International Norms and National Indigenous Politics: Mapuche Demands for Territory in Chile

Indigenous movements have increasingly turned to the global arena to achieve their political goals at the national level. Using the norm diffusion model, the present article analyzes the relationship between the international indigenous rights regime (IRR) and the conceptualizations of indigenous territory used by four Mapuche organizations in Chile over the last 10 years. We find that the organizations draw on the IRR to frame their demand for autonomous territories based on historical Mapuche practices. We identify two conceptualizations: (1) a larger territory with political but not economic autonomy and (2) a smaller natural-cultural space characterized by a distinctive economic logic.     

Virtuous Circularity: Positive Law and Particular Justice

This paper argues that the positive allocative decisions paradigmatically carried out by the application of legal rules are a necessary condition for arguments about particular justice (i.e., distributive and commutative justice) to make sense. If one shifts the focus from the distinction between distributive and commutative justice to what the two aspects of particular justice are for, namely, providing criteria to judge the allocation of goods, it becomes clear that the distinction is conceptually unstable. The paper argues that stabilizing the distinction is worthwhile and that this can only be accomplished by the introduction of positive allocation schemes.     

Frontier Capitalism: Agrarian Expansion in Southern Chile,c. 1890–1930

This article argues that the agrarian expansion that took place in Chile's southern frontier region after the military occupation of the Mapuche territory (1862–1883) was the first phase of the development of agrarian capitalism in the region. This process was shaped by ecological conditions. In a territory covered by forests, sharecropping with tenant labourers was crucial for land clearance in the formation of the hacienda system, when landowners needed to create fields for commercial crops. As the domestic demand for agricultural products increased, mechanisation intensified, sharecropping declined, and wage labour became dominant. Frontier capitalist agriculture expanded dramatically, and consequently the region became the breadbasket of Chile.     

Accounting Reform in Italy and Perceptions on the Local Government Consolidated Report

The article aims to explore the perception of local government (LG) financial officers on the users, the uses, and the utility of the consolidated financial report in Italy, since it was one of the first countries to expressly provide for compulsory adoption. A questionnaire was sent to a statistical stratified sample of LG, collecting 133 responses (response rate 17%). The results, tested through the structural equation model we observe that social legitimization pressure rather than accountability patterns or performance analysis drive more the adoption process. The evidence indicates that the report is perceived as a potential tool for pursuing performance assessment strategies in a group context. However, this potentiality depends on the coordination effort made by the LG. The article finds out the rise of the topic of the public governance and the role of coordinating the local public group.     

Microwave-assisted extraction and differential scanning calorimetry in the chemical identification of sliming agents apprehended in the south region of Brazil

Over the past decades, consume of slimming agents considerably increased in several countries, including Brazil, due to weight-loss and stimulant properties. Since these drugs are controlled to prevent illicit and indiscriminate use, there is a parallel illegal market that uses the Internet and irregular pharmacies in order to distribute these formulations. Slimming agents produced by these illegal sources are known for being manufactured with little or none quality control resulting in uncertain and unknown formulations. For forensic purposes, apprehended pharmaceuticals have to undergo a process of chemical identification that can be difficult due to its complex matrix. In this sense, application of assisted energies in the extraction step such as microwave irradiation can be a promising method to increase the recuperation of the target molecules of the sample. Therefore, the aim of this research was to identify four slimming agents apprehended in Brazil by means of visual inspection, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, Differential Scanning Calorimetry and Gas Chromatography – Mass Spectrometry. Moreover, the efficiency of solid-liquid extraction and microwave-assisted extraction was compared. It should be noted that our work was one of the few to use Differential Scanning Calorimetry and the application of microwave irradiation in the analysis of apprehended materials. Results showed that the majority of the samples was counterfeit being composed of one or several adulterants or contaminants. Initially, visual inspection resourcefully screened the slimming agents for possible signs of falsification, however it failed to detect fraudulent products that were very similar to veridical medicines. Sequentially, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy detected functional groups present in the samples while the presence or absence of the alleged active ingredients were successfully measured with Differential Scanning Calorimetry and, thus, providing a full chemical screening of the apprehended materials. Gas Chromatography- Mass Spectrometry confirmed the presence of adulterants such as caffeine, fluoxetine and phenolphthalein as well as contaminants such as sulfurol in the falsified samples. Finally, comparison of extraction procedures indicated that microwave-assisted extraction increased the recovery of compounds detected in chromatographic analysis to a greater extent than solid-liquid extraction.     

