Le Sénégal se situe à l'extrême ouest du continent africain entre 12 ° 20' et 16 ° 40'de latitude Nord et 11° 20' et 17° 30' de longitude Ouest. Il est à cheval sur le domaine sahélien au nord, soudanien au centre, et sub-guinéen au sud avec à l'ouest une côte maritime longue de plus de 700 km. Cette situation détermine des conditions favorables à une diversification des écosystèmes et des espèces. Au plan écologique, le pays est subdivisé en six zones éco géographiques et présente quatre grands types d'écosystèmes : des écosystèmes terrestres, des écosystèmes fluviaux et lacustres, des écosystèmes marins et côtiers et des écosystèmes dits particuliers. En plus de cette diversité écosystémique, le Sénégal présente une richesse spécifique importante avec plus de 3500 espèces végétales et 4330 espèces animales. Parmi ces espèces végétales, 33 seraient endémiques du Sénégal. Les espèces animales considérées comme endémiques appartiennent à la classe des poissons et sont présentes dans les eaux douces ou saumâtres. La plupart des écosystèmes connaissent une dégradation importante et plusieurs espèces sont menacées. En effet, la superficie des forêts a connu une diminution sensible en passant de 9 203 153 ha en 1990 à 8 558 153 ha en 2005, soit environ une baisse de 7 %. Cette dynamique régressive s'accompagne également d'une diminution des espèces. Dans le Parc National du Niokolo Koba, on note une baisse d'environ 25% des espèces végétales. De même, certaines espèces animales comme le Damalisque et la Girafe ont disparu de cette zone depuis le début du vingtième siècle. L'Eléphant et l'Eland de Derby y sont devenus rares. Les superficies des savanes boisées sont passées de 5 300 876 ha à 5 100 876 ha soit environ une baisse de 6 %. Dans les écosystèmes fluviaux et lacustres, les milieux saumâtres sont en régression au profit des zones salées. Les écosystèmes côtiers, estuariens et marins sont aussi affectés par la dégradation. Dans le Delta du Saloum, les mangroves et la végétation des îles sableuses ont connu une régression estimée à plus de 25% entre Foundiougne et Kaolack. Dans la zone des Niayes, la réserve botanique de Noflaye a perdu 212 espèces entre 1957 et 1992. La diversité biologique joue un rôle très important. Elle est utilisée dans divers domaines tels que l'alimentation, la médecine, l'industrie et l'énergie. Ces diverses formes d'utilisation interagissent avec d'autres facteurs anthropiques de dégradation que sont les feux de brousse,le surpâturage, la pression agricole, la fragmentation et la destruction des habitats, la pauvreté, les pollutions…). Les feux de brousse affectent presque tous les sites de haute densité de biodiversité. A ces facteurs s'ajoutent le déficit pluviométrique, l'érosion et la salinisation. Cette péjoration climatique s'est traduite par une translation des isohyètes vers le sud d'environ 100 Km. Actuellement, quatre des six zones éco géographiques sont touchées par la salinisation qui affecte environ 1 231 100 ha. Les conséquences liées à la perte de biodiversité sont nombreuses et affectent l'environnement biophysique et les conditions de vie des populations. Cette perte a engendré une modification de la composition floristique, de la structure de la végétation et une diminution de la disponibilité en ressources biologiques. En effet, les feux et l'exploitation ont entrainé la destruction d'espèces de valeur telles que Pterocarpus erinaceus, Cordyla pinnata, Prosopis africana au profit d'autres espèces (Combretum glutinosum, Terminalia macroptera). La dégradation des ressources biologiques a entraîné des difficultés d'approvisionnement en combustibles domestiques surtout dans les zones qui n'ont pas accès à des sources d'énergie alternatives. L'érosion de la biodiversité entraîne également la baisse des revenus tirés de l'exploitation des ressources forestières et accroît en même temps la pauvreté des populations rurales. L'érosion de la biodiversité a entraîné des modifications dans les systèmes de production. En effet, la pratique de pêche quotidienne est de plus en plus abandonnée au profit de la pêche à long séjour. Dans le secteur de l'élevage, la raréfaction des ressources fourragères des régions Nord a engendré des déplacements saisonniers du cheptel vers le Sud. Dans les Niayes, la perte de biodiversité a fortement affecté les activités maraichères. La perte de biodiversité constitue ainsi un obstacle sérieux à la lutte contre la pauvreté qui explique d'ailleurs dans une large mesure la surexploitation des ressources naturelles. Dans le chapitre II, le rapport fait le point sur l'état d'avancement de la mise en œuvre de la Stratégie et le Plan National d'Actions pour la conservation de la biodiversité. Le Sénégal a élaboré une SPNAB autour de quatre objectifs stratégiques majeurs que sont la conservation de la biodiversité dans les sites de haute densité, l'intégration de la conservation de la biodiversité dans les programmes et activités de production, le partage équitable des rôles, responsabilités et bénéfices dans la conservation de la biodiversité, l'information et la sensibilisation sur l'importance de la biodiversité et la nécessité de sa conservation.Pour atteindre ces objectifs, des options stratégiques ont été définies par rapport aux problèmes globaux des différents écosystèmes et aux problèmes spécifiques pour chaque site de haute densité de biodiversité. Ces options se sont traduites par des actions prioritaires dont certaines ont été exécutées dans le cadre de la mise en œuvre de la Stratégie. Malgré le faible niveau d'exécution des actions prioritaires définies dans la SPNAB, le Sénégal a atteint des résultats non négligeables en matière de conservation des écosystèmes. L'objectif national qui était de 12% a été largement dépassé. Les résultats portent essentiellement sur la création d'une nouvelle génération de réserves (Aire Marine Protégée, Réserve Naturelle Communautaire, Réserve Communautaire de Biodiversité, Unité Pastorale…), le renforcement des capacités de gestion des aires protégées, l'élaboration et la mise en œuvre de plans d'aménagement et de gestion participatifs. Ces résultats sont l'œuvre de divers acteurs (Etat, populations, société civile, ONG, associations diverses…). Cependant, beaucoup reste à faire en termes de vulgarisation de la SPNAB, d'évaluation de l'impact des résultats obtenus sur la conservation, d'élaboration d'indicateurs au niveau national, de renforcement des capacités, d'intégration des connaissances, innovations et pratiques locales. Malgré les efforts consentis dans la mise en œuvre de la SPNAB, de nombreuses difficultés ont été notées. Elles concernent essentiellement l'insuffisance dans la coordination de la mise en œuvre de la Stratégie, sa faible vulgarisation, l'absence de mécanismes de financement, l'insuffisance des capacités des acteurs, la faible participation des populations dans la mise en œuvre et l'absence de suivi-évaluation de la Stratégie. Ces difficultés ont amené les différents acteurs de la conservation a tiré un certain nombre de leçons notamment la nécessité d'avoir un cadre institutionnel fort, un mécanisme de financement durable, un Centre d'échange d'Informations (CHM) fonctionnel. L'amélioration de la gestion de la biodiversité passe par l'intégration des différents secteurs de développement économique et social. Ainsi, dans le souci d'une prise en compte des préoccupations environnementales dans toutes les politiques sectorielles, le Sénégal a mis sur pied une Commission Nationale pour le Développement Durable. Ainsi, les aspects de conservation et de gestion durable de la diversité biologique sont progressivement intégrés dans les différents secteurs. Dans les secteurs de l'agriculture et de l'élevage, l'un des objectifs majeurs vise la préservation des ressources naturelles et de la biodiversité. Dans le domaine de l'énergie, de l'industrie et des mines, les grands axes de la nouvelle politique prennent en compte la nécessité d'une gestion durable des ressources naturelles et de l'environnement. Quant au secteur de la pêche, les objectifs globaux portent sur la protection et l'exploitation rationnelle des ressources halieutiques, la protection des habitats et la lutte contre la pollution marine. Dans le secteur du tourisme, la protection de la biodiversité constitue un des objectifs fondamentaux du Plan Stratégique de Développement Touristique et de la Charte Sénégalaise du Tourisme. Malgré les efforts d'intégration notés dans les différents secteurs, des faiblesses persistent dans la prise en compte de la biodiversité. Dans les politiques et stratégies sectorielles, les questions liées à la diversité biologique sont abordées dans le cadre global du secteur de l'environnement. Au niveau juridique, on note un déficit d'harmonisation entre les différents textes notamment les codes (environnement, forestier, minier, chasse, pêche…). Au niveau institutionnel, les problèmes sont liés aux difficultés rencontrées par les différentes structures à prendre en compte le caractère transversal de la biodiversité. Par ailleurs, l'insuffisance de l'information et de la sensibilisation sur l'importance de la biodiversité et la nécessité de sa conservation a été un facteur qui a limité l'intégration de la diversité biologique dans certains secteurs. En conclusion, le rapport souligne que le Sénégal avec l'appui de ses partenaires a consenti de nombreux efforts dans la conservation de la diversité biologique. Cependant, compte tenu des nombreuses difficultés rencontrées et des efforts supplémentaires à fournir, il se dégage un certain nombre de besoins et priorités qui concernent : - La mise en place d'un CHM fonctionnel ; - La mise en place d'un mécanisme de financement durable pour la conservation de la biodiversité ; - Un suivi-évaluation de la SPNAB ; - La mise sur pied d'un comité national fonctionnel sur la biodiversité ; - La réactualisation de la monographie et de la SPNAB ; - Le renforcement des capacités pour une meilleure conservation de la biodiversité ; - L'approfondissement des connaissances sur la biodiversité ; Published ; écosystéme ; biodiversité ; érosion ; aire marine protégée ; convention ; diversité biologique ; surexploitation ; salinité ; pollution ; gestion durable ; changement climatique
Le aree protette sono quei territori sottoposti ad uno speciale regime di tutela e di gestione, nei quali si presenta un patrimonio naturale e culturale di valore rilevante. Nel presente lavoro si è presa in esame la pianificazione della Riserva Naturale di Tuscania (provincia di Viterbo, alto Lazio), con gli obiettivi di: conservazione dei valori ambientali e di sviluppo economico sostenibile, come disposto della legge istitutiva L.R. 29 del 1997. La sfida è quindi quella di riuscire a promuovere nelle aree protette uno sviluppo economico e sociale rispettoso della conservazione dei ritmi e dei valori della natura, ma allo stesso tempo capace di favorire il rilancio degli antichi saperi artigianali e la creazione di nuove professionalità nel campo dei beni ambientali e culturali e delle attività turistiche compatibili. Si è esaminato lo stato ambientale della Riserva Naturale di Tuscania, rilevando lo stato della flora e della fauna presente, l'ambiente fisico e l'archeologia, lo stato del centro storico (che è all'interno della Riserva), e gli impatti dell'attività agricola delle attività antropiche presenti, cercando di arrivare ad una zonazione della Riserva che rispetti le vocazionalità del territorio. Il coinvolgimento degli Enti per la realizzazione del piano d'assetto della Riserva Naturale di Tuscania, è stato continuo e costruttivo ed ha visto nell'ufficio del parco (istituito verso la fine del 2004), un punto di riferimento per tutti i cittadini di Tuscania e non solo. Quindi compito della gestione sostenibile è quello di regolare l'uso degli ecosistemi e delle risorse su livelli che siano tollerabili dal sistema e che quindi non depauperino le risorse a nostra disposizione. Per la Riserva Naturale di Tuscania è stato predisposto un SIT-GIS per gestire e rielaborare, tutte le informazioni che sono state raccolte nella fase di indagine dello studio scientifico, per definire le vocazioni analizzando tutti gli aspetti caratterizzanti il territorio dell'area naturale,percependola non come una parte geografica a se, ma inserendola nel più vasto concetto di pianificazione intercomunale, provinciale, regionale e nazionale. Il ruolo fondamentale della zonazione è quindi, quello di garantire la conservazione dei valori del territorio assegnando vincoli di tutela diversi alle diverse zone. Lo studio effettuato ha evidenziato la vocazione della Riserva Naturale di Tuscanica (RNT), che è di "parco rurale", che vede nel paesaggio culturale, ovvero storicamente influenzato dall'uomo, la peculiarità principale. A questa si aggiunge la propensione a "parco archeologico", date le antichissime vicende di questo territorio, importante centro etrusco. Dallo studio è emerso che al centro della problematica ambientale c'è il fiume Marta, che scorre nel cuore della Riserva da nord a sud. Il Marta è profondamente perturbato dalla regolazione del lago di Bolsena (paratoie all'incile), dalle centrali idroelettriche ENEL, che interrompono per lunghi e numerosi tratti il corso medio-alto del fiume Marta e dalla presenza di prese irrigue lungo il suo corso. La qualità delle acque è modesta, con ripercussioni sulla microfauna (indice IBE) che sui pesci. Ad appesantire il carico sul fiume c'è anche una cartiera ed il depuratore comunale che oltre gli scarichi civili sopporta anche le acque nere del mattatoio. Per quanto riguarda le fonti diffuse agricole di inquinamento, il problema non appare di estrema urgenza, se non altro paragonato a quanto esaminato sino ad ora, sulle altre fonti di inquinamento; se ne può dedurre quindi, che le attività agricole presenti ad oggi nella RNT possono essere ascritte alla categoria delle pratiche compatibili, nel senso che attribuisce a tale termine la legge 394/1991 e la L.R. 29/1997 (art. 26). Ma la normativa, troppo indirizzata verso una zonazione riferita quasi esclusivamente sul tasso di antropizzazione del territorio, ha reso abbastanza difficoltoso il compito di assegnazione delle zone e sottozone alla RNT. Le disposizioni da rispettare derivano: della legge regionale istitutiva n. 29/97, delle Linne Guida della Regione Lazio e dello schema standard della Regione. Il problema fondamentale della zonazione è quello di cadere facilmente in una separazione netta tra gli habitat, causando quindi una disomogeneità interna all'area protetta. Allo stesso modo, si creano disomogeneità esterne nel momento in cui il parco diventa un'area avulsa a tutto quello che è esterno ai propri confini. A tale scopo, il Piano di Assetto redatto propone un Agenda 21 per permettere agli enti locali di poter gestire in modo compatibile ed unitario la questione ambientale attraverso una polita locale che abbia come obiettivo comune una condivisione di responsabilità per uno sviluppo sostenibile. Ad oggi le restrizioni dettate delle norme di salvaguardia limitano in maniera seria lo sviluppo di Tuscania. Ciò fa avvertire la Riserva come un ente burocratico, un soggetto vincolate lo sviluppo del territorio. Per tali ragioni si auspica una celere approvazione del PdA da parte della Provincia di Viterbo e della Regione Lazio, in modo da poter permettere alla RNT di sviluppare tutte le azioni finalizzate alla tutela e conservazione dell'ambiente ed allo stesso tempo, la concretizzazione di uno sviluppo sostenibile per il territorio. ; The protected areas are those territories subordinates to a special program of protection and management, in which is present a natural and cultural patrimony of important value. In the present job the planning of the Natural Reserve of Tuscania, (country of Viterbo, north Lazio), has been considered with objects of conservation of the environmental values and sustainable economic development, like disposed of law L.R. 29 of 1997. The challenge is to promote in the protected areas an economic development and in the same time conservation of the rhythms and the values of the nature. We examined the state of the flora and the fauna present in the Reserve, the physical atmosphere and archaeology, the state of the historical center (that is inside of the Reserve), and the impacts of the agricultural activity and the anthropic activities present, trying to arrive to a zonation of the Reserve who respect the vocation of the territory. The involvement of the Pubblic Agencies for the realization of the plan in order of the Natural Reserve of Tuscania, has been continuous and constructive and has seen in the office of the park (instituted towards the end of 2004), a point of reference for all the citizens of Tuscania and not only. Therefore, task of the sustainable management is to regulation the use of the ecosystems and the resources on levels that are tolerable from the system and that respect the resources to our disposition. For the Natural Reserve of Tuscania it has been predisposed a SIT-GIS in order to manage all the informations that have been collections in the phase of surveying of the scientific study, in order to define the vocations, analyzing all the characterizing aspects of the territory of the natural area, perceiving it not like a geographic part but inserting in the immensest concept than intercomunale, provincial, regional and national planning. The fundamental role of the zonation is therefore to guarantee the conservation of the values of the territory being assigned various ties of protection to the various zones. The study has evidenced the vocation of the Natural Reserve of Tuscania (RNT), that it is of "rural park", that sees in the cultural landscape, that is historically influenced from the man, the main peculiarity. To this joins the vocation "to archaeological park", like an important Etruscan center. From the study it is emerged that to the center of the problematic is the Marta river, that slides in the heart of the Reserve from north to south. The Marta is disturbed from the regulation of the lago of Bolsena (floodgates to the incile), from hydroelectric centers of ENEL, that they interrupt for long and numerous features the uppermiddle course of the Marta river. The quality of waters is modest, with repercussions on the microfauna (index IBE) that on the fish. To weight down the cargo on the river there is also one paper factory and the communal water conditioner for the civil drainages and also black waters of the slaughterhouse. As far as the diffused sources of agricultural pollution, the problem does not appear of extreme urgency, if not other compared with the other pollution sources; can some deduce therefore, that the agricultural activities presents today to the category of the compatible ones, in the sense that attributes to such term the law 394/1991 and L.R. 29/1997 (art. 26). But the norm, too much addressed towards a zonation reported nearly exclusively on the rate urbanization of the territory, has rendered enough difficult the task of allocation of the zones and subzones to the RNT. The dispositions to respect derive: of the institutive regional law n. 29/97, of the guide line of the Lazio Region and the outline standard of the Region. The fundamental problem of the zonation is that easy falling in one clean separation between the habitats. To such scope, the Plan in Order proposes an Agenda 21 in order to allow to the local agencies of being able to manage in compatible way the environmental system through one local politicy that has like common objective a sustainable development. Today the restrictions dictated of the safeguard norms, limit seriously the development of Tuscania. That makes to perceive the Reserve like a bureaucratic agency, a subject bound the development of the territory. For such reasons hope a quick approval of the PdA from part of the Country of Viterbo and the Lazio Region, so as to be able to allow the RNT to develop a sustainable development for the territory.
Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on vallankäytön luonteen ja sen ilmenemisen tulkinta ja ymmärtäminen ammattikorkeakoulujen vakinaistamis- ja laajentumisprosessissa vuosina 1995-2000. Tutkimus jakautuu kahteen pääosaan: teoreettiseen ja tapausesimerkkinä toteutettavaan empiiriseen osaan. Työn lähtökohtana on teoreettisen viitekehyksen kautta jäsentää, tulkita ja ymmärtää tutkimuskohteena olevaa ilmiötä eli vakinaistamis- ja laajentumisprosessiin liittynyttä vallankäyttöä. Työn metodinen painopiste lähenee teoriaperusteista analyysia ja arviointia. Tiivistäen ilmaistuna teoria saa työssä tulkintavälineen aseman. Tavoitteena on teorian ja sen pohjalta luodun viitekehyksen ja aineiston välinen dialogimainen vuoropuhelu, jota täydennetään eri tutkijoiden esittämillä näkemyksillä. Työn dokumenttiaineisto painottuu kirjoitetussa muodossa olevaan, aitoon ja alkuperäiseen sekä selkeästi rajattuun tekstikorpukseen, jolle annettiin ja jolle muodostui keskeinen asema korkeakoulupoliittisia ratkaisuja tehtäessä. Työn tulkintaprosessin myötä voidaan päätyä mm. toteamaan, että valta ei paikantunut tai sijoittunut ammattikorkeakoululaitoksen luomisen prosessin osalta ainoastaan valtakunnan tason toimijoille ja päätöksentekijöille eli suunta ei ole yksinomaan ylhäältä alhaalle. Kokonaisuuden onnistuminen ja toimivuuden turvaaminen jäivät ja jäävät pitkälti anojien eli paikallistason vastuulle. Vaihtoon liittyvää ulottuvuutta ja vuorovaikutusta tarvitaan prosessin jatkokehittämisen onnistumiseksi. Tarkasteltavassa prosessitodellisuudessa ilman paikallistason työpanosta ja muutoksen syvällisyyttä ja hallintaa - nimenomaan ammatillisen korkeakoulutuksen näkökulmasta - todellinen muutos jää puutteelliseksi. Viitekehyksen keskeisimmät ulottuvuudet nousevat selkeästi esille empiirisen aineiston tulkinnan myötä; vallankäyttö prosessitodellisuuden eri toimijatasojen menettelyjen osalta liikkui nollasummapeli - positiv-summekonflikt -ulottuvuudella, kuten myös mahdollistamisen ja antienergisoinnin ja toimintaa hankaloittavien ratkaisujen puitteissa. Vallankäyttö seurauksineen liikkui ylivallan ja yhteistoiminnallisen vallan kentissä. Valta kapasiteettina ja kykynä tulkita sekä omaa että toisten todellisuutta sekä kokonaisuuden hallintana - jopa edellä mainittujen ulottuvuuksien puutteenakin - saa keskeisen sisällön tarkasteltavan tapausesimerkin puitteissa. Vallan suhdeperusteinen ja muuttuva luonne tulee selvästi esille. Vallankäyttö näkyy selkeästi konkreettisessa toiminnassa paikallisella, alueellisella ja valtakunnallisella toimijatasolla. Kun tilannetta tarkastellaan työn viitekehyksestä käsin, paljastuu valtakäsitteen hyödyntämisen ja tulkinnan jääneen prosessin kuluessa osittain rajautuneeksi. Työn pohjalta voi tulkita vallankäytön heijastusvaikutusten ja mahdollistamisulottuvuuden pohdinnan jääneen osittain keskeneräiseksi. Tehtyjen ratkaisujen ja valittujen periaatteiden seurauksena vallankäyttöön olennaisesti liittyvä kokonaisuuden hallinta ja kyky taata muutoksen syvällisyys eivät olleet ongelmattomia. Kaiken kaikkiaan kyse on työn otsikon mukaisesti vallankäytön oppimisesta. Samalla paljastuu vallankäytön haasteellisuus korkeakoulupolitiikkaa laajemminkin hallinnon kannalta. Valtaan liittyvän todellisuuden tulkinta laajentaa prosessin ymmärtämistä. Samalla paljastuu viitekehyksen laajempi sovellettavuus ja tutkimuksen käyttökelpoisuus sekä vallan suhdeperusteinen ja muuttuva luonne. Perehtyminen työ viitekehykseen ja sen pohjalta tehtyyn empiiriseen tarkasteluun voi edistää muutosta ja sen hallittavuutta. Työ viitekehyksenä oleva mallikombinaatio, synteesi mahdollistaa suoraa vallan harjoittamista laajemman prosessinäkökulman ja auttaa ymmärtämään laaja-alaisemmin organisationaaliseen vallankäyttöön liittyvän toiminnan seurauksia. Siten käytetty malli monipuolistaa vallan tulkintaa. ; The purpose of this study is to interpret and understand the nature and presence of the use of power in polytechnics during the years 1995 - 2000 when they were both being made permanent and undergoing expansion. The study is divided into two main parts: the theoretical and the empirical case study. The use of power within the process examined is interpreted through the theoretical part. Put concisely the theory becomes an interpretative tool in this study. The study concerns itself with two principle levels, the national and the provincial / local: the relationship between and within these two is analysed and interpreted from the viewpoint of the use of power. The basic arrangement of the study is to consider the use of power through and with the help of the two earlier mentioned levels. The workings of the evaluation board of the polytechnics and its licensing section (initially a separate working group), government, parliament, the commission of education and culture, and the ministry of education form the national level of the empirical part of the study. These bodies can be broadly divided into two working groups: the political decision makers, and the specialists. The second level is made up of local and provincial questions of power, resources and dependency. North Savo Polytechnic and Pirkanmaa Polytechnic, both of which could not get permanent official status immediately on first application, have been chosen as examples of the local level. During the period studied North Savo Polytechnic applied for permanent status three times and made one application to broaden the mandate sought. Thus the process reality and entirety and its power dimensions and its changes can be seen. After these submissions the process continued in North Savo provisionally or as education based on agreement making certain units permanent. Pirkanmaa Polytechnic was assessed at the start of the process and again at the end of it when it got provisional approval for making the school permanent. Thus in the time period studied we can examine two different cases as examples within the local process. The study covers issues on both micro and macro levels. The central theme is to look at the process and its content dimension in its entirety. The views of both local and national influencers have been included to make the research more substantive. The use of power as part of process reality is modelled with the aid of two intersecting lines. At the ends of the horizontal line there are the power dimensions of authoritarian (power over) and co-operative (power with). The vertical line describes energy and anti-energy power dimensions; empowerment and action that hinders or even blocks it. Thus we have a four-field model that describes power dimensions in the building process and serves as a technical tool for the study and its theoretical framework. The starting point of the study is that "power moves" as a result of actions in the aforementioned four-field model even during the same process reality, and then the use of power takes different forms and has different consequences. The positions of the power wielders and power targets vary during social interaction and action. Power as a phenomenon manifests itself in varying non-static process relationships and a conclusion as a nil sum game or open conflict is not enough to keep the process developing positively. They are counterbalanced by reciprocal exchange relationships and the positive sum conflict dimension. The interpretation of process reality, securing a change, and management of the entirety become central. The starting point of the study is, through the above-mentioned theoretical framework, to analyse, interpret and understand the phenomenon studied, i.e. the use of power in the process of awarding permanent status and broadening a mandate already received. The methodological emphasis comes close to theory based analyses and evaluation. The aim is a dialogue between on one hand the theory and the framework it's based on and on the other hand the data. This dialogue is then completed with views from various researchers. The documentary data consists mainly of written original, genuine and clearly defined bodies of text which were submitted and which formed a central part in the making of political decisions in the polytechnic field. Through the interpretation process of the study it can be stated that as regards the creation of the polytechnics that power was not only located at the level of national decision makers i.e. the direction is not only from the top to the bottom. Successful implementation and feasibility were and still are the contributory responsibility of the local level applicants. Interaction and reciprocity exchange are needed to make further development successful. Real change in the process reality will be incomplete if local level work input, management and depth of the change - especially from the viewpoint of the polytechnics - are not taken into consideration. The most central dimensions of the framework are brought out with the interpretation of the empirical data; the use of power in the differing action levels of the process reality was moving in the nil sum game - positive sum conflict dimension, as also in the facilitating / empowering and anti-energising / solution retardation dimension. The use of power with its results was moving in the fields of authoritarian (power over) and co-operative (power with). Power as capacity and as ability to interpret one's own and others´ reality and also as management of the entirety - even lacking of all the before mentioned dimensions - receives a central role in the case study examined. The changing and relationship based nature of power is brought out. The use of power can be seen clearly in the tangible actions at the local, provincial and national levels. When the situation is looked at from the framework of the study it can be seen that the utilisation and interpretation of the concept of power has remained partly limited in the course of the process or that the decision makers have not thought about it from the viewpoint of the framework. On the basis of the study it can be interpreted that the study of the reflex effects and facilitating / empowering dimension of the use of power has remained somewhat incomplete or that at least the knock on effects have not been studied in all aspects. As a result of the decisions made and the principles chosen the management of the entirety and the ability to secure the depth of the change that essentially go together with the use of power were not problem free. All in all it is about, in accordance with the title of the study, learning to use power. At the same time the challenging nature of the use of power in administration other than in the polytechnics is revealed.
