Biometric Elections in Poor Countries: Wasteful or a Worthwhile Investment?

Elections have emerged as a leading area for the application of biometric technology in developing countries, despite its high costs and uncertainty over its effectiveness. Why then do countries pursue such programs, often with the support of donors? The paper considers the costs and benefits of technology, where the latter involves its potential to reduce the probability of seriously disputed elections that escalate into violence. Based on the limited data available, it finds that a reduction in the probability of postelection violence by only a few percentage points could offset the cost of the technology. However, this is far from assured; we argue that biometric technology can only contribute to less disputed and less violent elections in particular settings, those where democracy is not yet well institutionalized but where political parties value the legitimacy conferred by elections that are sufficiently credible for their results to be accepted. One priority is therefore to screen potential cases carefully, before investing in costly programs that have a low probability of success. Another step toward using technology more effectively to underpin sustainable elections would be to build on voter registration drives to strengthen permanent identification assets such as civil registration and national ID programs that can serve as the basis for the voter roll.     

University–Industry Linkage Framework to Identify Opportunity Areas

Although there are many studies of the collaboration between academia and industry in developed countries explaining the phenomenon and prescribing best practices, the findings cannot be extrapolated to developing countries. This article fills the gap by studying these interactions for the case of Mexico. To study these interactions, we performed a state‐of‐the‐art matrix analysis to obtain internal, structural, and environmental factors from literature. Then, an interpretative structural framework was built as a model to identify opportunities in the collaboration process. The results are presented in a map that describes how each element influences the others and highlights opportunities for improvement. The model shows that industry triggers collaboration and presents a highly complex internal organization for the academy. This study helps decision makers in government, the academy, and industry to understand the elements and how the system works to develop strategies that promote more effective collaboration.     

Framing Contests and Policy Conflicts over Gas Pipelines

This paper compares and contrasts high‐conflict policy debates over the siting of three natural gas pipeline projects at different decision stages of the siting process. This paper draws on over 600 newspaper articles spanning 3 years, analyzed through Discourse Network Analysis. Drawing from the Advocacy Coalition Framework and Policy Conflict framework, this paper finds that actor framing of opposing policy beliefs involves more indirect than direct confrontations, with statements in the media waxing and waning over time. Opponents of the pipelines more often explicitly argue against pipelines, while also using a broad range of conceptual arguments, whereas proponents more often couch their arguments around the economic benefits of pipelines and use fewer conceptual frames overall. We also find evidence that opposing coalitions use similar framing across different decision contexts. This paper concludes with a commentary on the status and contributions of this paper to the study of policy conflicts and next steps in advancing similar research agendas.     

Technological Distribution in Uganda: Information and Communications Technology and the State in an Eastern African Nation

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) include old technologies—such as the radio and the television—as well as newer technologies—such as the Internet and wireless telephony. This study considers the process that the government of Uganda has used to adopt and implement ICT policy. This study also considers the techniques which the government of Uganda has used to distribute ICTS in public locations such as government offices, schools, and hospitals. In particular, this study attempts to consider the political motivations for distribution. The Ugandan government's attempt to distribute this technology reflects strengths in the area of distribution of artefacts, particularly to rural areas. Information and communications technologies are an important part of the Ugandan economy. In addition, ICTs strengthen the ability of citizens to communicate with each other across regional and language borders through shared access points. Methodologically, this paper uses the case study method. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with politicians, policy makers, civil society activists, citizens, academics, medical personnel, regional government officials, and business people. This paper argues that politicians use ICTs as a component of a basket of goods and services that they can distribute to witnessing publics. This paper argues that ICT should be viewed as a type of infrastructure, and that as a public good, it can be used as a “club” good or “pork.” Although several authors discuss the potential of ICTs as democratizing, this paper documents that the Ugandan government has employed ICTs in oppressive ways, including for the surveillance of opposition leaders, and for social control.     

人权内容本义论

本文从人权主体出发,站在社会事实的角度,以历史辩证唯物主义的观点,确立事实上的人权含义,阐述其不可更改的本体内容是:人之为人的生存与发展,自由与平等,它们是权利与义务的统一体。文章论述了确立人权本体内容的现实意义和对人权实践的指导意义。     

Ley suprema y derechos humanos en méxico

In this essay I claim that human rights incorporated in the mexican legal order by means of the Constitution, internacional treaties, judicial decisions of federal courts and other legal sources, constitute the supreme criteria for qualifying the legitimacy of legal norms through a conventionality process that includes different stages.     

A perfect storm of neglect and failure: postwar capitalist restoration in Northern Morazán,El Salvador

This essay addresses economic relationships in northern Morazán, El Salvador, as they transitioned from a wartime subsistence regime to postwar integration into national and international capitalist circuits of production and exchange. It critically analyses the economic discourses and actions employed by the state, NGOs, and others to discipline the vagrant subjectivities of former FMLN insurgents, their social base, and ex-refugees. Much of the argument is developed via discussions of the postwar fates of residents of Ciudad Segundo Montes and peasant collaborators of the Community Development Council of Northern Morazán and San Miguel. Critical analysis of these cases suggest that economic relationships constitute not merely a product – however contradictory – of struggle over hegemony, but are important channels through which hegemony itself is secured.     

整治腐败 重在以法治权

腐败难治 ,根本在于腐败与权力紧密相联。权力腐败是腐败的核心问题。以法治权是遏制腐败最有力的手段。它包括完善反腐败的立法 ,严厉惩处腐败行为的司法 ,以及对权力进行有效监督。同时 ,提高干部懂法、用法的能力 ,保证司法清廉是以法治权的基础条件。     

The rule of law online: Treating data like the sale of goods: Lessons for the internet from OECD and CISG and sacking Google as the regulator

The decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) in the case of Google Spain SL v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) ² [“the Google decision”] to require Google to enforce a right to be forgotten has caused a furore and sets a dangerous precedent in internet regulation. ³ It is setting up the search engine as a form of Internet Government and fracturing the balance between privacy and freedom of information in the connected world. In a world where we have become attuned to full exposure by routinely signing over access to information, privacy is no longer the issue – the real concern is control. This paper seeks to address the issues of whether we have a right to privacy anymore, who should be making decisions about what is available and where and how a global convention on access to information might be achieved.     

沉与浮：明清鼎革变局中的欧洲传教士利类思与安文思（下）

Being the important figures of missionaries in China in the 17th century, the priest Lodovico Buglio and the priest Gabriel de Magalhāes witnessed and experienced the special time of the Ming and Qing ...