Reform Debate Research Articles

Underrepresentation, Quotas and Quality: A Dynamic Argument for Reform

Underrepresentation, Quotas and Quality: A Dynamic Argument for Reform

LAND RESETTLEMENT IN POST-COLONIAL ZIMBABWE: A LOOK INTO THE GOVERNMENT LAND RESETTLEMENT APPROACHES

In Zimbabwe, ever since the government embarked on a disastrous land reform agenda in the early 2000s, the issue of land reform and its social-economic effects, such as relocating people, remained a bone of contention. Extensive research has shown that land reform laws and relocation approaches in some remote areas of Zimbabwe are politicised and not consistent and, therefore, catastrophic. However, most studies in land reform and resettlement have been limited, persistently focusing on the impacts and constitutionality of Zimbabwe’s 2000s land reform program. This study seeks to contribute to the land reform debate by examining the Zimbabwean government’s land reform and relocation activities between 2015 and 2021 using a case study of the Chilonga and Mazoe governmentled resettlement programmes. Three key empirical questions are asked - What are the government’s intended strategies when relocating the Chilonga and Mazoe people? Is there any resemblance with the colonial resettlement approaches? What legal instruments were used, and were they constitutionally justified? Data for this study was drawn mainly from a systematic review of documents and interviews with key informants and victims (n=40) of the government-led resettlements. Analysis shows that the government’s resettlement approaches bear a significant resemblance to the unconstitutional procedures the colonial government employed. We argue that the government’s post-2000 land reform laws, especially between 2015 and 2021, must be cleansed of the colonial elements that allow the government to manipulate the laws to suit their political needs at the expense of the general populace.

How China escaped shock therapy The market reform debate Routledge, 2021

Recensión del mejor estudio realizado hasta la fecha sobre el proceso de transición económica en China en los críticos años de las décadas de 1980 y 1990, desde la economía de inspiración maoísta hasta el sistema precursor del actual.

Corporate Effective Tax Rates for Research and Policy

How much companies pay in corporate income taxes is often better captured by effective tax rates (ETRs) rather than by statutory ones. Economists further distinguish between those modeled using the law—forward-looking ETRs—and those estimated from actual data on companies’ profits and taxes—backward-looking ETRs. In this article, I move beyond this distinction, and I break down backward-looking ETRs according to the type of data used to estimate them. I focus on backward-looking ETRs that are estimated using companies’ balance sheet databases. Based on my review of recent findings, I argue that backward-looking ETRs—of multinational corporations in particular—have become more frequently estimated thanks to advances in data availability while also becoming more relevant as a result of ongoing global corporate tax reform debates.

中華民國時期 兒童公育論의 變化- 아나키즘, 국가주의, 여성문제 -

Reformers and revolutionaries in early twentieth century China advocated for a system of “communal child rearing”(儿童公育) that assigned primary responsibility for child rearing to society and community rather than individual parents. This article discusses the idea of communal child rearing, how it changed over time, and how these debates have reverberated in post-1949 policy debates. Revolutionary anarchists in the 1900s believed communal child rearing could dismantle the hierarchical relationship between parent and child and thus would play a crucial role in their project to overthrow the existing social order and create of a more egalitarian society. In the 1920s, starting from 1919 to be exact, communal child rearing became a focal point of debate for social reform. Those who advocated for the program were radicals who also supported women’s liberation and criticized private property and family as an embodiment of traditional values. Newspaper articles published around and after this time show how their contemporaries understood communal child rearing as a necessary condition for women’s economic independence. However, the debates in the 1910s and 20s differed from those in the 1900s in terms of their utilization of scientific knowledge. Whereas radicals in the 1900s advanced their ideas based on revolutionary idealism, the 1910s and 20s groups (on both sides of the debate) grounded their arguments in the social scientific discourses of early child education and psychology. In the 1930s, nationalists gained more ground and argued for communal child rearing for the sake of the nation. While nationalists’ views on child rearing drastically differed from the anarchists and other radicals of earlier periods, they continued to support the feminist claim that communal child rearing was crucial for women’s economic activities and social participation. The wartime conditions in China from the mid-1930s also contributed to the increase of public child rearing facilities for war orphans. Public child care in wartime China owed much to the desperate material conditions of women and children. These policies prioritizing the needs of working women and children continued after 1949 and served as the basis of institutionalized child care facilities in the early years of the People’s Republic of China.

