Political and Legal Challenges to Foreign Direct Private Investment in Colombia

1973 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-101
Author(s):  
Mauricio Solaun ◽  
Fernando Cepeda

The Colombian political system has been characterized by a duality. On the one hand, there are recurrent fears-and these perceptions are held even by outsiders—that the political system is on the verge of total collapse and disruption. On the other hand, when measured in terms of the continuity and survival of the traditional civilian elite and the actual challenge posed by counter-elites, the Colombia system has been relatively stable. In effect, since the turn of the century, Colombia's ruling group has been renovated by the cooptation of new elements by the ruling elite. The bulk of these new members has been young individuals fairly well integrated within the values and norms of the establishment. Although some social change has occurred and there has been some upward mobility (for the best general treatment of Colombian twentieth-century politics, see Dix, 1967), the resilience of the Colombian upper class can be illustrated with two cases.

2020 ◽  

Whereas democracy still seemed to be triumphantly sweeping the world before the turn of the century, today it finds itself under immense pressure, not only as a viable political system, but also as a theoretical and normative concept. The coronavirus crisis has underlined and accelerated these developments. There are manifold reasons for this, above all the fundamental changes the state and society have undergone in the face of globalisation, digitalisation, migration, climate change and not least the current pandemic, to name the most significant of them. This volume analyses the changes to democracy in the 21st century and the crises it has experienced. In doing so, the book identifies where action is needed, on the one hand, and investigates appropriate, up-to-date reforms and the prospects for politics, political communication and political education, on the other. With contributions by Ulrich von Alemann, Bernd Becker, Frank Brettschneider, Frank Decker, Claudio Franzius, Georg Paul Hefty, Andreas Kalina, Helmut Klages, Uwe Kranenpohl, Pola Lehmann, Linus Leiten, Dirk Lüddecke, Thomas Metz, Ursula Münch, Ursula Alexandra Ohliger, Veronika Ohliger, Rainer-Olaf Schultze, Peter Seyferth, Hans Vorländer, Uwe Wagschal, Thomas Waldvogel and Samuel Weishaupt


Author(s):  
Marcin Wodziński

This chapter addresses the ideological crisis among Polish Jewish integrationists at the start of the twentieth century. One of the signs of departure from the old ideological line was the rapidly changing attitude to hasidism. On the one hand, politically involved journalists such as Nachum Sokołów saw a new political threat in the hasidic movement and called for an alliance of all non-hasidic political forces against this group. On the other hand, from the mid-1890s, it became more and more common to idealize the hasidic past, to see the movement as the fascinating creation of folk mysticism, a depository of authentic Jewish folklore, and above all an excellent literary theme. These two attitudes, although they seemed contradictory, frequently coexisted. Usually, they were evident in the belief that the good and beautiful teachings of the fathers of hasidism were later distorted by the tsadikim and had led to the contemporary degenerate form of the political movement. The great interest in the origins of the movement was undoubtedly an attempt to escape contemporary reality and, at the same time, to escape the confrontational attitudes of the maskilim. This was obviously the result of changes in European writings that took place at the turn of the century in relation to the historiographic, philosophical, and literary portrayal of hasidism.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 136
Author(s):  
Villy Tsakona

The present study attempts to combine Raskin’s (1985) and Davies’ (2011) methodological approaches to political jokes to investigate Greek political jokes targeting politicians and circulated during the first 4 years of the Greek crisis. The proposed analysis identifies, on the one hand, what Greek people perceive as politicians’ main incongruities, namely their flaws that prevent them from fulfilling their roles ‘appropriately’. On the other hand, the particularities of the sociopolitical context in Greece and, most importantly, the pervasive lack of political trust among Greeks allow for an interpretation of the jokes under scrutiny as expressions of disillusionment and disappointment with politicians and the political system in general, and as manifestations of mild, playful aggression towards them. The findings of the study reveal that the accusations raised in the jokes against politicians capture and reproduce quite accurately most of the aspects and causes of political mistrust in Greece.


2019 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 391-398
Author(s):  
Kirill A. Solovyov

The article is devoted to the political views of F.D. Samarin, his conception of the political system in Russia before 1905, constitutional reforms of 1905–1906 and Stolypin’s reforms. The author demonstrates how Samarin tried to adopt the Slavophile doctrine to the situation of the beginning of the 20th century. At that he had to carry on polemics both with the opponents of the Slavophilism and its supporters. On the one hand, this fact stresses Slavophilism diversity and its inner heterogeneity. On the other hand, it shows the nature of the Slavophile doctrine itself that resembled more the historiographic approach to researching the past than a well-structured political conception. Giving meaningful political content to Slavophile ideas depended fully on every single representative of the Slavophile intellectual heritage.


Author(s):  
Muntasser Majeed Hameed

The objective of the investigation was to analyze the structure and administration of the political system in Iraq (post-ISIS). After 2003, the Iraqi political system suffered the fundamental problem of its failure to achieve the political and social inclusion that characterizes democratic systems, to guarantee the establishment of a "state for all", while respecting differences. Political representation has moved from the system of sectarian ethnic components, under the title of consensual democracy, to the representation of leaders and the realization of their interests and the interests of their parties at the expense of the groups that claim to represent them, which complicates the problem. In this sense, the new political system could not represent social pluralism, on the one hand, and could not satisfy the demands of the same components on the other. Methodologically, it is a political investigation in the framework of the analysis of the political system. It was concluded that the search for new balances is a pending issue. While these emerging balances and arrangements are still fragile and immature to the extent required, they represent a clear entry point to reshape the regime's political structure in one form or another.


