Legal Security from the Point of View of the Philosophy of Law

Abstract. The author analyses the concept of legal security from its historical evolution to its main structural aspects. In the first part he argues that legal security is a historical and cultural concept of the modern world. He considers a series of factors which lead from the general concept of security generated by an ideological monism and the social rigidity characterizing the Middle Ages to the concept of legal security protected by the legal monism of the modern state, where legal security, understood as formal or procedural justice, has become a principle inspiring the entire legal system. Then he considers legal security in the social state as the expression of the relationship between man and his social needs. In the second part the author makes a structural analysis of the concept of legal security in a modern legal order, identifying the different spheres in which it can be found: state,—focusing on procedural guarantees as limits to power—, law—considering the internal functioning of the legal system—, society—stressing the effects of the action of the social state on the idea of legal security.     

Differing Effects of the Global Financial Crisis: Why Mexico Has Been Harder Hit than Other Large Latin American Countries

In this article, we argue that the economic and financial crisis that began in Mexico in 2008 has not been primarily caused by the US crisis that began in 2007, as many have argued. As we will show, years of misguided economic policies at the national level have been at the heart of the Mexican crisis. On the one hand, the dominance of foreign banks in the country's financial system and the minimal presence of the public banks have greatly limited the range of counter‐cyclical policy options available to authorities. On the other hand, in the face of the crisis, Mexico has continuously applied deflationary Washington Consensus policies that have deepened the economic contraction. This article will focus on Mexico's individual problems, which offer important lessons for other Latin American countries with a shared recent history of Washington Consensus policies.     

Public Opinion Surveys and USA Foreign Policy Towards Latin America in the Second World War

In this paper, the roles of public opinion polls and agency in foreign policymaking are examined. Based on documents uncovered from the National Archives and Rockefeller Archive Center, this paper presents a more comprehensive picture of the history of public opinion surveys and the shaping of US bureaucracy in their relation to foreign affairs. Further, the paper contends that policymakers are interested in public views pertaining to foreign policy issues, but that private interests (serving their own interpretations of national interest) shape public views, using new techniques as guiding tools.