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The eventual disconnection between voters´ preferences and specific policies is of special concern in decentralized countries, where any policy initiative might be simultaneously seen either as an erosion or a reinforcement of selfrule. The aim of this paper is to apply this framework to the harmonization of the Spanish Inheritance and Gift Tax (IGT). We econometrically contrast whether citizens´ living in Autonomous Communities (ACs) that led a tax race to the bottom regarding this tax or in those that exert a greater taste for political autonomy are more likely to oppose a more nationally uniform tax than the rest of Spaniards. Empirically, we exploit data from the 2019 wave of the Institute for Fiscal Studies Fiscal Barometer. According to our main results, citizens living in low taxation ACs and citizens living in some more pro-self-rule regions are even more likely to favor harmonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses and compares two kinds of logic that explain electoral behaviour: the performance vote and the ideological vote. To be exact, this paper puts one of the main hypotheses of both theories to the test: that the rules guiding citizens' voting decisions are the same, regardless of their level of interest, knowledge and information about political matters. In order to do this, empirical material taken from post-electoral surveys in four democracies —Spain, Portugal, Hungary and Poland— is analysed. The data belongs to the second module of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES 2005) programme which contains information on citizens' electoral conduct and knowledge of politics. The results indicate that while the influence of political knowledge on the logic of the performance vote is clear and conclusive, it is much less conclusive in the case of the ideological vote. All this suggests that democratic control of governments through sanctioning their performance requires citizens to have minimum levels of knowledge and information about politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the contradiction at the heart of Italian and Spanish immigration policies between the calls for integration on the one hand, and the marginalization associated with temporary and contingent immigration status on the other. I argue that this tension is structural and reflects an underlying contradiction in the political economy of these post-Fordist societies. In the second half of this paper, I examine this same tension in U.S. immigration policy, and explore the ways the current proposals for reform would bring U.S. immigration policy closer to that of Spain and Italy. I note that while the tension between immigrant marginalization and integration has always characterized U.S. policy, the contradiction has intensified as immigrants are an increasingly visible component of the U.S. workforce, complicating attempts at meaningful reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this study is to identify the vegan activist profile in Spain, with vegans being the most committed group within the animal liberation movement. Through online questionnaires, we analyzed socio-demographic characteristics, ideological and emotional aspects of the participants, their process of conversion, as well as their preferences regarding activism strategies. The findings are very similar to previous studies about animal rights activists, especially those conducted in the United States. The paper concludes with recommendations aimed at animal organizations, companies and governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to understand the behavior of Spain's main media within a specific electoral context: the 2008 General Election. To this end, we analyzed the coverage of the major Spanish newspapers (El País, El Mundo and Abc) in order to determine whether their agenda setting and framing had political motives, in addition to the merely informative intention. Spanish media had at least two options within the context of the elections: to offer their readers a neutral coverage or, on the contrary, to taint it with obvious partisanship. Our findings demonstrate the predominance of the latter option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the process of implementing «gender equality» in North-South development cooperation. The hypotheses argue that the background of these processes involves a homogenizing desire whereby the goals of the West should be the goals of the world. The theoretical discussion is based on modern feminist critical theories. The first part reviews the main theoretical reflections related to post-modern feminism, and the second section provides empirical information on the relationship between Colombian and Aragonese NGDOs. The main conclusions state that, on the one hand, post-modern feminist theories represent an advance in the understanding of current patterns of development cooperation. On the other hand, in practice, «gender equality» on the development cooperation agenda often reproduces a type of patriarchal authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes economic voting in decentralized contexts. The existence of several arenas of political competition allows for the appearance of vertical electoral contamination processes, implying that voters do not evaluate the performance of national and regional governments independently. Using the case of Spain in the period 1982-2008, it is demonstrated that this electoral contamination spreads from the national arena to the regional one, and not the other way round. However, electoral contamination tends to diminish as the process of decentralization takes place over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses determinants of the aspirations and expectations among immigrant offspring on the basis of a representative sample of second generation adolescents interviewed at schools in the metropolitan area of Madrid. Seven hypotheses are formulated in relation to status attainment in general and aspirations and expectations in particular. We present breakdowns of educational and occupational aspirations and expectations by gender, parental education and school. The analysis is completed with structural equation models which offer an integrated theoretical perspective on the causal structure of ambition in the Spanish context. We examine the consequences of our conclusions for theory and policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically reviews the conventional wisdom on the positive relationship between turnout and the electoral results of the PSOE in general elections in Spain. We highlight the existence of three causal mechanisms that give rise to different predictions about this correlation and therefore undermine the existing parsimonious thesis. Some of our arguments are empirically tested with aggregate district-level data corresponding to the ten general elections held to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we use the method of counterfactual simulation to estimate the number of strategic votes transferred from the United Left (IU) to the Socialist Party (PSOE) in the last three Spanish general elections. The strategic voters we refer to are those who, in spite of IU being their first political preference, voted for the PSOE in order to attain representation benefits. The counterfactual simulation procedure is used to examine how the predicted individual probability of voting for a party changes when the strategic incentives at constituency level are removed. Our results lend support to the hypothesis that IU's electoral and parliamentary collapse was due in no small measure to the strategic behavior of its followers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Birth intervals have rarely been considered a phenomenon worthy of study in developed countries, but rather a mere consequence of individuals' decisions about total family size and age at first birth. However, women may be using birth spacing as a strategy to make employment and motherhood more compatible. The aim of this paper is to shed light on the analysis of the influence that women's attachment to work and received help with housework can have on the length of second birth intervals. For this purpose, I have taken information from a sample of 871 