Risk factors for unintentional poisoning in children aged 1–3 years in NSW Australia: a case–control study

BACKGROUND: Unintentional poisoning in young children is an important public health issue. Age pattern studies have demonstrated that children aged 1–3 years have the highest levels of poisoning risk among children aged 0–4 years, yet little research has been conducted regarding risk factors specific to this three-year age group and the methodologies employed varied greatly. The purpose of the current study is to investigate a broad range of potential risk factors for unintentional poisoning in children aged 1–3 years using appropriate methodologies. METHODS: Four groups of children, one case group (children who had experienced a poisoning event) and three control groups (children who had been ‘injured’, ‘sick’ or who were ‘healthy’), and their mothers (mother-child dyads) were enrolled into a case–control study. All mother-child dyads participated in a 1.5-hour child developmental screening and observation, with mothers responding to a series of questionnaires at home. Data were analysed as three case–control pairs with multivariate analyses used to control for age and sex differences between child cases and controls. RESULTS: Five risk factors were included in the final multivariate models for one or more case–control pairs. All three models found that children whose mothers used more positive control in their interactions during a structured task had higher odds of poisoning. Two models showed that maternal psychiatric distress increased poisoning risk (poisoning-injury and poisoning-healthy). Individual models identified the following variables as risk factors: less proximal maternal supervision during risk taking activities (poisoning-injury), medicinal substances stored in more accessible locations in bathrooms (poisoning-sick) and lower total parenting stress (poisoning-healthy). CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study indicate that the nature of the caregiver-child relationship and caregiver attributes play an important role in influencing poisoning risk. Further research is warranted to explore the link between caregiver-child relationships and unintentional poisoning risk. Caregiver education should focus on the benefits of close interaction with their child as a prevention measure

Contestation or Complicity: Civil Society as Antidote or Accessory to Political Corruption

Corruption interferes with and distorts the political and implementation processes, often to the disadvantage of the already disadvantaged. Yet our understanding of the factors that might propel a political system from lower to higher levels of probity (or vice versa) remains speculative at best. This article examines the role of one category of actors often touted as an important agent of change: civil society organizations. Considerable theoretical and empirical work exists on the expected and observed benefits of civil society for democracy more generally. Few studies have systematically examined the relationship between the richness of associational life and the quality of governance in a country. Moreover, several parallel theoretical accounts exist regarding the mechanism through which civil society might enhance government performance but few studies examine the relative explanatory merit of these theoretical accounts. This study addresses both of these gaps. The results show that civil society does have some bearing on the extent to which corruption exists in a country, and that the primary mechanism seems to be that civil society engages in contestation and representation of public interests. Two other theoretical accounts – that associations build social capital and therefore reduce corruption, and that welfare services provided by civil society organizations are less susceptible to corruption – receive less robust support in these data

The conditions of successful civil society involvement in combating corruption: A survey of case study evidence

Corruption interferes with and distorts the political and implementation processes, often to the disadvantage of the already disadvantaged. Yet our understanding of the factors that might propel a political system from lower to higher levels of probity (or vice versa) remains speculative at best. This article examines the role of one category of actors often touted as an important agent of change: civil society organizations. Considerable theoretical and empirical work exists on the expected and observed benefits of civil society for democracy more generally. Few studies have systematically examined the relationship between the richness of associational life and the quality of governance in a country. The results show that civil society does have some bearing on the extent to which corruption exists in a country, and that the primary mechanism seems to be that civil society engages in contestation and representation of public interests

Good Government in Mexico: The Relevance of the Gender Perspective

A number of studies explore the link between gender and good government, and confirm the cor-relation first observed by Dollar et al (2001): the number of women in elected office is related to levels of corruption. These studies build on cross-country comparative analyses and have thus far failed to discern whether the observed correlation indicates causation or whether both derive from successful liberal democratic project. We explore these issues in an analysis at the subnational level in Mexico. Using several waves of data from a bribe-payers survey conducted by Transparencia Mexicana, we examine the dynamic interrelationship between women in government and levels of corruption over time. The results suggest that levels of corruption affect women’s ability to enter the political arena, but that once in political office, the presence of women in government contributes to reducing corruption. While the latter finding is somewhat less certain, we subject the hypothesis to a rigorous test, as the analyses consider whether female representation is linked to change in the prevalence of bribe-paying between 2001 and 2010

