Space: Irrealis objects in technology policy and their role in a new political economy

In this article, I show how new spaces are being prefigured for colonization in new economy policy discourses. Drawing on a corpus of 1.3 million words collected from legislatures throughout the world, I show the role of policy language in creating the foundations of an emergent form of political economy: The analysis is informed by principles from critical discourse analysis (CDA), classical political economy and critical media studies. It foregrounds a functional aspect of language called process metaphor to show how aspects of human activity are prefigured for mass commodification by the manipulation of realis and irrealis spaces. I also show how the fundamental element of any new political economy, the property element, is being largely ignored. Current moves to create a privately owned global space, which is as concrete as landed property - namely, the electromagnetic spectrum - has significant ramifications for the future of social relations in any global knowledge economy.

The political economy of corruption in Brazil

This article is the first part of a research on corruption in Brazil and it is theoretical. Despite this, it provides an economic interpretation of corruption using Brazil as a case study. The main objective of this research is to apply some microeconomic tools to understand the "big corruption". However, I am going to show that corruption is not simply a kind of crime. Rather, it is an ordinary economic activity that arises in some institutional environments. Firstly, some corruption cases in Brazil will be described. This article is aimed at showing that democracy itself does not ensure control over corruption. Secondly, I am going to do a very brief survey of institutional changes and controls over corruption in some Western Societies in which I am going to argue that corruption, its control and its illegality depend on institutional evolution by streamlining the constitutional and institutional framework. Thirdly, I am going to explain how some economic models could be adopted for a better understanding of corruption. Finally, I will present a multiple-self model applied to the public agent (politician and bureaucrat) constrained by institutions and pay-off systems.

“The political economy of the Church”

A igreja de Goa é uma filha da expansão portuguesa. Nasceu e cresceu no âmbito do Padroado português do Oriente. Essa ligação beneficiou e prejudicou a sua missão espiritual. Desde 1961 a igreja de Goa enfrenta os desafios da democracia. Apesar da demonstração de progresso visível, há muito caminho para percorrer, particularmente no que diz respeito à administração dos bens temporais da igreja e com maior participação leiga nessa área.