We can distinguish different approaches to European identity in contemporary Lithuanian and European discourses. Western scholars, such as Jacque Derrida, Jürgen Habermas, Gerard Delanty, Soledad Garcia, Cris Shore and others, stress (and question) the political and economic basis of European identity. This approach is revealed in both normative discussions and actual policies of European identity, and is supported by public opinion surveys, which attest to the mostly pragmatic motivation of citizens of the European Union to identify with "Europeans." Traditionally, Lithuanian intellectuals tend to consider "Europeanness" more as a cultural, but not a political or economic phenomenon. This Lithuanian attitude is greatly influenced by the tradition of philosophy of culture, which thrived during the interwar period in Lithuania. The philosophers, among which the most important were Antanas Maceina, Stasys Salkauskis and Vytautas Alantas, created their definitions and visions of nation, state and culture. They shaped a whole framework of nationalist thinking and provided later generations with powerful rhetoric, strongly expressed in the Lithuanian debates in the last decade of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, this traditional approach to Lithuanian identity has been modified during the twentieth century. First, the debates about national identity continued abroad, mostly in the U.S., after the Soviet occupation where a liberal approach to national identity took shape. In the 1980s, the secession from the Soviet bloc facilitated the circulation of Western liberal ideas, developed both by Western scholars and Lithuanian emigrant intellectuals. These ideas, though contested by nationalist approaches, became more and more usual in Lithuanian "identity talk." Additionally, European integration influenced a more pragmatic attitude towards national identification, as well as acknowledgment of its situational character and relativist nature. This shift is well reflected not only in the writings of intellectuals, but also in the public opinion surveys. The cultural grounds of political identity gained a new meaning, yet continued to matter.It would be impossible to provide a thorough analysis of the extensive discussions during the century. Therefore I will concentrate on the debates that took place from the 1980s to the end of the decade. I have chosen this period for several reasons. First, these debates in a way encompass the ideas and problems that were formulated throughout all the previous years. The period is important also, since the entire Lithuanian tradition of both nationalistic thinking and thinking about nation starts being reconsidered, supported or criticized. Yet, paradoxically, the issue of Lithuanian national identity and its relation to other regional identities, and what is most important in my case, to European identity, has not gained proper attention among Lithuanian scholars. Identity studies, though extremely popular in the West, are only at the initial stage in Lithuania. Additionally, studies of the problems related to nationalism, which would stimulate to analyze the relation between national and supra-national identities, are still rare in Lithuanian academic discourse.Speaking about European identity is very complicated, since there is any consensus neither about its content nor functions. Scholars argue about it from very different and often contradictory perspectives. Some of them understand European identity as the factor that strengthens national feelings (Louis Snyder, Jennifer Welsh), others as a real supra-state identity, potential to diminish dangers of nationalisms (Jürgen Habermas, Jacque Derrida). The others see European identity as the utopian aim, created by elites (Cris Shore, Gerard Delanty). While some thinkers call for concrete policies of the promotion of European identity, which consist mostly of ideological revision of history and cultural policies, similar to those of nation states (Simon Mundy), others criticize the policies just because of the ideological dimension and accuse European identity of being manipulative (Antje Wiener, Cris Shore).The arguments try to solve the tension between economic, political and cultural grounds of European identity. All of them see European history as ambivalent, which may both support and undermine European integration. On the one hand, the history of Europe is the history of many nationalisms, of the fight between political and cultural units for the right of self-determination. Obviously, this "history of conflict" hardly could serve as the ideological glue for European integration. On the other hand, the history of Europe is the history of Western civilization that has developed on the basis of Christian religious and antique philosophical traditions, Renaissance's humanism, and Enlightenment's rationality. The aspects of a shared ethical system, rational reasoning and cultural heritage are often employed to create the illusion of inherited, long lasting "cultural" or "ethical" Europe. Many of the EU's programs stimulate this re-invention of a cultural European tradition, in Eric Hobsbawm terms, while emphasizing the presence of a common cultural heritage in all European countries. Nevertheless, many countries may still interpret that "common European heritage" not only as evidence of the mentality "we, Europeans," but also as a reminder of past conflicts, when that cultural tradition was imported or even coercively imposed. In this way a shared "European culture" is biased by the potential for completely different interpretations and may serve to absolutely different political and social goals.Since the beginning, the debates about European identity have been significantly stimulated by actual political and economic reality. European identity has been widely discussed, opposed and promoted during the last decades as related to the issues of the political legitimacy of the European Union. The problem of European identity gradually has become an object of the EU public policies. Discussions about European identity far transcend the boundaries of the Western Europe and are particularly important in Central East Europe. Namely, in this region, which witnessed late modernization, and late creation of modern nation states, Europeanness was a crucial question. Europe has always existed as a notion that reflected different countries in different periods. The "mirror" of Europeannes was one in which features of some nation were seen, or to put it into other words, Europeanness was one of the instruments in the creation of the notion of national identity.The question of Europeanness has been very significant in the understanding of Lithuanian identity. Because modernization entered Central East Europe as an imported phenomenon, most of the countries felt like smaller brothers of the bigger Europeans. Here Europeanness played an important role in the construction of the sense of national pride. To be Lithuanian has never been to be European, to be equal. In the nationalist discourse it was either to be "less than European," or "more than European."It is possible to distinguish two types of "European talk" among Lithuanians. While one "we, Europeans" means "we, non-Russians" and distinguishes Lithuanians as those of higher working morality and tolerance, the second "we, chasing the train of Europe" connotes continuous backwardness and a desperate need to transcend the "own" in order to overtake "them." In this talk we can note that Lithuanians see themselves positively as Europeans only in contrast to "non-Europeans," usually Russians. Meanwhile, Lithuanians do not conceive themselves as full-value Europeans when comparing themselves with Western Europeans. Paradoxically, this allows Lithuanians to think of themselves as "more Europeans," since then such national values as "spirituality" and the legendary history of the "pagan empire" is juxtaposed against rational and pragmatic, even de-spiritualized "Europeans of the EU."This often painful question of what does it mean to be European for a Lithuanian, sometimes tends to diminish the European dimension in general, and some different regional identity, for example, "Baltic" identification, comes to the fore. I will show how biased the question of Baltic identity is. While the future of the Baltic region (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), shaped by a common sad past, is an object of a political skepticism, for the same reason it wins the hearts of people, of which about 80% identify themselves as Balts. Nonetheless, despite abundant manifestations of national victimization, considering the western Other was necessary to define Lithuanian national identity. As David Laitin (2000) puts it, "[t]o an important degree, then, it is the Eastern Europeans who have a stronger interest in a utopian vision of "Europe" as a well-defined (and easily mimicked) culture than culturally secure Europeans who are citizens of the West European states." ; Vakarų Europos akademiniame ir politiniame diskursuose europinio identiteto analizė dažniausiai siejama su ES politinio teisėtumo, nusakančio dalyvavimo demokratijos stygių, problema. Tuo tarpu Lietuvoje europinio identiteto problema dažniau diskutuojama pasitelkiant tautinės identifikacijos problematikos prizmę. Abiem atvejais itin pabrėžiama tautinio identiteto politinės ir kultūrinės reikšmės apmąstymo būtinybė kaip neišvengiama europėjimo ir globalėjimo procesų pasekmė. Pagrindinis dėmesys kreipiamas į paskutiniojo dešimtmečio diskusijas, jas analizuojant tarpukario ir pokario laikotarpiais plėtotų idėjų kontekste. Pirmojoje straipsnio dalyje pateikiama Vakarų Europoje vykstančių diskusijų, politinių programų ir viešosios nuomonės apklausų rezultatų analizė siekia suformuoti konceptualinį ir istorinį pagrindą tolesnei Lietuvos situacijos studijai. Pirmiausia apibrėžiamos pagrindinės sąvokos ir nustatomi kertiniai, problemiški intelektinių diskusijų taškai. Nubrėžus šią konceptualinę koordinačių ašį, pereinama prie viešosios nuomonės apklausų rezultatų analizės. Apklausų rezultatai analizuojami ir lyginami su intelektualų ir politikų įvardintomis aprašomosiomis ir normatyvinėmis vizijomis. Šitaip pamėginsiu patikrinti, kiek diskusijose ginamos identifikacijos versijos sutampa ar skiriasi nuo viešojoje nuomonėje funkcionuojančių sampratų.
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There are a lot of moving parts to the MMT program. I want to focus on one of these parts today: the relation between monetary and fiscal policy. One thing I find appealing about MMT scholars is their attention to monetary history and institutional details. I've learned a lot from them in this regard. But as is often the case with details, one has to worry about whether they help shed light on a specific question of interest, or whether they sometimes let us not see the forest for the trees. And in terms of the broader picture, since I grew up in that branch of macroeconomics that tries to take money, banking, and debt seriously (i.e., not standard NK theory), I sometimes have a hard time understanding what all the fuss is about. Much of standard monetary theory (SMT) seems perfectly consistent with some of the ideas I seen discussed in MMT proponents; see, for example, The Failure to Inflate Japan.
This post is devoted to better understanding a contribution by Eric Tymoigne. Eric is one of the people I go to whenever I want to learn more about MMT (if you're interested in MMT, you should follow him on Twitter @tymoignee). In this post, I discuss his article "Modern Monetary Theory, and Interrelations Between the Treasury and Central Bank: The Case of the United States." (JEI 2014). Passages quoted from his paper are highlighted in blue. The working paper version of the paper can be found here. Eric has kindly agreed to respond to my comments and let me post our conversation. We had to some editing, hopefully this did not disrupt the flow too much. In any case, I hope you find it interesting. And, as always, feel free to join in on the conversation in the comments section below. -- DA
One of the main contributions of modern money theory (MMT) has been to explain why monetarily sovereign governments have a very flexible policy space. Not only can they issue their own currency to spend and to service their public debt denominated in their own unit of account, but also any self-imposed constraint on budgetary operations can be easily bypassed.
I'm curious to know what the contribution is here relative to standard monetary theory (SMT). In SMT, the government can also issue its own currency to spend and to service the public debt denominated in its own unit of account. So this degree of "flexibility" is already accounted for. As for "self-imposed constraints on budgetary operations," SMT takes several approaches to this issue, depending on the purpose of the analysis. One approach is to take these constraints as given and then to study their implications. But it is also common to consolidate the central bank, treasury and government into a single authority, which implies no self-imposed constraints on budgetary operations.
Perhaps what is meant is that MMT shows how existing self-imposed constraints on budgetary operations can be (or are) bypassed in reality. This leads us to question, however, concerning what those self-imposed constraints are doing there in the first place. Are they there by design and, if so, why? Or are they there by accident (and, if so, how in the world did this happen)?
ET: Yes consolidation is not unique to MMT as we have said repeatedly. Not only is it used quite commonly in the economic literature, but also it is a common rhetorical tool in economic talks, discourse, etc.
DA: Right, so everyone understands this (at least, they should)--it's perfectly consistent with standard monetary theory. So far, so good.
ET: Most economists, politicians and the public don't understand this or its implications. They will interpret the above as saying that it is obvious that the government can create money but it is not a normal way to proceed and it is inflationary. MMT just pushes consolidation to its logical conclusions and shows that institutional details do back those conclusions. In a consolidated framework, the federal government can only implement spending by creating money, this is not abnormal and it is not inflationary by itself. There is no other way to find the necessary dollars to spend. Here is what consolidation means in terms of balance sheets:
For the federal government, taxes destroy currency (L1 falls) and claims on non-fed sectors falls (A1 falls) (an alternative offsetting operation is net worth of government rises). When US spends, it credits accounts (L1 rises). Similarly, bond issuance does not lead to a gain of any asset for the government; all it does is replace a non-interest earning government liability (monetary base) with an interest-earning government liability (Treasury securities).
DA: I am not going to argue against your accounting. As for bond-issuance, in SMT, an open-market operation is modeled as a swap of zero-interest reserves for interest-bearing treasuries. The interest on treasuries is explained by their relative illiquidity (another self-imposed constraint). The economic consequences of such a swap depends on a host of factors, which I'm sure you're familiar with.
ET: Sure, in addition, self-imposed financial constraints (e.g. debt ceiling, no direct financing by the Fed, no monetary power for treasury) have been put in place at various times with the argument that they impose discipline in public finances. MMT argues, these financial constraints are not necessary and are bypassed routinely through Treasury-Central Bank coordination.
DA: Sure, the standard view is that these self-imposed constraints are designed to impose discipline in public finance. The proposition that these financial constraints are or are not necessary, however, must be based on a set of assumptions that may or may not be satisfied in reality. (The fact that these constraints may be bypassed through Treasury-Central Bank coordination does not seem relevant to me -- the conflict emphasized by SMT is between an "independent" central bank and the legislative authority (e.g., the Fed and Congress, not the Fed and Treasury). I'm not sure why a new theory is needed here. We know, for example, that if the legislative branch of government fully trusts itself (and future elected representatives) to behave in a fiscally responsible manner, the notion of an "independent" central bank (and other self-imposed constraints) makes little sense.
ET: Remember that MMT emphasizes the irrelevance of financial/nominal constraints for monetarily sovereign governments (bond vigilantes, risk of insolvency of social security, etc.). One can do that by using the consolidated government (taxes don't finance, bonds don't finance, government spends by crediting accounts, etc.) or by using the unconsolidated government (the central bank helps the Treasury, the Treasury helps the central bank). The second method conforms to actual federal government operations but it is much less easy to use rhetorically and it waters down the core point: government finances are never a financial issue as long as monetary sovereignty applies.
Given that point, as you note, financial constraints are not only irrelevant, but also disruptive and used for political games. MMT wants to make government financial operations as smooth and flexible as possible. Once society has decided how, and to what degree, government should be involved in solving socioeconomic problems, finding the money should not be an issue when monetary sovereignty prevails. That means demystifying and eliminating financial barriers to government operations so the political debate can focus on solving real issues (environment issues, socio-economic issues, etc.). Fearmongering about the public debt and fiscal deficits makes for poor political debates and policy prescriptions.
There is a view, expressed by Paul Samuelson, that if we tell policymakers and the public that there are no financial limits to government spending, policymakers will spend like mad; therefore, economists need to lie to policymakers and the public (and themselves). This is nonsense. We ought to discuss policy choices not on the basis of Noble Lies but rather on the basis of sound and informed premises. Economists needs to make sure that policymakers focus on resource constraints.
In addition, political constraints on government should be geared toward improving the transparency and participatory aspects of government (e.g. limit role of big money in elections, limit wastes, etc.). We already have a government that passes a budget (it needs to do so for transparency and accountability purposes), we already have an auditing process, and we already have some (limited) democratic process, so aim at improving these aspects. MMT proponents are not naive, we know that some politicians are self-interested, we know that policy implementation may lead to mistakes, we know people may try to game the system ("free riders"); however we trust that a transparent and democratic government can (and does) get through these issues. MMT does not see financial constraints as helping in any ways, rather they inhibit the democratic process.
Of course, MMT proponents also have a policy agenda (Job guarantee, financial regulation based on Minsky, etc.) because we do not see market mechanisms as self-promoting full employment, price stability and financial stability. As such, as you said, MMT proponents favor alternative means to achieve these goals through direct government intervention. We don't see the central bank as an effective means to promote price stability. The central bank should focus on financial stability through interest-rate stabilization and financial regulation (an area where the Fed has not performed well).
Finally, yes independence of the central bank is seen as a big deal but MMT disagrees for two reasons. First, MMT emphasizes the lack of effectiveness of monetary policy in managing the business cycle and, second, and probably more importantly, MMT notes that central-bank independence in terms of interest-rate setting and goal settings does not mean independence from the financial needs of the Treasury.
DA: I think it's fair to say most people want to see government operations run smoothly, and would welcome a sober debate over the issues at hand without the fear-mongering that some like to promote. The broad objective seems the same--the debate is more over implementation--how monetary and fiscal policy is to be coordinated--given human frailties.
Having said this, I think you go too far by asserting that "government finances are never an issue as long as monetary sovereignty applies." Of course, technical default on nominal debt is not an issue (we all understand this). But SMT also recognizes the importance of economic default on nominal debt. True, a government can always print money to satisfy its nominal debt obligation, but if money printing dilutes the purchasing power of money, this is a de facto default.
On a related issue, SMT asks "what are the limits to seigniorage?" The fact that a government can print money does not give it the power to command resources without constraint. People can (and do) find substitutes for government money (they may also substitute out of taxed activities into non-taxed activities). SMT treats the limits to seigniorage as a financial constraint. Maybe MMT has a different label for this constraint? Perhaps it is related to what I hear MMT proponents call an "inflation constraint." Maybe one way to reconcile MMT with SMT on this score is by recognizing that SMT usually assumes (sometimes incorrectly) that the inflation constraint is always binding. If this is the case, a monetarily-sovereign government does have a financial constraint, even according to MMT.
ET: Yes, ability to create a currency does not mean ability to command resources because there may not be a demand for the currency. That is where tax liabilities and other dues owed to the government become important (cf. the chartalist theory of money, a component of MMT). That's also why taxes, monetary creation and bond issuance are not conceptualized by MMT as alternative financing means but rather as complementary. The government imposes a tax liability, spends by issuing the currency necessary to pay the tax liability, then taxes and issues bonds. Spending may be inflationary indeed and so there is an inflation constraint; but it is not a financial constraint, it is a resource constraint.
About the "printing" of money by government, inflation and economic default. Regarding the first two, there is no evidence of an automatic relation between money and inflation. In a consolidated view, government always spends by monetary creation but controls the impact on inflation via taxes and the impact on interest rates via bond issuance. In an unconsolidated view, the central bank routinely finances and refinances the Treasury by helping some of the auction bidders and by participating in the auction.
Finally, regarding economic default, governments routinely "default" in that sense with no problems. I don't see that as a relevant concept unless someone can show that economic default raises interest rates or generates rising inflation (it does not); here again, there is no automatic link between inflation and interest rates. That link depends on how the central bank reacts; if it does not then market participants don't either.
DA: Let me return to the manner in which the Fed/Treasury/Congress are consolidated (or not) in SMT and why this matters, in your view. In some SMT treatments, Congress decides spending and taxes, which implies a primary deficit. It's up to the Treasury to finance that deficit, with the Fed playing a supporting role (by determining interest rate and issuing reserves for treasury debt). What's wrong with this approach?
ET: That goes in the right direction with an understanding that the government really has no control over its fiscal position. All this, which relates to the implementation of monetary sovereignty, helps understand why the financial crowding out is not operative, why monetary financing is not by definition inflationary, why i > g is normal. It helps explain why the hysterical rhetoric surrounding the public debt and deficits in nonsense. I recently wrote a piece for Challenge Magazine on that topic. Surpluses are celebrated, governments implement austerity during a recession to "live within our means", Social Security needs to be fixed to avoid bankrupting it, governments need to save more, etc. All of this is incorrect.
DA: I'm not sure why you claim SMT leads to the idea of i > g. The case i < g is perfectly consistent with SMT (see Blanchard's 2019 AEA Presidential address, and also my posts here and here). The correct criticism (I think) is that mainstream economists have assumed i > g as being the empirically relevant case (it is not).
ET: That is what I meant. MMT links that to monetary sovereignty.
