background the main purpose of this study was to identify factors that influence healthcare quality in the iranian context.   methods exploratory in-depth individual and focus group interviews were conducted with 222 healthcare stakeholders including healthcare providers, managers, policy-makers, and payers to identify factors affecting the quality of healthcare services provided in iranian hea...

In spite of all efforts to build national health services, health systems of many low-income countries are today highly pluralistic. Households use a vast range of public and private health care providers, many of whom are not controlled by national health authorities. Experts have called on Ministries of Health to re-establish themselves as stewards of the entire health system. Modern stewards...

John Hick has used revolutionary metaphors in recommending his pluralistic philosophy of religions. To turn from a focus on the particulars of one’s home religion to a focus on the universally available Real is, he famously says, a Copernican “revolution” in religious thought. Hick says that those religious adherents who abandon the traditional positions of exclusivism or inclusivism, positions...

The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) has created a new dynamic for the oversight and implementation of elections, giving greater power to the states than previously. We consider how HAVA has changed the relationship between states and localities, especially through the HAVA planning process. We examine two approaches that states have used in HAVA planning—a rational approach and a pluralistic appro...