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Browsing by Subject "Latin America"

Now showing 1 - 12 of 12
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    Access to justice, victims' rights, and private prosecution in Latin America: the cases of Chile, Guatemala, and Mexico.
    (2011-08) Michel-Luviano, Veronica
    My dissertation explores how and when legal rights affect the effectiveness of the rule of law in developing democracies. Over the past two decades, many countries in Latin America have adopted far reaching judicial reforms, including criminal procedure reform. Judicial systems in the region have long been perceived as offering little recourse to common citizens, especially for marginalized groups. The new judicial reforms were designed to make these institutions more responsive and effective. One key way they attempt to do so is to introduce/enhance provisions for private prosecution of criminal cases. By giving the victim or their surviving relatives a right to participate in the criminal proceedings, private prosecution can, in theory, serve as a societal check on an unresponsive state. But does it? Through a comparative study of ordinary homicide cases (i.e., when the crime is committed by ordinary citizens) and human rights cases (i.e., when murder is committed by state officials) in Chile, Guatemala and Mexico, my dissertation examines (1) where this right came from and how it got diffused in Latin America, and answers (2) if these rights are actually used, and (3) when, how and why private prosecution makes a difference in the state's investigation and prosecution of murder. Following a nested research design, I work at two levels of analysis: countries and individual legal cases, allowing comparisons within judicial districts, across types of homicides, and across countries. I argue that the introduction/expansion of private prosecution in recent reforms has to be understood as the result of the consolidation of victims' rights in international law. However, international and ideational factors matter both for shaping choices of judicial reform, as well as for the mobilization of legal rights. Through an analysis of 520 homicide cases, 450 human rights cases, and various case studies, I also argue that the use and impact of private prosecution on judicial responsiveness depends primarily on (i) the history of the right in a country, (ii) the development of a support structure, and (iii) the socio-political context. I further argue that private prosecution can be used to build the rule of law from below when societal actors embrace it as a tool to fight unresponsive or inefficient judicial systems. My dissertation begins with an introductory chapter where the main argument, findings, and research design are explained. The next two chapters explain what private prosecution is and how this right diffused across Latin America. Then in a fourth chapter I provide the main findings of the use and impact of private prosecution in human rights cases across Latin America and in ordinary murder cases in Chile, Guatemala, and Mexico. Finally, in the last three empirical chapters I explain how private prosecution matters to judicial responsiveness through an in-depth analysis of human rights and ordinary murder cases in Guatemala, Chile, and Mexico.
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    Closed Personalities: The Psychological Roots of Autocratic Support
    (2022-04) Armendariz Miranda, Paula
    Why do some citizens support autocratic forms of government while others prefer democratic ones? Despite all the tragedy that dictatorships have brought to humanity some individuals still believe that autocracy is desirable. My dissertation seeks to uncover why citizens living in the same country and experiencing the same phenomena, show different preferences and support for authoritarianism and democracy. In this, I argue that individuals who are wary of diversity and individual autonomy – what psychologists would call individuals with closed personalities – crave autocratic political structures that suppress citizen participation, individual autonomy, and plurality of political expression. This form of government provides such individuals with psychological security and reassurance, particularly during times of perceived crisis and civil disobedience.
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    Electricity, Marginalization, and Empowerment: For Whom? And Who Decides? Evaluating Participatory Mapping in Río Negro, Honduras
    (2015-08) DeGrave, Jeff
    Participatory mapping's ability to empower its users has come under severe reproach by many scholars. Drawing on these critiques, this ex-post mapping study of the mountain village of Rio Negro, Honduras that employed participatory mapping to prioritize access to electricity through hydro-microturbines echoes and extends these critiques. However, prevailing power structures within the community impacted the decision-making processes, affecting the outcomes of the participatory mapping project. Through various political and social interventions, village elites were able to influence the distribution of the microturbines, further enhancing differences in marginalization and empowerment within the community. Elites successfully directed the participatory mapping exercise toward their interests and continue today to reap the multiple benefits of electrical access. This dissertation assesses how participatory mapping in this exemplary case reinforced existing conditions of marginalization and empowerment over the long term.
