Can Europe deliver growth? The SAPIR report and beyond. Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 6/2004

In this critical appraisal of the SAPIR report of July 2003, we choose not to focus on the economic analysis provided in the Sapir Report - where we largely agree - or the analysis of governance questions and design at the EU level. Rather, we concentrate on the assignment, orientation and policy recommendations of the Report with the following question in mind: to what extent does the Report help to revitalize the growth debate in Europe? Unfortunately, the focus of the Report’s recommendations is entirely on the EU level of policy and governance, whereas the motor of growth is very clearly being hindered at the Member State level. The present authors suggest that a number of coordination processes at the EU level are best regarded as ‘dangerous liaisons’which are not really goal-oriented but instead ingeniously seem to serve to protect the actors’ autonomously-decided positions. The Union is trapped in a low-growth equilibrium due to this deceptive construction and because in many policy areas relevant for growth, the EU cannot act without the explicit consent of the Member States, or it simply cannot act at all. Indeed, given the single market and EMU, Europe can only deliver growth at the Member States' level. We exemplify this point in a number of concrete policy areas.

The Economics of EU Railway Reform. Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 8/2004

The EU began railway reform in earnest around the turn of the century. Two ‘railway packages’ have meanwhile been adopted amounting to a series of directives and a third package has been proposed. A range of complementary initiatives has been undertaken or is underway. This BEEP Briefing inspects the main economic aspects of EU rail reform. After highlighting the dramatic loss of market share of rail since the 1960s, the case for reform is argued to rest on three arguments: the need for greater competitiveness of rail, promoting the (market driven) diversion of road haulage to rail as a step towards sustainable mobility in Europe, and an end to the disproportional claims on public budgets of Member States. The core of the paper deals respectively with market failures in rail and in the internal market for rail services; the complex economic issues underlying vertical separation (unbundling) and pricing options; and the methods, potential and problems of introducing competition in rail freight and in passenger services. Market failures in the rail sector are several (natural monopoly, economies of density, safety and asymmetries of information), exacerbated by no less than 7 technical and legal barriers precluding the practical operation of an internal rail market. The EU choice to opt for vertical unbundling (with benefits similar in nature as in other network industries e.g. preventing opaque cross-subsidisation and greater cost revelation) risks the emergence of considerable coordination costs. The adoption of marginal cost pricing is problematic on economic grounds (drawbacks include arbitrary cost allocation rules in the presence of large economies of scope and relatively large common costs; a non-optimal incentive system, holding back the growth of freight services; possibly anti-competitive effects of two-part tariffs). Without further detailed harmonisation, it may also lead to many different systems in Member States, causing even greater distortions. Insofar as freight could develop into a competitive market, a combination of Ramsey pricing (given the incentive for service providers to keep market share) and price ceilings based on stand-alone costs might be superior in terms of competition, market growth and regulatory oversight. The incipient cooperative approach for path coordination and allocation is welcome but likely to be seriously insufficient. The arguments to introduce competition, notably in freight, are valuable and many e.g. optimal cross-border services, quality differentiation as well as general quality improvement, larger scale for cost recovery and a decrease of rent seeking. Nevertheless, it is not correct to argue for the introduction of competition in rail tout court. It depends on the size of the market and on removing a host of barriers; it requires careful PSO definition and costing; also, coordination failures ought to be pre-empted. On the other hand, reform and competition cannot and should not be assessed in a static perspective. Conduct and cost structures will change with reform. Infrastructure and investment in technology are known to generate enormous potential for cost savings, especially when coupled with the EU interoperability programme. All this dynamism may well help to induce entry and further enlarge the (net) welfare gains from EU railway reform. The paper ends with a few pointers for the way forward in EU rail reform.

Por uma cristologia pluralista da libertação: reflexões teológicas a partir de Jacques Dupuis e Jon Sobrino

