Citizenship identity among Norwegian Sami in core Sami areas

This analysis of citizenship identity among Sami living in core Sami areas in Norway clearly shows that the Sami population feel more closely connected to their local communities than is the case for non-Sami living in the same areas and for the Norwegian populace as a whole. Some significant differences also emerge as regards citizenship identity between Sami who have chosen to be registered in the Sami electoral roster and those who are not registered – in terms of identification with different identity groups, affiliation with different territorially defined areas and the intensity of their Sami identity. However, none of our findings suggest that the total Norwegian citizenry is an unimportant identity group for the Sami population, or that the Sami do not feel affiliated with Norway as a whole. The fact that the perceived content of Norwegian-ness does not seem to include elements that are incompatible with the perceived content of Sami-ness also indicates that it may not be particularly difficult for individuals to combine Sami and Norwegian identity.     

Performance Management and Public Sector Reform: The Norwegian Hospital Reform

This article addresses the development of new performance management systems related to public sector reforms. One such system is Management by Objectives and Results (MBOR), based on an official OECD model. Such a system tries to establish unambiguous goals, objectivity, and incentive elements into often traditionally trust-based systems embedded in a complex political-administrative context. To analyze such performance management systems and how they work in practice, we focus on a recent reform of the hospital structure in Norway. Using a broad institutional perspective, we argue that the MBOR-system in Norway is a mixed and complex system encompassing different kinds of logic. These include instrumental elements from the new performance management systems combined with ad hoc preventive efforts by the political leadership, the influence of cultural constraints, elements of rather inappropriate self-interested action, and pressure from the environment. The study reveals that the hospital reform in Norway in practice can be seen as an integrated model, combining informal trust-based approaches and formal performance management measures. It also shows that negative side effects and dysfunctions might occur.     

Multiculturalism,memory, and ritualization: Ukrainian nationalist monuments in Edmonton,Alberta

Canadians of Ukrainian descent constitute a significant part of the population of the Albertan capital. Among other things, their presence is felt in the public space as Ukrainian monuments constitute a part of the landscape. The article studies three key monuments, physical manifestations of the ideology of local Ukrainian nationalist elites in Edmonton: a 1973 monument to nationalist leader Roman Shukhevych, a 1976 memorial constructed by the Ukrainian Waffen-SS in Edmonton, and a 1983 memorial to the 1932–1933 famine in the Ukrainian SSR. Representing a narrative of suffering, resistance, and redemption, all three monuments were organized by the same activists and are representative for the selective memory of an “ethnic” elite, which presents nationalist ideology as authentic Ukrainian cultural heritage. The narrative is based partly upon an uncritical cult of totalitarian, anti-Semitic, and terroristic political figures, whose war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and collaboration with Nazi Germany the nationalists deny and obfuscate. The article argues that government support and direct public funding has strengthened the radicals within the community and helped promulgate their mythology. In the case of the Ukrainian Canadian political elite, official multiculturalism underwrites a narrative at odds with the liberal democratic values it was intended to promote. The failure to deconstruct the “ethnic” building blocks of Canadian multiculturalism and the willingness to accept at face value the primordial claims and nationalist myths of “ethnic” groups has given Canadian multiculturalism the character of multi-nationalism.     

Physical Restraint and Near Death of a Psychiatric Patient

Physical restraint is used as a last resort emergency measure to calm and safeguard agitated and/or aggressive psychiatric patients. This can sometimes cause injuries, and rare fatalities have occurred. One mechanism of injury and death while in physical restraint is that of severe asphyxiation. We present the case of a hospitalized man in his mid‐30s, suffering from schizophrenia. The patient was obese. He became aggressive and had to be manually restrained with a “takedown.” After having been put in the prone position on the floor with a significant weight load on his body, he lost respiration and consciousness. Subsequently, he was given CPR. He regained consciousness and respiration, while the cyanosis receded in 1–2 min. Psychiatrists and pathologists should be aware that physically restraining a patient in the prone position with a significant weight load on the torso can, in rare cases, lead to asphyxiation.     