DA: I think that's correct. I should like to add that mainstream economists (apart from a small set of monetary theorists) have not appreciated the role of high-grade sovereign debt as an exchange medium in wholesale financial markets and as a global store of value, which in my view likely explains a lot of the "missing inflation." But as for "surpluses being celebrated," you are now talking about individual viewpoints and not SMT per se. There were plenty of calls out there for countercyclical fiscal policy based on standard macroeconomic principles. But I do agree virtually all mainstream economists are (perhaps overly) concerned about "long-run fiscal sustainability." The view is that at the end of the day, stuff has to be paid for -- and that having the ability to print money, while granting an extra degree of flexibility, does not get around this basic fact.
DA: I'd like to ask you about this statement you make:
In (the unconsolidated) case, the Treasury collects taxes and issues securities before it can spend. However, federal taxes and bond offerings also serve another highly important function that is overlooked in standard monetary economics. Specifically, federal taxes and bond offerings result in a drainage of funds from the banking system, and MMT carefully analyzes the implication of this fact. From that analysis, MMT argues that federal taxes and bond offerings are best conceptualized as devices that maintain price and interest-rate stability, respectively (of course, the tax structure also has some important role to play in terms of influencing incentives and income distribution; something not disputed by MMT).
DA: Well, yes, taxes serve both as a revenue device (permitting the government to gain control over resources that would otherwise be in control of the private sector) and as a way to control inflation. I'm not sure about the idea of the Treasury offering bonds for the purpose of achieving interest-rate stability (though this may happen to some extent when the treasury determines which maturity to offer). I don't think this is the way things work in the U.S. today.
ET: Taxes and issuance of treasuries drain reserves and so raise the overnight rate. Hence, on a daily basis, a fiscal surplus raises the overnight rate and a fiscal deficit lowers it. There has been significant Treasury-Fed coordination to smooth the impact of taxes (and treasury spending) on the money market.
DA: Fine, but so what? We all understand "coordination" between Fed and Treasury exists at the operational level.
ET: I think you are too kind to other economists and policymakers. On taxes as price-stabilizing factors, there is indeed some similarities here. On the role of treasuries for interest-rate stability, it does work like this today. It may not be obvious because of the current emphasis on treasuries as Treasury's budgetary tools, but Treasury has issued securities for other purposes than its budgetary needs. In the US, this occurred most recently during the 2008 crisis (SFP bills). In Australia, in the early 2000s, the Treasury issued securities while running surpluses in order to promote financial stability.
DA: But even if this is not the way things actually work (in my view, it's the Fed that stabilizes interest rates, possibly through OMOs involving U.S. Treasuries), I'm not sure what point is being made. I think we can all agree that monetary and fiscal policy can be thought of as being consolidated in some manner. What would be good to know is how a specific MMT consolidation matters (relative to other specifications) for a specific set of questions being addressed. There is nothing in the abstract or introduction of this paper that suggests an answer to this question.
ET: The point being made is that in a consolidated government, tax and bond issuance lose the financial purpose they have for the Treasury but keep their price and interest-stability purposes.
DA: In standard monetary theory, tax and bond issuance keeps its funding purposes for the government and at the same time can be used to influence the price-level (inflation) and interest rates. Is this wrong? I don't think so. At some level, taxes (a vacuum cleaner sucking up money from the private sector) must have some implications for the ability of government to exert command over real resources in the economy. What we label this ability (whether "funding" or ''finance" or whatever, seems inconsequential).
ET: Ok here comes the crucial difference between financial and real sides of the economy. In financial terms, taxes do not increase the capacity of the government to spend, i.e. the government does not earn any money from taxing; taxes destroy the currency. In financial terms, there is no reason to fear a fiscal deficit; deficits are the norm, are sustainable and help other sectors grow their financial net wealth. As such, it is not because a government wants to spend more that it must tax more or lower spending somewhere else. That is the PAYGO mentality. This mentality makes policymakers think of spending and taxing in terms of how they impact the fiscal balance instead of their impact on employment, inflation, incentives, etc. While deficits may have negative consequences, they are not automatic. If one takes a look at the evidence, deficits have no automatic negative impacts on interest rates, tax rates, public-debt sustainability, or inflation.
In real terms, the necessity to increase tax rates to prevent inflation, and so move more resources to the government, depends on the state of the economy and the permanency of the increase in government spending relative to the size of the economy. In an underemployed economy, the government can spend more without raising tax rates. In a fully employed economy, shifting resources to the government without generating inflation does require raising tax rate and/or putting in place other measures such as rationing, price controls, and delayed private-income payment. Here Keynes's "How to Pay for the War" provides the roadmap. Standard economics is full-employment economics so opportunity costs are always present. MMT follows Kalecki, Keynes and the work of their followers (have a look at Lavoie's "Foundations of Post Keynesian Economic Analysis") and note that capitalist economies are usually underemployment and economic growth is demand driven. Put in a picture, the economy is usually at point a.
Put succinctly, the real constraint is conditionally relevant, the financial constraint is irrelevant if monetary sovereignty prevails. That is the proper way to frame the policy debates and to advise policymakers; don't worry about the money, worry about how spending impacts the economy.
ET: Moving to another topic, consolidation of the government brings to the forefront forces that are operating in the current system but that are buried under institutional complications. Namely that a fiscal deficit lowers interest rates and treasuries issuance brings them back up, that spending must come before taxing and treasuries issuance, that monetary financing of the government is not intrinsically unsound and does not mean that tax and treasuries issuance don't have to be implemented.
DA: The statement that "deficit lower interest rates" needs considerable qualification. Among other things, it depends on the monetary policy reaction function. As for the claim that spending *must* come before taxes, this is not a universally valid statement (even if it may be true in some circumstances. But even more importantly, who cares? Mainstream theory does not suggest that monetary financing is intrinsically unsound (seigniorage is fine, if it respects inflation ceiling). As for money, taxes and bonds not being alternative "funding" sources, I worry that this semantics. You can call X a "funding" source or not -- it's just a label. The real question is: what are the macroeconomic implications of X?
ET: Let me emphasize where I agree. Yes, evidence shows the central role of monetary policy for the direction of interest rates, fiscal policy is at best a very small driver. And yes, one ought to focus on the real implications of government spending and we ought to forget about the financial implications. A fiscal deficit is not unsustainable nor abnormal; deficits are the stylized fact of government finances and are financially sustainable if monetary sovereignty is present. So don't try to frame the policy debate and set policy in terms of household finances, bankruptcy, fixing the deficit, etc.
To conclude I see three reasons why the "taxes/bonds don't finance the government" rhetoric is helpful:
1- It is strictly true for the federal government (i.e. consolidation).
2- it brings to the forefront some lesser-known aspects of taxes and treasuries issuance: impacts on money market, role of central bank in fiscal policy, role of treasury in monetary policy.
3- It changes the narrative in terms of policy and political economy: government does not rely on the rich to finance itself, taxes should be set to remove the "bads" not to finance the government (e.g. one should not set tax rates on pollution with the goal of balancing the budget but with the goal of curbing pollution to whatever is considered appropriate, that may lead to much higher tax rates than what is needed to balance the budget), PAYGO is insane, one should focus on the real outcomes of government policies not the budgetary outcomes.
DA:
1. I think this is semantics.
2. Not sure how it helps in this regard.
3. I think all of these positions are defensible without the statement "taxes/bonds don't finance the government", so if this is the ultimate goal (and I think it should be), perhaps we should set aside semantic debates and focus on the real issues at hand.
ET: 1 is not semantic. I know you have in mind taxes as a means to leave resources to the government. MMT makes a clear difference between financial (ability to find the money) and resources constraint (ability to get the goods and services) as explained above. The financial constraint is highly relevant for non-monetarily sovereign governments so it should be noted and clearly separated from the real constraint. Too many policy discussions and decisions by policymakers operating under monetary sovereignty are based on an inexistent inability to find money and the imagined dear financial consequences of budgeting fiscal deficits. 2 helps to understand how monetary sovereignty is implemented in practice. On 3, yes focus on the real issues.
DA: We agree on 3! Thank you for an interesting discussion, Eric. There's so much more to talk about, but let's leave that for another day.
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Watching Barbie reminded me of two essays that I had not read in a long time, Luce Irigaray's "Women on the Market " and "Commodities Among Themselves". In those essays Irigaray considers to what extent Marx's theory of the commodity form can be used to make sense of the status of women in society. Irigaray's texts takes as its start the idea of a society founded on an exchange of women, an idea integral to structural and psychoanalytic theories of kinship. From this it is possible to posit that relations among women would have the fantastic character of Marx's brief foray into describing the world of commodities amongst themselves. It is precisely such a world, Barbie Land, that Barbie: The Movie opens. The only difference is that women, Barbies, in this world do not so much exist as things to be exchanged, as daughters to be given away as wives, but are defined by their use value, or, more to the point, their concrete labor. It is a world of Barbie doctors, presidents, supreme court justices, and so on--a Barbie for every career and full employment for all Barbies. Greta Gerwig's film taps into an aspect of Barbie that often falls beneath the image of the Barbie stereotype, or, in the world of the film, Stereotypical Barbie, and that is the myriad number of Barbies that have been manufactured with different careers, from veterinarian to astronaut. The Barbie stereotype of blond hair, impossible proportions, and pink, well everything, dominates our image of Barbie, it is what adults think of when we think of Barbie, so much so that we forget that for a lot of girls (and boys) who play with her she that is less a supermodel than the model for every kind of activity and career. Whatever you want to be they have a Barbie for that. I remember once watching a relative's kid play Barbie and it was less a foray into a world of beauty and fashion than it was an hour of being a large animal veterinarian, giving check ups to horses. A far cry from the image of fashion and beauty that comes to mind when you say Barbie to an adult. The two sides of Barbie, the blonde and pink stereotype that adults think of and the various different Barbies of every career and hobby that kids play with, are the central contradiction of the film.The Barbie pet care centerBarbie Land is that imaginary place where Barbies amongst themselves can be anything or anyone. There are Kens in this world too, but since this world is the world of children playing, no one really knows what Ken is for. Ken is more sidekick than boyfriend. (Pietro Bianchi has offered a great Freudian reading of this world of innocence). The Barbies in Barbie Land are aware of the real world, that it exists, and as far as they are concerned they have fundamentally altered it. An imaginary world where Barbie can be anything must in some sense produce a reality where kids can be anyone. It is the logic of meritocratic role models taken to its logical conclusion. All the world needs is the right role models for the world to change. Trouble begins when stereotypical Barbie (played by Margot Robbie) begins to have some very un-Barbie thoughts, like of death, aging, and cellulite. These intrusive thoughts must be the product of the kid that is playing with her so she has to go out into the "real world" to find this kid and fix things. This brings us back to the commodity form. The commodity, as Marx tells us, is both an exchange value and a use value, it is both something with its own properties, or in the case of labor, capacities, and with a value, a capacity to stand in for other commodities, to be exchanged. In the world of the film we get two sides of Barbie, there is the Barbie Land Barbie in which there is a Barbie that can do anything, and there is the real world Barbie, where Barbie is defined not by her capacities, what she can do, but by her appearance, what she looks like. It is on arriving in the real world that Barbie finds herself not as an object of little girl's dreams, but the object of male fantasies. (As A.S. Hamrah points out in this great roundtable discussion of the film, the patriarchy that Barbie is subject to is incredibly mild and gentle, more befitting a cartoon world than the real world). If I wanted to add another grad school reference, namely Jean Baudrillard, I would say that Barbie's conflict is less between use value and exchange value as it is between use value and sign value, between what Barbie can do and what she signifies, what blonde hair, impossibly long legs, and gravity defying curves signify. To put it back in Irigaray's terms, her capacities might define what she is capable of, but her appearance for men defines her place in society. As Irigaray writes, "just as, in commodities, natural utility is overridden by the exchange function, so the properties of a woman's body have to be suppressed and subordinated to the exigencies of its transformation into an object of circulation among men." Use Value/Exchange Value, the two sides of the commodity are dominated by exchange value just as women in society are dominated by the demand to be seen, and exchanged, by men. Upon arrival in the real world, Barbie and Ken learn that making Barbie role models for every career has not ended patriarchy. Barbie and Ken react differently to the persistence of patriarchy. Barbie is horrified and confused. Ken is happy and excited. Ken finds himself being respected just because he is a man. He immediately hatches a plan to bring the patriarchy to Barbie Land with the help of some books checked out from the library. (I thought for a long time about what this particular plot point reminded me of, a story where two characters have opposed reactions to the new world they are transported to, and eventually I thought of Time after Time, The film in which H.G. Welles and Jack the Ripper end up time traveling to the seventies. Welles is horrified of the lack of social progress while Jack the Ripper revels in the violence of the twentieth century. For sake of this digression, and because I really love that film, I include the following clip.) Back to the film in question, and skipping several plot points, by the time Barbie discovers the source of her angst, an adult playing with Barbies and returns to Barbie Land it has been transformed. The Barbie dream houses have all been remade into Mojo Dojo man caves for Ken and the Barbies have abandoned their various careers as veterinarians and the President to dote after their Kens, bringing them snacks and beer. The spell of patriarchy is broken, however, when Gloria (America Ferrara) , the adult from the real world who has brought anxiety to Barbie, spells out the contradictions of being a woman. This speech is the thematic and emotional core of the film. Since I found the whole thing online, I post it in its entirety below. "It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don't think you're good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we're always doing it wrong.
You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can't ask for money because that's crass. You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean. You have to lead, but you can't squash other people's ideas. You're supposed to love being a mother, but don't talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people.""You have to answer for men's bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you're accused of complaining. You're supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you're supposed to be a part of the sisterhood.
But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful.
You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It's too hard! It's too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.
I'm just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don't even know."The speech is a long list of the "too contradictory" situation of women in the real world. In the film this bit of wisdom from the real world restores Barbie Land, frees Barbie from the rule of Ken. However, the film does not connect the contradictions of the real world to the contradictory unity of Barbie as a commodity, a commodity with use value, all of Barbie's various careers from doctor to president, and an exchange value, her appearance. In the film there are two worlds, Barbie Land defined by Barbie's capacities to do anything, and our world, where Barbie is defined by her appearance, but it never really reflects on the contradictory unity of those two worlds, on the fact that while Barbie dolls can do anything they still have to look like Barbie. Making a movie about Barbie is strange endeavor because the logic of Barbie is the logic of Hollywood. It is a world where women can be scientists and superheroes, at least some of the time, but in doing so they still have to look like at least one of the varieties of Barbie. Ability is subordinated to appearance, use value to exchange value.The film presents Barbie Land and the real world as two different realities, one dominated by the different abilities of Barbie and the other by the circulation of her appearance, but the reality of the commodity, of capital, is that use value and exchange value exists side by side even as they contradict each other. As Isabelle Garo puts it, "The originality of Marx's approach attaches to the dialectical nature of his analysis of contradictions, which is no mere juxtaposition of opposed tendencies: the capitalist labour process is not alienating in one respect and emancipatory in another, but it interweaves these two tendencies at the very heart of the labourer's individuality and of social relations."Or, to put it back in the terms of the film, it is not that one gets to choose between a land where Barbies are recognized for their abilities and one that they are reduced to their appearances but they are always both. This is the too contradictory situation referenced in Gloria's speech. The fact that the film does not connect these dots connects brings us back to the question the film asks but does not answer, why has a Barbie Land where dolls can be anything not transformed our world where women are all too often reduced to being dolls? That the film has no reflection on the failure of its own world of role models is its real limit. All Barbie the movie can do is diversify Barbie Land, adding a few different body types and a little more diverse product line, but it cannot address the question as to why all the positive role models in the world have not changed patriarchy. Perhaps that question is for the inevitable sequel.
