Performance health administration and the return of the French second empire

In the French health care system, cost-containment strategies have become the new priority. Novel instrumental values (e.g., benchmarking, incentivization or premiums, and Diagnostic-Related Groups) and reforms of the hospital governance via the 2009 HPST Act served an austerity agenda at the expense of more patient-centered approaches (e.g., patient choice and case management). Effecting actual changes proved more difficult than collecting data on the health system. Decision-making powers are increasingly concentrated within the welfare elite at the expense of the medical profession. Hence, a return to the earlier French tradition of Jacobinism. Transparency has yet to be achieved.     

Schools and Terrorism: Global Trends,Impacts, and Lessons for Resilience

This study characterizes trends in the frequency and characteristics of terrorist attacks in child-serving educational institutions around the world, examining the specific vulnerabilies of children and schools with regard to terrorist violence, as well as the various impacts that violence has on children, communities, and societies. Following the analysis of available data on terrorist attacks against educational institutions, vulnerabilities, and impacts, the study concludes with a discussion of what still needs to be understood in the intersection of child vulnerability and terrorism, and provides recommendations for improving resilience to terrorist attacks against child-serving educational institutions.     

Procedural Choice in Majoritarian Organizations

A puzzling feature of self‐governing organizations is persistent majority support for restrictive, seemingly nonmajoritarian, procedures (e.g., chairs and committees). This article provides a theory of self‐enforcing majoritarian commitment to restrictive procedures. We ask (1) why majorities consent to restrictive procedures in the first place, (2) why restrictive procedures survive challenges thereafter, and (3) with what policy consequences. In the model, a risk‐averse majority allocates procedural rights to increase procedural efficiency (i.e., reduce the procedural uncertainty of free‐for‐all bargaining). An equilibrium procedure is generally asymmetric and restrictive, generating nonmajoritarian policy bias. Still, a majority may persist in endorsing it so as to avoid amplifying procedural and policy uncertainty.