scholarly journals The Impact of Law Enforcement Centralisation and Professionalisation on Public Opinion of the Mexican Police

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-120
Author(s):  
Diego Esparza ◽  
Antonio Ugues

Pandemic violence and criminality are anathema to a democratic society. And yet, in Latin America, both operate side by side. Illicit activity has propagated precisely because the democratic states of the region have been ineffective at establishing and maintaining the rule of law via public security mechanisms like the police. This ineffectiveness has significant consequences for public support of police forces. Hence, an important question for students of state-building and democratisation is: What factors explain public perceptions of the police? We argue that police forces that are local and unprofessional will be less trusted and viewed as less effective than their more centralised and professional counterparts of state and federal police. In short, we find that centralisation and professionalisation mitigate the impact of crime victimisation and police corruption on the public opinion of the police in Mexico. These findings are drawn from an analysis of the National Survey of Victimisation and Perceptions of Public Security (ENVIPE) in Mexico for 2012 and 2018.

2010 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Baum ◽  
Tim Groeling

AbstractPrevailing theories hold that U.S. public support for a war depends primarily on its degree of success, U.S. casualties, or conflict goals. Yet, research into the framing of foreign policy shows that public perceptions concerning each of these factors are often endogenous and malleable by elites. In this article, we argue that both elite rhetoric and the situation on the ground in the conflict affect public opinion, but the qualities that make such information persuasive vary over time and with circumstances. Early in a conflict, elites (especially the president) have an informational advantage that renders public perceptions of “reality” very elastic. As events unfold and as the public gathers more information, this elasticity recedes, allowing alternative frames to challenge the administration's preferred frame. We predict that over time the marginal impact of elite rhetoric and reality will decrease, although a sustained change in events may eventually restore their influence. We test our argument through a content analysis of news coverage of the Iraq war from 2003 through 2007, an original survey of public attitudes regarding Iraq, and partially disaggregated data from more than 200 surveys of public opinion on the war.


2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hayley Watson ◽  
Rachel L. Finn ◽  
David Barnard-Wills

Understanding the attitudes of members of the public towards the impact of surveillance technologies used to enhance public security on their privacy is an essential, but complex consideration for policy makers, where public trust plays a central role. Understanding public attitudes involves assessing what public opinion surveys reveal. However, in order to ensure that public attitudes are appropriately being measured across all four concepts (privacy, security, trust and surveillance) it is necessary to consider how existing surveys conceptualise and operationalise these terms. This article undertakes precisely this consideration, in order to evaluate existing practices and provide recommendations for future public opinion surveys on surveillance technologies or practices intended to provide security, but which may impact privacy. We have found three issues relating to past approaches: past surveys do not always adequately define or conceptualise the terms they are employing.  Second, surveys sometimes rely on the use of examples in lieu of definitions. Finally, and most importantly, we find that existing surveys do not always adequately examine the impact of the public’s trust towards the use of surveillance technologies to enhance security, but which may affect their privacy.


1994 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 163 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Craig ◽  
Anne M. Stewart

Conservation is for people and depends on public support for its success yet public perceptions of the value of conservation are highly variable. A lack of a strong commitment from the majority of the public may relate to problems determining priorities for research and management. There is ample evidence in the literature and in public opinion that there is a need to address these issues. An image of a starfish lacking co-ordination among its arms is offered as a metaphor of the problems in worldwide conservation today. There appears to be miscommunication between scientists and managers, lack of balance among research activities, a misunderstanding of how to manage the views of all stakeholders and an overall lack of agreement on direction and priorities in a normal situation of limited resources. We offer suggestions on how to increase effectiveness by negotiating a strategic direction that accommodates the views of all stakeholders and that links research to management.


2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Beyeler ◽  
Hanspeter Kriesi

This article explores the impact of protests against economic globalization in the public sphere. The focus is on two periodical events targeted by transnational protests: the ministerial conferences of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the annual meetings of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Based on a selection of seven quality newspapers published in different parts of the world, we trace media attention, support of the activists, as well as the broader public debate on economic globalization. We find that starting with Seattle, protest events received extensive media coverage. Media support of the street activists, especially in the case of the anti-WEF protests, is however rather low. Nevertheless, despite the low levels of support that street protesters received, many of their issues obtain wide public support.


