Linkage Politics and the Persistence of National Policy Autonomy in Emerging Powers: Patents, Profits, and Patients in the Context of TRIPS Compliance

The Trade Related Intellectual Property Agreement (TRIPS) has had a profound effect on industrialization and innovation, as well as access to medicines in cases of public health crisis such as HIV/AIDS. However, compliance with TRIPS has varied in developing countries, despite heightened international pressure. For instance, Brazil has pursued a coherent approach to its HIV/AIDS health crisis, while India has failed to take care of its HIV patients despite late compliance with the TRIPS agreement and the presence of business firms that produce the generic medicines for HIV/AIDS. This article suggests that divergence in TRIPS compliance is the result of a linkage politics, in which global variables (global rules, global supply chains and global networks) reach into the domestic political economy to alter the interests and capabilities of domestic actors. Indian pharmaceutical firms have developed external and export interests that lower incentives for the Indian state to design a nationally relevant public health policy, while the Brazilian health movement with its societal and external linkages puts pressure on the Brazilian state to defend the interests of its HIV patients even at the cost of patents. We conclude by suggesting that linkage politics is better at helping us understand compliance with international agreements than existing explanations, with important consequences for the effectiveness of international institutions

Transitional Justice and Civil War: Exploring New Pathways, Challenging Old Guideposts

Transitional justice has shifted from its primary use in addressing past atrocities of authoritarian regimes to those acts of violence committed during civil wars. Yet the use of transitional justice mechanisms in this new context is not well understood. Drawing from the existing transitional justice literature, this article generates a set of testable hypotheses to explore which factors influence the use of particular mechanisms during and after conflict. It then tests those hypotheses in 151 cases of civil war by using a cross-national data base of all countries in the world and their adoption of transitional justice </p

Human Rights in the Oil and Gas Industry: When are Policies and Practices Enough to Prevent Abuse?

Multinational enterprises are aware of their responsibility to protect human rights now more than ever, but severe human rights violations, including physical integrity abuses (e.g., death, torture, disappearances), continue unabated. To explore this puzzle, we engage theoretically with the means-ends decoupling literature to examine if and when oil and gas firms’ policies and practices prevent severe human rights abuse. Using an original dataset, we identify two pathways to mitigate means-ends decoupling: (a) while human rights policies alone do not reduce human rights abuses, firms with a high-quality human rights policy over the long-term reduce severe human rights abuses; (b) firms that combine preparedness—which we define as a firm’s capabilities, practices, and engagement—with a long-term human rights policy also reduce the likelihood of human rights abuses. Preparedness, we argue, can lead to reinforcement dynamics between long-term policy efforts and additional capabilities that provide a more holistic understanding of firm behavior

May Measurement Month 2018: a pragmatic global screening campaign to raise awareness of blood pressure by the International Society of Hypertension

Aims Raised blood pressure (BP) is the biggest contributor to mortality and disease burden worldwide and fewer than half of those with hypertension are aware of it. May Measurement Month (MMM) is a global campaign set up in 2017, to raise awareness of high BP and as a pragmatic solution to a lack of formal screening worldwide. The 2018 campaign was expanded, aiming to include more participants and countries. Methods and results Eighty-nine countries participated in MMM 2018. Volunteers (≥18 years) were recruited through opportunistic sampling at a variety of screening sites. Each participant had three BP measurements and completed a questionnaire on demographic, lifestyle, and environmental factors. Hypertension was defined as a systolic BP ≥140 mmHg or diastolic BP ≥90 mmHg, or taking antihypertensive medication. In total, 74.9% of screenees provided three BP readings. Multiple imputation using chained equations was used to impute missing readings. 1 504 963 individuals (mean age 45.3 years; 52.4% female) were screened. After multiple imputation, 502 079 (33.4%) individuals had hypertension, of whom 59.5% were aware of their diagnosis and 55.3% were taking antihypertensive medication. Of those on medication, 60.0% were controlled and of all hypertensives, 33.2% were controlled. We detected 224 285 individuals with untreated hypertension and 111 214 individuals with inadequately treated (systolic BP ≥ 140 mmHg or diastolic BP ≥ 90 mmHg) hypertension. Conclusion May Measurement Month expanded significantly compared with 2017, including more participants in more countries. The campaign identified over 335 000 adults with untreated or inadequately treated hypertension. In the absence of systematic screening programmes, MMM was effective at raising awareness at least among these individuals at risk

Four year follow-up of a randomised controlled trial comparing open and laparoscopic Nissen fundoplication in children

The article examines why some postconflict societies defer the recovery of those who forcibly disappeared as a result of political violence, even after a fully fledged democratic regime is consolidated. The prolonged silences in Cyprus and Spain contradict the experience of other countries such as Bosnia, Guatemala, and South Africa, where truth recovery for disappeared or missing persons was a central element of the transition to peace and democracy. Exhumations of mass graves containing the victims from the two periods of violence in Cyprus (1963-1974) and the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was delayed up until the early 2000s. Cyprus and Spain are well suited to explain both prolonged silences in transitional justice and the puzzling decision to become belated truth seekers. The article shows that in negotiated transitions, a subtle elite agreement links the noninstrumental use of the past with the imminent needs for political stability and nascent democratization. As time passes, selective silence becomes an entrenched feature of the political discourse and democratic institutions, acquiring a hegemonic status and prolonging the silencing of violence

Permaneciendo en la derecha: Investigaciones en la ideología y apoyo presidencial en Colombia

En los ultimos tiempos la mayoría de los latinoamericanos han elegido gobiernos de izquierda mientras que los ciudadanos colombianos han optado por líderes de derecha. Este artículo, basado en los datos de una encuesta en hogares del año 2006, se propone como un primer paso para entender por qué los colombianos han mantenido su posición de derecha. Usando métodos cuantitativos probamos alguna

Permaneciendo en la derecha: Investigaciones en la ideología y apoyo presidencial en Colombia

En los ultimos tiempos la mayoría de los latinoamericanos han elegido gobiernos de izquierda mientras que los ciudadanos colombianos han optado por líderes de derecha. Este artículo, basado en los datos de una encuesta en hogares del año 2006, se propone como un primer paso para entender por qué los colombianos han mantenido su posición de derecha. Usando métodos cuantitativos probamos alguna