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In the last year or so there have been two books published on Althusser and Spinoza. Juan Domingo Sánchez Estop's Althusser et Spinoza: Detours et Retours and now Jean Matthys Althusser lecteur de Spinoza: Genèse et enjeux d'une éthico-politique de la théorie. This is perhaps not surprising, after all Althusser confessed to being a Spinozist famously in 1972, but I would argue that there are still some surprises to be found in terms of this combination. First, and most fundamentally, it is surprising to see two full length studies on Althusser and Spinoza since as much as the name and concepts of Spinoza played fundamental or pivotal roles in Althusser's thought, underlying his own concepts of structural, or immanent, causality, symptomatic reading, and ideology, Althusser wrote very little on Spinoza. I have often thought that the Althusser Spinoza connection exists more in its effects, in what it made possible in the writing of Macherey and Balibar, to name just two proximate effects, rather than in Althusser's thought. Estop and Matthys both contest such an interpretation, arguing for a Spinozism that is more immanent and more consistent in Althusser's works than the few times he is mentioned by name. That is not the only surprise. As I mentioned in my review of Estop's book, it is perhaps surprising that Althusser once stated in an interview that "the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus is the Capital of Spinoza, because Spinoza is preoccupied above all with history and politics." One would think that Althusser, who drew from the Ethics in terms of his theory of ideology and immanent causality, would focus more on the Ethics and Capital, two works that are systematic and complete. However, Althusser's invocation of the TTP suggests that it is less Spinoza's system than his particular intervention in a specific conjuncture that matters. To this point Matthys adds another somewhat surprising, even paradoxical consideration, that Spinoza is less a foundation of Althusser's thought than the critical destruction of any such foundation. As Matthys writes, "With respect to Althusser the principle political virtue of spinozism is found paradoxically in its radical critique of any foundation, of any purity of knowledge, and of any originary and transcendental position which supposed to guarantee political action in its course, its end and means, and to reassure its subjects of a form of self-identity in action, supported by an instance of definitive and overwhelming truth. The paradox is doubled in that, if is precisely in not founding, in not delimiting a priori a philosophical guarantee of a true politics that spinozism can produce its properly political effects, it only seems to be able to free political practice from its imaginary guarantees by investing in the most literally "dogmatic" position in the kampflatz which is the fortress of metaphysics."For Althusser Spinoza is a question of theory of its conditions and limits. Matthys argues that this not only makes it possible to read a trajectory through Althusser's thought in which the question of theoretical practice is central, but it also distinguishes Althusser from the two primary orientations to Spinoza today, a rationalist and structuralist orientation in Lordon and a vitalist and ontological orientation that can be found in Deleuze and Negri. Althusser (and to some extent Macherey and Balibar) would represent a third orientation. It might be easy to call this orientation epistemological, since it would seem to be primarily concerned with knowledge, and the division between ideology and science, but I think that misses the way in which the question of knowledge is thoroughly implicated with that of practice in the works of Althusser. Matthys uses the phrase the "ethico-political of theory" to express this third orientation. With respect to the former, the trajectory of Althusser's thought, the formulation "without origin or end" is familiar to any reader of Althusser, and he made this idea central to his understanding of not only Marx's idea of history, as a process without origin or end, but his understanding of philosophy. Origin and end remained for Althusser fundamentally theological questions taken up by philosophy, but fundamentally alien to it. As Althusser writes in Philosophy for Nonphilosophers, "Philosophy inherited this question of questions, the question of the Origin of the World, which is the question of the World, humanity and God." This is a latter text, written in the late sixties and early seventies, but published posthumously. Matthys demonstrates that the question of the origin can be found at the origin of Althusser's thought, from his early text on Hegel onward. Althusser is not so much searching for an origin, a foundation, in the sense of an archimedean point, but trying to think without origin and guarantee. Spinoza in some sense resolves the question of origin by splitting it into two. We begin at once with imagination, with our immediate knowledge, which is necessarily distorted and inadequate. This immediate knowledge is necessary ideological. However, as Matthys argues, the illusions of ideology are also allusions, they always allude to the very social conditions that they conceal and efface, which is to say that there is the condition of knowledge in our misrecognition. Or as Spinoza puts it, habemus enim ideam veram, we have a true idea. For Althusser this true idea is tied to practice, which is to say that truth must be produced from ideological conditions. We are always at once in our imaginary and ideological apprehension of the world and in our practical engagement with it. The question of knowledge is how to turn the latter against the former, to locate the orientation of a practical dimension in ideology. As Spinoza describes such a production in the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, "But just as men, in the beginning, were able to make the easiest things with the tools they were born with (however laboriously and imperfectly), and once these had been made, made other, more difficult things with less labor and more perfectly, and so, proceeding gradually from the simplest works to tools, and from tools to other works and tools, reached the point where they accomplished so many and so difficult things with little labor, in the same way the intellect, by its inborn power, makes intellectual tools for itself, by which it acquires other powers ... until it reaches the pinnacle of wisdom." (This is a passage that is essential to Macherey's reading, I also write about it here)This probably won't be the cover but speaking of Spinozaand tools, Spinoza and Marx. I thought I would throw in a plug for my forthcoming book. As Matthys argues this idea of knowledge as a kind of production is what connects Marx and Spinoza. As Matthys writes, "That to read, to know, is always to produce: this is the first lesson that Althusser retains from Spinoza, projecting it to Marx and applying it to his own reading of Marx." Althusser's "symptomatic reading" is situated in between the theory of reading put forward by Spinoza in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus and Marx's practice of reading political economy. Matthys juxtaposes this practice of producing knowledge, a practice that always begins with its specific and determined position, with ideology that begins with the subject. Reading, the production of knowledge, what Althusser calls science, is infinitely productive, capable of new knowledge because it begins from its finite position; in contrast to this ideology is infinitely repetitive and limited because it believes that it can immediately grasp everything. Two things are most striking about Matthys book. First, even though it is exhaustive in its survey of Althusser's writing, begin with the thesis on Hegel from 1947, it is unapologetically a book about what could be considered "peak" Althusser, the period between 1965-1972 when the concepts of symptomatic reading, structural causality, theoretical practice, and ideological interpellation where developed. This is the period in which Althusser is most influenced by Spinoza, thinking through in his own way, the Spinoza/Marx conjunction. This is also the period that came under the most criticism, as ahistorical, functionalist, determinist, etc., or, in terms of Althusser's own self-criticism, as theoreticist. Theoreticism as Althusser defined is reducing all of the demarcations between Marxism and political economy, as well as between Marx and the young Marx to a distinction between "truth and error," overlooking the social, historical, and political dimensions of Marx's transformation. This brings us to the second aspect of Matthys book, Matthys argues that what Althusser dismissed as too rational and theoretical has, at its core, a hidden ethico-political dimension. This is perhaps surprising. What does the critic of humanism have to say about ethics, that human, all too human of disciplines. Althusser's interest in Spinoza never seemed to touch on the title of his most important book. As André Tosel argued in his Du Matérialisme de Spinoza, "the Althusser of Spinoza has lost all ethico-political dimensions." It is hard to see immediately what the ethical dimension to Althusser's theoretical interventions are, and it is hard not to agree with Tosel. Tosel proves to be quite important to the final section of the book, however, not in terms of his criticism but in terms of important points of overlap between Althusser and Tosel. (Matthys is also the also the author of a great series of essays on Tosel). In some sense it is Tosel who provides the concepts to make sense of the ethical dimension of Althusser's theoretical interventions. As I have argued, here, and elsewhere, Tosel argues for a "finite communism," that is in sharp contrast to capital's dreams of endless accumulation as well as Marxist ideas of a thoroughly rational mastery of the productive forces. Matthys argues that Althusser can be understood as a thinker of finitude. That the very idea of theoretical practice was to think the limited efficacy of theory as practice, to situate it within other practices. As Matthys writes, "Practice in the Althusserian sense would be from this point of view analogous to the Spinozist mode, in the sense that it cannot be conceived by itself, but it can only exist, produce effect and be known in that it is articulated differently with different instances of the field." Finitude is understood here not as some particular relation to death, an all too human definition, but to be finite is to exist in and through relations with other finite things. Similarly, Althusser's famous statement about the lonely hour of the last instance is a statement about the finitude of Marxism as a theory. It will always be necessary to think the causality of the structure through its effects, to recognize the overdetermination of any essence or any essential contradiction. As Matthys writes,"Thinker of the limit, certainly, but if one prefers: a thinker of finitude. Because if Althusser tries to think the limit between marxism and its outside, between science and ideology, between materialism and idealism, it means that this line of demarcation necessarily through the heart of Marxism itself." Althusser's demarcations are not divisions accomplished once and for all, as in the epistemic break, but are produced again and again, and that finitude, that incomplete status, is precisely what makes them productive, creating new knowledge. I feel like I could go on and on about this book, but blogposts are definitely finite and limited in what they can do, so it seems necessary to conclude. The merits of Matthys book are multiple. To begin with the last, Matthys puts two of the most important Marxist philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century, Althusser and Tosel, in dialogue, using one to expand the insights of the other. Second, it is a thorough study of the "Spinoza effect" in Althusser's thought, how much Althusser was transformed by his engagement with Spinoza. Spinoza cannot be reduced to the few citations in Lire le Capital and Elements of Self-Criticism, but is immanent in its effects throughout Althusser. Matthys, like Estop referred to above, as well as Morfino, Montag, Sharp, Stolze, etc. recognizes that Althusser is as much a Spinozist as a Marxist. Thus, all of Althusser's deviations of the sixties, deviations labelled "theoreticism," "structuralism," "functionalism," have to be understood as not just fidelity to Marx and Spinoza, but ultimately as conditions for new theoretical production.
Summary The report focuses on solidarity between adult generations, more specifically what responsibility adult children have towards older parents, how responsibilities should be divided between the family and the welfare state, and how the two impact on each other. Data was collected through the European comparative study OASIS, Old age and autonomy - the role of services systems and intergenerational family solidarity. The project was financed through the EU fifth framework program, and carried out in Norway, England, Germany, Spain, and Israel. Individual level data were collected via parallel surveys (interviews) among the urban populations aged 25 and over in each of the five participating countries. National samples counted about 1 200, around 6 100 in total. The older participants (aged 75+) were oversampled to represent around 1/3 of the samples.The project was motivated by the assumed threat to family solidarity in late modern and individualist society (Chapter 1). Of particular interest is the relationship between the family and the welfare state. What is a reasonable and sustainable balance? These questions need be studied in context, hence a comparative approach was seen as appropriate. The countries were therefore selected to represent different family cultures and welfare state regimes. They are located along a north-south axis, which according to Reher (1998) divides European families into a southern more collectivist form, and a northern more individualist type. The five countries also represent different welfare state regimes; the social democratic (Norway), the liberal (England, and the conservative-corporatist (Germany), to stay within the Esping-Andersen typology (1990). Spain has as yet a less mature welfare state, while the fifth country, Israel, is a mixed model.The macro conditions of the countries are assumed to be reflected on the invidual and interpersonal (family) levels. Preferences and practices are assumed to be more or less congruent with the already established traditions, and to be more conform for the older than for the younger generation. The present balance is assumed to be fluid and under pressure from demographic and social change in all countries, but more so in countries that are later in these developments and are now confronted with more rapid changes. These assumptions are in OASIS explored in the strength and character of intergenerational family solidarity, and in the ideals and realities of the family-welfare state interaction.Welfare states differ in the responsibility they ascribe to families (Chapter 2). Some put the family in a dominant position, others assume that the welfare state should protect against dependency upon the family. The OASIS-countries are differently located along this dimension, hence they represent different opportunity structures for family life and elder care. They are facing similar challenges, but are inclined towards different solutions. Germany and Spain tend to favor familistic solutions, and give the state a subsidiary (Germany) or even a residual (Spain) role. They have legal obligations for adult children towards older parents and low levels of services on areas that are by tradition a family responsibility, like long-term care. England and Norway have no legal obligations between generations and higher levels of services on traditional family areas, in particular in Norway. Israel is a mixed case, with legal obligations as in Spain and Germany, but also with rather generous service levels.Are these patterns reflected in public opinion and personal preferences? Do people support the established policies, or do they push for change? Of interest is also to investigate consensus and contrasts in attitudes within the five countries, for example between women and men, the younger and the older. Knowledge about actual help provision is important, but so also is knowledge about norms and attitudes because people tend to act accordingly if opportunity allows it.The intergenerational solidarity model (Bengtson & Roberts 1991) is employed as a research instrument and measures solidarity along six dimensions - structural, associational, consensual, affectional, functional, and normative solidarity. Ambivalence has more recently been introduced as an alternative perspective (LöƒÂ¼scher & Pillemer 1998). Intergenerational relations are seen as inherently ambivalent and characterised by mixed feelings and contradicting expectations that family members need to cope with. These adaptive changes may have been misinterpreted as a breakdown of family solidarity in stead of a change in how solidarity is expressed.Affectional solidarity (Chapter 3) is considerable. Both parties say they feel very close, but parents more so than children. Conflict levels are low as seen from both sides of the relationships, while both parties - and in particular the children - allow a difference of opinion without this being seen as a threat to the relationship. The presumably tighter spanish family shows primarily in structural and associational solidarity. Generations live closer and have more often contact in Spain compared to the more northern countries. This is mainly explained by the higher co-residence rates in Spain, but shared living is often enforced more than chosen, and is then more likely an indicator of (lack of) opportunity than of solidarity.Exchange of help and support (functional solidarity) is substantial in all five countries, and not less so in the northern family (Chapter 3). Exchanges are integral parts of daily life of nearly any family, but roles and resources change over the life course. Older people tend to be in the receiving end, but act also as providers of support. Starting out from the adult child perspective, the findings show that most adult children have provided one or several types of support to older parents during the last year. Emotional support is the most frequent form of support, followed by instrumental help. Only few children provide personal care to older parents, probably because few parents are this frail, and if so, they may already have moved to an institution. Adult children are as a general rule the net providers in the exchange relationship to older parents; they give more than they receive. Older parents provide first of all emotional support to adult children, and in some countries (Norway, Germany, Israel) also money. Instrumental help is flowing upwards in the family line, financial support flow downwards if and when pension levels allow it.Normative solidarity (Chapter 4) is indicated by the support for filial obligation norms; the extent to which adult children are obligated to help their older parents. The majority support such norms in all five countries, but more so in Spain and Israel than in Norway, England, and Germany. This trend is consistent with Rehers (1998) suggestion that the southern family are tighter than the northern. The main impression is, however, that normative solidarity is substantial also in northern countries, even in a universalist welfare state like Norway. This is even more so as the samples were drawn from large cities, and do not include smaller towns and rural areas which may be assumed to be even more familistic. Hence, neither urbanisation nor welfare state expansion seem to have eroded filial obligations.The focus in Chapter 5 is on what people find is a reasonable balance of responsibilities between the family and the welfare state, and what their personal preferences are. Public opinion is found to vary considerably between the countries. The welfare state is seen as the main responsible in Norway and by a (smaller) majority also in Israel. A more even split is favoured in the other three countries. A common trend is that the majority in all five countries favours some form of complementarity between the family and the welfare state, but the complementarity takes different forms. The welfare state is assumed to have the major responsibility in Norway and Israel with the family in a supplementary role. Itö''s the other way around in Germany and Spain, with England in an intermediate position. Attitudes are more or less congruent with the actual policies, but public opinion leans more heavily towards a welfare state responsibility than is presently implemented. The contrast between ideals and realities is greater in low-service countries, implying a greater tension between policy and opinion in these countries.Gender differences are small; hence the female dominance in actual care provision is more likely imposed upon them, not chosen. Age differences are also modest. Older people are not more traditional (familialistic) than are the younger. Spain is an exception, while Norway has high degree of consensus in these matters across gender and age. The older generation is in fact more inclined to push responsibilities on the welfare state than are the younger. Personal preferences lean even more towards services than do the more general attitudes. The great majority of Norwegians state a preference for services over family care if they should come to need help in old age. A corresponding majority would prefer institutional care over living with a child if they could no longer live by themselves. Preferences are more moderately biased towards the welfare state in three of the other four countries. Spain stands out with a majority in favour of family care, but only among the older generation.Chapter 6 analyses the actual distribution of help to elders in need. The family and the organised services are the dominant sources of help, but in different combinations. Families are dominant on all leves of needs in Spain, while services - and then mainly public services - are the major source of help among the most needy in Norway. The total help rate (from all sources) is higher in a high-service country like Norway than in a family dominated system like Spain, while the volume of family care is only moderately lower in Norway, indicating that service systems and families tend to supplement rather than substitute each other. There is little or no support in these trends for the idea that older people are diserted by their families and pushed over on services as a secondary option. Family solidarity need not be threatened by alternative or complementary services, and each party may have qualities that are not easily replaced by the other. Hence complementarity is more likely than substitution.Considering that affection and exchange levels are rather substantial in five otherwise different countries, they indicate that solidarity is general and considerable although not universal. While country differences are moderate in the more general features of solidarity, they are far larger in the more concrete attitudes about how policies and services should be organised. If this is a valid observation, then intergenerational family solidarity may have a rather stable and general character, but find different expressions in practice when circumstances and conditions change. This suggestion indicates a need to clarify what should indeed be ment by solidarity. We have therefore in the concluding Chapter 7 conducted a series of factor analysis in order to explore the solidarity concept and model. The findings give conditional support to a simplified variant of the solidarity model. A general finding is a four factor solution. Affection comes out first and includes consensus. Conflict comes out next as a distinct factor. Third is a joint factor for structural and associational solidarity, while giving and receiving support (functional solidarity) is the fourth factor. Normative solidarity is in most cases not included in any of these factors, and is apparently a distinct aspect of intergenerational relationships that may be combined with different ways of relating to each other.Family life has been, and to some extent still is, structured by material necessities and enforced duties which makes it difficult to separate the truly solidary motivations from external pressures. These are among the reasons why it is difficult to compare families across time and cultures. Solidarity may be easier to observe and separate from external pressures today than in earlier times, but the mechanisms and processes that have produced the solidary patterns may have become more complex. ; Rapporten belyser solidaritet mellom familiegenerasjoner, nærmere bestemt hvilket ansvar voksne barn har for eldre foreldre, hvordan ansvarsdelingen mellom familien og velferdsstaten er, og hvordan den etter befolkningens syn bør være. Ligger det en trussel mot familiesolidaritet i framveksten av velferdsstaten og økt individualisering? Rapporten tar også opp hvordan familien og velferdsstaten påvirker hverandre, og hva vi i mer teoretisk forstand skal forstå med familiesolidaritet. Dataene ble samlet inn gjennom det europeisk komparative prosjektet OASIS, Old age and autonomy - the role of services systems and intergenerational family solidarity. Fem land med ulik familiekultur og velferdspolitikk deltok i studien, Norge, England, Tyskland, Spania og Israel. Dette gir muligheter for å studere forholdet mellom familie, velferdsstat og aldring under ulike betingelser. Et tilfeldig utvalg av storbybefolkningen i alderen 25 år og over ble intervjuet i hvert land, ca. 1 200 i hvert land, til sammen ca. 6 000.
