Configuring authority over electoral manipulation in electoral authoritarian regimes: evidence from Mexico

How do electoral authoritarian autocrats choose strategies for manipulating elections? Most scholars assume that autocrats strategize all electoral manipulation from above, with local regime agents charged with carrying out these top-down strategies. In contrast, a few assume that local regime agents strategize all electoral manipulation from the bottom up. More likely, reality lies in between. To make this point, I build an argument for how autocrats might configure the distribution of decisions over electoral manipulation among regime agents. I argue that autocrats delegate decisions about electoral manipulation to local regime agents in core regime districts – to ensure aggregate support – and to regime agents in recently marginal regime districts – to ensure territorial control. In contrast, autocrats determine strategies in long-time marginal districts and in those turned adverse to the regime. Statistical analysis of a unique political reform in one state in electoral authoritarian Mexico – where autocrats transferred the authority to restrict political rights and the secret ballot to some regime agents but not to all – supports the argument. It also reinforces the proposition that wholly centralized/decentralized decision-making about electoral manipulation only occurs under specific political conditions, raising questions about the empirical validity of these assumptions in current research.     

Does Feminist History have a future?

Abstract

Contemporary shifts in scholarship and institutional agendas, I argue, have created new sets of challenges for feminist history. While these do not undermine the paradigms of this scholarly endeavour, there has been an inevitable shift in how feminist history is now written, conceptualised and undertaken. A hallmark of dynamic and innovative scholarship is a capacity to evolve and respond to intellectual challenges and developments. There is much to be positive about in the future, as I believe feminist history at its best has not remained a passive or static body of knowledge, but continues to be reformulated and reconceptualised, but with this dynamism comes uncertainties which institutional change can bring. While I do not believe these are systemic enough to pose a challenge to the enterprise, I suggest they do create cause for wider discussion, especially about the place of the humanities more generally in the corporate university of the twenty-first century.     

Who speaks for whom? Implementing the Crown's duty to consult in the case of divided Aboriginal political structures

The Supreme Court of Canada has determined that the Crown has a duty to consult Aboriginal peoples on government decisions that may adversely affect their rights, but the Court did not define who the Crown should consult on behalf of Aboriginal people when two or more groups claim the right to speak for them. For government officials attempting to fulfil the Crown's duty, this can create challenges. This article reviews the jurisprudence and scholarly commentary to provide some guidance to government officials on how to effectively implement the Crown's duty to consult as a practical matter of public administration.     

With Revolutionary Battery Tech,We Can Shift Global Energy To Renewables

Inventor and investor Bill Joy describes a breakthrough technology that can speed the de‐carbonization of the planet.     

Arbitration in financial dispute resolution: the final step to reconstructing the default(s) and exception(s)?

In this article, I argue for caution in embracing family arbitration as a new form of private ordering for resolving parties' financial disputes. I explain that family arbitration may be more successful than other forms of private ordering and final court hearings in enabling certain types of parties to resolve certain types of disputes. I consider why family arbitration may not become numerically significant despite its potential benefits, but may be much more important in normative terms. Lawyer-led negotiations remain the most common form of out-of-court resolution and constitute the de facto default form of bargaining in the shadow of the normative regime framed by ss 23–25 Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. Together with the transformation in approach to nuptial agreements, family arbitration may mark a normative shift towards autonomy and private ordering. I question whether this is a desirable step for family law, at least before we have resolved the underlying policy debate.