This study explores the importance of the minimum wage policy in West Java, Indonesia, within the overall framework of development and in the face of globalisation and decentralisation. A holistic approach to the minimum wage policy is applied. Generally, the study assesses the impact of decentralized minimum wage fixing processes on employment and participation of trade unions. In addition, it explores whether the minimum wage policy assists workers in coping with the negative effects of globalisation. It also explores the link between minimum wages and decent work. This study reveals that while there is some evidence of employment losses due to increases in wage levels in West Java, it did not find conclusive evidence that minimum wage levels were the main factor responsible for the employment decline. It is likely that a combination of factors such as a decrease in global demand for Indonesian manufacturing products and the current macro-economic conditions in the country, are also responsible for the employment decline. This study finds that the process of minimum wage fixing at local level has a positive impact on trade union participation in wage bargaining. The empowerment of trade unions through new legislation has enabled independent trade unions to flourish, which allows workers to join any trade unions. Consequently, minimum wage bargaining at district/city level is more dynamic than the centralized system of minimum wage bargaining in the past. Trade unions are able to express their views on what the minimum wage levels should be. Moreover, the minimum wage fixing processes at local level have the potential to promote decent work. The minimum wage fixing processes are an alternative to wage bargaining and can accommodate even sectors where trade unions are least active or non-existent. The minimum wage processes at district/city level are already established and they are in position to expand to a wider framework of providing welfare for workers. However, decent work objectives will not be achieved without the full cooperation of both central and local governments. Under the current decentralisation process, where central and local government views are still not in agreement, it is difficult to see how decent work can be applied nationally. Thus, the minimum wage policy and trade union development are important in the overall development paradigm. Both ensure the existence of a rights based approach to development where workers are given rights to organize as well as earn a basic living. Nevertheless, the development of trade unions in developing countries is under threat from flexibilisation of the workplace in which jobs have become less and less secure. The minimum wage policy, however, is still viable because it covers all types of workers. At the very least, minimum wages provide a safety net wage that can prevent real wages from falling. The writer suggests that more studies should be conducted on the extent and effectiveness of trade union participation in minimum wage bargaining. In addition, further studies should be conducted on the effect of minimum wages and trade unions on non-standard or flexible workers. Flexible workers, whether they are fixed-term contract and outsourced workers, are becoming an important part of the global labour market and increasingly pose a challenge to the increasingly important role of trade unions in developing countries.

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This study argues that 'new' ways of speaking about the nature and status of women are evident in the literary record of late seventeenth century England, particularly in the writings of Mary Astell (1666-1731). Writing to oppose the natural rights-based political theory of the 'Father of Modern Liberalism', John Locke, Astell employed the secular, rationalist, individualistic language which Locke himself used to argue the equal human dignity of women with men. Hers was the first unequivocal plea made by an English writer. The subject of this study is the provenance of these new modes of thinking about women. The result of a survey of primary sources, dating primarily from the period 1600-1700, it first seeks to show that seventeenth century England inherited a 'traditional' notion of women and their status from antiquity; scriptural, philosophical and empirical evidence of women's moral and intellectual equality with men coexisted uneasily with the consensual notion that they were men's subordinates. This notion survived the Continental and English Reformations to be incorporated into the theology of both the Church of England and the Puritans alike. Thinking and writing about women took place in the context of an 'ideology of order', wherein individuals were considered solely in relation to society and in terms of their obligations and status. It is then argued that the paradox of women's equal humanity and subordinate status first received serious interrogation during the political crises of 1640-1660. Radical Protestants, who placed the individual believer - male or female - at the centre of religious life, allowed women to participate to an unprecedented degree in worship. The potential of radical Protestantism to challenge the traditional subordination of women was obvious in the political theory of the 'Levellers', who secularised religious individualism to produce a programme of democratic reform. The invisibility of women in this proto-liberal programme is given special attention here. The paradox inherent in the traditional notion of woman was thrown into sharp relief, furthermore, in the course of the political debates between royalists and parliamentarians during the Civil War; both sides attempted to liken the relationship between king and people to that between husband and wife. The marriage analogue served to highlight the gap which was opening between political analysis and the justifications for the subordination for women. Finally, it is argued that renewed political crisis in the last two decades of the century saw the introduction of secular individualism to English political thought, reinforced with the 'new' metaphysics of Descartes. John Locke considered that since individuals constructed society for their own ends, they could resist government where these were not being served. Yet as Astell pointed out, Locke fell back upon the traditional assumption that women ought to be subordinated in this society to men. She adopted the new metaphysics to show not only that Locke's political conclusions were wrong and dangerous, but also to show that women, their subordinate social status notwithstanding, were of equal dignity and worth to men. / Whole document restricted, but available by request, use the feedback form to request access.

