Demobilization of Paramilitaries in Colombia: Transformation or Transition?

Historically, Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reinsertion (DDR) has provided a useful means to terminate conflicts. Since being catapulted to office in August 2002 with 53 percent of the vote of 46.45 percent of the voters, ¹ 1. IFES Election Guide, available at (http://www.electionguide.org/results.php?ID=1011). Colombian President Álvaro Uribe has vigorously pursued a demobilization program, both individual and collective. However, despite the fact that over 40,000 combatants have demobilized under these programs, evidence is growing that this latest round of Colombian DDR is merely transitioning, rather than terminating, violence in that Andean country.     

中美政府人事管理价值的历史演进与比较分析

价值的进路是深入到政府人事管理内核的必由之路。美国政府人事管理价值的历史演进体现了政治回应、道德主义、效率、个人权利、专业的职业化、社会公平等价值,其发展趋势是维护传统理念、加强管理弹性和以结果为本。中国政府人事管理价值的历史演进体现了宗族主义、政治回应、道德主义、公平竞争、分权等价值,其发展趋势主要是法治主义、效率和分权。美国和中国在政府人事管理价值历史演进和发展趋势上呈现了许多共同点和差异。     

以人为本:我国政府的价值定位

强调以人为本,是对政府与社会之间关系的准确解读,也是校正政府价值定位的新起点。本文首先对以人为本的科学内涵进行解读,其次分析了以人为本在我国近现代以来的历史传承,并分析了以人为本理念下的服务型政府建设对全能主义模式下"为人民服务"的继承与超越。本文的结论是,以人为本理念的确立不仅是党和政府服务宗旨的再次张扬,而且是我国制度建设的逻辑起点,为政府行为模式的确定和制度体系的全面建设奠定了基础。     

Navigating the System: A How-To Guide for Implementing a Kinship Navigator Program

This article describes key programmatic and evaluation elements that guided the implementation of the San Diego County YMCA Kinship Navigator Program. A 3-year demonstration project funded by the Administration on Children Youth and Families designed to build a regional navigator system in collaboration with the local child welfare agency to support kinship caregivers. Kinship caregivers (relatives and non-relatives) play a significant role in the well-being of the children in their care. The findings suggest that successfully implemented kinship navigator models are a viable preventive intervention for addressing the needs of kinship families.     

Implementing the Borda outcome via truncated scoring rules: a computational study

This study is an attempt to empirically understand the likelihood of choosing the Borda outcome through a truncated scoring rule when n voters are asked to report only part of their linear preferences over m alternatives. We run Monte Carlo simulations through a grid search algorithm as we employ an impartial culture model to sample voters’ preferences. Given the range of parameter values we consider, we report the truncated scoring rules that maximize the likelihood of implementing the Borda outcome and how the maximum likelihood changes with m and n. We also present our results on the relative performances of some popular truncated voting rules, such as plurality and approval voting, in implementing the Borda outcome and demonstrate that two-level approval voting performs significantly better than the plurality rule. Moreover, we propose the expected Borda rule as a good proxy for the best implementor of the Borda rule among all truncated rules.     

The causes of legal rents extraction: evidence from Spanish municipalities

This paper analyzes the causes of legal political rent extraction by using a direct measure of it, namely, local top politicians’ wages. In particular, we investigate whether local politicians’ incentives to extract rents by setting their own wages are influenced by the degree of political competition and voter information. We use a sample of the largest Spanish municipalities over the years 2008–2010. The results indicate that weaker political competition and lesser voter information are related to more rent extraction. In an additional analysis, we show that higher wages do not ensure better financial management. These findings confirm that when politicians can set their own salaries, higher wages do not mean better management, but they are just political rents.     

Raising the Threshold,Fighting Fragmentation? Mechanical and Psychological Effects of the Legal Electoral Threshold in Belgium

Many proportional representation systems are characterised by a legal electoral threshold. Such a threshold reserves the allocation of seats for those parties that reach a minimum share of the votes. In order to fight fragmentation, a 5 per cent threshold has been introduced for both federal and regional elections in Belgium. This article seeks to explore the mechanical and psychological effects of this legal threshold after five elections. It is shown that the threshold has had limited mechanical and psychological effects on voters but some psychological effects on party elites. Moreover, while in the short term the average number of lists dropped and several pre-electoral coalitions formed, in the longer term the legal threshold has not prevented further fragmentation.     

Religion and Fundamental Rights in European Politics: Convergences and Divisions at the European Parliament

European legislators must increasingly deal with issues related to fundamental rights. Religion is a frequent topic obliging them to do so. It is not directly part of the EU’s competences but is a source of values underlying policy choices and a tricky political object. Relying on the findings of a survey about what Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) believe and what they do with these beliefs, the article analyzes potential tensions created by religion in the implementation of human rights by the EU. A first part shows how and to what extent European law meets religion, and how it leaves ample room for flexibility but also for divergent interpretations. A second part states that MEPs agree largely on the principle of separation between politics and religion, but may be divided when it comes to drawing boundaries between the two domains. The conclusion points out the limits of the rule of law to prevent conflicts and suggests that human rights may inspire support as well as cause resistance to Europeanization.     

Genetic data on 11 STRs (CSF1PO,TPOX, TH01, F13A01, FESFPS,vWA, D16S539, D7S820, D13S317, F13B,LPL) in an Argentine northeast population

Allele frequencies for 11 short tandem repeats (STRs) loci (CSF1PO, TPOX, TH01, F13A01, FESFPS, vWA, D16S539, D7S820, D13S317, F13B and LPL) were obtained from a sample of 225 unrelated individuals born in the Entre Ríos state of Argentina.     

Of Rebels and Disobedients: Reflections on Arendt,Race, Lawbreaking

Hannah Arendt valued the unprecedented, the unexpected, and the new, yet in essays crafted at the end of the rebellious 1960s, struggled to square this valuation with a palpable desire for law and order. She lamented that criminality had overtaken American life, accused the police of not arresting enough criminals, and charged ‘the Negro community’ with standing behind what she named black violence. At once, she praised ‘the white rebels’ of the student movement in the United States for their courageous acts of disobedience. This essay explores how differential Arendt’s treatment of lawbreaking action was in an effort to understand how ‘certain sections of the population’ in the United States could appear to stand for criminality rather than civil disobedience to her mind. It examines how Arendt’s reflections on the ostensibly non-racial subjects of civil disobedience and lawbreaking were underwritten by racial, when not racist, ways of thinking. The essay also raises a larger question: to the extent that the concept of civil disobedience involves limits, how are those limits drawn to the exclusion of certain kinds of actors and their particular claims in the public realm? Pondering this question through Arendt, it concludes that in her theorization of civil disobedience, Arendt was profoundly limited by the fabulous tale that the United States is an exceptional land of freedom and democracy in the world.