Citizens by Design? Explaining Ex-Combatant Satisfaction with Reintegration Programming

After armed conflict, there is often a surge in programmes designed to consolidate the peace. During the transition to peace, the quality of programme management has been argued to shape public perceptions about government and citizenship. What aspects of programme management are most important? What implementation failures have the greatest negative effects? We study these questions in the context of a reintegration programme for former combatants in Colombia. We find evidence that programme implementation has strong impacts on participant satisfaction, regardless of programme outcomes. This suggests that how benefits are delivered matters as much as what is delivered.     

DDR and transitional justice: bridging the divide?

This article explores the complex relationship between disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of ex-combatants (DDR) and transitional justice. While both DDR and transitional justice often operate simultaneously, neither process has traditionally been designed with the other in mind. In fact, they are often in tension or competition, pursuing competing demands and potentially drawing on the same scarce donor pools. While scholars and practitioners of transitional justice have become somewhat attuned to the presence of DDR processes in countries emerging from conflict, and the challenges and opportunities they present for transitional justice, we observe that by comparison, it is only fairly recently that DDR policies, if not programmes, have begun to take account of the demands and practice of transitional justice. We argue that while the activities of DDR and transitional justice may often be in tension, in some instances they might be designed to operate in a more complementary fashion. However, for this to even be conceivable, it is essential that scholars and practitioners of each seek to understand the work of the other better.     

Pain Management and Work Capacity: Evidence From Workers’ Compensation and Marijuana Legalization

We study whether the work capacity of the older working population responds to improved pain management therapy access. We use the adoption of state recreational marijuana laws (RMLs) as a large policy shock to access to a non-pharmaceutical pain management option. We focus on workers’ compensation cash benefit receipt as a measure of work capacity, finding that receipt declines in response to RML adoption. Workers’ compensation cash benefits are awarded to workers who require time away from work to recover from an injury, which arguably captures a policy-relevant aspect of work capacity. We observe similar shifts in complementary proxies for work capacity, including work-limiting disability rates. After considering a range of alternative mechanisms, the evidence suggests that the primary driver of the reductions in workers’ compensation benefits is improvements in work capacity.     

East Germany in 1956: Walter Ulbricht's Tenacity in the Face of Opposition

Why did East German leader Walter Ulbricht outlast other Stalin‐era Soviet allies in Central and Eastern Europe? This article considers this question, comparing Ulbricht's situation with that of the Hungarian communist leadership in 1956. The article examines different aspects of the question, from relations with the Soviet Union to the archival evidence for popular opinion in East Germany in the crisis year of 1956. It concludes that Ulbricht's relative longevity in power was due to a combination of factors, from the exposed position of the German Democratic Republic in the Cold War, and the support this elicited from the Soviet Union, to the legacy of the unsuccessful workers' uprising of 1956 and the weakness of Ulbricht's internal opposition.     

The “process” of patenting: Why should we care about a potential U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bilski v. Doll?

In Bilski v. Doll, the U.S. Supreme Court is called to define one of the categories of patent-eligible subject matter, “process” patents. In 2008, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that the category has a narrow meaning, and that to be eligible for a process patent under 35 U.S.C. § 101, the invention must involve a machine or apparatus or involve a transformation to a different state or thing, ultimately rejecting the patent application as unpatentable subject matter. The patent applicants have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to determine two issues: first, the meaning of “process” in 35 U.S.C. § 101 and whether the lower court properly relied on a “machine-or-transformation” test, and second, the test's potential conflict with 35 U.S.C. § 273, which provides protection for “method[s] of doing or conducting business.” The Court's decision could change the way that research and business are done, and patent protection for such investments. Parts 1 and 2 of this article address Bilski directly and what is and is not in dispute. Part 3 addresses the “machine-or-transformation” test, while Parts 4 and 5 address reasons not to adopt such a test.     

CHARTING A COURSE THROUGH THE HEALTH CARE POLICY MAZE

Health Policy: Development, Implementation and Evaluation in Australia. By H eather GARDNER (ed.)
The Price of Health: Australian Governments and Medical Politics 1910–1960. By J ames A G illespie
Federalism and Health Policy: The Development of Health Systems in Canada and Australia. By G wendolyn G ray
The President's Health Security Plan. By W hite H ouse D omestic C ouncil
Hospitals in Transition: The Resource Management Experiment. By T im P ackwood , J ustin K een and M artin B uxton