Imperialism and Resistance: Canadian mining companies in Latin America

David Harvey's concept of accumulation by dispossession is a useful framework for understanding the predatory activities of Canadian mining companies in Latin America. Capitalist imperialism is rooted in the logic of a socioeconomic system that is driven by the competitive pursuit of profit based on the exploitation of labour, and which is prone to over-accumulation. Capital, backed by state power, pursues a spatial fix to resolve the systematic crisis of over-accumulation. The creation of new spaces of accumulation is not an innocuous process; it inevitably involves the forceful and violent reorganisation of peoples' lives as they are subordinated to the whims of capital. Strategies of accumulation by dispossession by capital therefore commonly spawn popular resistance from the affected communities. The Canadian mining industry is the largest in the world, and much of its outward investment targets Latin America. The Canadian company share of the larger company exploration market in Latin America (and the Caribbean) has grown steadily since the early 1990s, up to 35% by 2004, the largest by far among all its competitors, with seven Canadian companies among the top 20 mineral exploration investors in the region from 1989 to 2001. This paper charts these trends of Canadian mining expansion in Latin America and then focuses on the community, environmental and worker resistance it is generating in the cases of Chile and Colombia.     

Terrorist success in hostage-taking missions: 1978–2010

This article investigates the determinants of logistical and negotiation successes in hostage-taking incidents using an expanded dataset that runs from 1978 to 2010. Unlike an earlier study, the current study has a rich set of negotiation variables in addition to political, geographical, and organizational variables associated with the perpetrators or targets of the attacks. The 33 years of data permit a split into two subperiods: 1978–1987 and 1988–2010, before and after the rise of religious fundamentalist terrorist groups. Logistical success depends on resource and target vulnerability proxies, while negotiation success hinges on bargaining variables. Among many novel findings, democracy significantly hampers logistical success throughout the entire period. Kidnappings, tropical climates, and high elevations foster logistical success. Religious fundamentalist terrorists’ logistical advantage during 1978–1987 was lost during 1988–2010. Abducting protected persons, making demands on the host country, and staging incidents in a democracy limit negotiation success for the terrorists. If terrorists moderate or replace one or more demands, the likelihood of negotiation success for the terrorists goes up.     

Civic duty and turnout in the UK referendum on AV: What shapes the duty to vote?

This paper examines the question of what shapes a voter's sense of duty to vote. We begin with a standard model of turnout at the 2011 British electoral system referendum. We show that the respondent's assessment of whether it is a citizen's duty to vote on referendums adds substantial explanatory power to a basic model of turnout. From here we move to examine what drives that sense of duty. We find that assessments of duty are structured by evaluations of politics and politicians. Low interest in politics, low political efficacy, and low regard for politicians correspond with less support for the idea that citizens have a duty to vote on referendums and at other elections. These findings have implications for accounts of turnout decline that stress the effects of a public that is exposed to negative portraits of politics and politicians.     

Causality between transnational terrorism and tourism: The case of Spain

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to devise a methodology for estimating the impact of transnational terrorism on tourism. Using monthly data from 1970–1988, we estimate the relationship between terrorism and tourism for Spain. We find that terrorist events have had a significant negative impact on the number of tourists visiting Spain. A typical incident is estimated as scaring away just over 140,000 tourists when all monthly impacts are combined. Moreover, the causality is unidirectional: terrorism affects tourism, but not the reverse.     

The Local News Story: Is Quality a Choice?

The conventional wisdom about local TV news is that quality journalism does not sell and that only by focusing on crime, disasters, and other “soft news” can newscasts get good ratings. Political scientists have decried the poor quality of TV news as a betrayal of the press's mandate to inform citizens of the important policy issues of the day so that they can hold government officials accountable. This study tests the proposition that audiences prefer low effort, tabloid journalism by looking at external measures of commercial success—the Nielsen ratings data. Utilizing data from a 5‐year study matching the content quality of 33,911 local news stories from 154 TV stations in 50 TV markets nationwide to corresponding ratings success, we show that solid reporting and a focus on significant issues actually produce better ratings than slapdash or superficial tabloid journalism. Additionally, we find that strategy-oriented coverage of political campaigns that focuses on the horserace does not build an audience. These surprising results have practical implications for democratic practice and local TV news production.     

Economic development and democracy revisited: Why dependency theory is not yet dead

It is generally accepted that there is a relationship between economic development and democracy which can be demonstrated by quantitative empirical evidence. The difficulties of validating the empirical claims derive not so much from the measures of economic development as from the measures of democracy itself. Our inquiry deepens the investigation of the relationship by 'unpacking' the dependent variable into separate measures of eight core values of liberal democratic government for 40 countries over the period 1970-1998. Our model assumes that the quality of liberal democratic government is not one-dimensional but can be measured across this range of values, so creating 'performance profiles' and demonstrating the likely trade-offs across distinct democratic values. The results of the analysis confirm that economic development has positive effects on democratic performance, but these effects vary across diverse aspects of performance and also across regions.     

Fracture Characteristics of Entrapped Head Impacts Versus Controlled Head Drops in Infant Porcine Specimens,,

In many forensic cases, the job of forensic pathologists and anthropologists is to determine whether pediatric death is due to an abusive act or an accidental fall. The goal of this study was to compare the cranial fracture patterns generated on the parietal bone of a developing, infant porcine (pig, Sus scrofa) model by a controlled energy head drop onto a plate versus previous data generated by blunt force impact at the same energy onto the head constrained to a plate. The results showed that blunt force impacts on a head constrained to a rigid plate produces more fracture, but the same general pattern, as that for a head dropped onto the plate with the same level of impact energy. The study suggests that head constraint may be an important factor to consider in the evaluation of death causation for blunt force impacts to the pediatric skull.     

Application of Random Match Probability Calculations to Mixed STR Profiles

Mixed DNA profiles are being encountered more frequently as laboratories analyze increasing amounts of touch evidence. If it is determined that an individual could be a possible contributor to the mixture, it is necessary to perform a statistical analysis to allow an assignment of weight to the evidence. Currently, the combined probability of inclusion (CPI) and the likelihood ratio (LR) are the most commonly used methods to perform the statistical analysis. A third method, random match probability (RMP), is available. This article compares the advantages and disadvantages of the CPI and LR methods to the RMP method. We demonstrate that although the LR method is still considered the most powerful of the binary methods, the RMP and LR methods make similar use of the observed data such as peak height, assumed number of contributors, and known contributors where the CPI calculation tends to waste information and be less informative.     

The Displaying of Yard Signs as a Form of Political Participation

Despite the ubiquity of yard signs, little is known about how and why individuals display them. Using two original studies of the 2008 presidential race, along with American National Election Study data, we address three points pertaining to this understudied form of political participation. First, what are the correlates of the individuals and households that display signs? Second, what motivates such displays, and to what extent do those motives reflect expressive and communicative desires? Finally, how do individuals obtain signs, and do individuals—rather than parties or candidates—play a role in spreading signs throughout neighborhoods? Our findings suggest that the dissemination of yard signs is not merely a top–down process driven by campaign professionals, but a genuine participatory act that is fueled by individual initiative and social networking.