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A review essay on a book by Alberto Alesina & Enrico Spolaore, The Size of Nations (Boston: MIT Press, 2003).

This article takes over, from an empirical perspective, one of the classic concerns of normative theories of democracy: political community size and citizen participation. Although it focuses on voter turnout, this paper makes a simple question: why and how the political body size can influence the political behaviour of its residents. For this purpose, we examine, from an aggregate approach, the relationship between "size" and turnout in different types of elections in Andalusia, in the period 1999-2011. Our ecological analysis of participation, by using multi-regression techniques, shows that population size is the main "civic" characteristic of localities. However, other characteristics of local contexts, such as income and subsidized agrarian population, are positively related to participation. Our results suggest that individual theories of voting behaviour should also take into account the contextual factor when offering their conclusions. Adapted from the source document.

Integración: nuevos desfíos y alternativas -- Comentarios al travajo"Worldwide vs. Regional Integration: is there an optimal size of the integrated area?" -- La cooperación horizontal -- Exposición en seminario "Diálogo Ecuador-Perú: integración, cultura y medioambiente" -- Integración y cooperación entre países en desarrollo en el ámbito agrícola -- Anexos

Proposes an interpretation of an important ongoing change in Mexico's urban system: the proliferation of cities in the process of expansion from mid-size (half a million inhabitants) to metropolis. While in 1970 there was just 1 city with 500,000+ inhabitants (besides the 3 cities with populations above 1 million), in 1990 there were 13 cities of such size, & it is expected that by the year 2000 there will be 25 (plus 8 with over 1 million). This is due to high rates of natural increase in regional urban centers, but also to changing patterns of migration. In part, this is the result of national policies of deconcentration of Mexico City -- such as the National Program of Urban Development -- but it also has to do with relative stagnation of Mexico City due to the economic crisis of the 1980s, & the economic dynamism of regional centers. While the effect of reducing urban concentration at the national level is by all means positive, one problem with the new structure is that it reproduces at a regional level the problem of urban concentration. 13 References. R. Jaramillo

"Various experts analyze the reasons for Peru's high interest rate; three years after the 1990 economic shock, the interest rate remained double that of the industrial world. Otero and Naranjo suggest that 'the main reason for these high rates of real interest is the reduced size of financial intermediation...the banks must accept competition as a mechanism of progress.'"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 57

The Spanish electoral system is sufficiently heterogeneous in that inequality between relevant regions in the study yields political consequences. We propose the distinction of three subsystems election and find that they have different effects on the party system, in terms of fragmentation and proportionality. Moreover, inequality in the size of constituencies induces most differentiated awards, while inequality in the apportionment of seats also induces distinct overrepresentation awards. Both factors accumulate in the prize location of the votes which translates into a conservative partisan bias. Adapted from the source document.