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    Essays on Evaluating the Economic Effects of Agricultural Research and Development
    (2023-07) Andrade Lopez, Robert
    In this dissertation I investigate the economics of agricultural research and development (R&D) from two perspectives: first a meta-review and reassessment of the costs and reported returns to agricultural R&D in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), and second an analysis on the implication of including parameter uncertainty into rate-of-return measures benchmarked off the prior returns-to-research evidence worldwide. In the first essay, the reported economic returns to agricultural and food R&D in LAC are recalibrated and re-examined to provide insights for policy makers and analysts in their decision process to prioritize agricultural R&D investments. The recalibrated rates of return showed that the imputed MIRRs (modified internal rate of returns) generated as part of this study are systematically smaller than the corresponding IRRs (internal rate of returns) reported in the prior literature. Nonetheless, the newly estimated MIRRs are still sufficiently large to be indicative of an underinvestment in agricultural R&D throughout the LAC region. The large discrepancies between IRR and MIRR can send mixed signals to policy makers so careful interpretation of different rates of return measures is important. Developing plausible estimates of the returns to research is reliant on economic values that may be questionable. The second essay explores the implications of incorporating uncertainty into the parameters used to estimate the benefits attributable to agricultural R&D. The measured returns to agricultural R&D are especially sensitive to variations in the (estimated or assumed) unit cost reductions (K-shift) attributed to R&D. For example, for the data used to benchmark this study, a further 1% decrease in the relative median K-shift value (from 0.1295 to 0.1308) results in a 1.09%, 1.01%, 0.35%, and 0.17% increase in the NPV, BCR, IRR, and MIRR respectively. Furthermore, variation on the timing of initial benefits, the length (and by implication, the timing of the termination of benefits), and the shape of the adoption lag structure also have consequences for the measured returns to research. However, variation on the timing of initial benefits has the largest percentage changes into the rates-of-return; for instance, starting benefits a year earlier increase NPV and BCR by 7%, 12% for IRR and only 1% for MIRR. Moreover, IRR and MIRR measures of the benefits attributable to R&D appear to be more sensitive to changes in the structure of the R&D lag than changes in the magnitude of the K-shift, whereas the reverse holds for NPV and BCR. For instance, the coefficient of variation of uncertain K-shift values (0.98) is almost the same for NPV and BCR (1.05, and 1.00 respectively), whereas IRR and MIRR have smaller coefficients of variation (0.39 and 0.32 respectively), more than 60% smaller.
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    Immigration news in the Global South: A comparative analysis of media content and journalistic decisions and practices in Latin America
    (2020-08) Severino, Fernando
    This dissertation analyzes the news media representation of intraregional immigration in Latin America in connection with the journalistic decisions that partially shape this content. Based on an analysis of 1,690 news articles from 16 print and web outlets in Chile, Colombia, and Mexico (sampled from a database created uniquely for this dissertation), this project examines frames, word choices, sources, and other elements of news stories from 2014-2018. It also uses twenty interviews with journalists in these countries ––working for the news outlets analyzed here–– to establish relationships between the coverage produced in these newsrooms and the approach reporters take to write about immigration. Overall, the findings show a predominant presence of two frames in the way news media decides to tell the story about immigration: A victim – humanitarian/human rights frame and a political responsibility–policy solutions and debates frame. These frames are heavily influenced by governmental voices and official messages that are the sources most used by reporters. News articles about the benefits of immigrants and immigration are minimal. The lack of specialization in newsrooms about reporting immigration, limited resources, and the context of violence negatively impact the presence of counternarratives to the official discourse. However, there is an agreement among journalists on writing about immigration in ways that avoid promoting xenophobia and stereotyping. Thus, the storytelling does not use charged labels about the newcomers, and concepts such as "illegality" are virtually absent. From a theoretical perspective, this dissertation provides arguments about the role of professional journalism and journalists in developing countries as a crucial institution for democracy. From a more practical perspective, this project's results could benefit the work of reporters writing about immigration across newsrooms in the Global South.
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    The Irrationality of Contacting the Police: Crime Reporting in Contexts of Mistrust
    (2021-06) Heimark, Katrina
    Why people turn to weak, corrupt and/or failing criminal justice institutions in the event of victimization is the central question motivating this dissertation. I take a multidisciplinary approach to understanding citizen-initiated contact of the police in the wake of property crime victimization in contexts where not only crime is frequent, but these state actors are highly ineffective, untrustworthy, and corrupt. This dissertation draws upon the literatures from political science, sociology, psychology, and criminology and examines the macro and micro-level determinants of citizen-initiated police contact (crime reporting) in the most violent and crime-ridden region of the world: Latin America. This project also examines the case of Peru—the country in the region with the highest property crime rates, yet stubbornly low reporting rates. Using quantitative methodology, publicly available cross-national and national survey data, as well as two original surveys conducted in Lima, this dissertation finds that state characteristics, particularly democratic state strength and the rule of law, social characteristics, especially social class and concentrated social disadvantage, and psychological characteristics, specifically Justice Sensitivity, play important roles in determining individual behavior in contacting the police.
