Governança global na Amazônia: o programa piloto para a Proteção das Florestas Tropicais do Brasil

A Amazônia deixou de ser apenas uma questão regional e nacional, tornandose decisivamente uma questão global. Envolta nas contradições do capitalismo global, tornou-se, ainda alvo de interesses e pressões externas, notadamente pelos recursos estratégicos e vitais que dispõe para a segurança planetária. O Programa Piloto para a Proteção das Florestas Tropicais do Brasil (PPG-7) surge como caso emblemático de inserção da Amazônia num esforço de governança global, processo esse orientado por uma multiplicidade de atores, coalizões e estratégias. Neste sentido, oriundo das lutas socioambientalistas, no plano da sociedade civil brasileira e dos movimentos transnacionais, o PPG-7 foi um componente importante de redefinição das políticas ambientais no Brasil, alargando a esfera pública e contribuindo para a germinação de uma sociedade civil global conectada por redes na Amazônia.

A construção da memória na sociedade global. Identidades sociais: local x global

Este artigo discute o desenvolvimento dos modelos institucionais atuais de proteção do patrimônio cultural, apresentando alguns problemas que trazem novos sentidos aos trabalhos dedicados à memória social, especialmente em países como o Brasil. Criados com a construção do Estado Nacional esses modelos fundavam-se na idéia de cidadania e nos laços da comunidade nacional. A globalização das relações econômicas, sociais e culturais enfraqueceram o papel das nações como espaços privilegiados de coesão social provocando repercussões imediatas nas políticas de proteção ao patrimônio que, agora, precisam ter foco sobre as sociedades locais.

The Politics of Purchasing Power: Feminist Tourism and Women's Development in Nepal

My purpose in this essay is to explore how ideas about women and development are created and circulated at the moment of consumption of wares produced at a women's development project in Nepal. I analyze the project as an example of the ways that women's development is an object of material and discursive consumption. Artifacts produced and sold by Nepali women, and purchased by tourists from the "first world," become part of an international exchange of power, money, and meaning. Based on a survey of consumers and ethnographic observations, I conclude that feminist tourists forge relations with disempowered "Others" through the pleasurable activity of an alienated market transaction. Consumers of crafts produced at a women's development project assume a position of empowerment and enlightenment, ready to help out their "women" counterparts through their support of an enterprise with circular logic: within the industry of development (although not necessarily for feminist tourists themselves), at least one of the central projects of development is the development project itself. At the same time, feminist tourists locate themselves outside the oppressive structures and ideologies affecting their "third-world sisters." This is a relation of sympathy and imagined empathy, with no sense of differential location within systems of oppression. They fail to examine or articulate the global link between their own purchasing power and local living conditions of Maithil women; the connection is effectively built out of the discourse.

The Politics of the "New North": Putting History and Geography at Stake in Arctic Futures

References to a “New North” have snowballed across popular media in the past 10 years. By invoking the phrase, scientists, policy analysts, journalists and others draw attention to the collision of global warming and global investment in the Arctic today and project a variety of futures for the region and the planet. While changes are apparent, the trope of a “New North” is not new. Discourses that appraised unfamiliar situations at the top of the world have recurred throughout the twentieth century. They have also accompanied attempts to cajole, conquer, civilize, consume, conserve and capitalize upon the far north. This article examines these politics of the “New North” by critically reading “New North” texts from the North American Arctic between 1910 and 2010. In each case, appeals to novelty drew from evaluations of the historical record and assessments of the Arctic’s shifting position in global affairs. “New North” authors pinpointed the ways science, state power, capital and technology transformed northern landscapes at different moments in time. They also licensed political and corporate influence in the region by delimiting the colonial legacies already apparent there. Given these tendencies, scholars need to approach the most recent iteration of the “New North” carefully without concealing or repeating the most troubling aspects of the Arctic’s past.

The Intersection of Economics and Politics in a Small OPEC Country: the Case of Ecuador, 1990 - March 2014