ACCESS TO JUSTICE

ACCESS TO JUSTICE

Public Opinion on Institutional Designs for the United Nations: An International Survey Experiment

AbstractScholars and policy makers have intensely debated institutional reforms of the United Nations (UN) since its creation. Yet, relatively little attention has been given to institutional design preferences among the public in UN member states. This study examines two questions: Which possible rules concerning UN authority and representation do citizens prefer? Which personal and country characteristics are associated with their varying institutional preferences? A population-based conjoint survey experiment conducted in Argentina, China, India, Russia, Spain, and the United States is used to identify public preferences on nine distinct institutional design dimensions figuring prominently in UN reform debates. We find widespread support for increasing or at least maintaining UN authority over member states and for handing control over its decision-making to UN organs that would represent the citizens of every member state more directly. Citizens’ institutional preferences are associated with their political values and vary depending on whether their home countries would gain or lose influence from a specific reform.

Reconstructing the framing of resilience in the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy post‐2020 reform

AbstractThe concept of resilience has been increasingly adopted on the European Union's (EU) policy agenda as a principle for agro‐food policy‐making. However, resilience is an ambiguous concept, allowing for different understandings and uses in the context of agro‐food policy‐making. This study analyses whether and how resilience is framed and contributes to framing in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) post‐2020 reform process by policymakers and stakeholders. Combining deductive and inductive coding, we analysed 123 policy documents of EU institutions and stakeholders related to the CAP post‐2020 reform debate and the associated Farm‐to‐Fork Strategy. Five distinct resilience frames were identified: (1) income resilience frame, (2) farmers’ supply chain position resilience frame, (3) climate change impact resilience frame, (4) disease resilience frame and (5) ecological resilience frame. Whereas the resilience concept has been deployed by various actors, they differ in their preferred policy actions towards greater resilience.

The importance of PEOPLE who use drugs within drug policy reform debates: Findings from the UK Drug Policy Voices online survey.

Drug Policy Voices is a UK-based project designed to integrate the voices and experiences of people who use drugs (PWUD) into debates about drug policy reform. An online survey was conducted in 2020 to understand opinions connected to drug use and drug policy. We used a blended values approach combining Moral Foundations Theory (Haidt and Joseph, 2004; Haidt and Graham, 2007) and MacCoun and Reuter's (2001) four philosophical positions that underpin the drug policy. This paper asks, what values do people who use drugs hold surrounding drug use and drug policy, and what factors predict these values? We used online-purposive sampling and achieved 1217 survey responses, which captured sociodemographic characteristics, patterns of drug use, sourcing and supply of drugs used within the last 12 months, experiences of criminal justice sanctions in connection to drugs, and experiences of alcohol or other drug treatment. In addition, we devised 37 attitudinal questions about drug use and drug policy, which included both progressive and prohibitionist value positions. The exploratory factor analysis revealed a six-factor solution that identified important value positions for this respondent group, which are personal autonomy, paternalism 1; paternalism 2; legal injustice 1; legal injustice 2; and neoliberal governance. Age, gender, religious beliefs, political views, identifying as a recreational drug taker, using drugs recently, and having experience of working or studying in the substance use/drug policy field are predictors of these value positions. The Drug Policy Voices survey has identified collective values and ideology connected to lived experience that illustrate a clear goal conflict with prohibitionist ideology. PWUD have valuable contributions to make to the policy reform debate, but we must acknowledge that opinions are not formed through drug-related experiences alone. The findings of this research highlight the importance of emphasising the person who uses drugs within participatory approaches.

How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate

How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate

Snyder's "Faith and toleration: A reformation debate revised" (book review)

Snyder's "Faith and toleration: A reformation debate revised" (book review)

A structural approach to labour law

Abstract This article draws on the scholarly tradition of critical realism to develop a structural approach to labour law that can help equip labour lawyers with the critical tools that will be required if they are to defend labour law against the various ideological critiques to which it is, and has historically been, subject; and if they are to advance structurally informed arguments for reform that are sensitive to the structural constraints that exist both when it comes to what can be achieved in capitalism and when it comes to what can be achieved through law in particular.

Landed Nation: Land Reform and Ethnic Diversity in the Interwar Polish Parliament

AbstractThis article investigates the ethnic entanglements of the land reform debate in the first Polish Diet (1919–1922). Against the backdrop of global comparative studies, interwar Poland, haunted by land hunger, rural poverty, and high concentration of land ownership, is an odd case. Despite conditions conducive to far-reaching land reforms, that is, a high level of inter-elite conflict and semiautocratic order, the Polish reform was very moderate, if not disappointing. Unpacking the series of moves in the debate and the sequence of hairbreadth voting on its shape, I ask why, despite broad acceptance of the reform across the political spectrum, it could not attract enough support to be swiftly executed. The ethnic composition of the country triggered controversies concerning German farmers and peasants of the ethnically diversified eastern borderlands. Major political parties shared tacit Polish nationalism, but the history of political alignments made the nationalist politicians susceptible to the lobbying of the landed elite and estranged them from peasant parties. The land holdings of nobles were considered a bulwark of the nation, which effectively blocked the alternative idea of integrating the ethnic minorities via land ownership.

