Professor of Political Science & Sen. Wm. McMaster Chair in Gender & Methodology, McMaster University
This is totally hilarious…
Check out this post, that I found via Bitch Ph.D.
Laura, a university student, contacted a blogger online to write her a paper on Hinduism. His profile said he was a Hindu, after all. He posted their IM conversations, a copy of the paper, and then proceeded to email a link to his blog entry to the president of her university. Some Karma.
More desafuero news…
AMLO claims after desafuero, the Senate will try to dissolve independence of DF government
A million signatures against the desafuero were delivered to the Chamber of Deputies. Among them: Paco Ignacio Taibo II, mystery novelist
PAN fears that the PRI Deputies are delaying a vote.
President of Mexican stock exchange says that markets are nervous about the desafuero vote.
All desafuero, all the time
PAN ready to vote in favor of AMLO desafuero
AMLO ready and serene before desafuero vote
Secretary of State denies PAN has negotiated with PRI for desafuero
Supreme Court questions desafuero
Fox meets with PAN leadership before desafuero vote
Various scenarios possible in desafuero vote
…and in other news, academic conference on The Smiths planned. Will Morrissey make a special guest appearance?
AJPS review policies…continued
In a recent post to the on-going PolMeth debate regarding AJPS review policies (see my earlier post), John Aldrich (current president of the MWPSA) adds these points>:
It is indefensible to say that formal models ought not to be reviewed because they cannot produce useful results for political science. The editors (assuming Kim writes for Jan as well), don’t make that claim. They make the claim that the recent history of peer reviewers “effectively make it a policy for the journal.” I interpret that to mean that peer reviewers have concluded, case by case, that the manuscript they were reviewing was a formal model that did not have results in it worth publishing in a major general journal (a comment I have made on more than one occasion as reviewer). (Apparently, from the e-mail traffic to PolMeth, this is a “policy” with repeated and on going exceptions.)
Clearly the numerous exceptions to this rule that have been published suggest that its not much of an iron-clad rule anyway.
His more important point is this:
At the departmental/collegiate level, we need to stop what is a common strategy of saying to our deans and tenure committees that there are three major general journals and, especially in American and formal, a very, very few specialized journals worth publishing in in the discipline. To be able to say that there are other quality journals, of course, there need to be other quality journals, and that exercise may be underway as I write this.
Here, here. I second this. But I suspect that such institutional changes will be slower than re-weaving the social fabric of Ciudad Juarez. Political scientists are an elitist bunch.
Discussion of murders of women in Ciudad Juarez
Today, there’s an article about the problem of impunity in the murder of women in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas in La Jornada. The problem is that hundreds of (primarily) young women have been murdered in Ciudad Juarez over the last decade, and no one has been able to solve the mystery. Bodies are left in the desert.
In all likelihood, the murders are a combination of a serial killer, domestic violence victims, and other copycats. I’ve heard that it’s common for men to threaten their wives by saying they’ll take them to the desert and no one will ever figure out what happened. No doubt many killers use the m.o. of all the other murders to hide their crimes of passion or for profit. (Someone I spoke with recently said that some people think that some of the killings are the result of a ‘sport’ played by young men from prominent Mexican families. It’s clear how so many murders has created suspicion and distrust.)
According to the article cited above, one of the first steps to solving these crimes and bringing he perpetrators to justices will be to reweave the social fabric. While this may be true, I’m not optimistic about the prospects.
In other news, labor law reforms are being derailed.
Coming soon….Fuji Kola!
I heard about this first on Wait Wait, but have found other references online. Apparently, a relative of former Peruvian President/Dictator Fujimori has applied for a trademark for “Fuji Kola”. They don’t have investors yet, but believe that all the publicity surrounding the registration of the trademark bodes well for the future. According to the announcement on the Fujimori website,
…que podria lanzarse muy pronto al mercado con algún slogan como “Fuji Kola, la gaseosa del retorno”, para que con parte de los ingresos por las regalías de la marca se pudiera contribuir con nuestro fondo para la campaña electoral.
