Trouble Ahead: The Cocaleros of Peru

Este artículo es una versión reducida del original publicado en la Revista Current History, Vol. 105, No. 688, febrero, 2006, pp. 79-86. La revista Desafíos ha decidido publicar apartes por considerarlo de interés para la discusión sobre los efectos y resultados de la política de erradicación de cultivos ilícitos en Colombia. – This article is an abbreviated reproduction of the article published in the Current History Journal, Vol. 105, Nr. 688, Februrary, 2006, pp. 79-86. Desafíos Journal decided to publish parts of it due to the consideration of its interest for the discussion on consequences and results of the eradication policy of ilegal crops in Colombia.An anti-narcotics policy that ignores the social consequences of drug crops eradication only manages to further radicalize and isolate the population in areas in which lawlessness and potential terrorist activity thrive. It also strengthens the bond between disaffected social groups and guerrilla organizations in these areas. Washington cannot continue to be blind to the fact that the three current US policies on counterterrorism, anti-narcotics, and democratization in Peru and elsewhere in Latin America, are not working in harmony. Paradoxically, the eradication of drug crops —the core of Peru’s US-sponsored anti-narcotics policy— enlarges pockets of poverty and fuels anger against the government. It also perpetuates the proverbial quagmire of alienation in which terrorism breeds. Instead of strengthening the State, drug eradication, particularly in the way it is currently carried out in the Andean countries, increases the risk of State failure.-----El efecto de una política antinarcóticos que ignora las consecuencias de la erradicación de cultivos de coca es radicalizar y aislar aún más la población en aquellas zonas donde prosperan la anarquía y el terrorismo. Además, fortalece los lazos entre los descontentos sociales y los grupos guerrilleros en esas mismas áreas. Washington no puede seguir ciega al hecho de que las tres políticas actuales de Estados Unidos —antiterrorismo, antinarcóticos y democratización en el Perú y otras regiones en América Latina— no están funcionando armónicamente. Resulta paradójico que la erradicación de cultivos de coca -eje de la política antinarcóticos peruana respaldada por Estados Unidos- ensanche las bolsas de miseria y aliente la ira contra el gobierno, además de perpetuar los proverbiales miasmas de marginación en las que se engendra el terrorismo. En vez de fortalecer al Estado, la erradicación de cultivos de coca, tal y como se está llevando a cabo en los países andinos, incrementa las posibilidades de su fracaso.

Natural resource windfalls and efficiency of local government expenditures: evidence from Peru

We study the role of natural resource windfalls in explaining the efficiency of public expenditures. Using a rich dataset of expenditures and public good provision for 1,836 municipalities in Peru for period 2001-2010, we estimate a non-monotonic relationship between the efficiency of public good provision and the level of natural resource transfers. Local governments that were extremely favored by the boom of mineral prices were more efficient in using fiscal windfalls whereas those benefited with modest transfers were more inefficient. These results can be explained by the increase in political competition associated with the boom. However, the fact that increases in efficiency were related to reductions in public good provision casts doubts about the beneficial effects of political competition in promoting efficiency.

El sistema escolar al municipi peruà d’Ancón

Resumen tomado de la publicación

Spatial and temporal scale issues in determining biomass burning regimes in Bolivia and Peru

ATSR-2 active fire data from 1996 to 2000, TRMM VIRS fire counts from 1998 to 2000 and burn scars derived from SPOT VEGETATION ( the Global Burnt Area 2000 product) were mapped for Peru and Bolivia to analyse the spatial distribution of burning and its intra- and inter-annual variability. The fire season in the region mainly occurs between May and October; though some variation was found between the six broad habitat types analysed: desert, grassland, savanna, dry forest, moist forest and yungas (the forested valleys on the eastern slope of the Andes). Increased levels of burning were generally recorded in ATSR-2 and TRMM VIRS fire data in response to the 1997/1998 El Nino, but in some areas the El Nino effect was masked by the more marked influences of socio-economic change on land use and land cover. There were differences between the three global datasets: ATSR-2 under-recorded fires in ecosystems with low net primary productivities. This was because fires are set during the day in this region and, when fuel loads are low, burn out before the ATSR-2 overpass in the region which is between 02.45 h and 03.30 h. TRMM VIRS was able to detect these fires because its overpasses cover the entire diurnal range on a monthly basis. The GBA2000 product has significant errors of commission (particularly areas of shadow in the well-dissected eastern Andes) and omission (in the agricultural zone around Santa Cruz, Bolivia and in north-west Peru). Particular attention was paid to biomass burning in high-altitude grasslands, where fire is an important pastoral management technique. Fires and burn scars from Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM) data for a range of years between 1987 and 2000 were mapped for areas around Parque Nacional Rio Abiseo (Peru) and Parque Nacional Carrasco (Bolivia). Burn scars mapped in the grasslands of these two areas indicate far more burning had taken place than either the fires or the burn scars derived from global datasets. Mean scar sizes are smaller and have a smaller range in size between years the in the study area in Peru (6.6-7.1 ha) than Bolivia (16.9-162.5 ha). Trends in biomass burning in the two highland areas can be explained in terms of the changing socio-economic environments and impacts of conservation. The mismatch between the spatial scale of biomass burning in the high-altitude grasslands and the sensors used to derive global fire products means that an entire component of the fire regime in the region studied is omitted, despite its importance in the farming systems on the Andes.

