Aunque fue escrita en 2003, Motivation, agency and Public Policy: Of Knights and Knaves, Pawns and Queens, de Julian Le Grand, la obra continúa nutriendo el viejo y no concluido debate sobre la naturaleza intrínseca —altruista o egoísta— del servidor público y la forma en que se deberían diseñar las políticas públicas. El libro se divide en tres partes: dos de ellas están destinadas al análisis teórico de la motivación y la agencia como conceptos modulares del texto, y la tercera parte aborda la aplicación empírica de la teoría desarrollada en políticas de educación y salud en el Reino Unido.
This article contends that the appropriation, cooptation and creation of resources was a key element for the jihadist success during the 2012 Tuareg uprising in Mali. Based on the Resource Mobilization Theory (RMT), the article states that AQIM, MUJAO and Ansar Dine successfully appropriated and coopted moral and socio-organizational resources that were previously controlled by the Tuareg movement and, simultaneously, self-produced new resources taking advantage of the abandonment of local communities by the Malian government. Firstly, this article studies how the jihadist movements coopted legitimacy resources from the MNLA Tuareg movement: these groups provided an alternative political project for the Azawad, joined the Northern families through marriages and spread new trafficking networks. Secondly, the article analyzes how the jihadist organizations developed social assistance programs that integrated them within the Northern Mali communities and facilitated the spread of their ideology. Finally, this article concludes that the emergence and spread of jihadism in the Azawad region can be better explained by applying a RMT approach, focused on how jihadist organizations produced, coopted and appropriated moral and socio-organizational resources.
The rise of Shining Path in the rural areas of Peru and its revolutionary war between 1980 and 1992 contributed significantly to the weakening of indigenous mobilization in that country. From the perspective of a combination of political opportunity and new social movements theories, Shining Path took advantage of a history of rural isolation and a political vacuum to take control of rural areas and impose extreme repression of counterrevolutionary mobilization. It systematically pressured the indigenous communities to collaborate with it and embrace a materialist-based peasant identity. At the same time, the erratic and disproportionate response of the government negatively affected the indigenous communities. Merging the two theories allows a better understanding of this situation.El ascenso de Sendero Luminoso en las zonas rurales del Perú y su guerra revolucionaria entre 1980 y 1992 contribuyeron significativamente al debilitamiento de la movilización indígena en dicho país. Desde la perspectiva combinada de la teoría oportunidades políticas y nuevas teorías de movimientos sociales, Sendero Luminoso aprovechó una historia de aislamiento rural y un vacío político para tomar el control de las zonas rurales y llevar a cabo una represión extrema de la movilización contrarrevolucionaria. Presionó sistemáticamente a las comunidades indígenas para que colaboraran y adoptaran una identidad campesina de base materialista. Al mismo tiempo, la respuesta errática y desproporcionada del gobierno también afectó negativamente a las comunidades indígenas. La fusión de las dos teorías permite una mejor comprensión de esta situación.
Humanitarian interventions have often been employed to promote the intervener's political and economic interests. Given the issues around intervention's morality, this article explores Michael Walzer's humanitarian intervention theory in order to unravel the practical difficulties of legitimating humanitarian interventions in multisided conflicts. After exploring Walzer's arguments as they relate to unilateral and multilateral interventions, this article explains why, according to the self-determination principle, intervening countries must share the victim's cause. Later, the article uses the Syrian Civil War to exemplify the conundrum of crafting a legitimate humanitarian intervention in multisided conflicts where the victims are internally divided and have opposing political, economic, and/or religious views. This case study evidences how, in such contexts, humanitarian interventions simultaneously protect the population and promote the group that best represents the intervening state's interests, thus turning internal conflicts into foreign proxy wars. Finally, the article argues that, despite Walzer's proposal for a consistent theory of unilateral and multilateral humanitarian interventions, unilateral interventions should be replaced in multisided conflicts by multilateral interventions able to halt atrocities and provide a stable solution for internal conflicts.
