Free speech,toleration and equal respect: the Bolt affair in context

It is a rare moment when free speech becomes a potent political issue within the Australian polity. But the Andrew Bolt affair, the Abbott government's subsequent move to repeal §18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth), and its ultimate abandonment of this reform, is one of those moments. This article seeks to place these political events in a broader political and philosophical context, investigating how the conflicts and tensions to which these events gave rise can be understood in terms of competing perspectives within a wider liberal tradition, producing rival imperatives centred on free speech and equal respect. The differing priorities which these competing liberal perspectives placed on free speech and equal respect give rise to two very different conceptions of toleration, and its application within liberal democracies.     

Making the Dead Visible: Problems and Solutions for “Big” Picture Approaches to the Past,and Dealing with Large “Mortuary” Datasets

There can be few “bigger” questions than the nature and development of human experience and self-awareness and few better ways to study it than through the changing treatment of the dead over time. Funded by the John Templeton Foundation, the ‘Invisible Dead’ project (Durham University) is exploring diachronic changes in mortuary practices across two regions: Britain and the Levant. In doing so, it uses archaeology as a way to approach fundamental questions about the human condition. This paper explores the principal difficulties faced during the construction of a database for this project and their wider relevance for the development of robust and successful methods for the study of large “mortuary” datasets in the future. It discusses the issues and biases identified within the mortuary record and how the project has sought to mitigate some of these. By adopting a flexible and ultimately expandable approach to data entry and analysis, value can be added to legacy datasets and “grey” literature, allowing us to make comparisons between regions which are both geographically and chronologically distinct.     

Motivation and Scale: a Method of Identifying Land Speculators in Upper Canada

Land speculation played a major role in the settlement of Ontario. Its impact has been discussed in great detail but there always remained the problem of identifying individual speculators. Previous studies have identified land speculators solely on the basis of the amount of land held. This paper presents an alternative method of identifying speculators by calling attention to the motivations behind speculation and manifestations of these motivations as inferred in landholding behaviour. In addition, a typology of speculators is presented. Elizabethtown Township provides the setting for an application of the proposed method and a brief analysis of the speculative patterns that emerge.
Les achats speculatifs des terrains, ayant joué un rôle majeur dans la colonisation de l'Ontario, ont souvent été examinés en détail: le probléme de l'identité des speculateurs est pourtant resté sans solution. Dans des études déjà parues, ceux-ci ont été discernés en ne tenant compte que de la superficie des terrains qu'ils detenaient. Cet essai presente une autre méthode pour identifier les spéculateurs en examinant les mobiles de la spéculation tels qu'ils sont révéles par la conduite de Tacheteur: nous avons aussi formulé une typologie des spéculateurs. Nous avons appliqué la méthode proposée à la ville d'Elizabethtown pour analyser brièvement les mouvements spéculatifs qui s'y présentent.     

An empirical examination of shift-share instruments

Bartik's (1991, 1993) approach to identifying shocks in demand to regional economies has been used extensively for nearly 30 years. We chronicle the development of Bartik-type shift-share instruments and examine the empirical performance of alternative versions that use different combinations of national shift and local share variables in their construction. We offer three main findings. First, instruments constructed from shares that omit employment in nontraded sectors empirically dominate versions that include total employment. Second, industrial sectors with high average shares and low variation across areas are more likely to be nontraded and endogenous. This suggests placing large weights on nontraded sector shares worsens both relevance and potential endogeneity. Finally, we demonstrate national shifters other than employment, such as prices and wages, can be used to construct instruments with unique and relevant explanatory power.     

Historical Archaeology in Africa: An Appropriate Concept?

