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Why are some territories ravaged by intense levels of criminal violence while others are relatively peaceful? This research contributes to an understanding of the escalation and diffusion of drug violence in Mexico from 2000 to 2010 by formalizing the interactions between the state and organized criminals and by relying on a large database of event data containing more than 1.6 million observations. Results based on spatial econometrics provide evidence of the spatial diffusion of violence. In congruence with the theoretical expectations, the results show that the disruptive effect of law enforcement is an important catalyst for the intensification of violence between criminal organizations, especially when deployed in areas hosting a high concentration of criminal groups. This relationship holds for a broad menu of violent and nonviolent law enforcement tactics. The analysis also reveals that other broadly held factors (international, geographic, and socioeconomic characteristics) have a modest effect on the dynamics of drug-related violence.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to assess the relationship between information technology (IT) use and management innovation through the mediator role of knowledge-based resources.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents empirical evidence from a survey of 109 companies that run hotel establishments in the Spanish territory. A model of relationships is proposed and tested through a system of structural equations.FindingsThe use of IT favors the development of organizational knowledge and the ability to integrate this knowledge. Moreover, a positive and direct relationship was found between IT use and management innovation, and indirectly through organizational knowledge and knowledge integration capability.Research limitations/implicationsThe designed questionnaire did not include any questions related to specific IT tools that could contribute to better knowledge management practices in hospitality organizations, but rather generic questions about IT use. The large number of IT tools that can potentially support knowledge management practices in hospitality companies would make the questionnaire unwieldy for its target respondents.Originality/valueThis paper sheds light on a topic that has hardly been studied in the services literature. Specifically, it addresses the way organizations can facilitate management innovation through the use of IT, while considering the mediator role of knowledge-based resources.

International audience ; During the late 1970s, Spain began its political transition from a dictatorial regime to a democratic one. In the 1980s, the country evolved economically and socially in a process that was speeded up by its incorporation into the European Union. The early 1990s witnessed Spain's entrance into the international arena, culminating with the successful organization of the Olympic Games in 1992. During these effervescent years, transformations in almost every facet of the country's make-up also affected the educational field. In this evolving situation, microcomputers arose and were incorporated into the educational space. At the end of the 1970s, the presence of computers at the primary and secondary education levels was practically non-existent. During the 1980s, an intense governmental effort took place to massively introduce computers in classrooms through institutional plans and policies. The results were uneven, and the greatest benefit was possibly observed in the use of the computer to manage schools, an aspect that experienced great development but was not equaled by the use of the computer to introduce new educational methodologies.

Theoretical tools aimed at making explicit the injustices suffered by certain socially disadvantaged groups might end up serving purposes which were not foreseen when the tools were first introduced. Nothing is inherently wrong with a shift in the scope of a theoretical tool: the popularization of a concept opens up the possibility of its use for several strategic purposes. The thesis that we defend in this paper is that some public figures cultivate a public persona for whom the conditions of the notion of testimonial injustice might be taken to apply, and this situation is exploited to their advantage, as a means to advance their political agendas. More specifically, they take advantage of this to generate situations of crossed disagreements, which in turn foster polarization.

Las herramientas teóricas destinadas a señalar las injusticias que sufren ciertos grupos socialmente oprimidos pueden acabar siendo utilizadas con propósitos completamente opuestos a los iniciales. Modificar el alcance de una herramienta teórica no es necesariamente problemático: la popularización de un concepto abre las puertas a que se utilice estratégicamente para diferentes fines. La tesis que defendemos en este artículo es que algunos personajes públicos cultivan una imagen particular de sí mismos que parece satisfacer los requisitos de la noción de injusticia testimonial y utilizan esta situación como medio para obtener beneficio político de ella. Más concretamente, estos personajes públicos se benefician de esta condición para generar situaciones de desacuerdos cruzados, que están estrechamente relacionados con el aumento de la polarización.

