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Violent conflicts involving non-State armed groups challenge conventional perceptions of war and armed conflict. Criminal enterprises (transnational organized criminal groups including gangs and cartels) are involved in violent competition for both profit and territorial control in many parts of the world. This paper examines the situation in Mexico and Brazil as case studies to assess the legal challenges to criminal armed violence when criminal groups battle among themselves and the State. The paper focuses on the operational challenges and considerations facing police, military, and security forces and justice institutions to illuminate the legal challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian & Latin American Economic History is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Objective: To assess progress towards the elimination of trans-fatty acids (TFA) in foods after the 2008 Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) recommendation of virtual elimination of TFA in Latin America.Design: A descriptive, comparative analysis of foods that were likely to contain TFA and were commonly consumed in four cities in Latin America.Setting: San José (Costa Rica), Mexico City (Mexico), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Buenos Aires (Argentina).Subjects: Foods from each city were sampled in 2011; TFA content was analysed using GC. TFA of selected foods was also monitored in 2016.Results: In 2011-2016, there was a significant decrease in the content of TFA in the sampled foods across all sites, particularly in Buenos Aires (from 12·6-34·8 % range in 2011-2012 to nearly 0 % in 2015-2016). All sample products met the recommended levels of TFA content set by the PAHO. TFA were replaced with a mixture of saturated and unsaturated fats.Conclusions: Our results indicate a virtual elimination of TFA from major food sources in the cities studied. This could be due to a combination of factors, including recommendations by national and global public health authorities, voluntary and/or mandatory food reformulation made by the food industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BackgroundIn this global study we sought to estimate the degree to which a family member might feel embarrassed when a close relative is suffering from an alcohol, drug, or mental health condition (ADMC) versus a general medical condition (GMC). To date, most studies have considered embarrassment and stigma in society and internalized by the afflicted individual but have not assessed family embarrassment in a large-scale study.MethodIn 16 sites of the World Mental Health Surveys (WMHS), standardized assessments were completed including items on family embarrassment. Site matching was used to constrain local socially shared determinants of stigma-related feelings, enabling a conditional logistic regression model that estimates the embarrassment close relatives may hold in relation to family members affected by an ADMC, a GMC, or both conditions.ResultsThere was a statistically robust association such that subgroups with an ADMC-affected relative were more likely to feel embarrassed compared to subgroups with a relative affected by a GMC (p < 0.001), even with covariate adjustments for age and sex.ConclusionsThe pattern of evidence from this research is consistent with conceptual models for interventions that target individual- and family-level stigma-related feelings of embarrassment as possible obstacles to effective early intervention and treatment for an ADMC. Macro-level interventions are under way but micro-level interventions may also be required among family members, along with care for each person with an ADMC. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Journal of Latin American Studies is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article considers the impact that free trade initiatives have had upon labor unions in North and South America. The author considers the period from 1990 through 2004 using data collected from qualitative interviews and social network data originating from the U.S., Brazil, Mexico, and Chile to consider issues including coalition building, transnational collective action, and political claims regarding how free trade agreements will impact organized labor. The article also discusses labor studies, studies of social movements, and comparative labor ideologies.

Social assistance programmes involving cash transfers to poor and vulnerable households have become a major focus of development policy in recent years. This article compares the experiences of three such programmes in Latin America: Oportunidades in Mexico, Jefes y Jefas de Hogares in Argentina, and Brazil's social pension. Particular attention is given to each programme's administrative effectiveness, as well as their impacts on poverty, human capital, and household and gender dynamics. More broadly, the article assesses whether these schemes live up to their billing as 'best practice' for developing countries, and how they relate to wider shifts in the political economy of welfare provision. It concludes that experiences have been mixed, that claims about positive outcomes are sometimes exaggerated, and that the potential of these programmes to substantially re-orientate welfare systems and promote equitable public policies remains limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a comparative perspective on judicial involvement in policy change in Latin America during the last decade and a half. Drawing on the literature on new institutionalism and the judicialisation of politics, and on case studies from Latin America's two largest countries, we propose a comparative framework for analysing the judicialisation of policy in the region. On the basis of this framework, we argue that institutional structure is a primary determinant of patterns of the judicialisation of policy. In particular, institutional characteristics of the legal system affect the way political actors fight to achieve their policy objectives and the kinds of public justifications used to defend policy reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper examined the role of perceived emotional intelligence-EI- (measured by adaptations of the Trait Meta-Mood Scale - TMMS, Salovey, Mayer, Goldman, Turvey, & Palfai, 1995) as a predictor of life satisfaction and mental health. We explored the unique contribution of EI dimensions (Attention, Clarity and Repair) on individuals' psychological well-being, after controlling for the influence of general self-efficacy and socio-demographic variables (age, gender and culture). Data was collected from a sample of 1078 Spanish, Mexican, Portuguese and Brazilian undergraduate students (M(age) = 22.98; SD = 6.73) and analyzed using hierarchical multiple regressions. Results indicated that overall EI dimensions (especially Clarity and Repair) accounted for unique variance on psychological well-being above and beyond general self-efficacy and socio-demographic characteristics. These findings provide additional support for the validity of perceived EI, and suggests that EI components contribute to important well-being criteria independently from well-known constructs such as self-efficacy.

Background: Although pharmacoeconomic studies constitute a valuable tool for better managing drug consumption, the conditions under which such studies would be performed in Latin American countries have not been explored., Objectives: The aim of this paper is to evaluate the potential advantages of and pitfalls in doing pharmacoeconomic research in Latin America and to propose avenues to facilitate the development of this field in the region., Methods: The Canadian guidelines for the economic evaluation of pharmaceuticals served as a structured framework to assess, both prospectively and retrospectively, the conditions under which the pharmacoeconomic component of a clinical trial held in Mexico and Brazil would be and actually was conducted., Results: The conditions under which pharmacoeconomic evaluations are conducted must be improved if studies are to contribute to the better management of scarce resources across the entire health care system., Conclusions: The creation of a public funding agency, the reappraisal of administrative data as a management tool in both the public and the private sectors, and the establishment of national guidelines should be considered within the framework of reforms aimed at allowing healthcare systems to meet their objectives of efficiency and equity.

In order to explore ways of dealing with this phenomenon of illegal abortions and restrictive abortion laws in Latin America, several special sessions were held at last summer's international conference in Toronto, sponsored by the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics. The sessions brought together lawyers, health professionals, and reproductive rights advocates from a number of Latin American countries; their counterparts in the developed world; and representatives of non-governmental agencies concerned with this issue, including Catholics for a Free Choice. The goal of the sessions was to share information on the status of abortion in various countries and to try to devise strategies to make abortion law reform more palatable to Latin American governments and public opinion. One major component of the sessions was a series of papers prepared by some of the Latin American representatives describing and analyzing the situations in their countries. The papers illustrate some of the issues facing women in this part of the world.