A symposium of reviews of public criminology? : by Ian Loader and Richard Sparks (Oxford : Key Ideas in Criminology, Routledge, 2010, 196pp.) with contributions from Nils Christie, Elliott Currie, Helena Kennedy, Gloria Laycock, Rod Morgan, Joe Sim, Jacqueline Tombs and Reece Walters

Public or Civic Criminology : A Critique of Loader and Sparks

Efficiency and productivity of Singapore’s manufacturing sector 2001-2010: An analysis using Simar and Wilson’s (2007) bootstrapped truncated approach

This paper seeks to explain the lagging productivity in Singapore’s manufacturing noted in the statements of the Economic Strategies Committee Report 2010. Two methods are employed: the Malmquist productivity to measure total factor productivity change and Simar and Wilson’s (J Econ, 136:31–64, 2007) bootstrapped truncated regression approach. In the first stage, the nonparametric data envelopment analysis is used to measure technical efficiency. To quantify the economic drivers underlying inefficiencies, the second stage employs a bootstrapped truncated regression whereby bias-corrected efficiency estimates are regressed against explanatory variables. The findings reveal that growth in total factor productivity was attributed to efficiency change with no technical progress. Most industries were technically inefficient throughout the period except for ‘Pharmaceutical Products’. Sources of efficiency were attributed to quality of worker and flexible work arrangements while incessant use of foreign workers lowered efficiency.

Queensland Government Agency Libraries Review: Options Paper

The Queensland Government Agency Libraries Review was undertaken during the period January-June 2010. The research project was sponsored jointly by the Director-General, Department of the Premier and Cabinet, and the Director-General, Department of Public Works. The objective of the project was to examine future options for the Queensland Government library and research services that provide clients with efficient and cost-effective access to the information they need to conduct government business, to develop a picture of the services provided, the information resources managed, the client base and staffing. The review also considered the environmental factors impacting on contemporary government libraries to determine possible strategies that would ensure a strong and sustainable future for the services. The review process culminated in identifying potential options for future service delivery. The preferred option involves a proposal for the centralizing responsibility for the coordination of a network of Queensland Government Libraries and Research Centres (QGLR). The establishment of a network of research centres, with a central point for coordination of common strategies, systems and processes will enable library and research services to flow around individual agencies, and provide clearer avenues for multi-disciplinary work that characterises contemporary government policy and government services. The key elements of the proposal include the development of a single library and research portal for all government officers, which can be tailored to meet their particular research needs; increasing the visibility and accessibility of information and knowledge resources to those officers regardless of their agency affiliation; introducing better, more cost effective purchasing and licensing arrangements; and the potential to have a voice of influence in the strategic agenda for the government’s use of information and research.

Living and Working on the Cusp of Contradictions

In this article Jo Phoenix argues that the struggles practitioners face to have the complex welfare needs of sexually exploited young people recognised are likely to continue into the future. The argument is made by examining three profound tensions shaping the context which both young people and practitioners inhabit. These tensions are between the, broadly, protectionist agenda of policy development on sexual exploitation and: firstly, socio-cultural changes in respect of consumption, sex and identities; secondly political changes and punitive youth justice system expansionism; and, finally, the closed and moralist rhetoric justifying recent policy changes. In the final analysis, young people and practitioners get caught in these contradictions in ways that foreclose critical examination of policy development and recognition of the complexities of the issues involved.

Higher education policy in China 1992-2010 : a genealogical analysis of the enterprise university

In the context of globalisation and the knowledge economy, universities worldwide are undertaking profound restructuring. Following these pressures for reform, the entity of the "enterprise university" has emerged internationally. Characteristics of this new form of educational institution can be summarised as deploying corporate styles of governance and management in order to enhance economic competitiveness and academic prestige. The higher education sector in China is no different, as it has undergone extensive reforms particularly since the "socialist market economy" was introduced in 1992. Hence, this study aims to investigate the emergence of the enterprise university in a Chinese context. The research question is: How have discourses of globalisation manifested and constituted new forms of social and educational governance within China's higher education sector during the period 1992 to 2010? Following this research question, the study uses a genealogical methodology to conduct a critical analysis of reforms in Chinese higher education (1992 -2010). At a national level, China's higher education policy is examined using the analytical framework of governmentality. This discloses the underlying rationalities and technologies of Chinese political authorities as they seek to refashion higher education policy and practice. At a local level, a case study of a particular university in China is conducted in order to facilitate understanding of reform at the national level. The aim is to uncover the kinds of educational subjects and spaces that have been constituted in the university's efforts to reconfigure itself within the context of national higher education reform. The study found that the concept of the enterprise university in China has features shared by the one that has emerged internationally. However, the analysis showed that the emergence of the enterprise university in China has specific social, economic, political, and cultural environments which impact on local educational practices. The study is significant because it is one of the few examples where the framework of governmentality.a research approach or perspective employed largely to examine Western society.is applied in a Chinese context, which is a non-Western and non-liberal democratic site.