‘Chinese ideographs belong to a childhood age […] but Japan has now become a man’: graphic ideologies and language reform in The Japan Times

This study is a diachronic investigation into how coverage of writing reform in The Japan Times used, manipulated, and discarded graphic language ideologies between 1897 and 1981. Through this novel data set and analytical focus, the study expands on extant understandings of Japanese debates over the script, utilizing a newspaper known for hosting voices and concerns absent in many other Japanese presses to evidence how ideologies about language use(rs) evolved in response to social concerns surrounding over a century of the reform debate. Ultimately, analysis of 469 articles shows that while The Japan Times generally advocated for romanization, the ideologies surrounding its coverage of script debate were not singular or static. Beliefs that scripts are ‘progressive’, ‘barbaric’, ‘Japanese’, and ‘foreign’ were used to both support and attack kanji, kana, and romanization, and the power of individual ideologies changed rapidly in response to fluctuating social conditions and power structures. As a result, we see that graphic ideologies about script were a highly flexible and important element of Japanese script discussions, with framings rapidly borrowed, reformed, and discarded by all sides of the debate to participate in changing dialogues on what made a writing style best for the future of Japan.

Neoliberal Economic Thinking and the Quest for Rational Socialism in China: Ludwig von Mises and the Market Reform Debate.

This paper investigates the long first decade of reform in China (1978-1992) to show that Mises became relevant to the reconfiguration of China's political economy in this period. Mises's critique of socialism came to be debated throughout the 1980s and Chinese economists developed their own reading of Mises and the socialist calculation debate. When Deng Xiaoping reinstated market reforms in the early 1990s, a history of thought review of the possibility of rational socialism and socialist markets helped to justify the Socialist Market Economy with Chinese Characteristics as the official designation of China's economic system to this day.

Patient rights and the cost of health litigation: you don't 'win' compensation.

John Tingle, Lecturer in Law, Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham, considers two sides of the litigation reform debate, and reflects on perceptions of compensation awards.

The Judicial Function of Investment Tribunals: Taking Foundational Assumptions Seriously

ABSTRACT The proliferation of international courts and tribunals has given rise to debates about the judicial function beyond dispute settlement. These debates provide a broader context to study investment tribunals, especially when various conceptions of their judicial function are articulated in the ongoing reform process at United Nations Commission on International Trade Law Working Group III on investor–state dispute settlement. The current reform debate is largely driven by problems and issues that emerged in the contemporary practice of investment arbitration. However, the original balance that the founders of the system intended to strike receives much less attention. This paper focuses on the founders’ original assumptions about the judicial function of investment tribunals. It addresses the drafting process of selected key institutional features of investment arbitration established by the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States. The key claim is that the drafters’ conception of the judicial function was consciously narrow, without carrying major assumptions about public functions. This original view is in marked contrast with certain broader conceptions developed in subsequent arbitral practice. The rationales underpinning the original institutional design choices can also inform the ongoing institutional reform where similar tensions and issues re-emerge.

The clinical negligence system reform debate is heating up.

John Tingle, Lecturer in Law, Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham, discusses some recent developments on moves to reform our tort-based clinical negligence compensation system.

Arguing for Criminal Justice Reform: Examining the Effects of Message Framing on Policy Preferences

Across the U.S., policy makers are enacting criminal justice reform while limiting many of those reforms to low-level, non-violent offenders. Given the power the public wields in shaping policy, it is necessary to consider which arguments for reform are most effective and who is viewed as most deserving of those reforms. The current study finds that varying the argument for reform, such as highlighting racial inequities, does not affect support for reform policies, regardless of the type of offender. Additionally, although respondents generally supported reform policies, results revealed significantly less support for implementing those reforms for violent offenders. Finally, findings indicate that individuals who believe violent crime is more of a Black phenomenon are less likely to support reform. These findings demonstrate that, to enact broader reform, it is necessary to address the public’s preexisting opinions about crime more so than debate which rhetorical arguments should be used.

Reimagining urban destinations: Adaptive and transformative city brand attributes and values in the pandemic crisis

This paper contributes to the post-Covid urban tourism debate. It focuses on how cities respond to the pandemic asking how and to what extent urban destination brands are leverged by city marketers for coping with the Covid-19 crisis. It explores city brand values and attributes change as a component of the urban approach to facing the current crisis. Content analysis is carried out on pre- and post-pandemic brand communication of four Italian iconic cultural destinations (Rome, Florence, Venice and Milan) on Instagram. Findings suggest adaptive and transformative brand responses to the pandemic crisis, projecting the cities into future development scenarios. This research contributes to the recovery versus reform debate on post-Covid urban contexts and opens research on the pandemic effects on values, images and tourism stakeholders' mindsets and brand experimentation on social media platforms.