El Cinema cru : influència del fenomen audiovisual global-popular en el cinema del canvi de mil·leni

El Cru són les formes d'expressió de procedència no professional que combinen so i imatge en moviment i que, a partir de principis de la dècada dels 90 del sègle XX i pel context històric de l'època, estan a l'abast d'una part significativa i creixent de la població mundial, amb una també creixent potencialitat de difusió massiva a escala planetària, el que dota al conjunt d'una visibilitat en augment en la societat i el torna, en conseqüència, un referent ineludible. Erigit el Cru com un referent cada vegada més important en la nostre societat, trobem lògic pensar que el cinema realitzat per a la seva projecció a sales d'exhibició, hagi pogut veure-s'hi influenciat. El present treball de recerca pretén demostrar i analitzar aquesta influència del Cru en el cinema del canvi de mil•lenni

España en Europa 1996-2004

Pensar globalmente, actuar localmente” es un slogan imprescindible en el discurso político de nuestros días. Pues bien, la práctica política, en materia de Unión Europea, de los dos gobiernos del Partido Popular, presididos por José María Aznar (1996-2004), nos permite acuñar un slogan de signo bien diferente: “pensar localmente, actuar en Europa”. En efecto, si algo caracteriza a estos ocho años de práctica política de José María Aznar es haber convertido sus preocupaciones domésticas en factor exclusivo de su estrategia europea, con independencia del contexto de cada momento y de la necesidad de encajar objetivos nacionales con objetivos europeos. De ahí que sea lógico que la campaña electoral que ha precedido a las elecciones generales del 14 de marzo no haya recogido ninguno de los temas que dominan en la agenda de la UE en el momento actual. Ni la ampliación, ni la Constitución, ni tampoco el proceso de conformación de un núcleo duro tienen cabida en el debate político españo

Spain in Europe 1996-2004

“Thinking globally, acting locally" is an essential slogan in the current political discourse. Yet, in view of the policies on the European Union carried out by the two governments of the People’s Party (PP) headed by José María Aznar between 1996 and 2004, we could coin a quite different slogan: "thinking locally, acting in Europe". Indeed, José María Aznar’s policy-making during the last eight years has been characterised by turning his domestic concerns into the ‘exclusive factor’ of his European strategy, regardless of the context and the need for fitting in national objectives with Europeans’. Hence, it was natural that the electoral campaign preceding the general elections held on Sunday, 14 March, did not deal with any of the topics prevailing in the EU’s current agenda. Neither enlargement nor the Constitution, nor the process of shaping a core group within the EU, seem to have room in Spain’s political debate...

Contextual effects on subjective national identity and nationalist vote in Catalonia

The important inflow of foreign population to western countries has boosted the study of acculturation processes among scholars in the last decades. By using the case of Catalonia, a receiver region of international and national migration since the fifties, this paper seeks to intersect a classic acculturation model and a newly reemerging literature in political science on contextual determinants on individual behavior. Does the context matters for understanding individual’s subjective national identity and, therefore, its voting behavior? Multilevel models show that environment matters. Percentage of Spain-born population in the town is statistically significant to account for variance in the subjective national identity and nationalist vote, even after controlling for age, sex, origin, language and left – right orientation and other contextual factors. This conclusion invites researchers not to underestimate the direct effect of the environment on individual outcomes such as feelings of belonging and vote orientation in contexts of rival identities.

Impacte econòmic de les relacions entre Taiwan i la República Popular de la Xina (1987-2010)

El treball es centra en analitzar els efectes generats per la relació política entre Taiwan i la Xina sobre la seva relació econòmica i comercial durant el període comprés entre 1987 i 2010.

What made him change? an individual and national analysis of men's participation in housework in 26 countries

We offer new evidence on multi-level determinants of the gender division of housework. Using data from the 2004 European Social Survey (ESS) for 26 European, we study the micro and macro-level factors which increase the likelihood of men doing an equal or greater share of housework than their female partners. A sample of 11,915 young men and women is analysed with a multi-level logistic regression in order to test at individual level the classic relative-income, time-availability and gender-role values, and a new couple conflict hypothesis. At individual level we find significant relationships between relative resources, values, couple's disagreement, and the division of housework which support more economic dependency than "doing gender" perspectives. At the macro-level, we find important composition effects and also support for gender empowerment, family model and social stratification explanations of cross-country differences.

Immigration and contested nation-building : explaining the political salience of immigration in multi-national societies

Multi-national societies present a complex setting for the politics of immigration, as migration’s linguistic, economic and cultural effects may coincide with existing contestation over nationhood between sub-units and the central state. Empirically, though, political actors only sometimes, and in some places, explicitly connect the politics of immigration to the stakes of multi-level politics. With reference to Canada, Belgium and the United Kingdom, this paper examines the conditions under which political leaders link immigration to ongoing debate about governance in multi-national societies. The paper argues that the distribution of policy competencies in the multi-level system is less important for shaping immigration and integration politics than is the perceived impact (positive or negative) on the sub-unit’s societal culture or its power relationship with the center. Immigration and integration are more often politicized where center and sub-unit hold divergent views on migration and its place in national identity.