Esta investigación tiene como objetivo principal la reconstrucción gráfica del desaparecido convento franciscano de San Lorenzo de Montilla (Córdoba), edificado bajo el patronazgo del marquesado de Priego durante los primeros años del siglo XVI, su puesta en valor y la recuperación de su memoria histórica. La práctica inexistencia de vestigios arquitectónicos, así como la ausencia de estudios previos, ha obligado a sustentar la presente tesis doctoral en la consulta de abundantes fuentes documentales ―manuscritas y gráficas fundamentalmente― a través de las cuales se ha realizado un riguroso análisis y desarrollo de la trayectoria histórica del mencionado convento. Para ello, como punto de partida, se ha hecho una revisión de conceptos relacionados con los orígenes, evolución y pensamiento de la orden franciscana, los cuales son imprescindibles para entender la configuración de la arquitectura seráfica, que ha sido analizada en sus planteamientos teóricos y técnicos. Seguidamente se atiende a todo lo referente al complejo proceso prefundacional y fundacional del convento de los franciscanos en Montilla, contextualizando los hechos acaecidos dentro del panorama político, social y religioso del momento, teniendo como telón de fondo el estado señorial de la Casa de Aguilar, elevado a marquesado de Priego desde 1501, y como protagonistas a algunos de sus componentes más destacados: Elvira de Herrera, Catalina Pacheco, Pedro Fernández de Córdoba ―I marqués de Priego― y su heredera Catalina Fernández de Córdoba, todos ellos partícipes en la puesta en marcha del cenobio que nos ocupa, que estaba destinado a acoger la capilla funeraria del linaje. Fundamental ha sido en esta investigación el estudio de los testamentos de los referidos personajes, los cuales han esclarecido numerosas dudas que, hasta el momento, se desconocían en el proceso prefundacional y fundacional. Además, la consulta de otros documentos ha permitido dilucidar importantes datos ignorados, como la fecha más próxima al inicio de las obras del primer convento de los franciscanos de la indicada localidad cordobesa durante el gobierno del I marqués de Priego. También se aborda el estudio de su arquitectura que, como se justifica en el desarrollo de esta tesis, en 1525 fue destinada a convento de clarisas bajo la aprobación de la II marquesa de Priego. Esa modificación obligó a la noble heredera a impulsar la edificación de un nuevo convento para los franciscanos, bajo la advocación de San Lorenzo, en cuya iglesia habría de ubicarse el mausoleo de los miembros del marquesado, tal y como quedaba recogido en los testamentos de sus comitentes. Las distintas circunstancias que rodearon la construcción de este cenobio con respecto al anterior han sido analizadas con el fin de contrastar las causas que determinaron las diferencias establecidas entre ambos proyectos arquitectónicos. Se ha profundizado en la trayectoria histórica del convento de San Lorenzo durante el tiempo en que estuvo en funcionamiento, entre 1530 y 1796. De esta forma se han destacando aspectos relacionados con las características de su ubicación y entorno natural, con los de la construcción del edificio monacal y, por su significación vinculante con la Casa de Aguilar, con la capilla funeraria. Asimismo se ha realizado un estudio de las obras artísticas que poseyó, elementos que se han abordado desde la óptica que identifica el franciscanismo de la rama observante. Con respecto a las aportaciones arquitectónicas y artísticas que advirtió el cenobio a lo largo de su existencia, se ha considerado oportuno analizarlas tanto desde el punto de vista formal como del mecenazgo ejercido por los miembros del marquesado de Priego, especialmente en lo que respecta a la portada plateresca y la enfermería ejecutada por Juan Antonio Camacho a principios del siglo XVIII. El abandono del convento de San Lorenzo por la comunidad de frailes en 1796 es otro asunto de interés para conocer las causas de su rápida desaparición a principios del siglo XIX. En efecto, su utilización con distintas funcionalidades, algunas de la cuales no pasaron de ser un esperanzador proyecto ―como el colegio de misioneros propuesto por fray Juan Duárez― así como hospital de contagiados, no contribuyeron a conservar la edificación conventual, que es considerada en estado de ruina varios lustros antes de que se aprobara la Ley de desamortización de bienes eclesiásticos en 1836, fecha en la que la parcela que ocupaba el convento de San Lorenzo es vendida y en la que finaliza su estudio. Los datos obtenidos de esta investigación histórica han sido primordiales para realizar la configuración arquitectónica y distribución espacial del conjunto constructivo, permitiendo representar gráficamente sus principales bloques de edificación conformados por la iglesia, el claustro con la concreción de sus dependencias adyacentes y el noviciado, elementos que hasta la realización del presente trabajo habían sido desconocidos. Asimismo, se ha tenido en cuenta el entorno natural de la parcela y sus cultivos como complemento del conjunto edificado. Al respecto hemos de señalar la importancia de un dibujo realizado por Juan Antonio Camacho en 1723 como principal fuente gráfica utilizada, el cual ha sido interpretado en función de la documentación manuscrita manejada. Como resultado de este trabajo de investigación se han diseñado diversas plantas y alzados del desaparecido convento, así como el levantamiento volumétrico en 3D de los enclaves más representativos del edificio conventual, en los que se han integrado las piezas artísticas que hubo de tener en su día. Además, debido a su excepcionalidad constructiva y documental, se ha realizado un minucioso estudio de la portada plateresca que daba acceso al recinto religioso, profundizando en su programa iconográfico como referente del ideal humanista del Renacimiento. Dado que el tema objeto de estudio había permanecido prácticamente inexplorado, las conclusiones a las que se ha llegado son de diversa índole y suponen novedosas aportaciones. De esta forma, se han descubierto nuevos e importantes datos históricos en cuanto a los orígenes del proceso fundacional, de los años en que el convento estuvo en funcionamiento y los que siguieron hasta la desamortización de 1836. En cuanto a su edificación, hemos de señalar que ésta coincide con la implantación de la más estricta observancia, factor que determinó las sobrias características arquitectónicas y materiales de este cenobio que lo hace prototipo de las construcciones franciscanas observantes del siglo XVI. ; This research has as main objective the graphic reconstruction of the disappeared Franciscan convent of San Lorenzo from Montilla (Córdoba), built under the patronage of the Priego Marquesado during the first years of the sixteenth century, its enhancement and the recovery of its historical memory. The practical absence of architectural vestiges, as well as the absence of previous studies, has forced to sustain the present doctoral thesis in the consultation of abundant documentary sources ―mainly handwritten and graphics― through which it has been carried out a rigorous analysis and a development of the historical trajectory of the mentioned convent. For this as a starting point, it has been made a review of concepts related to the origins, evolution and thought of the Franciscan order, which are essential to understand the configuration of the seraphic architecture, an analyzed in its theoric and technical approaches. Next, it is detailed everything related to the complex process of the pre-foundation and foundation of the Franciscan convent in Montilla, contextualizing the events that took place within the political, social and religious scene of the moment, having as backdrop the lordly state of the Casa de Aguilar, elevated to marquesado de Priego since 1501, and as protagonist to some of their outstanding components: Elvira de Herrera, Catalina Pacheco, Pedro Fernández de Córdoba ―firs marquis of Priego―, and the heiress Catalina Fernández de Córdoba, all of them participants in the start-up of the monastery that concerns as, that was intended to house the funeral chapel of the lineage. In this investigation, it has been carry out the study of the testaments of the mentioned characters who have clarified many doubts that, until now, were unknown the pre-foundational and foundational process. In addition, the consultation of other documents has made posible to elucidate important ignored data, such as the closest date to the beginning of the works of the first franciscan convent of the mentioned Cordovan town during the government of the first marquis of Priego. At the same time, it is approached the study of its architecture that, as it is justified in the development of this thesis, it was intended to Saint Clare Order under the approval of the second marchioness of Priego in 1525. This modification forced the noble heiress to promote the construction of a new convent for the Franciscans, under the name of San Lorenzo. In whose church, the mausoleum of the members of marquisate will be located, as it was registered in the testament of their patrons. The different circunstances that surrounded the construction of this monastery with respect to the previous one have been analyzed with the purpose of contrasting the causes that determined the differences established between both architectural projects. The historical trajectory of the convent of San Lorenzo has been deepened during the time it was in operation, between 153 and 1796. In this way, aspects related to the characteristics of its location and its natural environment has been highlighted with those of the construction of the monacal building and, because of its binding significance with the Casa de Aguilar, with the funeral chapel. Likewise, it has been carried out a study of the artistic works that possessed, elements that have been approached from the point of view that identifies the franciscanism of the observant branch. With respect to the architectural and artistic contributions that the monastery noticed throughout its existence, it has been considered appropriate to analyze them not only from the formal point of view but from the patronage exercised by the members of the marquesado de Priego, especially with regard to the plateresque cover and the infirmary executed by Juan Antonio Camacho at the beginning of the XIII century. The abandonment of San Lorenzo convent by the community of friars in 1796 is another matter of interest to know the causes of its rapid disappearance at the beginning of the XIX century. In fact, its use with different functionalities, some of which did not go beyond being a hopeful project ―like the missionary school proposed by Juan Duarez― as well as a hospital for infected people, did not contribute to conserve the conventual building, which is considered to be of ruin several decades before the Law of confiscation of ecclesiastical property was approved in 1836, data in which the plot occupied by the convent of San Lorenzo is sold and in which its study ends. The data obtained from this historical research have been essential to realize the architectural configuration and spatial distribution of the building, allowing to represent graphically its main building blocks formed by the church, the cloister with the concretion of its adjacent dependencias and the novitiate, elements that had been unknown until the completion of this work. Likewise, the natural environments of the plot and its crops have been taken into account as a complement of the build-up area. In this regard, it is important to detach the importance of a drawing made by Juan Antonio Camacho in 1723 as the main graphic source used, which has been interpreted according to the handled handwritten documentation. As a result of this research work, some plants and elevation of the disappeared convent have been designed, as well as the volumetric lifting in 3D of the most representative enclaves of the conventual building, in which the artistic pieces that had to have in its day, have been integrated. In addition, due to its constructive and documental exceptionality, a throrough study of the plateresque main front that gave access to the religious place has been made, deepening in its iconographic program as a reference of humanist ideal of the Renaissance. Given that the topic of this study had remained practically unexplored, the conclusions reached are various and involve novel contribution. In this way, new and important historical data have been discovered in terms of the origins of the founding process, or the year in which the convent was in operation and of those that continued until the confiscation in 1836. Regarding its construction, it must be pointed out that this coincided with the implementation of the most stricter observance, a factor that determined the sober architectural characteristic of this monastery that makes it a prototype of Franciscan buildings of the XVI century.