Today, crude oil remains a vital resource all around the world. This non-renewable resource powers countries worldwide. Besides serving as an energy source, crude oil is also the most important component for different world economies, especially in developing countries. Ecuador, a small member of the OPEC oil cartel, presents a case where its economy is oil dependent. A great percentage of the country¿s GDP and government¿s budget comes from oil revenues. Ecuador has always been a primary exporter of raw materials. In the last centuries, the country experienced three important economic booms: cacao, bananas, and, ultimately, crude oil. In this sense, the country has not been able to fully industrialize and begin to export manufactured goods, i.e., Ecuador suffers from the Dutch disease. The latter has deterred Ecuador from achieving broad-based economic development. Given crude oil¿s importance for the Ecuadorian economy, the government has always tried to influence the oil industry in search of profits and benefits. Therefore, this thesis, explores the question: how and to what extent have political interventions affected the oil industry in Ecuador from 1990 until March 2014? In general, this thesis establishes an economic history context during the last twenty-four years, attempting to research how political interventions have shaped Ecuador¿s oil industry and economy. In the analysis, it covers a period where political instability prevailed, until Rafael Correa became president. The thesis examines Ecuador¿s participation in OPEC, trying to find explanations as to why the country voluntarily left the organization in 1992, only to rejoin in 2007 when Correa rose to power. During the ¿Revolución Ciudadana¿ period, the thesis researches reforms to the Law of Hydrocarbons, variations in the relations with other nations, the controversy surrounding the Yasuní-ITT oil block, and the ¿Refinería del Pacífico¿ construction. The thesis is an Industrial Organization detailed case study that analyzes, updates, and evaluates the intersection of economics and politics in Ecuador¿s crude oil industry during the last 24 years. In this sense I have consulted past theses, newspaper articles, books, and other published data about the petroleum industry, both from a global and Ecuadorian perspective. In addition to published sources, I was able to interview sociologists, public figures, history and economics academics, and other experts, accessing unique unpublished data about Ecuador¿s oil industry. I made an effort to collect information that shows the private and public side of the industry, i.e., from government-related and independent sources. I attempted to remain as objective as possible to make conclusions about the appropriate Industrial Organization policy for Ecuador¿s oil industry, addressing the issue from an economic, social, political, and environmental point of view. I found how Ecuador¿s political instability caused public policy to fail, molding the conduct and market structure of the crude oil industry. Throughout history, developed nations have benefited from low oil prices, but things shifted since oil prices began to rise, which is more beneficial for the developing nations that actually possess and produce the raw material. Nevertheless, Ecuador, a victim of the Dutch disease due to its heavy reliance on crude oil as a primary product, has not achieved broad-based development.

Global evidence in local debates: the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in Swiss direct-democratic debates on school policy

This article analyses the use of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and other evidence in educational policy discourse in the context of direct-democratic votes in Switzerland. The results of a quantitative content analysis show that PISA is used by all actors to support a wide range of policy measures and ideological positions. Other evidence, however, is only used to support single specific policy positions. These findings demonstrate the ubiquity of PISA. The article discusses these results in view of the question of whether the incorporation of evidence into policy debates contributes to informed discourse.

From Connecting Hindus to Uniting Global Hinduism: History and Guiding Principles of Hinduism Today

Hinduism Today is a quarterly magazine that appears in roughly 15.000 copies, shipped to nearly 60 countries worldwide. The majority of readers are Hindus in diverse diaspora countries, mainly Singapur, Malaysia, Mauritius, Trinidad und the USA. Its editors are monks of Kauai Adheenam, belonging to the Śaiva Siddhānta Church, situated in Kauai, Hawai’i, USA. One of the magazine’s declared goals is to foster global Hindu solidarity and educate Hindus worldwide about their religion. In this paper, I want to take a look at the history of this magazine in connection with the Śaiva Siddhānta Church, and at the development of the expressed aims behind its publication. For this, I draw on fieldwork done in Kauai in January, 2014. After a brief introduction to some theoretical and methodological preliminaries of my work, I shall, give an overview of the history of the Śaiva Siddhānta Church, founded by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Following this, I will deal in more detail with the origins and development of the magazine and the websites connected with it. I will focus especially on the role the magazine was intended to play for global Hindu diasporas. A fourth chapter will analyze the modes of definition employed in order to depict Hinduism as a unified global religion. In conclusion, I shall briefly reflect upon the specific agenda of “Global Hinduism” and the strategies of positioning as followed by the publishers of Hinduism Today.

The Politics of Re-(en)visioning: Contemporary British Rewritings of Greek and Roman Tragedies

This thesis examines three different kinds of socio-political rewritings of Greek and Roman tragedies – Sarah Kane’s “Phaedra’s Love”, Tony Harrison’s “Prometheus”, and Martin Crimp’s “Cruel and Tender” – written, staged or screened in Britain (and, more precisely, England) between 1996 and 2004. Offering close readings of these re-visionary appropriations, this dissertation analyses some of the innumerable and unexpected forms that ancient tragedy can assume today. In particular, it explores how three talented British authors have subverted the conventions of the noblest literary and dramatic genre in order to (re)write contemporaneity in ways that oscillate between the personal and the public, the local and the global, the national and the transnational.