Restructuring and rescaling water governance in mining contexts: the co-production of waterscapes in Peru

The governance of water resources is prominent in both water policy agendas and academic scholarship. Political ecologists have made important advances in reconceptualising the relationship between water and society. Yet, while they have stressed both the scalar dimensions, and the politicised nature, of water governance, analyses of its scalar politics are relatively nascent. In this paper, we consider how the increased demand for water resources by the growing mining industry in Peru reconfigures and rescales water governance. In Peru, the mining industry’s thirst for water draws in, and reshapes, social relations, technologies, institutions and discourses that operate over varying spatial and temporal scales. We develop the concept of waterscape to examine these multiple ways in water is co-produced through mining, and become embedded in changing modes and structures of water governance, often beyond the watershed scale. We argue that an examination of waterscapes avoids the limitations of thinking about water in purely material terms, structuring analysis of water issues according to traditional spatial scales and institutional hierarchies, and taking these scales and structures for granted.

Energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis of a pre-Columbian funerary gold mask from the Museum of Sican, Peru

A funerary gold mask from the Museum of Sican, Ferranafe, Peru was analyzed in 30 different areas using a portable equipment using energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence. It was deduced from the measurements that the main sheet of the mask and the majority of the pendants have a similar composition and are made of tumbaga, which means a poor gold alloy enriched at the surface by depletion gilding, and have a similar `equivalent` gilding thickness of about 5 mu m. The nose, also on tumbaga, has different composition and a thickness of about 8 mu m. The clamps are on gilded or on silvered copper. The red pigment dispersed on the surface of the mask is cinnabar. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Marketing de relacionamento em redes interorganizacionais: estudo de uma rede de produtores de pisco da região de Ica – Peru

Dissertação de mestrado apresentada ao Programa de Pós-Graduação em Administração da USCS - Universidade Municipal de São Caetano do Sul

O processo de objetivação, constituição e desdobramento da ontologia dos afetos no Peru : 1530-1630

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Regime político e participação do legislativo na determinação da taxa de câmbio de países que conviveram com elevada inflação e persistentes déficits em transações correntes: os casos de Argentina, Bolívia, Brasil, México e Peru entre 1970 e 1989

O objetivo deste artigo é verificar a influência de variáveis políticas na determinação da taxa de câmbio em quatro países latino-americanos que conviveram com elevada inflação e déficit em Transações Correntes nas décadas de setenta e oitenta. Estudos empíricos já haviam demonstrado a influência das eleições. Nenhum, porém, havia incorporado a estrutura de decisão do Executivo e Legislativo neste processo. Só foi possível incorporar o regime político (Autoritário/Democrático) e a divisão de poder no Legislativo de todos os países num modelo standard de taxa de câmbio porque utilizamos a técnica de painel. Obtivemos os seguintes resultados: países classificados como Autoritários apresentaram uma taxa de câmbio mais valorizada e Legislativos mais fragmentados apresentaram uma taxa de câmbio mais desvalorizada. Vimos este último resultado com desconfiança uma vez que, entre os países da amostra, o regime Autoritário era, em alguns casos, uma ditadura militar e o Legislativo pouco intervia nas decisões. Interagimos o regime político com fragmentação e percebemos que o efeito da classificação do regime predomina. No caso, se existir um regime Autoritário, o câmbio resultante da interação ainda será valorizado. A divisão de poder no Legislativo apenas provoca uma redução no impacto da valorização.