What future for gender equality policy in the UK after Brexit?

The evolution of gender equality policies in the UK prior to, and since, entering the Common Market in the 1970s illustrates the distinctive characteristics of the UK employment system. This can be understood as a movement between historically embedded voluntarism and periods of statutory compliance. European influence on British policies has been filtered through the interests and interaction of four key sets of actors: governments, the legal system, employers and unions. An historical analysis of gender equality policies suggests that the potential future consequences of Brexit are likely to be patterns of continuity, change and unintended consequences. Continuity indicates that existing regulations will persist, until they are challenged. Change will see a removal of appeal to EU-level adjudication. Some unintended consequences may emerge related to the impact of migration patterns and the behaviour of large-scale companies working in the UK which could have unexpected positive outcomes. The analysis in this paper suggests that this will remain a contested terrain

Bayesian approach to Spatio-temporally Consistent Simulation of Daily Monsoon Rainfall over India

Simulation of rainfall over a region for long time-sequences can be very useful for planning and policy-making, especially in India where the economy is heavily reliant on monsoon rainfall. However, such simulations should be able to preserve the known spatial and temporal characteristics of rainfall over India. General Circulation Models (GCMs) are unable to do so, and various rainfall generators designed by hydrologists using stochastic processes like Gaussian Processes are also difficult to apply over the vast and highly diverse landscape of India. In this paper, we explore a series of Bayesian models based on conditional distributions of latent variables that describe weather conditions at specific locations and over the whole country. During parameter estimation from observed data, we use spatio-temporal smoothing using Markov Random Field so that the parameters learnt are spatially and temporally coherent. Also, we use a nonparametric spatial clustering based on Chinese Restaurant Process to identify homogeneous regions, which are utilized by some of the proposed models to improve spatial correlations of the simulated rainfall. The models are able to simulate daily rainfall across India for years, and can also utilize contextual information for conditional simulation. We use two datasets of different spatial resolutions over India, and focus on the period 2000-2015. We propose a large number of metrics to study the spatio-temporal properties of the simulations by the models, and compare them with the observed data to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the models

Managing academic personnel flow at universities.

Universities experience increasing difficulty in staffing their academic positions. Attracting and retaining highly qualified employees in a general problem that has received much attention in recent HRM literature. But several authors have claimed that the academic career has lost much of its attractiveness. This paper presents seven levers that universities may use to enhance their recruitment and retention power on a difficult job market. Suggestions are based on experience from innovative organizations, both universities and business organizations. Special attention is given to the creation of multiple and flexible career paths within academia. We contend that a successful application of these suggestions will require major cultural and institutional change at universities.Retention; Market;

Defending the Majoritarian Case Against Judicial Review

Award Recipient, 2012 Denman Undergraduate Research ForumJeremy Waldron, in Law and Disagreement, argues that judicial review by institutions such as the United States Supreme Court, where largely unaccountable judges have final say on important political issues, is incompatible with democracy. An essential premise to his argument is majoritarianism, which is the view that the citizen majority’s view on any given political matter should be decisive in a democratic system. In this article, I will evaluate Waldron’s arguments against judicial review in light of criticisms of his majoritarianism by Ronald Dworkin and others. I will argue that modified versions of Waldron’s positions on both majoritarianism and judicial review can be successfully defended against those criticisms. The essay will proceed as follows. First, I discuss what Waldron characterizes as the circumstances of politics, including reasonable disagreement and a felt need for common action with regard to important political issues. This problematic situation can be separated from Waldron’s substantive conclusions in a manner that provides a common framework for thinking about the decisional problem brought about in politics. Second, the circumstances of politics will be shown to require political institutions that are justifiable to all reasonable citizens. In this way, any legitimate political institution must be, in some sense, beyond reasonable disagreement. Third, I will examine two prominent solutions to this problem: (1) Waldron’s procedural solution arguing that only fair procedures can be free of reasonable disagreement and (2) Dworkin’s substantive solution arguing that at least some considerations of substantive fairness are beyond reasonable disagreement. Fourth, Dworkin’s robust substantive solution will be shown to lack any independent criteria by which to judge better or worse outcomes, and for that reason is not justifiable to all reasonable citizens. Rejecting robust substantive solutions, I will argue that Waldron’s majoritarianism as a procedural solution can be defended against Dworkin’s objections that substantive political inequalities are present in a majoritarian system. Fifth, I will consider the objection that Waldron’s majoritarianism is subject to reasonable disagreement (1) in particular contexts and so is itself controversial as a principle, and (2) in the inclusion of undefended substance in majoritarianism. In response to the former, it will be argued that though the use of a majority decision-procedure in specific contexts is controversial, it is uncontroversial as a general principle in second-order contexts. In response to the latter, it will first be conceded that majoritarianism is indeed thinly substantive. The original distinction of procedure vs. substance will be shown as only helpful in relation to robust substantive views, such as Dworkin’s solution. On the basis of a very thin substance that draws on Waldron’s pre-existing defense, I will show that majoritarianism is an uncontroversial general principle, and so maintains its status as a legitimate decision-procedure. This thin substance will primarily be conditional upon the belief that all are entitled to basic rights, and that when combined with the permanent circumstances of politics, this assumption necessitates a fundamental right to participate, and thus orients all citizens as the proper source from which to derive opinions regarding important political decisions. Finally, after having defended a modified majoritarianism as a legitimate political institution, I will analyze the compatibility of judicial review with that modified majoritarianism. I will first present what is ordinarily thought to be at stake in the debate over the legitimacy of judicial review. Then, I will demonstrate that American-style judicial review is a prototypical instance of the judicial review that concerns theorists like Waldron. Third, I will argue that judicial review is incompatible with majoritarianism only in the instances where the majority is unable – by whatever means the majority deems appropriate – to reverse or alter the decisions of the Justices. Finally, I will show that the inclusion of thin substance into a modified version of Waldron’s majoritarianism qualifies the case against judicial review only insofar as it is controversial that all citizens are entitled to basic rights.College of Arts and Sciences, Undergraduate Research Scholarship AwardNo embarg