Racialisation of Immigrants at Work: Labour Mobility and Segmentation of Peruvian Migrants in Chile

This article explores the emergent racialisation of Peruvian migrants as one element conditioning the labour segregation that characterises Peruvian insertion in Chile. We understand racialisation as a process of construction of categories in which both individual and collective actors participate, and whose expression is demonstrated by the differentiation and inequality that affects the racialised group. We tackle the articulation of racial differences among individual actors, both Chilean employers and Peruvian migrant workers, to suggest that the attribution of naturalised characteristics to migrants is related to segregation, mobility, and specific trajectories in the labour market.     

Long Term Influences of Age–Education Transition on the Brazilian Labour Market

The objective of this study is to estimate the long term mean earnings of the male Brazilian population, taking into account the ageing process of the population and the increase in educational attainment. Using census data, household sample surveys, as well as population and education projections, estimates indicate that an ageing population and an increase in education will have a 2 percent impact on the annual growth of an average income in Brazil by 2050. The challenge for the future is to improve the proportion of the Brazilian population with completed college degrees.     

Information and Values in Popular Protests: Costa Rica in 2000

The mass demonstrations in Costa Rica in 2000 opposing a government initiative to deregulate the electricity and telecommunications markets point to the importance of the paths of communication between the people and government leaders to understand mass political mobilisation. This article explains the surprising reaction of the Costa Rican public by focusing on the unwillingness or inability of the policy-makers to articulate their position in a way acceptable to the citizenry, leaving public space under the dominant influence of social organisations that opposed the initiative.     

RETHINKING E‐GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT FROM A CITIZEN PERSPECTIVE

The use of information and communication technology (ICT), particularly that related to the consolidation of the internet as a social and business networking medium, has impelled governments towards enabling e‐government (e‐gov) programs to transform the future of the delivery of public services. E‐gov has a clear economic, social, and political impact that should be monitored in order to steer the design of effective public policies. In this article, we argue that evaluating the impact of e‐gov entails a complex process of e‐gov performance assessment that should take into account the perspective of citizens. Supported by a framework that combines two theoretical views, namely the structurationist view of technology and the social shaping of technology, we propose a model that consolidates nine performance dimensions. This model is the result of empirical work based on an in‐depth analysis of interviews with relevant social groups regarding their perceptions of the technological artefacts of e‐gov.     

Comparing Cosponsorship and Roll‐Call Ideal Points

We use bill cosponsorship and roll‐call vote data to compare legislators' revealed preferences in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Argentine Chamber of Deputies. We estimate ideal points from bill cosponsorship data using principal‐component analysis on an agreement matrix that included information on all bills introduced in the U.S. House (1973–2000) and Argentine Chamber (1983–2002). The ideal‐point estimates of legislators' revealed preferences based on cosponsorship data strongly correlate with similar estimates derived from roll‐call vote data. Also, cosponsorship activity in the U.S. House has lower dimensionality than cosponsorship has in the Argentine Chamber. We explain this lower discrimination as a function of individual‐ and district‐level factors in both countries.     

Public Provision for Urban Water: Getting Prices and Governance Right

Public sector monopolies are often associated with inefficiencies and inability to meet rising demand. Scholars attribute this to fundamental problems associated with public provision: (1) a tradition of below‐cost pricing due to populist pressures, (2) owner–regulator conflicts of interest, and (3) perverse organizational incentives arising from non‐credible threat of bankruptcy, weak competition, rigidities, and agency and performance measurement problems. Many governments worldwide have shifted to private provision, but recent experience in urban water utilities in developing countries has shown their limitations because of weak regulatory regimes compounded by inherent problems of information, incentives, and commitment. This article examines the paradoxical case of the Phnom Penh Water Supply in Cambodia to illustrate how public provision of urban water can be substantially improved by getting prices and governance right. Findings have implications for the search for solutions to provide one billion people worldwide with better access to potable water.