Peasant ‘Participation’, Rural Property and the State in Western Mexico

It is argued here that development studies tend to ignore the ways in which external interventions become embedded within existing fields of power and are influenced by past experiences. This explains to a large extent the failure of many so-called ‘participatory’ programmes. Crucial changes introduced by the Mexican Agrarian Law in 1992 are examined, with particular reference to the impact and grassroots perception of new ‘participatory’ styles of government intervention. The latter process is illustrated by means of peasant–state interaction on an ejido in Jalisco, where ‘local participation’ that is central to government programmes ‘imposed from above’ reinforces stereotypes such as the ‘corrupt’, ‘ignorant’ official and the ‘lazy’, ‘distrustful’ peasant. Accordingly, encounters between state officials and smallholding peasants in the ejido display a combination of trust/distrust and cooperation/resistance.     

Le système judiciaire québécois: problématique et indicateurs d'efficacité

Sommaire: L'évaluation de la performance des organisations chargées de la prestation des services publics est le plus souvent abordée par le biais de l'analyse des programmes. Cette démarche s'applique difficilement à l'appréciation du degré de réalisation de la mission qui leur est confiée. L'analyse de la problématique du secteur de la justice permet de dégager les trois grands objectifs qui devraient être poursuivis par les systémes judiciaires. 11s ont trait à la qualité de cette justice, à l'accessibilité et à la célérité avec laquelle elle est rendue. Cette problématique est illustrée à partir du cas de l'appareil judiciaire québécois, défini ici cornme un système d'action. Les conditions de réalisation de la mission des systémes judiciaires sont présentées à partir de cet exemple. Divers moyens de mesurer le degré d'atteinte des objectifs sont ensuite dégagés. Enfin, une série d'indicateurs est définie pour certains d'entre eux. Abstract: The evaluation of the performance of public organizations is generally done through program analysis. But another approach should be used to measure the level of achievement of the mission assigned to an institution such as the court system. In this article, we tried to determine how the performance of the judicial apparatus might be evaluated. We considered that the mission of this apparatus refers to three fundamental objectives: the quality of justice, its accessibility, and the absence of undue delays. Referring more specifically to the case of the Quebec judicial system, we examine how the degree of achievement of these objectives might be evaluated.     

The Role of EU Internal Policies in Implementing Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Options to Achieve Kyoto Targets

This paper reviews the role of internal European Union (EU) policies and measures in implementing the target for greenhouse gas mitigation in the Kyoto Protocol. It starts with a discussion of the EU Burden Sharing Agreement, which distributes the target between Member States. This leads to a review of the appropriate level of implementation of policies, i.e. at the EU level or Member State level. There is a role for the flexible mechanisms of the Protocol, particularly emission permit trading, in complementing Member State policies at the EU level. The implementation is to be done against the background of three major factors which may have an important bearing on the policies: the probable long-term requirement of substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions a changing structure of energy markets, following liberalisation of the gas and electricity markets EU enlargement to include economies in transition with the potential for further substantial reductions in emissions.The paper concludes with a discussion of ancillary benefits of the policies that may be substantial and a summary of the position as regards the "unfinished business" of the Protocol to be discussed at the Conference of the Parties in the Hague in November 2000.     

Real interest rate persistence in South Africa: evidence and implications

The real interest rate is a very important variable in the transmission of monetary policy. It features in vast majority of financial and macroeconomic models. Though the theoretical importance of the real interest rate has generated a sizable literature that examines its long-run properties, surprisingly, there does not exist any study that delves into this issue for South Africa. Given this, using quarterly data (1960:Q2-2010:Q4) for South Africa, our paper endeavors to analyze the long-run properties of the ex post real rate by using tests of unit root, cointegration, fractional integration and structural breaks. In addition, we also analyze whether monetary shocks contribute to fluctuations in the real interest rate based on test of structural breaks of the rate of inflation, as well as, Bayesian change point analysis. Based on the tests conducted, we conclude that the South African EPPR can be best viewed as a very persistent but ultimately mean-reverting process. Also, the persistence in the real interest rate can be tentatively considered as a monetary phenomenon.     

Counter-trafficking governance in South Africa: an analysis of the role of the KwaZulu-Natal human trafficking,prostitution, pornography and brothels task team

Determining the efficacy of available counter-trafficking strategies is just as important as understanding the phenomenon of human trafficking itself. This is so if anti-trafficking practitioners wish to make in-roads in preventing and combating human trafficking in South Africa. At the heart of the matter are the ways in which counter-trafficking governance is structured in the South African context. In this article we use the KwaZulu-Natal intersectoral task team, an un-resourced agency of provincial government mandated to prevent and combat human trafficking, as a case study to analyse the ‘4P model’ of counter-trafficking favoured in South Africa. We find that while such an integrated model has great potential, issues of institutional cooperation and coordination, pervasive public official corruption and budgetary constraints hamper its current impact and efficacy. We conclude that these issues must be addressed by South African policy-makers once legislation has been promulgated.     

The legal geographies of transnational cyber-prosecutions: extradition,human rights and forum shifting

This article describes legal and human rights issues in three cases of transnational online offending involving extradition requests by the United States (US). These cases were selected as all suspects claimed the negative impacts of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) were sufficient to deny extradition on human rights grounds. We demonstrate how recent developments in UK and Irish extradition law raise human rights and prosecutorial challenges specific to online offending that are not met by established protections under domestic and internationally sanctioned approaches to extradition or human rights law. In these cases, although the allegedly unlawful conduct occurred exclusively online and concurrent jurisdiction enables prosecution at both the source and location of harm, we demonstrate why national courts hearing extradition challenges are extremely reluctant to shift the trial forum. We conclude by discussing the implications of the new geographies of online offending for future criminological research and transnational criminal justice.