Transparency and Political Budget Cycles at municipal level

We analyze the effect of municipal financial transparency on the magnitude of political budget cycles. Our sample covers the Spanish largest municipalities in the period 1999‐2009. While the impact of transparency on the electoral cycle has been studied at the international and regional level, there is no empirical evidence of its effect at the local level. Using the financial transparency index made by Transparency International Spain, we show that municipalities with lower levels of financial transparency present an electoral cycle in total spending, whereas such an electoral impact on total spending does not appear in high transparent municipalities. Furthermore, the magnitude of cycles in capital spending and taxes does not vary among low‐transparency municipalities and high‐transparency municipalities.     

Networks and Armies: Structuring Rebellion in Colombia and Afghanistan

Until recently, the importance of organizational factors in the understanding of the variance of the behavior of state challengers had not been recognized. New studies and theories have underscored its crucial character. This article contends that challengers can be placed in a continuum constituted by two opposed polar types, army like and network associations, and compare the Afghan Taliban's and the Colombian Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—FARC)'s organizational principles from this point of view. The main claim is that organizationally inspired explanations behave much better than resource inspired ones when accounting for the differences between the Taliban and the FARC.     

The Reform of the Local Administration in Spain in Terms of Population

Spanish Local Corporations are playing an increasingly important role in the provision of public services without reducing their function of consolidation and structuring of the current sociopolitical system. This reality implies an increase in their need of financial funds without new compensation resources. Also, there is a certain tendency to loose population in many counties along with a greater organic and territorial dispersion that accelerates their financial weakening. This makes necessary to find management alternatives ensuring the appropriate provision of local public services and thus the Local Corporation reform becomes an alternative. In this context, the present paper approaches the analysis and the results based upon a territorial balance criterion on the population and its distribution, aiming ultimately to design an indicator able to measure the need of the Spanish local government structure according to its population and the size of its municipalities. This indicator might measure the regional impact to any variation both in the distribution of its population and in the number of municipalities.     

An opportunity for research and bioethics]

This article looks at the draft bill of the law on Biomedical Research. It analyses its novelties, such as: the creation of a Spanish Bioethics Committee, the new regulation on nuclear transfer, biobanks and finally the setting of the groundwork for the fostering of the professional degree of researcher in the National Health System. This draft bill is a great opportunity for the scientific community.     

Neopopulism and its limits in Collor's Brazil

The election of Fernando Collor de Mello as President of Brazil in 1989 was regarded as part of a new wave of neopopulist leaders in contemporary Latin America. The article explores the conditions of emergence of Collor's neopopulist project, the nature of his appeal and the causes of his downfall. The article argues that the emergence of Collor's neopopulist challenge was the result of a crisis of representation in Brazil's edging democratic order. The article concludes that Collor's demise from power in 1992 had to do with the precarious nature of his appeal and his failure to ground his project in a new set of political institutions.     

Can the United Nations support "objective" and unhampered illicit drug policy research?

Policies towards mind-altering drugs are controversial and vary among countries and cultures. Many nations feel that the United Nations should be a forum where anti-drug issues can be discussed openly and `objectively'. During the 1990s I participated frequently in U.N. sponsored research projects. This essay summarize what has been a challenging and exciting experience and raises many questions about the U.N.'s capacity to do and or fund `objective' drug research. This is so because of pressures on the U.N. from drug-policy setting countries, lack of independent funds for the U.N. drug policy agencies, the structure and internal dynamics of the U.N. bureaucracies, and the background of the involved U.N. staff. As a result of these factors, the U.N. has promoted a repressive anti-drug agenda and does not allow open debate of many of key anti-drug issues currently discussed in many coutries. This is unfortunate because the UN. has the largest amount of information about illicit drugs anywhere in the world and can play a key role improving anti-drug policies that currently are unsatisfactory to both, drug hawks and doves.     

Legal reserve and other questions related to the use of DNA in criminal research (part I)]

Lately, there has been an expansion phenomenon in the use of DNA techniques in criminal investigation. Several of our European neighbouring countries are undertaking reforms in this area. However, the proliferation in the use of DNA is hindering a series of guarantees that up until present were considered settled. The exceptions to the judicial due process is an evident example of this trend. Examples of this can be seen in the last interpretation that the Supreme Court has made of the Spanish regulation and the last reform in Germany, both of which we will take a look at.