Children of the revolution: fathers and sons in antifascist DEFA films

The article looks at three antifascist films from the 1980s by the East German film company DEFA: Jürgen Brauer's Pugowitza (1981), Egon Schlegel's Die Schüsse der Arche Noah (1983), and Helmut Dziuba's Jan auf der Zille (1986), which during this final decade of the East German state re-examine an ideologically seminal constellation of the GDR's official antifascism – the relationship between antifascist father and son. Linking generational and political succession, the father-son relationship helped to legitimise the GDR as a state in which the young continued the antifascist fight of the old communists against the Nazi dictatorship. From the 1950s on, DEFA films contributed to the visualisation of this relationship, codifying it not only as heroic but also as ‘natural’: the assumed innocence of the communist son was meant to naturalise the father's antifascist/communist cause. The 1980s saw this naturalised political succession questioned. By re-telling the canonised father-son story, the three films visualise the generational antifascist contract as flawed. Re-deploying the son's assumed innocence in a critique of the father, they explore new endings to the antifascist story and revive the discussion of categories like ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’.// Der Aufsatz untersucht drei antifaschistische Filme der ostdeutschen Filmgesellschaft DEFA aus den 1980er Jahren: Jürgen Brauers Pugowitza (1981), Egon Schlegels Die Schüsse der Arche Noah (1983) und Helmut Dziubas Jan auf der Zille (1986). Alle drei Filme wurden im letzten Jahrzehnt der DDR gedreht und greifen eine ideologisch tragende Konstellation des offiziellen DDR-Antifaschismus auf – die Beziehung zwischen antifaschistischem Vater und Sohn. In der Vater-Sohn-Beziehung verband sich Generationenabfolge mit politischer Nachkommenschaft, eine Verbindung, die half, die DDR als einen Staat zu legitimieren, in dem die Jungen den antifaschistischen Kampf der alten Kommunisten gegen die Nazi-Diktatur weiterführten. Seit den 1950er Jahren beteiligte sich die DEFA an der Visuali-sierung dieser Beziehung und kodifizierte sie nicht nur als heldenhaft, sondern auch als ‘natürlich’: die behauptete Unschuld der kommunistschen Söhne diente dazu, den antifaschistisch-kommunistischen Kampf der Väter zu naturalisieren. Die solcher Art politisch interpretierte Generationenabfolge verlor ihre Natürlichkeit, als sie in den 1980er Jahren kritisch befragt wurde. Im nochmaligen Erzählen der kanonisierten Vater-Sohn-Geschichte wird die Brüchigkeit des antifaschistischen Gesellschaftsvertrags in allen drei Filmen sichtbar. Die vermeintliche Unschuld der Söhne wird nun zu einer Kritik der Väter genutzt, wobei die Filme ein neues Ende für die antifaschistische Geschichte erkunden und die Debatte über Kategorien wie ‘Opfer’ und ‘Täter’ wieder aufnehmen.

Housing Policies in Latin America: overview of the four largest economies

The aim of this paper is to examine the differences and similarities in housing policies in the four Latin American countries of Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia. The article uses the welfare regime approach, modified by a recognition of path dependence, to identify a number of phases that each country has passed through. However, attention is drawn to the substantial differences in the circumstances in each country and the extent and duration of the different phases. It is concluded that it can be beneficial to use the concept of a Latin American housing regime, but that this general picture has to be used with an understanding of the path dependence caused by the different context in the individual countries.

The Schwarmgeister: The Development of Ecclesiastical Doctrine Through Schismatic Movements

Throughout the Christian story, Church doctrine and ecclesiology have been shrouded in controversy. From the Council of Nicea in 325, when are early Church fathers debated about the Trinity of Christ all the way to the modern day with Vatican II theological controversies have been important in the molding of Christian doctrine on the structure, role, and function of the Church. What makes those controversies different from the ones I treat in my thesis is that the previously mentioned controversies did not lead to schismatic divisions in the Church. The Donatist controversy and Luther's theological battle with Karlstadt were major movements that endangered the unity of the Church. These controversies propagated crucial writings and teachings in two major areas. The first area is the spiritual power and validity of the sacraments. Second is the role, function, and ecclesiology of the Church, with particular attention to the authority of the ministry. I want to demonstrate that these controversies refined the Church's thinking on sacramental issues such as baptism and Eucharist, as well as address the question of who has the power in the Church? And to what extent do they have the power to press reforms?

Past and future of the bankruptcy law in Brazil and Latin America

This paper studies the Bankruptcy Law in Latin America, focusing on the Brazilian reform. We start with a review of the international literature and its evolution on this subject. Next, we examine the economic incentives associated with several aspects of bankruptcy laws and insolvency procedures in general, as well as the trade-offs involved. After this theoretical discussion, we evaluate empirically the current stage of the quality of insolvency procedures in Latin America using data from Doing Business and World Development Indicators, both from World Bank and International Financial Statistics from IMF. We find that the region is governed by an inefficient law, even when compared with regions of lower per capita income. As theoretical and econometric models predict, this inefficiency has severe consequences for credit markets and the cost of capital. Next, we focus on the recent Brazilian bankruptcy reform, analyzing its main changes and possible effects over the economic environment. The appendix describes difficulties of this process of reform in Brazil, and what other Latin American countries can possibly learn from it.

The evolution of TFP in Latin America

Due to widespread government intervention and import-substitution industrialization, there has been a general perception that Latin America has always been less productive than the leading economies. In this paper, however, we show that until the mid-seventies Latin America had high productivity levels relative to the US and other regions. Moreover, total factor productivity in Latin America increased relative to the US during this period, declining only in the subsequent years.

Evaluation of contagion or interdependence in the financial crises of Asia and Latin America, considering the macroeconomic fundamentals

This article investigates the existence of contagion between countries on the basis of an analysis of returns for stock indices over the period 1994-2003. The economic methodology used is that of multivariate GARCH family volatility models, particularly the DCC models in the form proposed by Engle and Sheppard (2001). The returns were duly corrected for a series of country-specific fundamentals. The relevance of this procedure is highlighted in the literature by the work of Pesaran and Pick (2003). The results obtained in this paper provide evidence favourable to the hypothesis of regional contagion in both Latin America and Asia. As a rule, contagion spread from the Asian crisis to Latin America but not in the opposite direction

The evolution of TFP in Latin America: high productivity when distortions were high?

Due to widespread government intervention and import-substitution industrialization, there has been a general presumption that Latin America has been much less productive than the leading economies in the last decades. In this paper, however, we show that until the late seventies Latin America had high total factor productivity (TFP) levels relative to the US and other regions. It is only after the late seventies that we observe a fast decrease of relative TFP in Latin America. Results are robust to the use of diferent methodologies and data sources.