Partiendo de la base de que cada conflicto armado tiene un origen diferente, el fin del conflicto corresponde al cese de las actividades hostiles y al inicio de un proceso de paz. Sin embargo, reconocer cuándo las partes inmersas en un conflicto tienen la voluntad de negociar es una cuestión compleja de entender. En este sentido, este artículo aborda la teoría de la maduración de Zartman para aumentar la comprensión de los elementos necesarios para que las partes se unan y resuelvan sus conflictos. La novedad de este artículo es que complementa dicha teoría con una visión tridimensional del fin del conflicto, es decir, las dimensiones militar, política y económica. A partir de una revisión bibliográfica, la principal conclusión está vinculada a la posibilidad de dotar de algunos argumentos a la comprensión de los conflictos a través de la teoría de la maduración de Zartman; sin embargo, ésta sigue teniendo limitaciones en el sentido de que tal momento de maduración no garantiza que el conflicto se resuelva, ni ofrece una mirada sobre el mismo antes de llegar a ese momento, sino que es posible observarlo sólo después de que pase, dando lugar a nuevas investigaciones que profundicen en esas lagunas. ; Based on the assumption that each armed conflict has different origins, the end of the conflict corresponds to a cessation of hostile activities and the beginning of a peace process. However, recognizing when the parties immersed in a conflict have the will to negotiate is a complex issue to understand. In this sense, this article addresses Zartman's theory of maturation to increase the understanding of the elements necessary for the parties to come together and resolve their conflicts. The novelty of this article is that it complements such a theory with a three-dimensional vision of the end of the conflict, that is, military, political and economic dimensions. Based on a bibliographic review, the main conclusion is linked to the possibility of providing the understanding of conflicts with some arguments through the theory of Zartman's ripening; however, this still has limitations in the sense that such a moment of ripening does not guarantee that the conflict will be solved, nor does it offer a look at it before reaching that moment, but it is possible to observe it only after it passes, giving rise to new investigations that go deeper into those gaps.

Theoretical tools aimed at making explicit the injustices suffered by certain socially disadvantaged groups might end up serving purposes which were not foreseen when the tools were first introduced. Nothing is inherently wrong with a shift in the scope of a theoretical tool: the popularization of a concept opens up the possibility of its use for several strategic purposes. The thesis that we defend in this paper is that some public figures cultivate a public persona for whom the conditions of the notion of testimonial injustice might be taken to apply, and this situation is exploited to their advantage, as a means to advance their political agendas. More specifically, they take advantage of this to generate situations of crossed disagreements, which in turn foster polarization. ; Las herramientas teóricas destinadas a señalar las injusticias que sufren ciertos grupos socialmente oprimidos pueden acabar siendo utilizadas con propósitos completamente opuestos a los iniciales. Modificar el alcance de una herramienta teórica no es necesariamente problemático: la popularización de un concepto abre las puertas a que se utilice estratégicamente para diferentes fines. La tesis que defendemos en este artículo es que algunos personajes públicos cultivan una imagen particular de sí mismos que parece satisfacer los requisitos de la noción de injusticia testimonial y utilizan esta situación como medio para obtener beneficio político de ella. Más concretamente, estos personajes públicos se benefician de esta condición para generar situaciones de desacuerdos cruzados, que están estrechamente relacionados con el aumento de la polarización.

