Revolutions have shaped world politics for the last three hundred years. This volume shows why revolutions occur, how they unfold, and where they created democracies and dictatorships. Jack A. Goldstone presents the history of revolutions from America and France to the collapse of the Soviet Union, 'People Power' revolutions, and the Arab revolts.

Using touch as a medium for exploring the ways in which it is constructed by nurses, the body is here characterized by a plethora of competing and co‐existing terms: disobedient, obedient, mirroring, stigmatized, sinful, post‐mortem, sanitized, angelic, desexualized, dangerous, dominant, dominating, deceitful, submissive, disciplined, postmodern and communicative. We have tried to be provocative by juxtaposing contradictory messages and evoking conflicting emotions, and we hope that the reader will not assume that we believe everything we write, or that everything may be (...) taken only at face value. There are as many messages and meanings in the paper as each reader thinks there are. (shrink)

MACDONNELL JA. Nursing Inquiry 2011; 18: 313–324 Gender, sexuality and the participatory dimensions of a comparative life history policy studyIn this paper, I explore how a critical feminist lens was a crucial element in creating a participatory policy study which used a qualitative design and comparative life history methodology. This study focused on Canadian nurses’ political practice related to advocacy for lesbian health. Findings show that the combination of the gender lens and life history approach offers potential to create knowledge (...) in ways aligned with health‐promoting and emancipatory outcomes. However, the nature of participation and interaction by researcher and participants is contexualized and contested given complex dynamics of power that shape all aspects of this doctoral study process. The critical feminist lens with its focus on reflexivity informed the content and process of knowledge production in this study and shaped key turning points: the ways in which this policy study was conceptualized, the choice of comparative life history methodology, ethical considerations, data collection and analysis and representation of findings. Life history is unlikely to be the methodology that first comes to mind when undertaking a policy study. Its historical roots are associated with biographical, oral history and narrative approaches, which typically aim to elicit understanding of lived experience. Yet, it was this very aspect, this focus on lived experience, which rendered life history methodology fitting as I contemplated how to examine the relationship between nurses and policy. I was interested in understanding nurses’ political practice, how policy influenced nurses’ capacity to advocate in their everyday lives, as well as nurses’ impacts on policy processes and their larger social worlds. (shrink)

Hermeneutics and narration: a way to deal with qualitative data This article focuses a hermeneutic approach on the interpretation of narratives. It is based on the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur's theory of interpretation but modified and used within a caring science paradigm. The article begins with a presentation of the theoretical underpinnings of hermeneutic philosophy and narration, as well as Ricoeur's theory of interpretation, before going on to describe the interpretation process as modified by the authors. The interpretation process, which (...) consists of several stages, is exemplified and discussed using a single case from a larger study on suffering. The results of that study indicate that the struggle of suffering is perceived as a struggle formed between shame and dignity, and that nurses must engage in the process of preserving and restoring the dignity of their suffering patients. The authors suggest that Ricoeur's theory of interpretation is useful when trying to understand narrative data if the researcher realises that the process of distanciation, although central in Ricoeur's thinking, is not the goal of the process but rather a means to deal with the researcher's pre‐understandings. According to Ricoeur, distanciation is accomplished by putting the context aside and dealing with the text ‘as text’ and thereby explaining its meaning. Explanation thus becomes the dialectic counterpart to understanding in the interpretation process. The researchers further argue that distanciation must be followed by reflection, where the interpretations are linked back to the empirical context. (shrink)

Part of the Studies in Crime and Public Policy series, this book, written by one of the top philosophers of punishment, examines the main trends in penal theorizing over the past three decades. Duff asks what can justify criminal punishment, and then explores the legitimacy of actual practices by examining what would count as adequate justification for them. Duff argues that a "communicative conception of punishment," which he presents as a third way between consequentialist and retributive theories, offers the most (...) fruitful way of understanding punishment's meaning and justification. Duff addresses such questions as how much sentences should be constrained by proportionality requirements; what modalities of punishment best communicate their intended meaning; and what decisionmaking procedures he envisions. This book will appeal to criminologists, philosophers, and others interested in theories of punishment. (shrink)