2020 ◽  
pp. 002242782095320
Author(s):  
Alexander L. Burton ◽  
Justin T. Pickett ◽  
Cheryl Lero Jonson ◽  
Francis T. Cullen ◽  
Velmer S. Burton

Objectives: The recurring mass murder of students in schools has sparked an intense debate about how best to increase school safety. Because public opinion weighs heavily in this debate, we examine public views on how best to prevent school shootings. We theorize that three moral-altruistic factors are likely to be broadly relevant to public opinion on school safety policies: moral intuitions about harm, anger about school crime, and altruistic fear. Methods: We commissioned YouGov to survey 1,100 Americans to explore support for a range of gun control and school programming policies and willingness to pay for school target hardening. We test the ability of a moral-altruistic model to explain public opinion, while controlling for the major predictors of gun control attitudes found in the social sciences. Results: The public strongly supports policies that restrict who can access guns, expand school anti-bullying and counseling programs, and target-harden schools. While many factors influence attitudes toward gun-related policies specifically, moral-altruistic factors significantly increase support for all three types of school safety policies. Conclusions: The public favors a comprehensive policy response and is willing to pay for it. Support for prevention efforts reflects moral intuitions about harm, anger about school crime, and altruistic fear.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benedita Menezes Queiroz

Counter-terrorism and public security measures have significantly altered EU immigration law. Under the premise that EU instruments which regulate EU immigration databases influence the legal regime of irregularity of migrants’ statuses, the present article argues that the latest developments in the area of data technology contribute to the phenomenon of “crimmigration”. This is so not only because they may generate a sort of “digital illegality” due to their impact on the categorisation of migrants, but also because they enable a conflation of treatment of irregularity, asylum seeking and criminality. This article focuses on the recent amendments and proposals for amendments to the EURODAC Regulation, a database that regulates the asylum fingerprint system in the EU. This is revealing of the ongoing broadening of the purpose of that data and law enforcement access to the collected information. The argument finds its basis in three main trends common to these databases: the erosion of the principle of purpose limitation, the widening of access to data by law enforcement authorities, and the digitalisation of borders through biometrics. Ultimately, this article claims that the level of surveillance of certain categories of migrants that may cross the borders of the EU puts at risk the distinction between illegally staying irregular migrants and criminals, given that the treatment of their personal data is insufficiently clear in practice.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nate Breznau ◽  
Carola Hommerich

Does public opinion react to inequality, and if so, how? The social harms caused by increasing inequality should cause public opinion to ramp up demand for social welfare protections. However, the public may react to inequality differently depending on institutional context. Using ISSP and WID data (1980-2006) we tested these claims. In liberal institutional contexts (mostly English-speaking), increasing income inequality predicted higher support for state provision of social welfare. In coordinated and universalist contexts (mostly of Europe), increasing inequality predicted less support. Historically higher income concentration predicted less public support, providing an account of the large variation in inequality within the respective liberal and coordinated contexts. The results suggest opinions in liberal societies – especially with higher historical inequality – reached the limits of inequality, reacting negatively; whereas in coordinated/universalist societies – especially with lower historical inequality – opinions moved positively, as if desiring more inequality.


2021 ◽  
pp. 001112872110647
Author(s):  
Anneke Koning

This study examines the impact of social and spatial distance on public opinion about sexual exploitation of children. A randomized vignette experiment among members of a Dutch household panel investigated whether public perceptions of child sexual exploitation were more damning or more lenient when it occurred in a country closer to home, and explored theoretical explanations. The results show that offenses committed in the Netherlands or U.S. are overall perceived as more negative than those committed in Romania or Thailand. Social distance affects public perceptions about crime severity, and victims are attributed more responsibility in socially close than socially distant conditions. The study concludes that public perceptions are contingent upon the crime location, even when applied to child sexual exploitation.


Author(s):  
Douglas L. Kriner ◽  
Eric Schickler

This chapter proposes and empirically tests a general mechanism through which congressional investigative activity could affect presidential behavior and policy making more broadly: by influencing the president’s well of support among the American people. It proceeds in four parts. First, it describes two mechanisms through which committee investigations of executive misconduct are well positioned to shape levels of public support for the president. The empirical analysis then begins by asking a basic, but essential pre-cursor question: does the public generally support Congress employing its investigative powers to uncover and pursue allegations of abuse of power by the executive branch? Having answered this question in the affirmative, the analysis continues by merging the database of congressional investigative activity described in Chapter 2 with more than sixty years of public opinion data measuring support for the president. The chapter then presents the results of several original survey experiments that isolate the influence of congressional investigations on public opinion independent of potential confounding factors.


2019 ◽  
pp. 301-352
Author(s):  
Steven K. Green

This chapter examines the various events that undermined the public support for church–state separation in the 1960s. It considers the impact of Vatican II, of ecumenism, of the civil rights movement, and of federal social welfare and education legislation on Protestant attitudes. All of these events encouraged Protestants and Catholics to find common ground in working for the greater societal good. These events also suggested a model of church-state cooperation rather than one of separation. The chapter then segues to consider the various church–state cases before the Supreme Court between 1968 and 1975 in which the justices began to step back from applying a strict separationist approach to church–state controversies.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document