The Social Impact of Social Funds in Jamaica: A ‘Participatory Econometric’ Analysis of Targeting,Collective Action,and Participation in Community-Driven Development

Qualitative data from a case study of the Jamaica social investment fund reveal that the social fund process is elite-driven and decision-making tends to be dominated by a small group of motivated individuals. However, there is broad-based satisfaction with the outcome. Quantitative data from 500 households mirror these findings by showing that, ex-ante, the social fund does not address the expressed needs of the majority of individuals in the majority of communities. By the completion of the project, however, 80 per cent of the community expresses satisfaction with the outcome. An analysis of the determinants of participation reveals that better educated and better networked individuals dominate the process. Propensity-score analysis demonstrates that JSIF has had a causal impact on improvements in trust and the capacity for collective action, but these gains are greater for elites.     

Measuring Quality of Life in Spanish Municipalities

Abstract

Measuring quality of life in municipalities entails two empirical challenges. First, collecting a set of relevant indicators that can be compared across the municipalities in the sample. Secondly, using an appropriate aggregating tool in order to construct a synthetic index. This paper measures quality of life for the largest 237 Spanish municipalities using Value Efficiency Analysis (VEA) to derive comparative scores by combining the information contained in 19 partial indicators. VEA is a refinement of DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) that imposes some consistency in the weights of the indicators used to construct the aggregate index. The indicators cover aspects related to consumption, social services, housing, transport, environment, labour market, health, culture and leisure, education and security. The results show that the Northern and Central regions in Spain attain the highest levels of quality of life, while the Southern regions report low living conditions. Education is the variable that requires the largest improvement in low performing municipalities, followed by health and culture facilities, pollution and crime. Population density, growth and ageing seem to relate positively to quality of life.     

Are Changes Effective in Performance Management? An Analysis of Japanese Agencies

Agencies are key organizations for implementing and studying performance measurement and management (PMM). This article explores the implementation and effect of PMM in Japanese agencies. In Japan, design of the agency system included New Public Management elements, such as independence and delegation of powers, but also traditional ones, with a strong system of controls. The discourse about the soundness and ambitions of the PMM system permeated the agencies but not so much their effort toward PMM. The performance improvement attained by agencies depends on their agency characteristics, organizational culture, and organizational factors, with a remarkable influence of the organizational culture.     

Why do presidents fail? Political leadership and the Argentine crisis (1999–2001)

This article explores why Argentine president Fernando de la Rúa (1999–2001) failed to govern and the factors that prevented him from compelting his constitutional mandate. This study draw on current literature about leadership. We argue that President De la Rúa’s ineffective performance was characteristic of an inflexible tendency towards unilateralism, isolationism, and an inability to compromise and persuade. Moreover, we examine how de la Rúas performance, in the context of severe political and economic constraints, discouraged cooperative practices among political actors, led to decision-making paralysis, and ultimately to a crisis of governance This work seeks to make four contributions. First, it conceptualizes political leadership by providing an analytical framework that integrates individual action, institutional resources and constraints, and policy context, thus filling a gap in the literature. Second, it explains the importance of effective leadership in building up and maintaining multiparty coalitions in presidential systems. Third, it complements existing institutional approaches to improve our understanding of a new type of instability in Latin America: the failure of more than a dozen of presidents to complete their constitutional mandates. Fourth, it analyzes the way political and economic variables interact in times of crisis. Mariana Llanos is a researcher at the Institut für Iberoamerika-Kunde (IIK) in Hamburg, Germany, and teaches Latin American politics at the University of Hamburg. Her research focuses on Latin American political institutions particularly to the president-congress relations and the legislatures of the Southern Cone. She is the author ofPrivatization and Democracy in Argentina (Palgrave, 2002), co-author ofBicameralismo, Senados y senadores en el Cono Sur latinoamericano (ICPS, Barcelona, 2005, together with Francisco Sánchez and Detlef Nolte) and co-editor ofControle Parlamentar na Alemanha, na Argentina e no Brasil (KAS, Rio de Janeiro, 2005, with Ana María Mustapic), among other works. Ana Margheritis is assistant professor of international relations and Latin American politics at University of Florida. Her research interests are in international political economy, foreign policy, regional cooperation, and inter-American relations. She is the editor ofLatin American Democracies in the New Global Economy (2003); author ofAjuste y Reforma en Argentina, 1989–1995 (1999); and co-author ofHistoria de las relaciones exteriores de la República Argentina (with Carlos Escudé et al., 1998) andMalvinas: Los motivos económicos de un conflicto (with Laura Tedesco, 1991), as well as of several articles in academic journals and book chapters. The authors are grateful to Vicente Palermo and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.     

