National Coalition Research Articles

A Queer Theorist’s Critique of Online Domestic Violence Advocacy: Critically Responding to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence Web Site

ABSTRACTSince the foundations of the contemporary anti-violence movement in the 1960s and 1970s, advocates have sought to establish a critical understanding of domestic violence that we can use to direct our efforts for social change. Yet many advocates and advocacy organizations continue to rely on a problematic narrative of sameness that marginalizes and erases diverse victims’ experiences and needs. In this article, I conduct a critical discourse analysis of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence Web site to identify outcomes of this narrative for the inclusivity of advocacy efforts. I argue that despite the organization’s numerous claims to represent diverse victims’ experiences, Web site content reveals that its purportedly general account of domestic violence normalizes the experiences of a small group of victims—namely, heterosexual, cisgender women. Further, the Web site’s content greatly limits the potential for thinking about and discussing violence across difference. I conclude with recommendations for changes in advocacy practices.

Meeting development goals: evidence from the Civil Society Education Fund

ABSTRACTIn recent years, the Civil Society Education Fund has supported national education civil society coalitions (NECs) in low-income countries so that they put pressure on governments and donors to implement the Education for All agenda and the Millennium Development Goal on education. This article draws on literature on global governance as well as on an extensive evaluation of the CSEF to explore the actual contribution of this initiative to the activity of NECs. The article highlights the achievements and shortcomings of the CSEF and includes a set of practical recommendations on the role of global civil society in international development processes.

Provision of a Public Good with Multiple Dynasties

Carbon emissions create externalities across countries and generations. These externalities depend on the degree of contemporaneous cooperation and intergenerational altruism. I study the relative importance of these features, in determining equilibrium climate policy, by imbedding an OLG framework with intergenerational altruism into a differential game among dynasties, each representing a coalition of nations. There is an isomorphism between pure and paternalistic altruism. I illustrate the multiplicity of equilibria using an analytic “linear in state” model. Equilibrium steady states are more sensitive to small changes in cooperation than altruism. Consideration of large changes in altruism and cooperation can reverse this ranking.

Homicide Rates of Transgender Individuals in the United States: 2010–2014

To estimate homicide rates of transgender US residents and relative risks (RRs) of homicide with respect to cisgender comparators intersected with age, gender, and race/ethnicity. I estimated homicide rates for transgender residents and transfeminine, Black, Latin@, and young (aged 15-34 years) subpopulations during the period 2010 to 2014 using Transgender Day of Remembrance and National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs transgender homicide data. I used estimated transgender prevalences to estimate RRs using cisgender comparators. I performed a sensitivity analysis to situate all results within assumptions about underreporting of transgender homicides and assumptions about the prevalence of transgender residents. The overall homicide rate of transgender individuals was likely to be less than that of cisgender individuals, with 8 of 12 RR estimates below 1.0. However, the homicide rates of young transfeminine Black and Latina residents were almost certainly higher than were those of cisfeminine comparators, with all RR estimates above 1.0 for Blacks and all above 1.0 for Latinas. Antiviolence public health programs should identify young and Black or Latina transfeminine women as an especially vulnerable population.

Interests, ideas and legacies of the past: Analysing the positions and strategies of Swedish policy actors in the establishment of the European Research Council

In the past decade, the number of EU policy activities in research and higher education has increased greatly. The governance processes in these areas are increasingly characterized as multilayered, involving actors with a variety of roles, functions and loyalties. This article focuses on the forces shaping the policy positions and strategies of national science policy actors and coalitions in transnational policy processes through a case study of the positions, ideas and strategies held by central Swedish science policy actors in the process of building the European Research Council (ERC) during the first decade of the 2000s. The case is analysed from the perspectives of three versions of neo-institutional theory, each of which has somewhat different views on how institutions, interests and policy ideas interact in these kind of processes. The analysis shows that the Swedish influence on this process consisted primarily of an advocacy coalition of individuals with strong institutional positions in the Swedish science policy system and affiliations to transnational policy institutions and communities. Furthermore, the study shows that the policy actors largely functioned as normative entrepreneurs who related to general policy ideas shared by members of a transnational community, but also that the drivers of the development and the policy solutions were largely anchored in experiences and legacies from a national context.

