"Real Solemn History" and its Discontents: Australian Political History and the Challenge of Social History

The relationship between Australian political and social history has received little historiographical attention. Political history has been lauded or, more often, dismissed as traditional historical practice, while from the 1960s social history took its place as a catch-all phrase for various "new" histories concerned with everyday life. This article examines the place of political and social history in the nascent Australian academic historical profession of the 1950s to the early 1970s, and then explores the impact of the new social history on academic political history. It will suggest that while there was only limited exchange before the late 1980s, in the last twenty years social history has contributed modestly to a reconstituted understanding of political history as part of lived experience.
"[…] I can read poetry and plays, and things of that sort, and do not dislike travels. But history, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in. Can you?"
"Yes, I am fond of history."
"I wish I were too. I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all — it is very tiresome: and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention […]". ¹     

Evaluation of a community-based intervention to enhance road safety

A total of 300 motorists were recruited at public places to answer a self-report questionnaire on a new community-based intervention to enhance road safety. The intervention consisted of a speed-displaying device that was mounted next to the road and was visible to both motorists and the public. The device gives feedback about the current speed of the motorist. The majority of motorists believed these devices influenced compliance with the speed limit. They indicated they approached locations with these devices more slowly than similar locations without such devices. Moreover, they slowed down if they were going faster than the speed limit. They also said that their reaction to the devices was not influenced by whether they were driving in a community where they had friends or in a community where nobody knew them. These results were consistent across gender, age, levels of education, and professions.     

SPECIALIZATION OF NURSING HOME CARE AND OUTCOMES1

Implications of nursing home specialization for health outcomes were examined. The formal hypothesis tested in this study was that facilities specializing in the treatment of certain kinds of residents, as reflected in a critical mass of such residents, are more likely to experience better health outcomes over time compared to facilities that do not specialize in the treatment of such residents. Activities of Daily Living (ADLs), survival, and several diagnosis‐specific outcomes were analyzed for residents. Multivariate state‐dependence and logistic regression models were estimated for residents of six diagnostic sub‐groups. Specialization was empirically defined in terms of concentration of residents with certain diagnoses within nursing facilities. Empirical results indicate that specialization has some positive effects on some outcomes. For instance, facilities specializing in the care of Alzheimer's disease patients appear to produce comparatively better outcomes with respect to restraint use and accidents. Residents with diagnoses of hypertension or ischemic heart disease in specialized facilities also fare better in terms of survival. Residents with a diagnosis of cerebrovascular disease in specialized facilities were found to experience worse outcomes with respect to most of the outcomes modeled in this study, however. Overall, specialization only appears to make a difference in the outcomes of residents with certain medical conditions for some health outcomes. Regression results also indicate that basic measures of frailty such as functional deficiencies, incontinence, and behavioral problems largely contribute to detrimental effects irrespective of the diagnostic group or the outcome considered.     

Dereliction of Duty Redux?: Post-Iraq American Civil-Military Relations

The protracted war in Iraq has exacerbated existing tensions and dysfunctional elements inherent in American civil-military relations. Many in the national security community were worried that civil-military relations were far from satisfactory well before the war.¹ For too long this dimension of “the American way of war” had been allowed to drift without resolution. The Iraq conflict could result in a further deterioration in this crucial component of strategic effectiveness due to mutual “scapegoating, blame-avoiding and willful institutional refusal to recognize and act on the sources of defeat.”² This essay explores the current precarious nature of civil-military relations in this country. It also explores the emergence of a “stab in the back” thesis among the military community, and various issues raised by the ongoing Long War. Based on this evaluation, the article concludes with some proposals to remedy or lessen the strains that exist today. These remedies seek to better define the compact and code of conduct that governs the overall relationship between the masters of policy and the dedicated servants we ask to carry out those policies.     

The purpose of theEuropean Journal of Law and Economics and the intentions of its editors

European Journal of Law and Economics -     

Federalism and the Safety Net: Delinkage and Participation Rates

Since the enactment of welfare reform legislation in 1996, thefederal government and the states have emphasized putting theneedy to work and reducing caseloads. Simultaneously, however,national policymakers delinked eligibility for cash assistancefrom eligibility for other safety-net benefits. Contrary tostated policy, though, this delinkage has led to declining participationin the case of Food Stamps and health-insurance programs forlow-income children. We highlight four factors that states mustshape if they are to narrow this gap between policy promiseand program performance by fostering higher participation. Weshow how our focus intersects with enduring questions of Americanfederalism—the level of state commitment to redistributiveprograms, their capacity to implement these programs effectively,and the degree to which states can augment governing capacityby becoming more genuine laboratories of democracy.