Is Timing Everything? Retirement and Seat Maintenance in the U.S. House of Representatives

Literature on open‐seat elections has focused on the individual attributes of a candidate and/or institutional arrangements. When a seat becomes an open contest could be a significant indicator as to how likely the incumbent party is able to maintain the seat. Examining data on open U.S. House seats from 1996 to 2008, we use OLS regression and logistic regression analysis, finding that time is a significant predictor for incumbent party fund‐raising and seat maintenance. We conclude that political parties have an interest in encouraging members of Congress to announce their retirement early in the election cycle.     

An agenda for change in U.S. climate policies? Presidential ambitions and congressional powers

The U.S. membership in the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP) constituted an important element in the Bush administration’s voluntary and non-committing ‘soft-law’ approach to climate change. With the inauguration of President Barack Obama, the U.S. has embarked on a shift in its climate policy towards a legislative, ‘hard-law’ strategy. Obama’s approach implies that the distribution of interests in Congress becomes more significant. In this article, we assess the rules and procedures governing the relationship between the president and the Congress embedded in the U.S. Constitution and explore implications of a stronger congressional involvement in U.S. climate policies for President Obama’s ability to realise his climate policy ambitions at both the domestic and the international levels. We argue that the strong relationship between natural resource dependence (coal and oil) and opposition to climate policies is a constant feature of the U.S. climate policy debate. In order to succeed, Obama must break the enduring gridlock characterising congressional debate in this policy area by designing policies that, through compromise and compensation, can mobilise the support of oil- and coal-state representatives in Congress. The acceptability of an international climate treaty in Congress, moreover, depends inter alia on the resolution of the difficult issue of developing country participation. Success may be enhanced by using the APP and the Major Economies Initiative as informal arenas for negotiation and sector-based cooperation, thus providing a much-needed supplement to the UN-based negotiation process.

Chronic disease and the shifting focus of public health: is prevention still a political lightweight?

Why is it so politically difficult to obtain government investment in public health initiatives that are aimed at addressing chronic disease? This article examines the structural disadvantage faced by those who advocate for public health policies and practices to reduce chronic disease related to people's unhealthy lifestyles and physical environments. It identifies common features that make it difficult to establish and maintain initiatives to prevent or reduce costly illness and physical suffering: (1) public health benefits are generally dispersed and delayed; (2) benefactors of public health are generally unknown and taken for granted; (3) the costs of many public health initiatives are concentrated and generate opposition from those who would pay them; and (4) public health often clashes with moral values or social norms. The article concludes by discussing the importance of a new paradigm, "health in all policies," that targets the enormous health and economic burdens associated with chronic conditions and asserts a need for new policies, practices, and participation beyond the confines of traditional public health agencies and services.     

Back to the future? Diabetes, HIV, and the boundaries of public health

The control of infectious diseases has traditionally fallen to public health and the clinical care of chronic diseases to private medicine. In New York City, however, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) has recently sought to expand its responsibilities in the oversight and management of chronic-disease care. In December 2005, in an effort to control epidemic rates of diabetes, the DOHMH began implementing a bold new plan for increased disease surveillance through electronic, laboratory-based reporting of A1C test results (a robust measure of blood-sugar levels). The controversy A1C reporting produced was relatively contained, but when Dr. Thomas Frieden, New York City health commissioner, called for the state to begin tracking viral loads and drug resistance among patients with HIV, both the medical community and a wider public took notice and have started to grapple with the meaning of expanded surveillance. In the context of the past century of medical surveillance in America, we analyze the current debates, focusing first on diabetes and then HIV. We identify the points of contention that arise from the city's proposed blend of public health surveillance, disease management, and quality improvement and suggest an approach to balancing the measures' perils and promises.     

Has Legal Realism Damaged the Legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court?

