Access to health care for undocumented migrants: a comparative policy analysis of England and the Netherlands

The presence of undocumented migrants is increasing in many Western countries despite wide-ranging attempts by governments to increase border security. Measures taken to control the influx of immigrants include policies that restrict access to publicly funded health care for undocumented migrants. These restrictions to health care access are controversial, and evidence suggests they do not always have the intended effect. This study provides a comparative analysis of institutional, actor-related, and contextual factors that have influenced health care policy development on undocumented migrants in England and the Netherlands. For undocumented migrants, England restricts its access to care at the point of service, while the Netherlands restricts through the payment system for services. The study includes an analysis of policy papers and semistructured, in-depth interviews with various actors in both countries. Findings confirm the influence of such contextual factors as immigration considerations and cost concerns on health care policy making in this area. However, these factors cannot explain the differences between the two countries. Previously enacted policies, especially the organization of the health care system, affected the kind of restrictions for undocumented migrants. Concerns about the side effects of generous treatment of undocumented migrants on other groups played a substantial role in formulating restrictive policies in both countries. Evidently, policy development and implementation is critically affected by institutional rules, which govern the degree of influence that doctors and professional medical associations have on the policy process.     

Differentiating Factitious from Malingered Symptomatology: the Development of a Psychometric Approach

Psychometric symptom validity assessment is becoming increasingly part and parcel of psychological and neuropsychological assessments. An unresolved and rarely addressed issue concerns the differentiation between factitious and malingered symptom presentations: present-day symptom validity tests can assess whether an examinee presents with noncredible symptomatology, but not why an examinee does so. We explored this issue by developing the Symptom and Disposition Interview (SDI); a symptom validity test that incorporates strategies intended to gauge internal incentives associated with factitious disorder. The merits of the SDI were explored and compared to a traditional symptom validity test (the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology) in two analogue studies, each with factitious and malingering conditions (n = 24–30 per condition) and a clinical control group (n = 34, n = 40). Overall, the results were positive: The SDI was as effective in detecting feigned symptom presentations as a traditional symptom validity test and superior in differentiating factitious from malingered symptom presentations. We conclude that the SDI is not ready for clinical use, but that psychometric approaches to the assessment of factitious symptomatology, such as the SDI, appear sufficiently promising to warrant future research.     

Different farming styles behind the homogenous soy production in southern Brazil

Soy is often perceived as a typical example of a homogenous capitalist agricultural model that is responsible for ecological damage and social conflicts. But this monolithic perception of soy production can be challenged: more than 30 percent of the soy producers in Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil) are family farmers. In this contribution, we study soy production, the soy producers and their institutional environment from an actor-oriented perspective. We have uncovered different farming styles behind soy production: the colonial farmer, the niche farmer and the entrepreneurial farmer. The farming styles differ from each other not only in the farming system, but also in attitudes (for example, towards the forest). We found that the institutional environment and the technology are mainly focused on the entrepreneurial farmer. However, also, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) neglect the existence of small-scale soy producers. These results have several repercussions for further analysis of this problematic crop and how it can shift towards a more sustainable agricultural production model as small-scale farmers might produce soy more sustainably.     

The Influence of Self-Threats on Fairness Judgments and Affective Measures

This paper focuses on the question of why fairness matters to people. Extending on terror and uncertainty management theories and the literature on the self, it is proposed here that fairness can be a means of self-defense. Thinking of a situation that is threatening to the self therefore should make fairness a more important issue to people. The findings of two experiments support this line of reasoning: Asking participants to think about things that are threatening to themselves led to stronger reactions to manipulations of both procedural and distributive fairness. In the discussion it is argued that these findings suggest that fairness especially matters to people when they are trying to deal with threats to their selves.     

How established parties reduce other parties’ electoral support: the strategy of parroting the pariah

In every democracy, established political parties are challenged by other parties. Established parties react in various ways to other parties’ presence. A key hypothesis in the relevant literature is that established parties can decrease another party’s electoral support by parroting it, i.e. adopting its core policy issue position. This article argues, and demonstrates empirically, that this hypothesised effect mainly occurs in the event that a critical prerequisite is in place. Parroting a party decreases its support only if that party is ostracised at the same time. The article classifies a party as ostracised if its largest established competitor systematically rules out all political cooperation with it. Analysing 296 election results of 28 West European parties (1944–2011), evidence is found for a parrot effect – however, concerning ostracised parties only. On several occasions established parties have substantially decreased another party’s support by simultaneously parroting that party and ostracising it.     

Be like bees - the politics of mobilizing farmers for development in Tigray, Ethiopia

Based on long-term ethnographic research, this article analysesthe relations between local politics and farmers’ participationin rural development in Tigray (Ethiopia). It takes an actor-orientedapproach and focuses on local government officials and farmerrepresentatives, who mediate between the government agenciesthat undertake rural development programmes and the farmerswhom they address. To reach the target numbers of programmebeneficiaries, these local development brokers ‘mobilize’farmers to participate. They capitalize upon the historicallegitimacy of the 1975–91 revolution against the militaryDerg dictatorship in which the Tigray People's Liberation Front(TPLF), now heading the national government, and Tigray's ruralpopulation successfully joined forces. They revitalize farmers’collective memory of this alliance and reinvent the revolutionarygrassroots institutions through which it was realized. The effectsof mobilization on participation in development are most evidentamong farmers who are members of the TPLF. A TPLF-developmentnexus arises, structuring local political career opportunitiesalong the lines of development. The case study attempts to contributeto an empirical understanding of the entanglement of local politicsand local development brokerage in rural African societies.