Federalism and Subsidiarity: Principles and Processes in the Reform of the Australian Federation

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Nicholas Aroney

The principle of subsidiarity offers a criterion for the rational allocation of roles within federations between federal and state governments. The principle states that ‘functions should be performed by the lowest level of government competent to do so effectively’. However, embedded in the principle is a hierarchy: there are ‘higher’ and there are ‘lower’ levels of government. This hierarchy suggests a point of view from which assessments of optimal allocation are to be made. The deeper question, therefore, is this: ‘who will decide for whom?’ The reform of a federal system turns not only on what principles are used, but on questions of process: who will decide what those principles require, and how will they go about doing it? A problem of path dependency lies at the heart of Australia's federal malaise. It is this problem that we need to be grappling with when considering the optimal design of the system. To do so, we need to consider not only the principles but also the processes by which the federal system is to be reformed. This paper draws on the comparative experience of Switzerland, Germany and Austria to provide guidance about how Australia's federal system might best be reformed. If we want to know how to change institutions, we must be attuned to the fact that there is frequently a mismatch between the initial aims of institution-builders and the contemporary value we attach to them.1

Author(s):  
Anne Power

This article provides a brief overview of emotionally focused couple therapy (EFT) along with some reservations about the method. The article considers questions and critiques which are often raised about the model and does so from the point of view of a practitioner new to the method, who has become convinced of the value of the approach whilst not wanting to jettison an object relations understanding. The segregation between different groups of attachment researchers and practitioners is noted. To provide variation I occasionally use the term "marital" but I do so loosely, referring to a couple bond rather than to a wedded pair. The systemic pattern between a pursuer and a withdrawer which is discussed here could refer to a same-sex or a heterosexual couple, despite the different gender alignments which operate in each case.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 237802312098032
Author(s):  
Brandon G. Wagner ◽  
Kate H. Choi ◽  
Philip N. Cohen

In the social upheaval arising from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, we do not yet know how union formation, particularly marriage, has been affected. Using administration records—marriage certificates and applications—gathered from settings representing a variety of COVID-19 experiences in the United States, the authors compare counts of recorded marriages in 2020 against those from the same period in 2019. There is a dramatic decrease in year-to-date cumulative marriages in 2020 compared with 2019 in each case. Similar patterns are observed for the Seattle metropolitan area when analyzing the cumulative number of marriage applications, a leading indicator of marriages in the near future. Year-to-date declines in marriage are unlikely to be due solely to closure of government agencies that administer marriage certification or reporting delays. Together, these findings suggest that marriage has declined during the COVID-19 outbreak and may continue to do so, at least in the short term.


Publications ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
Aida María de Vicente de Vicente Domínguez ◽  
Ana Beriain Beriain Bañares ◽  
Javier Sierra Sierra Sánchez

The infodiet of young Spanish adults aged 18 to 25 was analysed to determine their attitude towards fake news. The objectives were: to establish whether they have received any training in fake news; to determine whether they know how to identify fake information; and to investigate whether they spread it. The study employed a descriptive quantitative method consisting of a survey of 500 representative interviews of the Spanish population aged between 18 and 25 through a structured questionnaire. The results indicate that they are aware of the importance of training, although generally they do not know of any course and when they do, they do not tend to enroll on one either due to lack of interest or time. These young adults feel that they know how to identify fake content and, moreover, that they know how to do so very well. However, they do not use the best tools. While they do not always verify information, they mainly suspect the credibility of information when it is meaningless. However, they do not tend to spread fake information. We conclude that media information literacy training (MILT) is necessary in educational centres that focuses on the main issues identified.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Ahson Azmat

AbstractLeading accounts of tort law split cleanly into two seams. Some trace its foundations to a deontic form of morality; others to an instrumental, policy-oriented system of efficient loss allocation. An increasingly prominent alternative to both seams, Civil Recourse Theory (CRT) resists this binary by arguing that tort comprises a basic legal category, and that its directives constitute reasons for action with robust normative force. Using the familiar question whether tort’s directives are guidance rules or liability rules as a lens, or prism, this essay shows how considerations of practical reasoning undermine one of CRT’s core commitments. If tort directives exert robust normative force, we must account for its grounds—for where it comes from, and why it obtains. CRT tries to do so by co-opting H.L.A. Hart’s notion of the internal point of view, but this leveraging strategy cannot succeed: while the internal point of view sees legal directives as guides to action, tort law merely demands conformity. To be guided by a directive is to comply with it, not conform to it, so tort’s structure blocks the shortcut to normativity CRT attempts to navigate. Given the fine-grained distinctions the theory makes, and with the connection between its claims and tort’s requirements thus severed, CRT faces a dilemma: it’s either unresponsive to tort’s normative grounds, or it’s inattentive to tort’s extensional structure.


1936 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Brooke Graves

In any consideration of the future of the states, it is desirable at the outset to recall the circumstances of their development and of their entry into the Union. When the present Constitution was framed and adopted, the states were more than a century and a half old. At that time, and for many years thereafter, it was the states to which the people gave their primary allegiance. Under the Articles of Confederation, the strength of the states was so great that the central government was unable to function; when the Constitution was framed, the people were still greatly concerned about “states' rights.” This priority of the states in the federal system continued through the nineteenth century, down to the period of the Civil War; in the closing decades of that century, state government sank into the depths in an orgy of graft and corruption and inefficiency, which resulted in a wave of state constitutional restrictions, particularly upon legislative powers.At this time, when the prestige and efficiency of the state governments were at their lowest ebb, there began to appear ringing indictments of the whole state system. Most conspicuous of these were the well known writings of Professors John W. Burgess, of Columbia University, and Simon N. Patten, of the University of Pennsylvania.