Throughout the Western democracies since 1945, many Socialist and Labour Parties have apparently emulated organisationally their more conservative and often more successful middle-class rivals and have experienced what L.D. Epstein has termed 'contagion from the right'. This thesis sets out to examine this proposition in relation to what happened between 1949 and 1970 to the New Zealand Labour Party, specifically in the twenty-two electorates which, at the time of the 1969 election, comprised the Auckland Region of the Party. Data was gathered by a variety of methods which included the use of four different questionnaires; interviews; correspondence with all the Labour Members of Parliament in the Region; exhaustive research into Head Office records, which included membership returns, annual financial statements from branches, correspondence files, Conference records, and N.Z. Executive minutes; detailed examination of branch minute books; the utilisation of the records of the Auckland Regional Council, the defunct Auckland Labour Representation Committee, and various electorate organisations; and field and participant observation. A variety of approaches was used also in processing and presenting the data: descriptive, quantitative, comparative, and deductive. Part I describes and analyses the quantitative and qualitative changes in structure, composition and functioning that took place between 1949 and 1970. Part II compares the white-collar with the manual-worker branches, members, and activists in 1969 and 1970, Throughout, there is an attempt to explain what caused the various changes and to suggest what happens to a Labour Party as its membership becomes more white-collar in composition. The Appendices, which are contained in a second volume, include detailed statistical tables and figures and copies of the four questionnaires. Volume II also contains the Bibliography. It was found that, in response to the changing realities of its social, economic, and political environment, the N.Z.L.P. had altered considerably in the period studied. The changes were not mimetic but organic. The society changed dramatically. The composition of the Party - first at the Parliamentary level and later at the primary level - inevitably and at first imperceptibly changed also. The white-collar proportion of the Labour Party's membership in the Region studied rose from 15 per cent in 1949 to 51 per cent in 1970. The Party at the grass-roots level functioned mare and more in ways related exclusively to winning elections and showed a declining concern with ancillary social and solidarity considerations. Membership, branch meeting activity, and fundraising at the branch level, all declined dramatically. Significantly, branch activity increased only in regard to Annual Conference participation. The changes in society, which led to a change in the composition and policies of the Party, in turn altered the ways in which the Party functioned. Subsequently reluctant recognition of those changes resulted in an increasingly conscious attempt to formally restructure the Party in the direction it was being carried. The major conclusion reached in this dissertation is that a political party, if the N.Z.L.P. can be taken as an example of a more general trend, is so inextricably interdependent with its social environment that significant changes in society must inevitably be reflected in the composition of the Party and in the ways in which the Party functions. Those changes in composition and functioning in part constitute and in part impel both attitudinal and organisational changes which amount to a continuing transformation of the Party itself to accord with the new social realities.

This thesis is an exploratory study of women's attitudes to political issues. The thesis poses the broad questions of what is the range of women's attitudes to specific issues, what patterns are there to women's attitudes and how well do traditional political categories describe women's attitudes? Attitudes of women to five civil rights or moral policy issues censorship, corporal punishment, the death penalty, abortion and homosexual law reform - are examined and the way women identify themselves in terms of feminism and the left-right spectrum is also discussed. A feminist approach is adopted and focus group interviewing is the methodology which is used for the study. Some of the labels used to describe attitudes to political issues and political identification are discussed. The way the women interpret the labels of left and right and feminism are examined and patterns of self-identification with these political terms are looked at. The attitudes expressed by the women to the five policy issues are categorised according to libertarian, liberal, conservative, neo-conservative, authoritarian or humanitarian labels. The patterns of attitudes and identification are explored. The findings are that diversity and plurality characterise the women's views. Their opinions cover almost the whole range of views on the five issues, they respond differently to the use of the left-right spectrum and the label of feminism, and almost every woman demonstrates an ideological profile which is uniquely her own. There are some similarities among the women, but patterns cannot be easily identified using the traditional political labels. There is also an assessment made of the value of the focus group methodology which has been used rarely in political science. The thesis ends by posing more questions. The adequacy of the liberal and conservative categories for classifying attitudes is raised and there are questions about whether the focus group interview method is gender specific.