An assessment of fiscal and regulatory barriers to deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies in Curaçao

The current energy systems within Curaçao depend primarily on high cost, imported fossil fuels, and typically constitute power sectors that are characterized by small, inefficient generation plants which result in high energy prices. As a consequence of its dependence on external fuel supplies, Curaçao is extremely vulnerable to international oil price shocks, which can impact on economic planning and foreign direct investment within their industrial sectors. The ability of the successive governments to source capital for economic stimulation and social investment is therefore significantly challenging. Additionally, there is over-dependence on two of the most climate-sensitive economic sectors, namely the tourism and fisheries sectors, but the vulnerabilities of the country to the effects of climate change make adaptation difficult and costly. It is within this context that this report focuses on identification of the fiscal and regulatory barriers to implementation of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies in Curaçao with a view of making recommendations for removal of these barriers. Consultations with key Government officials, the private sector as well as civil society were conducted to obtain information and data on the energy sector in the country. Desktop research was also conducted to supplement the information gathered from the consultations. The major result of the assessment is that Curaçao is at an early stage in the definition of its energy sector. Despite some infrastructural legacies of the pre-independence era, as well as a number of recent developments including the modernization and expansion of its windfarms and completion of a modern Electricity Policy, there are still a number of important institutional and policy gaps within the energy sector in Curaçao. The most significant deficiency is the absence of a ministry or Government agency with portfolio responsibility for the energy sector as a whole; this has: limited the degree to which the activities of energy sector stakeholders are coordinated and retarded the development and implementation of a comprehensive national energy policy. The absence of an energy policy, which provides the framework for energy planning, increases investor risk. Also, the lack of political continuity that has emanated from the frequent changes in Government administrations is a concern among stakeholders and has served to reduce investor confidence in particular, and market confidence in general.

Trabalho flexível e capital social: um estudo de caso sobre a ação dos agentes comunitários de saúde em Araraquara

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Comunidad, conectividad y movimiento regional en la Patagonia: evolución del capital social en la Región de Aysén, Chile

Las pequeñas comunidades rurales de la Región de Aysén, Chile, evidencian una variedad de formas y tipos de capital social. La forma específica de capital social que predomina ha evolucionado según cambios en el contexto nacional y la progresiva integración comunicacional. Tras haber sido ejemplo de cooperación comunitaria, las comunidades rurales enfrentaron el desafío de relacionarse con actores sociales de mayor poder, en el escenario ampliado de la sociedad civil regional. En muchos casos, este cambio conllevó una menor autonomía y la captura de facciones comunitarias en cadenas de clientelismo. Sin embargo, en 2012 emergió el movimiento “Tu problema es mi problema” para enfrentar la marginación percibida en sus relaciones asimétricas con el gobierno central. Este evento masivo de desobediencia civil se basó en tres formas de capital social y marcó la emergencia de una ciudadanía de alcance regional, cumpliendo una de las condiciones para una descentralización plenamente democrática.

Parques urbanos de Fortaleza-CE: espaço vivido e qualidade de vida

Pós-graduação em Geografia - IGCE

A participação dos movimentos sociais urbanos na produção do espaço de João Pessoa-PB

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

A sociologia econômica e os dilemas do sistema do capital

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

A sociabilidade do capital e o gerenciamento da questao social: o projeto ético-político profissional no cotidiano do assistente social

Pós-graduação em Serviço Social - FCHS

Globalização, estado-nação e organização da sociedade civil

The questions that guide this article deal with the nation-State configuration and civil society organization, as well as the contours of the relation between both in the globalization context. As a qualitative change of internationalization, globalization brings to the social sciences field the discussion about its social impacts and the problematization about extinction of State. Thus, the article is guided by the debate between determined authors that deal with the analysis about new strategies of the State action, in order to understand where national States go, seeking to adapt themselves to the new context of Capital globalization.

A agenda da regulação da comunicação social no Brasil: da constituinte aos impasses contemporâneos

The paper analyzes the regulatory framework for the Media in Brazil in the Federal Constitution and the nexus between democratization and constitutional process, interpreting relevant actors (government, political parties, civil society) and figured as the themes of communication and institutional political agenda. The obstacles to the regulation of many of the statements remain constitutional (right of communication; seal monopolies / oligopolies; regionalization of cultural production; nationalist character in control of broadcasting; compatibility between segments state, public and commercial; Social Communication Council), that replaces debate on the very principle of the right to communication regulation by analyzing the corresponding decisionmaking processes. This conflictual agenda-setting involves multiple interests, from strictly commercial aspirations of companies operating in this market, going by the increasing share of religious institutions who also want to expand upon practices of proselytizing until the interests of policy makers who also have control over a slice of that business.