O objetivo central desta pesquisa é desvendar possibilidades no estabelecimento de prováveis eixos básicos de uma cristologia pluralista da libertação, a partir das reflexões teológicas de Jon Sobrino (1938-) e Jacques Dupuis (1923-2004). Para tanto, se reconhecem cotidianamente os entrecruzamentos de sinais dos tempos, como as diferenças religiosas e as violações de direitos e injustiças sociais. A partir desta problemática, toma-se como hipótese a necessidade de se demonstrar a articulação em andamento entre perspectivas das teologias da libertação com perspectivas das teologias cristãs do pluralismo religioso, sinalizando um novo modo de fazer teologia. O trabalho aqui desenvolvido dialoga com os estudos culturais, especialmente com os conceitos de Homi Bhabha, o referencial teórico desta pesquisa, que possibilitou, criticamente, o entrelaçamento das perspectivas de Jacques Dupuis e Jon Sobrino. Para a construção desta cristologia, seguiu-se um tripé metodológico: revisão, reconstrução e reinvenção. O trabalho buscou revisar os discursos teológicos apresentados por Jon Sobrino e Jacques Dupuis; reconstruir as reflexões teológicas elaboradas por estes autores; e reinventar uma cristologia que se mostre como um terceiro espaço, um entrelugar discursivo, uma cristologia pluralista da libertação, que não é nem o um (a cristologia da libertação) nem o outro (a teologia cristã do pluralismo religioso), mas algo a mais, uma fala híbrida elaborada a partir de determinadas zonas de contato entre os autores. A pesquisa apresenta como eixos: (i) uma cristologia integral: vivenciada nos espaços cotidianos, com uma reflexão a partir das vítimas e do espírito das testemunhas; (ii) uma cristologia trinitária: refletida a partir d@ outr@ e centrada no mistério inesgotável, na humanização do divino e na força do Espírito; e (iii) uma cristologia reinoteocêntrica: vocacionada ao reino de Deus, numa tensão entre a parcialidade com as vítimas e a universalidade da ação de Deus, numa elaboração nas vias da mística e em um discurso cristológico estruturado na (des)missão. Tais eixos possuem implicações políticas, uma vez que esta cristologia se constrói como uma dupla função: é objeto de estudo e é espaço para a atuação política, reconhecendo que novos discursos e linguagens relacionam-se com novas atuações e mobilizações sociais.

Data compilation on the biological response to ocean acidification: environmental and experimental context of data sets and related literature

The exponential growth of studies on the biological response to ocean acidification over the last few decades has generated a large amount of data. To facilitate data comparison, a data compilation hosted at the data publisher PANGAEA was initiated in 2008 and is updated on a regular basis (doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.149999). By January 2015, a total of 581 data sets (over 4 000 000 data points) from 539 papers had been archived. Here we present the developments of this data compilation five years since its first description by Nisumaa et al. (2010). Most of study sites from which data archived are still in the Northern Hemisphere and the number of archived data from studies from the Southern Hemisphere and polar oceans are still relatively low. Data from 60 studies that investigated the response of a mix of organisms or natural communities were all added after 2010, indicating a welcomed shift from the study of individual organisms to communities and ecosystems. The initial imbalance of considerably more data archived on calcification and primary production than on other processes has improved. There is also a clear tendency towards more data archived from multifactorial studies after 2010. For easier and more effective access to ocean acidification data, the ocean acidification community is strongly encouraged to contribute to the data archiving effort, and help develop standard vocabularies describing the variables and define best practices for archiving ocean acidification data.

Narrative mourning : Joyce, Freud, Kincaid, Derrida

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

L'univers historiographique de Jacques-Auguste de Thou

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

De l'usage de la lettre dans Histoire de ma vie de Jacques Casanova

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Narrative mourning : Joyce, Freud, Kincaid, Derrida

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

L'univers historiographique de Jacques-Auguste de Thou

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

De l'usage de la lettre dans Histoire de ma vie de Jacques Casanova

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Crisis Económica en África Occidental: el caso de Dakar, 1929-1939

En este artículo se explora el impacto socio-económico de la crisis internacional de 1929 en Senegal y más concretamente en la ciudad-puerto de Dakar. Se analizan las consecuencias de la dependencia externa y la extroversión económica que caracterizaba a las estructuras productivas coloniales, destacando también la respuesta organizada de los movimientos sociales africanos. Por otra parte, se estudia la evolución de las infraestructuras y actividad portuaria, observando la metropolización regional de Dakar durante este periodo.

El multilateralismo como intervencionismo. Estados Unidos y la Sociedad de Naciones en América Latina (1930-1946)

Este artículo analiza una dinámica de intervenciones de Estados Unidos en América Latina que no ha atraído suficientemente la atención de los historiadores. En los años treinta y cuarenta, cuando Europa se hundía en una nueva confrontación bélica, ciertos sectores del gobierno y del mundo empresarial norteamericano intentaron articular una nueva relación con los países del continente basada en una propuesta de multilateralismo que se había configurado dentro de la Sociedad de Naciones (SN). Estos estadounidenses intentaron establecer una dinámica de relaciones triangulares con los gobiernos latinoamericanos y los organismos técnicos de la SN. Gracias a ello, como se mostrará en este artículo para el caso del funcionamiento del Comité Fiscal de la Sociedad de Naciones, los latinoamericanos fueron capaces de influir en el tipo de políticas que debían emanar de esta relación triangular. La importancia de esta historia no es menor. La relación triangular entre Estados Unidos, América Latina y la SN sirvió de base para la reconstrucción de la gobernanza global liderada por los Estados Unidos tras la guerra.

Aportes de las teorías sociológicas a la discusión de la ontología. Los casos de Luhmann, Habermas y Latour

En este trabajo se discuten los aportes de la teoría sociológica contemporánea al debate filosófico y científico de la ontología, para ello son cotejados los componentes ontológicos de la Teoría General de Sistemas Sociales de Niklas Luhmann, lla Teoría de la Acción Comunicativa de Jürgen Habermas y la Actor-Network Theory de Bruno Latour.