A "politically robust" experimental design for public policy evaluation, with application to the Mexican universal health insurance program.

We develop an approach to conducting large-scale randomized public policy experiments intended to be more robust to the political interventions that have ruined some or all parts of many similar previous efforts. Our proposed design is insulated from selection bias in some circumstances even if we lose observations; our inferences can still be unbiased even if politics disrupts any two of the three steps in our analytical procedures; and other empirical checks are available to validate the overall design. We illustrate with a design and empirical validation of an evaluation of the Mexican Seguro Popular de Salud (Universal Health Insurance)program we are conducting. Seguro Popular, which is intended to grow to provide medical care, drugs, preventative services, and financial health protection to the 50 million Mexicans without health insurance, is one of the largest health reforms of any country in the last two decades. The evaluation is also large scale, constituting one of the largest policy experiments to date and what may be the largest randomized health policy experiment ever.     

Forensic Use of A Subtropical Blowfly: The First Case Indicating Minimum Postmortem Interval (mPMI) in Southern Brazil and First Record of Sarconesia Chlorogaster from a Human Corpse

Southern Brazil is unique due to its subtropical climate. Here, we report on the first forensic entomology case and the first record of Sarconesia chlorogaster (Wiedemann) in a human corpse in this region. Flies' samples were collected from a body indoors at 20°C. Four species were found, but only Chrysomya albiceps (Wiedemann) and S. chlorogaster were used to estimate the minimum postmortem interval (mPMI). The mPMI was calculated using accumulated degree hour (ADH) and developmental time. The S. chlorogaster puparium collected was light in color, so we used an experiment to establish a more accurate estimate for time since initiation of pupation where we found full tanning after 3 h. Development of C. albiceps at 20°C to the end of the third instar is 7.4 days. The mPMI based on S. chlorogaster (developmental time until the third instar with no more than 3 h of pupae development) was 7.6 days.     

Comparative Sociology of Law: Legal Fields, Legal Scholarships, and Social Sciences in Europe and the United States

This article attempts to gain a better understanding of the sociology(ies) of law in a comparative perspective through a structural and comparative explanation of the American and the French legal fields. It is argued that comparative sociology of law will not be able to explain the difference among countries, scholars, movements, and schools of thought in short, it will not be able to compare—as long as it avoids the analysis of some social and cultural presuppositions related to the context in which these differences take place. It focuses mainly on two of these presuppositions. First, legal fields, with their history, their internal structure, and their power relations, and second the type of relation between the legal field and the state. The empirical examination provided in this article explicitly seeks to offer insights for the reconstruction of Bourdieu's structural theory of the legal field.     

Policy Transfer as a “Contested” Process

Policy transfer studies have commonly assumed that changes to policies borrowed from abroad are either the result of deliberate efforts to adjust/translate them to fit its receiving environment, or an adaptive response to the cultural and institutional circumstances of the latter. In introducing the concept of “contested policy transfer,” this article will argue that differences between the “original model” and the borrowed one might be actually due to the series of conflicts and negotiations which take place among key bureaucratic actors at the “importer” jurisdiction. The article will illustrate the concept by analyzing the transfer of the Chilean “Programa de Mejoramiento de la Gestión” to the Mexican government, a process which took place between 2005 and 2010.     

Some common questions about participatory research: a review of the literature

This article reviews, through reference to the published literature, some key questions about participatory research. When should participatory research be used? How should participatory research be applied? What about quality of science in participatory research? Are there any institutional issues associated with the use of participatory research? And what are the benefits and costs of participatory research? The article is not a comprehensive literature review on participatory research, it is not meant to set standards for participatory research, nor to define what constitutes ‘good’ participatory research, but rather it seeks to summarise the realities of implementing participatory research, as discussed and debated by several published authors, and to provide some useful background for this special issue.     

The contribution of lobby regulation initiatives in addressing political corruption in Latin America

For most of its history, Latin America has lived under authoritarian and elite rule where public decisions were often crafted in the shadows by cabinets and parliaments to the benefit of a small minority. Recently, the development of participatory political systems has brought some transparency to the policy-making process. Such scrutiny reveals evidence of the capture of aspects of policy-making by private interests that use obscure strategies to achieve their political goals. As a consequence, a widespread movement for regulating the role and tactics of interest groups emerged, which is seen as a necessary step to address the root causes of political corruption. This article provides an overview of efforts to regulate lobbying in Latin America. It explains attempts at regulation in four countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Peru), evaluates the level of success of these efforts, and assesses prospects for the future regarding reducing corruption through the instrument of lobby regulations. The authors argue that such regulations alone cannot eliminate political corruption. However, lobby regulations can contribute to increased transparency and aid in developing an anti-corruption culture. It will be shown that lobby laws in Latin America exhibit many of the problems long identified with similar regulations across western democracies. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Intellectual Capital and Public Management： A Bibliometric Analysis

Starting from the premise that public management, in the context from the emergent knowledge society, needs new forms to act and new tools to reach its objectives, this paper aims to find evidence of the adoption of the principles of intellectual capital under the public management, by raising scientific articles about the subjects, and aims to select theoretical referential about intellectual capital and public management, by bibliometric analysis. The processes presented 100 constant articles in the final portfolio, available in the data base Web of Science, Science Direct and Scopus. The bibliometric indicators show that the studies were published as from 1969, released by 15 international periodicals, written by 164 authors, used 241 key words related to the constructs of this study. It is believed that the identification of the main references helps the understanding of the foundations of this research field. Additionally, this paper provides many inputs that contribute to the comprehension of the subject at an international level, and that can be utilised in the development of future works.