Credibility and Agency Termination under Parliamentarism

We investigate the life span and risk of termination of 723 arm’s length agencies in the United Kingdom between 1985 and 2008, an under investigated question in parliamentary systems. We hypothesize that termination risk depends on three groups of factors: (1) factors relating to the rationales for initial delegation of responsibility to the arm’s length agency; (2) factors relating to the political and economic position of the government; and (3) factors relating to the institutional form of the agency. We find that agencies intended to generate credible commitments in regulation are less likely than others to be terminated in any given year. Agencies operating under right-wing governments and under heavily indebted governments are more likely to be terminated, although left-wing governments are more sensitive to the effects of debt. Agencies structured as executive non-departmental public bodies and non-ministerial departments are also longer lived than others. Contrary to expectations about arm’s length agencies in parliamentary systems with single-party government, partisan change does not affect the risk of termination

Re-inventing New Zealand: Institutions Output and Patents 1870-1939

New estimates of commodity output and patenting are used to explore New Zealand’s transition from extensive to intensive growth. By investigating the cointegrating and causal relationships among the output of 25 industries we show that a small number of common trends shaped the contours of her economic development. In turn the leading industries were driven by knowledge growth as reflected in patents statistics. New Zealand's distinctive institutions and human capital fostered the knowledge which transformed the farming landscape, promoted wider land ownership, and created a production system which integrated farm and factory to promote intensive growth.Growth; Institutions; Patents; Common trends; Commodity output, New Zealand Research and Development

Is Sex-Selective Abortion against the Law?

The article addresses the legal status of ‘sex-selective’ abortion in British law. It argues, firstly, that abortions for which knowledge of fetal sex is a ‘but-for’ cause can be lawful under the terms of the Abortion Act 1967, so long as one of the physical or mental health grounds in section 1 of the Act is attested to in good faith by two medical professionals. The failure of governmental and health bodies to correctly state the law pertaining to sex-selective abortion in recent years owes in part to the failure to distinguish the legal grounds for abortion from the factual explanations for abortion, a distinction which, I argue, is essential for understanding the structure of Britain’s abortion law. The article also considers the claim that abortions carried out partly for reasons of fetal sex are unlawful, or, if not, ought to be legally prohibited, because of reasonable doubts about patient consent. It points out some key ways in which this consent-based objection is difficult to square with our general abortion permissions

Prenatal Personhood and Life's Intrinsic Value: Reappraising Dworkin on Abortion

What is at the heart of conflict over abortion? In his celebrated contribution to the topic, Ronald Dworkin argued that disputants in the abortion debate are in fact deeply mistaken about the true terms of their disagreement. Rather than turning on the perennial question of whether or not the fetus is a person, Dworkin claimed that abortion argument is, at bottom, an argument about the intrinsic value of all human life and how it is best respected. More than twenty years after Dworkin put forward his novel thesis, this article reassesses his key claims about the nub of abortion argument, partly in light of subsequent developments in the public abortion conflict. Against Dworkin’s revisionist account of the abortion problem, I set out to show that his arguments did not successfully displace the primacy of the personhood question in moral and legal constitutional reasoning about abortion. Nor do they convincingly establish that prenatal personhood is not what contestants in the abortion debate are really arguing about

An alternative to BlackboardTM? Student use of web-based textbook teaching and learning material

This paper investigates the use of web-based textbook supplementary teaching and learning materials which include multiple choice test banks, animated demonstrations, simulations, quizzes and electronic versions of the text. To gauge their experience of the web-based material students were asked to score the main elements of the material in terms of usefulness. In general it was found that while the electronic text provides a flexible platform for presentation of material there is a need for continued monitoring of student use of this material as the literature suggests that digital viewing habits may mean there is little time spent in evaluating information, either for relevance, accuracy or authority. From a lecturer perspective these materials may provide an effective and efficient way of presenting teaching and learning materials to the students in a variety of multimedia formats, but at this stage do not overcome the need for a VLE such as Blackboard™