Disruptive Protests and Bureaucratic Structures in Latin America and the Caribbean

The paper examines why citizens in some democracies engage in disruptive political actions to a larger extent than in other countries. Our hypothesis adds to previous research that focuses on individual factors, representational issues or discontent with public sector performance to explain the occurrence of disruptive protests. We hypothesize that a more politically controlled administration introduces turbulence in democracies, especially where civil society is strong. A public administration heavily controlled by politicians, and staffed to a large extent with politically appointed individuals, allows politicians to intervene in policy implementation and favor some groups over others in terms of access to public services and employment. Such a system may induce citizens to resort to disruptive actions to express demands and grievances, and secure access to public goods. We test this argument empirically on data from 19 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The findings are consistent with the hypothesis

Curbing Corruption through Social Welfare Program? The effects of Mexico's conditional cash transfer program on good government

Conditional cash transfer programs, an innovation in social welfare administration, have shown tremendous promise as a means of enhancing human capital and reducing leakage of public resources through corruption. While numerous studies examine the effects of the program on human capital indicators in Mexico and various other countries that have adopted the approach, little is known about the effects of these programs on levels of corruption and on political life more generally. Using data on Mexico’s 31 states from Transparency International Mexico, the Federal Register of Civil Society Organizations and the national census, this paper analyses whether conditional cash transfers have any bearing on corruption but also on two other aspects of political life argued to affect government probity in the long term: the density of civil society organizations and empowerment of women. The conclusions are encouraging with respect to reducing corruption but rather dismal regarding the effects on civil society and women empowerment

Seeing the State: The Implications of Transparency for Societal Accountability

International organizations and NGOs promote transparency as a necessary condition for enhancing accountability and curbing corruption. Transparency is predicted to deter corruption in part by increasing the opportunities for inter-institutional oversight and formal accountability, but also by expanding the possibilities for societal accountability, i.e. for citizens to monitor, scrutinize and hold public office holders accountable. While the societal accountability mechanism linking transparency and good government is often implied, it contains a number of assumptions seldom examined empirically. This study theoretically unpacks and explores empirically how transparency may influence good government via the mechanism of societal accountability, that is, by inciting reactions and responses from citizens. Using data compiled by the Quality of Government Institute, we show that increased transparency prompts different public reactions in countries with comparatively higher levels of corruption than in low corrupt countries. The data indicate that in corrupt countries, transparency, counter to many predictions, erodes political trust but stimulates civic engagement. The findings suggest that transparency may incite discontent and civic mobilization in the short term, contributing to greater accountability and better government in the long term

The Civic Benefits of Imperfect Deliberation

Normative theories of deliberative democracy stake claims that deliberation, if done correctly, can enhance citizens’ trust in authorities, foster a greater understanding of political issues and the element of compromise in politics, and increase the legitimacy of the political system overall. Skeptics point out that public deliberations seldom fully satisfy the communicative criteria stipulated in normative theory, raising the question: to what extent may we expect imperfect deliberations to generate the promised civic goods? This article proposes a framework for answering this question and also offers a few preliminary answers. The empirical analyses build on an opinion survey conducted in the wake of a series of public meetings that varied in the extent to which they lived up to normative standards of deliberative democracy. The meetings centered around whether to continue construction on a railway tunnel near the town of Båstad in southwestern Sweden. The findings suggest that even imperfect deliberation may have the potential to generate civic goods, though the analyses also raise doubts regarding the durability of the positive effects as well as the extent to which they will develop uniformly among participants