Determinants of Financial Transparency in Government

ABSTRACT

The search for enhanced transparency and accountability in government organizations has inspired studies to identify the key factors that facilitate greater disclosure of public financial information. With the advantages provided by the meta-analysis technique, applied to a sample of studies, we identify the most significant factors and incentives underlying the decisions adopted by public managers on policy strategies regarding information transparency and public responsibility. Our study shows the variables analyzed to be positively associated with the disclosure of public financial information, but also that this depends on the context in which the research is carried out. The most influential variables were the moderator variables of the administrative culture and of the measurement unit for the variables.     

DISCUSSION - Agricultural Policy Reform and Rural Livelihoods in Central Mexico

This contribution examines the impact of profound changes to agricultural policy implemented since 1988 on the livelihoods of Mexico's rural population. Detailed studies in four villages show that rural incomes are very unevenly distributed within communities leaving half of households in poverty. During the last decade key factors affecting village economies have been international and national, rather than specific changes to farm policy. Most changes have been to the detriment of the communities studied, but peasant households have adapted and survived, at a price. If the worst fears about the consequences of economic liberalisation have not been realised, neither have the hopes. Depressed markets for basic goods and services have limited the growth of the rural economy. Private investment and provision of services have not been stimulated.     

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.     

¿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.     

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.