Is the doctor in? The evolving role of organized medicine in health policy

Until recently, physicians were viewed as the dominant player in health policy. Now, however, they compete with many other effective interest groups. This article analyzes this changing role, and specifically how organized medicine has changed its approach to influencing health policy. The essay begins with a review of the reasons for the growth and subsequent decline of physicians' influence. This is followed by a case study of physician payment reform under Medicare, which illustrates the ways in which organized medicine chooses when and when not to cooperate with government. The article concludes with a discussion of where physicians are likely to continue to be influential in future health policy reform. Three such areas are noted: payment policy, quality and clinical innovation, and medical education and training.     

Is Partner Aggression Related to Appraisals of Coercive Control by a Partner?

Research and clinical reports on men who are aggressive towards their intimate partners find that these men tend to behave in highly controlling ways towards such partners (e.g., restricting their social interactions, monitoring of activities, and reducing decision-making power). This study tests the hypothesis that men and women in violent dating relationships appraise such behaviors differently than individuals in nonviolent relationships. Based on clinical and empirical partner abuse literature, 119 college students rated the extent to which they perceived hypothetical behaviors towards a partner as controlling. Results suggest that individuals who had either engaged in or received partner aggression appraised restrictive, domineering, and coercive behaviors from a male to a female partner, and from a female to a male partner as less controlling than individuals who had neither perpetrated nor received partner aggression. Men also viewed those behaviors as less controlling than did women. Generalizability, clinical implications, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Feminism,activism and academe: a personal reflection

How the political project of feminism entered academe and how it became an educational project is the subject of this article. It is based upon personal reflection about undertaking the study for a book, Feminism, Gender and Universities: politics, passion and pedagogies. In the book, three successive generations or cohorts of feminists in academia are discussed, starting with those who are now considered ‘second-wave feminists’. In this article the notion of ‘second-wave feminism’ is examined and also how successive cohorts see feminist knowledge in relation to their own education through doctorates or wider forms of learning.     

Mainstreaming the Duty of Clarity and Transparency as part of Good Administrative Practice in the EU

Abstract: Language rights in the EU tend to be viewed in terms of the respect of national identity on the one hand and the clear and harmonised application of the internal market on the other. It is argued that an efficient language policy in the EU is one that reconciles respect for diversity with the need for effective communication. The use of specialist jargon in effect consolidates networks and power, of which there are two separate but related dimensions. The first is the external dimension of language, namely the lingua francaof deliberation, be it English, French, German, and so on. The second dimension refers to the use of élite codes, that is, language for ‘insiders’, which operates in spheres of politics, the law, economics, culture, medicine, and so on. It is the latter which the EU language rights régime has neglected. The absence of enabling provisions governing a duty of clear language renders democratic legitimacy intended by the former relatively meaningless. It is argued that the law can protect, facilitate, safeguard, and encourage clarity and transparency as part of good administrative practice. The duty to use language in a clear and comprehensible manner that has arisen in relation to producers in the EC law context of consumer rights is a useful case in point.     

What's Love Got To Do With It?: Perceptions of Marital Positivity in H-to-W Aggressive, Distressed, and Happy Marriages

Husbands' and wives' perceptions of positive relationship behaviors and interactions (e.g., caring gestures, reasons for staying married, frequency of positive communication) were assessed in a sample of maritally happy (H), maritally distressed but non-aggressive (D/NA), and maritally distressed and husband-to-wife physically aggressive (D/H-to-W) couples. As expected, the relationship positivity reports of the two groups of maritally distressed couples differed from the happily married couples. In addition, D/H-to-W spouses gave different reasons for staying married than did D/NA spouses (i.e., love versus family roles and commitments). Spouses in D/H-to-W aggressive marriages were also less likely to report using intimate language with their partner than were spouses in either of the other two groups. Few gender differences were found. Results underscore the importance of considering the role of love and intimacy in husband-to-wife aggressive and distressed marriages.