The rise and fall and rise of populism in Venezuela

The article seeks to outline the main elements through which a populist political order was built in Venezuela. It will be done, first by looking at the golden years a of Venezuelan populism (1945–1948). It will be argued that the constitution of populist politics meant: an appeal to the people, the articulation of new social relations and constitution of new political identities. Then it will turn to the latter Pérez and Caldera showing the basic schemes of their governments. They sought to reconstitute politics and reshape political identities in a new populist way. The arrival of Chávez at power and the first months of his government are also analysed.     

Revenue Diversification in Public Higher Education: Comparing the University and Polytechnic Sectors

Financial stringency has been an increasing concern in the higher education sector, especially in the aftermath of the financial crisis. As a result, public higher education institutions have been under increasing pressure to diversify their funding sources through tuition fees and other nonpublic revenues. This article reflects on the institutional impact of those changes by analyzing a panel of 30 higher education institutions from the Portuguese public university and polytechnic sectors for the period between 2003 and 2009. The authors explore the relevance of institutional characteristics such as enrollments in undergraduate and postgraduate programs, the qualifications of academic staff, and the regional environment where institutions are located. Results suggest that certain institutional characteristics related to mission differentiation and the path of development of binary systems are important determinants of higher education institutions’ ability to earn income from tuition fees and other nonpublic sources.     

Imports of Intermediate Inputs and Spillover Effects: Evidence from Chilean Plants

This paper uses plant-level data from Chile to examine the determinants of importing intermediate inputs paying special attention to the role of importing spillovers. The results show that plants that pay higher wages and plants with previous experience importing intermediate inputs are more likely to import inputs. This study also finds a positive correlation between the number of importers in the same region, regardless of their industry affiliation, and the probability of importing intermediate inputs. This suggests that importing spillovers may be important, at least in the case of Chilean manufacturing.     

Minors,gender, and family: The discourses in the court system of traditional Buenos Aires

The article deals with public attitudes toward family responsibility in early-nineteenth-century Bienos Aires, particularly as revealed in lawsuits occasioned by disputes over the custody of minors. The care and education of minors was ordinarily entrusted to parents, but death, incapacity, licentious conduct, poverty or abandonment often resulted in the minor being removed from parents and taken by others into custody of guardians or institutions of public welfare. The majority of the analyzed lawsuits resulted from an attempt by parents to recover their authority over their children. The lawsuits indicate that the racial, gender, social, and generational “disadvantages” of plaintiffs did not a priori determine the judgement, but rather that arguments for family stability frequently were decisive when heard by sympathetic judges. Disadvantages persons thus frequently argued sucessfully about the meaning of the family, as protagonists in the legal system that otherwise often marginalized them.     

Typing of the locus DYS19 from DNA derived from fingernail clippings using PCR Concert rapid purification system

DNA extracted from the fingernails of female victims of a violent or aggressive act may assist in the identification of the male. Sometimes with the current autosomal STR loci, however, the victim's profile may mask the perpetrator's DNA profile or the perpetrator's DNA may be substantially lower in quantity than that of the victim's DNA. Thus, under these conditions, no characterization is possible. In this paper, an alternative DNA extraction procedure was employed, and the application of an STR locus residing on the Y chromosome DYS19 was typed to allow for genetic characterization of the perpetrator in such cases.     

Habermas's Treatment for Relativism

This paper introduces the critical theory of Jürgen Habermas by presenting it as a response to the problems of relativism. While relativism offers a critique of power abuse, it has the additional effect of undermining the use of reason in political and moral action. Habermas seeks to preserve its strengths, and at the same time to defend a role for reason. Following an exploration of the gains offered by his approach, it is suggested that, though his treatment for relativism is effective, it too has a side-effect.     

Chile's 2015 Electoral Reform: Changing the Rules of the Game

In 2015, a center‐left government introduced an electoral reform that replaced the binomial electoral system governing parliamentary elections since 1989 with a more proportional system. This article provides an account of the reform process, describes the new electoral law, and discusses the factors explaining the reform. We argue, first, that it was possible, due to the incentives the government provided, to secure the support of an ample majority of parliamentarians; also, a new and favorable political scenario had emerged, in which the support of the main right‐wing parties was not necessary for the reform to pass. Second, we maintain that the reform sought mainly to resolve problems affecting the parties of the governing coalition related to negotiations of coalition lists for elections. As a complementary objective, the reform promoted a general interest by establishing rules that allowed a “fairer” system of representation and improved competitive conditions.     

Comparative Assessment of a Novel Photo‐Anthropometric Landmark‐Positioning Approach for the Analysis of Facial Structures on Two‐Dimensional Images

Positioning landmarks in facial photo‐anthropometry (FPA) applications remains today a highly variable procedure, as traditional cephalometric definitions are used as guidelines. Herein, a novel landmark‐positioning approach, specifically adapted for FPA applications, is introduced and, in particular, assessed against the conventional cephalometric definitions for the analysis of 16 landmarks on ten frontal images by two groups of examiners (with and without professional knowledge of anatomy). Results showed that positioning reproducibility was significantly better using the novel method. Indeed, in contrast to the classic approach, very low landmark dispersions were observed for both groups of examiners, which were usually below the strictest clinical standards (i.e., 0.575 mm). Furthermore, the comparison between the two groups of examiners highlighted higher dispersion consistencies, which supported a higher robustness. Thus, the use of an adapted landmark‐positioning approach proved to be highly advantageous in FPA analysis and future work in this field should consider adopting similar methodologies.     

Sanctuary Policies and City-Level Incidents of Violence, 1990 to 2010

Despite media coverage of isolated incidents of violent crime perpetuated by undocumented immigrants in cities with sanctuary policies, there is scant systematic research on the relationships between the adoption of sanctuary policies, unauthorized immigration, and crime. We compile city-level data from official sources and use fixed-effects negative binomial regression to examine whether the adoption of city-level sanctuary policies and the concentration of unauthorized Mexican immigrants are associated with homicide and robbery incidents in 107 U.S. cities, across three decades. We find evidence that the adoption of sanctuary policies is associated with a reduction in robberies but not homicide. In contrast, an increase in the relative size of a city’s unauthorized Mexican immigrant population corresponds with a reduction in homicide; however, only in sanctuary cities. Lastly, shifts in violence during our study period are consistently related to social structural characteristics of cities, which are findings consistent with social disorganization theory.