Un problema que sufre cada vez más la sociedad es la generación de residuos de diferente naturaleza. La legislación trata, a diferentes niveles, de que se alcance una gestión más adecuada y sostenible, al menos en las sociedades menos industrializadas. Pero además de las obligaciones impuestas por las normativas existentes a este respecto, la concienciación sobre este problema está generando el cambio en los sistemas de producción, invirtiendo cada vez más para alcanzar un sistema coherente con el concepto de economía circular, una apuesta por cerrar los ciclos productivos en cuanto a flujos de materia y energía se refiere. Una alternativa para conseguir dichos objetivos es la valorización energética de los residuos derivados de la actividad productiva y de este modo utilizar la energía obtenida para el autoconsumo energético de las propias instalaciones. En este contexto, la digestión anaerobia es una tecnología ampliamente implantada para el tratamiento y valorización energética de residuos orgánicos biodegradables. Este tipo de residuos presenta diferentes características fisicoquímicas, puntos de generación y periodos de producción. En muchas ocasiones, el coste de implantación de un sistema de tratamiento de una única fuente de generación de residuos es inviable, excepto en el caso de los residuos municipales. Por ello, y partiendo de la premisa de que este estudio todos se ha centrado en posibles mejoras del proceso de digestión anaerobia, ofreciendo información sobre las mismas y así, posibilitar su implantación, en la memoria se recogen distintas vertientes o frentes de actuación: Caracterización y optimización de la concentración de nutrientes en el sustrato orgánico a biometanizar, pretratamientos que aceleren el proceso, incrementando el rendimiento energético en forma de metano, así como la optimización de posibles combinaciones o mezclas de sustancias residuales. La evaluación teórica de la viabilidad de la biometanización de residuos orgánicos es un paso fundamental para su posterior estudio experimental. Así, la creación de herramientas que combinen la caracterización físico-química con la estadística, permitirían un análisis multivariante poco aplicado a un proceso biológico con alto componente de inercia en el sistema, facilidad en cuanto a su desestabilización y requerimiento de personal más o menos cualificado para su mantenimiento y alto coste inicial en su implantación. Los balances de materia aplicados a nutrientes fundamentales (DQO, N y P) y los análisis multivariantes, Análisis de Componentes Principales (ACP) y el Análisis de Clústers (AC), basados en una primera caracterización físico-química de las materias residuales a biodegradar anaerobiamente, han permitido realizar una primera evaluación sobre las posibilidades de codigestión de diferentes residuos, ya sea por compensación del balance de dichos nutrientes, por agrupamiento entre residuos o por predominancia de alguno de ellos. La búsqueda de una mezcla más adecuada en sus proporciones para el arranque de un digestor o para su posterior mantenimiento se hace posible gracias a las herramientas presentadas en las publicaciones científicas incluidas en este documento (Gil et al., 2018. Multivariate analysis and biodegradability test to evaluate different organic wastes for biological processes. Waste Management, 78, 819-828). Tener en cuenta diferentes residuos que se produzcan en una misma área geográfica y que puedan ser susceptibles de ser tratados mediante codigestión podría resultar interesante tanto para su gestión, como su valorización. Esta alternativa aportaría sostenibilidad económica en sus tres vertientes a la zona de implantación, objetivo perseguido por todos los planes nacionales y europeos de mejora económica y ambiental (Gil et al., 2017. Optimizing the selection of organic waste for biomethanization. Environmental Technology (In press); Gil et al., 2015. Mixture optimization of anaerobic co-digestion of tomato and cucumber waste. Environmental Technology, 36, 2628-2636). Siendo el correcto balance de nutrientes una cuestión fundamental para el metabolismo microbiano y generación de productos (CO2 y CH4 preferiblemente), es conocido el efecto tóxico del nitrógeno, a elevadas concentraciones, sobre el metabolismo de los distintos grupos tróficos que intervienen en la cadena de reacciones de transformación de las macromoléculas contenidas en los sustratos residuales por la microbiota anaerobia. Sin embargo, el efecto que el aporte de P puede provocar en el proceso no es tan conocido, solo que es necesario en menor concentración que los demás nutrientes. Dado que las sustancias orgánicas residuales no suelen estar compuestas a ex profeso con las concentraciones óptimas para su valorización mediante la biometanización, se ha considerado como una cuestión de interés la evaluación del efecto que sobre el proceso (generación de metano, estabilidad y cinética) provocan diferentes opciones en el aporte de N y P simultáneamente, respecto del contenido en materia carbonosa del residuo a tratar (Gil et al., 2018. Effect of variation in the C/[N+P] ratio on anaerobic digestion. Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy (In press)). Por otra parte, la existencia de residuos cuya biodegradabilidad es baja, pero cuyo tratamiento mediante digestión anaerobia es conveniente, pone de manifiesto la necesidad de ampliar los estudios de aplicación de pretratamiento/s que mejoren esta situación. Así, la evaluación de pretratamientos que permitan mejorar la solubilización del C y N contenidos en los residuos, puede resultar de gran interés para mejorar su posterior tratamiento mediante digestión anaerobia. La biodisponibilidad de los nutrientes conlleva la reducción del tiempo que la etapa de solubilización e hidrólisis de la materia orgánica a tratar requiere. Por ello, se ha evaluado el pretratamiento con microondas del lodo de las estaciones depuradoras de aguas residuales, ya sea el lodo flotado o lodo centrifugado, evaluando la conveniencia de su aplicación y posterior influencia sobre el test de biodegradación anaerobia. Con ello se estudia adicionalmente la posibilidad de transportar el lodo a otro punto geográfico distinto del lugar de generación, donde se encuentre implantado un sistema de tratamiento anaerobio (Gil et al. Effect of microwave pretreatment on centrifuged and floated sewage sludge derived from WWTP. Renewable Energy (Under review); Gil et al., 2018. Effect of microwave pretreatment on semi-continuous anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge. Renewable Energy, 115, 917-925). Finalmente, dado que los pretratamientos energéticos parecen ser siendo los más adecuados cuando en una etapa posterior se aplican tratamientos biológicos, se han realizado estudios adicionales sobre la combinación de un pretratamiento hidrotérmico con la digestión anaerobia de residuos vegetales con elevado contenido lignocelulósico (Gil et al. Evaluation of physicochemical pretreatment of tomato plant for anaerobic digestion. Waste Management (Under review); Hamraoui et al. Evaluation of hydrothermal pretreatment for biological treatment of lignocellulosic feedstock (pepper plant and eggplant). Waste Management (Under review)). Los resultados presentados en esta Tesis Doctoral han supuesto un avance significativo en el contexto de la gestión de los residuos biodegradables, ya que han permitiendo aportar soluciones a un problema de gran relevancia en la sociedad actual, con los consecuentes beneficios ambientales y sociales que una mejora en el tratamiento de los mismos puede conllevar. ; A problem that increasingly affects society is the generation of different types of waste. The legislation deals with the achievement of more adequate and sustainable management at different levels. But, in addition to the obligations imposed by existing regulations in this regard, awareness of this problem has led to changes in the production systems, investing more resources to achieve a system consistent with the concept of circular economy. This concept is a commitment to close the productive cycles in terms of matter and energy flows. An alternative to achieve these objectives is the energy recovery from waste generated in industrial productive activities and, thus to, use the energy obtained for self-consumption in the facilities themselves. In this context, anaerobic digestion is a widely implemented technology for energy recovery and treatment of biodegradable organic waste. Such type of waste may have different physico-chemical characteristics, generation points and production periods. In many cases, the cost of implementing a treatment system from a single source of waste generation is unviable, except in the case of municipal waste. Starting from the premise that all the objetives of this PhD Thesis focus on possible improvements in the anaerobic digestion, offering relevant information about them and, thus, making possible their implementation, different fronts for action have been are considered: Characterization and optimization of the concentration of nutrients in organic substrates to be biomethanized, application of pretreatments to accelerate the biodegradation process and to increase its energy efficiency in the form of methane, and the optimization of possible combinations or mixtures . The theoretical evaluation of the viability of organic waste biomethanization is a fundamental step for further experimental studies. Thus, using of tools that combine physico-chemical characterization with statistics would allow carrying out a multivariate analysis, which has been scarcely applied to a biological process with high inertia component, can be easily destabilized, and requires qualified personnel for maintenance and high initial implementation cost. The application of mass balances to several fundamental nutrients (COD, N and P) and multivariate analysis such as Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Cluster Analysis (CA), based on a first physical-chemical characterization of waste materials to be biodegraded anaerobically, have allowed performing a first evaluation of co-digesting different residual substrates, either by compensating the balance of such nutrients, by grouping residues or by predominance of some of them. The search for a suitable mixture in terms of waste proportions for starting a digester or for its subsequent maintenance has been possible thanks to the tools presented in the scientific publications included in this PhD Thesis (Gil et al., 2018. Multivariate analysis and biodegradability test to evaluate different organic wastes for biological processes. Waste Management, 78, 819-828). Anaerobic co-digestion of different wastes generated in the same geographical might be interesting both for waste management and valorization. Co-digestion would provide economic sustainability, in its three aspects, to the area of implementation, which is an objective pursued by all national and European plans for economic and environmental improvement (Gil et al., 2017. Optimizing the selection of organic waste for biomethanization. Environmental Technology (In press); Gil et al., 2015. Mixture optimization of anaerobic co-digestion of tomato and cucumber waste. Environmental Technology, 36, 2628-2636). Being the correct balance of nutrients a fundamental issue for microbial metabolism and generation of products (CO2 and CH4, preferably), the toxic effect of nitrogen at high concentration on the metabolism of the different trophic groups involved in the transformation reactions chain of the macromolecules contained in residual substrates by the anaerobic microbiota is well-known. However, the effect that the contribution of P might cause in the anaerobic process is not so established. The only information available is that this nutrient is required at lower concentration than other ones. Given that residual organic substances are not usually composed by nutrients at optimal concentration for their valorization through biomethanization, the evaluation of the effect caused on the process (generation of methane, stability and kinetics) by different combinations of N and P simultaneously, with respect to the content of carbonaceous matter contained in the waste to be treated, has been considered of special interest (Gil et al., 2018. Effect of variation in the C/[N+P] ratio on anaerobic digestion. Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy ( In press)). On the other hand, the existence of low-biodegradability waste whose anaerobic treatment is required leads to the need of carrying out further pretreatment studies. Thus, the evaluation of pretreatments that allow improving the solubilization of C and N contained in waste can be of marked interest to favor the subsequent treatment through anaerobic digestion. Nutrients bioavailability entails the reduction of time required to solubilize and hydrolyse the organic substrate to be treated. In this context, the microwave pretreatment of sewage sludge derived from wastewater treatment plants (floated or centrifuged sludge) has been evaluated in terms of suitability and effect on the subsequent the anaerobic biodegradation test. Furthermore, the possibility of transporting sewage sludge to a different geographical point from the generation site where an anaerobic system is implanted has been also evaluated (Gil et al. Effect of microwave pretreatment on centrifuged and floated sewage sludge derived from WWTP. Renewable Energy, (Under review); Gil et al., 2018. Effect of microwave pretreatment on semi-continuous anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge. Renewable Energy, 115, 917-925). Finally, given that energy pretreatments seem to be the most appropriate ones when biological treatments are further applied to manage waste, additional studies on the combination of hydrothermal pretreatment with biomethanization of high-cellulose vegetable waste have been carried out lignocelulósico (Gil et al. Evaluation of physicochemical pretreatment of tomato plant for anaerobic digestion. Waste Management (Under review); Hamraoui et al. Evaluation of hydrothermal pretreatment for biological treatment of lignocellulosic feedstock (pepper plant and eggplant). Waste Management (Under review)). The results obtained represent a significant advance in the context of the management of biodegradable waste. This PhD Thesis provides a solution to a markedly relevant problem in current society, with the consequent environmental and social benefits that an improvement in organic waste treatment might lead.
Zusammenfassung Die vorliegende Untersuchung beschäftigt sich mit der Rolle von Hausgärten für die Ernährungssicherung der Menschen in Zambia und Zimbabwe, Strategien der Bewirtschaftung und der (agro)-ökologische Funktion dieser Anbausysteme. Hierbei werden physisch-geographische, sozioökonomische, kulturgeographische und historische Aspekte berücksichtigt. Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf urbane und periurbane Bereiche Lusakas, die Südprovinz und Nordwestprovinz Zambias, sowie die Masvingoprovinz im Süden Zimbabwes. In die Untersuchung wurden hauptsächlich die niederen Einkommensschichten einbezogen, für welche die Eigenproduktion von Nahrung ein Grundelement der Lebenssicherung ist. Zur Anlage eines Hausgartens gehört eine gewisse Dauer der Sesshaftigkeit und ein Grundstock an Ressourcen, wie z.B. Land, Wasser und Saatgut. In der Praxis wurden die Hausgärten bisher sowohl in Zambia wie auch in Zimbabwe meist übersehen, d.h. dass sich weder die Forschung noch der landwirtschaftliche Beratungsdienst damit beschäftigt bzw. diese Aktivität unterstützt haben. Die Hausgärten in den wechselfeuchten Tropen des südlichen Afrika sind von außerordentlicher Wichtigkeit für die Überlebenssicherung der Bevölkerung sowohl in städtischen und randstädtischen Gebieten als auch in den ländlichen Räumen. Der große Vorteil der Hausgartenbewirtschaftung für die Ernährungssicherung und Entwicklung liegt in der eigenverantwortlichen Produktion von Nahrungsmitteln in der Nähe der Wohnhäuser. Diese Produktion ist durch eine hohe Energieeffizienz gekennzeichnet und ist an die Bedürfnisse der Familien angepasst. Der Hausgarten kann, je nach Situation, mehr oder weniger intensiv bewirtschaftet werden, und wirkt somit als Puffer für die Ernährungssicherung. Die Bewirtschaftung eines Hausgartens kann, wie besonders die Ergebnisse aus Zimbabwe zeigen, eine Antwort auf zunehmende Gefährdung (vulnerability) des Haushaltes sein. Nimmt diese Gefährdung ab, geht auch die Hausgartenaktivität zurück. Dies kann sich dadurch äußern, dass der Hausgarten vorübergehend gar nicht mehr bewirtschaftet wird oder dass nur kleine Flächen weiter bewirtschaftet werden. Familien mit mehreren Hausgärten können sich vorübergehend auf die Bewirtschaftung eines einzigen beschränken. Wenn die vulnerability z.B. durch Missernten verstärkt wird, nimmt auch die Hausgartenaktivität wieder zu. Zur Veranschaulichung von Entscheidungs- und Bewirtschaftungsstrategien von Haushalten wurde das Hausgartenmodell entwickelt. In seiner Anwendung auf die verschiedenen Räume ermöglicht das Modell eine Analyse der verschiedenen Faktoren, die die Hausgartenaktivität beeinflussen. Die vorliegende Untersuchung kommt zum Ergebnis, dass die gartenbauliche Aktivität stark von der sozialen Stellung der Haushalte abhängig ist. Den vorliegenden Daten zufolge zeigt die Bevölkerung der ärmsten Stadtviertel die geringste Beteiligung sowohl im Gartenbau als auch im Regenfeldbau. Dies zeigt deutlich, dass die ärmste Bevölkerungsschicht, die in sehr dicht besiedelten Vierteln wohnt, kaum Zugang zu Ressourcen hat, da beide Formen der Landwirtschaft eng mit dem Zugang zu Ressourcen im städtischen Umfeld verknüpft sind. Eine hohe Grundgefährdung des Haushaltes (baseline vulnerability), von der im vorliegenden Falle vor allem die städtische Bevölkerung in den low-income, high density compounds und die sogenannten shifters von Lusaka betroffen sind, lässt die Anlage von Hausgärten also nicht zu. Als weitere stark gefährdete Gruppe wurden die frauengeführten Haushalte (female headed households) im Kabompo-Distrikt der Nordwestprovinz Zambias identifiziert. Auch diese Gruppe ist wenig an der Bewirtschaftung von Hausgärten beteiligt. Das heißt, dass der Hausgarten mit seiner Pufferfunktion für die Ernährungssicherung nur für Familien mit einem gewissen Lebensstandard von Bedeutung ist. Die Dauer der Sesshaftigkeit an einem Ort ist ein Indikator für relativ stabile Lebensumstände. Neuankömmlinge