The Cultural Logic of Work: Explaining Labour Deployment and Piece-Rate Contracts in Matar Taluka,Gujarat - Parts 1 and 2

This two-part essay seeks to explain why group-based and individual piecework arrangements have become the modal form of payment for a variety of agricultural tasks in central Gujarat, India. Part 1 of the essay reviews New Institutional Economics (NIE) and Marxist Political Economy (MPE) approaches to the labour process, and claims that while the 'efficiency' and 'disciplinary' considerations emphasized by NIE and MPE in their explanations of contractual change are important influences on the labour process, specific institutional outcomes depend heavily on the cultural realities of actors' practices. Part 2 challenges the epistemological assumptions of NIE and MPE narratives, specifically that agents with stable identities perform actions with fixed meanings. Instead, the recent surge in piecework employment must be viewed as part of an ongoing tussle between the dominant Lewa Patel caste and the subordinate Baraiya/Koli caste to alter their relative standings in the social order. Their unceasing attempts to reinvent their group identities have involved shifting understandings of 'work' - with direct implications for labour contracts. As a corrective to NIE and MPE, the essay proposes a semiotic approach to the labour process that bundles the notions of 'social regulation' and 'self-regulation' into the concept of 'work governmentality'.     

Integrating Policies,Plans and Programmes in Local Government: An Exploration from a Spatial Planning Perspective

Local government bodies are increasingly attempting to integrate different functions and departments in the production of policies, plans and programmes. Despite this interest, a general lack of conceptualisation around integration currently exists, presenting difficulties for local government practitioners to pursue such integration. This article reports findings of an ESRC PhD case study into integration in local government, and presents a conceptualisation which seeks to resolve these outstanding issues surrounding integration. These findings are particularly apt given the ongoing changes to local government in England.     

Implementing IFRS in Local Government: Institutional Isomorphism as NPM Goes Mad?

Abstract

The impact the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) has on business has been considered by various authors, such as Jones and Higgins (2006 Jones, S. H. and Higgins, A. D. 2006. Australia's switch to international financial reporting standards: a perspective from account preparers'. Accounting and Finance, 46: 629–652. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). However, there has not been the same research conducted with respect to local government. As Australia and New Zealand are leading the world by being the first to introduce IFRS into local government financial reporting, this study is timely in order todetermine the impact of compliance on local government. With the New Public Management (NPM) introduced in the late 1970s, accrual accounting and the desire to enhance transparency became embedded in financial reporting across the world. The paper adds to the growing literature on institutional theory with results of the study suggesting that a form of coercive isomorphism is present in regards to local government compliance with IFRS. It also suggests that the philosophy behind NPM – especially that espousing the benefits of public sector reporting in a private sector vein–may not be as relevant to Australian local government as the policy makers would have us believe. The thrust to implement IFRS may have finally pushed local government into a world they struggle to cope with. For example, findings indicate that there is now, more than ever, a perception in the community that the bottom line is an important indicator of a council's performance. Results reported here determined that the implementation process was time-consuming and costly with, in general, very little perceived benefit. Councils are conforming to the coercive pressure from legislative bodies, but they are not converging as part of the ‘transaction-neutral’ reporting regime.     

Toward a measurement tool for the monitoring of media diversity and pluralism in South Africa: A public-centred approach

Abstract

This article responds to recent debates within South African media politics regarding the diversity and transformation of the print sector in the country, by suggesting a necessary refocus of previously used methods of measuring media diversity and proposing a more audience-centred approach. This audience-centred method is discussed with regard to meeting the demands of the normative understanding of media diversity, where the media are viewed as central to an individual's formulation of opinions and ideas, thus rendering the media – and particularly the news media – vital in fostering an enabled and informed citizenry. The argument proposes a bottom-up instead of a top-down methodology for measuring media diversity, by placing the primary focus on the public as the starting point, rather than the end point of the analysis, and validating this position through the normative view of the media's role in assisting citizens to formulate personal views. The article concludes by listing four key areas in which current debates on media diversity in South Africa should be realigned and refocused, including at a parliamentary level.     

