Mutual Learning for Policy Impact: Insights from CORE. Shaping Policy and Practice with Intersectional Gender Responsive Evidence (in the Context of Covid-19)

On the 19 and 20 October 2021, the Institute of Development Studies hosted an online dialogue which aimed to enhance efforts to inform and influence policy, management, and practice with intersectional gender-responsive evidence by sharing learning between CORE cohort members from their approaches and experiences at country and regional levels. The event was attended by over 30 participants from 19 partners across the CORE cohort and highlighted the experiences of CORE partners Glasswing and the Arab Reform Initiative (ARI). This learning guide captures the practical insights and advice from the event, to help inform the practice of participants and other projects across the portfolio.

El impuesto sobre nóminas en nuevo león: fundamento para una iniciativa de reforma a través de su análisis sustantivo / The payroll tax in nuevo león, méxico: basis for a reform initiative through its substantive analysis

En 2013, se incrementó en un 50% la tasa del impuesto sobre nóminas en Nuevo León, México. Esta reforma ocasionó descontentó en el sector empresarial debido a que el impuesto grava el gasto en nóminas y la carga impositiva recae directamente en el empleador. La discusión se genera debido a que existen otros aspectos no considerados que podrían promover el incremento de la recaudación sin afectar los costos de la nómina y derivado de esto, la generación de empleo. La presente investigación pretende fundamentar la posibilidad de disminuir la tasa del impuesto sin afectar la recaudación a través de otros mecanismos como el dictamen fiscal y la figura de retención para promover el cumplimiento fiscal. Para tal efecto, en el documento se presentan los antecedentes del impuesto, el esquema del mismo en Nuevo León, los resultados en su recaudación y fiscalización y la determinación del potencial recaudatorio en la entidad. Al final, se presenta una propuesta de reforma del impuesto.

Learning From Failures: Lessons From Unsuccessful Grading Reform Initiatives

This article describes accounts of grading reform initiatives that while well-intentioned, met with staunch opposition and eventually were abandoned. The implementation strategies employed by the leaders of these reform initiative are explored, along with reasons these strategies failed to result in meaningful and enduring change. Alternative grading reform strategies with supporting evidence are offered, justification for their use explained, and new directions for grading reform initiatives recommended.

State Versus Professional: A Case Study of How Chinese New Media Construct Elite Female Athletes

In this case study, the authors examined media representations of two Chinese female athletes—state athlete Ding Ning and professional athlete Li Na—in China, a nation undergoing social transformation and a sport-reform initiative. Analyzing stories from two Chinese web portals (i.e., Sina and Tencent), the authors analyzed how (a) gender, (b) nationalism, and (c) the individualism–collectivism continuum entered into media representations of these two female athletes. Notable differences emerged in all three conceptual areas. A fourth theme, which the authors have identified as the commercialized athlete, also emerged. Possible explanations and implications are discussed.

Idiosyncratic Constitutional Review in Cyprus: (Re-)Design, Survival and Kelsen

The model of the Austrian Constitutional Court, with its Kelsenian origins, has been influential in the Cypriot constitutional context in a variety of intertwined and changing ways. The initial constitutional design followed the centralized and concentrated constitutional review by the Supreme Constitutional Court. The collapse of the bi-communal structure of the Cypriot system resulted in the application of the law of necessity and the establishment of a new Supreme Court with a simultaneous decentralization of constitutional review. At the time of writing a new reform initiative is underway, and the discussion about the Austrian model and Kelsen is revived. The continuous and varied influence from the Austrian prototype and interestingly the Kelsenian logic is assessed while recognizing the delicate idiosyncrasies of the Cypriot setting. The argument is that at neither stage the Austrian model was purely applied in Cyprus and the systemic adjustments were the result of improvisation rather than model adherence. This paper highlights the inconsistencies in the understanding of the Austrian model and explains the ‘modelling vertigo’.

The “Copyright” Regime of Chessboard Street

This chapter traces how the Chinese booksellers in the Chessboard Street neighborhood utilized the tradition of merchant guilds and the Qing government's reform initiative to create their quasi-legal institution in order to regulate and protect what they believed to be banquan/copyright. It illustrates in particular how the Shanghai shuye gongsuo (SBG), a civic organization with no legal jurisdiction or official authorization, enforced its banquan/copyright regulation and punished pirates according to their ideas of morality, norms, and customs. It illustrates how the SBG's rich records not only reveal the daily operation and conflicts in the modern Chinese cultural economy, but also the booksellers' conceptions of property ownership, civility, and trust that were articulated and contested in routine transactions. The chapter also focuses on how the SBG interacted and negotiated with the state's formal legal system after the promulgation of China's first copyright law in 1911. Throughout the 1910s and 1920s, although new legislation regarding the protection of copyright appeared, it was rarely enforced in reality because consistent political upheavals had prevented the Chinese central state from establishing sufficient legal control over its territory.