Buying treaties with cigarettes: Internal side‐payments in two level games

Two‐level games models predict that domestic division within a state can alter the extent to which that state is able to reach agreements with other states, and also alter the content of any agreement that is reached. I extend the model by introducing internal side‐payments composed of unrelated domestic issues. Domestic opposition to an international agreement will inhibit cooperation most when the executive and median legislators are in relative agreement about other salient domestic political issues. Domestic opposition to an international agreement will inhibit cooperation least when the executive and median legislators are in relative disagreement about other salient domestic political issues. U.S. ratifications of the NAFTA and the Chemical Weapons Convention illustrate that not all types of domestic division inhibit international cooperation—some can facilitate it     

Impact of human rights on U.S. foreign assistance to Latin America

Building upon the contributions of previous studies of U.S. foreign aid, this study examines the relationship between human rights and U.S. foreign assistance. Concentrating on the years 1979–1985, the impact of human rights conditions on both economic and military aid allocations to Latin America is analyzed. The results of this analysis indicate that though other factors have a significant effect upon aid allocation, human rights are an important factor in determining the allocation of both U.S. economic assistance and U.S. military assistance. The findings suggest that those countries with better human rights conditions are likely to receive more U.S. aid than others.     

DOES INCREASING WOMEN'S EDUCATION REDUCE THEIR RISK OF INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE? EVIDENCE FROM AN EDUCATION POLICY REFORM

Although scholars have employed rigorous causal methods to examine the relationship between education and crime, few of them have taken a causal approach to the study of education and intimate partner violence (IPV) specifically. From a social causation perspective, improving women's education should protect them from violence, yet from a social selection perspective, education could proxy for unobserved factors that explain negative associations between education and IPV. In this study, I adjudicate between the two possibilities using an exogenous source of variation in education—a 1990s compulsory schooling reform in Peru. Specifically, I conduct an instrumented regression discontinuity that implicitly controls for women's unobserved endowments by comparing women who were aged slightly younger (N = 8,195) and slightly older (N = 6,645) than the school‐age cutoff at the time of the reform. Consistent with the social causation perspective, increasing women's schooling reduced both their recent and longer term probabilities of psychological, physical, and sexual IPV, as well as their recent and longer term probabilities of experiencing any IPV and polyvictimization. The results of supplemental mediation analyses provide support for three interrelated causal pathways—improvements in women's personal resources, delayed family formation, and changes in partner selection. These findings confirm the protective effects of women's education and further illuminate the mechanistic processes by which this occurs.     

South Africa and Myanmar: Beware the politics of perfidy

The article examines the repressive actions of the government of Myanmar, focusing on its continuing incarceration of a Nobel Peace Prize Winner, and questions the diplomatic route South Africa has chosen in terms of its relations with the country.     

Fostering the post-development debate: the Latin American concept of tecnologia social

This essay revisits the historical development of a concept – tecnologia social – as one avenue for discussing alternatives to post-development, arguing that the Western-based historical path of technology development is one of the main sources of growing human impoverishment, social inequalities and economic dependency. The concept of tecnologia social points towards political processes that create opportunities to redefine the arrangements among social groups, artefacts and methods used in everyday life, particularly for production and consumption. Because the post-development debate has been criticised for formulating a sound and strong critique to mainstream development but failing to propose concrete empirical alternatives, we seek to foster the debate through the Latin American concept of tecnologia social.     

The reconstruction of business interests after the ISI collapse: unpacking the effect of institutional change in Chile and Uruguay

Abstract

This paper focuses on understanding the different evolutions of business’ associational paths in post-Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) Chile and Uruguay, offering an explanation at the crossroads of the institutional change and international trade literatures. The argument is that the different forms in which ISI institutions were transformed during the liberalisation period facilitated a greater mobility of factors to different degrees, triggering divergent enduring associational strategies on the part of business. The proliferation of narrow-based special benefits during the ISI fuelled preferences for the formation of sector-based coalitions oriented towards rent-seeking activities. Nevertheless, while ISI regulations were displaced in Chile during the military period, Uruguay followed a gradual process of layering of new rules alongside old ones. These diverging strategies, having different effect on established inter-sectoral regulatory distortions, propitiated alternative associational paths of local business.     

美国精神卫生制度的发展——兼论我国新《精神卫生法》

美国精神卫生制度的形成经历了从漠视和侵犯人权到尊重和重视人权的发展过程。然而美国现有精神卫生制度领域仍然存在着诸多问题和缺陷,特别体现在医疗服务可获得性缺乏这一问题上。《中华人民共和国精神卫生法》力求在医疗服务可获得性与强制住院之间达到平衡。     

Committee Property Rights,Executive Dominance,and Political Parties in Latin American Legislatures

Motivated by theories of congressional committees in the US context, and building on the growing body of work focusing on the institutional features of legislatures in Latin American presidential systems, this paper explores two previously overlooked aspects of committee politics. Using comparative data from three Latin American countries, it examines the strategic and jurisdictional dynamics in which chamber leaders assign bills to committees and then investigate the factors affecting presidential and partisan success within committees. In general, the authors find that committees have strong property rights and that characteristics of both bills and bill initiators strongly influence the survival of legislation in committee. The results shed light on the effects of institutional design on the policy process in presidential systems.     

What do students really know about criminal justice?

This survey of three hundred and twenty undergraduate students attempted to determine their knowledge of crime and punishment in North Carolina. Respondents answered a series of open- and closed-ended questions regarding various legal topics, such as statutory rape and the legal ages for tobacco and alcohol use. The participants were also asked to list punishments for various offenses, such as possession of marijuana, driving while intoxicated, and rape. They were then asked to define certain legal terms such as larceny. The results indicated that most students were unable to provide correct corresponding punishments for many offenses. They were also unable to accurately define various legal terms, such as robbery or rape. The implications for stronger education in the area of criminal justice are discussed.     

Results of Colombian exercise interlaboratory quality control 2012

Participation in interlaboratory quality control exercises is one of the main mechanisms currently used for quality assurance and continuous improvement of the trials. The objective of this study was to design, to manage and to evaluate the Colombian Exercise Interlaboratory Quality Control 2012 (CEIQC-2012). The CEIQC-2012 included both practical and theoretical exercises. For practical exercise three samples were provided, two from blood and one from buccal swab, all on FTA cards, participants were requested to process the samples according to the methods and the markers used routinely in their own laboratories. For theoretical section four exercises were sent, and only one was mandatory, the remain have different degrees of difficulty and were optional. In the mandatory exercise, the participants were asked to calculate the partial and total IP of 15 autosomal STRs markers of an alleged father and a son. This exercise involved 28 laboratories from 6 Latin American and Caribbean countries (Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, Dominican Republic and Colombia), all reported results for the theoretical mandatory and 27 for the practical. Fifty-four STR markers distributed in autosomal, Y and X chromosomes were under consensus. The Proficiency Test conducted through the Colombian National Reference Laboratory has become a useful tool for quality assurance of all Colombian laboratories and some of Latin America and Caribbean that perform DNA testing to establish biological relationships. This exercise is also an excellent opportunity for constant experts training in the region.