Opinion Backlash and Public Attitudes: Are Political Advances in Gay Rights Counterproductive?

One long‐recognized consequence of the tension between popular sovereignty and democratic values like liberty and equality is public opinion backlash, which occurs when individuals recoil in response to some salient event. For decades, scholars have suggested that opinion backlash impedes policy gains by marginalized groups. Public opinion research, however, suggests that widespread attitude change that backlash proponents theorize is likely to be rare. Examining backlash against gays and lesbians using a series of online and natural experiments about marriage equality, and large‐sample survey data, we find no evidence of opinion backlash among the general public, by members of groups predisposed to dislike gays and lesbians, or from those with psychological traits that may predispose them to lash back. The important implication is that groups pursuing rights should not be dissuaded by threats of backlash that will set their movement back in the court of public opinion.     

住院医师病历书写质量存在的问题及对策

总结住院医师病历书写存在的问题,提出改进对策。方法:归纳分析住院医师病历书写的现状和存在问题。结果:建立健全管理制度,加强责任心,提高住院医师的学习能力和写作,执行规范管理常抓不懈是提高病历质量的关键。结论:病历质量的提高,才能体现出病历真正的学术价值。     

Feminism,activism and academe: a personal reflection

How the political project of feminism entered academe and how it became an educational project is the subject of this article. It is based upon personal reflection about undertaking the study for a book, Feminism, Gender and Universities: politics, passion and pedagogies. In the book, three successive generations or cohorts of feminists in academia are discussed, starting with those who are now considered ‘second-wave feminists’. In this article the notion of ‘second-wave feminism’ is examined and also how successive cohorts see feminist knowledge in relation to their own education through doctorates or wider forms of learning.     

A Dream Deferred: The Microfoundations of Direct Political Action in Pre- and Post-democratisation South Africa

The stability of young democracies may be threatened by persistent protest as the economic legacies of the old autocratic regimes tend to outlive the defunct political structures. This paper seeks to explore the micro-level predictors of protest potential in South Africa before and after the end of apartheid. The results of the cohort analysis reveal that the political consciousness of the anti-apartheid struggle has a lasting effect. The gap between actual income and expected returns to education explains protest potential better than comparison of one's income with that of a reference group. The effect of race on protest potential has diminished over time.     

Review essay / The precinct confessional

Peter Brooks, Troubling Confessions: Speaking Guilt in Law and Literature Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000, x + 207 pp.