School of Social and Political Sciences - Research Publications
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ItemThey know it when they see it: The UK gender recognition act 2004(SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC, 2008-05)This article is a critical feminist analysis of the UK Gender Recognition Act of 2004. This Act is radical in enabling transgenders to gain certificates recognising their new ‘acquired gender’ without undergoing hormonal or surgical treatment. The Act has considerable implications for marriage, for motherhood and fatherhood, for women who are the partners of men or women who ‘transition’ and for ‘women-only’ spaces. It is based on confusing and contradictory notions of the difference between sex and gender. As such it should be of great interest to feminists but there has been a dearth of feminist commentary. The understandings of sex and gender and of the importance of the Act will be explored here through analysis of the parliamentary debates and public responses.
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ItemBalancing Democracy and Globalisation: The Role of the State in Poverty Alleviation in India(ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2009)
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ItemThe contradictions of regionalism in North America(Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2009-02)Abstract Students of regionalism almost reflexively include North America in their lists of regions in contemporary global politics. Inevitably students of regionalism point to the integrative agreements between the countries of North America: the two free trade agreements that transformed the continental economy beginning in the late 1980s – the Canada–US Free Trade Agreement that came into force on 1 January 1989, and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Mexico, and Canada, that came into force on 1 January 1994 – and the Secutity and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), launched in March 2005. These agreements, it is implied, are just like the integrative agreements that forge the bonds of regionalism elsewhere in the world. We argue that this is a profound misreading, not only of the two free trade agreements of the late 1980s and early 1990s and the SPP mechanism of 2005, but also of the political and economic implications of those agreements. While these integrative agreements have created considerable regionalisation in North America, there has been little of the regionalism evident in other parts of the world. We examine the contradictions of North America integration in order to explain why North Americans have been so open to regionalisation but so resistant to regionalism.
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ItemTHE DECLINE OF TRADITIONAL NEWS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS AUDIENCES IN AUSTRALIA(SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 2009-05)With attention focused on the battle for news ratings between Channels Seven and Nine, an underlying trend has tended to go unnoticed: audiences have been switching off televised news and current affairs programs since the 1990s. Drawing on detailed OzTAM ratings, this article shows how this is particularly true for specific audience segments. Allied with this is the longer-term decline in newspaper circulation. These data raise a central question: are Australians merely switching off ‘outdated’ media such as TV and newspapers (and getting their news from somewhere else such as the internet), or are they switching off the genre of news/current affairs altogether? This article weighs the evidence and concludes that the news audience is fragmenting in particular ways, especially by age, and that some (but certainly not all) groups are going online for news.
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ItemRights Protection-Comparative Perspectives(ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2009)
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ItemCrime, organised crime and corruption in post-communist Europe and the CIS(University of California Press, 2009-06-01)This article examines the incomplete and sometimes contradictory evidence on the crime, organised crime and corruption situations in post-communist states, and then seeks to explain the apparent increase in all three in early post-communism. Among the factors considered are the impact of weak states and economies, neo-liberalism, globalisation, Schengen and Fortress Europe, the Communist legacy (the ‘ghost from the past’), and collusion. The article then examines the dynamics of criminality and malfeasance in the region, and provides evidence to suggest that the crime and corruption situation has stabilised or even improved in most post-communist countries in recent times. The factors considered for explaining this apparent improvement are the role of external agents (notably the EU), the move from transition to consolidation, and the role of political will.
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ItemThe Politics of Rights Protection in Western Democracies(ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2009)
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ItemUncounted Votes: Informal Voting in the House of Representatives as a Marker of Political Exclusion in Australia(WILEY, 2009-03)This article examines the implications of high levels of informal (or invalid) voting in Australian national elections using a social exclusion framework. The rate of the informal vote is an indicator of social and political exclusion with particular groups of Australians experiencing inordinate electoral disadvantage. Poorer voters, voters from non‐English speaking backgrounds and those with low education levels are especially disadvantaged by factors peculiar to the Australian voting experience. We begin by exploring the character and pattern of informal voting and then canvass the technical and socio‐economic factors which explain it. We conclude by considering proposed options for reducing informality, some of which are: the abandonment of compulsory voting, major structural change to the voting system as well as ballot re‐design, electoral education and community information initiatives.
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ItemThe politics of human rights and development: The challenge for official donors(Informa UK Limited, 2009-03-01)
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ItemExporting a new public space? reflections on the EU integration experience as a paradigm(PALGRAVE MACMILLAN LTD, 2008-09)