Ojalá que Fuji Kola pudiera apagar la sed del descontento popular. Sabemos que la única forma de calmar los ánimos de la gente, es mediante medidas efectivas para solucionar los graves problemas sociales embalsado durante cuatro años.
Pero Kenji y quien habla también, no pueden dejar de dar las gracias a los amigos de la prensa por la amplia publicidad a esta nueva marca.
Oops. I certaninly wouldn’t want to give them good press. According to the site, they hope that they will be able to use proceeds from the soda to fund Fujimori’s future electoral campaigns. They “hope that Fuji Kola can quench the thirst of popular dissent.” Unlikely.
Interesting post on social security privatization in U.S.
Since I’m always interested in pension-related topics, I found this post on First Draft pretty interesting. Good to know that Cheney is getting hit hard by constituents. I know that several of the very pro-Bush Republicans in my life are firmly against privatizing social security.
Having researched and read a lot about the privatized pension systems in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, I’m very skeptical of Bush’s plans. I’ve written to my Georgia congressmen, and they all send me form letters in response.
An interesting note about those, though. The form letters I received last fall from my Senators were all very pro-pension-privatization and talked about how much they supported Bush’s plans. In February, when I emailed them again after Bush’s state of the union address, those form email responses had changed. In the new versions, they still said they wanted a reform to social security to avert the ‘crisis’ but were vague on details and certainly did not mention their support for Bush’s plan.
The Dude and friends abide….
Another reason I was meant to live in SoCal (Southern California). NPR Weekend edition did a story on Lebowski Fests. Listen to the story. It’s the new Rocky Horror Picture Show. Here’s the Fest Website. And a video from the festival.
Employed?….What day is this?
You’re out of your element, Donnie.
I’m not taking it bowling; I’m not renting it shoes, Dude.
This is why I refuse to watch the local news
Listen to this story from Friday’s All Things Considered. [Beware: Will open with WMP.]
Another reason to distrust the Bush admin, too.
Boondoggling….again
I really should be working on my paper for the Midwest (yes, I haven’t finished it yet), but instead I’ve been distracted by a current discussion on a email list for political methodologists. It all began with an email from an untenured professor who had an article rejected without review by the AJPS. The AJPS is usually referred to as one of the ‘big 3’ journals in political science, and many top-tier political science departments have explicit or implicit policies that all untenured profs must publish in the big 3 to get tenure. This means that every untenured person dreams of the day their work will appear in one of the big 3. In any event, this email post created quite a discussion on the PolMeth listserv.
The rejection letter, according to the post, said:
“Over the last year or so our reviewer panels in all fields have consistently recommended that papers which only advance formal theoretical formulations without systematic theory tests should not be published in the AJPS. We interpret this change in peer reviewer sentiment as a result of the EITM movement. Whatever its cause, this change is quite consistent. Thus we are not accepting for review papers that fail to meet these reviewer expectations.”
[Note: The EITM ‘movement’ is a program funded by the NSF. Read more about it here.]
Several of the PolMeth members proceeded to lament the fact that such an important and prestigious journal (at least for promotion and tenure getting purposes) would reject out of hand an article with a formal model, but no empirical test of the model.
This led me to wonder two things (or at least two things that I’m willing to voice openly):
1. In the AJPS editor’s response to the email, he explains that the policy has the unamimous support of the AJPS editorial board and that it was instituted in order to relieve pressures on reviewers.
I wonder how much of an iron-clad rule this really is.
I suspect that if a theory only (i.e., formal model with no empirical test) paper were submitted by Dr. SuperSmart with a Well-Endowed Chair of Nonsense Science of IvyLeague University that made a substantial advance to theory (instead of just a minor tweak to existing models), the AJPS editors would send it out for review for two reasons. First, it’s Dr. SuperSmart, and she has a proven track record (and might even be eligible for a Nobel Prize, if there were one for Political Science). Second, it’s a paper with a substantial advance to theory. Now, maybe this is unfair, since I haven’t read the paper in question, but it’s the big elephant in the room in this email discussion. Maybe that explanation in the form letter was a nice way of letting the untenured prof down lightly. I suspect the AJPS policy is not as much of a hard and fast rule and the PolMethers assume that it is. Me thinks they doth protest too much.
