Dilemas institucionais e cenários políticos : análise do discurso da alteração do sobrestamento da pauta na Câmara dos Deputados

Analisa a Questão de Ordem (QO) 411/09, respondida por Michel Temer, então Presidente da Câmara dos Deputados, que alterou o entendimento a respeito do sobrestamento da pauta na Câmara. A opção pela análise de uma questão de ordem justifica-se pelo entendimento de que se trata de um dos instrumentos regimentais mais legítimos e definidores do processo legislativo, pois tem o potencial de orientar os caminhos de uma proposição e criar jurisprudência legislativa, podendo até mesmo definir os rumos da atividade parlamentar, como é o caso da QO 411/09. O estudo pretende, a partir da abordagem teórica e metodológica da vertente francesa da análise do discurso, desvelar as relações de poder no plano das formações discursivas e suas respectivas formações ideológicas no interior do Legislativo vis-à-vis o Executivo, com ênfase no poder de agenda e no equilíbrio entre os Poderes da República. Para tanto, propõe-se analisar pronunciamentos proferidos em Plenário por ocasião da supracitada Questão de Ordem, tendo como referência o discurso político como cena teatral indicado por Charaudeau, de forma a tentar fornecer novos elementos interpretativos aos dilemas institucionais e às escolhas políticas dos atores envolvidos nesse debate. Conclui-se que as estratégias discursivas empregadas pelos atores políticos evidenciaram o processo de significação, circulação e entrecruzamento dos saberes a respeito da relação institucional entre os Poderes. A análise do discurso contribuiu para a compreensão do contexto social da produção discursiva da QO e da alteração do sobrestamento da pauta, além de reiterar a ideia de que a formação discursiva está intimamente relacionada à prática institucional das relações de poder dentro e fora da Câmara dos Deputados. Os embates dos pronunciamentos evidenciam esta premissa. Além disso, a análise da QO foi capaz de revelar a força política e retórica dos pronunciamentos em Plenário no sentido de modificar e, sobretudo, legitimar o entendimento sobre o trancamento da pauta. Ao utilizar a análise do discurso, tendo como pano de fundo o processo legislativo, direito constitucional e a ciência política, pretendeu-se dar novo enfoque à temática do sobrestamento da pauta e, dessa forma, tentar fornecer novos elementos interpretativos aos dilemas institucionais e às escolhas políticas dos atores envolvidos nesse contexto.

Analysis of volatility transmissions in integrated and interconnected markets: The case of the Iberian and French markets

This paper models the mean and volatility spillovers of prices within the integrated Iberian and the interconnected Spanish and French electricity markets. Using the constant (CCC) and dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) bivariate models with three different specifications of the univariate variance processes, we study the extent to which increasing interconnection and harmonization in regulation have favoured price convergence. The data consist of daily prices calculated as the arithmetic mean of the hourly prices over a span from July 1st 2007 until February 29th 2012. The DCC model in which the variances of the univariate processes are specified with a VARMA(1,1) fits the data best for the integrated MIBEL whereas a CCC model with a GARCH(1,1) specification for the univariate variance processes is selected to model the price series in Spain and France. Results show that there are significant mean and volatility spillovers in the MIBEL, indicating strong interdependence between the two markets, while there is a weaker evidence of integration between the Spanish and French markets. We provide new evidence that the EU target of achieving a single electricity market largely depends on increasing trade between countries and homogeneous rules of market functioning.

¿Vascos o euskaldunak?: una aproximación al papel del Euskara en la conformación de las Colectividades vascas de América, siglo XIX

[ES] El artículo se centra en el papel jugado por la lengua vasca, el euskara,en el proceso de creación e institucionalización de las colectividades vascas creadas a lo largo del siglo XIX y comienzos del XX en diversos países americanos a los que se dirigieron preferentemente los emigrantes vascos. En todos los casos, las colectividades vascas que se crearon integraban a originarios de todos los territorios tradicionales de Euskal Herria, tanto de las actuales Comunidades autónomas vasca y navarra en España, como del País Vasco-francés. En este proceso el euskara jugó un doble papel,práctico y simbólico, que posibilitó la asunción por parte de los emigrantes vascos,y de la sociedad que los acogió, de una identidad común por encima de otras divisiones basadas en la nacionalidad política o la diversidad ideológica.

Digital Students are Different posters

Students have a lot to say about their digital environment, if we listen. But behind the headline messages what they want is complex and contradictory. Different learners need different kinds of technology and technical support to succeed. These posters can be used to stimulate discussion between staff and students as a way of developing a shared understanding of the complexity of these issues. The posters have been updated from their originals to reflect the emerging findings from the FE Digital Student study as well as the HE strand.

Incorporating American Dreams into Australian Stories: Political Erasure and cultural transference in film adaptations of Australian Literary Classics

Eterio Pajares, Raquel Merino y José Miguel Santamaría (eds.)

