From Militancy to Clientelism: Labor Union Strategies and Membership Trajectories in Contemporary Chile

For the past 30 years, Chilean unionism has been shrinking. Through a comparison of the membership trajectories of 26 unions in two firms between 1990 and 2004, this article explains why some unions defied this trend and how their success affected overall union density in their firms. It argues that the unions that experienced the most favorable membership outcomes were those that, at key junctures of firm restructuring, earliest or most aggressively established a partnership relationship with management. However, in a context of great labor weakness, these cases of union accommodation took the form of exclusive patron‐client exchanges, which exacerbated collective action problems and further eroded union density.     

OECD imports of leather: Indian performance and real exchange rates of the Indian rupee

This article reports an econometric investigation of shares by source in imports of leather and leather manufactures into OECD markets over the period 1974–87, at four‐digit SITC level. The Indian share at each destination relative to that of other major exporters, taken serially and independently, is tested for sensitivity to relative price fluctuations as measured by the real bilateral exchange rate between the Indian rupee and the currency of the fellow exporter. The pattern of findings by product category and destination provides important guidelines for exchange rate policy and export strategy.     

Poverty,inequality and economic growth: Rural Punjab, 1960/61 ‐1970/1971

The paper reports some of the findings of an empirical study for Punjab state in India of changes in poverty and inequality over the decade of the sixties. The period was one that saw rapid technological progress in the region, especially in the rural sector to which the study is addressed. Poverty is measured by the percentage of the population living below a poverty line constructed specifically for the region using linear programming techniques. The study is based on primary data collected from the consumer expenditure and land‐holding surveys of the National Sample Survey. All results are subjected to tests of statistical significance.     

Student Protest and the Nueva Mayoría Reforms in Chile

Chile's Nueva Mayoría government (2014–2018) responded more forcefully to student demands for a more assertive public role in education than any of its post‐authoritarian predecessors. Existing scholarship suggests that this change reflected the success of the 2011 student protests in tapping into latent public discontent with neoliberalism and the politics of consensus. This article argues that it is also crucial to understand how the wave of protest interacted with the dynamics of party politics at the elite level. Public support translated into substantive policy and institutional changes because it contributed to a coalition and platform shift that favoured more extensive reform.     

Continuity and change in Indian fiscal federalism

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on whether the discontinuity in the structure of the Indian economy, which started with the economic reforms of 1991, triggered changes in federal fiscal arrangements. This examination is embedded in a larger overview of the basic fiscal structure, characterized by annual flows from the national government (the “Center”) to subnational states that have both statutory (guaranteed and formulaic) and non-statutory (discretionary) components. An unforeseen consequence of trade liberalization was the loss of trade tax revenue, which drove down tax collections at the Center both as a percent of GDP, and relative to states. Four major policy changes initiated after 1991 are attributable to post-reform concerns with efficiency in the fiscal structure. The final shift of indirect taxation to a fully value added configuration, with comprehensive coverage of goods and services, is scheduled for introduction by September 16, 2017.     

Solomon Islands: criminal law

In India, women are entering the formal labour workforce in unprecedented numbers, yet as a proportion of the workforce, the percentage of women workers is declining [Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012–17), Planning Commission, Government of India, Volume III – Social Sectors; Table 22.8 at page 133 notes that the labour force participation rate of women workers has declined both in the rural as well as in the urban areas from 2004–05 to 2009–10]. More than ever before, India as a country of contradictions presents a challenge to women in the work force. Deep-rooted ideologies of gender bias and discrimination remain the most pervasive and persistent form of inequality in the world today. The global economic crisis, characterised by increasing de-regularisation, privatisation and outsourcing of jobs down the supply chain is leading to a transformation of employment relationships. These changes resonate in Indian workplaces as well, creating a counter movement towards the invisibilisation of workers, more particularly women, what we call in India the movement of women workers from the formal sector to the informal sector. The rapidly changing work environment also reinforces the increasing importance of job security, social protection, decent work, financial regulation and fair taxation as the key to a more just world order enhancing the participation of women in the workforce. It is in this context that we must view the emerging challenges that working women face. In the light of these developments, there is, more than ever before, a pressing need for the rights of women to be respected, protected and fulfilled, particularly in the workplace. The right to work encompasses the right to work free from sexual harassment. This article examines the key provisions of the Sexual Harassment at The Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (2013 Act) and the Sexual Harassment at The Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Rules, 2013 (The Rules) [The 2013 Act came into force on 9 December 2013, vide notification issued by the Central Government (S.O. 3606(e)). On the same date, the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Rules, 2013 have also been notified]. The article scrutinises some of the weaknesses and strengths of the said law and it is from this perspective that it approaches the rights of working women, attempting to include within this rubric the widest possible range of women.     

An empirical approach to the optimal size of the civil service

This article attempts a purely empirical approach to the issue of optimal civil service size by looking for a systematic relationship between observed size and underlying explanators. The residuals from such a fitted relationship then serve as a first approximation to whether the government in question is overstaffed or not. The data are from Indian subnational states, which as members of a single federation, follow the same definitional conventions with respect to the civil service. The contribution of the article is methodological, and addresses an issue of central importance, since staff downsizing conditionalities attached to externally funded structural adjustment programmes are not analytically underpinned. The article also explores issues surrounding the composition of the civil service. There is no evidence that overstaffing, as determined from the residuals of the estimated specification, is the joint outcome along with staff composition, as proxied by mean salary, of job creation pressures at the lower salary scales. This suggests that correction of overstaffing might be possible without political opposition, while at the same time leaving unexplained the variation in staff composition across states. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamics of water reallocation and cost implications in the transboundary setting of Ferghana Province

While in the international literature water sharing in the Syr Darya Basin per past agreements is widely portrayed as most benefiting Uzbekistan, here the dynamics of water allocation within small transboundary tributaries in Ferghana Province show Uzbekistan as benefiting least. The case study highlights that water allocation for Uzbekistan within the tributaries has decreased over the years. Uzbekistan's approach to compensate for the reduced allocations by means of other water sources has had large long-term cost implications for irrigated agriculture as well as the irrigation bureaucracy. This article contributes to the international debate on benefit sharing in transboundary rivers. The article highlights that costs should be incorporated into the benefit-sharing approach, and therefore the focus on benefit sharing alone is misguiding riparian states. Furthermore, the article raises the need to reevaluate benefits, since perceptions of potential benefits change over time.