The natural resources deficit: the implications for German politics. OSW Commentary No. 46, 2011-02-08

Falling amounts of natural resources and the ‘peak oil’ question, i.e. the point in time when the maximum rate of extraction of easily-accessible oil reserves is reached, have been among the key issues in public debate in Germany on all levels: expert, business and – most crucially – the government level. The alarming assessments of German analysts anticipate a rapid shrinkage of oil reserves and a sharp rise in oil prices, which in the longer term will affect the economic and political systems of importer countries. Concerns about the consequences of the projected resource deficit, especially among representatives of German industry, are also fuelled by the stance of those countries which export raw materials. China, which meets 97% of global demand for minerals crucial for the production of new technologies, cut its exports by 40% in summer 2010 (compared to 2009), arguing that it had to protect its reserves from overexploitation. In 2009 the value of natural resources Germany imported reached €84 billion, of which €62 billion were spent on energy carriers, and €22 billion on metals. For Germany, the shrinkage of resources is a political problem of the utmost importance, since the country is poor in mineral resources and has to acquire petroleum and other necessary raw materials abroad1. In autumn 2010, the German minister of economy initiated the establishment of a Resources Agency designed to support companies in their search for natural resources, and the government prepared and adopted a national Raw Material Strategy. In the next decade the policy of the German government, including foreign policy, will be affected by the consequences of the decreasing availability of natural resources. It can be expected that the mission of the Bundeswehr will be redefined, and the importance of African states and current exporter countries such as Russia and China for German policies will increase. At the same time, Germany will seek to strengthen cooperation among importer countries, which should make pressure on resource-exporting states more effective. In this context, it can be expected that the efforts taken to develop an EU resource strategy or even a ‘comprehensive resource policy’ will be intensified; or at least, the EU’s energy policy will permanently include the issue of sourcing raw materials.

The Drivers of Current Account Surplus in Germany and the Politics of Rebalancing in the Eurozone. EU Centre, Singapore Working Paper No. 24, April 2015

Current account deficits have caught the public’s attention as they have contributed to the European debt crisis. However, surpluses also constitute an issue as a deficit in any country must be financed through a surplus in another country. In 2013, Germany, now the world’s largest surplus economy, registered a record high US$273 billion surplus. This paper looks at what accounts for Germany’s surplus, revealing that the major driving factors include strong global demand for quality German exports, domestic wage restraint, an undervalued single currency, high domestic savings rate and interest rate convergence in the euro area. This paper echoes the US Treasury’s view that a persistent German surplus makes it harder for the eurozone as a whole and the southern peripheral economies in particular to recover from the current financial crisis by imposing a Europe-wide “deflationary bias” through pushing up the exchange rate of the euro, exporting feeble German inflation and projecting its ultra-tight macroeconomic policies onto crisis economies. This paper contends that Germany’s trade surplus is likely to endure as Germany and other eurozone countries uphold diverging views on the nature of the surplus engage in a blame-game amidst a sluggish rebalancing process. Prizing the surplus as a reflection of hard work and economic competitiveness, German authorities urge their southern eurozone colleagues to undertake bold structural reforms to correct the imbalance, while the hand-tied governments in crisis-stricken economies call on Germany to do its “homework” by boosting German demands for European goods and services.

A Global Strategy for a soul-searching European Union. EPC Discussion Paper, 13 July 2016

On 28 June 2016, just a few days after the historic Brexit vote, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini presented the paper on the new European Union Global Strategy (EUGS) at the European Council, outlining the strategic coordinates for the EU’s foreign and security policy. In this Discussion Paper, Giovanni Grevi takes a closer look at the EUGS and assesses its main rationale, features, added value and prospects against the backdrop of an ever more complex world. Not only is the EU dealing with increasingly contested and polarised politics at home, but the global theatre itself has become hugely disorienting, more integrated and yet more fragmented at the same time. The paper recalibrates the overall foreign policy posture of the EU and sketches out a more modest and concrete approach compared to earlier aspirations, and a more joined-up one compared to current practice. By doing so, the strategy seeks to square the circle between the need for Europe to be cohesive and purposeful in a harder strategic environment and the fact that domestic politics within the Union constrain its external action and drain its attractiveness. The EUGS calls on the EU and member states to fully take on their responsibility to underpin unity, prosperity and security at home by taking more effective and joined-up action abroad. The question is, of course, whether this call will be heeded.