Does understanding how U.S. Supreme Court justices actually decide cases undermine the institutional legitimacy of the nation's highest court? To the extent that ordinary people recognize that the justices are deciding legal disputes on the basis of their own ideological biases and preferences (legal realism and the attitudinal model), the belief that the justices merely “apply” the law (mechanical jurisprudence and the myth of legality) is difficult to sustain. Although it is easy to see how the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, the most unaccountable of all American political institutions, is nurtured by the view that judicial decisionmaking is discretionless and mechanical, the sources of institutional legitimacy under legal realism are less obvious. Here, we demonstrate, using a nationally representative sample, that the American people understand judicial decisionmaking in realistic terms, that they extend legitimacy to the Supreme Court, and they do so under the belief that judges exercise their discretion in a principled and sincere fashion. Belief in mechanical jurisprudence is therefore not a necessary underpinning of judicial legitimacy; belief in legal realism is not incompatible with legitimacy.     

Juvenile Involvement in Fratricide and Sororicide: An Empirical Analysis of 32?Years of U.S. Arrest Data

Despite the interest in juvenile homicide offenders, few studies have systematically examined their involvement in incidents involving specific victims. This study focused on one victim type, the killings of siblings. To date, siblicide research has been based primarily on case studies. Bivariate and multivariate techniques were used to systematically investigate offender, victim, and incident characteristics associated with fratricides and sororicides committed by juvenile homicide offenders in single victim, single offender incidents over a 32-year period (1976–2007), as recorded in the Supplementary Homicide Report data base. Juvenile sororicide offenders, relative to juvenile fratricide offenders, were significantly more likely to be female and to kill younger victims. The article concludes with a discussion of the findings in terms of past research, their implications for intervention and prevention, and directions for future research.     

Climate change and the credibility of international commitments: What is necessary for the U.S. to deliver on such commitments?

The engagement of the United States is critical to the success of any international effort against global climate change. Although international climate efforts require long-lasting, credible commitments by participating countries, risk of failure to deliver on such commitments rises with the degree of gap that the domestic institutions permit between the executive and the legislature. The U.S. withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol indicated that the Clinton administration’s effort to bring international solutions into the domestic arena before domestic consensus was obtained was counterproductive. The congressional politics over budgetary allocation regarding the Bush administration’s technology policies showed that general preference to a technology-oriented approach to climate change alone did not ensure the credibility of international commitments. These cases revealed that the U.S. climate diplomacy was lacking in domestic institutional mechanisms that bring the executive branch’s deal at international negotiations, and the legislators’ preferences at home, closer together. For the U.S. to take leadership in international climate cooperation, domestic institutional frameworks which reconcile the interests of the two branches are necessary. This paper suggests that such domestic institutional frameworks feature two components: regular channels of communication between the two political branches; and, incentive mechanisms for the two branches to swiftly come to terms with each other.

Judgeships in the U.S. courts of appeals and in the U.S. district courts: Characteristics of democratic and republican presidential appointees from 1963–1990

The present study examined the characteristics of presidential appointees to the U.S. Courts of Appeals and the U.S. District Courts from 1963–1990. An over‐representation of white, protestant men is noted, regardless of the political party of the appointing administration. Appointees of Democratic and Republican administrations did not differ significantly in terms of law school attended, occupation at nomination or appointment, or American Bar Association rating. The conclusion calls for a more diverse judiciary.     

Doctors in the executive suite: should the U.S. and U.K. be putting M.D. licensure at risk for shortfalls in institutional quality of care?

As our healthcare system becomes further managed, delivery organizations are reincreasingly relying upon physician executives to administer the delivery of care by other individual providers. In both the United States and the United Kingdom, this has led to instances in which physician disciplinary procedures have been invoked with respect to physicians who are perceived to be responsible for institutional defiiciencies. The author examines and analyzes the contrasting approaches taken in the two countries, and recommends an activist approach for disciplinary agencies faced with these circumstances.     

The conflict between the ethics of th individual and the ethics governing public health: practical sustainability of health care in jeopardy?

