The Final Frontiers of Healthcare Universalisation in Costa Rica and Panama

This article explains how Costa Rica and Panama, two Central American countries with nearly universal public healthcare programmes, have come to enjoy such broad coverage. It then describes the distinct paths each is taking towards reaching the populations still left out of healthcare coverage. Costa Rica is seeking to bring all residents under the umbrella of its ILO‐style social security plan. Panama is targeting the rural poor with a package of defined interventions aimed at maternal and child mortality. The article frames these cases within the literature on the varieties of universalism.     

The Effect of Database and Website Inconstancy on the Terrorism Field's Delineation

The often changing range of terrorism journals selected for indexing in various databases adds to the elasticity of this field's definition. The electronic databases as well as websites change their format and content quite often and this instability hampers the formation of a clear delineation of the disciplinary boundaries of terrorism. Nevertheless, the integration of electronic databases into terrorism research has exposed researchers to a large number of journals that deal with various aspects of terrorism, and the boundaries of this subject are continually expanding to encompass new sub-areas. In addition to the known core journals covering terrorism, many peripheral journals are emerging that are concerned with the dynamics of this field. The exposure of researchers to such a massive amount of information, print and electronic, demonstrates a marked knowledge growth in this area of study. However, the field could become so broad, even before reaching disciplinary maturation, that it could defy any attempt at delineation.‐     

Deterring Sex Sales to International Tourists: A Case Study of Thailand,South Korea,and the Philippines

In developing areas, large-scale international tourism often offers a market for illegal goods and services. Unable to directly control sex sales, governments may decide to discourage prostitution by making the industry less profitable. Sex is sold to international tourists in Thailand, South Korea, and the Philippines through the oligopolistic hotel/travel agency and competitive streetwalker markets. Applying legal sanctions prices change and sales decrease in both markets. The per unit cost of law enforcement is borne more heavily by customers on the street and by firms in the hotel/agency market owing to the markets' respective inelastic and elastic demand segments. If enforcement against sellers in both markets represents a fixed cost, initially sales will not decline, but firms will experience diminishing profits. The optimum short- and long-run effects result from applying enforcement against firms in the hotel/agency market.     

A CROSS‐CULTURAL EXAMINATION OF THE LINK BETWEEN CORPORAL PUNISHMENT AND ADOLESCENT ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR*

Several studies with older children have reported a positive relationship between parental use of corporal punishment and child conduct problems. This has lead some social scientists to conclude that physical discipline fosters antisocial behavior. In an attempt to avoid the methodological difficulties that have plagued past research on this issue, the present study used a proportional measure of corporal punishment, controlled for earlier behavior problems and other dimensions of parenting, and tested for interaction and curvilinear effects. The analyses were performed using a sample of Iowa families that displayed moderate use of corporal punishment and a Taiwanese sample that demonstrated more frequent and severe use of physical discipline, especially by fathers. For both samples, level of parental warmth/control (i.e., support, monitoring, and inductive reasoning) was the strongest predictor of adolescent conduct problems. There was little evidence of a relationship between corporal punishment and conduct problems for the Iowa sample. For the Taiwanese families, corporal punishment was unrelated to conduct problems when mothers were high on warmth/control, but positively associated with conduct problems when they were low on warmtwcontrol, An interaction between corporal punishment and warmth/Wcontro1 was found for Taiwanese fathers as well. For these fathers, there was also evidence of a curvilinear relationship, with the association between corporal punishment and conduct problems becoming much stronger at extreme levels of corporal punishment. Overall, the results are consistent with the hypothesis that it is when parents engage in severe forms of corporal punishment, or administer physical discipline in the absence of parental warmth and involvement, that children feel angry and unjustly treated, defy parental authority, and engage in antisocial behavior.     

Fathers,Families and Work: Putting ‘Working Fathers’ in the Picture

This article is a review of Fathers, Families and Work, one of a series of reports published as part of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)'s ‘Working Better’ programme. The article examines Fathers, Families and Work in the context of the wider conclusions and recommendations of the ‘Working Better’ programme and considers the extent to which these recommendations will translate into public policy. It concludes that there is a gap between parents' desire for both mothers and fathers to be involved in caring for children and the reality of long hours and inflexible workplaces that limits the time men can spend caring for children.