En uno de los conflictos más prolongados del Hemisferio Occidental, el Estado colombiano se enfrenta a un conflicto armado interno contra las FARC desde la década de 1950. Cuatro hitos establecen el marco de los antecedentes más importantes de este conflicto. El primero, con el asesinato del líder Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, desencadenó actos de severa violencia entre liberales y conservadores; luego, el segundo hito se debió a la creación del "frente nacional" que puso fin a las disputas mediante la rotación del poder entre estos partidos políticos; sin embargo, otros grupos minoritarios no fueron tomados en cuenta, dando lugar al tercer hito, donde la guerrilla de las FARC surgió reivindicando un modelo comunista, y el cuarto hito corresponde a los fuertes ataques militares contra este grupo guerrillero que obligaron a las FARC a negociar un acuerdo de paz. Considerando la teoría de la escalada y el estancamiento del conflicto armado, este artículo pretende resumir los antecedentes que han llevado a este conflicto, que tuvo sus inicios en disputas políticas pero que poco a poco se fue intensifcando hasta convertirse en un grave problema que el país ha venido sufriendo. ; With one of the longest-running conflicts in the Western Hemisphere, the Colombian state has been facing an internal armed conflict against the FARC since the 1950s. Four milestones set the framework for the most important background in this conflict. The frst one, with the murder of leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, unleashed acts of severe violence between liberals and conservatives; then, the second milestone was due to the creation of the "national front" that ended the disputes by rotating power between these political parties; however, other minority groups were not taken into account, giving rise to the third milestone, where the FARC guerrillas emerged by claiming a communist model, and the fourth milestone corresponds to heavy military strikes against this guerrilla group that forced the FARC to a negotiate peace accord. Considering the theory of escalation and stagnation of the armed conflict, this article aims at summarizing the background that has led to this conflict, which had its beginnings in political disputes but gradually escalated to become a serious problem that the country has been suffering.

Does violent repression strengthen the state? In this article we explore the legacies of repression by the Mexican government on subsequent patterns of state consolidation. We investigate how a particular form of state repression, forced disappearances of alleged leftist dissidents during the 'Dirty War', had path-dependent consequences for different dimensions of state capacity nearly 50 years later. To do so, we rely on data gathered from suppressed Mexican human rights reports of forced disappearances which, to our knowledge, have not been analyzed by social scientists before. Controlling for a rich set of pre-disappearances covariates we find that forced disappearances are positively correlated with contemporary measures of fiscal, territorial, and bureaucratic capacity. However, historical forced disappearances do not help the state to provide security, to consolidate its monopoly over the use of force, or to provide welfare-related public goods in the long run. Moreover, disappearances are negatively correlated with various measures of trust in the government. Forced disappearances committed by the state appear to have long-term yet heterogeneous effects on state consolidation.

En este trabajo se realiza un análisis de la situación actual de la contaminación electromagnética no ionizante (EM-NI), abarcándola desde el punto de vista técnico, ambiental y legislativo y entendiendo esta contaminación de forma sistémica. También se plantean las necesidades presentes para continuar el estudio del tema de contaminación EM-NI, como factor conexo al desarrollo tecnológico de Colombia. ; In this work was performed an analysis of the current situation of the non-Ionizing Electromagnetic contamination (NI-EM), covering it from the technical, environmental and legislative point of view, and from a systematic understanding as well. In addition, the formulation of the current needs to continue NI-EM studies, as a factor related to the technological development of Colombia

How do parties target intimidation and vote-buying during elections? Parties prefer the use of carrots over sticks because they are in the business of getting voters to like them and expect higher legitimacy costs if observers expose intimidation. However, their brokers sometimes choose intimidation because it is cheaper and possibly more effective than vote-buying. Specifically, we contend that brokers use intimidation when the cost of buying votes is prohibitively high; in interactions with voters among whom the commitment problem inherent to clientelistic transactions is difficult to overcome; and in contexts where the risk of being denounced for violence is lower. We probe our hypotheses about the different profile of voters targeted with vote-buying and intimidation using two list experiments included in an original survey conducted during the 2011 Guatemalan general elections. The list experiments were designed to overcome the social desirability bias associated with direct questions about illegal or stigmatized behaviors. Our quantitative analysis is supplemented by interviews with politicians from various parties. The analysis largely confirms our expectations about the diametrically opposed logics of vote-buying and intimidation targeting, and illuminates how both are key components of politics in a country with weak parties and high levels of violence.