我国儿童早期照顾政策框架构建——基于资源平等理论视角

我国儿童早期照顾领域存在照顾责任公私分担失衡、照顾资源分布不均、照顾劳动性别分工和代际分工不合理等现象,亟待公共政策干预。立足我国现实,以德沃金的资源平等理论作为伦理基础,可提出儿童早期照顾政策的伦理依据,即以保障儿童与母亲权利为核心原则,以保障父母工作-家庭平衡、祖辈老年权益为辅助原则。在政策分析中,首先基于政策网络模型,阐述政策行动者的网络定位及他们在网络间的互动关系,厘清不同行动者之间的资源与权力交换机制;然后利用图尔敏结构模型,提出具有开放性和包容性的政策方案,并最终形成旨在保障儿童和照顾者权利、促进家庭和社会发展的我国儿童早期照顾政策框架。     

“多无一体”的困境:我国养老服务体系的一个理解路径

我国养老服务模式的特点是政府主导下的“多元一体”,即“多元”参与者从属于政府主导的“一体”。这一模式的背景是我国在快速老龄化的过程中,政府、市场、社会多元主体的“缺失”。因此21世纪初开始了政府主动发育市场和社会的“社会福利社会化”的过程。但是目前仍存在市场发育和社会发育的困境:市场困境的主要问题在于公共筹资的不足导致没有形成足够购买力的市场,以及公共资源的配置结构造成公平性欠缺;而社会困境的主要问题则在于政府发育出的社会仍有更多行政化的特点,而缺乏一定程度的独立性。足够的筹资和恰当的支付方式,以及一定程度的独立,是走出困境的关键。     

中外犯罪构成比较研究

刑法学领域有三种犯罪构成模式 ,这三种犯罪构成并没有本质的区别 ,只是认识问题的切入点和思维的方式不同而已。以“分析性思维”为特点的西方人和以“对立统一之综合性思维”为特点的中国人在社会危害性分析的基础上形成了不同的犯罪构成理论。我国的犯罪构成在节省司法资源、保障人权等方面要优于国外的犯罪构成。     

实践"三个代表" 关爱生活困难职工

实现人民的愿望、满足人民的需要、维护人民的利益,是"三个代表"重要思想的根本出发点和落脚点.随着改革的深化和企业改制工作的深入,企业职工下岗失业的人数逐渐增多,相当一部分职工在失去工作岗位和工资收入减少的情况下,导致家庭收支失衡、生活陷入困境,进而形成新的生活困难职工群体.目前,关爱、帮扶、济助生活困难职工群众,是新形势下工会贯彻落实"三个代表"重要思想、履行工会当好生活困难职工"第一责任人"的一项重要职责.     

Dilemmas for clinicians in use of Community Treatment Orders

Clinicians who treat patients using Community Treatment Orders (CTOs) face many potential dilemmas in their relations with involuntary outpatients and the exercise of their powers. We compare the dilemmas identified in the literature with those reported by responsible clinicians in New Zealand (NZ). These clinicians experienced a number of well-known dilemmas, such as determining the right moment for a person's discharge from a CTO, but they seemed less troubled by some other difficulties than might be expected, usually because they considered involuntary outpatient treatment the best option for the patient or the best way to manage the risks involved. Further dilemmas were identified by the NZ clinicians that have not been widely discussed, concerning the proper scope of clinical authority over patients under CTOs and the decision to revoke involuntary outpatient status. In conclusion, some suggestions are made as to how clinicians might best manage the dilemmas involved.     

Legal Practice and Modes of Dying: Bruno Latour,Technology and the Critical Legal Instance

Few who have ever observed the workings of a legal office would have witnessed a lawyer engaged in file management. Of course, lawyers, together with their clients, will construct the narrative that makes up the file, but the lawyer will not store it, nor see that it is properly labeled, nor ensure that its contents are in place, nor dust it, nor, finally, remove it for disposal at the end of whatever time is deemed sufficient for it to perform all of its functions. At a time when lawyers are being criticized for their levels of client care this paper explores the opportunities that the handling of the legal file affords for the development of an ethic of care that can then be transposed more broadly across legal practice. The essence of the argument is that the legal file is (as much as the client) a proper object of care, and that the care of the file – its maintenance and management – is an appropriate objective for lawyers, and necessary for the development of a legal profession that is truly ‘client-centered’. The argument is developed in three parts, and is largely informed by Bruno Latour’s works on being and technology as developed in We Have Never Been Modern, Aramis or the Love of Technology, and particularly, in an essay, published in 2002, entitled ‘Technology and Morality: The Ends of the Means’. The first part explores how the handling of the legal file exposes those engaged in this activity to legal histories, legal philosophies and legal ethics. The second part explores the content or nature of the obligation of care owed toward the file by the keeper of the file. It argues that the legal file represents human passions quelled or suppressed by legal conflict, and that ‘technical action’, falling broadly under the rubric of maintenance and handling, are ways in which care is expressed when the object of care is supine, dead or passing. The concluding part advances the care of technology as a means of preventing technological domination, or, in the terms of legal practice, the care of the file as a means of deflecting the development of a file culture.     