Attitudes among stakeholders towards compulsory mental health care in Norway

Objectives

The Norwegian Mental Health Care Act allows use of coercion under certain conditions. Even though the current practice has been criticized, little empirical data exist about the attitudes towards compulsory mental health care.

Method

This study used Q-methodology to identify prototypical attitudes and to test possible differences of attitudes between groups of stakeholders towards the use of coercion in mental health care. Sixty-two respondents who represented six groups with different roles in mental health care participated: former patients, relatives of psychiatric patients, members of supervisory commissions, psychiatrists, other physicians, and lawyers.The participants were asked to assess the degree to which they agreed on 30 statements concerning use of coercion for the mentally ill.

Results

Three factors that in a meaningful way express different attitudes towards the question were found. The most widely shared attitude stated that a trusting relationship between patient and therapist is more important than the right to have an attorney. This attitude gives partial support to the present Mental Health Care Act. However, the second most common attitude argues that involuntary hospitalization, if necessary, should be decided in a court and not by the hospital doctor.

Conclusions

Differences in attitude could partly be explained by the respondents' role in mental health care. Both psychiatrists and “somatic” physicians expressed more agreement with the present legislation than the other stakeholders. The findings may have implications for the legal protection of mental health care patients.     

A new system for computer aided dental identification in mass disasters

In recent years, several computer programs for dental identification in mass disasters have been developed. Unfortunately, it may be difficult to get access to such programs. The Norwegian police presently utilizes a text retrieval program, NOVA¹STATUS, for detection work. This program is based on the British STATUS ONE program, and it enables the user to find from a large pool of postmortem dental registration one or several sets containing specific information about one tooth or several teeth. The complete relevant set(s) can be displayed for visual examination and comparison. A coding system for dental information has been developed as well as a system for interrogating the computer. This system and its efficiency have been tested on a simulated small scale disaster where various well-known difficulties in dental identification were included.     

The Persistence of Corruption and Regulatory Compliance Failures: Theory and Evidence

This paper examines the reasons whycorruption and policy distortions tend toexhibit a high degree of persistence incertain regimes. We identify circumstancesunder which a firm seeks to evaderegulations through (i) bribery of localinspectors, and (ii) by lobbying high-levelgovernment politicians to resist legalreforms designed to improve judicialefficiency (rule of law) and eliminatecorruption. We show that in some casespolitical instability reinforces thesetendencies. The analysis predicts that inpolitically unstable regimes, theinstitutions necessary to monitor andenforce compliance are weak. In suchcountries, corruption therefore is morepervasive, and the compliance withregulations is low. We test thesepredictions using cross-country data. Theempirical results support the predictionsof the model. Political instability reducesjudicial efficiency, which in turnstimulates corruption. Thus, the effect ofpolitical instability on corruption is notdirect, but occurs indirectly via itseffect on the degree of judicialefficiency. Finally, corruption lowers thelevel of regulatory compliance. Thus,political instability indirectly affects compliance, via judicial efficiency andcorruption.     

Values Count but Institutions Decide: The Stein Rokkan Approach in Comparative Political Sociology

This article presents the major characteristics of the tradition of comparative political sociology which Stein Rokkan incarnated. Special emphasis is put on Rokkan's scientific reasoning based on the organic relationship between the creation of infrastructures for research and research efforts. Rokkan's oeuvre is marked by an acute awareness of the historical sources of institutional variation and by a concern for constructing region-specific models reflecting culturally meaningful contexts. Rokkan's use of comparisons is treated at length before the conclusion states what the authors claim is worth preserving from the Rokkan tradition: the historical, institutional and comparative aspects of Rokkan's approach.     

Effect of integrated treatment on the use of coercive measures in first-episode schizophrenia-spectrum disorder. A randomized clinical trial

The effect of integrated treatment on the use of coercive measures in first-episode schizophrenia-spectrum disorder in Denmark is not known. A total of 328 patients were randomly assigned to integrated treatment (167 patients) or standard treatment (161 patients). Integrated treatment consisted of assertive community treatment, psycho-educational multi-family groups, and social skills training. Data on coercion were extracted from the register from the National Board of Health, and data on continuity from medical records. Even though the level of continuity seemed higher in integrated treatment, this did not reduce the use of coercive measures compared to the use in standard treatment.