La Guerra de la Convención, la separación de Guipúzcoa y los comerciantes vasco-franceses y bearneses

[ES] El intento de separación de Guipúzcoa de la Corona española durante la Guerra de la Convención (1793-1795) es un asunto en el que se vio implicado un numeroso grupo de comerciantes vascofranceses y bearneses, residentes en San Sebastián desde hacía tiempo. Los estudiosos han explicado su impli- cación desde parámetros ideológicos y políticos. Sin embargo, existió tam- bién un componente económico y familiar, que tuvo más peso que el resto de factores. Es precisamente este componente el objeto de estudio del presente artículo.

The political econmoy of state government debt : an analysis of constitutional limitations (1961-1990)

Over the past decade, scholarly interest concerning the use of limitations to constrain government spending and taxing has noticeably increased. The call for constitutional restrictions can be credited, in part, to Washington's apparent inability to legislate any significant reductions in government expenditures or in the size of the national debt. At the present time, the federal government is far from instituting any constitutional limitations on spending or borrowing; however, the states have incorporated many controls on revenues and expenditures, the oldest being strictures on full faith and credit borrowing. This dissertations examines the efficacy of these restrictions on borrowing across the states (excluding Alaska) for the period dating from 1961 to 1990 and also studies the limitations on taxing and spending synonymous with the Tax Revolt.

We include socio-economic information in our calculations to control for factors other than the institutional variables that affect state borrowing levels. Our results show that certain constitutional restrictions (in particular, the referendum requirement and the dollar debt limit) are more effective than others. The apparent ineffectiveness of other limitations, such as the flexible debt limit, seem related to the bindingness of the limitations in at least half of the cases. Other variables, such as crime rates, number of schoolage children, and state personal income do affect the levels of full faith and credit debt, but not as strongly as the limitations. While some degree of circumvention can be detected (the amount of full faith and credit debt does inversely affect the levels of nonguaranteed debt), it is so small when compared to the effectiveness of the constitutional restrictions that it is almost negligible. The examination of the tax revolt era limitations yielded quite similar conclusions, with the additional fact that constitutional restrictions appear more binding than statutory ones. Our research demonstrates that constitutional limitations on borrowing can be applied effectively to constrain excessive borrowing, but caution must be used. The efficacy of these restrictions decrease dramatically as the number of loopholes increase.

Four essays on the empirical analysis of political ideology

This thesis examines four distinct facets and methods for understanding political ideology, and so it includes four distinct chapters with only moderate connections between them. Chapter 2 examines how reactions to emotional stimuli vary with political opinion, and how the stimuli can produce changes in an individuals political preferences. Chapter 3 examines the connection between self-reported fear and item nonresponse on surveys. Chapter 4 examines the connection between political and moral consistency with low-dimensional ideology, and Chapter 5 develops a technique for estimating ideal points and salience in a low-dimensional ideological space.

Awakening a sleeping giant: The riddle of Latino political participation

For some time now, the Latino voice has been gradually gaining strength in American politics, particularly in such states as California, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Texas, where large numbers of Latino immigrants have settled and large numbers of electoral votes are at stake. Yet the issues public officials in these states espouse and the laws they enact often do not coincide with the interests and preferences of Latinos. The fact that Latinos in California and elsewhere have not been able to influence the political agenda in a way that is commensurate with their numbers may reflect their failure to participate fully in the political process by first registering to vote and then consistently turning out on election day to cast their ballots.

To understand Latino voting behavior, I first examine Latino political participation in California during the ten general elections of the 1980s and 1990s, seeking to understand what percentage of the eligible Latino population registers to vote, with what political party they register, how many registered Latinos to go the polls on election day, and what factors might increase their participation in politics. To ensure that my findings are not unique to California, I also consider Latino voter registration and turnout in Texas for the five general elections of the 1990s and compare these results with my California findings.

I offer a new approach to studying Latino political participation in which I rely on county-level aggregate data, rather than on individual survey data, and employ the ecological inference method of generalized bounds. I calculate and compare Latino and white voting-age populations, registration rates, turnout rates, and party affiliation rates for California's fifty-eight counties. Then, in a secondary grouped logit analysis, I consider the factors that influence these Latino and white registration, turnout, and party affiliation rates.

I find that California Latinos register and turn out at substantially lower rates than do whites and that these rates are more volatile than those of whites. I find that Latino registration is motivated predominantly by age and education, with older and more educated Latinos being more likely to register. Motor voter legislation, which was passed to ease and simplify the registration process, has not encouraged Latino registration . I find that turnout among California's Latino voters is influenced primarily by issues, income, educational attainment, and the size of the Spanish-speaking communities in which they reside. Although language skills may be an obstacle to political participation for an individual, the number of Spanish-speaking households in a community does not encourage or discourage registration but may encourage turnout, suggesting that cultural and linguistic assimilation may not be the entire answer.

