Health Care Opinion Leaders' Views on Health Reform, Implementation, and Post-Reform Priorities

Presents survey results on healthcare experts' views on the comprehensive health reform law enacted in March 2010, including premium subsidies, new insurance market rules, and alternative payment methods; implementation challenges; and long-term issues

Decentralization and the Fate of Minorities

This paper analyses the welfare effects of a change from centralized to decentralized political authority. The potential disadvantage with decentralization in our model is that local dominant groups with rather “extreme” preferences may win the vote and implement policies that harm the well-being of local minorities. When the national median voter represents a “moderate” position, centralization can be seen as a way of protecting the interests of local minorities. Our main result is that the centralized solution may welfare dominate decentralization even in the absence of scale economics and interregional spillovers. We also demonstrate that increased segregation, increased mobility, and increased heterogeneity in preferences, factors that are normally considered to be arguments in favor of decentralization, may reduce the attractiveness of the decentralized solution from a welfare perspective. Finally, we show that when the national median voter is an “extreme” type, decentralization may represent a way of protecting local minority interests.

Does Brexit Spell the Death of Transnational Law?

The British leave vote in the referendum on EU membership has important implications for how we think about law . The vote must be viewed as a manifestation of a globalized nationalism that we find in many EU member states and many other countries. As such, it is also a challenge of the idea of transnational law, forcefully introduced in Jessup’s book on Transnational law 60 years ago. In this paper, I suggest that the hope to return from transnational law to the nation state of the 19th century is nostalgic and futile. However, I argue that transnational law has its own nostalgia, carried over from the postwar period and no longer appropriate for our times. Transnational law, I argue, has become an elitist project. In order to remain fruitful, it must take serious the pleas of those who feel left out from it

Understanding parental gender preferences in advanced societies: Lessons from Sweden and Finland

Extending recent research on parental gender preferences in the Nordic countries, this study uses unique register data from Finland and Sweden (1971-1999) that provide us with the opportunity to compare childbearing dynamics and possible underlying sex preferences among natives and national minorities, namely Finnish-born immigrants in Sweden and members of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland. Moreover, our Swedish data allow us to investigate regional and educational differences in child-sex specific fertility behavior of two-child mothers in 1981-1999. For Finland, we observe a continuous boy preference among the national majority and the Swedish-speaking minority as reflected in higher third-birth rates of mothers of two girls than of mothers of two boys. Evidence of similar preferences is found for Finnish-born migrants in Sweden, where the native-born population appears to have developed a girl preference, though. In all cases, we also observe clear indications of a preference for having at least one child of each sex. Generally speaking, our findings support an interpretation of parental gender preferences as a longstanding cultural phenomenon, related to country of childhood socialization rather than language group. Our analysis of regional and educational differentials in Sweden reveals no evidence which supports diffusion theories of persistence and change in parents’ sex preferences for children.fertility, Finland, sex preferences, Sweden

Problems of categorizing and explaining party systems in Africa

Starting from controversial findings about the relationship between party systems and the prospects of democratic consolidation, this article argues that problems can only be properly addressed on the basis of a differentiated typology of party systems. Contradictory research results do not pose an ‘African puzzle’ but can be explained by different and inadequate approaches. We argue that a modified version of Sartori's typology of party systems provides an appropriate method for classifying African party systems. Based on Sartori's framework, a preponderance of predominant and dominant party systems is identified. This can partly be explained by the prevailing authoritarian nature of many multiparty regimes in Africa as well as by the ethnic plurality of African societies. High ethnic fragmentation is not transformed into highly fragmented party systems. This phenomenon can be attributed to the most frequent ‘ethnic congress party’ which is based on an ethnic elite coalition.Die Parteienforschung zu Afrika hat bisher widersprüchliche Befunde zum Zusammenhang von Parteiensystem und zu den Aussichten für eine demokratische Konsolidierung hervorgebracht. Die widersprüchlichen Ergebnisse lassen sich zunächst mit unterschiedlichen und unangemessenen Ansätzen erklären. Zur Lösung des Problems ist jedoch eine differenzierte Parteiensystemtypologie notwendig. Zu einer sinnvollen Klassifizierung afrikanischer Parteiensysteme kann auf die Typologie von Giovanni Sartori zurückgegriffen werden, die allerdings modifiziert werden muss. Auf dieser Grundlage kann dann das Vorherrschen dominanter und prädominanter Parteiensysteme in Afrika identifiziert werden. Diese können im Wesentlichen mit zwei Faktoren erklärt werden: 1. mit dem autoritären Charakter vieler Mehrparteienregime und 2. mit der ethnischen Pluralität afrikanischer Gesellschaften. Entgegen mancher Erwartungen äußert sich die hohe ethnische Fragmentierung nicht in hoch fragmentierten Parteiensystemen. Dieses Phänomen beruht wiederum darauf, dass es sich bei den weitaus meisten Parteien in Afrika um „ethnische Kongressparteien” handelt, die auf einer Koalition verschiedener ethnischer Eliten fußen