2. I find it mildly amusing that a group of formal modelers are complaining about an editorial policy that might relegate their “pure theory” contributions to ‘specialized’ or [gasp] second-tier journals. Now, I should clarify that I am NOT a member of the Prestroika movement in political science; I do not wear a badge at political science meetings. I am, however, a comparativist whose research employs both qualitative and quantitative methods.
As a comparativist, I understand that there are some papers that I might write (or avoid writing by blogging or think about writing but then never write becasue they wouldn’t get published) that would never get published in AJPS because it is a general interest journal of political science. What that means is that the AJPS has a responsibility to publish articles of interest to a WIDE political science audience. My (imaginary) article on the political preferences of Mexico City sex workers would probably not be of general interest to political scientists, so AJPS should probably not bother reviewing it (and more importantly, I wouldn’t waste their and my time sending it to them).
The amusing part of the PolMeth discussion is that, apparently, many members of the list believe that a theory only (again, I feel the need to reiterate that this would a be a highly technical formal model only) paper would be of general interest. Why shouldn’t it be? They are interested in it? Well, I may be interested in the political preferences of Mexico City sex workers, but I realize that not all political scientists may be interested in that topic. Further, I recognize that the potential research spin-offs of my sex worker article are fairly narrow. I suspect that if the potential research spin-offs (or contribution) of a pure formal theory article with no empirical test were obvious and compelling, then I bet the good editors at AJPS would send it out for review.
[Clearly, these guys have never had an NSF reviewer suggest rejecting their proposal mainly because it lacks a formal model…in a research area where 95% of the papers published are not formal. The formal modellers do hold positions of gatekeeping and power, and they are so dismayed to find that there might be one journal where they do not set the agenda.]
3. [I guess I have a third idea to add…] I think many faculty abuse the review process and highly efficient journals like AJPS suffer. I have had at least three different colleagues suggest that I send a paper to AJPS just because of the short turn-around time, even though I am skeptical that it would be appropriate for that journal. Now, however, that I know they are rejecting all those formal theory papers, maybe I should send my empirical (but theory-light…i.e., no formal model) paper to AJPS.
A completely unrelated comment
While looking for discussions about EITM, etc., I cam across a blog that links to a blog that links to ….you get the idea. I came across this blog by Mike Munger of Duke University. I was in a methods class that he teaches at Duke. Mike is a funny guy, which is ok if you have the hudspah (spelling?) to stand up to him or at least take his kidding. In our class, that wasn’t always the case. Oh, I could dish it back but I distinctly recall a meek-mannered Duke grad student who looked like he was going to cry once during class. But, I digress. I particularly like this post, and its link to this other blog post.
I really must get back to that paper for the Midwest. BTW, it will be qualitative and not of general interest, but hey, maybe I should send it to the AJPS anyway.
It’s a slow news day, which….
….makes for more interesting news.
In my favorite lefty paper, La Jornada, there’s an interesting article about an NGO that works with Mexico City prostitutes, handing out condoms, giving them medical care.
[Really, I mainly read the Jornada because the other papers are mostly subscription only, making it difficult to write about their stories.]
Anyway, according to the article, the NGO was started by two students who wanted to study the sex industry and realized that the needed to do more. The article talks about how they initially sold condoms for $.50, but even that was too much for the women to pay. Now, they have special black & red condoms that sell for $.10, and some of the former prostitutes have opened their own condom stores.
Another article discusses (albiet briefly) abortion policy in Mexico. I didn’t know this before, but apparently, Article 4 of the Constitution “reconoce el derecho de las personas a decidir de manera libre, responsable e informada sobre el número de hijos que desea.”
From the UNAM website, Article 4 of the constitution, which was last amended in 2001:
ARTICULO 4o.- (SE DEROGO PARRAFO PRIMERO POR REFORMA DEL 14-08-01).
