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How do state-business relations interact with outward investment in authoritarian regimes? This article focuses on the importance of domestic political status and specifically business' vulnerability to the state in explaining the dynamics of China's outward investments. I present three types of domestic capital whose economic and political logics differ as they go abroad: tactical capital pursues political power and prestige, competitive capital pursues commercial goals, and crony capital seeks refuge from the state and asset expatriation. The Chinese regime's approach to outward investment, which I characterize as mobilization campaigns adjusted over time and combined with targeted domestic regulation, endeavors to treat these different kinds of capital differently, deploying and disciplining tactical capital, enabling competitive capital, and constraining crony capital.

This article considers the recent films Mary Queen of Scots and Little Women in the light of their use of historical contexts to reflect on the experiences of modern women. The self-consciously mod...

As post-growth Japan hesitates between stagnation and change, its young people are opting out of traditional career paths and seeking lifestyles with greater personal freedom. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced Japanese society to change in some respects, but institutional and corporate leaders remain reluctant to embrace reforms to work and gender norms and in many other areas. Yet social changes are occurring at the grassroots level, as younger Japanese pursuing new opportunities are moving from cities to the countryside, others head overseas in pursuit of more diverse careers and living arrangements, and some among the growing ranks of social introverts turn themselves into successful game developers and writers. © 2021 by The Regents of the University of California.

OBJECTIVE Despite the availability of effective medications, only a minority of asthma patients achieve guideline defined asthma control. Treatment success depends on patient concurrence to the prescribed drug and adherence to treatment. It is therefore crucial to identify the patient preferences as well as attitudes towards asthma medications. Omalizumab is recommended as a preferred option in step 5 of asthma therapy. There have been few studies to address patient perspectives on omalizumab therapy in India. METHODS This was a retrospective study. Patients with inadequate asthma control were considered for the study. Systematic evaluation was done to identify and correct modifiable factors that can worsen asthma control. Patients with persisting poor asthma control who were deemed suitable to receive this agent were evaluated with their attitudes toward acceptance or refusal and the reasons for opting out were noted. The patients who received omalizumab were followed up to determine the results of treatment and duration of adherence to therapy. RESULTS Thirty-five patients out of 51 patients chose to avoid this drug. The reasons for opting out included erroneous perception of optimal asthma control, cost of therapy, and concern about adverse effects. Patients took omalizumab for a median duration of 6 months. Improved asthma control and decreased frequency of exacerbation was noted in all patients which persisted during the 6-month follow-up. CONCLUSIONS The majority of patients needing step 5 therapy opt out of omalizumab. Cost of drug, duration of therapy and erroneous perception of good asthma control account for refusing treatment. Omalizumab affords excellent clinical benefits to patients who receive it, and the benefits extend beyond the duration of therapy.

Humour is one of essential aspects to communicate with other people comfortably. Most of verbal humours, especially implicit humours generate because people break Grice’s four conversational maxims. Concerning this phenomenon, this research aims to find out types of non-observance of cooperative principle found in verbal humour, which uttered by the characters in British Situational Comedy Miranda. Qualitative method was adapted to analyze the data, which was conducted through identifying, classifying, interpreting the data. Humorous utterances from nine episodes of Miranda were the primary sources of data. In collecting the data, the researchers observed the whole episodes and the scripts, checked the suitability, took a note, and classified it into tables. The study concludes that there are four types of non-observance of cooperative principle, namely violating, flouting, infringing, and opting out a maxim. The result reveals that there are 80 humorous utterances, which do not obey the maxim. There are 66 utterances (82,5%) of flouting maxim, 10 utterances (12,5%) violation maxim, 3 utterances (3,75%) of infringing maxim, and 1 utterance (1,25%) of opting out maxim which are found in the sitcom.

Background/Context Opt-out is a national movement based on local efforts as most notably expressed in New York. While studies have addressed opt-out demographics and local impact, fewer studies address the political activism that extends beyond the act of refusing specific tests to changing standardized testing policy. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This case study extends understanding of the opt-out phenomenon by examining and disassembling a case of efforts to legalize opting-out of state-mandated testing through a state legislative process. The policy reform efforts are framed and disassembled through the discourse of the New Right and elements of the political spectacle. Setting This study is set in the Arizona State Legislature's 2015 and 2016 sessions. Population/Participants/Subjects This study follows the efforts of state legislative policy actors including state legislators, state department of education officials, the state teacher association, and parent opt-out activists. Research Design This is a qualitative case study examining three bills intending to legalize opting-out introduced across two state legislative sessions. Data Collection and Analysis Data were collected utilizing progressive theoretical sampling to identify key legislative policy actors and collect public statements regarding the pending legislation. Data focused on legislative hearings and floor votes publicly archived on the legislature's website. Text of the bills along with contemporary social and traditional media statements were also collected, as were interviews with two state legislators. Data were analyzed for themes arising from the participants themselves, for elements of the New Right discourse, and for elements of the political spectacle. Findings/Results The generally White and affluent demographics of this case's opt-out movement leadership reflect national patterns. Likewise, the movement leadership focused on themes of local control and privacy rights. This vaguely symbolic language combined with casting big government as enemies suggests a fluency in the spectacle of modern legislative politics. Ultimately, opt-out proponents compromised in favor of a new policy initiative reflecting themes of neoliberalism and neoconservatism, the Menu of Assessments. Conclusions/Recommendations The compromise with the experimental Menu of Assessments policy to gain more local control over tests while keeping the expectation of testing in place suggests a limited victory for democracy. However, the Arizona opt-out movement's legislative efforts might also be understood as tension within the hegemonic New Right coalition.

