Download or read book Local Democracy in Modern Mexico written by Arturo Flores and published by Arena books. This book was released on 2005 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This in-depth study of local government in Mexico raises issues which go far beyond the territory it covers. It will be of absorbing interest to all students of local democracy and participatory methods, not only in Latin America, but in Western and Eastern Europe, the USA, Africa, Asia, and elsewhere, where initiatives and experimentation are driven by socio-economic change. Everywhere citizen participation has become an important part of the democratisation debate, and this is certainly the situation in contemporary Mexico. This book presents a revealing insight of the wide range of participatory mechanisms, including plebiscites, referenda and neighbourhood committees, which have been introduced by different political parties at the local level in Mexico. After presenting the overall picture, the author examines the implementation of the participatory agenda in three localities:

Download or read book A Modern Guide to Local and Regional Politics written by Copus, Colin and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2022-02-04 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Utilising international material to explore the roles, functions, tasks, responsibilities, powers and actions of intra-state politicians and the institutions to which they are elected, this insightful book examines how local and regional authorities are pivotal in the democratic and governing arrangements of different countries.

Download or read book Movimientos Ind genas Y Gobiernos Locales en Am rica Latina written by Willem Assies and published by Ocho Libros Editores. This book was released on 2007 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book On the Edge of the Law written by Chad Richardson and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2009-01-27 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Valley of South Texas is a region of puzzling contradictions. Despite a booming economy fueled by free trade and rapid population growth, the Valley typically experiences high unemployment and low per capita income. The region has the highest rate of drug seizures in the United States, yet its violent crime rate is well below national and state averages. The Valley's colonias are home to the poorest residents in the nation, but their rates of home ownership and intact two-parent families are among the highest in the country for low-income residential areas. What explains these apparently irreconcilable facts? Since 1982, faculty and students associated with the Borderlife Research Project at the University of Texas-Pan American have interviewed thousands of Valley residents to investigate and describe the cultural and social life along the South Texas-Northern Mexico border. In this book, Borderlife researchers clarify why Valley culture presents so many apparent contradictions as they delve into issues that are "on the edge of the law"—traditional health care and other cultural beliefs and practices, displaced and undocumented workers, immigration enforcement, drug smuggling, property crime, criminal justice, and school dropout rates. The researchers' findings make it plain that while these issues present major challenges for the governments of the United States and Mexico, their effects and contradictions are especially acute on the border, where residents must daily negotiate between two very different economies; health care, school, and criminal justice systems; and worldviews.

Download or read book Accountability Politics written by Jonathan A. Fox and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2007-12-13 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can the seeds of accountability ever grow in authoritarian environments? Embedding accountability into the state is an inherently uneven, partial and contested process. Campaigns for public accountability often win limited concessions at best, but they can leave cracks in the system that serve as handholds for subsequent efforts to open up the state to public scrutiny. This book explores the how civil society "thickens" by comparing two decades of rural citizens' struggles to hold the Mexican state accountable, exploring both change and continuity before, during, and after national electoral turning points. The book addresses how much power-sharing really happens in policy innovations that include participatory social and environmental councils, citizen oversight of elections, local government social investment funds, participation reforms in World Bank projects, community-managed food programs, as well as new social oversight and public information access reforms. Meanwhile, efforts to exercise voice unfold at the same time as rural citizens consider their exit options, as millions migrate to the US, where many have since come together in a new migrant civil society. Since explanations of electoral change do not account for how people actually experience the state, this book concludes that new analytical frameworks are needed to understand "transitions to accountability." This involves unpacking the interaction between participation, transparency and accountability. Oxford Studies in Democratization is a series for scholars and students of comparative politics and related disciplines. Volumes concentrate on the comparative study of the democratization process that accompanied the decline and termination of the cold war. The geographical focus of the series is primarily Latin America, the Caribbean, Southern and Eastern Europe, and relevant experiences in Africa and Asia. The series editor is Laurence Whitehead, Official Fellow, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.