Afrika Focus ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 5 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 21-63
Author(s):  
Patrick Wymeersch

The Traditional Royal Court Among the bin Kanyok of Zaire This description represents what was more or less an ideal conception of political organization and kingship before the colonial period. If the traditional systems of ruling still remain, the material symbolism of kingship disappeared mostly in the scene of daily life in the king’s large capital. Looking at the political organization, two seemingly contradictory features emerge. On the one hand, there are the politically quasi-independent lineages living in the villages. The chief or eldest of a lineage is at the same time chief of the whole village. On the other hand, there is the formal political organization, build on a hierarchical model and imposed from the top. This political system is notable for its very high degree of centralization, and especially for the strong authority and power of the divine king. For the purpose of government, the kingdom is divided into sub-districts, containing several villages of an area, districts and provinces. They all depend, in hierarchy,from the capital. The capital accommodates most of the members of the royal family, numerous wives and children from the king and the ministers. The king’s compound, standing in the middle of the capital, is surrounded by a fence. This compound is divided into four specific parts and contains several houses and the palace of the king. On both sides of the royal compound, there is a main street where the ministers and their families live. The king’s person is surrounded by a number of taboos. No one could see him eat in his private kitchen. The principal problem in the political organization is that of the administering the rest of the Kanyok empire, of keeping as a political unit a population divided into autonomous lineages. The model that is followed is, in general, typical of the kingdoms of the southern savanna belt of Zaire. Therefore the structure is pyramidal: the king at the apex delegates his power and authority to the governors. Their position duplicates that of the king, but on a smaller scale. The king is assisted by his ministers to whom he assigned highly specific functions. The king still remains the main focus for all the Bin Kanyok.


Res Publica ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-64
Author(s):  
Peter Van Aelst ◽  
Stefaan Walgrave

All major post-Worldwar political conflicts that made up the face of Belgian polities, were accompagnied by massive protests and intensive demonstration waves. Analysis of newspapers coverage and of the gendarmerie archives confirms this for the nineties. The 1990-1997 period is marked by an increasing number of demonstrations and demonstrators. The disappearance of the ideological and cultural-linguistical actions was, on the one hand, made up for by the further rising of other issues (environmental, anti-racist, judicial, .. .), and on the other hand by the near institutionalisation of very classic issues like education or employment, who both secured their place on the street. There is no ground to call the 1990's dull, on the contrary: the number of demonstrations grew steadily and, especially in Flanders, Inglehart's Silent Revolution of Postmaterialist values took to the streets. The wider acceptance of demonstrations as a means of actions, the growing political alienation, and the greater openness of the political system are presented as plausible explanations.


1959 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 332-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley H. Hoffmann

The crucial feature of the period 1946–1958 in France, in many respects, has been the contrast between the changes which have occurred in French society and the performance of a political system which seemed to repeat and to magnify the vices of the Third Republic's last years. On the one hand, the image of a static France obstinately clinging to protectionism, to a pastoral or artisanal ideal, to the security afforded by restrictive practices and state favors, was becoming obsolete. On the other hand, the political system appeared unable either to deal with the tensions, economic growth and change created in society, or to define a coherent policy for overseas affairs.


2021 ◽  
pp. 175-192
Author(s):  
Fabiano Santos ◽  
Fernando Guarnieri ◽  
Nara Salles

In this chapter, we present the politics of congressional speech in Brazil as the result of incentives produced by this country’s political model, the so-called coalitional presidentialism. On the one hand, a majority formed by larger parties controls the decision-making process related to the Brazilian public agenda, turning the core policy debate into a partisan and ideological issue. On the other, “autonomous” spaces for delivering speeches are both claimed and occupied by legislators with more specific identities, such as women and deputies with longer-lived congressional trajectories. These personal traits cannot be limited to the traditional cleavages of the political system. For this, we analyzed more than 190,000 speeches delivered in the following phases of the floor sessions held between 2001 and 2018.


2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 733-754
Author(s):  
Maciej Hartliński

This article is part of the special cluster titled Political Parties and Direct Democracy in Eastern Europe, guest-edited by Sergiu Gherghina. The article is the first attempt to describe and compare five nationwide referendums in Poland after 1989 as tools of direct democracy exploited by political parties. The article makes two primary contributions to the literature. The explanation focuses on the circumstances as well as the two main motives of the referendum initiators, that is, to cause trouble for political opponents and strengthen one’s own position by legitimising one’s own proposals concerning the political system and foreign policy directions. Moreover, the article discusses six methods employed by political parties to use the institution of nationwide referendum for their own political purposes. Interestingly, the Polish example shows that nationwide referendums have twofold effects for their initiators. On the one hand, they allow political parties to effectively realise the aims behind the initiated referendum. On the other hand, both political parties (1996, 1997, 2003) and presidents (1996 and 2015) sustained defeats in the next parliamentary or presidential elections.


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