Search results for "Economy"

Electoral Rules and Proportionality in Spain: Estimating the Impact of some Swedish Rules Through the 2011 Electoral Data

2016

In democratic countries policy making is always framed by many procedures and rules. Some of these rules are particularly critical for allowing more or less proportionality in legislative chambers, though the behavior of political actors also matter. The rules used for technically converting votes into political representatives often exercise such an important role in western countries. In this chapter we provide an estimation of the impact upon proportionality between seats and votes that might have resulted in the 2011 Spanish general elections if some Swedish electoral rules had been applied, ceteris paribus. As we are aware that electoral reforms favouring proportionality may hinder the…

Institutional Change in Spanish Chambers of Commerce

2021

This chapter explains the evolution of the chambers of commerce in Spain. The chambers have always faced political and associative tensions, generating tremendous internal instability, and multiple attempts to make them disappear. They adopted a public model with a mandatory fee in the early days. The Dictatorship decided to convert them into public agencies and cancel their representative aspirations. In the democratic era, several legal reforms have decreed that chambers of commerce are corporations under public law with voluntary affiliation. Pressure from voluntary business associations has been crucial in this regard. Both compulsory membership and the mandatory fee disappeared as a co…

Theory on State and Politics in Religious Peacebuilding

2016

In this chapter, Steen-Johnsen offers an overview over theoretical perspectives which allow us to consider how the political strategies of a state to regulate civil society influence the opportunities of religious peacebuilders. Drawing upon theories of state–civil interactions, she suggests that religious actors engaged in peacebuilding can be considered as being affected by political strategies aiming at regulating the civil sphere. Steen-Johnsen argues that the state and civil spheres are interlinked and mutually influential but warns against viewing actors in the civil sphere as dictated by the political strategies of a state authority. Religious actors should rather should rather be co…

1977: Hopes Fulfilled—Building Democracy in Turbulent Economic Times

2020

This chapter offers an analysis of the main economic and institutional transformations in Spain from 1977 onwards. The severe economic and financial crisis that hit Spain in the mid-1970s coincided with the arrival of democracy after Franco’s death and shaped the nature and scope of the implemented reforms (Pactos de la Moncloa). While the crisis and political instability limited the possibility of making a more radical adjustment, the consensus among different social actors, unions and political parties was fundamental to the reforms. This time hopes were fulfilled and although some reforms were left pending, those that were adopted played a seminal role in putting the Spanish economy and …

State–Religious Relationships in Ethiopia

2016

In this chapter, Steen-Johnsen depicts how the Ethiopian regime uses fear tactics in order to keep the religious peacebuilders in accordance with their political strategies. She presents rich empirical material describing how religious leaders engaged in peacebuilding fear sanctions if they do not adhere to the strategies of the regime. She finds that processes of securitization as well as historical patterns of state–religious interactions affect how political strategies are enacted in Ethiopia. She argues that these findings make a strong argument of considering how the enactment of political strategies influences the scope of opportunities of religious peacemakers.

Attempts at diversification: Mexico and Pacific Asia

2002

This article aims to explain the development of Mexico's relations with Pacific Asia. Based on the historical background of Mexico's relations with Asia and on internal and international transformations, we identify the interests of Mexican political actors in Pacific Asia. We provide an overview of the existing political and economic relations between Mexico and Pacific Asia, demonstrating that the success of diversification has been very limited. By trying to explain the gap between the strategic goals and the existing relations we focus on the domestic politics in Mexico. We conclude that intra-elite conflicts had a negative effect on the diversification attempts, since those conflicts p…

Exit politics, enter politicization

2018

Philip Keefer and Norman Loayza (Eds.):Terrorism, Economic Development, and Political Openess

2012

A Glimpse over the Rising Walls

2009

The authors focus on societal perceptions of the Polish post-communist transformation as reflected in the rising discourse of gated communities. Guarded, (video-) controlled and/or walled housing estates have been on the sprawl in the Polish metropolises throughout the 1990s and 2000s. However, only recently they have been discursively constructed—under the banner of “gated communities”—as a social and political issue in the country. The authors look at this issue from a vantage point offered by Laclau and Mouffe's theory of discourse, which allows the authors to combine a spatial and a linguistic analytical perspective. The analysis emphasizes the manner in which societal perceptions of b…

Refugee Crisis in the European Union

2021

This chapter outlines the myriad push and pull factors that led to the refugee crisis, describes the scale of the migration, and discusses how the European Union (EU) nations and the EU as a whole responded to the crisis. Four push factors are described: the change in migration policy in Macedonia that opened up the Balkan route to the EU, the war in Syria, political and economic instability in sub-Saharan Africa, and climate change. The primary pull factors are economic opportunities and political and religious freedoms. The discussion of the scale of the migration and how each nation responded provides in-depth discussion of how individual EU nations responded to the refugee crisis.