Tremendous agricultural potential in Colombia has gone untapped for decades due to: i) civil strife and the criminal drug trade; ii) uncertain property rights; iii) inadequate infrastructure; iv) lack of innovation and technological development; v) lack of funding, vi) lack of investment; and vii) misallocation of resources within the sector. Proof of this is the relatively lower growth of the value of Colombia’s agriculture versus other countries in the region during the agricultural prices booms (FAO, 2015). This paper analyzes whether (...) Colombia’s weak agricultural performance was due to low productivity growth rather than input accumulation. Using econometric specifications, this paper finds that Colombia’s agricultural productivity grew on average between 0.8% and 1.3% annually from 1975 and 2013. This growth was mainly driven by livestock and poultry productivity, which grew between 1.6% and 2.2%, while crop productivity grew between 0% and 0.8%. Likewise, this paper finds biased technical and scale effects whenever the models are able to test their presence. In addition, it finds evidence that Colombia’s agricultural productivity growth was affected by changing economic circumstances. These results are significant for post-conflict rural investment because they provide information about the returns on future government investment options in the rural sector of Colombia. (shrink)

Since the instauration of the parliamentary democracy in Spain in the second half of the seventies, the monarchy is an essential part of the system. As both the attitude and the behaviour of Juan Carlos I in the dramatic events of February 23th, 1981 and the Constitution as well, point out, the king has to watch attentively over public affairs and has to protect the basic values of the system.He is also the arbitrator who has to handle cleverly, inventively and (...) carefully the marginal cases which the legislator cannot foresee. The king furthermore, is a symbol. Both the function of arbitrator and the symbolic function have to be taken into account to fully understand the monarchy in the Spanish parliamentary system. (shrink)

: Development studies is concerned with two issues: the development of normative theories of development and justice, and the empirical study of the effects of interventions and their impact on the global policy context. These distinct theoretical aims of the discipline lead to epistemological difficulties in practice. In this paper I argue that development studies suffer from two main conceptual deficiencies. The first one corresponds to an analytical incapability for providing a definitive version of social justice that is simultaneously impartial (...) and plural. The second weakness involves an empirical deficiency related to development discourse and current policies and practices. Identifying both epistemic deficiencies inherently embedded into what development has traditionally been about, may help to shed light on its analytical and technical boundaries and thus its ability to truly carry out its stated goals. To that end, this paper focuses on highlighting the consequences of these two epistemic oversights. I conclude that the field of development has no other alternative than turning to its epistemic roots to adequately review the very essence of its conceptualization and effects. (shrink)

Este ensayo es consecuencia de las reflexiones que desde hace años realizamos en el Instituto de Paz y Conflictos de la Universidad de Granada y que nos ha obligado a hacer una deconstrucción crítica de algunos aspectos del pensamiento pacifista. Bien es cierto que la supervivencia de la especie ha sido posible porque la respuesta a la conflictividad ha sido, mayoritariamente, la búsqueda de equilibrios dinámicos y de armonía. Pero, a pesar de todo, perviven muchas grietas, rupturas, dadas por la (...) propia contingencia y fragilidad humanas. Estamos ante unos entes humanos fragmentados, violentados, lo que hace más difícil la búsqueda de la armonía o la paz. Estas dificultades son razones de peso para trabajar en el camino de una «desfragmentación» ontológica que sea útil para liberar nuestras fuerzas emancipadoras y creativas. Construir la visión integrada y unitaria de la Ciencia de los Seres Humanos es una tarea conjunta que interesa sobremanera a la Investigación para la Paz.This essay is a consequence of the reflections we have been conducting for several years at the Instituto de Paz y Conflictos of the University of Granada. These reflections have obliged us to undertake a critical deconstruction of a few aspects of pacifist thought. Although the survival of the species has been possible because the response to conflicts has been, principally, the search for dynamic equilibrium and harmony; on the other hand there remain many fissures, ruptures brought about by the own human contingency and fragility. We find ourselves before a fragmented and distorted human being, which makes the search for harmony or peace even more difficult. These difficulties are convincing reasons for working towards an ontological “defragmentation” which is useful to liberate our emancipating and creative forces. To build the integrated and united view of Human Sciences is a collective task which is of great interest for Peace Research. (shrink)

La lectura de mapas es una competencia pendiente para los estudiantes universitarios. Es el caso de los del Grado en Turismo de las universidades de Las Palmas de G.C., en España, y Autónoma de Juárez, en México, que usan los mapas para la comprensión de la realidad turística sin que hayan adquirido una alfabetización cartográfica suficiente.Esta comunicación presenta un diagnóstico del pensamiento geográfico de este alumnado centrado en las capacidades de localización, interpretación y análisis relacional de variables territoriales. Se ha (...) corroborado que solo alcanzan un nivel descriptivo y que es necesario poner en macha estrategias didácticas específicas. (shrink)

