La participación popular en la independencia de Nueva Granada según la historiografía reciente: un balance (Estudios)

El ensayo analiza la visión que la historiografía tradicional ha consolidado sobre la participación popular en la Independencia de Colombia y explora los temas que la más reciente historiografía sobre este período ha cuestionado y renovado. Entre dichos temas se encuentran: las guerras de independencia como expresión de conflictos preexistentes, la reducción de los términos del enfrentamiento únicamente a los bandos republicano y realista, el recurso al pueblo como mecanismo de presión y legitimidad, la reelaboración del discurso republicano entre los sectores populares, y la movilización indígena antirrepublicana. El artículo concluye presentando algunas propuestas que enriquecerían la comprensión de la política popular desplegada a lo largo de las guerras de independencia.

Comentario Internacional: revista del Centro Andino de Estudios Internacionales. 4 (Reseñas)

Presenta las reseñas de los siguientes libros: MONTÚFAR, CÉSAR. HACIA UNA TEORÍA DE LA ASISTENCIA INTERNACIONAL PARA EL DESARROLLO. UN ANÁLISIS DESDE SU RETÓRICA, CENTRO ANDINO DE ESTUDIOS INTERNACIONALES, UNIVERSIDAD ANDINA SIMÓN BOLÍVAR, SEDE ECUADOR/CORPORACIÓN EDITORA NACIONAL, QUITO, 2002, 264 PP. -- INTEGRACIÓN y SUPRANACIONALIDAD. SOBERANÍA y DERECHO COMUNITARIO EN LOS PAÍSES ANDINOS, SECRETARÍA GENERAL DE LA COMUNIDAD ANDINA y PROGRAMA DE COOPERACIÓN ANDINA A BOLIVIA, PCAB, LIMA, 2001, 234 PP. -- MARIO GUERRERO MURGUEYTIO, EL ECUADOR EN LA CUENCA DEL PACÍFICO: POLÍTICA y PRESENCIA, MINISTERIO DE RELACIONES EXTERIORES DE LA REPÚBLICA DEL ECUADOR, QUITO, 2001, 401 PP. -- KLARE, MICHAEL T., RESOURCE WARS: THE NEW LANDSCAPE OF GLOBAL CONFLICT, METROPOLITAN OWL BOOK. HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY, N.Y., 2002, 289 PP.

Historia de la cooperación monetaria y financiera internacional y su importancia en el desarrollo del mercado financiero internacional (Tema Central)

La historia de la cooperación monetaria y financiera internacional da cuenta de la forma en que el sistema monetario influyó en el mercado financiero internacional. En las páginas que siguen se podrá observar cómo los países intentaron su equilibrio interno y externo, a través de sus diversos mecanismos monetarios internacionales. El período patrón oro (1870-1914), merece atención, porque las tentativas subsiguientes de reformar el sistema monetario internacional, sobre la base de tipos de cambio fijos, se la construyó sobre la fortaleza del patrón oro. Los años de entreguerras (1918-1939) fueron marcados por la tendencia en la impresión desbocada de billetes, lo que trajo altos niveles de inflación. El Acuerdo Bretton Woods (1945-1973), que crea el Fondo Monetario Internacional, fue el resultado de la enorme preocupación de los gobiernos de cuarenta y cuatro países, por los acontecimientos económicos desastrosos en el período de entreguerras.

Moving the EU from a Laggard to a Leader in Democracy Assistance: The Potential Role of the European Endowment for Democracy. CEPS Policy Brief No. 273, 15 June 2012

In their assessment of the proposed European Endowment for Democracy (EED), Hrant Kostanyan and Magdalena Nasieniak conclude that an instrument along the lines currently envisaged could and should take on the challenge to make the EU a truly committed, pro-active and effective leader of democracy assistance. A flexible and fast-track path of assessing needs and granting funds could become the most visible results of the EU’s assistance in this area, delivering almost immediate tangible results. They argue that the EED therefore needs to become an instrument free of nationally-driven decisions, European ‘turf wars’ and cumbersome bureaucracy.

Oswald Mosley and the New Party

The book is a study of the New Party formed by Sir Oswald Mosley in 1931 following his leaving the Labour Party and prior to his forming the British Union of Fascists. It examines Mosley's transition from socialism to fascism within the wider context of British politics between the wars.

Orde Wingate, 'Guerrilla' Warfare and Long-Range Penetration, 1940-44

Major General Orde Wingate was a highly controversial figure in his time and remains so among historians. However, his eccentric and colourful personality has drawn attention away from the nature of his military ideas, the most important of which was his concept of long-range penetration, which originated from his observations of his operations in Italian-occupied Ethiopia in 1941, and evolved into the model he put into practice in the Chindit operations in Burma in 1943-44. A review of Wingate's own official writings on this subject reveals that long-range penetration combined local guerrilla irregulars, purpose-trained regular troops and airpower into large-scale offensive operations deep in the enemy rear, with the intention of disrupting his planning process and creating situations regular forces could exploit. This evolved organically from Major General Colin Gubbins' doctrine for guerrilla resistance in enemy occupied areas, and bears some resemblance to the operational model applied by US and Allied forces, post September 2001.

