Embedding Economic Relationships through Social Learning? The Limits of Patient and Public Involvement in Healthcare Governance in England

The strategy for NHS modernization in England is privileging individual choice over collective voice in the governance of healthcare. This paper explores the tension between economic and democratic strands in the current reform agenda, drawing on sociological conceptions of embeddedness and on theories of reflexive governance. Building on a Polanyian account of the disembedding effects of the increasing commercialization of health services, we consider the prospects for re-embedding economic relationships in this field. An analysis is provided of the limits of the present legal and regulatory framework of Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in establishing the democratic and pragmatist conditions of social learning necessary for effective embedding. We show how the attainment of reflexive governance in the public interest is dependent on such conditions, and on the capacities of patients and the public to contribute to debate and deliberation in decision making, including on fundamental policy questions such as how services are provided and by whom.     

The Case of the “Offering of Life” in the Causes for Canonization of Catholic Saints: The Threshold of Self-Sacrifice

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique - Catholic legal and doctrinal tradition defined two main cases for the canonization of saints:...     

Local Conflicts and International Compromises: The Sustainable Use of Vicuña in Argentina

The vicuña Vicugna vicugna is a wild South American camelid with a fiber so highly valued that the species was hunted almost to extinction. Strict conservation regulations and international treaties have been successful in causing vicuña populations to recover to a level where it is now possible to develop “sustainable use” programs. In Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Argentina, vicuña management plans have been developed, with differing biological and socioeconomic implications. The major issue is whether vicuña are managed in the wild or in captivity. The aim of this paper is to examine the forces that have, in recent years, shaped policies concerning vicuña management, and especially the underlying conflict between economic growth and conservation. The analysis draws largely on primary data from Argentina and a report written by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service concerning the reclassification of vicuña from endangered to threatened. This report is important both directly (because FWS is the key advisory body to the U.S. government and the United States is a major potential market for the fiber), and indirectly, because the views of the United States and its advisers will in turn have a major influence on other actors.     

The Evolution of the CPC’s Conception of Association and Regulation of Social Organizations in China

Freedom of association and all institutions coming with it have not been accepted by the Chinese government. Instead, Chinese social organization administration is based upon the concept of association held by the Communist Party of China (CPC). The Chinese government had adopted a “total control” model of social organization administration in the era of totalitarianism before the “Opening-up and Reform”, leaving almost no room for social organizations to survive, because the CPC had regarded social organizations as “revolutionary” and “deconstructive”. The Chinese has adopted a graduated control system to administrate social organizations in the era of authoritarianism after the “Opening-up and Reform”, treating social organizations differently according to their threats to the ruling order and their utilities for economic development, because the CPC has viewed social organizations as a “challenging” but “auxiliary” power. The on-going “innovation of registration and administration of social organizations” is not a return to international standard regarding social organization administration in China, but only partial reform of the graduate control system still based upon the CPC’s conception of association as “challenging” but “auxiliary”. Social organizations capable of providing public goods in areas of economic development and social services are given more favorable treatment by the government while political and religious organizations are still tightly controlled by the government.     

On the Limits of Social Control: Structural Deterrence and the Policing of “Suppressible” Crimes

The present study examined the relationships between patterns of police arrests and subsequent variations in robbery, burglary, and aggravated assault in New York City police precincts from 1989 to 1998. Grounded in the structural deterrence theoretical perspective, and using a two‐stage fixed‐effects statistical framework, the study found that while controlling for indicators of social disorganization, increases in arrest vigor (i.e., arrests per officer for violent crimes in each precinct and raw arrest counts) predicted decreases in robbery and burglary, but that the relationships were non‐linear: as arrest vigor increased, robbery and burglary crime decreased; when arrest thresholds were reached, however, both robbery and burglary crime rates became positively associated with arrest aggressiveness. Conversely, variations in aggressive arrest patterns had no significant effect on aggravated assault, supporting the suppressible crimes arguments that primarily economically motivated crimes, and those that tend to occur in public settings, are most likely deterred by aggressive police practices.     

