The European Union Foreign Policy in the Caucasus and Central Asia: The Limitations of the Opening towards the East

This article intends to study the evolution of the European Union foreign policy in the Southern Caucasus and Central Area throughout the Post-Cold War era. The aim is to analyze Brussels��� fundamental interests and limitations in the area, the strategies it has implemented in the last few years, and the extent to which the EU has been able to undermine the regional hegemons��� traditional supremacy. As will be highlighted, the Community���s chronic weaknesses, the local determination to preserve sovereignty and an increasing international geopolitical competition undermine any European aspiration to become a pre-eminent actor at the heart of the Eurasian continent in the near future.

Do Institutional Participatory Projects Contribute to the Development of Political Capabilities?

Participation usually sets off from the bottom up, taking the form of more or less enduring forms of collective action with varying degrees of infl uence. However, a number of projects have been launched by political institutions in the last decades with a view to engaging citizens in public affairs and developing their democratic habits, as well as those of the administration. This paper analyses the political qualifying capacity of the said projects, i.e. whether participating in them qualifi es individuals to behave as active citizens; whether these projects foster greater orientation towards public matters, intensify (or create) political will, and provide the necessary skills and expertise to master this will. To answer these questions, data from the comparative analysis of fi ve participatory projects in France and Spain are used, shedding light on which features of these participatory projects contribute to the formation of political subjects and in which way. Finally, in order to better understand this formative dimension, the formative capacity of institutional projects is compared with the formative dimension of other forms of participation spontaneously developed by citizens.

Super-villains of the "real world": the political use of the characterization of villains in Chistopher Nolan's "Dark Knight Trilogy"

It is almost a tradition that celluloid (or digital) villains are represented with some characteristics that remind us the real political enemies of the producer country of the film, or even enemies within the country according to the particular ideology that sustains the film. The case of Christopher Nolan The Dark Knight trilogy, analyzed here, is representative of this trend for two reasons. First, because it gets marked by political radicalization conducted by the US government after the attack of September 11, 2001. Secondly, because it offers a profuse gallery of villains who are outside the circle of friends as the new doctrine ���either with us or against us��� opened by George Bush for the XXI century. This gallery includes from the very terrorists who justify the War on Terror (Ra's al Ghul, the Joker), to the ���radical left��� (Bane, Talia al Ghul) including liberal politicians (Harvey Dent), and corrupt that take advantage of the softness of the law to commit crimes with impunity (Dr. Crane, the Scarecrow).

Typical reggaeton in Morocco: forms of female political affirmation throught dance

Through an ethnographic account, this text analyses how social dance may become a discourse involving the cultural affirmation of a subordinate group. It describes how a group of girls faced with a complex of outlooks that construed them as Moroccan, Muslim or unattractive ���or as objects of education and intervention��� responded by affirming their own culture with an unanticipated corporal discourse. The way in which looking construes bodies is explored through metaphors: a hand that touches, a chisel that sculpts, a whip that lashes and a cobweb that controls and traps bodies. Owing to this political dimension of dance, workshops can also be an oppressive and silencing tool; to prevent this, the article concludes with a series of recommendations to implement dance in social intervention processes.

The trade unions membership dynamics and union members��� trajectories

This text presents an analysis of aggregated membership���s dynamics for Spanish trade unions, using ECVT data, as well as union memberships��� trajectories, or members��� decisions about joining the organization, permanency and responsibilities, and subsequent attrition. For the analysis of trajectories we make use of information of the records of actual memberships and the record of quitting of CCOO, and of a survey-questionnaire to a sample of leavers of the same union. This study allows us to confirm a linkage between the decision and motivations to become union member, to participate in union activities, the time of permanency, and the motives to quit the organization. We also identify five types of union members��� trajectories, indicating that, far from views that assert a monolithic structure, unions are complex organizations.

Citizens��� attitudes toward public services. Satisfaction in 2009-2011

The aim of this paper is to study the recent changes on citizens��� satisfaction with the performance ofpublic services, in the period 2009-2011 in Spain. Using data from the surveys on Quality of PublicServices, developed by the Sociological Research Center jointly with the National Agency for theEvaluation of Public Services and Quality of Services, our results show that the level of satisfactionhas slightly increased, which seems to display a greater tendency to positively value public servicesduring economic retrenchment. A major determinant of high satisfaction is self-reported ideology.Besides, immigrants display higher levels of satisfaction than Spaniards.

Unraveling EU Policies: the �����Common Basic Principles����� and the �����European Integration Fund����� as a technology of government

this paper is about EU ���soft policies��� on immigrant integration. It analyzes the ���Common Basic Principles��� (CBPs) and the ���European Integration Fund��� (EIF), two devices that have been recently established within this framework. It adopts the theoretical perspective of the ���anthropology of policy��� and ���governmentality studies���. It shows the context of birth of the aforementioned devices, as well as their functioning and the assessment done by the actors implied in the elaboration/implementation/evaluation of the related policies. It is based both on documentary research as well as direct observation and interviews done to the actors implied. It concludes that the PBC and the EIF should be considered as a ���technology of government���, that strives to align the conduct of the actors with the governmental aims, as well as it produces specific practices and knowledge. It also underlines an intrinsic feature of many policies: their ���congenital failure���, since they are (often) disputed and resignified by situated actors, who are embedded in asymmetrical power relations.

La incidencia de los valores culturales en el voluntariado: el caso de Europa

La realidad del voluntariado es sumamente compleja hasta el punto de que resulta complicado definir y caracterizar el trabajo voluntario, dada la gran variedad de interpretaciones, motivaciones, variables sociodemogr��ficas y aspectos culturales que configuran el perfil de los voluntarios. El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la influencia conjunta de algunas variables sociodemogr��ficas, as�� como de los valores culturales de ��ndole secular o tradicional, sobre el perfil de los voluntarios en Europa. Adem��s, se investiga qu�� variables orientan a los voluntarios hacia un determinado tipo de voluntariado u otro. Para ello se ha aplicado principalmente una metodolog��a de regresi��n log��stica a partir de la informaci��n disponible en la European Value Study. Los resultados obtenidos ayudan a establecer una caracterizaci��n del voluntariado en Europa, y confirman la influencia de los valores culturales, en primer lugar, en la realizaci��n o no de trabajos de voluntariado, y en segundo lugar, en la elecci��n que hacen estas personas del tipo de actividad con la que est��n comprometidos. Al analizar dos tipos de voluntariado de motivaci��n supuestamente muy diferente, se concluye que existe un grupo de valores que influyen en ambos, aunque el sentido y la intensidad en la que lo hacen sea diferente; por otra parte, algunos valores tienen influencia o no en la realizaci��n de trabajos de voluntariado, dependiendo del tipo espec��fico al que nos refiramos.

Cooperativism, entrepreneurship and economic development: a linking theoretical model

Cooperatives, as a kind of firms, are considered by many scholars as an remarkable alternative for overcoming the economic crisis started in 2008. Besides, there are other scholars which pointed out the important role that these firms play in the regional economic development. Nevertheless, when one examines the economic literature on cooperatives, it is detected that this kind of firms is mainly studied starting from the point of view of their own characteristics and particularities of participation and solidarity. In this sense, following a different analysis framework, this article proposes a theoretical model in order to explain the behavior of cooperatives based on the entrepreneurship theory with the aim of increasing the knowledge about this kind of firms and, more specifically, their contribution to regional economic development.