Behind the GDP: some remarks on the shadow economy in Mediterranean countries

It is common knowledge that in the past decades the focus on the shadow economy (SE) has increased and the range in the estimated size of this phenomenon is very divergent. The comprehensive coverage of economic production is important in order to ensure good quality of national accounts and exhaustive estimates of the gross domestic product. The purpose of this paper is to approach the SE by means of the latent variable method and the structural equation model–partial least squares and to explore similar behaviors in terms of the obtained results, by analyzing the subsamples of the countries under observation. Political measures need to be implemented carefully to counter the effects of the SE and policy-makers should have to adopt economic policy practices to drive the SE into the formal economy, particularly in less-developed countries.     

Does more crime mean fewer jobs and less economic growth?

This paper employs an Autoregressive Distributed Lags approach to investigate how a set of economic variables and a deterrence variable affect criminal activity. Furthermore, it highlights the extent to which crime is detrimental to economic activity. The case study is Italy for the time span 1970 up to 2004. A Granger causality test is implemented to establish temporal interrelationships. The empirical evidence shows that the lack of deterrence positively affects each type of crime and especially thefts. All crime typologies have a negative effect on legal economic activity, reducing the employment rate. Furthermore, homicides, robbery, extortion and kidnapping have a crowding-out effect on economic growth.     

X-ray mapping technique: a preliminary study in discriminating gunshot residue particles from aggregates of environmental occupational origin

The possibility of detection of lead-antimony-barium aggregates from non-firearm sources is confirmed according to the tests performed on brake pads, and firework and automobile workers. Moreover, information on particles taken from cartridge cases shows the relative feeble importance of the morphology in distinguishing gunshot residues (GSRs). Furthermore, also the presence in the spectrum of other elements (e.g., iron) is not so conclusive. In this panorama, the possibility of discriminating gunshot residue particles from other non-firearm lead-antimony-barium aggregates is investigated: the proposed method is based on X-ray mapping technique--currently applied used in Reparto Carabinieri Investigazioni Scientifiche in Rome, the forensic service of Italian Carabinieri--according to which the spatial distribution of the emission energy of each element of the sample is pictured. Gunshot residues present the same lead-antimony-barium distribution (or at least the same antimony-barium distribution with lead nodules), as some other environmental occupational aggregates do not (different plaques of lead, antimony, and barium). So, X-ray mapping technique can offer a new fundamental evaluation parameter in analysis of gunshot residues with scanning electron microscopy/energy-dispersive (SEM/EDS) spectrometry, and new standards could be considered.     

Iudex in Fabula: Some Reflections on Jackson's Paper

The key issue of this paper is that Professor Jackson's attempt to shednew light on the notion of literal meaning is both stimulating andunconvincing. On the one hand he is perfectly right when he tries todraw attention to the shortcomings which affect most of the longstandingtheories about legal interpretation. In fact, his essay is based on thefooting that interpretation is under-determined by semantic rules andconventions. From such a point of view, as both rule-scepticism and thesemantic conception are old fashioned and unsound, we need acomprehensive theory of textual structures. On the other hand, however,Professor Jackson concedes too much to rule-scepticism with hisnarrative approach. Furthermore, his too sharp opposition between themodern Western model of law, mainly a written law where so-called``literal meaning' is of the greatest importance (at least on anideological ground), and the model of early Biblical law, where themeaning stems from the social context, does not hold completely. It iseasy to find legal systems, for instance the later rabbinic law, whichneither of Jackson's two models can explain, since the reality of law isfar more complex than we believe.     

Downsizing the civil service in developing countries: the golden handshake option revisited

In recent years, more and more calls are being heard in a growing number of developing countries to downsize their civil services. It is argued that downsizing is needed because of the increasing shortfalls in government recurrent and development budgets. This situation results in underutilized, underfunded staff and often in the siphoning-off of donor funds in the development budget for recurrent expenditure. The main problems addressed in this article are why should and how can the civil service in developing countries be downsized. The questions of how much to trim the bureaucracy and how to redeploy redundant public servants in the private sector are also addressed. The article examines alternative strategies for significantly downsizing the civil service. It is contended that problems in this area are indeed common to many developing countries. Various golden handshake options for civil service leavers receive particular attention. It is suggested that economic jumpstart is a better term than golden handshake to characterize the incentives package offered to induce staff to accept voluntary redundancy. Civil service reform is not presented here as a panacea for all developing countries' ills. The article makes a number of mostly untried but nevertheless attractive suggestions that bring some fresh thinking to bear on a difficult issue. Paths and avenues worth exploring when starting to design civil service trimming operations are presented, including some of their limitations. The point is finally made that this type of downsizing is overdue in many places. The article should be considered as a contribution to demystifying the process of downsizing the civil service in developing countries. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.