Las limitantes de construcción de ciudadanía integral en miembros de iglesias evangélicas con antecedentes de participación política en Colombia. Caso de estudio: La iglesia Misión Carismática Internacional

La monografía explora las limitantes de construcción de ciudadanía integral en miembros de iglesias evangélicas con antecedentes de participación política en Colombia, a partir de un caso de estudio, con el fin de aportar a la comprensión del fenómeno político generado por estas comunidades.

Los efectos de la participación política ciudadana en Colombia: la revocatoria de mandato en Boyacá

La revocatoria de mandato es una herramienta de participación política ciudadana en Colombia establecida hace ya más de veinte años. Sin embargo, y a pesar de que ha sido implementada en 146 casos, ningún gobernante ha sido revocado o ratificado por este medio en el país. Este hecho ha motivado varias investigaciones que se han centrado en los problemas operativos, normativos y las dificultades en la implementación de la herramienta. Este trabajo busca ir más allá y centrarse en los efectos políticos y sociales que afectan, de manera positiva o negativa, esta herramienta de participación política ciudadana. Siendo una herramienta que involucra directamente a los ciudadanos con la política local, las acciones que se lleven a cabo durante todo el proceso pueden afectar a la población. Esto se puede afirmar si se tiene en cuenta que la historia política colombiana ha estado permeada por el autoritarismo y el clientelismo, donde actores poderosos a nivel local, pertenecientes a oligopolios políticos, se encuentran legitimados por características históricas para adelantar acciones que afectan la seguridad, tranquilidad e integridad de la población. El análisis involucra tres procesos de revocatoria de mandato en el departamento de Boyacá durante el periodo 2008-2011: Tunja, Samacá y Somondoco; resaltando el papel que cada actor juega en el respectivo proceso de revocatoria, así como sus motivaciones para ser parte de él y las acciones que adelanten para asegurar el éxito o fracaso de esta herramienta. Para ello se utilizó una metodología cualitativa, consistente en monitoreo de medios y entrevistas semiestructuradas a los diferentes actores de los procesos, lo cual permite reconstruir los casos de estudio.

From acculturation to integration : the political participation of Montréal's Italian-Canadian Community in an urban context (1945-1990)

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Natural disasters and clientelism: the case of floods and landslides in Colombia

What are the effects of natural disasters on electoral results? Some authors claim that catastrophes have a negative effect on the survival of leaders in a democracy because voters have a propensity to punish politicians for not preventing or poorly handling a crisis. In contrast, this paper finds that these events might be beneficial for leaders. Disasters are linked to leader survival through clientelism: they generate an in-flow of resources in the form of aid, which increase money for buying votes. Analyzing the rainy season of 2010-2011 in Colombia, considered its worst disaster in history, I use a difference-in-differences strategy to show that in the local election incumbent parties benefited from the disaster. The result is robust to different specifications and alternative explanations. Moreover, places receiving more aid and those with judicial evidence of vote-buying irregularities, are more likely to reelect the incumbent, supporting the mechanism proposed by this paper.

Why peace processes fail or move forward? Negotiations in Colombia with FARC and AUC (1998-2003)

Este trabajo examina la teoría sobre guerras civiles y resolución de conflictos con el fin de contestar la pregunta: ¿por qué fracasan o progresan los procesos de paz? Se miraron los procesos de paz en Colombia en los últimos cinco años cuando comenzó y fracasó el proceso de paz con las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC y comenzaron con las Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC. La teoría revela la relevancia de factores económicos, políticos, participación externa y militares para explicar por que fallan o prosperan los procesos de paz. Por su parte, el fracaso de las negociaciones con las FARC puede explicarse por razones de estrategia militar, el rol de la violencia durante la negociación y la falta de participación internacional. De otro lado, evitando todos los puntos sensibles de la negociación inicial, las AUC ganaron apoyo de la opinión publica y la confianza del gobierno para iniciar los diálogos. De esta forma, tenemos dos procesos recientes en Colombia para analizar: uno que fallo y el otro que esta progresando. El análisis de estos procesos puede ayudarnos a contestar la pregunta inicial de este trabajo.

Overcoming Gender Disadvantages. Social Policy Analysis of urban middle-class women in Colombia

The World Bank Report 2012 starts with this statement: “Gender equality matters in itself andit matters for development because, in today’s globalized worlds, countries that use the skillsand talents of their women would have an advantage over those which do not use it.” With theframe that suggest that gender equality matters, this paper describes some policy alternativesoriented to overcome gender disadvantages in the formal labor market incorporation of theurban middle class women in Colombia. On balance, the final recommendation suggest that itis desirable to adopt policy alternatives as Community Centers, which are programs orientedto a social redistribution of the domestic work as a way to encourage women participationin the formal labor market with the social support of the members of their own community.The problem that the social policy needs to address is the segregation of women in the formallabor market in Colombia. Although the evidence shows that the women overcome theeducational gap by showing better performance in education that their male peers, womenare still segregated of the labor market. The persistence of high rates of unemployment on thefemale population, the prevalence of the informal labor market as a women labor market, andthe presence of the payment difference between men and women with similar professionaltrainings are circumstances that sustain the segregation statement. These circumstances areinefficient for the society because an economic analysis shows that the cost of maintain the statuquo is externalized in the social security system that includes health, pension and maternityleave regimens. Therefore, the women segregation involves a market failure.This paper evaluates five policy alternatives each directed to the progress of a different causaldimension of the problem: (i) Quotas in the private market, (ii) Flexible working hours,(iii) replace the maternity leave with a family leave, (iv) Increase the Community Centers forredistributing the care work, and (v) Equal payment enforcement. The first alternative looksto increase women’s participation in the formal labor market. The second, third, and fourthalternatives constitute a package addressed at redistributing care work by reducing women’sresponsibility for reproductive work in the household with the help of husbands and the localgovernment. The fifth alternative intervenes to resolve the equal payment problem.After a four criteria evaluation that measure effectiveness, robustness and improbability inimplementation, efficiency and political acceptability or social opposition, the strongest alternativeis the fostering of Community Centers that promote a redistribution of care work. Thispolicy performs well in the assessment process because it combines gender focus with importantindirect effects: child support and human capabilities. The policy also shows a bottomup implementation process that overcomes the main adoption difficulties in the gender focusprograms and is supported by strong evidence of success in the Colombian context; this evidenceis produced by both transnational actors as a World Bank and also in local accountabilityreporters executed by local institutions like Colombian Institute of Family Welfare (ICBF).

Women's political participation and gender parity in decision-making at all levels in the Caribbean

Includes bibliography

Social Inequality in Political Participation: The Dark Sides of Individualisation

Has the participatory gap between social groups widened over the past decades? And if so, how can it be explained? Based on a re-analysis of 94 electoral surveys in eight Western European countries between 1956 and 2009, this article shows that the difference in national election turnout between the half of the population with the lowest level of education and the half with the highest has increased. It shows that individualisation – the decline of social integration and social control – is a major cause of this trend. In their electoral choices, citizens with fewer resources – in terms of education – rely more heavily on cues and social control of the social groups to which they belong. Once the ties to these groups loosen, these cues and mobilising norms are no longer as strong as they once were, resulting in an increasing abstention of the lower classes on Election Day. In contrast, citizens with abundant resources rely much less on cues and social control, and the process of individualisation impacts on their participatory behaviour to a much lesser extent. The article demonstrates this effect based on a re-analysis of five cumulative waves of the European Social Survey.