Napoleon Bonaparte: His Successes and Failures

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), also known as Napoleon I, was a French military leader and emperor who conquered much of Europe in the early 19th century. Born on the island of Corsica, Napoleon rapidly rose through the ranks of the military during the French Revolution (1789-1799). After seizing political power in France in a 1799 coup d’état, he crowned himself emperor in 1804. Shrewd, ambitious and a skilled military strategist, Napoleon successfully waged war against various coalitions of European nations and expanded his empire. However, after a disastrous French invasion of Russia in 1812, Napoleon abdicated the throne two years later and was exiled to the island of Elba. In 1815, he briefly returned to power in his Hundred Days campaign. After a crushing defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, he abdicated once again and was exiled to the remote island of Saint Helena, where he died at 51.Napoleon was responsible for spreading the values of the French Revolution to other countries, especially in legal reform and the abolition of serfdom. After the fall of Napoleon, not only was the Napoleonic Code retained by conquered countries including the Netherlands, Belgium, parts of Italy and Germany, but has been used as the basis of certain parts of law outside Europe including the Dominican Republic, the US state of Louisiana and the Canadian province of Quebec. The memory of Napoleon in Poland is favorable, for his support for independence and opposition to Russia, his legal code, the abolition of serfdom, and the introduction of modern middle class bureaucracies. The social structure of France changed little under the First Empire. It remained roughly what the Revolution had made it: a great mass of peasants comprising three-fourths of the population—about half of them works owners of their farms or sharecroppers and the other half with too little land for their own subsistence and hiring themselves out as laborers. Industry, stimulated by the war and the blockade of English goods, made remarkable progress in northern and eastern France, whence exports could be sent to central Europe; but it declined in the south and west because of the closing of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. The great migrations from rural areas toward industry in the towns began only after 1815. The nobility would probably have declined more swiftly if Napoleon had not restored it, but it could never recover its former privileges. Finally we can say that many of the territories occupied by Napoleon during his Empire began to feel a new sense of nationalism.

Use and usefulness of the “know yourself” tool in outpatient cancer care.

e21558 Background: Patient-physician communication is important to cancer care. The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship developed the Know Yourself Tool, a 2-page form, to improve patients’ understanding of goals of care and clinicians’ understanding of patients’ priorities/expectations. We assessed the Tool’s use and usefulness. Methods: This mixed-methods study at an academic cancer center recruited 1 medical, 1 radiation, and 1 surgical oncologist for each of 5 cancer types: breast, lung, gastrointestinal, genitourinary, head & neck. For each clinician (n = 15), we recruited 2 control patients to observe usual care (n = 30) and then 4 intervention patients who were provided the Tool (n = 60); eligible patients were at a decision point in their care. Data were collected for the decision making visit via patient and physician post-visit surveys analyzed descriptively and visit recordings/transcripts to analyze: 1) option presentation 2) patient preference assessment 3) shared decision making elements 4) patient question asking opportunities. Results: Of 90 patients, 39 (43%) were female and 75 (83%) were white. Of the 60 intervention patients, 42 (70%) completed a post-visit survey: 15 (36% of respondents) reported using the Tool and 13 (31%) discussing the Tool. Nearly half (49%) reported the Tool helped them prepare for follow-up visits and know the importance of their perspective in decision making. Patients reported the Tool was easy to use (76%) and would recommend the Tool to others (52%). Clinicians reported on Tool use for 24 visits, finding it most helpful in identifying areas of concern (74%). Based on visit transcripts, physicians were more likely to describe certain options as more appropriate than others with intervention vs control patients. However, physicians were less likely to assess patient preference, engage in shared decision making behaviors, and provide opportunities for patients to ask questions with intervention vs control patients. Conclusions: Use and usefulness of the Know Yourself Tool was limited. Further work should identify barriers to Tool use, determine if there are specific subgroups for whom the Tool would be more useful, and further elucidate how the Tool affects patient-clinician interactions.

Safe Sex in the 1970s: Community Practitioners on the Eve of AIDS.

