1,074 research outputs found
Democracy, support for democracy and corruption: A longitudinal study of Latin American countries
Although often unable to satisfactorily solve the problem, democracy (especially enduring democracy) is commonly believed to reduce corruption. Yet, both Transparency International and the World Bank continue to attach a high risk of corruption to Latin American countries: corruption and impunity remain prevalent in the area, despite consolidating democratic regimes and recent anticorruption reforms. Using level of democracy and its endurance, as well as information on the perceptions of democratic performance and corruption obtained from the Latinobarometro, we analyzed a panel data covering the period 2005-2010 in 14 Latin American countries. Our main results show that levels of democracy and citizens' assessment of government fairness have a positive impact on corruption. However, satisfaction towards democracy has the opposite effect: when citizens believed democratic governments and public administrations to be efficient, they also perceived that gains against corruption had significantly decreased.<br /
Democracy, Support for Democracy and Corruption. A Longitudinal Study of Latin American Countries
Although often unable to satisfactorily solve the problem, democracy (especially enduring democracy) is commonly believed to reduce corruption. Yet, both Transparency International and the World Bank continue to attach a high risk of corruption to Latin American countries: corruption and impunity remain prevalent in the area, despite consolidating democratic regimes and recent anticorruption reforms. Using level of democracy and its endurance, as well as information on the perceptions of democratic performance and corruption obtained from the Latinobarometro, we analyzed a panel data covering the period 2005-2010 in 14 Latin American countries. Our main results show that levels of democracy and citizens' assessment of government fairness have a positive impact on corruption. However, satisfaction towards democracy has the opposite effect: when citizens believed democratic governments and public administrations to be efficient, they also perceived that gains against corruption had significantly decreased
Characterization of dust activity on Mars from MY27 to MY32 by PFS-MEX observations
We present spatial and temporal distributions of dust on Mars from Ls = 331
in MY26 until Ls = 80 in MY33 retrieved from the measurements taken by the
Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) aboard Mars Express. In agreement with
previous observations, large dust opacity is observed mostly in the southern
hemisphere spring/summer and particularly over regions of higher terrain and
large topographic variation. We present a comparison with dust opacities
obtained from Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) - Mars Global Surveyor (MGS)
measurements. We found good consistency between observations of two instruments
during overlapping interval (Ls = 331 in MY26 until Ls = 77 in MY27). We found
a different behavior of the dust opacity with latitude in the various Martian
years (inter-annual variations). A global dust storm occurred in MY28. We
observe a different spatial distribution, a later occurrence and dissipation of
the dust maximum activity in MY28 than in other Martian years. A possible
precursor signal to the global dust storm in MY 28 is observed at Ls = 200 -
235 especially over west Hellas. Heavy dust loads alter atmospheric
temperatures. Due to the absorption of solar radiation and emission of infrared
radiation to space by dust vertically non-uniformly distributed, a strong
heating of high atmospheric levels (40 - 50 km) and cooling below around 30 km
are observed.Comment: in press in Icarus. 47 pages, 15 figure
Processi di Democratizzazione e Legittimità Politica: Un’analisi Comparata
La sopravvivenza di un regime politico è legata alla capacità dei propri cittadini di distinguere tra performance del sistema e sistema politico in sé: in questo articolo ci proponiamo di approfondire la natura e la forza di tale apprezzamento nelle diverse aree del mondo protagoniste della più recente ondata di democratizzazioni. Le nostre osservazioni si baseranno, in primo luogo, su una serie di interviste realizzate nei paesi in cui si sono affermati i nuovi regimi. Questa analisi sarà integrata da studi più propriamente dedicati a identificare ed esaminare alcuni tratti salienti delle rispettive culture politiche e l’impatto sui processi di democratizzazione della cosiddetta società civile, domestica e internazionale. La legittimazione dei nuovi regimi politici è influenzata in modo determinante anche dalle prevalenti culture e fedi religiose, le cui implicazioni per i nuovi regimi democratici analizzeremo in dettaglio. All’interno del quadro generale proveremo, infine, a sottolineare le peculiarità di particolari regioni e aree geopolitiche
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