Globalization and Migration: The Impact of Family Remittances in Latin America

Taking as its point of departure the relationship between migration and globalization, this article highlights the salience of remittances in the national economies of Latin America, especially Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. It looks at the various actors that participate in the transfer of remittances and suggests that incorporating migrant labor dynamics as a category of economic integration will reveal a distinct landscape in the economies of Latin America.     

Book Reviews

Guy Edwards and J. Timmons Roberts, A Fragmented Continent: Latin America and the Global Politics of Climate Change. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2015. Table, figure, notes, bibliography, index, 274 pp.; hardcover $55, paperback $30, ebook $21. Owen Logan, John‐Andrew McNeish, and Axel Borchgrevink, eds., Contested Powers: The Politics of Energy and Development in Latin America. London: Zed Books, 2015. Tables, figures, bibliographies, index, 366 pp.; hardcover $95, paperback $28.95, ebook. Barbara Fritz and Lena Lavinas, eds., A Moment of Equality for Latin America? Challenges for Redistribution. Burlington: Ashgate, 2015. Tables, figures, bibliography, index, 284 pp.: hardcover $95.96, ebook. Mala Htun, Inclusion Without Representation in Latin America: Gender Quotas and Ethnic Reservations. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Tables, figures, acronyms, appendixes, bibliography, index, 226 pp.; paperback $29.99. Koonings, Kees, and Dirk Kruijt, eds., Violence and Resilience in Latin American Cities. London: Zed Books, 2015. Figures, tables, 208 pp.; paperback $29.95, ebook. Miguel Carter, ed., Challenging Social Inequality: The Landless Rural Workers Movement and Agrarian Reform in Brazil. Durham: Duke University Press, 2015. Photographs, maps, tables, figures, abbreviations, bibliography, index, 544 pp.; hardcover $109.95, paperback $31.95. J. Patrice McSherry, Chilean New Song: The Political Power of Music, 1960s–1973. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 2015. Notes, index, 229 pp.; hardcover $97.50, paperback $44.95, ebook $44.95. Bruce M. Bagley and Jonathan D. Rosen, eds., Colombia's Political Economy at the Outset of the Twenty‐First Century: From Uribe to Santos and Beyond. New York: Lexington Books, 2015. Figures, tables, notes, bibliography, index, 354 pp.; hardcover $100, ebook $99.99. Amy Reynolds, Free Trade and Faithful Globalization: Saving the Market. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Tables, abbreviations, bibliography, index, 198 pp.; hardcover $93, ebook $72.     

UNFCCC negotiations (pre-Kyoto to COP-9): what the process says about the politics of CDM-sinks

One of the most contentious issues in the negotiations aimed at operationalizing the Kyoto Protocol was the treatment of sinks and, particularly, the eligibility of sinks projects in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). This paper attempts to analyse the politics underlying these negotiations, drawing on methods of process tracing, key informant interviews, negotiating texts and secondary literature. Tracing the sinks debate and highlighting key lessons about the nature of global environmental agreements and their institutional arrangements is the first step to recounting the history of the politics of one of the major contemporary international environmental debates. The paper shows that the Kyoto Protocol negotiations on sinks and CDM-sinks were multilaterally supported as a practical solution, but went ‘off track’ due to actors’ interests and tradeoffs. As regards future negotiations on forest sinks in developing countries under the framework of the UNFCCC, the paper argues that these are likely to be influenced by similar constraints, and also by the conservation and development agenda of its supporters; as well as the experience gathered on the CDM and the interests and concerns of developing countries. We broadly frame the paper within the literature on global environmental politics.

Bausteine einer Theorie der Netzwerkgesellschaft

Dieser Aufsatz präsentiert Bausteine einer Theorie der Netzwerkgesellschaft. Sie ist das Ergebnis empirischer und kulturvergleichender Untersuchungen und beschreibt in einer ersten Annäherung die das Informationszeitalter charakterisierende Gesellschaftsstruktur. In einer Vielzahl kultureller und institutioneller Erscheinungsweisen prägt die Netzwerkgesellschaft die meisten Gesellschaften dieser Erde auf ähnliche Weise wie die Industriegesellschaft die Gesellschaftsstruktur des Kapitalismus und der Planwirtschaft über weite Strecken des 20. Jahrhunderts geprägt hat. Gesellschaftsstrukturen organisieren sich um Verhältnisse von Produktion und Konsum, Macht und sozialer Erfahrung. Deren jeweilige raum-zeitliche Konfigurationen begründen Kulturen, die von sozialen Akteuren geschaffen, von ihnen reproduziert und durch sie transformiert werden. Ein zentrales Charakteristikum der Gesellschaftsstruktur im Informationszeitalter ist, dass sie auf Netzwerken beruht, die die soziale Morphologie kennzeichnen. Im Gegensatz zu früheren Formen stützen sich Netzwerke heute auf die neuen Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien, so dass sie sowohl den Erfordernissen flexibler Dezentralisierung als auch jenen effektiver Entscheidungsfindung gerecht werden können. Dieser Aufsatz untersucht die spezifische Interaktion zwischen der Netzwerkmorphologie und den Verhältnissen von Produktion und Konsum, Macht und sozialer Erfahrung sowie der Kultur im Prozess einer neu entstehenden Gesellschaftsstruktur zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts.     

The Co-development of Friends’ Delinquency with Adolescents’ Delinquency and Short-term Mindsets: The Moderating Role of Co-Offending

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - The companions in crime hypothesis suggests that co-offending moderates the link between peer delinquency and adolescent delinquency. However, this hypothesis has...     

Drawing conclusions about causes from systematic reviews of risk factors: The Cambridge Quality Checklists

Systematic reviews summarize evidence about the effects of social interventions on crime, health, education, and social welfare. Social scientists should also use systematic reviews to study risk factors, which are naturally occurring predictors of these outcomes. To do this, the quality of risk factor research needs to be evaluated. This paper presents three new methodological quality checklists to identify high-quality risk factor research. They are designed so that reviewers can separately summarize the best evidence about correlates, risk factors, and causal risk factors. Studies need appropriate samples and measures to draw valid conclusions about correlates. Studies need prospective longitudinal data to draw valid conclusions about risk factors. And, in the absence of experimental evidence, controlled studies need to compare changes in risk factors over time with changes in outcomes to draw valid conclusions about causal risk factors.

Power and Conflict in the Swiss Political Elite: An Aggregation of Existing Network Analyses

Since Kriesi's (1980) pioneering work no study has attempted to provide an overall picture of power configuration among the Swiss political elite. To fill this gap we aggregate recent network analyses carried out in various policy domains. Based on meta-hypotheses regarding the likely effects of the contextual changes that have taken place during the last thirty years, we compare the structure of the Swiss political elite existing in the 1970s to that of the last decade with respect to reputational power, collaboration and conflict. Our results suggest that important transformations have indeed occurred. Thus, both political parties and some specific state bodies could increase their power, whereas most interest groups have lost some. While the internationalization of politics has overall had the expected effects with respect to the power structure and to conflict among political parties, it did not lead to the hypothesized, new conflict among interest groups.     

Editorial

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique -     

The Rehabilitation of Practical Reasoning and the Persistence of Deductivism: An Impossible Challenge?

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique - Exploring certain specific dimensions of practical reasoning in law—namely the possibility...