Spanish women aged between 35 and 49. The data have been obtained from the Fertility and Family Survey for Spain, conducted in 1995. The results obtained from some multivariate linear regression models indicate that the strong attachment to work negatively affects the length of second birth intervals, especially among highly educated women. However, the positive effect of help with housework on the interval can counteract the influence of the abovementioned characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following a method proposed by W. Brass, this paper uses 1940 Spanish census data on retrospective fertility (based on questions addressed to married women about numbers of children born alive and surviving children at the time of the census) to estimate the survival levels of women's descendants at different ages and, therefore, child mortality up to the age of 15. The results show that the Spanish Civil War worsened child survival in practically all Spanish provinces, especially those of Andalusia and Levante, whereas the least affected provinces were those of Catalonia and the Northern Meseta, in spite of the fact that these two regions had had opposite experiences of child mortality before the war, with low levels in the former and high ones in the latter. This would seem to indicate that, although a region's level of development should be inversely related to its population's vulnerability to unfavourable situations, the previous demographic situation does not seem to significantly influence child mortality during the war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The manipulation of the Spanish electoral system carried out by the political elites that led the political transition has been proved by several studies. This manipulation moves through the existence of a large number of low-magnitude districts and its interaction with malapportionment, the Hondt formula and, above all, the variance effect of district magnitudes. In this paper I will discuss another bias that has not yet been studied by researchers, and which also paved the way for UCD victories: the turnout bias. I will show how the manipulation of the electoral system led UCD to win systematically in the districts where there was low turnout and how its opponents won in districts with high turnout. Therefore the "price" of the seats for UCD was lower. This bias has remained and it favours those parties that have support in the districts with low turnout which are, at the same time, more overrepresented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between individual behaviour and social perception regarding Spaniards' behaviour on environmental issues in the theoretical context of the cognitive biases of false consensus and false uniqueness. A survey carried out by the CIS (2005, study no. 2590) on 2,490 citizens from a representative sample of the Spanish population was used. The results showed that individuals with a moderate frequency of pro-environmental behaviours tended to project their own behaviour on all Spaniards. However, individuals with a more extreme kind of conduct, because of high frequency of pro-environmental behaviours, tended to attribute to others a different conduct from their own. These individuals considered themselves to be different from the rest of the population. It was also found how the differences in social perception of the behaviour of Spaniards on environmental matters are associated with different perceptions of environmental deterioration and concern for the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spaniards are getting married later and in smaller proportions. Gary Becker's economic theory of the family and Oppenheimer's theory of marriage timing try to explain these trends. The aim of this paper, focused on men's nuptiality patterns, is to determine whether the hypotheses derived from such theories apply to the Spanish case. To this end, the Spanish Labour Force Survey is used, and the method of artificial cohorts and logistic regression are applied. The findings show that unemployment, fixed-term contracts, the cost of access to the housing market and women's absolute rate of employment are negatively related to the likelihood of getting married. From these results, a discussion on how Spanish society has handled the socio-economic changes that have taken place in the last three decades with respect to the process of family formation is established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several analysts have pointed out the emergence of a global consciousness that is closely related to the process of globalization of social life. It has been considered that this global consciousness, which is supported on an expansion of the geographical space of responsibility from which citizens feel they are being questioned, is encouraged by the revolution of information and communication technologies (ICT), the contents broadcast by the mass media and the action of international NGOs. From the context of these and starting from the data contained in a CIS survey (E-2419), this paper seeks to contrast empirically the hypothesis of the modifying action of the «cultural reference frameworks» of the international NGOs and its role in the proliferation of feelings of global solidarity, as well as the distribution of such sentiments in Spanish society. In order to do this, an operationalization of the empirical dimensions of solidarity is proposed first, and secondly, the influence that membership of various types of associations and organizations has on the dimensions of solidarity is analysed. Lastly, an examination is made of the degree to which the latter are associated with different positions of the social structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite increasing measures to control and regulate migration flows, irregular migration has grown in the last few years in Spain, Malaysia and the United States. This increase in irregular immigration has mainly been explained in relation to socio-economic factors. However, while these factors explain the presence of migration flows towards these countries, they do not succeed in explaining why an important part of these flows takes place on a non-regular basis. This can only be considered by taking into account the State and its immigration policies. Starting out from this statement, this research paper analyses to what extent, how and why the immigration policies of Spain, Malaysia and the United States produce «illegals«. This means not only analysing how and why immigration policies contribute to the increase in the number of irregular immigrants, but also how and why, by denying their rights and often their existence, they create the figure of the «illegal immigrant». As this research note demonstrates for the Malaysian case, irregular immigration is not despite immigration policies but because of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this analysis we make an approach to the impact and importance of a transnational perspective when studying current international migrations. More specifically, the objective of this paper is to reflect on the impact of the monetary and «social» remittances of Peruvian and Ecuadorian immigrants living in Spain, considering their households as transnational. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sharp decline in fertility recorded in Spain in the last few decades is the outcome of a number of factors, one of the most relevant being the average age at first maternity, which has climbed by four years since the mid-1970s. This leads to increasingly unfavourable ratios between higher order and overall fertility. In the present paper, a regression model in which 99% of the variance could be accounted for was used to establish the relationship between variables and simulate several scenarios. The chief conclusion is that with the age at first birth patterns prevailing today, replacement level fertility cannot be achieved. Indeed, age at first child would have drop even to reach values of over 1.5: naturally, the higher the desired fertility rate, the lower the age required, since the age at which mothers have their first child determines the combination of birth orders, which in turn has an impact on the resulting fertility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]