In the context of policy developments surrounding India’s opting out of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and India’s lack of ventures in plurilateral regional trade agreements (RTAs), we attempt to analyse the competitiveness and potential of Indian export items in the RCEP region. Our findings show low export intensity for India with RCEP member countries. Higher revealed comparative advantage (RCA) and duty reduction in partner countries may help India in enhancing exports of only a few commodities. India has high RCA in commodities, for which the tariffs by RCEP countries are already moderate. Considering India’s present trade balance position, tariff structure, non-tariff barriers (NTBs) of partner countries, intellectual property rights (IPR) and export competitiveness of Indian commodities, it appears to us that India had limited options but to opt out of RCEP. While the members of RCEP are still open to accepting India, more needs to be worked out on building competitiveness for Indian commodities and the future strategy for negotiations, if India considers itself to be a part of RCEP in the future. Given its limited participation in regional blocks, India should identify its core areas of interest in goods and services where it can enhance its competitiveness and attain better trade performance using strategic bilateral negotiations and possibly exploit imported inputs to promote higher value-added exports.

Using national survey and interview data from women patrol officers in the United States, we assess whether women are underrepresented in the upper ranks of policing because they are self-selecting out of promotions. With only 42% of the survey sample reporting a desire to promote, we indeed find evidence that many policewomen are either delaying or forgoing promotions. Among those who were eligible for promotion, the most common reasons given for waiting to promote were the desire to keep one’s current shift and to gain more experience. Based on our findings, we offer recommendations for reducing gendered barriers to promotion and increasing gender diversity in the upper ranks of law enforcement.

This paper expands the scope of inquiry into HIV and aging through an ethnographic exploration of a small group of older, long-term (20 or more years) HIV+ gay white men in Toronto who meet fortnightly to discuss and reflect on everyday challenges of living with HIV but do not want to be affiliated with existing HIV/AIDS support organizations. Their discussions reveal a critique of professionalization and biomedical bias in contemporary mainstream Canadian HIV/AIDS discourses and support services, reflecting their shared experiences and memories of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Canada over many decades. I argue that their frustration with and disengagement from contemporary mainstream HIV/AIDS discourses and support services, based on shared experiences and memories, produces a particular form of "queer viral time," developed through the intersectional dynamics of epidemiological time, gender, age, race and sexual orientation. Queer viral time draws attention to the temporal dimensions of socio-sexual subject formations, social inequalities, and health governance.

National audience; We study the design of public long-term care (LTC) insurance when the altruism of informal caregivers is uncertain. We consider non-linear policies where the LTC transfer depends on the level of informal care, which is assumed to be observable, while children's altruism is not. Our policy encompasses two policies traditionally considered in the literature: topping up policies consisting of a transfer independent of informal care, and opting out policies entailing a positive transfer only if children fail to provide care. We show that both total and informal care should increase with the children's level of altruism. This is obtained under full and asymmetric information. Public LTC transfers, on the other hand, may be non-monotonic. Under asymmetric information, public LTC transfers are lower than their full information level for the parents whose children are the least altruistic, while it is distorted upward for the highest level of altruism. This is explained by the need to provide incentives to highly altruistic children. In contrast to both topping up and opting out policies, the implementing contract is always such that social care increases with informal care.; Repenser les polices exclusives et non-exclusives : les soins informels dans un contexte de devouement aleatoire. Dans cet article, nous etudions le modele public d'assurance de soins de longue duree lorsque le devouement des aidants naturels est aleatoire. Nous nous interessons aux polices non-lineaires ou le transfert des soins de longue duree depend du niveau de soins informels, lequel etant supposement observable, a l'inverse du devouement des enfants, qui ne l'est pas. Notre police s'appuie sur les deux polices traditionnellement etudiees dans la litterature : les polices non-exclusives ( topping up policies ) consistant en un transfert independant des soins informels, et les polices exclusives ( opting out policies ) impliquant un transfert positif uniquement lorsque les enfants sont dans l'incapacite de fournir de l'aide. Nous montrons que l'ensemble des soins ainsi que les soins informels devraient augmenter proportionnellement au devouement des enfants, que l'information soit complete ou asymetrique. Les transferts publics de soins de longue duree, en revanche, peuvent s'averer non monotones. Dans un contexte d'information asymetrique, et pour les parents dont les enfants sont les moins devoues, les transferts publics de soins de longue duree sont inferieurs a ceux observes dans un contexte d'information complete; pour les parents dont les enfants sont les plus devoues, on observe une distorsion a la hausse. Ceci s'explique par la necessite de fournir des mesures incitatives aux enfants hautement devoues. Et contrairement aux polices exclusives et non-exclusives, le contrat d'execution est toujours tel que les soins sociaux augmentent proportionnellement aux soins informels.

