Globalisation and the dilemmas of income taxation in Australia

Over the past two decades there has been a worldwide fall in statutory corporate tax (CT) rates. Focusing on Australia, this article establishes three empirical facts which challenge much of the existing literature. First, CT competition was the crucial driving force behind CT cuts. Second, policy makers had to abandon tax‐related investment incentives in order to pay for lower CT rates. This broadening of the CT base is costly, because it potentially disadvantages domestic firms and may, over the longer term, erode the CT base. Third, CT cuts have put pressure on the personal income tax base, as low corporate rates provide tax avoidance opportunities for high‐income earners.     

Facework on Facebook: The presentation of self in virtual life and its role in the US elections

This article analyses the phenomenon known as social networking services (e.g. websites such as Facebook and MySpace) with anthropological theory deriving mainly from Melanesia. It is argued that these websites engender what in Western countries is a new form of presentation of self- and personhood that focuses on the social relations of the person rather than the person as an individual. In this way, the article discusses consumption in cyberspace and the production of differentiation, rank and hierarchy on the Internet in relation to social identity.     

The Carolingian local ecclesia as a ‘temple society’?

This article assesses the question to what extent the model of a ‘temple society’ can be fruitfully employed as a tool of analysis for the Carolingian ecclesia, by which we mean not only the rich, well-endowed churches, but also the small, local ones. An investigation of the many different forms of ecclesiastical land-holding, and of the various functions a church and its ministers did (and did not) fulfil for early medieval Christians, shows the shape of the Carolingian ‘ecclesia-society’ as it took shape in the course of the ninth century.     

The decline of Magan and the rise of Dilmun: Umm an-Nar ceramics from the burial mounds of Bahrain, c.2250–2000 BC

This article outlines some general aspects of the Magan and Dilmun trade and goes on to examine the Umm an-Nar pottery discovered in the tombs of the Early Dilmun burial mounds of Bahrain. These ceramics are of particular interest because they indirectly testify to Dilmun's contact with Magan in the late third millennium. In this article, thirty vessels of seven morphological types are singled out. By comparison with the material published from the Oman peninsula the Bahrain collection is tentatively dated to c. 2250–2000 BC. The location of the Umm an-Nar pottery within the distribution of burial mounds reveals that its import was strongly associated with the scattered mounds of Early Type. It is demonstrated that the frequency of Umm an-Nar pottery declined just as the ten compact cemeteries emerged c. 2050 BC. The observed patterns are seen as a response to the decline of Magan and the rise of Dilmun.     

PART I: Pierre Bayle’s Reply of a New Convert (1689)

This is the first English translation of Pierre Bayle’s political pamphlet, Réponse d’un nouveau converti à la Lettre d’un refugié of 1689. It may be one of the most critical attacks on a writer’s own side in the history of political ideas. It is a stinging rebuke of Bayle’s own party, the Protestants, for their incoherence, hypocrisy, and violence. It came three years after his similarly savage refutation of the Catholics in The Condition of Wholly Catholic France, also recently published in its first English translation in this journal. A substantial introduction explains some of the context, explores the political theology of this pamphlet, and reviews scholarly interpretations.