Mercosur Turns 15: Between Rising Rhetoric and Declining Achievement

Founded in 1991 as an intergovernmental association among four member countries, Mercosur is likely to begin 2006 as intergovernmental and with the same members as when it was founded. Political rhetoric notwithstanding, there has been little deepening and no enlargement in almost 15 years. There have been some achievements, however: increased regional interdependence and political cooperation. This article assesses how much Mercosur has achieved in light of its starting point and the explicit goals set by regional decision makers. It then makes a critical appraisal of the distance between political rhetoric and effective policy implementation, focusing on the role played by the two largest members, Argentina and Brazil. Finally, the article examines the current enlargement, deepening and institutionalisation agenda and assesses its feasibility.     

Private funding of microcredit schemes: Much ado about nothing?

Microcredit, defined as small loans to people who have no regular access to credit, is an innovative strategy in the fight against poverty. Microcredit institutions can obtain funding from private institutional investors (PIIs) that channel funds from donors, private lenders, and socially responsible investors. Private financing of development aid is likely to become more important and microcredit presents an investment opportunity within this context. Microcredit institutions (MCIs) need to become more transparent, however, and require more incentive to seek commercial funding rather than relying on subsidies. With better information about MCIs, PIIs could achieve more impact with their investment.     

Southern Green Cultural Criminology and Environmental Crime Prevention: Representations of Nature Within Four Colombian Indigenous Communities

Critical Criminology - This exploratory study develops a “southern green cultural criminology” approach to the prevention of environmental harms and crimes. The main aim is to...     

To adapt or to disregard? Parties’ reactions to external shocks

How do parties react to unanticipated events such as external shocks? Do they adapt to the consequences of the external shock or do they disregard them? Using the global financial crisis as an empirical example and testing the expectations for parties’ economic policy shifts in 23 European democracies based on Chapel Hill Expert Survey data, the article demonstrates that government parties react more to an external shock than opposition parties, particularly in countries where the external shock has been more severe. This has implications for a broader literature in comparative politics by fostering the dialogue between the political economy literature on external shocks and the literature on party policy shifts by showing the significant impact exogenous events can have on party positioning.     

Evaluating the effectiveness of the Spanish police force through data envelopment analysis

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the level of effectiveness of the National Police Force in Spain, attempting to show the possibilities that the Data Envelopment Analysis technique offers in this field. Furthermore, we have implemented a two-stage procedure which uses econometric methods to estimate the set of variables which will explain the performance of effective units. The results of our analysis show that there is a high level of investigative effectiveness, which decreases regarding coercive and overall effectiveness. This indicates that although there is logic in the cases solved and the culprits arrested, this cannot be extended, given the level of offences, to the number of cases solved, and to a lesser degree to those arrested for them. The units which are most effective overall are characterized by the solving of crimes against the right to sexual freedom and indemnity and by the arrest of a high percentage of those guilty of other offences.      

The Effects of Regional Sizing on Growth

In this paper, a micro-founded model dealing with the effects of regional sizing on economic growth is developed. Departing from bigger sizes, reduction involves more efficient public choices because of proximity to individual preferences and needs, but also creates the risk of underestimation of the real profitability of public expenditure by local governments due to cross border spillovers and “predator” behaviors. Hence the optimal size depends on the relative strength of both effects. Moreover, we show that different institutional arrangements between fiscal tiers involve different results for each possible size. Using data from the Spanish regions during the period 1984–1996, the relationship between productive spending and jurisdiction size is then analyzed.