Most everybody is ambitious about their own careers. Most of us aspire to be promoted to positions with greater responsibilities and benefits and have a clear sense of what we mean by a "successful career." Politicians are no different, and there is no apparent reason why they should be. However, unlike what happens in other occupations, politicians are forced periodically---i.e., at the end of each term they serve---to make a decision about what to do with their careers. This decision is made under the uncertainty about their ability to continue their careers according to their plans. The possibility of electoral defeat spares no one in spite of all that politicians do to avoid being voted out of office. Thus, at the end of each term, politicians must ponder what they want to do with their careers or where they want to go next. Politicians inform their decisions with their beliefs about their performance in office---or their performance as challengers---and their assessments of the difficulty of winning office in the following election. This raises the question about why some politicians decide to stay in office. Concretely, why do some politicians decide to get reelected while others seek election in "higher" or even "lower" offices? And also, why are some politicians more successful in having lasting careers? I focus on the career decisions that politicians make routinely and in the duration of their careers by considering individual and district factors that explain why politicians decide to run for particular offices and the length of their tenures.

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Mental disorders are among the most prevalent of chronic diseases, and high rates of these disorders have been consistently found in jails and prisons. This study was a retrospective case series that described the population of adults charged with a criminal offense who were court ordered to undergo a psychiatric assessment within the Medical Legal Service in Santiago, Chile from 2005-2006. Chi-square tests were used to assess differences in the distribution of variables by sex and by criminal responsibility. Exploratory analyses using polytomous logistic regression were conducted in order to assess variables that might be predictive of the outcome of criminal responsibility as recommended by the psychiatrist. Of the evaluated offenders, approximately 84% were considered by a psychiatrist to be criminally responsible for their crime, 7% were regarded as having diminished criminal responsibility, 4% were considered to be not criminally responsible for their crime, and 4% were cases where criminal responsibility was not applicable. The following variables were found to be significant in the exploratory model: sex, age, occupational status, psychiatric pathology, recommendation of treatment, and recommendation of hospitalization. An offender determined by the psychiatrist to have a psychiatric pathology had the highest increase in odds of being considered to have diminished criminal responsibility or of being considered not criminally responsible. Results from this investigation will contribute to international knowledge about forensic psychiatry and mental health in Latin America. / Thesis (Master, Community Health & Epidemiology) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-23 12:52:55.423

This thesis studies the secular schools sustained by two rural municipalities of majority Indian population in the Sierra Norte de Puebla in the periods before and after the 1910 Revolution (1875-1930). In order to assess the role of schools in the community and their contribution to nation-state building, it examines changes in the tax system that affected educational provision, the mutual interaction between schools, politics and inter-ethnic relations at the local level, and the methods used and problems faced when teaching Indian children to read and write in Spanish. The approach of social history is followed to address these questions, seeking to strike a balance between the necessary recognition of the agency of subordinate groups and the complexities of power relations that kept them dominated. Taking a local perspective and using a variety of sources including previously untapped municipal archives, this study both complements and challenges the history of education and nation-state building in modem Mexico. This thesis shows how, before 1910, municipal schools were successfully sustained by locally-controlled taxes and how post-revolutionary policies, contrary to the prevalent view in Mexican historiography, did not necessarily have positive consequences for education. In this case they had a negative impact by abolishing the tax system that had sustained schools, without providing an effective alternative. In organising themselves to fund schools, communities proved to be stronger than the post-revolutionary state. Seeking to contribute to an incipient but growing history of Indian education, this study analyses classroom practice, showing how speakers of Indian languages were at a disadvantage in school. After the revolution, there was a growing awareness of the specific needs of Indian children, but the methods adopted did not necessarily result in more effective learning of Spanish. In fact, the thesis argues that throughout the period of study schools contributed to non- Indian domination by reproducing and reinforcing Indians' linguistic disadvantage.

This dissertation comprises two essays. While the topics of both essays are different both are interrelated on the base of economic development. The first essay examines ethnic wage gaps on segmented labor markets with evidence from Latin American countries. The second essay revisits the determinants of fiscal decentralization with an emphasis on the role that geography plays in determining fiscal decentralization. The first essay contributes to limited literature on ethnic wage gaps in Latin America. It examines ethnic wage gaps for workers in formal and informal labor markets. Using data from Latin American countries we estimate and examine across-ethnic wage gaps for informal and formal markets, their changes over time, factors that explain their differences, and the wage gap distribution. More specifically, we verify that different ethnic wage gaps do exist across formal and informal markets; they behave differently not only at their means but also along the wage distribution. The results indicate that higher ethnic wage gaps in informal sectors exist not only on average but also throughout the distribution. In addition, we find that wage gaps have declined significantly over the last 10 years. we explain this by examining changes in the prices of institutional factors and changes in human capital endowments. The distributional analysis shows a decrease in the unexplained component, especially in the top part of the distribution. The second essay contributes to the existing literature on the determinants of fiscal decentralization by motivating theoretically and exploiting in depth the empirical relevance that geography has as a determinant of fiscal decentralization. The relationship between decentralization and geography is based on the logic that more geographically diverse countries show greater heterogeneity among their citizens, including their preferences and needs for public goods and services provisions. Communications and physical distance are also a very important issue and play a key role on the effect of geography over time. (Lora et. al., 2003) argue geography plays a key role in economic and social development, as well as in the institutional design of the countries; yet, this effect could be enhanced (or diminished) in the presence of better physical infrastructure or communications. The theoretical model in this paper builds on the work by Arzaghi and Henderson (2002) and Panizza (1999). For the empirical estimation, we use a panel data set for approximately 91 countries for the period 1960-2005. Physical geography is measured along several dimensions, including elevation, land area and climate. We construct a geographical fragmentation index and test its effect on fiscal decentralization. In addition, we interact the geographical fragmentation index with time-variant infrastructure variables in order to test the effect that infrastructure and communications have on the relationship between geography and fiscal decentralization. For robustness, we construct Gini coefficients for in-country elevation and climate. We find a positive and strong correlation between geographical factors and fiscal decentralization. We also find that while the development of infrastructure (in transportation, communications, etc.) tends to reduce the effect of geography on decentralization, this effect is rather small and mostly statistically insignificant, meaning that the impact of geography survives over time. The strategy has additional value because geography may be used as an instrument for decentralization in future econometric estimations where decentralization is used as an explanatory variable, but may be suspected to be endogenous to the economic process being studied (economic growth, political instability, macroeconomic stability, income distribution, etc.).

Thesis (M.S. in Joint Campaign Planning and Strategy)--Joint Forces Staff College, Joint Advanced Warfighting School, 2008. / Title from PDF title page; viewed on Nov. 5, 2008. "04 April 2008." Electronic version of original print document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 92-98).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Notre Dame, 2006. / Thesis directed by Jaime Ros for the Department of Economics. "December 2006." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 120-131).

Thesis (M.S.)--Central Connecticut State University, 1997. / Thesis advisor: Lilian Uribe. " ... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in International Studies." Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 319-329).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1959. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 312-335).