Rural democratisation in Mexico's deep south: grassroots right-to-know campaigns in Guerrero

In Mexico's southern state of Guerrero, rural social and civic movements are increasingly claiming their right to information as a tool to hold the state publicly accountable, as part of their ongoing issue-specific social, economic, and civic struggles. This study reviews the historical, social and political landscape that grounds campaigns for rural democratisation in Guerrero, including Mexico's recent information access reforms and then compares two different regional social movements that have claimed the ‘right to know’. For some movements, the demand for information rights is part of a sustained strategy, for others it is a tactic, but the claim bridges both more resistance-oriented and more negotiation-oriented social and civic movements.     

Pork is policy: Dissipative inclusion at the local level

The article investigates the impact of local policies on human development indicators in Brazilian municipalities. This is an attempt to investigate the role of the legislative branch in reducing inequality and poverty through budget amendments, usually seen in derogatory form as pork barrel politics. We assess the effect of pork on municipalities using up‐to‐date policy evaluation techniques. Brazil is a case of extreme inequality and an active legislative branch in disbursing monies. The data set contains over 60,000 observations from all 5,500+ Brazilian municipalities for over a decade. We use matching and longitudinal data analysis techniques, treating pork as exogenous shocks, mapping how its effect reverberates on social and economic indicators in succeeding years. The results indicate a positive impact of such policies in improving local level development. However, these results are not sustainable over time, thus suggesting inclusion with a dissipative profile.     

STI policy conventions in Uruguay. An analysis of political party platforms 2004–2019

Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) have been considered as critical tools in development processes, gaining growing importance in the public policy agenda. We assert that an intersubjective agreement about STI policy has emerged in Latin America from the beginning of the twenty-first century. This operates as a developmental convention which is based on a hybrid theoretical rationale from neoclassical economics and the innovation systems approach. This process has been analyzed from different perspectives of innovation and political economy studies. However, as far as we know, the role of political parties in the construction and reproduction of STI conventions has not been studied. After illustrating the general assertion with stylized facts from the whole Latin American region, we study the platforms that Uruguayan political parties presented in the national elections between 2004 and 2019. Text analysis techniques show that platforms of both left- and right-wing political parties were embedded in the current STI policy convention. However, critical discrepancies emerge in relation to policy implementation—the positive and negative agendas—which show that there has been political competition regarding the role of the state and of markets. This leads us to conclude that even though one can observe a shared set of building blocks on STI policy and development, there is competition within the current convention, suggesting that any agreement is illusory.     

Analysis of 2,4-Dinitrophenol in Postmortem Blood and Urine by Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry: Method Development and Validation and Report of Three Fatalities in the United States

2,4-dinitrophenol (2,4-DNP) is a compound used in the early 1900s as a weight-loss drug but later prohibited due to its severe adverse effects, including death. It has however been attracting interest, due to its weight-loss properties, and appears to be re-emerging in forensic casework. As 2,4-DNP is available for use in industry and as a pesticide and easily accessible online, the dissemination of this drug can be fast. The compound exerts its effects through inhibition of ATP synthesis, and corresponding thermogenic energy loss which can be fatal. A method for qualitative and quantitative analysis of 2,4-DNP in blood and urine specimens using GC-MS with hydrogen as carrier gas is described. The method was validated and displayed acceptable performance parameters with linearity (R² higher than 0.998), inter-assay imprecision (lower than 10.6%), intra-assay imprecision (lower than 10.7%), and extraction efficiency (92.1%). Stability of 2,4-DNP in blood and urine was studied, and the drug was stable up to 30 days refrigeration or frozen. Six cases in United States suspected to be related to 2,4-DNP were analyzed. Three cases were found to be positive for 2,4-DNP. Concentrations of 2,4-DNP were in the range of 61.6–220 mg/L in urine and <3–114 mg/L in blood. Based on our findings, we suggest that medical examiners and forensic toxicologists be aware of the reappearance of 2,4-DNP, including this compound as a target in death investigations related to weight-loss drugs.     

The Spanish model of New Journalism in a European context

This work deals with the study of the evolution and the historical experience of Spanish journalism in the context of decades of transition between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From the selection of the most relevant cases and the examination of tracking, or not, of models and European patterns of the reference press, singularities and analogies of the historical evolution of the Spanish journalism model may be seen – an evolutionary model fully registered within the framework of Western Europe and in one of its most fruitful phases: the origins and first development of the mass media. Therefore, the following trilogy of reference media is selected covering specified time periods: El Imparcial, Madrid, 1867–1933; La Vanguardia, Barcelona, 1881; and ABC, Madrid, 1903.     

Increasing the Human Capital of Children in Latin American Countries: The Role of Parents’ Time in Childcare

In this paper, we focus on the relationship between parents’ education and activities aimed at increasing the human capital of children (for example, educational childcare). Using time use surveys from Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia we find that in Mexico, Peru, and Colombia the level of education of both father and mother has a positive association with the time devoted to educational childcare, while in Ecuador only fathers’ level of education has a positive association with father’s time devoted to educational childcare. Furthermore, we find that the time devoted to educational childcare by parents is positively related in all four countries.     

Mapping Religious Change in Latin America

Using Latinobarometer survey data, we study the evolution of religious identities among the adult populations of 17 Latin American countries between 1996 and 2013. We find several interesting patterns. First, the current religious landscape is highly dynamic and is becoming increasingly pluralist among a majority of countries. Changes derive not only from the growth of Evangelicals, as commonly assumed, but also from the sharp rise in irreligious individuals. Second, religious change cannot be convincingly explained by important theories such as secularization, religious economies, and anomie. However, the predictions derived from anomie theory seem more useful for understanding Evangelical growth. Finally, our cohort analysis indicates that aggregate religious change largely results from individual‐level change across time—religious conversion and apostasy—rather than from generational replacement. Still, there are interesting variations across countries in that respect.