The death of machothink: Feminist research and the transformation of peace studies

When the life of every creature on this planet is in danger, as it is today, we all have a vested interest in peace research. But peace research tends to be male-biased and does not take into account the experiences and interests of women. Because it is skewed, it is weakened. Feminist research offers a badly needed corrective, and a transformative vision. Data on violence against women, on the links between violence against women and male violence in general, on the nature and experience of power and powerlessness, on mothering, and moral development, have significant implications for peace research. A feminist peace researvh would reground discussions of war and violence in the lived experiences of women, men and children. It would speak about and to all of us.     

Giving the reasonable patient a voice: information disclosure and the relevance of empirical evidence

In England the standard of risk disclosure required of doctors to avoid liability in negligence is governed by the Bolam test. The test is determined by what would be accepted as reasonable by the responsible doctor. Although able to lay down an independent standard, the courts have usually been guided by the medical expert's evidence. The judge's duty to scrutinise expert evidence was reaffirmed by the recent House of Lords ruling in Bolitho v City and Hackney HA. In Pearce v United Bristol Healthcare NHS Trust, Lord Woolf MR confirmed that this also applied to risk disclosure. Brazier & Miola argue that Pearce effectively introduces the prudent patient standard into English law. This paper examines that claim and considers whether it is justified by the Pearce judgment. The implications of Pearce are explored and, given the appeal to the concept of a material risk, I discuss the relevance of empirical research to determining the standard of disclosure. Finally, a small piece of empirical work is presented as an illustration of the pros and cons of such an approach and as a possible springboard for future research.     

A Simple Multivariate Test for Asymmetric Hypotheses

Michael J. Gilligan Department of Politics, New York University, 7th Floor, 726 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 Matt Golder Department of Political Science, Florida State University, 531 Bellamy Building, Tallahassee, FL 32306-2230 e-mail: wrclark{at}umich.edu (corresponding author) e-mail: michael.gilligan{at}nyu.edu e-mail: mgolder{at}fsu.edu In this paper, we argue that claims of necessity and sufficiencyinvolve a type of asymmetric causal claim that is useful inmany social scientific contexts. Contrary to some qualitativeresearchers, we maintain that there is nothing about such asymmetriesthat should lead scholars to depart from standard social sciencepractice. We take as given that deterministic and monocausaltests are inappropriate in the social world and demonstratethat standard multiplicative interaction models are up to thetask of handling asymmetric causal claims in a multivariate,probabilistic manner. We illustrate our argument with examplesfrom the empirical literature linking electoral institutionsand party system size.     

Reviews

Raymond H. Garthoff, The Great Transition: American‐Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War. Washington, DC: Brookings Books, 1994, 834 pp., $44.95 h/b, $19.95 p/b.

Nicholas Barr (ed.), Labor Markets and Social Policy in Central and Eastern Europe. New York: Oxford University Press/World Bank, 1994, xviii + 387 pp., $19.95 p/b.

E. A. Rees, Stalinism and Soviet Rail Transport, 1928–41. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1995, xiii + 307 pp., £45.00.

William J. Tompson, Khrushchev: A Political Life. Macmillan in association with St Antony's College, Oxford, 1994, ix + 341 pp., £25.00.

David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy 1939–1956. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994, xvi + 464 pp., £19.95.

Joseph L. Wieczynski (ed.), Operation Barbarossa: The German Attack on the Soviet Union, June 22, 1941. Salt Lake City: Charles Schlacks, Jr. Publisher, 1993, v + 339 pp.

Keith Sword, Deportation and Exile: Poles in the Soviet Union, 1939–48. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1994, xiii + 269 pp., £45.00.

Andrew Baruch Wachtel, An Obsession with History. Russian Writers Confront the Past. Stanford: Stanford University Press (available, outside North America, from Cambridge University Press), 1994, viii + 276 pp.

Beatrice Glatzer Rosenthal (ed.), Nietzsche and Soviet Culture: Ally and Adversary, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994, xvi + 421 pp.

Max Weber, The Russian Revolutions, trans, and ed. Gordon C. Wells & Peter Baehr, Cambridge, Polity, 1994, viii + 287 pp., £39.50.     

Social control and the censure(s) of sex

Sex/gender is a primary social censure which is fundamental to social relations of organization and control. This paper explains the concept of social censure — a new heuristic tool enabling the social theorist to move beyond an outmoded and distorting focus on deviance—and illustrates how social censures may be utilised as part of a critique of societies (exemplified by our own) which are deeply entrenched in the ideological censure of women, femininity and subversive masculinities.¹ Hegemonic masculinity is characteristically (re)created and (self)affirmed in the censure of femininities and subordinate masculinities. It is (re)constituted and consolidated through a complex network of formal and informal mechanisms, rooted in the construction of individual subjectivities and reproduced at the interweaving levels of collectivity and institution. Sex/gender censures are mediated by other primary censures such as race and socio-economic class. In struggling against censure we need to comprehend the pervasiveness, complexity and diversity of censuring practices, and the fixity of censure in social relations and individual psyches: the limits to resistance and the potentialites for change.     

The cost benefits of providing community-based correctional services: An evaluation of a statewide parole program in California

This was a cost-benefit study of a statewide program involving multiple community-based services for parolees in California. Program effectiveness was assessed by comparing program costs to incarceration costs avoided due to decreases in recidivism. During the first year following parole release, program participants on average stayed out of prison longer than the comparison population. Participants who completed any of the community-based services stayed out of prison substantially longer. The reductions in re-incarceration yielded a net saving of $21 million in incarceration costs over the study period, after the costs of the program and parole supervision were subtracted, or a 47 percent net return on each program dollar invested. This study did not include potential cost savings to other parties in the justice system. These findings suggest future investments in community-based correctional services might produce substantial financial benefits. A fuller apprehension of the potential benefits would benefit from continuing evaluations, including studies employing a true experimental design.