286 research outputs found
Managing the Socially Marginalized: Attitudes Towards Welfare, Punishment and Race
Welfare and incarceration policies have converged to form a system of governance over socially marginalized groups, particularly racial minorities. In both of these policy areas, rehabilitative and social support objectives have been replaced with a more punitive and restrictive system. The authors examine the convergence in individual-level attitudes concerning welfare and criminal punishment, using national survey data. The authors\u27 analysis indicates a statistically significant relationship between punitive attitudes toward welfare and punishment. Furthermore, accounting for the respondents\u27 racial attitudes explains the bivariate relationship between welfare and punishment. Thus, racial attitudes seemingly link support for punitive approaches to opposition to welfare expenditures. The authors discuss the implications of this study for welfare and crime control policies by way of the conclusion
Peer expectations about outstanding competencies of men and women medical students
Men and women enrolled in a combined premedical-medical school programme were asked as they began their clinical training to rate their anticipated competence on sixteen criteria relevant to medical practice. Competence dimensions tapped scientific/technical skills, dedication/commitment, and interpersonal skills. Students then were asked to nominate one classmate whom they expected might beâthe bestâin each area. Self-ratings revealed few differences among men and women. Peer nominations, however, revealed a preponderance of male nominees in ten competence areas. Women dominated nominations only in the category of sensitivity to patients. Patterns persisted when peer nominations were controlled for studentsâacademic standing and self-ratings on parallel dimensions. The data suggest that medical school peer groups share expectations about competencies of men and women as physicians which are consistent with generalized sex stereotypes and career patterns of men and women physicians.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/74843/1/1467-9566.ep11340055.pd
Impact of tobacco industry and other corporations in the defeat of the 1994 Clinton health care plan
Abstract
Background: The primary reason cited by many scholars for the defeat of the Clinton Administrationâs 1994 health
care reform bill has long been identified as Health Insurance Association of America and National Federation of
Independent Businesses opposition to the bill. Given this predominant consensus combined with sizeable proposed
funding for the bill by a large tobacco product tax, this manuscript examined what the tobacco industryâs role was
in whole or part in defeating the Clinton health care bill.
Methods: This research occurred through crosschecking internal tobacco industry documents and Clinton White
House documents.
Results: Prior to the passage of the bill, the tobacco industry accepted a compromise of 45 cents per pack increase
phased in over five years. Due to this compromise, the industry or third party allies had no role in the ultimate
defeat in the bill.
Conclusions: The primary reason for the billâs ultimate defeat was general business (but not tobacco industry and
third party ally) opposition, the bill running out of time, and conflicting bills. Secondary reasons for the billâs defeat
included issues with: employer mandates, high taxes on insurance plans, impacts on medical research and
education, Congressional attention to other issues, election year politics, and possible future excise tax possibilities.Ye
Political Mediation and American Old-Age Security Exceptionalism
Debates over Americaâs heavy reliance on employer-provided private pensions have understated the profound role organized labor played after World War II. Archival evidence from prominent unions and business associations suggests that the shift in organized laborâs strategy after the New Deal toward electoral activity helps explain critical interventions by Northern Democrats into the system of private pensioning in the postwar period that laid the foundation for Americaâs old-age security system. Such a strategy was insufficient, however, to expand Social Security. This article offers a political mediation account of electoral activity as a source of labor influence on social policy that draws on political institutionalist and class power theories
Neoliberalism and the Far-Right: A Contradictory Embrace
This article examines the contradictory relationship between neoliberalism and the politics of the far-right. It seeks to identify and explain the divergence of the âeconomicâ and the social/cultural spheres under neoliberalism (notably in articulations of race and class and the âpolitics of whitenessâ) and how such developments play out in the politics of the contemporary far-right. We also seek to examine the degree to which the politics of the far-right pose problems for the consolidation and long-term stabilization of neoliberalism, through acting as a populist source of pressure on the conservative-right and tapping into sources of alienation amongst dĂ©classĂ© social layers. Finally, we locate the politics of the far-right within the broader atrophying of political representation and accountability of the neoliberal era with respect to the institutional and legal organization of neoliberalism at the international level, as most obviously highlighted in the ongoing crisis of the EU and Eurozone
Reversals of fortune: path dependency, problem solving, and temporal cases
Historical reversals highlight a basic methodological problem: is it possible to treat two successive periods both as independent cases to compare for causal analysis and as parts of a single historical sequence? I argue that one strategy for doing so, using models of path dependency, imposes serious limits on explanation. An alternative model which treats successive periods as contrasting solutions for recurrent problems offers two advantages. First, it more effectively combines analytical comparisons of different periods with narratives of causal sequences spanning two or more periods. Second, it better integrates scholarly accounts of historical reversals with actorsâ own narratives of the past
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