The ‘tenure guidelines’ as a tool for democratising land and resource control in Latin America

Abstract

The current configuration of global land politics – who gets what land, how, how much, why and with what implications in urban and rural spaces in the Global South and North – brings disparate social groups, governments and social movements with different sectoral and class interests into the issue of natural resource politics. Governance instruments must be able to capture the ‘political moment’ marked by the increasing intersection of issues and state and social forces that mobilise around these. This paper looks at whether and how the Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (also known as the TGs) passed in 2012 in the United Nations Committee for Food Security (CFS) can contribute to democratising resource politics today. This work puts forward some initial ideas about how systematic research into the TGs can be done more meaningfully.     

The Persistence of Home Bias for Important R&D in Wireless Telecom and Automobiles

We argue that in this age of globalization, important R&D—in automobiles and wireless telecommunication—exhibits a decisive home bias. This contrasts with findings on the rate and extent of globalization of the aggregate of activities classified as R&D. Sorting out R&D was deemed important at the outset by the firm, and comparing that to "regular" R&D by the same firms enables the argument. We take our findings on location a step further by examining, for this category of R&D, the reasons for nonglobalization.     

Impact of Long Run Exposure to Television on Homicides: Some Evidence from Brazil

This paper focuses on the link between television coverage and violent crime, in particular, homicides in Brazil, a country where crime has grown dramatically in recent decades. Using Census data for the period 1980–2000, the paper finds that people living in areas covered by television signal have significantly lower rates of homicides. The effect is strongest for men of lower socioeconomic status.     

Increasing the Human Capital of Children in Latin American Countries: The Role of Parents’ Time in Childcare

In this paper, we focus on the relationship between parents’ education and activities aimed at increasing the human capital of children (for example, educational childcare). Using time use surveys from Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia we find that in Mexico, Peru, and Colombia the level of education of both father and mother has a positive association with the time devoted to educational childcare, while in Ecuador only fathers’ level of education has a positive association with father’s time devoted to educational childcare. Furthermore, we find that the time devoted to educational childcare by parents is positively related in all four countries.     

Large firms as political actors: A comparative analysis of the chemical industry in Britain,Italy and West Germany

Large firms as political actors are compared in the chemical industry in three countries. In West Germany, co‐ordinated action through the industry associations is important, but firms are developing their own political capabilities. In Italy links with political parties are important, but the operating environment of firms has become less politicised. Britain conforms more to a ‘company state’ model, with the government relations divisions of firms playing a key role. The greatest divergence between the three countries is in terms of relationships with political parties. In general, there is a trend towards greater convergence in government‐business relations in the industry in the three countries, internationalisation being a key factor.     

Privatised Firms and Labour Outcomes in Emerging Markets

A recent large firm-level dataset is analysed to compare labour indicators of privatised, private, and public firms around the world, in particular differences relating to wages, benefits, labour composition, education and training, unionisation, and quality of management. We find that labour productivity and the ratio of permanent to temporary workers increase after privatisation.     

Performance Review and Assessment of Public Managers: Some Evidence from Local Governments in Italy

Performance review and assessment (PRA) of public managers has been adopted in several countries, but we still lack detailed knowledge of what affects the effectiveness of PRA systems. Based on interview data and on a survey of Italian public managers, this article aims to investigate this issue by developing and testing a preliminary model of perceived effectiveness of PRA. The results suggest that PRA perceived effectiveness seems related to the clarity of the organizational design, the quality of the PRA process, the involvement of public managers in the PRA process, and the use of PRA results for tightening control.     

Demonstrating Access to Public Services Diagrammatically

The Nomogramma di Gandy is a practical analytical tool and presentational method that can be applied to the subject of access to public services, such as universities, prisons, and hospitals. Illustrative examples are provided. It is flexible, requires minimal data, and can compare access across many geographical areas in one presentation. It addresses the need to appreciate the dynamics that can exist behind summary statistical analyses that focus on net changes, and can show trends over time. Such visual scanning of multiple data points and their relative juxtapositions, enables many common thinking errors to be minimized, if not completely avoided.     

Electoral Risk and Redistributive Politics in Mexico and the United States

What strategy does a rational party follow in allocating discretionary expenditure? This article conceives redistributive politics as an investment strategy where expenditure allocations respond to electoral risk. To show the effects of risk, it provides evidence from Pronasol in Mexico and an analysis of New Deal spending in the United States. The analysis finds that the federal administrations in both countries responded to systematic electoral risk. Spending diversification into risky voters was a rational response to chances of losing elections. The analysis hence connects electoral volatility with redistributive spending.