This study examines how the voluntary nature of local membership in transportation agencies can impact resource allocation, drawing on details from a major US transit agency in a state that lets cities opt in or out of transit agency membership. This study finds significant correlation between local opt-outs and transit service using national data. This study examines the impact opt-outs have on transit resource allocation and decision making over time, their effect on transit service over decades, and equity implications, using historical case study analysis from the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system (DART). This study concludes that authorizing legislation allowing local jurisdictions to opt out of transit districts weakens planning capacity, creates a structure making it difficult to allocate scarce transit dollars based on transit need and social equity goals, instead favoring allocation based on satisfying each municipality.

Cases of measles and other highly contagious diseases are rising in the United States. Public health experts blame the rise partly on the spatial concentration of parents declining to vaccinate their children, but researchers have given little attention to theorizing why this clustering occurs in particular communities. We argue that residential and school selection processes create “pockets of homogeneity” attracting parents inclined to opt out of vaccines. Structural features of these enclaves reduce the likelihood of harsh criticism for vaccine refusal and foster a false sense of protection from disease, making the choice to opt out seem both safe and socially acceptable. Examination of quantitative data on personal belief exemptions (PBEs) from school-based vaccination requirements in California schools and districts, as well as findings from parent interviews, provide empirical support for the theory. We discuss substantive implications for lawmakers and public health officials, as well as broader sociological contributions concerning neighborhood effects and residential sorting.

This article presents the history of for-profit mobility from communist Poland, that is, transnational labor migrations and the movement of cross-border petty traders. On the basis of primary research in archives and new scholarship on the history of communist Poland, it presents the scale and dynamics of cross-border movements since the partial opening of the borders in the mid-1950s to the final erosion of the communist regime in 1989. It analyzes the main factors and patterns of the expansion of mobility in both its legal and irregular streams, including the relevant policies of the Polish government and the governments of migrants’ destination countries, the mechanisms of the gray and black markets, especially of hard currencies, and the development and diffusion of social practices of migration. It argues that for-profit mobility was a large part of the second economy as well as a form of disengagement from the communist state and its first economy, a way of selective opting out of socialism. Analyzing the relations between its expansion and the evolution of the communist regime, the article claims that for-profit mobility produced un-communist social spaces and was an important factor eroding the regime’s legitimacy and control over its subjects, thus paving the way to the post-1989 stage of Poland’s transformation.

Across East and Southeast Asia, the International Baccalaureate (IB) is expanding and diversifying. More students from affluent families are ‘opting out’ of mainstream schooling to take the IB's Di...

The purpose of this research is to describe the violations of the maxims and implicatures on the principle of cooperation that was found in the film Eiffel I'm in Love series. The data were collected by the documentation method. The theory mentioned by Grice (1975) and Thomas (1995) was used in analyzing the data. The research findings revealed that there were five types of cooperation principle violations are found in the movie. These are caused by the failure of the participant in understanding the maxims, namely violation, flouting, infringing, opting out, and suspending. The types of maxim violated are the quantity, quality, relativity, implementation, or methods. Implications from maxim violations mean: avoidance, misunderstandings, reject invitations, ignore the other person, and politeness.

PurposeThis paper considers the phenomenon of “opting out” from an intersectional lens, bringing in hitherto undertheorized dimensions of gender, race and power into the conversation related to why and how some women of color may make the “choice” to leave an organization.Design/methodology/approachThrough a single case study approach, our research elucidates how identity-connected experiences unconnected to work/life balance constraints and tensions caused one immigrant woman of color to leave the workplace. We expand upon the current use of intersectionality in management and organization studies by applying it as a lens to bring into consideration power relations in organizations and structural inequality as the context for understanding why and how some women of color may leave their places of employment.FindingsBased on our in-depth case study, we demonstrate that microaggressions, power relations, and structural inequities contribute to some women of color opting out.Originality/valueThis paper is of value to scholars interested in intersectionality framework applications.