A Commentary on the MND Model and the Boone Critique: “Saying It Doesn’t Make It So”

We appreciate Boone’s (2011, this issue) critique of Rogers, Bender, and Johnson’s (2011, this issue) analysis of the Malingered Neurocognitive Dysfunction (MND) criteria. She raised good points and appeared in general agreement regarding several crucial limitations of the MND model. However, Boone remained mostly silent on several issues including the compelling results from our methodological review of MND studies and Criteria A through D. When provided, her comments tended to be very selective and were often presented with little or no empirical support. This contrasting pattern of strong statements and weak evidence appears to unintentionally parallel the MND model, which was documented in our original analysis. As a result of her criticism, however, we clarified our point regarding methodological limitations in establishing levels of TBI and its potential relevance to determinations of feigned cognitive impairment. We hope that these spirited discussions will stimulate a much-needed review and a fundamental revamping, if not replacement, of the MND model.     

The Effects of Domestic Violence on the Formation of Relationships Between Women and Their Babies: “I Was Too Busy Protecting My Baby to Attach”

Until now, research into the effects of domestic violence on the formation of relationships between women and their babies has been from an attachment theory perspective. The research reported in this article takes a different approach. Innovative qualitative research methods are used to uncover knowledge about the formation of such relationships from the lived experiences of sixteen women who have mothered babies while enduring domestic violence. Analysis of the findings in this study identifies domestic violence constitutes an environment of sustained hostility where women respond with maternal protectiveness to maximise their babies’ physical and psychological safety whether or not they had attained a secure relationship. However, women recognize domestic violence constricts space to form close mother/baby relationships. Supported by these findings, this research suggests policy and practice concerned with relationships between women and babies subjected to domestic violence address protectiveness and space to attach. The article concludes with suggestions for further research.     

A case of mistaken identity: George Stigler, “The Problem of Social Cost,” and the Coase theorem

“The Problem of Social Cost” is rightly credited with helping to launch the economic analysis of law. George Stigler plays a central role in the professional reception of Coase’s work and, in particular, of the idea that came to be known as the Coase theorem. While Coase’s negotiation result was taken up in the scholarly literature not long after the publication of “The Problem of Social Cost,” it was Stigler who gave the theorem its name and introduced it to scores of readers in The Theory of Price (1966). His remaking of Coase’s idea into a “theorem” had significant rhetorical force, which, combined with the challenge that it pose to received thinking about externality problems, both lent credibility to the idea and made it a force to be reckoned with. The present paper analyzes Stigler’s various commentaries on the Coase theorem with a view to getting at both how Stigler understood the theorem and its import and why he exhibited such a fascination with it over the last 30 years of his life.     

Functions of Social Representations in Honour Violence: The “Other East” as Responsible

Although extensive research has been carried out in the field of social justice in terms of femicide in defence of family honour around the globe, intersecting aspect of identity as an underlying psychological mechanism to justify the social sources of these killing has not been addressed in much detail. The present study, therefore, examined the role of (a) diverse social representations in femicide, (b) geography and ethnicity in social representations of honour violence, and (c) the functions of these diverse social representations in maintaining social injustice towards women through the promotion of occidentalism in line with the boundaries for a hegemonic notion of western modernisation. Two studies were conducted. The first study includes a content analysis investigating data from 73 respondents living in the western part of Turkey. The present findings showed that there are different social representations of honour killings, such as töre killings and namus killings. These diverse representations were found to reflect the fact that individuals delegitimise töre killings as eastern, outrageous, tribalistic, and related to family honour while legitimising namus killings as personal, valuable, self-aware, and vulnerable, in the context of “westernised” Turkey. The second study comprises an experimental design in which participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: namus killing, töre killing, and control. The results showed that diverse social representations of femicide have psychological functions such that a namus representation gives more legitimacy to femicide than does a töre representation. The consideration of diverse representations in honour killings and their functions has the potential to inform research as well as to build effective prevention policies targeting the reduction in femicides. A focus on the concept of namus and an emphasis on moving the focus of social representations away from responsible backwards, “the other East” and towards namus as one of the leading sources of domestic violence may switch the problem from the perception of victimised eastern women and to a general injustice problem.