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    The Kaleidoscopic Unsaid: Voice, Memory, and Body of the Afro-Americas
    (2019-08) Ramos Flores, Hector
    This dissertation explores the self-representation of Afro-diasporic subjects in the Americas through the kaleidoscopic unsaid. In this metaphor the kaleidoscope is the global power structure while the unsaid is the articulation that emerges for these subjects within this world order. Using three case studies that reveal how the power structure shifts and moves within the local structures, I show how Black subjects constantly navigate a self-representation that is malleable and constantly shifting that both re-inscribes and resists the power schema. In the first chapter I demonstrate how the Autobiografía de un esclavo (1836) of Juan Francisco Manzano encounters issues of voice and agency for the former enslaved person. The second chapter engages with memory and trauma of Black subjects in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2006) by Junot Díaz and in The Farming of Bones (1996) by Edwidge Danticat. Finally, with the films Pelo malo (2013) by Mariana Rondón and La playa D.C. (2012) by Juan Andrés Arango Garcia I show how the Black male body and hair fluid sites of resistance. Together these three chapters show how the subjects in these cultural productions maneuver in such a way that showcases their multifaceted reality, pushing against the often one-dimensional representations that are imposed on them. Ultimately this dissertation attempts to decolonize stagnant representations of Black bodies in the Americas.
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    Modal equity of accessibility to healthcare in Recife, Brazil
    (Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2022) Cui, Boer; Boisjoly, Geneviève; Serra, Bernardo; El-Geneidy, Ahmed
    In the context of increasing urbanization and income inequality, transport professionals in the Global South need to be prepared to effectively plan for the needs of various groups within the population, particularly for those regarding health and well-being. Accessibility is widely used as a performance measure for land use and transport systems; it measures people’s ease of reaching desired destinations and incorporates mode, time, and/or cost constraints. Considerable differences exist in the level of accessibility experienced by different mode users in reaching healthcare facilities, which calls for additional equity considerations given the prevailing socio-demographic characteristics of the users of various modes and the importance of healthcare facilities as a destination. In this study, we explore the distribution of accessibility to healthcare facilities by public transport and by car in Recife, Brazil, through an equity assessment to identify areas with low accessibility using these modes at different times of day. In general, the higher accessibility of public transport as well as greater modal equity was observed in central regions of Recife, whereas the periphery, where many low-income census tracts can be found, experiences significant inequity when it comes to access by both modes to healthcare facilities. This analysis allowed us to classify locations to access impoverished, access absolutely impoverished, and access impoverished by public transport areas, which can be targeted with appropriate land use and public transport policy interventions. This paper can be of value to professionals and researchers working toward equitable land use and transport systems in the Global South.
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    Neoliberal Housing Policy: Adaptation for Housing Frameworks in Latin America
    (2016-11) Lee, Ka Yan
    Housing stock within Latin American counties is in critical condition as population continues to flourish. To alleviate this epidemic of housing shortage, current housing policy frameworks are examined for events in the past that caused the framework to fail. What is the best solution to boost affordable housing? Through an investigation of housing policy evolution of two comparison cities of Rio de Janeiro and Guatemala City policy frameworks are examined through economic structure and housing system. A solution to the failed housing frameworks is to incorporate neoliberal housing ideals of utilizing the private market to play a role in providing affordable housing in the cities. Through the analysis of Rio de Janeiro and Guatemala City, this paper examines the differences in public policies on housing and identifying how neoliberalism impacts housing policies differ from traditional frameworks. In addition, the paper challenges neoliberal housing ideals and the practicalities for today’s housing climate behind radical ideals.