With regard to party identification, I find that Democrats can expect a steady Latino political identification rate between 50 and 60 percent, while Republicans attract 20 to 30 percent of Latino registrants. I find that education and income are the dominant factors in determining Latino political party identification, which appears to be no more volatile than that of the larger electorate.

Next, when I consider registration and turnout in Texas, I find that Latino registration rates are nearly equal to those of whites but that Texas Latino turnout rates are volatile and substantially lower than those of whites.

Low turnout rates among Latinos and the volatility of these rates may explain why Latinos in California and Texas have had little influence on the political agenda even though their numbers are large and increasing. Simply put, the voices of Latinos are little heard in the halls of government because they do not turn out consistently to cast their votes on election day.

While these findings suggest that there may not be any short-term or quick fixes to Latino participation, they also suggest that Latinos should be encouraged to participate more fully in the political process and that additional education may be one means of achieving this goal. Candidates should speak more directly to the issues that concern Latinos. Political parties should view Latinos as crossover voters rather than as potential converts. In other words, if Latinos were "a sleeping giant," they may now be a still-drowsy leviathan waiting to be wooed by either party's persuasive political messages and relevant issues.

Economic Efficiency, Environmental Effectiveness and Political Feasibility of Energy Efficiency Rebates: The Case of the Spanish Energy Efficiency 'Renove' Plan

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Death or taxes? The political economy of sanitation expenditure in nineteenth-century Britain

This thesis consists of three papers studying the relationship between democratic reform, expenditure on sanitation public goods and mortality in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century. During this period decisions over spending on critical public goods such as water supply and sewer systems were made by locally elected town councils, leading to extensive variation in the level of spending across the country. This dissertation uses new historical data to examine the political factors determining that variation, and the consequences for mortality rates.

The first substantive chapter describes the spread of government sanitation expenditure, and analyzes the factors that determined towns' willingness to invest. The results show the importance of towns' financial constraints, both in terms of the available tax base and access to borrowing, in limiting the level of expenditure. This suggests that greater involvement by Westminster could have been very effective in expediting sanitary investment. There is little evidence, however, that democratic reform was an important driver of greater expenditure.

Chapter 3 analyzes the effect of extending voting rights to the poor on government public goods spending. A simple model predicts that the rich and the poor will desire lower levels of public goods expenditure than the middle class, and so extensions of the right to vote to the poor will be associated with lower spending. This prediction is tested using plausibly exogenous variation in the extent of the franchise. The results strongly support the theoretical prediction: expenditure increased following relatively small extensions of the franchise, but fell once more than approximately 50% of the adult male population held the right to vote.

Chapter 4 tests whether the sanitary expenditure was effective in combating the high mortality rates following the Industrial Revolution. The results show that increases in urban expenditure on sanitation-water supply, sewer systems and streets-was extremely effective in reducing mortality from cholera and diarrhea.

Os pecados do Brasil: luteranos e inquisição séculos XVI e XVII

O tema desta pesquisa abrange a penetração e a repressão inquisitorial portuguesa à chamada heresia luterana. Antes de qualquer comentário, é necessário dizer que o termo luterano, na Época Moderna, era utilizado pelos inquisidores como termo genérico para identificar os estrangeiros protestantes. É um tema inédito e original, no âmbito das pesquisas históricas especializadas em Inquisição, com o foco direcionado para os processos inquisitoriais do Santo Ofício Lisboeta contra réus em terra brasílica. Trata-se de uma investigação a respeito da introdução e da difusão do luteranismo no Brasil colonial entre os séculos XVI e XVII. Processos da Inquisição portuguesa são as fontes primárias de maior relevância nesta tese. Além de que, há documentos administrativos e jurídicos que aprimoram a exploração da temática. O luteranismo no Brasil Colonial apresentou várias facetas: desde um luteranismo das naus, quando os portugueses expandiam-se para o além-mar e eram tomados por luteranos ingleses e franceses ao luteranismo da terra firme com seus conflitos e guerras coloniais, contando, também, com aquele tipo de luteranismo por adesão voluntária. O crime perseguido e processado pelo Tribunal da Inquisição Portuguesa no Brasil foi um luteranismo articulado com as profundas mudanças sociais, políticas e culturais da Europa Moderna e com as singularidades da sociedade colonial.