betreiben weniger Gartenbau als bereits länger etablierte Familien, wie SANYAL (1985) für Lusaka und KLUG (1989) für Accra (Ghana) zeigen konnten. Limitierende Faktoren für die Anlage von Hausgärten sind die Verfügbarkeit von Gartenland, Wasser, Arbeitskraft und Saatgut. Die Intensität des Anbaus wird durch den Bedarf an Nahrung und die Verfügbarkeit von Märkten bestimmt, ist aber durch die vorher genannten Faktoren eingeschränkt. "Typische" Hausgärten sind in der Regel nur im innerstädtischen Bereich und zwar dort anzutreffen, wo sich im direkten Hausbereich oder in der Nähe eine Wasserquelle (in Form eines Wasserhahns oder eines Wasserloches) befindet. In den untersuchten ländlichen Gegenden und im periurbanen Bereich Lusakas sind die Hausgärten oft in einiger Entfernung von den Wohnstätten angelegt. Dies begründet sich vor allem mit dem Problem der Wasserversorgung in der Trockenzeit. Nur dort, wo permanent Wasser zur Verfügung steht, befinden sich Hausgärten. Eine Ausnahme hiervon stellen die natürlichen Grasländer (dambos) dar. Sie eignen sich in besonderer Weise für den ganzjährigen Anbau von Gemüse. Der Bevölkerungsdruck und die marktorientierte Produktion führen jedoch, vor allem im periurbanen Raum Lusakas, zu starker Übernutzung der dambos. Dadurch wird die Pufferfunktion natürlicher Grasländer für die Ernährungssicherung langfristig gestört. Die Größe der Hausgärten ist in den verschiedenen Räumen deutlich unterschiedlich. Am kleinsten sind sie im urbanen Raum, gefolgt von den ländlichen Räumen Zambias und Zimbabwes. Der periurbane Raum bildet, mit relativ großen Gärten, eine Ausnahme, da hier stärker marktorientiert produziert wird. Die Rollenverteilung der Geschlechter im Gartenbau scheint abhängig von der Zugehörigkeit zu bestimmten ethnischen Gruppen. Im Süden des Landes, bei den Tongas, sind hauptsächlich die Frauen für den Hausgarten zuständig, während in der Nordwestprovinz mehr Männer Hausgärten bewirtschaften. Insgesamt sind jedoch weit mehr Frauen als Männer für die Bewirtschaftung der Hausgärten verantwortlich. Es bestehen deutliche Unterschiede zwischen den Anbauzielen von Frauen und Männern. Die Frauen produzieren i.d.R. stärker für die Ernährung der Familie, während die Männer mehr marktorientiert anbauen. Dies äußert sich auch in der Wahl unterschiedlicher Kulturpflanzen. Die Frauen sind bei der Standortvergabe für die Gärten in Zambia benachteiligt. Die Gartenarbeit wird besonders für die Frauen im ländlichen Raum zusätzlich erschwert, da die Wasserquellen weiter als bei ihren Männern vom Garten entfernt liegen. Zusätzlich müssen diese Frauen etwas weitere Wege zu ihren Gärten zurücklegen als ihre Männer. Die Standortwahl ist für die Anlage eines Gartens von elementarer Bedeutung. Die Gärten im ländlichen und periurbanen Raum werden durch die jeweiligen traditionellen Orts- oder Gebietsvorsteher (chiefs) vergeben, sind also nicht individuelles Eigentum. Geeignete Gartenstandorte sind begrenzt verfügbar, vor allem in Abhängigkeit von der Wasserversorgung. Einige Beispiele zeigen exemplarisch, wie die Nutzung verschiedener Standorte organisiert ist. Insbesondere im Lusitugebiet im Süden des Landes sind die besten Gartenstandorte meist belegt. Infolgedessen zwingt der große Bevölkerungsdruck die Bauern auf weiter vom Wohnhaus oder der Wasserquelle entfernte Standorte auszuweichen. Diese Distanz ist einer der limitierenden Faktoren bei der persönlichen Entscheidung, einen Hausgarten anzulegen. Zu weite Wege und zu großen Arbeitsaufwand bei der Bewässerung verhindern dies. Ein Beispiel hierfür sind die Gärten am Karibasee. Der stark schwankende Seespiegel des Stausees verhindert in vielen Fällen die Anlage von Hausgärten, weil entweder die Wege zum Wasser zu weit werden oder weil die Gärten bei steigendem Wasserspiegel überflutet werden. Die Gärten im urbanen Raum sind Beispiele für das enorme genetische Potential der Hausgärten. Die Berechnungen der Artenvielfalt zeigen, dass kleine Hausgärten im urbanen Raum insgesamt eine höhere Artenvielfalt aufweisen als die größeren, eher marktorientierten Gärten im periurbanen Bereich. Aber auch im ruralen und periurbanen Raum heben sich die Hausgärten hinsichtlich ihrer Artenvielfalt von den sonst weitverbreiteten Monokulturen deutlich ab. In sehr vielen Gärten wurden Nützlinge beobachtet. Dies zeigt, dass die kleinen Flächen Rückzugsnischen für diese Organismen darstellen. Einflussnahme staatlicher Beratungsdienste auf die Hausgartenbewirtschaftung kann sich allerdings negativ auf die Artenvielfalt auswirken, wie Beispiele aus Südzimbabwe belegen. Im Beitrag des Hausgartens zur Erhaltung der genetischen Artenvielfalt (Biodiversität) liegt wohl eine seiner wichtigsten ökologischen Funktionen. In den Städten, die auch in Entwicklungsländern durch vegetationsfreie Zonen geprägt sind, übernehmen die Hausgärten die wichtige Funktion der Begrünung, die, sofern sie Fruchtbäume beinhalten, insbesondere in der Nähe der Häuser für eine Regulation des Mikroklimas sorgen. Der unterschiedliche Entwicklungsstatus von Zambia und Zimbabwe zeigt seine Auswirkungen bis auf die Hausgartenebene. Die Verfügbarkeit und der Zugang zu Ressourcen und der allgemeine Lebensstandard ist in Zimbabwe deutlich besser als in Zambia. Dies äußert sich z.B. darin, dass in Zimbabwe 95% der Kleinbauern ihr Saatgut kaufen, während dieser Anteil im ländlichen Raum Zambias nur 30% beträgt. Ähnlich verhält es sich mit der Verwendung chemischer Pflanzenschutzmittel in Hausgärten. In Zimbabwe werden diese von allen Kleinbauern verwendet, während dies in Zambia insgesamt nur von 60% der Haushalte praktiziert wird, wie auch immer man dies bewerten mag. Problematisch ist die Nutzung ehemaliger Mülldeponien als Standort für Hausgärten. Hier muss mit Bodenkontamination, vor allem durch Schwermetalle gerechnet werden. Dies konnte beispielhaft für einen solchen Standort nachgewiesen werden. Im Vergleich zu periurbanen und ländlichen Standorten sind die städtischen Hausgärten insgesamt stärker mit Schwermetallen belastet. Die Hausgartenproduktion ist durch eine hohe Energieeffizienz gekennzeichnet und ist an die Bedürfnisse der Familien angepasst. Sie kann deshalb als ein Modell nachhaltiger Wirtschaftsweise begriffen werden. Der Hausgarten trägt in vielfacher Weise zur Ernährungs- und Lebenssicherung von Familien bei. Neben seiner wichtigsten Funktion, nämlich der Nahrungsproduktion und -diversifizierung, kann er zusätzliches Einkommen und z.B. über Tauschhandel und Geschenke weitere Vorteile für die Familien schaffen. Die soziale Bedeutung des Hausgartenanbaus, besonders für Frauen, ist nicht zu unterschätzen und bedarf weiterer Beachtung durch die Wissenschaft. Die Fruchtbarkeit der Gartenböden ist insgesamt gut. Dies zeigen z.B. die engen C/N-Verhältnisse in den meisten Gärten. Standortvergleiche mit Regenfeldern bzw. ungenutzten Flächen zeigen, dass sich die bodenchemischen Eigenschaften in Hausgärten deutlich positiv von den anderen Standorten abheben. Die Bewertung der Wirtschaftlichkeit von Hausgärten ist problematisch und bedarf der Diskussion. Der Wert des Hausgartens liegt natürlich zum einen in seinem Beitrag zur Ernährungssicherung, zum anderen sind aber die Aspekte der Erhaltung der Artenvielfalt, der Bodenfruchtbarkeit und sein Beitrag zu kleinen Stoffkreisläufen, vielleicht gerade wegen der Schwierigkeit der Quantifizierung dieser Faktoren, bisher meist übersehen worden. Die Verbesserung der Nahrungsvielfalt und - qualität muss neben der Gesamtproduktion aus Hausgärten als wichtiger Beitrag zur Ernährungssicherung gewertet werden. Trotz der relativ geringen Gesamtproduktion in den urbanen Gärten, die hauptsächlich auf die Knappheit von Ressourcen (Land und Wasser) zurückzuführen ist, ist hier die Diversifizierung der Nahrung und die geschmackliche Bereicherung des Speiseplans als außerordentlich wichtig einzustufen. Die Berücksichtigung umweltökonomischer und sozialer Aspekte sind bei der Bewertung der Hausgartenaktivität deshalb unumgänglich. ; Abstract African Homegardens - Self Management of Sustainable Production Systems and Strategies of Food Security in Zambia and Zimbabwe This book emphasises the importance of homegardens for food security of the Zambian and Zimbabwean population. Homegardening is part of the entire farming system, which is different in urban, periurban and rural areas by various reasons. In the urban context, becoming more important recently, homegardening is part of the urban microfarming system, consisting of many agricultural activities within the cities, including urban forestry. The "typical" homegardens (small production units near the house with mainly subsistence oriented production) are only to be found in cities, especially near water sources. The study areas are located in Lusaka as well as in the peri-urban fringe of Lusaka and rural areas of Southern and North-Western Provinces of Zambia and the Masvingo Province in Southern Zimbabwe. Especially in rural areas homegardens are very often far away from the homestead, nearly invisible and overlooked components of the households strategies for food security. Therefore there is need for a new, more flexible definition of homegardens. In this book the homegarden is consequently defined as a permanent or semi-permanent component of an entire small holder production system, managed by family members mainly, but not exclusively, for self-consumption and the creation of income. Homegardens are considered to represent models of sustainable agricultural production systems for many different reasons. Their contribution to recycling of organic waste, high soil fertility, high species diversity and manifold contributions to the social welfare of the people are some if these aspects. A homegarden - model was designed which shows the interrelationship between the political, cultural and physical environment, the household and its decision-making and the results of the household activity with respect to homegardening. This model is applicable to any environment and helps to understand why some families do homegardening while other don't. The model can assist to understand at least some of the factors influencing this activity. The household itself is based in the centre of the model. Internal and external factors, e.g. labour availability, access or "entitlement" to resources, education, occupation, etc. determine the vulnerability of the households and its decision making. The relationship between urban food production, food security and the urban environment has been largely neglected in the past. In Lusaka, as in many other tropical cities, gardening and cropping receive very little support from local authorities. Indeed, city councils often prohibit these activities. Production of staple foods prevails in the wet season, and vegetable production in the dry. Both activities largely depend on the access to resources like water and land. Within the high- and medium-density squatter quarters, vulnerability in terms of food security differs. In the Zambian case, it was found that dry-season cultivation is not practised by the most vulnerable households but rather by those which have access to essential resources for this activity. In Lusaka, garden size decreases with increasing population density. The walking distance to sources of water is much further in the high-density areas, making homegardening more difficult there. Access to both land and water is lowest in the high-density, low-income compounds in Lusaka. In peri-urban and rural areas the natural grasslands are of essential importance for food security by providing good farming and gardening conditions all year round. Near the urban centre of Lusaka the grasslands are heavily used for the production of cereals, vegetables and fruits. The proximity to the town causes structural changes in the periurban fringe of Lusaka. The over-utilisation of the natural grasslands leads to a disturbance of their buffer function for food security. Over-exploitation of soils, destruction of the natural vegetation cover and over-utilisation of water resources, affect the local population directly by limiting and changing their landuse possibilities. The provision of household food security becomes more unstable because the production in household based subsistence homegardens and staple food production are negatively influenced by the structural changes of the area. The market-oriented gardening involves the loss of species diversity and implies the use of pesticides in the gardens. Intensification of landuse in peri-urban areas and especially the year-round use of dambos can even be subject to commercial farms with advanced irrigation technology. If these plans are realised, a completely new view of the hydrological events and effects has to be taken. Homegardening obviously contributes to household food security in all the examined areas both directly by providing food and indirectly by generating income. The buffer-function of homegardens for food security gets obvious for the Zimbabwe case studies. In years of good harvests homegardening gets less important for the families - which means the planted area decreases or only one of several homegardens is used for vegetable production. In years of drought and food shortages homegardens become very important for food security and the planted areas increases. There are significant differences between the role of women and men in urban household food security. Women are more involved in agriculture and gardening in all compounds of Lusaka as the men are. In rainy season the production of staple foods is prevalent, while in dry season the people concentrate on vegetable production. Women are the major actors in urban homegardening but injured with respect to income generation and access to resources and markets. Income creation through gardening is one possibility for women to achieve more independence within the frame of the family. Additionally gathering contributes to food and income in urban, peri-urban and rural areas. 40 % of the members of the survey in Lusaka Town still practise gathering to create additional food or income. Eighty per cent of the households in peri-urban and rural areas, which where included in the survey, still practise gathering. But the urban population shows, due to vanishing plant resources, lowest involvement in the gathering activity. The genetic potential of urban homegardens is very high. Calculation of species diversity has proved that small gardens show higher diversity as the large gardens in the peri-urban areas. But also in peri-urban and rural areas, homegardens show significant higher species diversity as market oriented monocultures. The contribution of homegardens to the maintenance of species diversity seems to be one of its most important ecological functions. It would be misleading to compare homegarden-productivity with conventional agricultural production systems. The highly individual character of homegardening and the flexible handling of this production system its different from staple food production and plays a different key role in the families. It's contribution to the social welfare and economic independence especially of women and children has been completely neglected in the past. It's role in the informal economic sector has not been considered until now. There is urgent need for appropriate support of homegardening in the future. This book tries to give some ideas how to implement appropriate measures and how to establish awareness for this important activity
This independent evaluation aims to investigate the implementation of the 2020 State Budget of Azerbaijan. The pandemic, which has lasted since 2020, has brought significant changes in the world. The changes in terms of both quality and quantity were reflected in the economic environment and individual's livelihood. Because of the requirement for long-term quarantine conditions to battle the pandemic, both developed and developing countries have experienced economic downturns. The research comprises forecast indicators defined by the appropriate executive authority during the year, as well as the draft legislation on 2020 state budget implementation, in addition to the forecast indicators represented in the material provided with the original and updated draft state budget for 2020. The basic order is as follows; introduction, revenues, expenditures, fiscal sustainability, sequestration of costs, cost reduction, receipt of subsidies from the budget, optimization of receivables, distribution of expenditures, and debts. The results included graphical and tabular descriptions.
In November 2020, the fully amended Framework Act on International Development Cooperation came into force. Since its first enactment in 2010, the Framework Act has functioned as a legal basis for the Korean ODA system, with this revision coming 10 years into its operation. The core contents of the revised Framework Act aim to further strengthen the authority and role of two major implementing ministries, that is, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and Ministry of Economy and Finance (MOEF), and embassies in partner countries, centering on the Committee for International Development Cooperation (CIDC).
This report explores how expenditure on public sector pension is endangering fiscal sustainability for the Government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, a problem that is common among national and subnational governments within and outside of Pakistan.
The coronavirus pandemic of 2019-20 confronted fiscally dominant regimes around the world with the question of whether the large deficits caused by the health crisis should be monetized or financed by issuing debt. The unpleasant monetarist arithmetic of Sargent and Wallace (1981) states that in a fiscally dominant regime tighter money now can cause higher inflation in the future. In spite of the qualifier 'unpleasant,' this result is positive in nature, and, therefore, void of normative content. I analyze conditions under which it is optimal in a welfare sense for the central bank to delay inflation by issuing debt to finance part of the fiscal deficit. The analysis is conducted in the context of a model in which the aforementioned monetarist arithmetic holds, in the sense that if the government finds it optimal to delay inflation, it does so knowing that it would result in higher inflation in the future. The central result of the paper is that delaying inflation is optimal when the fiscal deficit is expected to decline over time.