EL VARON Y LA MUJER SON IGUALES ANTE LA LEY. ESTA PROTEGERA LA ORGANIZACION Y EL DESARROLLO DE LA FAMILIA.
TODA PERSONA TIENE DERECHO A DECIDIR DE MANERA LIBRE, RESPONSABLE E INFORMADA SOBRE EL NUMERO Y EL ESPACIAMIENTO DE SUS HIJOS.
TODA PERSONA TIENE DERECHO A LA PROTECCION DE LA SALUD. LA LEY DEFINIRA LAS BASES Y MODALIDADES PARA EL ACCESO A LOS SERVICIOS DE SALUD Y ESTABLECERA LA CONCURRENCIA DE LA FEDERACION Y LAS ENTIDADES FEDERATIVAS EN MATERIA DE SALUBRIDAD GENERAL, CONFORME A LO QUE DISPONE LA FRACCION XVI DEL ARTICULO 73 DE ESTA CONSTITUCION.
TODA PERSONA TIENE DERECHO A UN MEDIO AMBIENTE ADECUADO PARA SU DESARROLLO Y BIENESTAR.
TODA FAMILIA TIENE DERECHO A DISFRUTAR DE VIVIENDA DIGNA Y DECOROSA. LA LEY ESTABLECERA LOS INSTRUMENTOS Y APOYOS NECESARIOS A FIN DE ALCANZAR TAL OBJETIVO.
LOS NIÑOS Y LAS NIÑAS TIENEN DERECHO A LA SATISFACCION DE SUS NECESIDADES DE ALIMENTACION, SALUD, EDUCACION Y SANO ESPARCIMIENTO PARA SU DESARROLLO INTEGRAL.
LOS ASCENDIENTES, TUTORES Y CUSTODIOS TIENEN EL DEBER DE PRESERVAR ESTOS DERECHOS. EL ESTADO PROVEERA LO NECESARIO PARA PROPICIAR EL RESPETO A LA DIGNIDAD DE LA NIÑEZ Y EL EJERCICIO PLENO DE SUS DERECHOS.
EL ESTADO OTORGARA FACILIDADES A LOS PARTICULARES PARA QUE COADYUVEN AL CUMPLIMIENTO DE LOS DERECHOS DE LA NIÑEZ.
Bad abortions are the third leading cause of maternal death in Mexico. Though abortion in case of rape is legal in all states, abortion under other circumstances is illegal.
Given the large Catholic population and the role of the Church, abortion is complicated in Latin America. One of my friends from grad school has written about abortion policy in the Southern Cone. Merike Blofield doesn’t have a personal site that I can link to, and none of her papers show up in Google Scholar. We’ll just have to remain in the dark until her book is published.
Catch up on the pension debate with PBS
I recently came across the following PBS site, which includes clips from a ‘debate’ between two social security experts regarding the Chilean pension privatization. Pinera is the architect of the Chilean reform that was enacted in 1981 under the military dictarship. Of course, he is a big proponent of mandatory privatized social security, since he created it. Bertranou is an analyst for the International Labor Organization and has published many articles on social security in peer-reviewed journals. The ILO, as an institution, tends to be more critical of pension privatization.
Good Friday
One of the first in a series of formal procedures and votes in the AMLO desafuero case is likely Wednesday. A small group of legislators in the Chamber of Deputies will vote on whether to pass the desafuero case on to the judicial committee. You can read one analysis here.
Pension news
Military pensions are paultry. No surprise there.
It’s semana santa in the big city
….which means that all is quiet and tranquil.
There has been very little news worth commenting upon, but here are some interesting stories from this week’s paper.
The pensions most will receive under the privatized pension system will be paultry (big surprise here) According to the article, 70% of those contributing to the Afores receive between 1 and 2 times the minimum wage, and their contributions will not be enough to provide a minimum pension. Thus, the state will have to step in and make up the difference. Beware….those who would privatize the U.S. pension system. Here’s a related story on recent wage policies.
