The Psychological Impact of Traumatic Events on Children

The past decade has seen accumulating research detailing the psychological consequences of a range of traumatic events upon children and young people. This paper summarizes some of the psychological consequences, including posttraumatic stress disorder, and describes the presentation and course in children. Treatment studies are reviewed and the need for further research with children involved in a range of events highlighted. In particular, there is a need to develop and evaluate early interventions and to identify factors that mediate or moderate negative consequences.     

Equal reproduction rights? The right to found a family in United Nations’ disability policy since the 1970s

ABSTRACT

With the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) in 2006, disability as an issue of human rights and international law can no longer be ignored. The history of this convention can be traced back to the 1970s, when disability was framed in United Nations (UN) declarations as a human-rights issue at the global level. One of the recurrent topics of debate during this trajectory was the right of people with disabilities to found a family. This right was far from self-evident and was evaluated very differently by various stakeholders.

This study follows the right to have a family in UN disability policy since the 1970s. The history of the family in relation to disability at the global level has been a neglected field of enquiry compared to other concepts such as gender and race. This study investigates how and why the right to found a family was framed in the Declarations on the Rights of Mentally Disabled Persons (1971) and Disabled Persons (1975), the International Year of Disabled Persons (1981), the International Decade of Disabled Persons (1983 ? 1992), the Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (1993) and the UNCRPD in 2006.

The trajectory of the right of people with disabilities to found a family that emerges from these cases shows a change in the 1990s from a social-policy to a human-rights approach towards disability – which reflects a broader trend in global and local histories of human rights. In the case of reproductive rights of people with disabilities this change meant that the emphasis was laid more on providing a legal protection for the individual against the interference of others (so-called negative freedom) than on enhancing the opportunities for disabled people to practice their (positive) freedom.     

Reevaluating the Chávez Regime: Participatory Democracy or Rentier Populism?

This analysis evaluates the Chávez regime by its own standard for democracy and citizenship, what it referred to as protagonistic, participatory democracy. Rather than committing itself to the realisation of this project, and the expanded notion of citizenship that it entailed, the Chávez regime employed the rhetoric of participatory democracy in the service of populist rule. As a result, it failed to promote the participatory form of democracy and citizenship promised in Twenty-first Century Socialism. Accordingly, this analysis demonstrates how the concentration of top-down, executive power characteristic of rentier populism impedes the egalitarian and solidaristic mission of participatory democracy.     

Legislatures and their past: The History of Parliament project and the significance of history

Using interviews with Conservative MPs, three aspects of the Poll Tax not covered by the extant literature are examined. Conservative backbenchers are shown to be more supportive of the tax than in previous accounts. The nature and effect of both the legal and non‐legal protests against the Poll Tax are discussed. The effect of petitioning is found to be minor, but the amount and (especially) the nature of post which MPs received had more impact. Other than the quantity, five characteristics are identified which contributed to making this post more significant than other ‘issue’ post received by MPs. The extra‐parliamentary action is also shown to have had a surprisingly strong effect on Conservative MPs.