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AbstractThis paper usesBraithwaite's motivational posturing framework to explain how individuals react to encounters with regulatory authorities. Of interest is whetherprocedural justicecan reduce defiance and improve self‐reported compliance among individuals who are either resistant or dismissive of regulatory authority. Using longitudinal survey data collected from tax offenders (Study 1), and individuals who had a recent police‐citizen interaction (Study 2), it will be shown that procedural justice can promote compliance behavior. Procedural justice is also found to be effective for reducing resistant forms of defiance over time, but not dismissive defiance. Further, the results reveal that neither resistant defiance nor dismissive defiance moderate the effect of procedural justice on compliance, suggesting procedural justice works equally well for both low and high resisters and low and high disengagers. Finally, an unexpected result reveals that resistance, but not dismissive defiance, mediates the effect of procedural justice on self‐reported compliance behavior. The findings have implications for procedural justice research and for the regulation of defiance.

Throughout the 1990s, tens of thousands of Australian taxpayers invested in mass‐marketed tax effective schemes. They enjoyed generous tax breaks until the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) told them in 1998 that they abused the system. This study examines the circumstances surrounding taxpayers' decision to invest in scheme arrangements. It also explores investors' perceptions of the way the ATO handled the schemes issue and, perhaps more importantly, why such a large number of investors defied the ATO's demands that they pay back taxes. Data were taken from in‐depth interviews conducted with 29 scheme investors. Consistent with the procedural justice literature, the findings revealed that many scheme investors defied the ATO's demands because the procedures the ATO used to handle the situation were perceived to be unfair. Given these findings, it will be argued that to effectively shape desired behaviour, regulators will need to move beyond enforcement strategies linked purely to deterrence. A strategy that aims to emphasise the procedural justice aspects of a regulatory encounter will be discussed.

Research consistently finds that people from ethnic or racial minority backgrounds tend to view police more negatively than those from nonminority backgrounds. Some studies, however, have questioned such findings by showing that race-based effects disappear once other factors are considered. For example, Weitzer showed that racial minorities from middle-class neighborhoods tend to view police just as favorably as nonminorities. Using survey data collected from 1,204 Australian citizens, the present study examines how social identity processes impact people's views of police. We find that social identity is a more important predictor of attitudes toward police than race/ethnicity. These findings have implications for policing research and for police practice.

Between January and July 2002, researchers at the Centre for Tax System Integrity conducted a national survey of 6000 Australian taxpayers involved in tax planning schemes. According to the Australian Taxation Office (Tax Office) scheme investments were largely funded through tax deductions and relatively little private capital was at risk. The Tax Office therefore believed that these schemes exploited loopholes in the tax law and were designed in such a way to avoid tax. The anti-avoidance provisions of Part IVA of the Income Tax Assessment Act were applied to scheme related investments and action was first taken against investors in 1998 to recover the tax owing. Approximately 42 000 investors were issued with amended assessments telling them that they had to pay back taxes, interest and appropriate penalties. Specific issues of interest to the survey researchers were scheme investors' views of the Tax Office, the Australian tax system and how they believed the Tax Office dealt with the schemes issue. The survey was also designed to identify the possible reasons why taxpayers invested in tax minimisation schemes, why there was such widespread taxpayer resistance against the Tax Office's debt recovery procedures, and perhaps more importantly, whether the aggressive tax planning market in Australia is supply or demand driven. This report provides a descriptive analysis of some of the more important findings from the survey, followed by a discussion of the key findings and their implications.