A 'Kimberley protest': diamond mining, export sanctions, and poverty in Awatia, Ghana

The temporary suspension of diamond exports in Ghana in 2006 and 2007 is arguably the most significant move to address mounting criticisms of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), an international initiative aimed at stemming the flow of rough diamonds used to finance wars. The ban, which took effect in November 2006, was much praised, particularly in civil society circles, where it continues to be seen as a genuine effort to prevent the smuggling of ‘conflict diamonds’. At the time, Ghana was accused of harbouring stones originating from rebel-held territories in neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire. No evidence was found in support of the case that it was a repository for ‘conflict diamonds’, however, and exports resumed early in March 2007. This article examines the context for the accusations of Ghana’s implication in the smuggling of illicit diamonds, and draws on recent fieldwork to explain how the suspension has affected Akwatia, the country’s main diamondiferous area. The actions taken raise important questions about how suspected violators – particularly smaller diamond-producing nations – of the KPCS should be handled, and underscore how global compacts can have a host of negative repercussions at the village level.

The evolution of strategy: thinking war from antiquity to the present

Latin had no word for "strategy", but the East Romans, whom we call the Byzantines, did. This book tracks the evolution of the concept of warfare being subjected to higher political aims from Antiquity to the Present, using Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, English and German sources. It tracks the rise, fall, and resurrection of the belief in the Roman and later the medieval and early modern world that warfare was only legitimate if it pursued the higher goal of a just peace, which in the 19th century gave way to a blinkered concentration on military victory as only war aim. It explains why one school of thought, from Antiquity to the present, emphasised eternal principles of warfare, while others emphasised, in Clausewitz's term, the "changing character of war". It tracks ideas from land warfare to naval warfare to air power and nuclear thinking, but it also stresses great leaps and discontinuities in thinking about strategy. It covers asymmetric wars both from the point of view of the weaker power seeking to overthrow a stronger power, and from the stronger power dealing with insurgents and other numerically inferior forces. It concludes with a commentary of the long-known problems of bureaucratic politics, non-centralised command and inter-service rivalry, which since the 16th century or earlier has created obstacles to coherent strategy making.

Reading Derrida on mathematics

This article engages with the claims of Anne Brubaker that “[n]ow that the dust has settled after the so-called ‘Science Wars’ […] it is an opportune time to reassess the ways in which poststructural theory both argues persuasively for mathematics as a culturally embedded practice – a method as opposed to a metaphysics – and, at the same time, reinscribes realist notions of mathematics as a noise-free description of a mind independent reality.” Through a close re-reading of Jacques Derrida’s work I argue, in alliance with Vicki Kirby’s critique of the work of Brian Rotman, not only that Brubaker misunderstands Derrida’s “writing” but also that her argument constitutes a typical instance of much wider misreadings of Derrida and “poststructuralism” across a range of disciplines in terms of the ways in which her text re-institutes the very stabilities it itself attributes to Derrida’s texts.

Last charge of the knights? Iraq, Afghanistan and the special relationship

At the heart of the ‘special relationship’ ideology, there is supposed to be a grand bargain. In exchange for paying the ‘blood price’ as America's ally, Britain will be rewarded with exceptional influence over American foreign policy and its strategic behaviour. Soldiers and statesman continue to articulate this idea. Since 9/11, the notion of Britain playing ‘Greece’ to America's ‘Rome’ gained new life thanks to Anglophiles on both sides of the Atlantic. One potent version of this ideology was that the more seasoned British would teach Americans how to fight ‘small wars’ in Iraq and Afghanistan, thereby bolstering their role as tutor to the superpower. Britain does derive benefits from the Anglo-American alliance and has made momentous contributions to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet British solidarity and sacrifices have not purchased special influence in Washington. This is partly due to Atlanticist ideology, which sets Britain unrealistic standards by which it is judged, and partly because the notion of ‘special influence’ is misleading as it loses sight of the complexities of American policy-making. The overall result of expeditionary wars has been to strain British credibility in American eyes and to display its lack of consistent influence both over high policy and the design and execution of US military campaigns. While there may be good arguments in favour of the UK continuing its efforts in Afghanistan, the notion that the war fortifies Britain's vicarious world status is a dangerous illusion that leads to repeated overstretch and disappointment. Now that Britain is in the foothills of a strategic defence review, it is important that the British abandon this false consciousness.