The desafuero could create instability in Mexican markets. Also, the PRI is trying to carefully back away from the desafuero.
The Mexican equivalent of the White House accepted nearly 10,000 toys and 9,000 small home appliances that were confiscated by customs last November and December. The complaint is that the First Lady probably diverted these to her charitable causes instead of allowing them to be distributed through formal government charity/family programs.
Fox is finishing a meeting with Bush and the PM of Canada (I would call him by name, but no one would know who I was talking about). Big topics were immigration and security, not necessarily in that order. I don’t have much to add to those discussions, but here’s an interesting article on the number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S., over half of whom are Mexican.
Local entrepreneurs say “no” to a new Wal-mart in Cabo
Local reps of a national business organization, CONACINTRA, expressed their opposition to the opening of a new store run by Wal-Mart in Cabo San Lucas. The article in La Jornada says:
“La ética con que opera Wal-Mart en México ha sido duramente cuestionada, inclusive por sus propios competidores, debido a las prácticas monopólicas que utiliza para acaparar el mercado de consumidores”, dijo a la prensa Armando Covarrubias, presidente local de Canacintra. De acuerdo con el organismo empresarial, “contrariamente a lo que se piensa, (en Wal-Mart) no son creadores de fuentes de empleo, pues estos negocios traen a su propio personal, con excepción de cajeros, personal de intendencia y vigilantes”.
Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in Mexico. They own several store and restaurant chains. You can read about the new Wal-Mart-owned store near the pyramids north of Mexico City and a first-hand account of discrimination at a local Wal-Mart supermarket in an earlier post.
In many ways, it’s not that suprising that members of CANCINTRA would be opposed to Wal-mart. Historically, CANACINTRA has represented largely small and medium enterprises, many of which benefitted from decades of government protectionism and subsidies. The Canacintra tends to be more lefty when it comes to state protectionism and state involvement in the economy. For instance, the Canacintra was one of the only employers’ associations to consistently support social security benefits for workers.
Desafuero updates
The discussion here will get briefer and briefer. The desafuero debate is tiring; bumper stickers, flyers, and little pins all proclaim general disatisfaction with the desafuero. I’ve never seen a spontaneous or planned expression of support for the desafuero in Mexico City. No bumper stickers saying “throw the bum out,” no lapel pins or buttons with a big AMLO prohibited sign. Nothing.
The archbishop has (supposedly) expressed his belief that the desafuero should not occur, if politicians are responsive to the preferences of the citizens. (Since when has the Mexican government been responsive, though?)
At the same time, the PRI and PAN have agreed to pursue the desafuero of AMLO in April. (Great, just when I want to be interviewing them about labor-party relations and social security reforms….but then again, it’s not about me.)
An op-ed piece by a retired UNAM professor arguing against the desafuero.
Other news about internal political party clashes and leadership disputes
An article about Gordillo and what should happen should she become President of the PRI.
BTW, I’ve added an RSS feed to the blog. Here’s the link: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LaProfesoraAbstrada
Strike averted, electricians get 6.5% raise…
…if only our raises at Georgia Tech were so generous…maybe we need to unionize. You can read about the resolution of the labor conflict in La Jornada here.
In a strange twist, Secretary of State Creel (and likely PAN candidate in 2006 for President if he isn’t edged out by the current First Lady) issued a statement through the PAN CEN indicating that his statements were misrepresented in a NYTimes article published yesterday. According to the story in La Jornada,
El titular de la Secretaría de Gobernación, Santiago Creel Miranda, aseguró anoche, ante el Comité Ejecutivo Nacional del Partido Acción Nacional, que no declaró al periódico The New York Times que si Andrés Manuel López Obrador llega a la Presidencia arruinaría la economía; lo que sí dije, sostuvo, es que el presidente Vicente Fox tiene una política económica totalmente diferente a la del jefe de Gobierno de la ciudad….
