Book reviews

Michael Waller, Peace, Power and Protest: Eastern Europe in the Gorbachev Era, London: Institute for the Study of Conflict, 1988 (Conflict Study No.209). Pp.27. £5.50.

Paul Leventhal and Yonah Alexander (eds.), Nuclear Terrorism: Defining the Threat. Washington: Pergamon‐Brassey's, 1986. Pp.vii + 218. NP.

Paul Leventhal and Yonah Alexander (eds.), Preventing Nuclear Terrorism. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1987. Pp.xviii + 472. NP.

Paul Wilkinson and Alasdair M. Stewart (eds.), Contemporary Research on Terrorism. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1987. Pp.xx + 634. £45.

Richard E. Rubenstein, Alchemists of Revolution: Terrorism in the Modern World. New York: Basic Books, 1987. Pp.ix + 272. $17.95.

James Adams, Secret Armies. London: Hutchinson, 1988. Pp.440. £14.95.

David C. Martin and John Walcott, Best Laid Plans: The Inside Story of America's War Against Terrorism. New York: Harper & Row, 1988. Pp. 392 $22.50.     

Medical Error and Patient Safety: Understanding Cultures in Conflict

Evidence documenting the high rate of medical errors to patients has taken a prominent place on the health care radar screen. The injuries and deaths associated with medical errors represent a major public health problem with significant economic costs and erosion of trust in the health care system. Between 44,000 and 98,000 deaths due to preventable medical errors are estimated to occur each year, making medical errors the eighth leading cause of death in the United States. However, the recent prominence of the issue of safety or error does not reflect a new phenomenon or sudden rift in the quality of health care (although it is a system fraying at the edges). Rather, the prominence of the issue reflects a radical change in the culture of health care, and in how relationships within the health care system are structured and perceived. In this paper, I discuss the multiple factors responsible for the change in the culture of health care. First, the culture has shifted from a clinician cantered system, in which decision making is one–sided, to a shared system of negotiated care between clinician and patient, and, often, between administrator or payer. Second, the nature of quality in health care has changed due to the geometric increase in the availability of technological and pharmaceutical enhancements to patient care. Third, the health care culture continues to rely on outdated models of conflict resolution. Finally, the regulatory structure of health system oversight was set in place when fee–for–service care governed physician–patient relationships and where few external technologies were available. In the current health care culture, that structure seems inadequate and diffuse, with multiple and overlapping federal and state regulatory structures that make implementation of patient safety systems difficult.     

Race and Determinations of Discrimination: Vigilance,Cynicism, Skepticism,and Attitudes about Legal Mobilization in Employment Civil Rights

What factors affect whether ordinary citizens believe that workplace decisions involving African‐American employees rise to the level of discrimination? When do observers believe targets of possible race discrimination should consider mobilizing the law? We use a factorial design vignette study administered to a nationally representative sample of 2,087 ordinary people to address these questions. The “vigilance hypothesis” predicts that minorities will be more likely to perceive discrimination than whites. Our analysis partially confirms this: African Americans perceive anti‐Black discrimination at higher rates than do whites and Latinos, while Latinos do not show a significant difference from whites. Where respondents believe discrimination occurred, we analyze what influences whether respondents might recommend legal mobilization. The “cynicism hypothesis” suggests that people of color may be less likely to favor using law. We find, however, that African‐American and Latino respondents express more confidence in civil litigation, compared to whites. Further, African Americans express the strongest support for legal mobilization (recommending that a “friend” contact an attorney), while whites and Latinos do not differ in mobilization recommendations.     

Review Symposium: Interdisciplinary Readings of Ari Z. Bryen's Violence in Roman Egypt: Where Law,Violence, and Culture Collide: A Sociolegal Reading of Violence in Everyday Life

Bryen, Ari Z. 2013 . Violence in Roman Egypt: A Study of Legal Interpretation . Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pp. 376. $75.00 cloth; $75.00 eBook. This comment considers Ari Bryen's Violence in Roman Egypt (2013) from sociological and sociolegal perspectives. Although Bryen is a historian, and his site of inquiry is second‐century Roman Egypt, he turns to contemporary sociologists and law and society scholars to highlight the interplay between law and the social world in the construction of violence. In doing so, he finds a new way to analyze the role of law as a cultural resource for nonelites to make sense of their social world but also to change it (albeit with limits) through law.