From social to political. New forms of mobilization and democratization. Conference proceedings

In the recent evolution of contemporary social movements three phases can be identified. The first phase is marked by the labour movement and the systemic importance attributed to the labour conflict in industrial societies. This conflict has been interpreted as a consequence of the shortcoming of social integration mechanisms by Emile Durkheim, as a rational conflict by entrepreneurs’ and workers’ interests by Max Wener, and as a central class struggle for the transformation of society by Karl Marx. The second phase in this development was led by the new social movements of the post-industrial society of the 1960s and 1970s’ students, women and environmentalist movements. Two new analytical perspectives have explained these movements’ meaning and actions. Resource mobilization theory (McAdam and Tilly) has focuses on rational attitudes and conflicts. Actionalist sociology, in turn, has identified the new protagonists of social conflicts that replaced the labour movement in postindustrial societies. The third phase emerges in a world characterized by the ascendance of markets, the increasingly prominent role of financial capital flows, the closure of communities, and fundamentalism. In this context, human rights and pro-democratization movements constitute alternatives to global domination and the systemic conditioning of individual and groups.

Political Institutions, Technology and Growth: a dynamic panel approach

This paper investigates whether the effect of political institutions on sectoral economic performance is determined by the level of technological development of industries. Building on previous studies on the linkages among political institutions, technology and economic growth, we employ the dynamic panel Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator for a sample of 4,134 country-industries from 61 industries and 89 countries over the 1990-2010 period. Our main findings suggest that changes of political institutions towards higher levels of democracy, political rights and civil liberties enhance economic growth in technologically developed industries. On the contrary, the same institutional changes might retard economic growth of those industries that are below a technological development threshold. Overall, these results give evidence of a technologically conditioned nature of political institutions to be growth-promoting.

A querela do declínio do simbólico: perspextivas e impasses do pensamento de Slavoj iek

Esse estudo tem por objetivo principal analisar as reflexões do filósofo e psicanalista teórico esloveno Slavoj iek acerca dos impactos subjetivos das transformações normativas ocorridas no Ocidente nos últimos cinqüenta anos. O problema do chamado declínio do Simbólico passou a ser amplamente discutido pela comunidade de psicanalistas lacanianos na qual se insere o filósofo a partir do final da década de 1990, o que constituiu uma inovação em um campo fortemente influenciado pela concepção estruturalista da subjetividade. Situando o autor como pioneiro na utilização de ferramentas conceituais lacanianas para a análise do social, o estudo divide-se em duas partes. Na primeira delas, exponho as bases teóricas do pensamento de iek, contextualizando o seu itinerário intelectual e político, e abordando as suas três linhas fundamentais de investigação: a filosofia política, a discussão sobre o ato ético e a ontologia do sujeito. Assim, o primeiro capítulo retraça o percurso que vai dos primeiros estudos sobre o funcionamento ideológico nos regimes totalitários à abordagem pop filosófica da ideologia na atualidade. Em seguida, apresento a sua redescrição da noção de comunismo à luz da tese dos novos antagonismos do capitalismo tardio. Por fim, trato da perspectiva universalista do filósofo a partir de sua leitura materialista do cristianismo, lançando mão sobretudo dos estudos de Alain Badiou sobre São Paulo. No segundo capítulo, delineamos as coordenadas centrais da concepção de sujeito em iek, cuja originalidade reside na articulação das formulações de Lacan e Hegel. As noções de grande Outro, objeto pequeno a, pulsão de morte e negatividade são tomadas como os pilares nos quais se assenta a descrição do sujeito iekiano. Na segunda parte do estudo, examinamos as teses de iek a respeito das relações entre subjetividade e cultura, com ênfase nos novos impasses que daí decorrem. As inibições que sucedem à injunção de gozar sem entraves, a melancolização do laço social, as metamorfoses da culpa, a vitimologia e a culpabilização do Outro são os tópicos centrais que sobressaem desse recorte. Nessa parte do trabalho, as reflexões de iek são cotejadas com as análises de autores de orientação lacaniana, considerados representativos desse tipo de discussão, como Jean-Pierre Lebrun, Charles Melman, Dany-Robert Dufour e Roland Chemama. Pretende-se com isso enriquecer a discussão, apontando as aproximações e distâncias que o pensamento de iek entretém com os referidos autores. O capítulo final do trabalho é consagrado ao exame crítico da démarche iekiana acerca do declínio do Simbólico. Dois tópicos de seu discurso são analisados, a saber: a) seu posicionamento ambivalente no que tange à crítica do catastrofismo; b) seu esforço de expurgar da noção de ato ético na qual ele quer encontrar saídas para os embaraços engendrados pelo dito declínio do Simbólico qualquer traço de pertencimento à tradição moral judaico-cristã, guardando dessa tradição apenas o exemplo do aspecto formal do ato. Para empreender tal exame, nos servimos, de um lado, do estudo crítico do sociólogo francês Alain Ehrenberg sobre a declinologia noção por ele cunhada para se referir ao conjunto de estudos que enfatizam o atual risco da dissolução dos laços sociais , e de outro lado, nos apoiamos na concepção de ética do filósofo neo-pragmatista Richard Rorty.