Introduction: International Perspectives on Health Policy

This special issue of Law & Policy examines legal, bioethical, and social science perspectives on the critical problems and choices arising from the rapid changes in the health care systems throughout the industrialized world. Advances in medical technology, the rising costs of health care, and the aging of the industrial populations have made health care a crucible for many of the broader policy concerns facing the world in the new millennium. The purpose of the special issue was for these issues to be addressed in a multidisciplinary forum, to add to the broader spectrum of socio–legal scholarship. Scholars from diverse countries examined a variety of issues from ethical, social science, and clinical perspectives.     

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN SAME‐GENDER RELATIONSHIPS

Physical violence occurs in 11–12% of same‐gender couples, which suggests that domestic violence is an abuse of power that can happen in any type of intimate relationship, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. Although incidents of violence occur at the same rate in same‐gender couples and cross‐gender couples, the violence appears to be milder in same‐gender couples and it is unclear what percentage of same‐gender violence should be characterized as abuse or intimate terrorism. Same‐gender victims also suffer from the additional stress of severe isolation and the abuser's threats to expose the victim's sexual orientation in a hostile manner.     

The Statecraft Effect: Assessment,Attitudes, and Academic Honesty

Abstract

This article uses a multimethod research design to compare Statecraft to non-Statecraft assignments and courses along three dimensions: student engagement, political attitudes, and academic honesty. The results indicate that Statecraft increased student engagement and academic honesty. In terms of political attitudes, students generally remained on the left side of the political spectrum, but shifted toward the right and became more hawkish by the end of a semester. Changes in attitude are more strongly associated not with playing Statecraft, but taking a political science class by the coauthor, or some other external variable. Statecraft, however, did reduce support for pacifism.     

The Dynamics of Euphemisation in Legal Language: An Analysis of Legal Terms Referring to People with Disabilities Used in Poland and Spain

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique - Socio-political developments can result in a change of perception of people with disabilities...     

Governance or Self-governance in Poland? Benefits and Threats 20 Years Later

The 1989–1990 revolution that took place in Poland as well as in the rest of central and east Europe led to fundamental changes at the local level. The aim of the decentralization reforms was to establish new governing structures and governance practices and to create local self-government as a strong local actor, autonomous from central control. The administrative, fiscal, and political decentralization was to change drastically the role of the central state by providing local authorities with a new set of responsibilities, fiscal resources, and the decision-making power to implement them. Such a shift also implied major clashes over power, resources, and group interests. Why then do such tensions continue to persist? What are the processes through which the central state is returning to the local level? This paper argues that the return of the central state and its increasingly visible presence at the local level is caused by persistent conflicts surrounding the form, structure, and function of the Polish state. These conflicts are aided by a weak civil society and fragmented party system. This paper will examine the case of Poland and ways through which the central state has been (and still is to the present day) imprinting its presence on local spaces of democracy and governance during the last two decades.     

Women’s History and Oral History: developments and debates

Women’s history and oral history grew up together. Each developed from a commitment to reveal and reverse, to challenge and to contest what were perceived to be dominant discourses framed by gender and class. In this article the relationship between these two endeavours is explored. Beginning with the 1960s the influence of feminist approaches to research and representation are given due consideration and acknowledgement. In reviewing changes over the last four decades the dilemma for women of being both subject and object in research is explored. The tension in this dilemma is discussed in relation to developments in relation to subjectivity in the interview, the process of doing oral history, the developments in public history and remembering in late life. The article concludes with an overview of new work in the field and concedes that, whatever issues remain unresolved, oral history continues to interest and attract researchers working in a wide range of disciplines with the promise of yet more theorised and gendered explorations of the past in years to come.     

Emotional Coregulation in Mexican-Origin Parent–Adolescent Dyads: Associations with Adolescent Mental Health

Research on the health benefits and consequences of close relationships has suggested the linkage in daily emotions (i.e., coregulation) between close partners is an important relationship dynamic. While the coupling of daily emotions among family members (parent–child and marital dyads) has been widely documented, research examining emotional coregulation among ethnic minority youth during adolescence, a period marked by heightened emotion and risk for psychopathology, remains an important area in need of exploration. This study examined correlates of emotional coregulation in a sample of Mexican-origin adolescents (M_age?=?15.02, SD?=?.83) and their parents (M_age?=?41.93, SD?=?6.70). Dyads reported on daily levels of distress and happiness for 14 consecutive days across two waves of data collection a year apart (n_wave1?=?428 dyads, n_wave2?=?336 dyads). Dyads who reported getting along were more likely to coregulate their daily happiness. Importantly, coregulation of distress was only present in older adolescents who reported above average levels of internalizing symptoms. The results suggest coregulation of distress may shape or be shaped by poor mental health during the later years of adolescence, a time when youth may be establishing a degree of emotional autonomy from parents.