In the 1970s, groups of gay and gay-allied health professionals began to formulate guidelines for safer sexual activity, several years before HIV/AIDS. Through such organizations as the National Coalition of Gay Sexually Transmitted Disease Services, Bay Area Physicians for Human Rights, and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, these practitioners developed materials that would define sexual health education for the next four decades, as well as such concepts as "bodily fluids" and the "safe sex hanky." To do so, they used their dual membership in the community and the health professions. Although the dichotomy between the gay community and the medical establishment helped define the early history of HIV/AIDS, the creative work of these socially "amphibious" activists played an equally important part. Amid current debates over preexposure prophylaxis against HIV and Zika virus transmission, lessons for sexual health include the importance of messaging, the difficulty of behavioral change, and the vitality of community-driven strategies to mitigate risk.

Does party identification associate with consumer preferences? Analyzing Finnish consumers in 2009 and 2014

AbstractThis article examines the association between Finn's political orientation and preferences regarding hedonistic and mundane consumer activities. Data derived from national‐level surveys collected in Finland in 2009 (n=1,202) and 2014 (n=1,351) suggests that political party identification is an important predictor of perceived consumption, even after controlling for the effects of key socio‐demographic factors. In general, supporters of the right‐wing National Coalition Party consider themselves as high‐level consumers more often than the supporters of other political parties do. The results also show that there have been very few temporal changes in the association between party identification and consumption preferences. The effect of party identification is stronger for hedonistic activities than for mundane activities. It is argued that political party identification has similar impact on individual's consumer preferences as other lifestyle and social network factors have. The findings offer us new possibilities for further research addressing consumer activities, and other behavioural correlates of political orientation.

Cultivating curatorial habits of mind through studentcreated exhibitions

Abstract This article presents a descriptive and analytical account of a semester-long partnership between museum educators and high school students piloting the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards Visual Arts Model Cornerstone Assessment. To mentor the students through their task of curating a themed art exhibition of their own work at school, museum educators modelled curatorial strategies, best practices, and lines of questioning that the students later adapted and applied to their own exhibition planning process. The resulting collaboration reveals the deeply authentic, if under-recognized, relationship between curatorial practice and art education practice and offers a compelling case for breaking down traditional barriers between curators and museum educators in order to create a generative space in which to cultivate student curators across multiple disciplines.

From Open Door to Nationalization: Oil and Development Visions in Bolivia, 1952–1969

AbstractAfter the 1952 Bolivian Revolution, oil assumed an increasingly important role in Bolivia's economy and popular consciousness. Oil nationalists were deeply divided, however. While the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR) regime sought economic modernization, labor and the Left also demanded major redistribution. These divisions influenced the multiple changes in hydrocarbon policy after 1952. An aversion to radicalization contributed to MNR leaders' 1955 decision to promote private investment in accordance with US wishes. Soon thereafter, a growing nationalist coalition challenged this open-door policy, culminating with the 1969 nationalization of Gulf Oil's properties by the military regime of Alfredo Ovando Candía. Ironically, though, the nationalization was driven partly by the same conservative logic that had animated the MNR's liberalization, in that Ovando favored nationalization as an alternative to redistribution. While tracing the rise and impact of Bolivian hydrocarbon nationalism, this case study also highlights common conflicts within resource nationalist coalitions and how those conflicts can influence policy decisions.

ED12.02 Tobacco Control: The Turkish Experience

ED12.02 Tobacco Control: The Turkish Experience

Seeing Syria

The use of social media by groups such as the self-proclaimed Islamic State has been the focus of the press, politicians and scholars, but relatively little attention has been paid to how other actors involved in the Syrian conflict have been using social media platforms. In this article, I address this gap by analyzing how the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces has used Facebook. Specifically, I focus on the main narrative themes emerging in 1,174 posts uploaded to the Coalition’s English language Facebook page between November 2012 and March 2015. Recognizing that visual media play an important factor in communicating narratives of conflict, the paper also analyzes 280 sets of images of war posted during this time. I argue that these images construct a visuality focused on ‘the pain of others’ (Sontag 2004) that makes those affected, uprooted, injured, and killed by the conflict in Syria highly visible. In making this claim, I explore how this visuality of suffering has evolved over the course of the conflict.

