Measuring the quality of political regimes is a field that occupies a traditional place in statistical studies that have the subject of studying the characteristics of the political system as an important segment of the explanation of the behavior of states in international relations. In a desire for a comprehensive and complete spatial and temporal interaction, researchers seek to classify data categories through an extremely complex set that represents the starting point for further research. The aim of this article is a comparative overview of the most used quantitative instruments of the level of the political regime. In addition, the author points to the advantages or limitations of certain databases. The subject of the comparative presentation are the following databases: Polity IV, Lexical Index of Electoral Democracy-LIED, Authoritarian Regime Dataset, Varieties of Democracy, and other data sets relevant to statistical testing. In addition, the author presents the problems that researchers in security studies meet in "measuring" the level of the political regime, that is, quantifying the relationship between democracy and autocracy. The method of descriptive statistics will be used in order to present the most important statistical cross-sections of the instruments used in modern research.
The modern state administration and its bodies and special organizations should act in the field of the rule of law. It is a term that originates from the Anglo-Saxon legal world, but it is also a category and a principle of the Constitution of Serbia from 2006. The paper points out the different understandings of the rule of law and briefly looks at the position of the administration or the phase in its historical course until its subsumption under the principle of legality. In Serbia, state administration bodies consist of ministries, administrative bodies within the ministry and special organizations. Administrative or special organizations are formed by the state in order to perform professional and related administrative tasks. In order to permanently and unhinderedly perform the professional work of these organizations, they can act authoritatively. Special organizations have numerous and diverse administrative powers. The paper points out both the similarities and differences of special organizations in relation to administrative bodies. A review of the activities and organizational structure of all special organizations (secretariats, institutes, directorates and one center) established by the Law on Ministries from 2020 was performed. It was also pointed out that all institutes: the Republic Institute of Statistics, the Republic Hydrometeorological Institute, the Republic Geodetic Institute and the Intellectual Property Institute are special organizations that provide services to interested parties. In one part of the final considerations, the author states that for special organizations (as part of the state administration) it could be concluded that they really operate in the field of rule of law as an order with positive properties as characterized by the Constitution, it is necessary to strictly respect the principles organization of state administration prescribed by the Law on State Administration: independence and legality; expertise, impartiality and political neutrality, effectiveness in exercising the rights of the parties, proportionality and respect for the parties; publicity of work. ; Published
Crime and violence pose a serious challenge to Mexico. The problem appears to be growing worse, with 2011 on pace to become the most violent year on record. The rising violence in Mexico has resulted in a sharply heightened sense of fear among citizens, who now feel the presence of cartels in their every day lives. The use of extortion and kidnapping by cartels combined with a lack of trust in security forces terrorizes the population and makes them feel like they have no where to turn. Despite this fact, crime rates in Mexico remain lower than in other parts of Latin America. Venezuela, for example, has among the highest homicide rates in the world. Yet the pervasive infiltration of cartels into public life gives Mexicans a heightened sense of the severity of violent crime in their own country. Although accurate statistics are hard to come by, it is quite possible that 60,000 people have died in the last six-plus years as a result of armed conflict between the Mexican cartels and the Mexican government, amongst cartels fighting each other, and as a result of cartels targeting citizens. Mexico has been struggling with drug production and drug transit through its territory from South America to the U.S. for many decades, given the fact that it is the most important transit country for drug production originating from South America. In recent years, the escalating violence in Mexico has led to dramatic deterioration of the security situation. Recent wave of drug-war violence is associated with the beginning of the term of President Felipe Calderón in December 2006. The immediate implications of his assumption of the presidency and his hard-line policy, which he has applied against drug cartels and organized criminal groups across the country, were the deployment of Mexican army to fight cartels and the gradual weakening of the influence of local and state police at the expense of federal troops. This was done in order to combat corruption and collaboration of local law-enforcement institutions with drug trafficking organizations (DTOs). The consequence of such a policy, however, has been increased violence among rival cartels and between them and the federal police and military, resulting in a dramatic increase of the number of victims. The future of US-Mexican counter drug cooperation, as well as of the whole bilateral relation in the area of security, depends on the outcome of US presidential elections. As for Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto takes the office on December 1, 2012 that will mark a comeback of his party PRI after 12 years in opposition. As far as the security strategy of the future Mexican President is concerned, there are no significant changes to be expected. Peña Nieto seems to be aware of the current situation and its consequences as well as of the inevitability of an extremely close and dynamic mutual cooperation with the US.