Under the Political Process Theory, political opportunities comprise a very strong conceptual tool for understanding the emergence of collective action initiatives, i.e. riots, protests, strikes, etc. Political opportunities focus on the world "outside" social movements as, according to this theory, certain political demonstrations can emerge depending on the political context; hence, studying the different dimensions of political opportunities could improve our understanding of why certain movements are successful and others do not thrive. The Arab Spring revolutions have been studied from a myriad of perspectives, and although some authors tacitly analyze the contextual factors that have ignited protests, little attention has been given to political opportunities as a separate category for analysis. Consequentially, this article develops an exploration of the outcomes of the Arab Spring posing "political opportunities" at the core of the enquiry. More concretely, the article studies the case of Tunisia and explores a key dimension of political opportunities: openness to citizens' participation. Tunisia represents a successful attempt of political change from authoritarianism to democracy and it is relevant to study how different dimensions of political opportunity changed since the irruption of the Arab Spring. The article is divided as follows: the first section develops a contextualization of the Arab Spring uprising, highlighting, on the one hand, the most relevant events and, on the other hand, how several academics have analyzed its development and consequences. Then, the chapter analyzes the Tunisia case, in order to better understand the specificities of the Arab Spring uprisings in this country. The following section develops the theoretical framework based on the political opportunities structure and, after establishing its relevance for better understanding the Arab Spring, there is an operationalization of the dimension "openness to citizens' participation" using the Varieties of Democracy research project. Then, the next section analyzes each individual indicator for the case of Tunisia. Finally, the concluding remarks are developed, stating that openness to citizens' participation was a key element to better understand the relative success of the Arab Spring in Tunisia ; 1.The "Arab Spring Index". Analyzing the democratization of the Tunisian Revolution through the Political Opportunity Theory .9 p. ; 1a ed.
False information flows through social media are a worldwide phenomenon, affecting Latin America in particular, where more than 70% of internet users report growing concern regarding the circulation of fake news, especially through social media platforms. Although the academic literature has studied how governments may be incentivized to disseminate false information, it has concentrated in the electoral context mostly. In this sense, the impact of disinformation on mass mobilization patterns has been less explored, although it is relevant: manipulation through social media can reduce citizens' inclination to protest by directly influencing their preferences or beliefs about the government, acting as a preventive digital repression tool. In fact, governments have efficiently used it in the short run; however, it has not been established if this strategy could work in the long run. Hence, this article explores the long-term relationship between manipulation by the government through social media and the occurrence of mass mobilization to determine whether they are cointegrated. Drawing on the most recent literature on digital repression, manipulation, and mass mobilization and by applying a panel cointegration methodology in nine countries in Latin America (2000–2021), we find that the variables are cointegrated. In addition, we explore the causal (Granger) effect and find a unidirectional link that goes from social media manipulation to mass mobilization.
Under democratic regimes, accountability discourages the existence of corruption, because constituents typically constantly observe public servants. Although every citizen can drive accountability, only a few sectors actively engage in it, such as opposition groups, to a greater extent and for different reasons. Through a comprehensive measure of accountability developed by Varieties of Democracy, which includes vertical, horizontal, and diagonal accountability, this study aims to explore the relationship among the type of opposition in government, level of accountability, and level of corruption, to unravel the relevance of the characteristics of opposition groups when holding a government accountable. Are governments less corrupt when opposition groups from civil society exercise accountability? This study employs latent Markov class analysis applied to Latin America (1980–2020) and concludes that high levels of accountability are achieved and low levels of corruption are evidenced with the existence of opposition groups from civil society.
AbstractGiven the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP) institutionalisation by Mexico (2020) and Chile (2023), this study analyses their differentiated responses to empirically assess FFP's promised potential to achieve autonomy in foreign policymaking. Through a thematic analysis, we examined the official stances towards the war, diplomatic interactions, and specific cooperation policies proposed or supported by the two countries. The results are twofold: (1) theoretically, FFP challenges conventional theories on international relations and foreign policymaking by fostering a nuanced understanding of the war thus creating conditions for developing autonomous discourses and policies, and (2) empirically, FFP has practical limitations evidenced in Mexico and Chile's heterogeneous – and sometimes unexpected – responses.
