La institucionalización de la violencia en Colombia

En el presente ensayo se examinan algunos antecedentes históricos –los factores institucionales en particular– que contribuyeron al surgimiento del conflicto armado en Colombia. En este sentido, se intenta explorar en qué medida la incapacidad de las instituciones del Estado para resolver los conflictos por los derechos de propiedad y distribución de la tierra, hizo que algunos actores sociales, campesinos sin tierra y que las ocupaban ilegalmente, aparceros y trabajadores migrantes de las haciendas, así como terratenientes, crearan instituciones violentas paralelas en la contienda para lograr sus objetivos antagónicos.

Land Reform in Developing Countries: Property Rights and Property Wrongs, por Michael Lipton, Londres: Routledge, 2009

Reseña

Possession and Immoveable Property: The History of Two Connected Concepts

Possession and property are two different sides of the same coin. The two institutions have the same axis: the benefit, mainly economic, of a good. In countries like Colombia and Peru, important reforms have been introduced whose main effect has been the following one: the approach to these two institutions. In this article we will speak of these two institutions, today more than ever, connected.

Equilibrium Principle in Colombian Public Contracting

Public contracting in Colombia is conflicting and inefficient. It frequently leads to damage to State property. The Colombian legal system cannot assure efficient and transparent public contracting. The cause is the institutional environment characterized by high transaction costs. Colombian law worsens the process by recognizing the principle of economic equilibrium in public contracts. This principle increasese contract incompleteness and renders impossible the use of economic incentives to control the opportunism of the economic agents. The authors present the hypothesis that the economic equilibrium principle increases the conflictive nature of public contracting. They test the hypothesis empirically. The first section of the paper presents a summary of the literature on transaction costs economics, as well as the legal literature on the historical origin and the content of the economic equilibrium principle. The second section describes the methodology of the empirical study. The third section shows the empirical evidence of the effects that the economic equilibrium principle exerts over the public contracting. The last section presents the conclusions.

The institutional environment and its influence on political options to Protect Winnipeg’s Female garments Workers against the impact of globalization

The principal objective of this paper is to identify the relationship between the re­sults of the Canadian policies implemented to protect female workers against the impact of globalization on the garment industry and the institutional setting in which this labour market is immersed in Winnipeg. This research paper begins with a brief summary of the institutional theory appro­ach that sheds light on the analysis of the effects of institutions on the policy options to protect female workers of the Winnipeg garment industry. Next, this paper identi­fies the set of beliefs, formal procedures, routines, norms and conventions that cha­racterize the institutional environment of the female workers of Winnipeg’s garment industry. Subsequently, this paper descri­bes the impact of free trade policies on the garment industry of Winnipeg. Afterward, this paper presents an analysis of the ba­rriers that the institutional features of the garment sector in Winnipeg can set to the successful achievement of policy options addressed to protect the female workforce of this sector. Three policy options are considered: ethical purchasing; training/retraining programs and social engage­ment support for garment workers; and protection of migrated workers through promoting and facilitating bonds between Canada’s trade unions and trade unions of the labour sending countries. Finally, this paper concludes that the formation of isolated cultural groups inside of factories; the belief that there is gender and race discrimination on the part of the garment industry management against workers; the powerless social conditions of immi­grant women; the economic rationality of garment factories’ managers; and the lack of political will on the part of Canada and the labour sending countries to set effective bilateral agreements to protect migrate wor­kers, are the principal barriers that divide the actors involved in the garment industry in Winnipeg. This division among the prin­cipal actors of Winnipeg’s garment industry impedes the change toward more efficient institutions and, hence, the successful achievement of policy options addressed to protect women workers. 

Advances and limitations in the attention to the problems of housing and urban land in Mexico. An approach from the legal-institutional frame

In this work we analyze the reforms carried out by the Mexican state in the nineties of the 20th century, in the items concerning the policies of housing and urban land, based on an exhaustive review of the main actions, programs and changes in the legal and institutional frame that applies for each of these fields. The nineties represent a "breaking point" in the way the State considers the satisfaction of the right to the housing and attends the offer of urbanized land for a tidy and sustainable urban development. In this period of time, the approach of direct intervention in developing and financing housing and creation of land reserves has changed into another one, ruled by the logic of the market. The balance to the first decade of the 21st century is ambiguous, as neither the housing policy has solved the housing shortage for low-income population, nor the land policy has eliminated the illegal urban growth.

Economía institucional de la intervención urbanística estatal

La intervención urbanística del Estado es insustituible. En primer lugar porque el capital privado no está dispuesto a asumir el riesgo de depreciación virtual inherente a la provisión de bienes públicos. Tampoco ha alcanzado los  niveles de acumulación previa que de manera individual estén en capacidad de reemplazar los esfuerzos colectivos que se deben movilizar para tal efecto. Es por ello que estratégicamente el capital privado ha seducido al público con la idea de la eficiencia de las alianzas público-privadas y la gobernanza. En segundo lugar porque el mercado inmobiliario residencial formal es un mercado segmentado e imperfecto en el que el poder de mercado de los estructuradores urbanos y metropolitanos alcanza niveles cuasi-monopólicos. Por tanto, y siguiendo a Commons, la regulación y el control de la oferta inmobiliaria residencial incide positivamente en la ampliación de la libertad en la producción y en la elección de localización de las familias que habitan en las metrópolis. Un orden menos segregado que el perseverante se torna posible. Este trabajo se ocupa de analizar, desde una perspectiva teórica pluridisciplinar como la economía institucional urbana, las posibilidades e instrumentos con que se cuenta para alcanzar tal orden.

La dimensión transnacional del movimiento feminista marroquí: génesis, desarrollo e impacto social (1980-2008)

Esta monografía busca explicar cómo han incidido el contexto internacional y las relaciones transnacionales en el movimiento feminista de Marruecos. De este modo, este estudio defiende que las Conferencias Mundiales sobre la Mujer de la ONU crearon una estructura de oportunidad política que favoreció el surgimiento y el desarrollo de este movimiento. Asimismo, dicho contexto construyó un espacio para que las activistas feministas marroquíes crearan y se insertaran en Redes de Defensa Transnacional, las cuales contribuyeron a cambiar la condición de la mujer en Marruecos, a través de reformas a los Códigos de Familia y Nacionalidad y el levantamiento de las reservas a la CEDAW. Para esto se hará un estudio interdisciplinario haciendo uso de la teoría de los movimientos sociales y del activismo transnacional. Igualmente, se utilizará una metodología cualitativa, principalmente a través de las herramientas del análisis de contenido y el trabajo de campo de la autora.

Is [Rural] Property Tax Relevant?

The present document presents the general notions and the definition of property taxation and, as part of it, the working definition of rural property taxation emphasizing that property taxation is a matter of “property” and rural property taxation is linked with rural property, specifically with land ownership. In addition, the document presents some facts about the performance of property taxation based on a secondary source of cross-country analysis. In order to give a definition of rural property tax, I will explain the logic of taxation linked to property and then present the nature and logic behind property taxation in theory.