Crossing the limen: terrorist prisoners and the politically liminal process of imprisonment

Being processed through prison, for the politically violent, can be understood to be a liminal occurrence. Drawing upon the experiences of imprisoned Republicans in Northern Ireland, this study contrasts internment and imprisonment and situates these militants within the conditions of liminality – the role of comradeship; the liminal as dangerous and polluting; their being hidden and stripped. The study explores how imprisonment seeks to refashion militants by undermining the frames for their militancy. Liminality is suggested as an alternative conceptual tool for critically reflecting upon counter-terrorism.     

Families in need of supervision

Abstract

Even judiciaries that do not have histories of serious or pervasive corruption need to be watchful lest what I refer to as judicial corrosion occurs. Drawing on studies of institutional entropy, I identify some of the external and internal sources of such corrosion and comment briefly on challenges that face its prevention or repair within the judicial realm.     

美国注册会计师行业监管制度变迁及其启示

向国际惯例靠拢是研究制定我国资本市场监管机制的一项重要指导思想,也是我国审计规范建设的一项十分重要的目标。本文回顾了20世纪70年代以来美国对会计职业管理体制的两次变革,分析了1984年的《美国统一会计师法案》与2002年《萨班尼斯—奥克斯利法案》的立法过程,以期为完善我国注册会计师行业的监管提供一些有益的启示。     

危机动员与中国社会团体的发展

在全球化的国际环境背景下 ,现代社会既是一个常态管理的社会 ,也是一个呈现多种危机的非常态管理社会。在处理危机事件中 ,不仅需要采用行政动员和政治动员的常规形式 ,而且还需要启用符合社会主义市场经济的社会动员形式 ,充分发挥社会团体在危机动员中的积极作用 ,开发社会总资源 ,降低社会总成本 ,及时有效地扼制危机事件 ,使社会尽快回复到正常的生活和工作状态。政府在确立危机意识、成本意识和主体意识的同时 ,应适时进行制度安排 ,把社会团体在危机应对中的重要作用显现在各种制度安排中 ,真正构建起政府、市场与社会三元关系良性循环的新型结构     

The exclusion of Roma claimants in Canadian refugee policy

The arrival of thousands of European Roma seeking refugee status in Canada elicited a range of legislative and policy instruments that severely restrict their acceptance and create conditions antagonistic to further admissions. Interventions have included visa restrictions, actions by Immigration and Refugee Board, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act followed by the Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act, and ministerial rhetoric about the illegitimacy of Roma as refugees. Other factors have involved interpretations of persecution in relation to the Geneva Convention and Protocol, and the implications of the conditions required for membership to the European Union. These political circumstances in large part determine Canadian acceptance rates for the Roma. Their systematic exclusion is reminiscent of the historical treatment of other groups due to institutional racism. In the new racism, however, refugee law and policy is racist in effect while evading the language of race.     

Economic strain and perceptions of social cohesion in Europe: Does institutional trust matter?

The degree to which different social groups get along is a key indicator of the cohesiveness of a society. This study examines perceptions of social cohesion among Europeans and explains variations in those perceptions by considering the separate and combined effects of economic strain and institutional trust. Analyses were conducted with the 27 member countries of the EU based on the Eurobarometer 74.1 on poverty and social exclusion conducted in 2010. Results show that individuals living in households experiencing economic strain perceive social cohesion to be weaker than their less economically hard‐pressed counterparts. By contrast, individuals trusting their political institutions perceived there to be higher levels of cohesion. Furthermore, institutional trust substantially moderates the negative relationship between economic strain and perceptions of cohesion. These results are robust to various model specifications. Moreover, extending the analysis revealed that this moderating effect held when considering social relations between the poor and rich and between different racial and ethnic groups. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.