Political interference and regulatory resilience in Brazil

Governments face a fundamental tradeoff between regulatory independence and control. Attempts of interference have the effect of reducing the system's level of commitment and credibility. On the other hand, an administration runs the risk that the autonomy delegated to regulators might be used to pursue outcomes that may harm their interests. This tradeoff is particularly relevant when there is an alternation of power with the arrival of a new political elite with different preferences. This paper uses data from a 2016 survey on regulatory governance applied to Brazilian regulatory agencies. This data is compared to a similar survey performed in 2005. The new survey results turn out to be surprisingly similar to those of a decade earlier, suggesting strong resilience of regulatory agencies despite significant attempts at political interference by powerful presidents. The factors explaining the resilience of regulatory governance in Brazil lie in its broader institutional endowment, which moderates the effects of executive interference.     

Agrarian structure,foreign investment in land,and land prices in Brazil

The recent global rush for farmland in Latin America has produced a dramatic increase in the level of foreign investment in land in Brazil. The current trend accentuates the ongoing process of foreignization of agriculture associated with the production of grains, sugar, ethanol and other commodities, increasing land prices. In response, the Brazilian government reestablished a legal mechanism for ‘controlling’ land-based foreign investment which has proven neither efficient nor effective in solving land concentration. This paper examines this issue by analyzing the causes of the increase in investment as well as the consequences of this process with respect to land prices, critically situating land-based investments and the government's policy response in a broader discussion of the demands of agrarian social movements.     

Developmental Antecedents of Interpartner Violence in a New Zealand Birth Cohort

This paper examines the developmental antecedents of interpartner violence (IPV) victimization and perpetration in a New Zealand birth cohort (n = 828). The study found: (a) IPV occurred in 70% of relationships, with conflict ranging from minor psychological abuse to severe assault; (b) men and women reported similar experiences of victimization and perpetration of IPV; (c) exposure to abuse in childhood, family dysfunction and adversity, childhood and adolescent conduct problems, and alcohol abuse/dependence were significant predictors of IPV victimization and perpetration at age 25; and (d) the antecedents of IPV were largely the same for males and females, although the specific effects of these risk factors differed according to gender. Conduct disorder was more strongly predictive of IPV for females, whereas family adversity was more strongly predictive of IPV victimisation for males.     

Book Review

Book reviewed in this article: Italy Since 1989: Events and Interpretations by Vittorio Bufacchi and Simon Burg The Italian Guillotine: Operation Clean Hands and the Overthrow of Italy's First Republic by Stanton H. Burnett and Luca Mantovani.     

The trade union solution or the NGO problem? The fight for global labour rights

This paper argues that the NGO position on global labour rights is mistaken. NGOs' concerns over race and gender inequalities and their rejection of the primacy of class in today's global, capitalist economy have frustrated the project of incorporating labour rights into the global free trade regime. Trade unions, meanwhile, are one of the few agencies dedicated to dissolving class inequalities, especially between workers in the North and the South. Until NGOs rethink their position on class, trade unions are the only agency capable of pushing the labour rights agenda forward.     

Gambling, substance use, and other problem behaviors among youth: A test of general deviance models

Understanding the relationships between youthful gambling, substance use, and other problem behaviors is of interest to researchers studying deviance and to policymakers developing improved prevention strategies. This study used first-order and second-order factor models to test the hypothesis that gambling, alcohol misuse, other drug use, and delinquency were manifestations of a single general deviance construct. Respondents were seventeen to twenty-one year-old youth who were interviewed in two separate general population studies. Contrary to the hypothesis, the second-order model with a single deviance construct did not fit as well as a model specifying only correlations among all first-order factors. A single latent variable representing general deviant behavior did not explain deviance as well as distinct types of problem behaviors. This was true for overall samples and for gender-specific subgroups. Thus, while problem behaviors were related, there also must be uncorrelated antecedents predicting distinct types of youthful problem behaviors.     

Bread and roses: Justice and the distribution of financial and socioemotional rewards in organizations

Two studies tested the hypothesis that organizational decision makers attempt to counterbalance contribution-based distributions of financial/material rewards (a “merit” system that creates monetary inequality) with need- and equality-based allocations of socioemotional rewards, in effect allocating “roses” in lieu of more “bread”. Experiment 1 had a two-factor design (Reward Type × Magnitude of Income Inequality); 67 subjects were given a managerial in-basket exercise in which they expressed their preferences for a variety of distributive justice rules for seven different types of rewards. Experiment 2 (N=39) had the same design, with a stronger manipulation of magnitude of inequality. Results of the two experiments were consistent with the counterbalancing hypothesis, irrespective of magnitude of income inequality; financially related rewards (e.g., profit sharing, office space, company cars) were distributed with more emphasis on contribution rules (i.e., performance, status), while more socioemotional rewards (e.g., help for an employee's spouse, friendliness) were allocated with more emphasis on equality among individuals, equality across groups, and personal need.