The Quest for Recompense: Claimants' Experience of Medical Negligence Compensation in Victoria,Australia*

This paper reports a study investigating the experiences of people who perceived that they had suffered a health or medical care injury in Victoria, Australia. A particular focus was their experience with the process of seeking compensation. The research strategy involved a preliminary questionnaire and in-depth interviewing of the participants and, where possible, their families. We describe the type of injury reported by the participants, experiences with health care providers and lawyers and attitudes to the current system of compensation. The severity of injury sustained by these participants was often severe, involving permanent incapacity and psychological distress. We conclude that the quest for recompense is fraught with difficulties for claimants. The present system of compensation neither provides adequate financial compensation nor - even where claimants are successful - acknowledgement of the legitimacy of their claim.     

Uganda's Progress and Problems

The following address was given by the former Governor of Ugandaat a joint meeting of the Royal African Society and the RoyalEmpire Society on February 7, 1957. Sir John Macpherson tookthe chair.     

Property Tax Responses to State Aid Cuts in the Recent Fiscal Crisis

Many states experienced fiscal crises at the beginning of this decade. Some responded by cutting state aid to local governments. This paper explores the extent to which local governments responded to these aid cuts by raising property taxes. The authors hypothesize that changes in aid help explain the observed differences in per capita property tax revenue changes across states. They find that on average school districts increased property taxes by 23 cents for each dollar cut in state aid. These results highlight the important role that the property tax plays in maintaining the stability of the state and local sector.     

Hung Parliaments and the Challenges for Westminster and Whitehall: How to Make Minority and Multiparty Governance Work (with Commentaries by Turnbull,Beith, Evans and Crick)

The return of a hung parliament at the 2010 general election is a serious possibility. But due to Westminster's limited recent experience of parliaments under ‘no overall control’ there is little institutional memory in Whitehall or Westminster, and even less public understanding, of what the implications would be. This article sets out to analyse the principal challenges that would be faced by government, opposition, parliament and the media in the event of a hung parliament. Drawing on experience from Canada, New Zealand and Scotland, we discuss the difficulties that may arise during the immediate government formation process and in the course of making minority or multiparty governance work on an ongoing basis. We conclude that a hung parliament need not undermine political stability or effective governance, but that all actors would need to adapt their behaviour and should therefore prepare carefully for this eventuality.     

Facebook CEO Charms Chinese Audiences

正ON October 23,a Chinese audience was astonished and delighted to hear Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg answer their questions in Mandarin.A video of the event,posted on Facebook and China’s Wechat,quickly became a hit on social media,     

ADOLESCENT VIOLENT VICTIMIZATION AND PRECOCIOUS UNION FORMATION*

This article bridges scholarship in criminology and family sociology by extending arguments about “precocious exits” from adolescence to consider early union formation as a salient outcome of violent victimization for youths. Research indicates that early union formation is associated with several negative outcomes; yet the absence of attention to union formation as a consequence of violent victimization is noteworthy. We address this gap by drawing on life course theory and data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to examine the effect of violent victimization (“street” violence) on the timing of first coresidential union formation—differentiating between marriage and cohabitation—in young adulthood. Estimates from Cox proportional hazard models show that adolescent victims of street violence experience higher rates of first union formation, especially marriage, early in the transition to adulthood; however, this effect declines with age, as such unions become more normative. Importantly, the effect of violent victimization on first union timing is robust to controls for nonviolent delinquency, substance abuse, and violent perpetration. We conclude by discussing directions for future research on the association between violent victimization and coresidential unions with an eye toward the implications of such early union formation for desistance.     

Better Off Out? Britain and Europe

The largest ever rebellion of Conservative MPs on Europe took place in October 2011 with 81 Conservative MPs defying the Conservative whip to vote for a referendum on Britain's continued membership of the European Union. This resurgence of dissent over Europe has been fuelled by the crisis in the eurozone. The Conservative party is now an overwhelmingly Eurosceptic party, but Conservative Eurosceptics are divided over whether the Government should use the opportunity of the eurozone crisis to take Britain out of the European Union, or whether it should seek to negotiate a looser arrangement, or do nothing at all. Conservative policy on Europe has been further complicated by the coalition with the Liberal Democrats, and by the consequences for the British economy if the eurozone disintegrates. Public opinion is also divided. British policy on the European Union remains ambivalent and muddled because British aims are inconsistent, and because there is no consensus on where Britain's interests truly lie.