     

What the #@!* are they Fighting About?!?: Reflections on Fairness,Identity, Social Capital,and Peacemaking in Family Conflicts

Peacemaking is particularly challenging in family conflicts. Deeply held feelings about identity, fair treatment, moral issues, and protecting social capital often cause people in conflict to make self‐defeating decisions. There are, however, techniques that enable mediators, Collaborative Practice professionals, and other peacemakers to overcome the settlement barriers created by these strongly held views. These techniques include those pioneered by psychotherapists using the Internal Family Systems model, which enables parties to see that their strongly held views comprise only part of the constellation of feelings that they have about the conflict.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
• Parents who feel that their role as father or mother is in danger often find it difficult to focus on the children's best interests.
• The “rule of reciprocity” causes people who feel wronged to exact even harsher punishment on those who harmed them.
• The concept of “social capital” explains why people care so passionately about whether they are treated fairly and about their reputation for fairness.
• The Internal Family Systems model helps peacemakers to understand how to work with the parties’ ambivalence about settlement versus courtroom vindication.

     

Penal and Prison Policy on the “Sunny Side of the Alps”: The Swan Song of Slovenian Exceptionalism?

The article considers penal and prison policy in Slovenia by illustrating and confronting the roots, development and main features of Slovenian vis-à-vis Scandinavian penal “exceptionalism”. It first explores economic, social and political developments that made both Scandinavian and Slovenian penal regimes, in terms of stability and leniency of penal policy, low imprisonment rates and quality of prisoner treatment, to some degree exceptional if confronted with regimes of the vast majority of western countries. Further, the authors explore what consequences and implications the recent punitive tendencies have for Slovenian exceptionalism and whether they jeopardize or perhaps even threaten mild penal order, which the country on the “sunny side of the Alps” has been building since the 1970s. Finally, the authors try to find out whether, in spite of the declining welfarism and rising punitiveness, Slovenian-style penal exceptionalism has a chance to revive and endure.     

The Influence of the Social Bond on Self-control at the Moment of Decision: Testing Hirschi’s Redefinition of Self-control

Hirschi (2004) redefined self-control as the tendency to consider the “full range” of potential costs relevant to a criminal act, suggesting that such costs vary in number and salience based on one’s level of self-control. He also suggested self-control, as expressed at the moment of decision, was influenced by the individual’s level of social bonding; those with fewer bonds would exhibit less self control by considering fewer costs and finding them less salient when making a decision. This study presents an initial attempt to examine Hirschi’s theoretical statement linking concepts from the two theories. Presented with a hypothetical drunk driving scenario, participants were asked to identify perceived costs and salience as a measure of self-control, as Hirschi (2004) suggested. Results support Hirschi’s assertion demonstrating that the social bond impacts offending likelihood through its relationship to self-control expressed within the decision. Future theoretical and empirical directions are outlined.     

A face in the crowd: The influences of familiarity and delay on preschoolers’ recognition

Abstract

Preschoolers’ abilities to recognize former caregivers were examined. Participants were 35 children from three preschool classes. Caregivers volunteered in the classes over a 7-week period. At an initial assessment, children were asked to select former caregivers from a line-up of five photographs, and to rank-order the caregivers by personal preference. Recognition was assessed again after 3 months. Although older toddlers performed at chance levels, clear age-related increases in recognition performance were observed, with older preschoolers recognizing 86% of the volunteers at time 2. Younger children responded less consistently over time than older children. Preference for individual caregivers affected recognition performance among younger, but not older, preschoolers. Implications for children's eyewitness testimony are considered.     

