Suchergebnisse

A chronicle about the incredible life path of Aldo Marín, a Chilean revolutionary unknown to this day. Early on Thursday, August 5, 1977 two young people died in Turin when they tried to commit an attack against the newspaper La Stampa. They are the "years of lead", and Italy is mired in a political-social crisis. One of the authors of the failed attack is Chilean and, during the previous days, detonated bombs in different Italian cities. The tragedy of Turin put an end to a brief and vertiginous revolutionary trajectory. Juan Cristóbal Guarello narrates in this chronicle the incredible life trajectory of Aldo Marín, a young man from the north of Chile who, due to unlikely circumstances, was part of the political process carried out by the Unidad Popular. Escaping the secret police and exiled in Mexico, the protagonist came to Cuba to be part of a military elite that will aim to return to the country to execute Pinochet. The arrival of Carlos Altamirano in Havana at the beginning of 1974 ruined this crazy and desperate plan. The story - and the detailed investigation carried out by the author - is then transferred to Italy, where Marín and his comrades-in-arms met with violence and armed insurrection that, in the case of some of them, led them to radicalize.

One of the central problems of contemporary politics lies in the difficulty of its legitimacy. The legitimacy of politics had been carried out according to the rules & rationality within the political arena. Politics today, however, faces a situation in which there is a large variety of spheres & logic that compete against it in order to arrive at a definition of the public. Without a doubt, one of these spheres & perhaps the most significant, is generated by the media. The media is inseparable from the political system, in so far as the rules of the first prevail on the latter. Starting from these premises, the article deals with four large aspects that express the fragmentary, if not entropic, character of contemporary politics. The first of these deals with the deinstitutionalization of politics, which stems either from the draining or the ownership of it by various lobbying groups. The second of this highlights the non political forces of legitimacy, focused on the use of "public opinion" by the mass media. The third explains the instability & inconsistency of political formulas, subjugated to the same ephemeral process as news production. As a result & in fourth place, one can talk about the emergence of a new political model, one which the author classifies as "news democracy.". Adapted from the source document.

The capacity to govern reflects the ability of the public sector, increasingly in conjunction with the private sector, to set collective goals for the society and to use a variety of instruments to reach those goals. This steering capacity reflects not only the capabilities of the public sector itself but also the governability of the society and the presence of effective civil society actors which can assist in governance. This paper first develops a model of governance involving some essential elements of governing. These include the ability to set goals, to create coherent goals, to implement programs designed to reach goals, and then to have effective means of monitoring and feedback. The paper then proceeds to examine changes in the governing capacities across time. In particular, the author is concerned with the shift first to a highly decentralized, fragmented form of governing using instruments such as privatization and the creation of agencies and then a reassertion of the need for some governing capacity in the center of government, and some strategic planning if governance is to be successful. The arguments presented here are both empirical and normative. There is an examination of changes in the nature of governance in a range of countries, as well as the development of some standards for effective and democratic governance.(CLAD/DÜI)

The purpose of this essay is to analyze the mechanisms of economic governance in Mexico in the twentieth century. It explores the development, breakdown & later reconstruction of political institutions designed for economic cooperation. It addresses the following questions. What type of mechanisms of political regulation were constructed by the Mexican political system to manage distributive conflicts throughout modern history? What were the factors determining the end of the traditional agreements leading to the economic-political crisis of the 1980s? How did the political regime reconstruct the institutions allowing to generate the conditions for cooperation between government, businessmen, & workers? The author analyzes the mechanisms permitting the PRI political regime to manage economic conflict between political actors throughout its history, as well as the process of constructing institutions for economic governability after 1987, including the following: the reconstruction of the tripartite political arrangements from 1987 to 1994 & the role of the economic pacts in the recovering & stabilization of the Mexican economy. The theoretical framework used is the new historical institutionalism which can illuminate the impact of formal & informal rules on the strategies & aims of political and economic actors & and its effect on economic performance. 3 Charts, 1 Graph, 82 References. Adapted from the source document.