Social Watch: espaço alternativo para a comunicação da sociedade civil global

The text aims to show how Social Watch alternative site contributes to the construction of world citizenship to publish proposals for non-governmental organizations (NGOs), identified with groups excluded from traditional means of mass communication. The structure of the site is analyzed and studied in depth one of its publications, the Bulletin of August 2014, using some resources from the methodology of the framing and content analysis. The analysis shows that, in fact, the site is presented as place where civil society can express themselves and collect public power projects and proposals to increase the global citizenship.

O lado escuro da capital social: implicações sociais e políticas

O artigo questiona a associação direta entre a interação em redes sociais e a produção de um tipo de capital social que traz ganhos benéficos à comunidade. O capital social pode adquirir formas e resultar em efeitos negativos sobre as relações sociais. Argumentase assim que relações fundadas em tais princípios, dependendo do tipo de vínculos entre os atores, do contexto sócio-econômico e da fragilidade das ações das instituições e do Estado, podem favorecer a emergência do lado escuro do capital social, conduzindo ao aumento do crime organizado, à perpetuação do clientelismo e da corrupção.

Participación vecinal y asociaciones de la sociedad civil en el ámbito municipal de dos comunidades agrícolas en Mendoza en los comienzos del primer peronismo

El presente trabajo estudia la participación social de vecinos y entidades durante el primer peronismo en Mendoza, enfocando sobre dos departamentos de distinto perfil económico-productivo. La hipótesis presupone que, dentro del contexto general del gobierno peronista, existieron ámbitos de participación y discusión para la defensa de intereses locales a escala municipal, más allá de la planificación y el centralismo imperante en la época (ejercido desde esferas superiores de gobierno) y del devenir del partido peronista.

Participación vecinal y asociaciones de la sociedad civil en el ámbito municipal de dos comunidades agrícolas en Mendoza en los comienzos del primer peronismo

El presente trabajo estudia la participación social de vecinos y entidades durante el primer peronismo en Mendoza, enfocando sobre dos departamentos de distinto perfil económico-productivo. La hipótesis presupone que, dentro del contexto general del gobierno peronista, existieron ámbitos de participación y discusión para la defensa de intereses locales a escala municipal, más allá de la planificación y el centralismo imperante en la época (ejercido desde esferas superiores de gobierno) y del devenir del partido peronista.

Participación vecinal y asociaciones de la sociedad civil en el ámbito municipal de dos comunidades agrícolas en Mendoza en los comienzos del primer peronismo

El presente trabajo estudia la participación social de vecinos y entidades durante el primer peronismo en Mendoza, enfocando sobre dos departamentos de distinto perfil económico-productivo. La hipótesis presupone que, dentro del contexto general del gobierno peronista, existieron ámbitos de participación y discusión para la defensa de intereses locales a escala municipal, más allá de la planificación y el centralismo imperante en la época (ejercido desde esferas superiores de gobierno) y del devenir del partido peronista.

Territory and the governmentalisation of social reproduction: parliamentary enclosure and spatial rationalities in the transition from feudalism to capitalism

Recent applications of Foucauldian categories in geography, spatial history and the history of town planning have opened up interesting new perspectives, with respect to both the evolution of spatial knowledge and the genealogy of territorial techniques and their relation to larger socio-political projects, that would be enriched if combined with other discursive traditions. This article proposes to conceptualise English parliamentary enclosureea favourite episode for Marxist historiography, frequently read in a strictly materialist fashioneas a precedent of a new form of sociospatial governmentality, a political technology that inaugurates a strategic manipulation of territory for social change on the threshold between feudal and capitalist spatial rationalities. I analyse the sociospatial dimensions of parliamentary enclosure’s technical and legal innovations and compare them to the forms of communal self-regulation of land use customs and everyday regionalisations that preceded it. Through a systematic, replicable mechanism of reterritorialisation, enclosure acts normalised spatial regulations, blurred regional differences in the social organisation of agriculture and erased the modes of autonomous social reproduction linked to common land. Their exercise of dispossession of material resources, social capital and community representations is interpreted therefore as an inaugural logic that would pervade the emergent spatial rationality later known as planning.