The Combined Effect of Advertising and News Coverage in the Mexican Presidential Campaign of 2000

In July 2000, the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) lost the presidency of Mexico after 71 years of continuous rule. Research based on individual data obtained with surveys shows that important media effects occurred. Using aggregate data, in this article the author explores the effects of political advertising and media coverage on preferences during the Mexican presidential campaign. Data on voter preferences are taken from results of a trial ballot question in public opinion polls. Data on advertising are measured in gross rating points. Data on media coverage are taken from the monitoring of newscasts on the two major networks. OLS regression models are developed, with preferences as the dependent variable and campaigning differentials as the independent variables. Based on aggregate data, this research shows that in Mexico's 2000 presidential campaign, exposure to political communication led to persuasion, and news appears to have been more important than ads. Political communication was a unified process where ads and news presence acted together in a very interesting fashion, “bounding” each other in periods of major changes in preferences but with news effects prevailing over ads. Qualified news differentials accounted for 20% of the variance in preferences, and ad differentials accounted for 8%. This media effect occurred through a cumulative process where ads and news coverage acted together.     

FACE‐R—A 3D Database of 400 Living Individuals' Full Head CT‐ and Face Scans and Preliminary GMM Analysis for Craniofacial Reconstruction

In the past, improvements in craniofacial reconstructions (CFR) methodology languished due to the lack of adequate 3D databases that were sufficiently large and appropriate for 3‐dimensional shape statistics. In our study, we created the “FACE‐R” database from CT records and 3D surface scans of 400 clinical patients from Hungary, providing a significantly larger sample that was available before. The uniqueness of our database is linking of two data types that makes possible to investigate the bone and skin surface of the same individual, in upright position, thus eliminating many of the gravitational effects on the face during CT scanning. We performed a preliminary geometric morphometric (GMM) study using 3D data that produces a general idea of skull and face shape correlations. The vertical position of the tip of the (soft) nose for a skull and landmarks such as rhinion need to be taken into account. Likewise, the anterior nasal spine appears to exert some influence in this regard.     

¿Por qué prevalece el estado de derecho? una aproximación comparada a las explicaciones centradas en la cultura de la legalidad

The objective of this paper is to analyze the relation between the concept of the Rule of Law and the culture of legality from a compared approach in order to establish the scope and limitations of explanations that are based in cultural factors. More specifically, we are interested in comparing the scope and limitations of culture-based explanations on why the Rule of Law prevails in certain countries: these explanations are centered in the construction of wide agreements between social actors and the control by civil society. Also we consider equally important the comparing of different definitions of culture of legality and the strategies and instruments that allow its construction. For this purpose we will center, specially, in the experiences of Hong Kong, Palermo and Bogotá.     

Economic performance and turnout at national and local elections

This paper analyzes the impact of economic performance on voter turnout. We estimate an economic turnout model in which local economic variables are included in quadratic form, so that non-linear effects can be taken into account. We use panel datasets covering municipalities, from 1979 to 2005, and cross-sections of parishes (freguesias) to analyze the determinants of turnout at Portuguese municipal and legislative elections. The empirical results indicate that the performance of the national economy is important only in legislative elections and that the regional and local unemployment rates tend to have non-linear relationships to turnout. The results obtained for Flemish municipalities also provide evidence in favor of a non-linear effect of unemployment on turnout.     

Reformas electorales y coherencia ideológica de los partidos políticos en Colombia, 1986-2013

This article sets out changes which the Colombian party system experienced throughout the last two decades. It focuses on the topics, ideology and party divisions present in a representative sample of the last four legislatures’ congress members. This study is based on factorial and discriminate analyses, making use of the Latin American Parliamentarian Elites database. This article holds that the 2003 political reform had a positive effect on Colombian parties’ and social movements’ ideological coherence within Congress. Electoral reforms are also discussed in the light of these findings.