This article explores Latin America's response to the Russia–Ukraine War by navigating the delicate balance between tradition and pragmatism. Historically championing self‐determination and non‐intervention, the region faces challenges in coordinating responses due to ideological divisions. Analysing reactions from Brazil, Mexico, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the study reveals various responses, ranging from diplomatic neutrality to outright support. Economic dependencies, power dynamics and domestic priorities influence approaches. As Latin America struggles with internal challenges and external pressures, the study advocates a nuanced understanding of the role of the region in the evolving international order, emphasising the need for cohesive diplomatic strategies.
This work describes the effects of introducing a new curriculum in an introductory course in Economics, through the book The Economy (Curriculum in Open-access Resources in Economics CORE Team, 2017), on students' academic performance and perception of the subject in the context of the bachelor's degree in Political Science and Public Administration at the University of Salamanca (USAL). We find that this action results in an increase in the academic performance of students, a positive valuation of the new approach by students and increase in the pupils' interest in the subject. Nevertheless, there remain relevant barriers limiting the potential benefits of this initiative, like the low use of suggested bibliography and the difficulties with English language reported by many students. ; Este trabajo describe los efectos sobre el rendimiento de los estudiantes y su percepción sobre la materia de una renovación curricular consistente en la introducción del libro The Economy (Curriculum in Open-access Resources in Economics [CORE] Team, 2017) en un curso inicial de Economía en el Grado en Ciencia Política y Administración Pública de la Universidad de Salamanca (USAL). Los resultados de nuestra experiencia sugieren un incremento del rendimiento académico de los estudiantes, una valoración generalmente muy positiva por parte del alumnado y un incremento del interés en la materia. Sin embargo, cabe destacar como, a pesar de estos resultados positivos, persisten barreras que limitan los resultados positivos de esta iniciativa, destacando el poco recurso a la bibliografía de parte del alumnado o las dificultades para manejar referencias en inglés en una fracción relevante de los estudiantes.
Este trabajo describe los efectos sobre el rendimiento de los estudiantes y su percepción sobre la materia de una renovación curricular consistente en la introducción del libro The Economy (Curriculum in Open-access Resources in Economics [CORE] Team, 2017) en un curso inicial de Economía en el Grado en Ciencia Política y Administración Pública de la Universidad de Salamanca (USAL). Los resultados de nuestra experiencia sugieren un incremento del rendimiento académico de los estudiantes, una valoración generalmente muy positiva por parte del alumnado y un incremento del interés en la materia. Sin embargo, cabe destacar como, a pesar de estos resultados positivos, persisten barreras que limitan los resultados positivos de esta iniciativa, destacando el poco recurso a la bibliografía de parte del alumnado o las dificultades para manejar referencias en inglés en una fracción relevante de los estudiantes. ; This work describes the effects of introducing a new curriculum in an introductory course in Economics, through the book The Economy (Curriculum in Open-access Resources in Economics CORE Team, 2017), on students' academic performance and perception of the subject in the context of the bachelor's degree in Political Science and Public Administration at the University of Salamanca (USAL). We find that this action results in an increase in the academic performance of students, a positive valuation of the new approach by students and increase in the pupils' interest in the subject. Nevertheless, there remain relevant barriers limiting the potential benefits of this initiative, like the low use of suggested bibliography and the difficulties with English language reported by many students. ; peerReviewed
En este libro aborda el estudio de varios fenómenos, tensiones y conflictos políticos, económicos y territoriales actuales, tanto de carácter internacional como nacional, que se plantean desde la perspectiva de diferentes movimientos o grupos sociales. El objetivo general es mostrar el origen y las consecuencias de dichas tensiones políticas, sociales y territoriales, indicar cuáles son los actores implicados en ellas y proponer alternativas para solucionarlas. ; Introducción 5, The "Arab Spring Index". Analyzing the democratization of the Tunisian Revolution through the Political Opportunity Theory 9, Confianza en las elecciones y el Tribunal Electoral boliviano: predestitución presidencial de Evo Morales 47, Tensiones territoriales por la intervención estatal: Moravia, de basurero municipal a barrio gentrificable 83, Persecución de los activistas ambientales y animalistas: ¿son los nuevos terroristas? 123 ; 1a ed.