The term ‘ historical archaeology’ originated in the United States and was subsequently adopted in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, all places subjected to European colonization during the last few centuries. The idea of historical archaeology has had relatively little application in Europe, birthplace of the antithetical idea of prehistory. In Africa, other than at the southern tip of the continent, the practice of what is called historical archaeology has developed only recently and the relevance of the concept in Africa might be questioned. There are chronological problems in its application: not only are the interfaces between preliterate and literate societies spread over thousands of years in different areas but they can at times be regressive. The matter is further complicated if the term historical archaeology is used for societies whose history is oral not written. However, there is an ambiguity in this concept that also has methodological and other connotations. In these respects the idea of historical archaeology does perhaps have a place in Africa as a whole, but it represents a compartmentalization of our discipline still inadequately defined.     

The Historical Impact of Welfare Programs on Poverty: Evidence from the American States

Over the years, there has been a spirited debate over the impact of the welfare expansion associated with the War on Poverty. Many analysts have maintained that public assistance expansion during this period decreased poverty by raising the incomes of the poor (an income enhancement effect), while others have contended that welfare expansion increased poverty by discouraging the poor from working (a work disincentive effect). There has been considerable empirical research about the historical effect of welfare on poverty, nearly all of which relies on the poverty rate (i.e., the percentage of persons with income less than the “poverty threshold”) as an indicator of the extent of poverty. However, this work has not employed designs that allow researchers to sort out distinct income enhancement and work disincentive effects. We develop a model of poverty rates in the American states that permits estimation of these distinct effects—based on state‐level time‐series data observed annually for the years 1960–90—and we find that welfare had both effects during our period of analysis. We also calculate the net impact of increases in welfare benefits on the poverty rate—taking into account both work disincentive and income enhancement effects. Our results indicate that this net impact is dependent on three variables: the initial level of cash benefits, wage levels for unskilled workers, and the share of the benefit increase provided through cash rather than in‐kind assistance. Because of historical trends in these variables, since the 1970s welfare spending has become increasingly less effective in reducing the poverty rate. However, the significance of this result for policymakers must be tempered by evidence that flaws in the poverty rate as an indicator of poverty make it so that any finding about the net effect of an increase in welfare benefits on the poverty rate underestimates welfare's ability to lessen the true extent of poverty.     

Oxygen and strontium isotopes as provenance indicators of fish at archaeological sites: the case study of Sagalassos,SW Turkey

In this paper, we investigate the potential use of oxygen and strontium isotope ratios (δ¹⁸O_p and ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) measured in archaeological fish enamel as provenance indicators. δ¹⁸O_p and ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr were measured in a suite of archaeological carp remains recovered from the Anatolian townsite of Sagalassos dated to the Early Byzantine period (AD 450–650) and compared to that of modern fish, river and lake waters from the Anatolian region. We used sequential leaches in weak acetic acid to remove diagenetic Sr from fossil tooth enamel, monitoring the effectiveness of this approach by measuring the Sr/Ca ratios of the leachates via an isotope dilution thermal ionization mass spectrometry method (ID-TIMS). δ¹⁸O_p values mostly excluded a riverine origin. ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios of one fish overlapped with the ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr signatures of two lakes in the Anatolian region, and at least one lake (Gölcük) could be removed as a candidate owing to a very distinctive ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr signature not found in any of the fish remains. Most of the tooth samples analyzed could not be assigned a precise geographical origin since the ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios measured in enamel did not match that of any of the local lakes selected as potential origin. This result suggests that carp may have originated from lakes that have not yet been sampled, although this conclusion is not supported by other archaeological evidence. Alternatively, the lack of correspondence between lakes and fish Sr isotope ratios highlights several possible sources of uncertainties including spatial heterogeneity in ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratio within a lake, the contribution of dietary strontium to the ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratio of fish tooth enamel, and post-mortem alteration of the tooth Sr isotope signal during fossilization. In spite of the high precision of the strontium isotope analyses and the wide range of variation in the surface waters of the Anatolian lakes and rivers, this method may remain limited to distinguishing between lakes situated in regions of bedrock of very distinct age and geology until these sources of uncertainty are more fully investigated.