Tuning In,Not Turning Out: Evaluating the Impact of Ethnic Television on Political Participation

Despite the importance of ethnic television within immigrant communities, its effects on political participation are unclear. On the one hand, ethnic media can mobilize and inform voters. On the other hand, it can serve as a source of diversion and reduce the desire to participate. To evaluate these competing possibilities, we implement a geographic regression discontinuity (GRD) approach involving Federal Communication Commission reception boundaries for Spanish‐language television stations in two states. Additionally, we replicate and unpack our GRD analyses using three nationally representative samples of Latinos. Across multiple studies, we find that access to Spanish‐language television is associated with decreases in turnout, ethnic civic participation, and political knowledge. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings on the ethnic politics, political communication, and social capital literatures.     

Predatory journals and meetings in forensic sciences: what every expert needs to know about this "parasitic" publishing model

The emergence of the Internet has transformed all areas of society. This includes the universe of scientific publications, with several publishers now exclusively focusing on the electronic format and open access model while expanding to a megajournal scope. In this context, the pandemic of predatory open access journals (POAJs) and meetings are of grave concern to the academic and research community. This new shift within academia produces a variety of new victims; namely, the authors themselves. In turn, scientific knowledge is often discredited, with the public placing less trust in science. Now more than ever, performing research with integrity and selecting a journal in which to publish requires close attention and expertise. The "predatory movement" has developed increasingly sophisticated techniques for misleading people into believing what seem to be credible professional layouts and legitimate invitations. Initiatives such as the Jeffrey Beall's list, the Cabell's Scholarly Analytics and Think.Check.Submit offer some guidance to uncover the "parasitic" intervention of predatory journals and meetings, but specific education in this field is sorely needed. This work aims to review the main characteristics of predatory journals and meetings and to analyze this topic in the context of forensic and legal medicine research.     

Is the Constitution the Trap? Decryption and Revolution in Chile

Law and Critique - We will examine the revolts, begun in October of 2019, and currently developing in Chile under three conjoined parts. First, we will not try to theoretically ‘tame’...     

Economic transformations in Cuba: a review

After Raul Castro’s accession to the presidency of Cuba, the country has witnessed the most far-reaching process of economic reforms for more than five decades. The government has expanded the private and cooperative sectors, has passed a new foreign investment law, restructured most of its old debt and has sought to end the long-standing dispute with the USA. Yet economic performance has been poor and the country faces significant challenges and contradictions arising from the reforms. This paper analyses the macroeconomic environment and the changes introduced by the Cuban government over the period 2007–15. While successful at restoring macroeconomic equilibria, restrictive macroeconomic policies have hurt economic growth, whereas growth- and efficiency-enhancing measures are yet to produce results. Moreover, transformation of the economic model is slow because of its many internal contradictions. The paper also discusses some of the main impediments to future change.     

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of “Competence in Use of Firearms Questionnaire” Administered to City Police

The following research describes the psychometric characteristics of the Competence in Use of Firearms Questionnaire, administered to 139 city police agents from four municipalities of the southern region of Tenerife. The questionnaire was based partly on the framework of the competence model of Pereda and Berrocal (2001), and contained 101 items. We tested the construct validity of the questionnaire, its internal consistency, and its potential for practical application. The initial results suggested four factors, differing to some extent from the original model.     

Child Suicide in the North of Portugal

Suicide in children is a rare finding and is probably motivated by acts of impulsiveness. This study aims to contribute to the characterization of child suicide in a forensic perspective in the Portuguese population. Data of forensic autopsies from 2004 to 2012 related to suicide victims under 18 years were reviewed. A total of 17 cases, with a male predominance (64.7%) and a mean age of 15.24 ± 1.348 for both genders, were registered. The leading suicide method was hanging (35.3%), and a suicide note was found in 41.2%. Psychological autopsy proved to be useful in promoting a better understanding of these incidents and their antecedents. This study also offers useful information, namely the implied risk factors, for future programs of suicide research and prevention.     

Is Small Beautiful? Testing the Direct and Nonlinear Effects of Size on Municipal Performance

Although the relationship between managerial capacity and local government performance is well established, research into the direct effect of population size on performance has yielded mixed findings. Using data for 787 municipalities in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, this article examines the direct and nonlinear effects (moderating and curvilinear) of population size on municipal performance. Performance is measured in terms of property tax collection and averaged for the 2005–07 mayoral administration. Mayor's age (a proxy for experience) and educational attainment serve as measures of managerial capacity. After controlling for political and economic factors, both municipal size and mayoral capacity are positively correlated with property tax collection. However, population size neither moderates managerial capacity nor relates curvilinearly to municipal performance. These findings challenge the promoters of fragmentation, which has been the trend in transitional and developing economies.     

Do Remittances Diminish Social Violence?

This paper represents the first attempt to formalise the relationship between remittances and social violence by developing a model that predicts that migrants’ remittances lead to the reduction of social violence in the recipient economy under the condition that remittances increase the average product of labour. Using homicide data as an indicator of social violence, we tested our model’s prediction. Controlling for the endogeneity problem with appropriate instruments, we found that remittances tend to reduce social violence. We performed sensitivity analysis on remittances in the empirical specification and found it robust with an unchanged negative sign.