Parliamentary sovereignty, popular sovereignty, and Henry Parker's adjudicative standpoint

Discussions of popular sovereignty in early modern England have usually been premised upon a sharp distinction between ‘legal/constitutional’ forms of discourse (which merely interpret the law) and ‘political’ ones (which focus upon the right to make it). In such readings of the period, Henry Parker has a pivotal position as a writer who abandoned merely legalistic thinking. This chapter takes a different view. It argues that Parker’s major intellectual achievement was not so much to abandon legal/constitutional discourse as to offer a theorisation of its most distinctive features: he offered an account of a new kind of politics in which concern for ‘interests’ in property and in self-preservation replaced humanist concern with promotion of virtue. Parker drew upon ideas about representation best expressed by Sir Thomas Smith and ideas about law best expressed by Oliver St John. The theory he developed was not intended as a justification of legislative sovereignty, but of adjudicative supremacy. His picture of the two Houses as supreme adjudicators was meant to block the path to direct democracy. But the adjudicative standpoint they came to occupy presupposed that freeborn adults had ‘interests’ in life, liberty, and possessions. This had democratising implications.

Democratic Deficit in the EU : Towards Parliamentary Democracy?!

Nowadays, the western societies are based on parliamentary democracy. Therefore, weak legislative power of the European Parliament is alleged for the democratic deficit in the EU. How it can be possible that the parliamentary democracy which is practiced on the national level can be achieved beyond the nation-states without diminishing the democracy at the nation-states? If not, how legitimacy can be obtained so that the continued existence and expansion of the EU should be justified? Since expectations for democratization of the EU are still unmet, finding answers to the actual questions is a great appeal. The thesis will explore the fundamental debates and arguments contributing to the democracy in the EU through the parliaments. I will try to reflect to the different ways of thinking and the prospects of establishing parliamentary democracy beyond the nation states.

The Taylor rule under inquiry: Hidden states

This work empirically evaluates the Taylor rule for the US and Brazil using Markov-Switching Regimes. I find that the inflation parameter of the US Taylor rule is less than one in many periods, contrasting heavily with Clarida, Gal´ı and Gertler (2000), and the same happens with Brazilian data. When the inflation parameter is greater than one, it encompasses periods that these authors considered they should be less than one. Brazil is used for comparative purposes because it experienced a high level inflation until 1994 and then a major stabilization plan reduced the growth in prices to civilized levels. Thus, it is a natural laboratory to test theories designed to work in any environment. The findings point to a theoretical gap that deserves further investigation and show that monetary policy in Brazil has been ineffective, which is coherent with the general attitude of population in relation to this measure.

Os movimentos sociais de junho de 2013 e a Câmara Municipal do Rio de Janeiro

A pesquisa tem como objetivo avaliar a relação dos movimentos sociais de junho de 2013 com a Câmara Municipal do Rio de Janeiro, quando da ruptura dos diálogos e a ocupação desta em dois momentos distintos: a discussão e votação do plano de cargos, carreiras e salários dos professores da rede pública municipal, e a composição e instalação da Comissão Parlamentar de Inquérito dos ônibus. Para tanto, foram criadas 5 categorias de análise: 1. Política e Participação; 2. Manifestações, Mobilizações e Movimentos; 3. Ocupa Câmara; 4. CPI dos Ônibus e Plano de Cargos e Salários dos Professores; 5. Diálogos. O trabalho também apresenta recomendações que visam a elaboração de um plano de trabalho para o exercício de mandato parlamentar que aperfeiçoe os mecanismos de participação, transparência, democracia direta e interativa na Câmara Municipal do Rio de Janeiro e, desta forma, conecte.