Download or read book Urban Planning in Mexico written by Paavo Monkkonen and published by UCLA Ciudades. This book was released on 2020-12-31 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the scope of urban planning in Mexico through case studies of four municipalities - Campeche, Hermosillo, Leon and Morelia - that have recently updated their plans using new federal guidelines. We seek to advance a research agenda on the impacts of planning and its effectiveness by proposing some foundations for how to assess planning processes, as well as to provide guidance for the federal government of Mexico in its oversight of municipal planning practice and recommendations for the four cities we study. We begin with the concern that the debate over whether urban planning in Mexico “works” suffers from a lack of shared definitions about what is and is not within the scope of urban planning, and a shared conceptual framework for assessing the planning process. The case studies were conducted as part of a graduate studio in the Department of Urban Planning at UCLA. They rely on multiple interviews with planners and professionals in each city as well as documentary and data analysis, and literature reviews. We use a framework of five processes: creating a plan, implementing the plan, raising revenue to fund urban infrastructure, upgrading existing neighborhoods to ensure equal access across neighborhoods, and investing in new infrastructure to support growth. Each case presents a brief urban history and contextual data; a description of local government planning activities, the current plan, the city’s political history, and transparency in local planning; an assessment of planning processes, the mechanisms for changing land uses, and examples one infrastructure project and enforcement of land use rules; and an evaluation of the plan itself, including some GIS analysis local zoning and federal policy. The book’s recommendations fall into three areas: making plans into part of an ongoing and iterative process, increasing coordination between municipal budgeting and planning, and creating transparency and public input to the planning process. More specifically, we find that new plans often ignore successes and failures of prior plans, they do not periodically assess indicators to gauge impact, and discretionary changes in between plan updates diminishes the importance of the plan itself. In the second area, we argue that the scope of planning must be expanded. The plan should be integrated with the municipal budgeting process and municipalities in Mexico should work to generate more local revenues to adequately fund plans. Finally, in the third area, we recommend making planning documents, zoning maps, and basic data on urban conditions accessible to the public. A lack of transparency and the often opaque decision making processes harm the legitimacy of governance. We also outline how the federal government can play a role in advancing these recommendations for local planning processes.

Download or read book Gobierno Abierto Un an lisis de su adopci n en los Gobiernos Locales desde las Pol ticas P blicas written by Edgar Alejandro Ruvalcaba Gómez and published by INAP. This book was released on 2019-06-02 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: El uso masificado de las nuevas tecnologías y la progresiva democratización de Internet han supuesto múltiples transformaciones de la realidad social en los últimos años. Los gobiernos están intentando brindar respuestas a las nuevas formas de interacción social presentes en el panorama cotidiano. Dentro de este esfuerzo, la incorporación de estrategias tecnológicas que permitan diseñar modelos alternativos de gestión pública surgen como una necesidad.En este contexto de configuración de nuevas estrategias de gestión pública se ha producido el surgimiento de un nuevo modelo que ha despertado la atención de académicos, funcionarios públicos y sociedad civil: el Gobierno Abierto (GA). Este modelo emergente propone reinventar la forma de gobernar introduciendo elementos que combinan el uso de nuevas tecnologías y fortalecen los valores democráticos.

Download or read book Los grandes problemas de M xico Edici n Abreviada Sociedad T II written by Manuel Ordorica and published by El Colegio de Mexico AC. This book was released on 2012 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Serie de cuatro volúmenes que condensan la colección de dieciséis tomos que fue publicada en 2010 bajo el título de Los grandes problemas de México, con motivo de las conmemoraciones del bicentenario de la Independencia, del centenario de la Revolución y de los setenta años de El Colegio de México. Cada capítulo reproduce una estructura que contiene un diagnóstico, un pronóstico cuando es posible, y propuestas de acción en torno a problemas específicos. El presente volumen trata los principales problemas de carácter social en México: Desigualdad social, Movimientos sociales, Educación, Relaciones de género y Culturas e identidades