Slovene ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Sonnenhauser

For the linguistic expression of the concept of knowledge, the Slavic languages use verbs deriving from the Indo-European roots *ĝnō and *ṷei̭d. They differ in terms of the availability of both types of verbs in the contemporary standard languages and in terms of their semantic range. As will be shown in this paper, these differences are interesting not only from a language-specific lexicological point of view, but also in the context of the intersection of lexicon and grammar. Covering the domain of ‘knowing how,’ the *ĝnō-based verb in Slovene (znati) has been extending into the domain of possibility and, on this basis, developing into a modal verb. While this development is not surprising from a typological point of view, it is remarkable from a Slavic perspective, since this particular grammaticalisation path towards possibility is otherwise unknown to Slavic. This peculiar feature of Slovene, which most probably relates to its long-lasting and intensive contact with German, is illustrated in the present paper by comparing Slovene to Russian on the basis of three main questions: 1) the semantic range of vedeti / vedatʹ and znati / znatʹ, 2) the lexicalisation of ‘know how,’ and 3) the relation between knowledge, ability, and possibility. The focus is on contemporary Slovene and Russian, leaving a detailed diachronic investigation and the further embedding into a larger Slavic and areal perspective for future analyses.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Almoctar Hassoumi ◽  
Vsevolod Peysakhovich ◽  
Christophe Hurter

      In this paper, we investigate how visualization assets can support the qualitative evaluation of gaze estimation uncertainty. Although eye tracking data are commonly available, little has been done to visually investigate the uncertainty of recorded gaze information. This paper tries to fill this gap by using innovative uncertainty computation and visualization. Given a gaze processing pipeline, we estimate the location of this gaze position in the world camera. To do so we developed our own gaze data processing which give us access to every stage of the data transformation and thus the uncertainty computation. To validate our gaze estimation pipeline, we designed an experiment with 12 participants and showed that the correction methods we proposed reduced the Mean Angular Error by about 1.32 cm, aggregating all 12 participants’ results. The Mean Angular Error is 0.25° (SD=0.15°) after correction of the estimated gaze. Next, to support the qualitative assessment of this data, we provide a map which codes the actual uncertainty in the user point of view. 


Author(s):  
Mahnaz Soqandi ◽  
Fatemeh Sadat Basirizadeh

The aim of the present research is to investigate Lorca’s poem from cultural materialist point of view. To do so, the researcher investigates how culture and social mechanism function in the context in which the poems have been written. Cultural materialism attempts to investigate different aspects of society, art, economy, language, and politics from an external point of view and analyze them to find out how identity and self are shaped accordingly. Cultural materialism is demonstrated in different categories including gender, ethnic studies, postmodernism, postcolonialism, and other fields. Cultural materialism highlights the relation between a work of art and the ideological system in which it has been created. In other words, cultural, social, religious and several other factors must be accounted for while interpreting a work of art. Consequently, how cultural dogma functions within fine arts in order to produce the internal textures is uncovered through cultural materialism. In Lorca’s poems, the contents have symbolic and metaphoric mechanisms which can be interpreted through material analysis.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 5-13
Author(s):  
Mahtab Jafari

Each government consists of two dimensions: 1) a sructural dimension that involves policy- and decision-making bodies and, 2) a functional dimension that is a set of government institutions and administrations. Also, national authority in a country is an outcome of three components, including legitimacy, acceptance, and efficiency of its government. The authority of governments is not merely limited to their structural legitimacy and acceptance; but, their functional dimension and the performance of their administrations also play a crucial role in building and strengthening their legitimacy. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to investigate how the administrative system of a government affects its national authority, with an emphasis on the Islamic point of view. To do so, this research has been carried out within the framework of theoretical research with practical purpose. The research method of the current study was descriptive-analytical. In the present study, the relationship between two variables – namely, “administrative system” and “national authority”– has been investigated within the framework of causal research. Due to the theoretical nature of this study, the resources used mostly include documents and library resources. The results of this study indicate that there is a direct and causal relationship between the national authority of governments (effect) and the performance of their administrative system (cause). Also, this relationship reveals how the administrative system affects national authority.


2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-155
Author(s):  
Eduardo Biacchi Gomes ◽  
Ane Elise Brandalise Gonçalves

O presente artigo tem por fim analisar, sob a ótica do descolonialismo, os avanços da legislação brasileira em relação aos critérios para concessão do asilo. Para tanto, parte-se do próprio conceito de descolonialismo e a sua aplicabilidade dentro do contexto atual para construção dos Direitos Humanos na América Latina, de forma a cotejar com a nova legislação brasileira em relação aos critérios para fins de concessão de asilo e de refúgio. Por fim, de forma a demonstrar a importância do tema frente ao Sistema Interamericano de Proteção aos Direitos Humanos, questionar-se-á quanto a possibilidade de referidos temas serem analisados por parte da Corte Interamericana de Direitos Humanos (Corte IDH). Abstract: The purpose of this article is to analyze, from the point of view of decolonialism, the advances of Brazilian legislation in relation to the criteria for granting asylum. In order to do so, it is based on the very concept of decolonialism and its applicability within the current context for the construction of Human Rights in Latin America, in order to compare with the new Brazilian legislation in relation to the criteria for granting asylum and refuge. Finally, in order to demonstrate the importance of the issue in the Inter-American System for the Protection of Human Rights, it will be questioned whether the above-mentioned issues can be analyzed by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.


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