Maintaining across-the-board restrictions is socially and economically costly, has adverse distributional impacts, and is poorly targeted in terms of protecting health and health care provision. Instead a win–win ‘Coasean’ social contract could be forged to protect older people and other at- risk groups coupled with freedom from lockdown for everyone else. The social contract could involve a period of support and extra payments to older age groups to commit to home quaran- tine, but with the possibility of opting out. Younger cohorts would be given the option of taking greater risks in return for liberty, fraternity, and greater economic participation. By doing so they would benefit themselves, but also support society economically and through acquired immunity.

El presente artículo propone una explicación racional a las múltiples disfuncionalidades de las relaciones internacionales latinoamericanas relacionadas a los temas de integración política y económica. Por disfuncionalidades se entiende la combinación de una intensa agenda diplomática y la multiplicación de las organizaciones regionales, que suelen mantenerse débiles e incapaces de alcanzar sus metas y objetivos en el tiempo. Para explicar las decisiones de los líderes de adherir a organizaciones que no se institucionalizan, de mantenerse en ellas y de rechazar la opción de salida aun cuando están insatisfechos, se propone una perspectiva analítica que combina elementos políticos, sociales e históricos. Esa perspectiva amplia permite plantear que siempre ha sido racional para los líderes mantener su conducta participativa. Los costos de adhesión a una organización latinoamericana son tradicionalmente bajos, los beneficios de la participación vistos como mayores a los costos y los costos estimados de salida demasiado elevados… hasta ahora. This article proposes a rational explication to the multiple malfunctions of Latin American international relations dynamics related to political and economic integration. The malfunctions referred to are the combination of an intense diplomatic agenda and the multiplication of weak regional organizations usually incapable of reaching their goals over time. To explain the leaders’ decisions to join organizations of these characteristics, to remain part of them and to refuse the exit option in case of insatisfaction, the article proposes a perspective combining political, social and historical factors. This wider perspective allows to claim that it has always been rational for leaders to maintain their participative behavior. The costs of joining a Latin American organization are traditionally low, the benefits of belonging to one are easily higher than the costs of being excluded, and the estimated costs of exit are simply too high for opting out… until now. Fil: Dubé, Sébastien. Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla; Colombia

This article explores how moral madness manifests in the Opt Out Florida Network, a group committed to ending high-stakes standardized testing. Using data culled from a critical online ethnography ...

County-level ASD prevalence was estimated using an age-resolved snapshot from the California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) for birth years 1993–2013. ASD prevalence increased among all children across birth years 1993–2000 but plateaued or declined thereafter among whites from wealthy counties. In contrast, ASD rates increased continuously across 1993–2013 among whites from lower income counties and Hispanics from all counties. Both white ASD prevalence and rate of change in prevalence were inversely correlated to county income from birth year 2000–2013 but not 1993–2000. These disparate trends within the dataset suggest that wealthy white parents, starting around 2000, may have begun opting out of DDS in favor of private care and/or making changes that effectively lowered their children’s risk of ASD. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10803-020-04460-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

OBJECTIVES: Universal prenatal screening in the Canadian province of Alberta employs an ‘opt-out’ HIV screening strategy. We examined all women giving birth in the province and determined the frequency and characteristics of women having and not having HIV screening. METHODS: All livebirths in Alberta from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2014 were compiled from the Vital Statistics database and linked to HIV screening data to determine maternal demographic and prenatal care characteristics. Correlates associated with prenatal HIV screening, opting out of HIV screening, and not having any prenatal communicable disease screening were determined by multivariable statistics. RESULTS: Of the 256,280 live births, 94.2% had prenatal HIV screening, 1.9% declined prenatal HIV screening, and 3.9% had no record of any prenatal communicable disease testing. Compared with those who had HIV screening, those who opted out of prenatal HIV screening were more likely to be over 40 years of age (adjusted odds ratio (AOR), 2.83 [2.12–3.78]) and less likely to be single (AOR, 0.67 [0.62–0.73]) and First Nations (AOR, 0.67 [0.56–0.82]). Those who received no prenatal communicable disease screening were less likely to be over 40 years of age (AOR, 0.81 [0.69–0.95]) and more likely to be single (AOR, 1.27 [1.21–1.33]) and have received no prenatal care (AOR, 6.78 [6.40–7.19]). Both the HIV decliners and prenatal non-testers were more likely to have used a midwife (AOR, 4.52 [3.83–5.35] and AOR, 2.44 [2.03–2.92], respectively). CONCLUSION: Demographic and prenatal care characteristics differ by a pregnant woman’s prenatal screening status. Policies to improve HIV screening coverage should take these variations into account.