Institucionalidad y control territorial en Colombia. Una aproximación al Urabá antioqueño desde la teoría de la cooptación del estado (1997-2007)

El interés de esta monografía es evaluar la relación entre el orden institucional del Estado colombiano y las lógicas del control territorial de los paramilitares sobre el Urabá antioqueño durante el periodo 1997-2007. Se analiza y explica cómo los grupos paramilitares aprovecharon el contexto de debilidad institucional del Urabá antioqueño para consolidar estructuras paraestatales que instrumentalizaron y cooptaron la institucionalidad del Estado con la pretensión de reproducir las condiciones necesarias para su sostenimiento. Así como las consecuencias sobre la Institucionalidad regional a causa de la consolidación de un control político de corte autoritario y clientelista, la obstaculización de la afirmación del monopolio de la violencia estatal, y la protección de un modelo económico particular sustentado en la violencia. Para ello, como parámetros generales se siguen las funciones estatales descritas por Charles Tilly, la descripción de los estados entre estados de Kinsgton y Spears y la teoría de la cooptación del Estado de Jorge Garay.

La Organización Internacional de la Francofonía como mecanismo de inserción internacional de la Provincia de Quebec durante el gobierno de Jean Charest (2003- 2012)

La dinámica actual de las relaciones internacionales hace cada vez más necesario el análisis de los gobiernos subnacionales, los cuales paulatinamente han influido en determinadas temáticas que afectan sus intereses. Ejemplo de esto es la provincia de Quebec, que tiene como uno de sus objetivos de política exterior el fortalecimiento de su capacidad de acción e influencia en los principales escenarios internacionales. El presente artículo analiza la manera en que la provincia, durante el gobierno del primer ministro, Jean Charest, desarrolló este objetivo principalmente a través de la Organización Internacional de la Francofonía. Para ello, la investigación se sirvió de los conceptos de paradiplomacia y de actores Mixtos propuestos por Ivo D. Duchacek y Mónica Salomón respectivamente. Este enfoque permitió concluir que, si bien la Francofonía le permitió fortalecer su capacidad de acción e influencia en determinadas regiones, Quebec tiene la posibilidad de configurarse como un actor influyente en nuevos escenarios de toma de decisiones como América Latina.

The need for dialogue between the vocational psychological and organisational perspectives on career

As editors of the recently published Vocational psychological and organisational perspectives on career: Towards a multidisciplinary dialogue (Collin & Patton, 2009), we have considerable interest in this particular issue of the Australian Journal of Career Development. This short piece will first present the purpose and thesis of that book and, in the light of them, will then comment on the four papers. The book suggests that to understand the multidimensional and multilayered nature of career, “it has to be studied in a similarly multilayered and multi-perspectival way, and, indeed, it has been” (p. 3). Scholars have pointed out that there is a wide array of disciplines including economics, sociology, anthropology, geography, political science, various branches of psychology (e.g. industrial/organisational (I/O), vocational, counselling), psychiatry, education, organisation studies, organisational behaviour, personnel/human resource management, industrial relations, and more, all of which have something to say about career. Of these, the most influential, according to Peiperl and Arthur (2000), have been psychology, sociology, education and management. These many disciplinary perspectives on career constitute the rich field of career studies.

Gender and the Australian parliament

This dissertation by publication which focuses on gender and the Australian federal parliament has resulted in the submission of three refereed journal articles. Data for the study were obtained from 30 semi-structured interviews undertaken in 2006 with fifteen (15) male and fifteen (15) female members of the Australian parliament. The first of the articles is methodological and has been accepted for publication in the Australian Journal of Political Science. The paper argues that feminist political science is guided by five important principles. These are placing gender at the centre of the research, giving emphasis to women’s voice, challenging the public/private divide, using research to transform society and taking a reflexive approach to positionality. It is the latter principle, that of the importance of taking a reflexive approach to research which I explore in the paper. Through drawing on my own experiences as a member of the House of Representatives (Forde 1987-1996) I reflexively investigate the intersections between my background and my identity as a researcher. The second of the articles views the data through the lens of Acker’s (1990) notion of the ‘gendered organization’ which posits that there are four dimensions by which organizations are gendered. These are via the division of labour, through symbols, images and ideologies, by workplace interactions and through the gendered components of individual identity. In this paper which has been submitted to the British Journal of Political Science, each of Acker’s (1990) dimensions is examined in terms of the data from interviews with male and female politicians. The central question investigated is thus to what extent does the Australian parliament conform to Acker’s (1990) concept of the ‘gendered organization’? The third of the papers focuses specifically on data from interviews with the 15 male politicians and investigates how they view gender equality and the Australian parliament. The article, which has been submitted to the European Journal of Political Science asks to what extent contemporary male politicians view the Australian parliament as gendered? Discourse analysis that is ‘ways of viewing’ (Bacchi, 1999, p. 40) is used as an approach to analyse the data. Three discursive frameworks by which male politicians view gender in the Australian parliament are identified. These are: that the parliament is gendered as masculine but this is unavoidable; that the parliament is gendered as feminine and women are actually advantaged; and that the parliament is gender neutral and gender is irrelevant. It is argued that collectively these framing devices operate to mask the many constraints which exist to marginalise women from political participation and undermine attempts to address women’s political disadvantage as political participants. The article concludes by highlighting the significance of the paper beyond the Australian context and calling for further research which names and critiques political men and their discourses on gender and parliamentary practices and processes.

Produtzung : Von medialer zu politischer Partizipation

Wahrscheinlich war es ja nur ein Versuch einer alteingesessenen Institution der Massenmedien, sich bei „den Leuten, die man früher ‚das Publikum‘ nannte“ („the people formerly known as the audience“; Rosen, 2006, n.pag.) wieder einzuschmeicheln. Dennoch, die Anerkennung des kollektiven „You“ in YouTube und anderen kollaborativen Onlineplattformen als Person des Jahres durch das amerikanische Magazin Time (Grossman, 2007) liefert ein weiteres Indiz für die wachsende Bedeutung solcher Projekte zur gemeinschaftlichen Produktion und Distribution von Inhalten. Kreative Websites wie Flickr und YouTube, kollaborative Wissenssammlungen von Wikipedia über Digg bis zu Google Earth, nutzergesteuerte Diskussionen in Slashdot, OhmyNews, und der allgemeinen Blogosphäre, aber auch die Softwareentwicklungsgemeinschaften im Open‐Source‐Bereich – sie alle dienen als Beispiele für diese nun etablierten Trend zur Entwicklung neuer Produktions‐, Geschäfts‐, Gemeinschafts‐ und Selbstlenkungsmodelle, die wesentlich durch zunehmend komplexere Web‐2.0‐Tools unterstützt werden. Hinter diesen Beispielen wird eine allgemeiner Tendenz sichtbar, die aus ökonomischer Sicht bereits von Yochai Benkler als „commons‐based peer production“ (2006), und von Eric von Hippel als „democratizing innovation" (2005) beschrieben worden ist. Henry Jenkins spricht zudem von einer „convergence culture“ (2006), in der solche nutzergesteuerten Projekte operieren, und es können auch Verbindungen zwischen diesen stärker aktive gewordenen Nutzern und Alvin Tofflers professionellen Konsumenten, den „Prosumers“ ziehen (1971).