513 consolidates the trend in Australia with a further repudiation of the assertion that child welfare authorities should be specially advantaged. It appears that henceforth actions will regularly be able to be brought against the state by persons who have been harmed by the negligent discharge of child protection duties. In the future, plaintiffs' biggest impediment will lie in the evidentiary challenge of establishing the extent of the harm flowing from the breach of the state's duty as against the harm wrought by previous and supervening events.     

Heterodoxy, iconoclasm and spuriousness: the limits of novel expert evidence

A difficult issue arises for courts' decision-making at common law and under statutory evidentiary regimes when expert opinions are significantly unorthodox, iconoclastic or methodologically flawed. This editorial analyses the relevant evidentiary principles and the Australian jurisprudence on the subject, giving particular attention to the decisions of the South Australian Supreme Court in R v Parenzee [2007] SASC 143 and R v Parenzee [2007] SASC 316 in which expert opinions about the existence, identifiability and transmissibility of HIV and its relationship to AIDS adduced on behalf of the defence in a criminal trial were found to be seriously wanting. A variety of factors indicative of low probative value in expert opinions are distilled.     

The ‘private plot’ in Soviet agriculture

The paper examines the main components of Mexican agrarian populism, and the attractions of the populist position in the light of the current crisis within the Mexican agricultural sector. It is suggested that the ‘campesinistas’ (agrarian populists) have incorporated various aspects of marxist analysis, but have nevertheless emphasised ways in which their approach pans company with that of most marxists in Latin America. According to writers like Gustavo Esteva, perhaps the leading ‘campesinista’, the peasant economy in the process of developing can co‐exist with capitalism for a protracted period, and considerable doubt exists as to whether the peasant economy is ‘ultimately’ inconsistent with capitalist development. The agrarian populists look to the peasantry in Mexico as a vehicle for rural development, believing that a better understanding of the internal logic of peasant production might facilitate an alternative series of policy measures. The weaknesses of the ‘campesinista’ position are explored, and doubts expressed about the viability of the populist stance as long as Mexico has the option of importing basic foodcrops.     

Party politics and the north Indian peasantry: The rise of the Bharatiya Kranti Dal in Uttar Pradesh

In the last 20 years politics in the rural areas of north India has been transformed by the emergence of non‐Congress parties with strong support among the prosperous strata of the peasantry. Studies of these developments have placed different emphases on the importance of class and caste factors, as well as drawing attention to the existence of blocs of potential support previously alienated from the Congress. In Uttar Pradesh (UP) the defection from the Congress of peasant leader Charan Singh and the formation of the Bharatiya Kranti Dal (BKD) in the late 1960s, has been seen as one of the most important examples of these changes in rural politics. The purpose of this article is to examine the formation and initial electoral fortunes of the BKD in one locality, and, at the same time, to assess the applicability, to a local setting, of general explanations of the emergence and success of the party.     

Green Grabbing: a new appropriation of nature?

Across the world, ‘green grabbing’ – the appropriation of land and resources for environmental ends – is an emerging process of deep and growing significance. The vigorous debate on ‘land grabbing’ already highlights instances where ‘green’ credentials are called upon to justify appropriations of land for food or fuel – as where large tracts of land are acquired not just for ‘more efficient farming’ or ‘food security’, but also to ‘alleviate pressure on forests’. In other cases, however, environmental green agendas are the core drivers and goals of grabs – whether linked to biodiversity conservation, biocarbon sequestration, biofuels, ecosystem services, ecotourism or ‘offsets’ related to any and all of these. In some cases these involve the wholesale alienation of land, and in others the restructuring of rules and authority in the access, use and management of resources that may have profoundly alienating effects. Green grabbing builds on well-known histories of colonial and neo-colonial resource alienation in the name of the environment – whether for parks, forest reserves or to halt assumed destructive local practices. Yet it involves novel forms of valuation, commodification and markets for pieces and aspects of nature, and an extraordinary new range of actors and alliances – as pension funds and venture capitalists, commodity traders and consultants, GIS service providers and business entrepreneurs, ecotourism companies and the military, green activists and anxious consumers among others find once-unlikely common interests. This collection draws new theorisation together with cases from African, Asian and Latin American settings, and links critical studies of nature with critical agrarian studies, to ask: To what extent and in what ways do ‘green grabs’ constitute new forms of appropriation of nature? How and when do circulations of green capital become manifest in actual appropriations on the ground – through what political and discursive dynamics? What are the implications for ecologies, landscapes and livelihoods? And who is gaining and who is losing – how are agrarian social relations, rights and authority being restructured, and in whose interests?     

Australian Religious Thought

Australian Religious Thought. By Wayne Hudson (Melbourne: Monash University Publishing, 2016), pp. xxiv + 248. AU$39.95 (pb).