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    The Political Origins of Education Decentralization in Latin America
    (2020-08) Vargas Castro, Thomas
    For much of the 1990s Latin American countries experimented with transferring the responsibility of managing public schools from the central government to subnational units such as states, municipalities, and schools. Why? Conventional wisdom stresses that these countries decentralized education because central governments were too inefficient to resolve longstanding problems related to access and quality (for example, see Grindle 2004; Kaufman and Nelson 2004). But a careful review of the evidence reveals that the education systems of Latin America generally were not in crisis. The data show that these countries achieved notable gains in enrollment and completion rates between 1950 and 1990—gains that were not lost during the severe debt crisis that spanned the 1980s (World Bank 2018). Rather than a technical explanation, then, we need a political explanation to account for the reasons why Latin American countries decentralized such an important public service. My central claim is that countries decentralize education governance for two political, rather than technical, reasons. First, international pressures shape both the demand and supply for education reform ideas. The 1980s debt crisis made budget cuts necessary, but the importance of education for development meant finding better ways of improving its provision. In this context, decentralization emerged as one, but not the only, choice of reform. Second, the partisan affiliation of teachers determines whether or not incumbents push for decentralization. The reason is that decentralization strengthens the electoral position of incumbent political parties whenever their opponents are affiliated with teachers’ unions because decentralization tends to weaken teachers’ organizational advantages, which are often used to help their partisan allies drum up votes. In a decentralized system, teachers are less able to act as political brokers for the opposition. These political factors, not the underlying strengths and weaknesses of the education systems, drove education decentralization. To support this argument, this dissertation provides case study evidence from four countries (Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Paraguay). It also deploys statistical tools on an original dataset on education decentralization and teachers' union partisan affiliations to show the argument's generalizability.
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    Regional Identities and Dynamic Normative Orders in the Global South: A Comparative Study
    (2015-09) Coe, Brooke
    Because of the insecurities of postcoloniality, we expect states in the global South to be ‘jealous’ of their sovereignty and to resist intrusions into domestic political and security matters. I find, contrary to this conventional understanding, that non-interference has eroded in the South in significant ways over time—especially since the ‘second wave’ of regionalism beginning in the 1980s—but that this erosion has been uneven. Regional organizations in Africa and Latin America have been empowered to monitor state practices and respond to intrastate conflicts and political crises intrusively, while Southeast Asian states have largely maintained their prohibition against such interference. What accounts for this variation? Through historical comparative analysis, I find that regional identity discourses—pan-Americanism and pan-Africanism—present a challenge to strict sovereignty norms and have contributed to the erosion of the norm of non-interference over time in Latin America and Africa. Pan-Asianism was not important to the establishment of ASEAN, an organization founded on anti-communism at the height of the Cold War. Pan-Americanism’s liberal commitments to representative democracy and human rights—espoused by independence leaders and carried forth by Latin American jurists and diplomats—became embedded in inter-American institutions and practices at an early stage and developed over time into intrusive democracy and human rights promotion regimes. Pan-Africanism’s distinct transnationalism—which originated in the diaspora and emphasizes solidarity among African people rather than among states—has provided critics of non-interference with discursive tools to promote the idea of a regional responsibility to protect human rights and human security. In Southeast Asia, non-interference has been much less contested over the decades, despite persistent domestic conflicts. I furthermore identify two proximate factors—regional democratic density and economic performance—that have contributed to more sharply divergent regional normative trajectories beginning in the late 20th century. The third wave of democratization brought Latin America’s average democracy level to an unprecedented high by the late 1980s, reinvigorating intrusive liberal multilateralism. In Africa, the economic crisis of the 1980s rendered states materially and socially vulnerable, more concerned about Africa’s image vis-à-vis investors and the international community. In order to improve this image, and to create the conditions for economic growth, African states empowered their regional institutions manage domestic governance and security problems. Meanwhile, Southeast Asia was less affected by democratization and experienced unprecedented and unparalleled economic growth in the 1980s, growth that bestowed ‘performance legitimacy’ upon Southeast Asian states and their regional organization, ASEAN.
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    Vocalities of Violence: Acousmatic Sound and Trauma in Latin American Cinema (1999-2016)
    (2022-08) Jasnoch, Emma
    “Acousmatic” describes a sound that occurs without an identifiable visual origin.Similarly, trauma is built upon gaps between source, cause, and effect, where an event of violence is not entirely psychologically assimilable. Through examples in contemporary Latin American cinema depicting forms of social, political, and economic violence, I show that trauma and acousmatic sound are mutual operations whose displaced articulation serves as a new cinematic narrative strategy. I argue that this mode of storytelling through sonic incongruence in soundscape, voiceovers, and embodied voices emerges uniquely within the New Cinema movement since the late 1990s and a transnational context of collective trauma.