In this article the author discusses why nationalist parties in Spain gain popular support. She examines why people vote for a nationalist, rather than a national, party. With a multivaried approach, she tests hypotheses derived from four different theoretical approaches that offer complementary explanations. Her results show that, according to social identity theory, people with higher levels of regional identification are more likely to vote for a nationalist party. Higher educational levels are also a factor in a voter's supporting a nationalist party, according to the modernization approach. The fact that a person's position in the Left-Right political spectrum was a statistically significant variable seems to prove that regional sympathies or ethnic identity are not the only factors that influence a nationalist vote. There are other (economic, political) aspects that also play an important role. Nationalist parties in Spain are ideological, not only protest parties. Contrary to what has been established in traditional literature regarding social divisions, in this model, sociodemographic variables do not explain an individual's preference for nationalist parties. Finally, the author's findings show that people that are more interested in politics are more likely to vote for a nationalist party than for a national one; this might reflect their commitment to local issues in their region. 4 Tables, 2 Appendixes, 40 References. Adapted from the source document.

"The abolition of judicial torture--alongside the eradication of both slavery and capital punishment--was one of the most consequential issues debated in 18th century continental Europe. A revealing component of this controversial debate was presented in the unpublished Discurso sobre la injusticia del apremio judicial, written by the attorney Pedro García del Cañuelo. Seeking support for its publication, he forwarded the manuscript to Prime Minister Manuel Godoy in 1795. The savvy Spanish politician, however, not only rejected the text, but also warned its author against further discussing the issues raised in his treatise. As a result, although its title was known, the essay was lost to history. The current volume, La abolición del tormento, analyzes, transcribes, and reproduces the complete Discurso while framing its proposals within the European debate regarding the abolition of torture and the prohibition of other methods of mental and physical coercion allowed by diverse tribunals. The monography ... examines the philosophical and juridical foundations related to this atrocious practice, one which produced one of the fiercest exchanges of the Enlightenment. The aforementioned dispute reflects the political tensions of an era because a discussion on the legality of torture involves a consideration of what constitutes a human being, what is the relationship between legality and justice, as well as what are the limits of lawful power in relation to the natural rights and the intrinsic value of the individual"--

September 11 (2001) events prompted a series of debates concerning how & how much has the international order changed. There is still much misunderstanding between those who assert that "nothing has changed" & those for whom "nothing will be the same after 9/11." Due to records scattering, events or processes have been studied as if they were structural changes, but without explaining how can they transform international politics. Also, the search for more useful analyses to identify both changes & continuities has produced methodological confusion. This work pursues three main objectives: first, to present a methodology of change analysis by organizing the various approach modalities with which international relations theory has been working so far. Second, to use this methodology for understanding the likely transformations of the international order as of September 11, 2001. Third, to offer some conclusions & work hypotheses on international politics change study. The author reaches four conclusions: (a) every international relation theory demands an explanation of 9/11 events & they all have arguments for such a demand; (b) in relation with this, 9/11 does not compel thinking new categories to understand its causes & outcomes; (c) from a wider perspective, & beyond any strident statement, 9/11 has not generated a major change in international politics in historical & systemic terms; & (d) a better understanding of change in international relations requires a historical approach, that has been largely eluded by this discipline. 68 References. Adapted from the source document.

This book studies the period of the Chilean political graphic art (posters, public art). The author inquires into the unexplored area between the "golden age" of the political poster during the Popular Unity and the poster produced after the 1973 coup d'état in exile. And it does so by taking the experience of two graphic collectives that until now had been left in darkness: the Association of Young Plastics APJ (1979-1987) and Tallersol (1977). In this sense, this book does more than fill a void, for "filling" already announces a fiction of totality; As we know, a field of knowledge is never completely saturated: there is always emptiness and there is full, and such dynamics is what produces possibility and future. This is well known by Nicole Cristi and Javiera Manzi, the authors of this book, who have the audacity to construct with rigor and passion a story that places and restores the artistic-political itinerary of two essential collectives of graphic action of the dictatorial period, In turn, are the tip of a much wider skein of coordinations, groupings and experiences still very little explored by historiography and local criticism. A plot of which the posters shown here - almost for the first time - are a historical and technical mark. So, this book does not come to fill, but to reopen the discussion about graph and politics, a book that also has the generosity to leave offered multiple edges to explore on the field of cultural resistance to the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet

This article discusses some of the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on Mexico's economy, society, & politics. The author argues that since the agreement went into effect in 1994, & in spite of the grave financial crisis that led to a significant devaluation in Dec 1994, there was an accelerated expansion of Mexican exports & an increase in foreign investment, further, the main macroeconomic variables show signs of recovery. However, NAFTA's impact on different economic activities & on different regions varies. Large transnational & Mexican enterprises have benefited more than small enterprises; northern Mexico more than southern Mexico. Not only small entrepreneurs but the Mexican society at large agree that these macroeconomic indicators have yet to be evident at the microeconomic level, in jobs or in family income. Economic liberalization & NAFTA affect the Mexican political system as actors, movements, & parties take advantage of them & interact more intensely both domestically & in external forums; as a result, domestic policy adopts an international dimension. NAFTA offers new opportunities but also implies important challenges. The necessary modernization of the private sector will have to meet the challenge of competing in the global economy while maintaining the competitive advantages of NAFTA & the agreements Mexico signed with several Latin American countries & the European Union. Most important is achieving economic modernization without social exclusion -- which has been the case thus far -- within the framework of a more efficient, dependable, & transparent State, & a more democratic society. 10 Tables, 4 Graphs. Adapted from the source document.

The study of the process preceding the July 2002 political shift in Mexico's government has been mainly focused on electoral issues. Therefore, several institutions of the political system that played a key role during the transition to democracy remain largely unknown, including governorships & the federal Congress, whose functioning experienced relevant changes & had an unprecedented bearing on the process. This paper explores the new political role of state governments, which was not due to a constitutional change, but rather was the result of two features of the process of change itself, namely, the expansion of pluralism & the gradual restraint of presidentialism. The author argues that the process of change prompted reactions from state governors that varied according to their PAN or PRD affiliation -- when they were still opposition -- or to their PRI origins -- the party still in power. The new institutional arrangement created before the political shift, in the midst of the electoral race, had an impact on the last PRI administration, but it also shaped a new relationship with the first democratic government, as it dismantled the foundations of ancient subordination. A secondary outcome of political change restructuring was the growth of local autonomies, whose manifestation varied according to governors' party membership. PRI governors were the major beneficiaries, as PAN governors -- the opposition -- focused their activities on administrative issues, while the former profited from a party network developed since the regime's inception. A positive upshot of this change for Mexico was that the president's bearing on politics management shrank. However, by putting the party's control in the hands of governors, a decisive element was transferred to a non-homogeneous & also conservative sector, deeply identified with the authoritarian regime. Having accomplished the political shift, the threat now is the likely re-emergence of ancient cacicazgos & the growth of a practice aimed at blocking federal government policies. 4 Tables. Adapted from the source document.

Former visual arts director in Colombia's Ministry of Culture (1997-2001), and after more than 10 years in the United States, author Miguel Rojas-Sotelo explains how the new Colombian Constitution (1991) shaped cultural policies and the production and professionalization of visual art, literature, and mass media. The book "examines the insistence of Colombian middle class intellectuals to reexamine the founding events of the nation, including the scientific, geographical and ethnographic Expeditions of the mid-19th century. This tendency responds to a nostalgic desire to claim an uncompleted process to construct modernity. It is an example of societal schizophrenia but at the same time of social sensitivity that seeks to understand the nationœs present by uncovering the retro. A comparative examination of the work of the artists María Elvira Escallón (b. 1954) and Libia Posada (b. 1961) is used to illustrate aspects of public life and its interactions with the domestic sphere in Colombia. Subsequently, the text focuses on the cultural violence that has marginalized, exoticized and racialized certain population groups that are constitutive of the nation. This section presents the case of Abel Rodríguez (b.1941), a Nonuya indigenous man who has over the past decade, like a modern day successor to the Expedition naturalists, dedicated himself to illustrating thousands of botanical and animal species. Rodríguez is an example of a process of adaptation and capture that has rejected the denial of non-Eurocentric viewpoints that marked the logic of the Expeditions and of Western scientific thinking. Such responses are now embedded in the processes of cultural construction inaugurated by the 1991 Constitution and the emergence of new cultural markets in the country. Finally, the work of Juan Obando (b. 1980) illustrates an interstitial space that gives rise to a critical/anarchic possibility. The book discusses the way in which an image has been constructed of a docile nation based on a popular culture that has been domesticated by the forces of the global market (associated in this case with narcoculture). The international brandingʺ of the country and its bizarre domestic mirror are present in Obandoœs work, apparent in its bi-directional movement: at the same time central to, and on the margins of, national debate: operating, like many contemporary creators in the country, along a geological fault line." (HKB Translation)--Verso Cover