The Transcendence of Violence Across Relationships: New Methods for Understanding Men’s and Women’s Experiences of Intimate Partner Violence Across the Life Course

The notion of transitions is an increasingly central concept in contemporary criminology and such issues are particularly significant in the study of intimate partner violence (IPV). Here, attention focuses on relationship dynamics and movement into and out of relationships for understanding long-term patterns of victimization over the life course. Still, a focus on transitions raises questions about how IPV is patterned over time and across relationships and how this contributes to stability and change in victimization risk over the life span. Our study examines this issue using data from the National Violence Against Women Survey. Findings from latent transition analyses reveal strong evidence for change in victimization experiences across the life course. Among women, those who experienced serious, multifaceted violence are most likely to transition out of relationships followed by transition into subsequent relationships characterized by conflict and aggression and a similar pattern is observed among men. At the same time, men who experience physical aggression in previous relationships are most likely to transition into non-violent relationships, while women with similar experiences are much less differentiated in the types of relationships they enter into. When we account for background characteristics (e.g., respondent’s race, education, and age) and childhood experiences of parental violence, the latter is particularly significant in accounting for exposure to serious IPV in later adulthood. Such findings extend our understanding of how life course transitions connect to violence and offending and highlight processes of continuity and change beyond the traditional focus on criminal offending.     

The use of “security” jargon in sustainable development discourse: evidence from UN Commission on Sustainable Development

The premise of discourse theory in environmental policy is that realities are shaped by language. One discourse that is gaining popularity is the concept of environmental security, a discourse that presupposes environmental threats as urgent. The attempt to cast environmental issues as security issues has resulted in the common use of security jargon, idioms, and metaphors in policymakers’ and politicians’ statements. Various analyses attempt to identify why natural resources are discussed in terms and language of security. However, far fewer studies have attempted to identify differences in the manner in which different types of resources are incorporated into such a discourse by different actors and what variables contribute to this process. This study examines the construction of the security references, security arguments, and language in the statements of the Commission on Sustainable Development dealing with energy and water. We found that international organizations and Non-governmental Organizations were somewhat more likely than state actors to use security references to discuss sustainability issues. The issues securitized are not the traditional high political ones such as regime stability and conflicts, but rather issues more associated with human security, such as access to renewable energy, affordable food, and clean water. The fact that in many statements examined the use of security references was not associated with any existential threat and hence did not comply with the conditions of the Copenhagen School raises some doubts as to whether security language in these statements implies a true securitization move. We also examined whether the use of the term “security” by states was correlated with greater resource scarcity or vulnerability. In the case of water-related sessions, the evidence was mixed, depending on the choice of dependent variable. The results from energy security regressions, however, were inconsistent with the hypothesis that greater scarcity or vulnerability induces more use of security language.     

The “Tough on Crime” Competition: a Network Approach to Understanding the Social Mechanisms Leading to Federal Crime Control Legislation in the United States from 1973–2014

The increase in punitive sentiment in America over the last four decades is frequently attributed to changes in criminal justice policies and programs. While scholars have studied the impact of legislation and policy on justice system outcomes, less attention has focused on the role of political actors in legislative bodies who are largely responsible for enacting criminal justice legislation. The current study addresses this gap by examining the social organization of federal crime control policy in the U.S. Congress over a forty-two year period (1973–2014). Drawing from research on social network mechanisms, we examine whether crime control legislation was more politically attractive relative to other legislative topics, and whether Democrats and Republicans pursue these policies by working together or competing against each other. Our results provide novel insight into the mechanisms that contributed to the punitive movement at the federal level.     

“Human Habitation or Economic Life of their Own”: The Definition of Features Between History,Technology and the Law

Liverpool Law Review - Article 121(3) of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) establishes the regime of geographical features. It distinguishes the island from...     

The Contribution of the “Dutch School” in Public Finance to the Theory of Personal Income Taxation (1870–1920)

Hansen's dissertation (1996) is an impressive, highly valuable, and thorough study on the problems of income taxation in Germany. These problems were also extensively discussed in Dutch economic literature around 1900. Several authors took part in the discussion, and some were also involved as politicians. They are referred to as the Dutch School in public finance. The discussions in the Netherlands were of a distinctive character as far as the tax rate (progression) is concerned. With regard to the tax base (the concept of income) there is in the case of the reform of the income tax in 1915, via in particular Treub, close affinity to that thinking in Germany, that is so eminently analyzed by Hansen.