India-Myanmar Relations: From Idealpolitik To Realpolitik

India's relations with Myanmar was generally cordial and close prior to 1960s. Myanmar Prime Minister U Nu believed it as 'firm Indo-Burmese friendship'. This excellent bilateral relationship between the two countries was generated by political and economic cooperation, plus good personal friendship between U Nu and Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Although there were several hiccups along with the relationship of the two countries in the 1960s and 1970s, the bilateral relations were still good. However, after the failed 1988 major demonstration by the Burmese pro-democracy movement against the military rule, the bilateral relations between India and Myanmar was disrupted. India started to criticise strongly the new Burma's military junta - the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). India offered shelters for anti-SLORC dissidents and pro-democracy activists. India criticised strongly Myanmar's poor human rights record and advocated for Myanmar's return to democracy. India gave permission for Myanmar's opposition - the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB) to open its office in New Delhi in 1992. During this time, it is clear that India's foreign policy towards Myanmar was to champion democratic ideals, urging and pushing Myanmar to return to democracy. Myanmar saw this as interference in its domestic affairs, but Myanmar lacked a trump card in forcing India to reconsider its stance, prompting Myanmar to turn to China for support. By 1993, India shifted its stances towards Myanmar from advocating democratic ideals to a more realistic policy based on namely the China factor, the economic and strategic interests, and Myanmar's image and international legitimacy, and India's ambition in Southeast Asia.

The Political Economy of Intergovernmental Transfers—Evidence from Indian Disaster Relief

India’s National Calamity Contingency Fund (NCCF) is a discretionary federal grant that supports the sub-national governments with their disaster relief efforts. Evidence suggests that discretionary intergovernmental transfers in countries with national coalition governments contribute to distributive politics. Coalition formateur(s) use these transfers to form or hold together fractious coalitions. We use data on the NCCF from 1997 to 2013 for 23 Indian states to test for distributive politics. Our results show no evidence of NCCF contributing to distributive politics. We argue instead that the NCCF contributes to a different political phenomenon— tactical redistribution.

Analysis of the Voting Behaviour of Czech Members of European Parliament in Areas of the Europe 2020 Strategy

Abstract Aim of this paper is to analyse the behaviour of Czech MEPs in the topics related to Europe 2020 Strategy. This Strategy is one of the most important documents of recent decade on the European level and it is not so often studied on the level of the European Parliament. The purpose of this text is to find out if Czech political parties in the European Parliament are cohesive or not. The second question is related to the voting patterns, whether Czech MEPs create some kind of voting coalitions or not and if these coalitions reflect the national coalition. Methodology is based on the analyses of roll-call votes. The research period is the first two years of the 8th term of the European Parliament.

An interview with Olivia Gude about connecting school and community arts practice

ABSTRACTOlivia Gude has a long and distinguished career as both a public artist and an art educator. She is currently the Angela Gregory Paterakis Professor and Chair of Art Education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), where she works with graduate and undergraduate students to prepare for working as artist educators in school and community settings. Her scholarly work includes a number of articles and book chapters about art education and community art. Prof. Gude has worked as a community public artist for many years and has created over 30 large-scale mural and mosaic projects, working with intergenerational groups, teens, elders, and children. I interviewed Prof. Gude at the SAIC building in downtown Chicago to discuss how her school, university, and community art engagement as well as her work with the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards, might offer suggestions for transforming arts education for the twenty-first century and provide authentic connections between school and community. Prof. Gude discusses important enduring understandings and big ideas from the new Visual Arts National Core Arts Standards, the Spiral Workshop youth art and research project she created while at University of Illinois at Chicago, and how her experience as a community artist informs her work with students in classroom settings.