A argumentação como elemento discursivo na mídia digital: um estudo sobre o blog fatos e dados

This thesis studies the use of argumentation as a discursive element in digital media, particularly blogs. We analyzed the Blog "Fatos e Dados" [Facts and Data], created by Petrobras in the context of allegations of corruption that culminated in the installation of a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry to investigate the company within the Congress. We intend to understand the influence that the discursive elements triggered by argumentation exercise in blogs and about themes scheduling. To this end, we work with notions of argumentation in dialogue with questions of language and discourse from the work of Charaudeau (2006), Citelli (2007), Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca (2005), Foucault (2007, 2008a), Bakhtin (2006) and Breton (2003). We also observe our subject from the perspective of social representations, where we seek to clarify concepts such as public image and the use of representations as argumentative elements, considering the work of Moscovici (2007). We also consider reflections about hypertext and the context of cyberculture, with authors such as Levy (1993, 1999, 2003), Castells (2003) and Chartier (1999 and 2002), and issues of discourse analysis, especially in Orlandi (1988, 1989, 1996 and 2001), as well as Foucault (2008b). We analyzed 118 posts published in the first 30 days of existence of the blog "Fatos e Dados" (between 2 June and 1 July 2009), and analyzed in detail the top ten. A corporate blog aims to defend the points of view and public image of the organization, and, therefore, uses elements of social representations to build their arguments. It goes beyond the blog, as the main news criteria, including the posts we reviewed, the credibility of Petrobras as the source of information. In the posts analyzed, the news values of innovation and relevance also arise. The controversy between the Blog and the press resulted from an inadequacy and lack of preparation of media to deal with a corporate blog that was able to explore the characteristics of liberation of the emission pole in cyberculture. The Blog is a discursive manifestation in a concrete historical situation, whose understanding and attribution of meaning takes place from the social relations between subjects that, most of the time, place themselves in discursive and ideological dispute between each other - this dispute also affects the movements of reading and reading production. We conclude that intersubjective relationships that occur in blogs change, in the form of argumentative techniques used, the notions of news criteria, interfering with scheduling of news and organization of information in digital media outlets. It is also clear the influence that the discursive elements triggered by argumentation exercise in digital media, trying to resize and reframe frames of reality conveyed by it in relation to the subject-readers. Blogs have become part of the scenario information with the emergence of the Internet and are able to interfere in a more effective way to organize the scheduling of media from the conscious utilization of argumentative elements in their posts

Investigación sobre los efectos sociales de la urbanización en un área obrera del Gran Buenos Aires = Inquiry into the social effects of urbanization in a working-class sector of Greater Buenos Aires

Los documentos del Seminario fueron publicados por UNESCO en 1961 con el título: La urbanización en América Latina/Urbanization in Latin America

Poder legislativo e educação no Pará: produção legislativa sob restrições institucionais (13ª e 14ª legislaturas)

Este é um estudo da produção legislativa em educação realizada na Assembléia Legislativa do Estado do Pará no período que corresponde as suas 13ª e 14ª legislaturas (1995-2002). O objetivo do trabalho foi identificar o tipo atividade legislativa que os parlamentares estaduais desenvolveram na área educacional na ALEPA por meio da análise do perfil da distribuição de benefícios que pretenderam fazer com esta produção e dos fatores que interviram na sua definição. A iniciativa desta pesquisa foi provoca pela consideração predominante acerca da atuação parlamentar que lhe atribui um caráter essencialmente distributivo (clientelista) na concessão de benefícios em vista de retornos políticos (eleitorais). Assim, a análise defrontou-se com dois problemas empíricos de investigação: primeiro, descobrir qual o perfil de benefícios que os parlamentares estaduais procuraram conceder em educação por meio da produção legislativa e, segundo, como explicar a sua emergência no contexto das legislaturas estudadas? Neste sentido, o trabalho foi dividido em duas partes, na primeira fez-se o levantamento e a organização dos dados das proposições legislativas apresentadas na área educacional na ALEPA no período indicado. Para a análise do perfil de benefícios empregou-se a teoria das decisões legislativas; o resultado foi confrontado, na segunda parte, com as principais abordagens explicativas do comportamento parlamentar. Concluiu-se que, ao contrário da perspectiva predominantemente, o perfil de distribuição de benefícios encontrado, não apresentou um caráter essencialmente distributivo, contudo, sua importância é secundária na constituição da legislação educacional do Estado, pois os fatores que intervem na sua definição decorrem das restrições institucionais que conformam o espaço da produção legislativa em educação na ALEPA, os quais estruturam as opções estratégicas dos parlamentares incentivando uma atuação, neste âmbito, de caráter não distributivo, porém, por outro lado, lhes retira a possibilidade de interferir na política educacional.