Agents of casualization? The temporary staffing industry and labour market restructuring in Australia

This article presents a study of the Australian temporary staffingindustry. It explores how temporary staffing markets are manufacturedthrough the interactions between industrial relations and regulatorysystems, on the one hand, and the structures and strategiesof domestic and transnational temporary staffing agencies onthe other. The article draws on secondary datasets and semi-structuredinterviews with government departments, labour unions, staffingagencies and their trade bodies to analyse the size, structureand characteristics of the Australian temporary staffing market.It argues that the Australian market differs in important waysfrom those other ‘neoliberal’ labour market regimes—suchas those in Canada, UK and USA—with which it is oftencompared. The article argues for an approach that seeks to explorethe (often gradual) mutual transformation of temporary staffingorganizations and the institutional and regulatory systems inwhich they are embedded, rather than privileging one at theexpense of the other.     

Tracking tuberculosis in the past: the use of genealogical evidence

A series of mutations of tuberculosis, present in the 1990s among elderly persons in the Province of Quebec (Canada), is interpreted as the outcome of a suite of three episodes of high mobility. The most recent is the rapid urbanization of the 1950s. In the 1840s exceptional mobility was a feature of frontier settlement and exploitation of timber. Unusual mobility in the 1750s and 1760s was associated with wartime conditions of the British conquest of Quebec and re-settlement of Acadian refugees. The scenario was developed from cartographic analysis (using geographic information systems), genealogies of the human hosts, and molecular genetics of the bacterium.     

‘Twas When my Shield Turned traitor’! Establishing the Combat Effectiveness of the Greek Hoplite Shield

Greek hoplite warfare has traditionally been explored through the extant textual and pictorial evidence. This has resulted in an incomplete picture, with much of the focus on the strategic and tactical aspects of battle, to the neglect of practical and functional considerations of combat. As a consequence, many of our understandings of the nature of hoplite combat, the how, remain deficient. In this paper, I explore the structural and functional aspects of the hoplite shield, the single most important item in the Greek hoplite's panoply, to determine its efficacy in a combat environment. Through a set of controlled practical experiments, the effectiveness of the hoplite shield is tested to establish its defensive qualities vis‐a‐vis the long thrusting spear, the hoplite's primary offensive weapon.     

“Words fail us”: Beckett,Leacock, and Johnson

ABSTRACT

This article will look at political treatments of language in Samuel Beckett’s early novel Watt and place the novel’s linguistic scepticism in conversation with three authors, the lexicographer Samuel Johnson, the language theorist Felix Mauthner, and the English-born, Canadian parodist Stephen Leacock. The paper will argue that Beckett, like Leacock, engages in Mauthnerian critiques of language, destabilising Johnsonian formulae for language standardisation. But while Leacock fails to develop the political implications of his critique of language, Beckett’s understanding of language standardisation is implicitly political, informed by Johnson’s conception of speech as the predicate of national identity, a standard for inclusion which Watt gleefully antagonises. Challenging nationalist calls for controls on language, Watt interrogates the ways that campaigns for linguistic unity will engender exclusionary attitudes towards the nonconforming and bar access to that speech and identity which falls outside of normative frameworks.     

To Lobby or Not to Lobby? Examining the Determinants of Nonprofit Organizations Taking the IRS 501(h) Election

While public policy scholars are gaining a better understanding of the nonprofit sector's impact on the policy process, the sector's role in lobbying efforts has only been studied in a limited manner. Currently, nonprofit organizations' lobbying activities and expenditures are limited by federal regulations, which are often misunderstood by nonprofit leaders. This article uses 2003 IRS Form 990 data for all nonprofit organizations in the United States to examine the organizational determinants of 501(c)3 nonprofits taking the Internal Revenue Service's 501(h) election and whether organizations use h‐election in a manner consistent with patterns of strategic behavior. Results show that nonprofit organizations that are reliant on direct public support are more likely to take the h‐election, while those reliant on government grants are less likely to take the h‐election. Examining lobbying expenditures, we find nonprofits associate with 501(h) election in a pattern consistent with strategic behavior. The findings suggest that nonprofit organizations with certain revenue streams and in specific subsectors respond differently to this election decision, and that organizations may respond strategically to mechanisms regulating their political activity.     

Entre Huguenots et Valteline: La France,les Archiducs et la fin de la Trêve de Douze Ans, 1619–21

Abstract

Le rôle qu’a joué la France dans les négociations menant à la Trêve de Douze Ans a déjà reçu bien des attentions de la part des historiens des relations internationales à l’époque moderne. Dans cette contribution, je voudrais analyser et expliquer l’attitude des dirigeants français vis-à-vis d’une éventuelle prolongation de la Trêve, qui allait expirer en avril 1621. Ceci est en effet un aspect qui a reçu nettement moins d’attention dans l’historiographie des relations diplomatiques entre la France et les Habsbourg d’Espagne. Utilisant la correspondance de Jean de Péricard, ambassadeur français à Bruxelles pendant les dernières années du régime souverain des archiducs Albert et Isabelle, cette contribution démontrera que le jeune roi Louis XIII et ses conseillers désiraient une rupture de la Trêve pour deux principales raisons. Premièrement, par la création d’un nouveau front aux Pays-Bas, ils désiraient opposer l’expansion du pouvoir espagnol en Allemagne et dans la Valteline. Deuxièmement, les dirigeants français désiraient aussi affaiblir la République des Provinces-Unies, qui soutenait les rebelles huguenots s’opposant au pouvoir royal. Dans cette optique, la principale tâche de l’ambassadeur français à Bruxelles était de contrecarrer les initiatives indépendantes des archiducs.     

Women's paid work and moral economies of care

Female labour force participation has been increasing in recent decades, in part encouraged by state policies to raise the employment rate to encourage economic competitiveness and combat social exclusion. Social provision for care, however, has lagged behind this increase, creating practical and moral dilemmas for individuals and for society, facing parents with complex choices about how to combine work and care. In this paper, we draw on a qualitative study in London to explore the extent to which the large-scale entry of women into waged work is altering women's understandings of their duties and responsibilities to care for others. We conclude that their decisions are influenced by class position, entrenched gender inequalities in the labour market, varying abilities to pay for care and complex gendered understandings of caring responsibilities.