Legitimidad y percepciones generales de justicia de las autoridades legales de Córdoba (Argentina): Un abordaje desde las valoraciones de justicia procedimental / Legitimacy and general perceptions of judicial authorities from Córdoba (Argentina): An approach from procedural justice perceptions

La justicia es uno de los principios básicos que se aplica a individuos e instituciones, siendo un facilitador social que posibilita la interacción entre personas y grupos (Tyler, 2000). Por esta razón, se ha convertido en un tema de gran interés para la investigación en Psicología Social. Distintos autores han examinado el impacto de las experiencias en las percepciones de legitimidad de las autoridades (Baird, 2001; De Cremer & Tyler, 2007; Hinds, 2007), así como la influencia de estas valoraciones de legitimidad, en el comportamiento de obediencia de normas (Murphy, 2005; Tyler, 1990). En el estudio que se informa se examinaron las percepciones de legitimidad de autoridades legales de Córdoba (Argentina), por parte de los ciudadanos. Asimismo, se estudió el impacto de las valoraciones de justicia procedimental sobre las valoraciones de legitimidad y justicia de las autoridades. Finalmente, se controló la influencia de variables socio-demográficas y situacionales. Para ello, se tomó una muestra no probabilística, cuotificada por edad, género y nivel socio-económico, de 300 personas de la ciudad de Córdoba que hubieran tenido contacto reciente con alguna de las autoridades en estudio (Policía, Policía Caminera, juzgados e inspectores municipales). Los resultados mostraron que las valoraciones de las autoridades locales son, en general, negativas. Además, las valoraciones de justicia procedimental realizaron un aporte significativo a la explicación de las valoraciones de legitimidad y justicia de las autoridades en general. Las variables de control no mostraron una influencia significativa.

Justice is a desirable principle in social interactions. At the same time, in the case of institutions, justice is a virtue that is manifested in its role of distributing goods and costs or rights and duties (distributive justice) and its corrective function topunish actions that violate social norms (justice sanctioning) (Garzón, 2004). The role of justice as the main regulator of social relations has become a topic of great interest to Social Psychology. The majority of recent studies in this perspective of justice have investigated perceptions of procedural justice, this is, justice based on the process used by an authority to make a decision. Most researchers found that procedural justice evaluations are an important predictor of the legitimacy of the authorities. However, these studies have been conducted mainly in the United States, and in our local area there is no previous research centered in this perspective of justice. Although there are some previous studies that recognize the problem of legitimacy in Latin America (Latinobarometro Corporation, 2010; Salles, 2010; Turner & Carballo, 2010), we have no knowledge of local research, conducted in the field of Social Psychology, that examines the origins of this lack of confidence in legal authorities. For this reason, the present study evaluates not only perceptions of legitimacy of legal authorities, but also their relationship with procedural justice values. According to that, we study the impact of citizens’ procedural justice perceptions of a particular experience with a legal authority on perceptions of legitimacy and fairness of the authorities in general. In addition, we control for the influence of various socio-demographic variables (gender, age, educational level and socioeconomic status) and status (presence of a conflict, the voluntariness of the experience, the favorability of outcomes and the relevance of results and treatment) on this relationship. We used a retrospective ex post facto design in a nonrandom sample of 300 citizens (54.7% male) from the city of Córdoba (Argentina). We interviewed only those who had a personal experience with at least one of the authorities under study (police, traffic police, courts, and municipal inspectors) during the last year. Most of the situations involved contact with the police (52.9%) or traffic police (30.4%), whereas only 10% were with municipal inspectors, and the remaining 6.7% were situations related to court issues. Moreover, the vast majority of situations with the authorities involved a non-voluntary contact (71.7%) and only 9% included a dispute with another person. The descriptive results of the perceived legitimacy of the authorities were consistent with previous research: Most people did not have a positive valuation of legal authorities, and courts were the institutions worst valued, while the traffic police were among the best valued. It was also found that procedural justice is a significant predictor of perceptions of legitimacy (r = 52) and General Valuation of Justice (r = 61) of the legal authorities. Regarding the control variables, we found that the socio-demographic and situational variables have no significant effect on these two dependent variables, when procedural justice is taken into account. These results are important because they expose the relevance of authorities’ performance during their contacts with citizens: those who believed that authorities had not acted in a fair way during their personal encounter, were more likely to assign less legitimacy to authorities in general. This results are relevant in Social Psychology field, taking into account that previous research has emphasized the relevance of legitimacy and justice perceptions for the support of the authorities and their effectiveness, that is, the maintenance of the social order.