The "health rights movement" has reconstructed the clinical relationship between health care workers and patients by simultaneously demanding more from traditional medical care and challenging the perceived power differential between doctors and patients by rejecting the paternalistic medical model in favour of an individual patients' rights model. However, the growth in individual expectations of a right to health care creates a potential conflict with the ethics that prioritise public health and guide the rationing of its limited financial and human capital resources. This, in turn, creates a practical dilemma which requires public health institutions to become service orientated while sacrificing their integral role in training and educating the medical workforce and potentially compromising the practical sustainable delivery of public health in Australia. However, the law can play a role in resolving this conflict through legislation, regulations, codes, administrative law and common law in an effort to ensure the quality and future sustainability of public health in Australia.     

Extradition on the Two Sides of the Atlantic: The U.S. Model as Blueprint for the European Arrest Warrant?

This article compares the EU’s enhanced extradition model, in the form of the European Arrest Warrant, with the more mature American interstate extradition mechanism. The US Constitution’s Extradition Clause mandates interstate extradition and, after a slow start-up, has led to a smooth and obligatory procedure. In the EU, the European Arrest Warrant, based on the principle of mutual recognition, has made a number of significant changes to traditional extradition and has simplified extradition between EU member states. Yet, it does not operate without problems and the first decade has revealed what the difficulties with extradition on the basis of mutual recognition are. The comparison with the US seeks to draw lessons from the US experience. The main finding is that in a number of areas the US example can direct the EU toward further improving its extradition scheme, while at the same time it is not realistic to expect that the EU will achieve a similar degree of harmony as in the US, required for an obligatory extradition scheme. The article argues that it is important to recognise these limits in order to make the European Arrest Warrant a success.     

Prospects for health impact assessment in the United States: new and improved environmental impact assessment or something different?

Health impact assessment (HIA) has been advanced as a means of bringing potential health impacts to the attention of policy makers, particularly in sectors where health impacts may not otherwise be considered. This article examines lessons for HIA in the United States from the related and relatively well-developed field of environmental impact assessment (EIA). We reviewed the EIA literature and conducted twenty phone interviews with EIA professionals. Successes of EIA cited by respondents included integration of environmental goals into decision making, improved planning, and greater transparency and public involvement. Reported shortcomings included the length and complexity of EIA documents, limited and adversarial public participation, and an emphasis on procedure over substance. Presently, EIAs consider few, if any, health outcomes. Respondents differed on the prospects for HIA. Most agreed that HIA could contribute to EIA in several areas, including assessment of cumulative impacts and impacts to environmental justice. Reasons given for not incorporating HIA into EIA were uncertainties about interpreting estimated health impacts, that EIA documents would become even longer and more complicated, and that HIA would gain little from the procedural and legal emphasis in EIA. We conclude that for HIA to advance, whether as part of or separate from EIA, well-formulated methodologies need to be developed and tested in real-world situations. When possible, HIA should build on the methods that have been utilized successfully in EIA. The most fruitful avenue is demonstration projects that test, refine, and demonstrate different methods and models to maximize their utility and acceptance.     

Whom do physicians work for? An analysis of dual practice in the health sector

This article presents a thorough analysis of dual practice among physicians who work in both the public and private sectors. A conceptual framework is presented to help the reader understand dual practice and the contexts where it takes place. The article reviews the existing theoretical and empirical literature on this form of dual practice among physicians. It analyzes the extent of this phenomenon, the underlying factors that motivate physicians to engage in dual practice, and the main implications of their decision to do so. It also examines and discusses current policies that address dual practice. In this regard, the article provides some qualified support for the use of "rewarding" policies to retain physicians in the public sectors of more developed countries, while "limiting" policies are recommended for developing countries - with the caveat that the policies should be accompanied by the strengthening of institutional and contracting environments. The article highlights the lack of quality evaluative evidence regarding the consequences of dual practice on the delivery of health care services. It concludes that the overall impact of dual practice remains an open question that warrants more attention from researchers and policy makers alike.