La disputa por la hegemonía político-ideológica : trabajadores y sindicatos en el discurso presidencial kirchnerista (Argentina, 2007 - 2012)

En este trabajo, inscripto en el campo de análisis de las prácticas discursivas como instancias que participan en la disputa político ideológica siguiendo una lógica propia y específica, me propongo como objetivo explicar cómo es representado el colectivo “trabajadores" y sus formas de participación política en el discurso presidencial kirchnerista, desde qué lugares enunciativos y según qué dispositivos de interpelación. Asimismo, en la medida en que este proceso de significación no es auto-referencial (en realidad, ninguno lo es), sino que se despliega en un diálogo permanente con la práctica discursiva de la dirigencia de la Confederación General del Trabajo, analizo las estrategias de alianza y antagonismo puestas en escena por ambos interlocutores. El material de análisis está formado por los discursos oficiales pronunciados por la presidenta Cristina Fernández de Kirchner desde su asunción en el 2007 hasta mediados del 2012 y por los discursos públicos de Hugo Moyano, Secretario General de la CGT en el mismo lapso, ordenados y sistematizados según procedimientos de categorización previa y cerrada en consonancia con los objetivos de la indagación.

Interaction of powers in the Philippine presidential system

The executive - legislative relations in the Philippines have been described in two contrasting stories, namely the "strong president" story, and the "strong congress" story. This paper tries to consolidate the existing arguments and propose a new perspective focusing on the "compromise exchange" between the president and the congress across the different policy areas. It considers that the policy outcome is not brought by unilateral power of the president or the congress, but formed as the product of such an exchange. Interaction of powers and their complementary function are addressed. Furthermore, aside from the constitutional power, the weak party discipline is pointed out as a key factor in making the exchange possible.

Political institutions and policy outcomes : effects of presidential vetoes on budget making

The article examines how the power distribution between the executive and the legislature under the Presidential system affects policy outcomes. We focus in particular on the presidential veto, both package and partial. Using a simple game theory model, we show that the presidential partial veto generally yields a result in favor of the President, but that such effects vary depending on the reversion points of the package veto and the Congress's possible use of sanctions against the President. The effects of the Presidential partial veto diminish if the reversion point meets certain conditions, or if the Congress has no power to impose sufficient sanctions on the President when the President revises the outcome ex-post. To clarify and explain the model, we present the case of budget making in the Philippines between 1994 and 2008. In the Philippines, the presidential partial veto has been bringing expenditure programs closer to the President's ideal point within what may be called the Congress's indifference curve. The Congress, however, has not always passed budget bills and from time to time has carried over the previous year's budget, in years when the budget deficit increased. This is the situation that the policy makers cannot retrieve from the reversion point.

The Discursive double game of EMU reform: the clash of titans between French White Knight and German Iron Lady. Paper presented at the 9th Biennial Conference European Community Studies Association–Canada (ECSA-C), Ottawa, Ontario, April 27-28, 2012

From the Introduction. In the aftermath of the EU’s enlargement towards Central and Eastern Europe, many scholars and observers of European integration were proclaiming that the French-German “engine” of Europe had come to an end. The political legitimacy of French-German initiatives was contested by coalitions of smaller member states and the ‘new Europe’ was calling for new leadership dynamics. However, the experience of the Eurozone debt crisis provided dramatic evidence that no alternative to the Franco-German partnership has yet to emerge in the enlarged EU. In a time of existential crisis, Franco-German initiatives appear to have remained the basic dynamic of integration. However, unlike in the past, agreements on steps forward have proven to be particularly difficult. This is largely due to these countries’ contrasting political economic policy ideas, cultures, and practices....the paper analyses the ideational ‘frames’ of the two leaders while tracing their discursive interactions against changing background conditions since the European debt crisis was triggered by Greece in October 2009 until the last measures taken in 2012 before the French Presidential elections. The empirical analysis is based on a systematic corpus of press conferences and media interviews by Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel after European summits. It is complemented by a number of press interviews including some given by their respective Finance Ministers) and important speeches in that same period of time.