Comparative study of efficiency of dental methods for identification of burn victims in two bus accidents in Spain

This article deals with the usefulness and limitations of dental identification methods of human burn victims of two buses accidents in Spain. The first accident happened in Bailen in 1996 and involved 28 badly burned Spanish victims. In the second, in Illescas in 1997, 8 Japanese and 2 Spanish victims lost their lives. In both accidents, postmortem forensic procedures for identification were used, including external and internal examination, routine photographs, and dental examination. Dental identification was established in 57% of the cases in the Bailen accident and 80% in the Illescas accident. The success rate of dental identification varies considerably depending on the nature of the accident, the nationality and country of residence of the victims, the incidence of dental treatment, the availability of adequate dental records, and the degree of dental injuries. A discussion of procedures and methods for identification recommended when dealing with burn victims is included.     

Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (YPF): History and legacy

This paper aims at providing an overview of Argentine National Oil Company (NOC) “Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales” (YPF) role in Argentina's energy policy. In order to do it, the work takes off from NOCs roles vis‐à‐vis private oil and gas corporations, moving to YPF's history, and its energy socioeconomic effects.     

“In the Corridors of Power”: How the Animal Movement Changed Australian Politics, 1979–1991

Foreshadowed by the anti‐war cause, women's and gay liberation struggles, and the conservation movement, and inspired by Peter Singer's 1975 book Animal Liberation, a fresh wave of animal activism emerged in Australia in the mid‐seventies. In the struggle for animal rights, campaigners used a range of methods, but what characterised the eighties was their lobbying. They engaged politicians, built alliances, and participated in the state. By doing so, they changed Australian politics: they extended the political agenda; influenced public policy; and reshaped the state bureaucracy to include new avenues for addressing animal protection. At the same time, their outcomes were limited, sometimes founded on compromise and failure. The property status of animals was a fundamental constraint that produced differentiated and contradictory policy outcomes. The degree to which the animal movement succeeded in reducing animal suffering is a contentious matter that divides minimalist and maximalist accounts. Ultimately, however, animal advocates were instrumental in advancing the basic animal protection framework evident in Australia today.     

Autonomous or materialist geopolitics?

The body of writing that falls under the label of ‘new imperialism’ proposes a radical and contemporary understanding of post-Cold War international politics that involves a revision and redeployment of the category of inter-imperialist rivalries. Alex Callinicos's ‘Does capitalism need the state system?’ aims at opening a metatheoretical space where it might be possible, within the frame of capitalist mode of production, to meaningfully speak of such an autonomous logic of geopolitical competition, rooted in the essential political fragmentation of the capitalist system along the frontiers of nation-state, but, crucially, not determined by the logic of capitalist competition. This article takes issue with some of Callinicos's conclusions, particularly the possibility of a ‘realist moment’ in our understanding of inter-imperialist rivalries. It also explores the possibility of a non-reductionist, Marxist notion of geopolitical rivalries to be developed through the empirical examination of the state–capital link in foreign policy, and attention to capitalist accumulation and its unfolding in space.     

Cultural Policy and Subjective Well-Being in Mexico

This article compares the notions of subjective well-being—which has been underscored as an aim for public policy—and optimism, studied by Oliver Bennett as an implicit cultural policy. It will give an overview of the high level of subjective well-being in Mexico according to several recent surveys and consider the relation that culture and arts have with subjective well-being in different countries. This will help to frame the proposal that happiness and life satisfaction could be promoted in Mexico through arts management and cultural policy.