The Characteristics of Healthy City Project in Korea / 農村醫學 地域保健

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to investigate healthy city project related characteristics to members of the Korea Healthy Cities Partnership(KHCP). METHODS: This study analyzed general characteristics of healthy city, characteristics of healthy city(political support, collaboration & citizen participation, healthy city project, infrastructure development, capacity building), self-evaluation of healthy city and etc by self-questionnaires from February to December, 2007, which were distributed to government workers who were in charged in health city project of 23 membership cities of KHCP. RESULTS: The number of urban city was 11(47.8%) and that of rural municipality was 12(52.5%). Public health center was almost in charge of healthy city project(73.9%). As for the characteristics of healthy city, healthy city municipal budget(91.3%), city health profile(91.3%), technical support of cooperative university(82.6%), healthy city regulation(78.3%), citizen participation(78.3%), committee(73.9%), setting approach(69.9%) and healthy city network(69.6%) were good. But intersectoral collaboration(34.8%), long-term healthy city plan(39.1%), administrative policy or campaign promise(43.5%), programs to the vulnerable population(47.8%), department in charge(47.8%) and seminar(47.8%) were not good. Especially, characteristics of healthy city according to the existence of department in charge were significantly different in intersectoral collaboration, citizen participation, setting approach and healthy city network. CONCLUSIONS: In spite of rapid expansion in healthy cities, there were great difficulty in political support, collaboration, department in charge and programs of health equity. So we need to go a long way to achieve the vision of healthy cites by its principles and characteristics.

Implementação da reforma sanitária: a formação de uma política / Health reform implementation and policy formation

Este artigo procura interpretar o processo de implementação da reforma do sistema de saúde ocorrida na década de 1990. A implantação de uma política é dotada de autonomia e envolve decisões, além de ser um processo de adaptação em função das mudanças do contexto, portanto, sua implementação exige decisão e iniciativa governamental, e instrumentos para efetivá-la, entre os quais a disponibilidade de recursos financeiros e o suporte político organizado, particularmente, por parte dos grupos sociais afetados positivamente. O processo de implementação da reforma da política de saúde não é simplesmente a tradução concreta de decisões, mas um processo ainda de formulação da política de saúde. Durante esse processo, tiveram grande importância não apenas os efeitos do contexto político-econômico de ajustes e a reconfiguração da agenda pública, mas principalmente os efeitos de feedback das políticas de saúde anteriores, que se traduziram na ausência de suporte político, no subfinanciamento e na incapacidade de publicização da rede de serviços, os quais funcionaram como constrangimentos à implementação completa da reforma nos termos de seus formuladores. Dentro desses limites, foram tomadas decisões cruciais que redefiniram a reforma, sendo as mais significativas o estabelecimento do marco regulatório da assistência privada, que explicita a segmentação e derruba formalmente as pretensões universalistas, e as relacionada ao financiamento, que ainda configurava objeto de disputa. O resultado foi a consolidação de um sistema de saúde dual - público e privado.

This paper analyses the process of implementation of the health system reform in the 1990s. The starting point is the proposition that policy implementation is endowed with autonomy and involves decisions, apart from being a process of adaptation to changes in context; implementation requires governmental decision and initiative and tools to make it effective, among them the availability of financial resources and organized political support, especially from those groups that benefit more directly. The process of implementation of the health system reform was not simply a concrete translation of decisions, but also a process of health policy design. In it, the effects not only of adjustments in the political and economic contexts and of the reconfiguration of the public agenda, but mainly the feedback effects of previous health policies could be felt. The latter translated themselves into the absence of political support, underfinancing and the incapacity to create a public network of services. They acted as constraints to the full implementation of the reform, as it was conceived by its formulators. Within these limits, crucial decisions were made, which redefined the reform, the most important being, on the one hand, the creation of a regulatory framework for private assistance that made the segmentation explicit, formally abandoning any universalistic intent, and, on the other hand, those related to financing, which still are an object of dispute. The result is the consolidation of a dualistic health system - public and private.