Integrity, attribution, and exploitation : contractual and normative moral rights protection in open licensing

Over the last twenty years, the use of open content licenses has become increasingly and surprisingly popular. The use of such licences challenges the traditional incentive-based model of exclusive rights under copyright. Instead of providing a means to charge for the use of particular works, what seems important is mitigating against potential personal harm to the author and, in some cases, preventing non-consensual commercial exploitation. It is interesting in this context to observe the primacy of what are essentially moral rights over the exclusionary economic rights. The core elements of common open content licences map somewhat closely to continental conceptions of the moral rights of authorship. Most obviously, almost all free software and free culture licences require attribution of authorship. More interestingly, there is a tension between social norms developed in free software communities and those that have emerged in the creative arts over integrity and commercial exploitation. For programmers interested in free software, licence terms that prohibit commercial use or modification are almost completely inconsistent with the ideological and utilitarian values that underpin the movement. For those in the creative industries, on the other hand, non-commercial terms and, to a lesser extent, terms that prohibit all but verbatim distribution continue to play an extremely important role in the sharing of copyright material. While prohibitions on commercial use often serve an economic imperative, there is also a certain personal interest for many creators in avoiding harmful exploitation of their expression – an interest that has sometimes been recognised as forming a component of the moral right of integrity. One particular continental moral right – the right of withdrawal – is present neither in Australian law or in any of the common open content licences. Despite some marked differences, both free software and free culture participants are using contractual methods to articulate the norms of permissible sharing. Legal enforcement is rare and often prohibitively expensive, and the various communities accordingly rely upon shared understandings of acceptable behaviour. The licences that are commonly used represent a formalised expression of these community norms and provide the theoretically enforceable legal baseline that lends them legitimacy. The core terms of these licences are designed primarily to alleviate risk in sharing and minimise transaction costs in sharing and using copyright expression. Importantly, however, the range of available licences reflect different optional balances in the norms of creating and sharing material. Generally, it is possible to see that, stemming particularly from the US, open content licences are fundamentally important in providing a set of normatively accepted copyright balances that reflect the interests sought to be protected through moral rights regimes. As the cost of creation, distribution, storage, and processing of expression continues to fall towards zero, there are increasing incentives to adopt open content licences to facilitate wide distribution and reuse of creative expression. Thinking of these protocols not only as reducing transaction costs but of setting normative principles of participation assists in conceptualising the role of open content licences and the continuing tensions that permeate modern copyright law.

Paranoid prizing : the facts and fictions of Australia’s Eve Pownall Award for Information Books, 2001-2010

Ghassan Hage asserts the “core element of Australia’s colonial paranoia is a fear of loss of Europeanness or Whiteness and the lifestyle and privileges that are seen to emanate directly from them. This is a combination of the fragility of White European colonial identity in general and the specificity of the Australian situation” (419). This ‘White paranoia’ can be traced through a range of popular cultural formations, including contemporary Australian children’s literature. The Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) awards an annual prize for “outstanding books which have the prime intention of documenting factual material with consideration given to imaginative presentation, interpretation and variation of style” (“Awards”) published in the preceding year. Although not often included in critical debates, non-fictional texts overtly seek to shape young readers’ understandings of their national context and their own location as national subjects. Thus, the books named as winners and honours of this prize from 2001-2010 provide a snapshot of which facts and whose fictions are salient in shaping the Australian nation in the twenty-first century. Using Hage’s concept of Australian colonial paranoia, this paper considers the relationship between ‘factual material’ and ‘imaginative presentation’ in the ongoing revision and renewal of national myths in award-winning Australian non-fiction for children.