…en un comunicado, la Secretaría de Gobernación desmintió al diario estadunidense, que atribuyó textualmente a Creel Miranda haber dicho que “(Andrés Manuel) López Obrador en la Presidencia sería un desastre económico”
So essentially, he’s denying saying that if AMLO becomes President of Mexico that it would ruin the economy or be an economic disaster. All he admits to doing is pointing out the difference between Fox and AMLO policies.
That’s fine, because I could not find any such statement in the NYTimes article (free registration required). The reporter interprets Creel’s comments as meaning that he thinks AMLO would be an economic disaster, but he does not attribute those comments to Creel. Here’s the excerpt:
Santiago Creel, the current secretary of government who is seen as the most likely candidate for president from Mr. Fox’s conservative National Action Party, known as PAN, made it plain in a recent interview he thought a López presidency would be an economic disaster.
“What is clear is that he has rejected all the economic reforms that we have put forward, all of them,” Mr. Creel said. “And it’s clear that his government has raised the level of public debt in a very important way and has also raised the levels of subsidies, making a pretty artificial economy.”
A subtle distinction, yes, but I still think Creel doth protest too much.
In national labor news, the FSTSE is being attacked on all sides. Yet another group of government employee unions are separating from the FSTSE to form their own Federation. They’re not joining Gordillo’s FEDESSP either; they want true union democracy. I’m too tired to comment, so you can read all about it in this article.
And, the debate about universal old-age minimum pensions continues. AMLO responds to Fox’s comments. (Again, the article mentions WB support for such pensions, and apparently AMLO waved a recent issue of The Economist to support his claim. I, however, could find no article in the online version of the Economist citing either AMLO’s pension program or WB support for such programs elsewhere….)
New president for the World Bank?
Bush has nominated Paul Wolfowitz to be president of the World Bank. According to an article in the NYTimes, Mr. Wolfowitz developed a passion for development issues when he was Ambassador to Indonesia. And that makes him qualified to be president of the World Bank? Previous presidents have been well-respected economists. As pointed out in an article about the appointment in The Economist online, there is a tradition that the the president of the World Bank is usually from the U.S. and the president of the IMF is usually European. (Formally, voting on such positions is weighted by contributions to the funds, which explains why the U.S. and developed nations of Europe get more votes.) We can only hope that the Europeans try to stop Bush, but the tone of these articles suggests that it’s a long-shot.
P.S. We still have power, so a strike must have been averted. More on that tomorrow…
the lights go out in Mexico
Contract negotiations between the SME (electricians’ union) and the national power company broke down last night, and the union is prepared to leave their jobs on strike today at noon. If they do so, they’ll leave the power stations running on automatic. The union initially demanded a 15% raise in salaries, but would settle for 3.5%, but campany negotiatiors would not give in. According to the article in La Jornada, this would leave the following areas without power,
…el Distrito Federal y zona conurbada, el estado de México, Hidalgo, parte del estado de Puebla, Cuernavaca y Toluca
and
…ya que se pondrían las banderas rojinegras en todos las plantas generadoras, oficinas y centros de trabajo de Luz y Fuerza del Centro.
Los trabajadores ya tienen listo un operativo para cerrar todas las instalaciones a la hora marcada, dejando los interruptores operando en automático, y aunque no los bajarían para quitar el servicio, sí se retirarían de los centros de trabajo sin hacerse responsables de si fallan los sistemas de generación eléctrica o el abastecimiento. A partir de las 12 horas, si no hay arreglo, los 38 mil electricistas pararán.
This may be the last post for a while if the strike occurs, but I’m guessing there will be some resolution. It will be interesting to see what effect a strike, if it occurs, would have on the political process aimed at privatizing the electricity sector.
In Congress yesterday, PRD and PAN members chimed in on the dabate about universal pensions for the elderly. Both sides came out to defend their leaders, Fox and AMLO. You can read about the details in this article.
And finally, according to one of several academics who have written about the PAN, the new President of the PAN signals that the First Lady will be in a good position to become the party’s candidate in 2006. (I say “one of several” because my good buddy Steve Wuhs has also written about the PAN, and when his book is published, it will be more up-to-date than the one mentioned in the article.)