Education m Senegal: Problems and attempted solutions

This work is intended as an introduction to the study of problems in education in Senegal. It tries to indicate the comparative worth of some of the solutions to these problems, and to set them in an objective manner in their context in the general pattern of education, She thesis endeavours to show why certain attempted solutions have, come to nothing, and why others may be likely to fail. It suggests alternative solutions, or other possible ways to achieve the desired results within the framework of the existing system. The book shows that Senegal has perhaps attempted too much too soon in educational development, and, on the eve of the Third Plan for the Beonomio Development of Senegal tries to present a re-assessment of the priority accorded to various plans for the reform of the educational system; to re-examine the aims and aspirations; to take stock of the present situation, and to indicate further promising avenues of experiment and ' change for the future

Patriarchy, capitalism and married women’s work: constraints, opportunities and attitudes

The relationship that women have with the labour market is marked in general by several characteristics which distinguish it from men’s involvement in the labour force. That is, the majority of jobs women do, especially part time jobs, suffer from a combination of poor pay, bad conditions, few fringe benefits and little chance of promotion. Much of women's employment is dull, repetitive and boring and is largely in unskilled or semi-skilled work. In addition to this vertical concentration of women's employment, the majority of women are also horizontally concentrated into certain types of occupations or industries, for example, clerical and service occupations. This thesis focusses particularly on married women's work. It aims to place the characteristics and features of married women's work within an historical context. This is attempted by tracing patterns and trends in married women's employment from pre- industrial Britain to the present. A theoretical perspective is developed which aims to explain these trends and patterns in relation to the dual influences of capitalism and patriarchy. Arising from this discussion, an important focus for the thesis, and the focus for the field work, is to examine the way in which married women themselves react to their position at home and in the labour market. Thus, married women's attitudes, perceptions and reactions toward their home commitments and labour market participation are considered in relation to available opportunities and constraints. Opportunities and constraints which this thesis argues are largely the result of the interrelationship between capitalist and patriarchal interests. The fieldwork for this thesis, referred to as the Newcastle Study, looks at four occupations (cleaning, clerical, catering and retail work) which are typical areas of married women's paid employment. The results are compared with those of other empirical studies and with other findings discussed within the rest of the thesis. The Newcastle Study illuminates many of the issues raised in the earlier review of the literature. Particular attention is paid to results which highlight the constraints which patriarchy and capitalism put upon married women's labour market opportunities, and the ways in which they affect married women's attitudes to paid and unpaid work

Commentary on: Solberg and Jensenius (2016) Investigation of 'intersubjectively embodied experience' in a controlled electronic dance music setting

The motion capture study conducted by Solberg and Jensenius 2016 explores how people's movement on a dance floor is shaped by structural features of electronic dance music (EDM), with a particular focus on the breakdown and drop sections of tracks, the former being characterised by a reduction in musical texture and removal of the rhythmic bassline, and the latter when the rhythmic bassline re-enters and a thicker texture is re-established. The research also explored links between how the participants moved to the dance tracks and their experience of pleasure, and examined the extent to which dancing to EDM can be described as intersubjective. Results showed that the quantity of the dancers' movement reduced during the breakdown, and increased at the drop, as predicted. Ratings of enjoyment of the tracks, and qualitative reflections from the participants provided supporting evidence that the desire to dance increased at the moment of the drop, and that this was influenced by the movement of other people in the setting. In this commentary, I provide an overview of the authors' main arguments and critically evaluate the method and findings with suggestions for future studies

When do health and well-being interventions work?:managerial commitment and context

Health and well-being interventions are increasingly assessed as complex processes rather than randomized controlled trials. In this study the health and wellbeing interventions refer to voluntary actions and are not in response to any regulatory requirement. This paper looks specifically at managerial commitment to these interventions and at the organisational context in which they occur. Ex-ante study predictions as to the effects of commitment in three organisations were made and then followed up. This commitment was positively associated with employee perceptions of health promotion campaigns. But broader impacts, such as commitment to the organisation and a sense of autonomy, were not evident. The explanation lies in wider features of the organisation of work: permanent constraints such as job design and shift systems ran against the aims of the health interventions. Relating well-intentioned interventions to such features of organisational life remains a challenge for many organisations