THE AVAILABILITY OF LAW

This article explores the practical skills that agents in the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office of Consumer Protection develop to accomplish their mandated objectives. In the situational structure and processes of discretionary decision making, we find a persistent surplus of enforcement capacity. Although the consumer protection law establishes a variety of sanctions and legal procedures to be used in enforcing the statute, agents frequently invoke infractions of other laws in the course of resolving consumer complaints. They have this flexibility only because laws, in general, are imperfectly enforced. This leaves scope in a particular situation for the invocation of a wide variety of potential violations of, for example, safety and building codes, zoning or license rules, and tax laws, all remotely if at all related to consumer protection. This article demonstrates the skill with which consumer protection officials exercise this discretion and argues that an adequate conception of the role of law ought to take account of the different ways in which law enforcement agents draw from this reservoir of un-enforced law.     

Health Care Reform in Britain and Germany: Recasting the Political Bargain with the Medical Profession

Health care systems in the postwar period have been governed by political bargains between the state and the medical profession that have delinzated their respective powers and jurisdictions. Recent health care cost containment reforms in Britain and Germany are altering these bargains, and thereby challenge the prerogatives and autonomy of the medical profession in health policy formulation and in administration of the health care systems. But these challenges to doctors' power and autonomy vary between the two countries. Britain's 1989 “internal market” reforms attack the corporatist bargain with physicians by introducing market mechanisms into the National Health Service and, at the same time, strengthening central state control of the health care system. In Germany, on the other hand, the government's 1992 reforms only partially breached the corporatist bargain with doctors in order to strengthen rather than destroy this governance arrangement. The government has tried to curb what it views as excessive power of doctors while still allowing them a significant degree of corporatist self-governance. The reform efforts in both countries highlight some of the problems with different governance arrangements in health care systems and, more specifically, the difficulties associated with a market in health care.     

Parenthood and the polarisation of political attitudes in Europe

Becoming a parent can affect the lives of men and women by introducing salient new social roles and identities, altered social networks and tighter constraints on financial resources and time. Even though modern family life has evolved in many important respects, parenthood continues to shape the lives of men and women in very different ways. Given that parenthood can change the lives of men and women in profoundly different ways, it seems that it would bring about changes in the way women and men think about politics and policy issues. Using data from the Wave 4 of the European Social Survey, this article investigates how parenthood, and the distinctions of motherhood and fatherhood, influence attitudes. The findings suggest that parenthood can have a polarising effect on attitudes, and that the polarising effect is most evident in countries where there is less support from the state for parental responsibilities.     

Financing Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness: Use of Interlocal Cost‐Sharing

Before this study, much of the research on interlocal collaboration has focused broadly on interlocal service agreements, of which interlocal cost‐sharing is but one dimension. This study is one of the first to examine the nature of interlocal cost‐sharing agreements for a specific (and critically important) functional area. A mail survey of Florida city and county finance officers finds that the most common interlocal cost‐sharing partnership is between local general purpose governments rather than with local special purpose governments. The strongest incentives for interlocal cost‐sharing are (1) inadequate funding for emergency management in a jurisdiction's capital budget, (2) the perceived inadequacy of federal and/or state homeland security funding, and (3) greater faith in horizontal (local‐to‐local) than vertical (federal‐state‐local) intergovernmental agreements. The research also highlights the importance of asking fiscal condition survey questions in a more functionally specific manner rather than as an “overall fiscal condition” question.     

RAPID RURAL APPRAISAL: ITS USE AND VALUE FOR HEALTH PLANNERS AND MANAGERS

Rapid appraisals have proliferated in the field of health in the past decade because of their perceived promise of obtaining information for planning and managing programmes cheaply and quickly. This article examines one type of appraisal, Rapid Rural Appraisal ( rra ) in order to assess the contribution of this approach. The background to its development is described, highlighting the relevance to primary health care ( phc ). Its two essential characteristics – qualitative inquiry and community participation are noted. The approach is examined, the techniques described and case studies which have used the approach are presented. The strengths and weaknesses of the approach based on these examples are assessed. The article concludes that the rra approach should not be seen merely as an approach to get information for the planning process but rather as an integral part of the process itself. Its contribution is to improve the quality of the information planners obtain and to develop plans of action by using qualitative inquiry and involving the community in this process.     

High Conflict Divorce,Violence, and Abuse: Implications for Custody and Visitation Decisions

Today, judges are faced with the daunting task of determining the best interests of the child and making appropriate custody awards to that end. The best interests of children becomes a critical question when domestic violence is involved; yet, determining what constitutes domestic violence is often debated. Research is often divided on what constitutes domestic violence. One body of research focuses on conflict, another focuses on domestic violence. What the first group identifies as intense emotional distress and disagreement, the other identifies as abuse. Judges making custody determinations in such cases are faced with the difficult challenge of distinguishing between a divorce with “high conflict” and a domestic violence case with ongoing abuse. This article will summarize the legal, philosophical, and historical understandings of the “high conflict” family and its potential impact on children. It will also provide practical judicial guidelines for making the important distinction between high conflict and domestic violence and subsequently crafting appropriate and safe child custody awards.     

A FIELD EXPERIMENT ON INSURANCE FRAUD IN AUTO BODY REPAIR*

This article focuses on a particular form of white-collar crime–insurance fraud in auto body repair. Through the use of an experimental design, whether repair estimates were related to insurance coverage was investigated for a statewide representative sample of auto body repair shops in Massachusetts. The auto body repair estimates were significantly higher with insurance coverage than without, regardless of type of car, extent of damage, sex of driver, and location of shop. The implication of the findings is that the automobile insurance industry is very susceptible to fraudulent or illegal practices that take unfair advantage of consumers and insurance companies.