Shall We Overcome? Post-Racialism and Inclusion in the 21st Century

The subject of post-racialism has been rather topical since Barack Obama was elected President. I greatly appreciate this opportunity to reflect on the extent to which Americans have, or have not, transcended race. The topic interests me tremendously because for many years I have been an advocate for race and class integration, which I addressed at length in my book The Failures of Integration. In The Failures, my main argument for pursuing meaningful integration is that a nation premised on race and class separation renders the American Dream of residential choice leading to upward mobility impossibly expensive and out of reach for many people. Everyone is harmed in a nation of separate, racialized mobility tracks. Unfortunately, several current federal policies encourage rather than discourage racial segregation

Understanding parental gender preferences in advanced societies: lessons from Sweden and Finland

Extending recent research on parental gender preferences in the Nordic countries, this study uses unique register data from Finland and Sweden (1971-1999) that provide us with the opportunity to compare childbearing dynamics and possible underlying sex preferences among natives and national minorities, namely Finnish-born immigrants in Sweden and members of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland. Moreover, our Swedish data allow us to investigate regional and educational differences in child-sex specific fertility behavior of two-child mothers in 1981-1999. For Finland, we observe a continuous boy preference among the national majority and the Swedish-speaking minority as reflected in higher third-birth rates of mothers of two girls than of mothers of two boys. Evidence of similar preferences is found for Finnish-born migrants in Sweden, where the native-born population appears to have developed a girl preference, though. In all cases, we also observe clear indications of a preference for having at least one child of each sex. Generally speaking, our findings support an interpretation of parental gender preferences as a longstanding cultural phenomenon, related to country of childhood socialization rather than language group. Our analysis of regional and educational differentials in Sweden reveals no evidence which supports diffusion theories of persistence and change in parents’ sex preferences for children.Finland, Sweden, fertility, sex preference

Two Cheers for Czech Democracy

The paper discusses the state of Czech democracy and current research agendas on democracy in the Czech Republic, focusing in particular on the role of political parties. It considers Czech democracy both in relation to Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and in the light of the evolving relationship between CEE and Western Europe. It suggests that current CEE states such as the Czech Republic gradually approximating to models of West European-style party politics may need rethinking. It then examines democracy in the Czech Republic in relation to debates on democratic “backsliding”, arguing that in the Czech cases the principal “backsliding” risks lie less in the rise of authoritarian populists than a potential crisis of democratic representation driven by perceptions of corruption. The paper concludes with some suggestions about future avenues for research on Czech and CEE democracy

Problems of Categorizing and Explaining Party Systems in Africa

Starting from controversial findings about the relationship between party systems and the prospects of democratic consolidation, this article argues that problems can only be properly addressed on the basis of a differentiated typology of party systems. Contradictory research results do not pose an ‘African puzzle’ but can be explained by different and inadequate approaches. We argue that a modified version of Sartori's typology of party systems provides an appropriate method for classifying African party systems. Based on Sartori's framework, a preponderance of predominant and dominant party systems is identified. This can partly be explained by the prevailing authoritarian nature of many multiparty regimes in Africa as well as by the ethnic plurality of African societies. High ethnic fragmentation is not transformed into highly fragmented party systems. This phenomenon can be attributed to the most frequent ‘ethnic congress party’ which is based on an ethnic elite coalition.Africa, South of Sahara, party systems, conceptual analysis, democratisation,electoral system, social cleavage, ethnicity