Immigration controls and the erosion of popular sovereignty

The idea that immigration controls in Western developed states are a response to popular pressure is axiomatic in the academic literature on migration. In the academic literature and in policy circles it is also commonplace to hear that migration is eroding the sovereignty of states. This article challenges both of these ideas. We argue that both of these ideas overlook or ignore the erosion of popular sovereignty from within states. We argue that engaging with, rather than evading, public debate on migration can potentially help to reinvigorate popular sovereignty.

Dimensions of national culture and the accounting environment -The Spanish case-

Gray (1988) has put forward a hypothesis on how a national accountingenvironment might reflect the cultural dimensions identified by Hofstede (1980, 1983). A number of studies have tested Gray's hypothesis, including one by Pourjalali and Meek (1995) which identified a match between changes in cultural dimensions and the accounting environment in Iran following the revolution. In this paper we replicate this work in the context of Spain following the death of Franco in 1975 and the emergence of a democratic constitution in 1978. Specifically, we: 1) Consider Gray's hypothesis built on Hofstede's cultural dimensions and review some empirical tests of the hypotheses.2) Building on the work of Hofstede and Gray, we: put forward some hypotheses on how we would expect cultural dimensions to change in Spain with the transition to democracy.3) Review developments in accounting in Spain following the transition to democracy, in order to identify how well these fit with our hypotheses.

Putting health in all policies: The National Institute for Welfare Enhancement

Welfare is a rather vague term whose meaning depends on ideology, values andjudgments. Material resources are just means to enhance people s well-being, butgrowth of the Gross Domestic Production is still the standard measure of thesuccess of a society. Fortunately, recent advances in measuring social performanceinclude health, education and other social outcomes. Because what we measureaffects what we do it is hoped that social policies will change. The movementHealth in all policies and its associated Health Impact Assessment methodologywill contribute to it. The task consists of designing transversal policies thatconsider health and other welfare goals, the short term and long-term implicationsand intergenerational redistributions of resources. As long as marginalproductivity on health outside the healthcare system is higher than inside it,efficiency needs cross-sectoral policies. And fairness needs them even more,because in order to reduce social inequalities in health, a wide social and politicalresponse is needed.Unless we reduce the well-documented inefficiencies in our current health caresystems the welfare states will fail to consolidate and the overall economic wellbeingcould be in serious trouble. In this article we sketched some policy solutionssuch as pricing according to net benefits of innovation and public encouragementof radical innovation besides the small type incremental and market-ledinnovation. We proposed an independent agency, the National Institute forWelfare Enhancement to guarantee long term fair and efficient social policies inwhich health plays a central role.

Catalan government popularity. An example of economic effects on sub-national government support

The aim of this essay is to deal with economic voting in contexts ofmultilevel governance and to be a contribution to the debate on attribution of responsibilities in popularity functions literature. We use aggregate and individual data from Catalonia in order to analyse the relation between the state of the economy and the support for a sub-state government. The empirical analysis shows that the responsibility hypothesis works in regional governments without explicit macroeconomic competencies. We have also considered the evaluations of government performance on certain specific policies in order to clarify and determine the factors that drive Catalan government support. The article considers the implications of the findings for future attempts to model party support in a context of the European Union.

Fiscal decentralization policies and sub-national government debt in evolving federations

As part of a process of democratization, many countries spanning Europe, Latin Amertica, Africa, and Asia are reorganizing their governments bydevolving fiscal responsibility and authority to newly empowered regionaland local governments. Although decentralization in each country proceedsdifferently, a common element tends to be an initially heavy relianceon central government grants to fund regional spending. We develop atheoretical model of regional borrowing decisions in which the incentivesfor regional borrowing depend crucially on how the regions expect thefederal system of finance to evolve. We examine the implications of themodel using data on Spanish regions for the period 1984-1995 and findevidence that regions may be borrowing inefficiently in response toincentives imbedded in the Spanish system of fiscal decentralization.

Regional industrialisation without national growth: The Catalan industrialization and the growth of Spanish economy (1830-1861)

This paper has two main objectives. First, it provides a stylised descriptionof the Catalan industrial path of the period 1830-1861. Second, it reviewsthe evolution of the Catalan industry in the Spanish context and, thus, canserve to describe the relative importance of the Catalan industrialexperience. Consequently, it is mainly devoted to computing and analysing thegrowth rates of Catalan industries during the early phase of industrialisation.The results show that Catalonia experienced a true process ofindustrialisation during the period 1830 to 1861, but that its contributionin rapid increase in Spanish GDP was relatively small.