Rehumanizing Birth and Death in America

THESIS: Despite spending more on medical care than any other country in the world, the United States still boasts some of the worst patient outcomes of any developed nation. This disparity is especially true of how Americans give birth and die.  These natural human transitions have become catastrophically expensive and leave patients and their families traumatized from unnecessary interventions. This article examines the costs and outcomes associated with the medicalization of birth and death and argues that alternatives exist that improve patient outcomes while lowering costs. Access to these alternatives will require changing current regulatory and reimbursement structures and providing trained support staff to help families navigate beginning- and end-of life decisions.     

Typologies of Household Risk-Taking: Contemporary Rural Russia as a Case Study

In the post-Soviet economic environment, new opportunities arose attendant with market reform. Rural households had to choose whether to continue past behaviors – to subsist – or to adapt, the latter requiring a degree of risk. This paper analyzes risk-averse and risk-taking households by addressing three main questions: (a) which households are risk-averse and which are risk-takers?; (b) what are the characteristics of those different types of households?; and (c) which factors have greatest causal properties in explaining household risk-taking? Typologies of risk-averse and risk-taking households are presented. Using survey data, statistical analysis disaggregates peasant households, showing that households with higher total income are more likely to take on risk. Land expansion is important mainly for commercially oriented households.     

Class relations and capitalist development: Subsumption in the Colombian coffee industry, 1928–92

The concept of subsumption had a short life within Marxist analysis of family farming because analysts using the concept failed to appreciate the centrality of class relations in Marx's analysis of capitalist development. I argue that the concept of subsumption is best understood as a theorisation of the subtle cultural and historical processes through which labour is incorporated into capitalist development projects. I reinforce this theoretical discussion with an analysis of capitalist development in the Colombian coffee industry. This case demonstrates that capitalist development is as much project as process, as much the reformation of cultural identity as the restructuring of relations of production.     

The "Polish Problem"– American War-Time Perspectives

As one of the initial, and arguably most devastated, casualties of the Second World War, Poland's restoration as a free and independent state was seen as a test case for the viable continuation of the victorious Grand Alliance. Yet seemingly irreconcilable differences between the Western powers and the Soviet Union over intricate territorial and political issues (with the Polish state and people caught firmly in the middle) would signal the end of the working alliance. The US collectively struggled to come to terms with this "Polish problem"– its government failing to deliver to the Poles on those democratic principles enshrined within the Atlantic Charter, and its people finding the very ideals for which they had gone to war compromised. While reflecting the unique complexities of this particular dilemma, American officialsrsquo; perceptions of the conundrum over Poland bear a ringing familiarity to future East European developments and certainly set the tone for the ensuing West-Soviet impasse there. Indeed, this author would not be alone in suggesting that the superpower struggle over Poland at the close of World War II was itself the very genesis of the Cold War conflict.     

Subjective Invulnerability,Optimism Bias and Adjustment in Emerging Adulthood

The relationship between subjective invulnerability and optimism bias in risk appraisal, and their comparative association with indices of risk activity, substance use and college adjustment problems was assessed in a sample of 350 (M _age = 20.17; 73% female; 93% White/European American) emerging adults. Subjective invulnerability was measured with the newly devised adolescent invulnerability scale (AIS). Optimism bias in decision-making was assessed with a standard comparative-conditional risk appraisal task. Results showed that the danger- and psychological invulnerability subscales of the AIS demonstrated strong internal consistency and evidence of predictive validity. Subjective invulnerability and optimism bias were also shown to be empirically distinct constructs with differential ability to predict risk and adjustment. Danger invulnerability and psychological invulnerability were more pervasively associated with risk behavior than was optimism bias; and psychological invulnerability counter-indicated depression, self-esteem and interpersonal problems. Results support recent claims regarding the “two faces” of adolescent invulnerability. Implications for future research are drawn.