Download or read book Urban Policy in Latin America written by Michael Cohen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-07-26 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book evaluates the impact of 20 years of urban policies in six Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico. It argues that evaluating the fulfillment of past commitments is essential for framing and meeting the new commitments that were taken in Habitat III over the next 20 years. Taken as a whole, the book provides a critical assessment of the economic, social and environmental consequences of urban interventions during Habitat II. The country-level chapters have been written by recognized experts in urban issues, with first-hand knowledge of the Habitat process, and deep familiarity with the problems, statistics, actors and political contexts of their nations. The latter part of the volume considers wider topics such as the Habitat Commitment Index, the New Urban Agenda and the regional and global-scale lessons that can be extracted from this group of countries. Urban Policy in Latin America will be of interest to advanced students, researchers and policymakers across development economics, urban studies and Latin American studies.

Download or read book De coding New Regionalism written by James Wesley Scott and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2009 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together comparative case studies from Central Europe and South America, this book focuses on 'new' regions; regions created as political projects of modernization and 're-scaling'. Through this approach it de-codes 'New Regionalism' in terms of its contributions to institutional change, while acknowledging its contested nature and contradictions. It questions whether these regions are merely a strategy of neo-liberal adjustment to changing political and economic conditions, or whether they are indicative of true reform, greater citizen participation and empowerment. It assesses whether these regions are really representing something new or whether they are a reconfiguration of traditional power relationships. It provides a timely critical analysis of 'region-building' and the extent to which national processes of decentralization and sub-national processes of regionalism can enhance the effectiveness and responsiveness of governance.

Download or read book The International Relations of California and Texas with Mexico and the World written by Jorge A. Schiavon and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-05-31 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyzes the international relations of Mexico and the two most important sub-state governments of the United States, California and Texas. It explains why and how these two states conduct their international relations (IR) with Mexico and the world, and how national authorities and local governments coordinate in the definition and implementation of their international policies. Expert contributors from across the Americas offer a historical and current analysis, exploring which areas of cooperation—trade, investment, border cooperation, energy, migration—matter most. They also consider the institutional and legal bases of Mexican and U.S. states’ international relations, the changing nature of the U.S. federal system, the impact on international partners, the role of Latinos and the future of paradiplomacy in the region. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of International Relations, comparative politics, diplomacy, foreign policy, governance, and federalism, as well as business people, social leaders, and practitioners of diplomacy and paradiplomacy around the world.

Download or read book Decentralization Democratization and Informal Power in Mexico written by Andrew Selee and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last two decades of the twentieth century, many countries in Latin America freed themselves from the burden of their authoritarian pasts and developed democratic political systems. At the same time, they began a process of shifting many governmental responsibilities from the national to the state and local levels. Much has been written about how decentralization has fostered democratization, but informal power relationships inherited from the past have complicated the ways in which citizens voice their concerns and have undermined the accountability of elected officials. In this book, Andrew Selee seeks to illuminate the complex linkages between informal and formal power by comparing how they worked in three Mexican cities. The process of decentralization is shown to have been intermediated by existing spheres of political influence, which in turn helped determine how much the institution of multiparty democracy in the country could succeed in bringing democracy “closer to home.”

Download or read book Sustainable Management of Natural Resources written by Fortunato Garza-Ocañas and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-10-15 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change and human activities are impacting the environment around the world and there is a great need to update our knowledge of natural resources in order to sustain the livelihoods of rural communities and urban dwellers. Educational tools help people to understand the ecology, and the management of natural resources and to participate in actions to protect the environment. This book has a multipurpose focus regarding biodiversity, management, and conservation of the natural resources as species are linked in nutritional webs in the ecosystems. Ecology, diversity, conservation, and management practices such as plant species, native fish, edible mushrooms, and woody species are important for improving people livelihoods and incomes. It is expected that readers will learn to apply similar multipurpose approaches to natural resources in other parts of the world when their environments are affected by climate change or human activities. This book introduces the importance of the sustainable management of natural resources to a wide audience, including policy decision makers, but also researchers.

