War Hypotheses: Drug Trafficking,Sovereignty and the Armed Forces in Mexico

This essay analyses how Mexican presidents have interpreted the concepts of drug trafficking and national security and how these particular connotations have redefined national sovereignty and the specific role of the armed forces in protecting this sovereignty. A qualitative technique of discourse analysis is used to examine public speeches by Zedillo (1994–2000), Fox (2000–2006) and Calderón (2006–2012). The conclusions suggest that drug trafficking and US omnipresence are the two main issues that shaped Mexico's national security threats during this period, with qualitatively distinct trajectories.     

Legal Security from the Point of View of the Philosophy of Law

Abstract. The author analyses the concept of legal security from its historical evolution to its main structural aspects. In the first part he argues that legal security is a historical and cultural concept of the modern world. He considers a series of factors which lead from the general concept of security generated by an ideological monism and the social rigidity characterizing the Middle Ages to the concept of legal security protected by the legal monism of the modern state, where legal security, understood as formal or procedural justice, has become a principle inspiring the entire legal system. Then he considers legal security in the social state as the expression of the relationship between man and his social needs. In the second part the author makes a structural analysis of the concept of legal security in a modern legal order, identifying the different spheres in which it can be found: state,—focusing on procedural guarantees as limits to power—, law—considering the internal functioning of the legal system—, society—stressing the effects of the action of the social state on the idea of legal security.     

A Political Economy Model of Workers Representation: The Case of Union Elections in Spain

In this article we present a political economy model to analyse the effects of union elections. Union elections are the prerequisite for participating in collective bargaining and they are a unique Spanish institution for union recognition. We apply standard political economy assumptions to model the union elections in order to understand their influence on the dynamics of the unemployment rate. Although union elections give the right to vote to virtually all workers, we show that insider power exists and that it introduces a hysteresis effect on the unemployment rate. In addition, the model shows how the date of the union elections can amplify the business cycle. An empirical analysis confirms the main predictions of the model.JEL Classification: K31, J51, E24     

Strategic voting and effective representation thresholds: Evidence from three Spanish general elections

The extent of strategic voting in the Spanish general elections of 2000, 2004 and 2008 is estimated using a new measure of strategic incentives suitable for proportional representation systems that avoids some of the problems associated with lagged variables. Strategic behaviour increased from 12 to 33 per cent of the electoral base of the United Left Party, the major victim of strategic defection. This estimate is a conservative one as elite mobilisation is controlled for in the constituencies, which is unusual in the literature on strategic voting that uses regression‐based methods.     

Donating and Volunteering as Social Capital in Bogotá

While the term social capital has been in existence since 1835, it only became popular at the end of the twentieth century, with the emergence of the associational revolution and the appearance of the third sector. Since then, non‐governmental organisations (NGOs), volunteering, philanthropic financing and solidarity organisations have all shaped a common discourse. From a social capital perspective, and on the basis of a social survey, this article investigates the determinants of solidarity and participation in NGOs in Bogotá, Colombia. We conclude that the expression of social capital in Bogotá is made manifest through donations and volunteering, factors which should be considered in fundraising activities.