The Dominican Republic retroactively stripped thousands of Dominico-Haitians of their Dominican citizenship yet managed to defuse international opprobrium over time. After a direct assault on people’s citizenship status in 2013 provoked the human rights community’s ire, the DR employed administrative obstructionism to maneuver around human rights activism and institutions. Policies instituted in 2014 appeared to offer a pathway for Dominico-Haitians to reinstate their citizenship yet were so administratively onerous that most of the affected population remains effectively stateless. Administrative obstructionism makes for an elusive target of attack because it unfolds across a series of decisions over time, transfers responsibility from a highly visible leader to dispersed and faceless bureaucrats, and is exceedingly difficult to monitor. Administrative obstructionism drags out proceedings, causing media attention to wither. Because international forces face special challenges in countering this strategy, a strong domestic opposition movement is necessary to sustain pressure on a rights-violating government.

Conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) have emerged as an important social welfare innovation across the Global South in the last two decades. That poor mothers are typically the primary recipients of the grants renders easy, but not necessarily correct, the notion that CCTs empower women. This article assesses the relationship between the world’s largest CCT, Brazil’s Bolsa Família, and women’s empowerment. To systematize and interpret existing research, including our own, it puts forth a three-part framework that examines the program’s effects on economic independence, physical health, and psychosocial well-being. Findings suggest that women experience some improved status along all three dimensions, but that improvements are far from universal. A core conclusion is that the broader institutional context in which the Bolsa Família is embedded—that is, ancillary services in health and social assistance—is crucial for conditioning the degree of empowerment obtained.

The purpose of this study was to analyse the consistency and extent of palliative content across high-level guiding documents related to the care of persons residing in Canadian long-term care homes. A systematic search was conducted examining documents at the national level and across five provinces (Alberta, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Quebec). Twenty-five documents were selected based on inclusion criteria from 273 documents identified in the systematic search. The majority of these documents were created nationally (48%) or in Ontario (28%). Documents varied in palliative topics discussed, and long-term care was discussed minimally. A minimal number of palliative care guiding documents were found. Long-term care specific documents were absent, and all documents lacked consistency on palliative topics. It is imperative that palliative principles are present and consistent in high-level documents in order to improve the quality of life and care for long-term care residents across Canada.

A birth certificate is essential to exercising citizenship, yet vast numbers of poor people in developing countries have no official record of their existence. Few academic studies analyze the conditions under which governments come to document and certify births routinely, and those that do leave much to be explained, including why nontotalitarian governments at low to middle levels of economic development come to prioritize birth registration. This article draws attention to the impetus that welfare-building initiatives give to identity documentation. The empirical focus is on contemporary Latin America, where extensions in institutionalized social protection since the 1990s have increased the demand for and supply of birth registration, raising the life chances of the poor and building state infrastructure in the process. The authors' argument promises to have broader applicability as welfare states form in other developing regions.

Welfare programs distribute benefits to citizens. Perhaps even more importantly, by conveying powerful messages about how the state views poor people, welfare programs shape people’s views about themselves as subjects or citizens. Theoretical debates on how public policies can enhance democratic citizenship inspire our study of Brazil’s Bolsa Família (Family Grant). Has this conditional cash transfer program, which forms a major point of contact between the state and millions of poor Brazilians, elevated feelings of social inclusion and agency? A prominent perspective in the welfare-state literature would not expect a positive outcome given the strict means testing and behavioral requirements entailed. Yet our focus group research with Bolsa Família recipients suggests that the program does foster a sense of belonging and efficacy. Policy design and government discourse matter. This innovative welfare program yields rich insights on alternative paths to citizenship development for middle- and low-income countries in the third wave of democracy.

The purpose of the study was to determine patterns of diet use among middle-aged Australian men and women and the relationships between these different usage patterns and demographic characteristics, health status and health habits. A cross-sectional mail survey was conducted among a random sample of 2975 people aged 40–71 years in Victoria, Australia. A total of 1031 usable questionnaires were obtained which included information about the use of diets (e.g. low-fat and low-salt) during the past 3 months along with demographic information, health status and health habits. Based on the responses about the use of thirteen diets for both sexes, latent class analysis was employed to identify the optimal number of use of diets and the assignment of participants to particular groups. Three types of diet uses were identified and provisionally named: diet use, selected diet use and non-diet use. This classification was associated with demographics, health status and health habits, and these associations differed between men and women. The findings suggest that nutrition education programmes should be tailored to the different needs of the diet use groups.