Dancing on the head of a pin? Foetal life and the european convention

The case of Vo v. France represents the latest phase of the European Court of Human Rights’ thinking on the scope of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to life) in relation to foetal life where a foetus had been lost owing to a medical accident. The Court by a majority decided that, “even assuming” Article 2 applied to the instant case (albeit to the life of the pregnant woman rather than that of the foetus), it had not been violated. While the facts in Vo were extreme and exceptional, the Court will shortly hear the case of D v. Ireland concerning access to abortion for foetal anomaly, an application made under Articles 3, 8, 10 and 14 of the European Convention. If the case of D were declared admissible, the Court would then have to consider whether a denial of access to abortion for foetal anomaly constitutes inhuman and degrading treatment contrary to Article 3, or an interference with a pregnant woman’s right to respect for private life under Article 8 (and if so, how the doctrine of the margin of appreciation applies). The Grand Chamber precedent of Vo displays ambivalence about whether Article 2 should apply to foetal life, and its resort to the “even assuming” formula spared Member States the difficulty of having to justify their various abortion regimes, by reference to this Article. It remains to be seen whether in a case like D that is directly concerned with abortion, the Court will take a more definite stance on the correct balance to be struck between the State’s interest in protecting foetal life and the Convention rights of pregnant women. Vo v. France [G.C.], judgment of 8th -July 2004, no. 53924/00; D v. Ireland [4th section], no. 26499/02, oral hearing on admissibility and merits, 6 September 2005     

Recognising Family Diversity: the ‘Boundaries’ of <Emphasis Type="Italic">RE G</Emphasis>

In Re G, the Court of Appeal awarded a joint residence order to the appellant, who was the lesbian ex-partner of the child’s full biological mother. The award also indirectly vested the appellant, a social parent, with parental responsibility and extended a body of case law to same-sex couples, which had until now only been applied to heterosexual couples. The initial purpose of this note is to outline the legal issues of the case in the context of the framework of parental responsibility set out in the Children Act 1989, putting forward a test of ‘parental fitness’ (which focuses on active ‘care’ as its central consideration) for social parents who must appeal to the court’s discretion to obtain parental responsibility. Secondly, the note offers at once a positive reading of Re G while highlighting a number of reservations centring upon continued legal preference for the ‘sexual family’. It is argued that while the legal recognition of ‘family diversity’ and parenthood remains modelled on this ‘sexual family’, the relaxation of family ‘boundaries’ (despite legal victories such as Re G) will remain limited. Re G (Children) [2005] E.W.C.A. (Civ.) 462     

Equity and the allocation of health care resources: Proposition or oxymoron?

The rate of changes in the allocation of health care resources has escalated in the past decade in an attempt to provide for cost containment and a more equitable distribution while retaining quality of care. In this issue, economists, physicians, psychologists, and sociologists examine the current health care environment for evidence relevant to the effect of these changes and provide a guideline for future direction.     

Locating the Issue Public: The Multi-Dimensional Nature of Engagement with Health Care Reform

This research examines in detail the structure of the issue public for health care reform, drawing from extensive, nationally representative survey data tapping general attentiveness to news and public affairs, specific interests in health care issues, and motivations (e.g., personal health and financial conditions) to follow health care reform issues. We furthermore adopt a multi-dimensional approach to defining the contours of the issue public for health care policy, separately studying its cognitive, affective, and behavioral underpinnings. Results indicate only weak interconnections across these dimensions—measured through health care knowledge, holding strong opinions on health care issues, and participation in health-related political activities, respectively—and somewhat different structural and motivational patterns underlying each. Theoretical, conceptual and methodological implications of these findings are discussed.Vincent Price and Joseph N. Cappella are Professors in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, where Clarissa David, Brian Goldthorpe, and Marci McCoy Roth are doctoral students. Gathering of the data reported here was supported by grants to Vincent Price and Joseph N. Cappella from The National Science Foundation (Grant EIA-0306801) and the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. Views expressed are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect opinions of the sponsoring agencies.