Download or read book Decentralization In Mexico written by Victoria Rodriguez and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-04 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book assesses the impact of decentralization on Mexico’s intergovernmental relations and examines the constraints upon the devolution of political power from the center to the lower levels of government. It also discusses the distribution of power and authority to governments of opposition parties within the context of a more open political space. Victoria Rodríguez uncovers a new paradox in the Mexican political system: retaining power by giving it away. She argues that since the de la Madrid presidency (1982–1988), the Mexican government has embarked upon a major effort of political and administrative decentralization as a means to increase its hold on power. That effort continued under Salinas, but paradoxically led to further centralization. However, since Zedillo assumed the presidency, it has become increasingly clear that the survival of the ruling party and, indeed, the viability of his own government require a genuine, de facto reduction of centralism.

Download or read book Los grandes problemas de M xico Relaciones internacionales T XII written by Blanca Torres and published by El Colegio de Mexico AC. This book was released on 2010-01-08 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A setenta años de su fundación, El Colegio de México publica esta serie de dieciséis volúmenes, titulada Los grandes problemas de México, en la que se analizan los mayores retos de la realidad mexicana contemporánea, con el fin de definir los desafíos que enfrentamos en el siglo XXI y proponer algunas posibles respuestas y estrategias para resolver nuestros problemas como nación. Serie: Los grandes problemas de México. Vol, XII Relaciones internacionales, diecinueve estudiosos y diplomáticos con amplia experiencia en la conducción de las relaciones con el exterior abordan algunos de estos asuntos y problemas, los retos que han implicado para México y la forma en la que se ha intentado hacerles frente. Se analizan algunos de los grandes temas de las relaciones internacionales, incluyendo aquellos que tiene o pueden tener repercusiones más significativas en México. También se abordan las principales relaciones con países o grupos de países, poniendo énfasis en la conducción de las mismas por parte del Estado mexicano, así como asuntos relacionados con el funcionamiento de algunos organismos internacionales y las posiciones que al respecto hemos mantenido hasta ahora ay las que podemos o debemos adoptar.

Download or read book Police Reform in Mexico written by Daniel Sabet and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-02 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The urgent need to professionalize Mexican police has been recognized since the early 1990s, but despite even the most well-intentioned promises from elected officials and police chiefs, few gains have been made in improving police integrity. Why have reform efforts in Mexico been largely unsuccessful? This book seeks to answer the question by focusing on Mexico's municipal police, which make up the largest percentage of the country's police forces. Indeed, organized crime presents a major obstacle to institutional change, with criminal groups killing hundreds of local police in recent years. Nonetheless, Daniel Sabet argues that the problems of Mexican policing are really problems of governance. He finds that reform has suffered from a number of policy design and implementation challenges. More importantly, the informal rules of Mexican politics have prevented the continuity of reform efforts across administrations, allowed patronage appointments to persist, and undermined anti-corruption efforts. Although many advances have been made in Mexican policing, weak horizontal and vertical accountability mechanisms have failed to create sufficient incentives for institutional change. Citizens may represent the best hope for counterbalancing the toxic effects of organized crime and poor governance, but the ambivalent relationship between citizens and their police must be overcome to break the vicious cycle of corruption and ineffectiveness.

Download or read book Future of US Mexico Relations written by Tony Payan and published by Arte Publico Press. This book was released on 2020-04-30 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The editors of this collection of sixteen articles argue the relationship between the United States and Mexico is at its most tenuous in recent memory. Each article explores the future of US-Mexico relations, focusing on relevant topics such as trade, water, drugs, health, immigration, environmental issues and security. Employing a strategic foresight methodology, the authors use past trends and identify pivotal drivers to predict, based on indicators, at least three possible outcomes for the next few decades: a baseline or continuity scenario, an optimistic version and a pessimistic one. They also articulate the implications each forecast has for both nations. Most chapters are co-written by a scholar from the United States and another from Mexico. While acknowledging it is impossible to predict the future, they nonetheless describe what could occur. Ultimately, the authors of the articles in this fascinating volume make recommendations to achieve a peaceful, integrated and prosperous North America that will drive the world economy. The book is required reading for anyone interested in the binational relationship and the well-being of citizens in both countries.