Refusal of the biological proof practice and the harm of the law to effective judicial guardianship in constitutional jurisprudence]

The Spanish Constitution protects the free investigation of the paternity on its 39.2 the article, in which is granted that possibility. This right is not absolute, it has limits, but those limits will have to be interpreted in a restrictive way due to the principles based on it, such as the legal equality of children, and the integral protection of them. In view of this, the sentences are a very valuable element to delimit the aplication of this right, and establish its limitations.     

Romanians’ current perception of threat from immigrants in a context of co-ethnic migration: assessing the role of intergroup conflict and active/passive contact

This paper investigates the predictors of natives’ perception of the immigrant threat in Romania, an interesting site given immigrants’ marginal presence in the total population and the sizeable proportion of co-ethnic immigrants. Yet the interplay between nationalism and religion shapes an ideological frame that favours unwelcoming attitudes towards immigrants that challenge the Romanian identity forged along ethnic and religious ties. The authors used regression to analyse immigrant threat according to several dimensions: cosmopolitanism, group conflict and intergroup contact. In order to reflect specificities of this particular context, the latter dimension is conceptualized so as to include active and passive contact with immigrants. This distinction is relevant because of immigrants’ low presence in Romania. Findings suggest that variables from conflict theory explain more of the variation in the perceived threat, while indirect contact through mass-media exposure to immigrant content has the potential to reduce the perception of immigrant threat.     

Indigenous People,Organized Crime and Natural Resources: Borders,Incentives and Relations

This article explores the relationship between the Emberá–Wounaan and Akha Indigenous people and organized crime groups vying for control over natural resources in the Darién Gap of East Panama and West Colombia and the Golden Triangle (the area where the borders of Laos, Myanmar (Burma), and Thailand meet), respectively. From a southern green criminological perspective, we consider how organized crime groups trading in natural resources value Indigenous knowledge. We also examine the continued victimization of Indigenous people in relation to environmental harm and the tension between Indigenous peoples’ ecocentric values and the economic incentives presented to them for exploiting nature. By looking at the history of the coloniality and the socioeconomic context of these Indigenous communities, this article generates a discussion about the social framing of the Indigenous people as both victims and offenders in the illegal trade in natural resources, particularly considering the types of relationships established with dominant criminal groups present in their ancestral lands.

     

What do Household Surveys Really Tell Us about Risk,Shocks, and Risk Management in the Developing World?

We report on a project to explore empirical patterns in risk, shocks and risk management using recent household surveys with risk modules from 16 different developing countries. Natural disasters, health shocks, economic shocks, and asset loss are the most commonly reported types of shocks and, especially for the poor, often result in ‘bad’ coping responses that may perpetuate vulnerability. The information culled from these survey modules falls short of expectations in several ways.     

Alcohol and Domestic Violence: A Cross-Over Study in Residences of Individuals in Brazil

The objective of this study was to investigate psychological or physical violence associated with the use of alcohol, in residences of individuals in Brazil and, also describe the social characteristics of aggressors and victims. Therefore, this study expects to contribute to studies in Brazil that seek to clarify the relations between alcohol and violence in residences. A total of 454 respondents, 12–65 years old, were assessed, they were sorted by the Kish method, and the residences randomly. The SAMHSA questionnaire was utilized after translated and adapted to Brazilian conditions. 26% of the individuals reported psychological violence, and 16% reported physical violence. The study’s main results set the differences in the reports for physical violence (OR 7, 95% CI: 4–13) and psychological violence (OR 5, 95% CI: 3–8) in residences where someone arrived or became intoxicated with alcohol (P < 0.05). 50% of the aggressors were under the effects of alcohol, and 77% of the victims were relatives of their aggressors. Acts of violence are not necessarily associated with alcohol consumption. Men and women reported acts of domestic violence; psychological violence was the most prevalent form. Men are currently the primary aggressors, while women are primarily the victims