Measures of Patient Activation and Social Support in a Peer-Led Support Network for Women With Cardiovascular Disease

Social support has been associated with beneficial effects on many disease states and overall health and well-being. However, there is limited research exploring the impact of peer-led support models among women living with coronary heart disease. This study describes the structure of peer-led support groups offered by WomenHeart (WH): The National Coalition for Women Living with Heart Disease, and assesses WH participants' quality of life and social, emotional, and physical health. Participants were recruited from 50 WH groups. A 70-item online survey was administered, and the main analytic sample included 157 women. Multivariate logistic regression was used to examine the association between patient activation levels (lower activation levels: 1, 2 vs higher activation levels: 3, 4) and social support scores (range: lowest 8 to highest 34), adjusting for age. High levels of social support, patient activation, physical activity, and low levels of stress, anxiety, and depression were reported. Those who were at or above the median for the social support measures (indicating high levels of social support) had greater odds of high levels of patient activation (level 3 or 4) than individuals reporting low levels of social support (OR = 2.23; 95% CI, 1.04-4.76; P = .012). Women who regularly attended a support group by a trained peer leader were highly engaged in their health care and had low levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. These findings lend credibility to the value of the peer support model and could potentially be replicated in other disease states to enhance patient care.

Events

IPGA Consultants' Forum BoardSource Harvard Business School Haines Centre Holacracy National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NC DD) National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO)

Sovereignty for Survival: American Indian Development and Indian Self-Determination

Among the most overlooked and underanalyzed stories of twentieth-century Native American history is energy development on reservations. Why? Is energy development unappealing because it is industrial, often ugly and dirty; takes place out of sight, in hidden, rural corners of Indian country; or leads to thorny issues of intratribal disputes that outsiders hesitate to probe or reveal? Or is it the fact that energy development involves a complex story of federal policy and corporate power, topics scholars have abandoned in recent years? Whatever the reason, after Marjane Ambler’s (1990) and Donald L. Fixico’s (1990) books, historians left the field fallow until recently. James Robert Allison III’s Sovereignty for Survival, Andrew Needham’s (2014) Power Lines, and a book I coedited, Indians and Energy (Smith and Frehner 2010) bring this subject to the fore and will, hopefully, spark fresh scholarly scrutiny on this important topic.Allison’s excellent book focuses on the Northern Cheyenne and Crow cases to illustrate how, starting in the 1970s, they reversed the centuries-long tale of diminishing tribal power. Taking note of a world hungry for energy sources and a federal policy context that stressed self-determination, they asserted and then gained the authority to manage their reservation resources. This involved several steps. First they threw off the shackles of the federal trust relationship. Insisting that they must be freed from the unprofitable leases the paternalist government had made on their behalf, the Cheyenne and Crow negotiated much more lucrative deals with multinational energy companies. Next, with significant support from the federal government, the two tribes helped create a national coalition of energy tribes. The Council for Energy Resource Tribes’ goals included funding energy resources inventories, helping rewrite lease contracts, providing capital for tribes for resource development, and educating leaders in energy planning. Most important, the council supported the idea that tribal governments must determine the scale and pace of development “to ensure profits without sacrificing communities” (151), moving away from leases and toward tribal ownership of mining ventures.The latter goal required federal approval, which came when President Ronald Reagan signed into law the 1982 Indian Mineral Development Act. Reagan’s interest in diminishing federal power coincided with tribes’ determination to control resources. The law effectively allowed that. “It was a remarkable expansion of tribal sovereignty” (171). But it did not resolve all issues. Energy development remained contentious within tribal communities as people debated whether economic benefits were worth the environmental costs—whether jobs sufficiently compensated for damage to land, bodies, culture, and society. Grassroots resisters pushed back against development, and this led to significant changes in governance and even the culture of communities. However, that these conversations and consequent decisions took place at the tribal level is enormously important. They signal a huge victory for sovereignty.One other factor, however, shaped this history: global economic conditions. Against the seemingly inevitable busts that follow extractive industry booms or the environmental concerns about coal-fired power plants, tribes have little power. Just as energy tribes achieved the authority to control their resources, the market for oil collapsed. Their political victories could not shield them from the same national and global factors that affect other energy companies and other peoples around the world. This does not “diminish the energy tribes’ accomplishments,” Allison concludes. “Rather, it makes them historical actors like any other, operating among forces they can shape but not fully control” (184).This carefully researched, sophisticated analysis ends, then, on a nuanced and wise note. Achieving greater sovereignty is an important and necessary step toward tribal recovery, but it is no panacea.