The current COVID-19 crisis may have an impact on the mental health of professionals working on the frontline, especially healthcare workers due to the increase of occupational psychosocial risks, such as emotional exhaustion and secondary traumatic stress. This study explored job demands and resources during the COVID-19 crisis in predicting emotional exhaustion and STS among health professionals. The present study is a descriptive and correlational cross-sectional design, conducted in different hospitals and health centers in Spain. The sample consisted of 221 (...) health professionals with direct involvement in treating COVID-19. An online survey was created and distributed nationwide from March 20 to April 15 which assessed: sociodemographic and occupational data, fear of contagion, contact with death/suffering, lack of material and human protection resources, challenge, emotional exhaustion, and STS. Descriptive findings show high levels of workload, contact with death/suffering, lack of MHPR and challenge, and are moderately high for fear of contagion, emotional exhaustion, and STS. We found an indirect significant effect of lack of MHPR on predicting emotional exhaustion through the workload and on STS through fear of contagion, contact with death/suffering, and workload. To conclude, this study examines the immediate consequences of the crisis on health professionals' well-being in Spain, emphasizing the job demands related to COVID-19 that health professionals are facing, and the resources available in these health contexts. These findings may boost follow-up of this crisis among health professionals to prevent them from long-term consequences. (shrink)

Corporate, Social, Ethical and Environmental Reporting should ideally discharge the accountability of an organisation to its stakeholders. Voluntary reporting has been characterised by a dearth of neutral and objective information such that the advocates of SEER recommend that it be made compulsory. Their underlying rationale is that legally specified disclosure requirements and enforcement mechanisms will enhance the quality of such reporting. This paper sets out to explore how realistic this scenario actually is, in view of the conflicting interpretations in the (...) literature on this subject. To that end, a survey of the reporting patterns of 78 of the largest Spanish companies between 2001 and 2003 examines the extent of their compliance with the ICAC-2002 standard, which obliged them to make environmental disclosures in their financial statements. The results suggest that progressive and improved regulation could increase the volume and quality of SEER disclosures. They also suggest, however, that persistent non-compliance means that the problems associated with voluntary disclosure still exist. Finally, through an impression management perspective, the study reveals, the diverse strategies, ranging from dismissal to concealment, that are employed by companies to avoid transparency. As regulation improves and enforcement expectations rise, it becomes more difficult to dismiss compulsory reporting norms. As a result, some firms engage in more complex concealment strategies to attain corporate legitimacy, depriving stakeholders of regulatory information. The latter point serves to reconcile apparently contradictory explanations in the literature as to whether legitimacy theory might explain partial compliance with SEER regulation. (shrink)

En este artículo analizamos la cuestión de la presencia del mundo en los escritos de juventud de Simone Weil, con el objetivo de aprehender su concepción del tiempo. En ese sentido, intentaremos elucidar las relaciones ontológica y epistemológica que ella establece entre el hombre y el mundo. Esta perspectiva nos permite explorar la primera filosofía de la percepción weiliana y trazar las implicaciones existenciales que se desprenden de la experiencia del presente. Igualmente, examinamos la dificultad de pensar la inmovilidad en (...) la realidad humana a partir de la tensión problemática que plantea S.Weil entre las nociones de continuidad y eternidad. Palabras clave: Simone Weil, presencia, mundo, continuidad, eternidad, tiempo. (shrink)

El trabajo intenta proporcionar una visión global de la obra de Habermas, situando su "teoría crítica" en el contexto de las sociedades democrático-liberales centroeuropeas de posguerra. Asentada en los supuestos económicos socialdemócratas o keynesianos, la teoría de Habermas se entiende como una crítica interna de esas sociedades. El análisis de Habermas se refiere a los problemas de integración sistémica e integración social de dichas sociedades y a los problemas de "colonización del mundo de la vida", y extrae su conceptuación de (...) una síntesis de fragmentos teóricos diversos recogidos de diferentes tradiciones sociológicas y filosóficas. Una conceptuación que, como la diseñada en la Teoría de la acción comunicativa, se atiene a la idea de relación de complementariedad keynesiana entre Estado nacional y economía nacional, y crea a Habermas dificultades para comprender la nueva situación que genera la crisis del orden económico keynesiano. (shrink)

Corporate, Social, Ethical and Environmental Reporting should ideally discharge the accountability of an organisation to its stakeholders. Voluntary reporting has been characterised by a dearth of neutral and objective information such that the advocates of SEER recommend that it be made compulsory. Their underlying rationale is that legally specified disclosure requirements and enforcement mechanisms will enhance the quality of such reporting. This paper sets out to explore how realistic this scenario actually is, in view of the conflicting interpretations in the (...) literature on this subject. To that end, a survey of the reporting patterns of 78 of the largest Spanish companies between 2001 and 2003 examines the extent of their compliance with the ICAC-2002 standard, which obliged them to make environmental disclosures in their financial statements. The results suggest that progressive and improved regulation could increase the volume and quality of SEER disclosures. They also suggest, however, that persistent non-compliance means that the problems associated with voluntary disclosure still exist. Finally, through an impression management perspective, the study reveals, the diverse strategies, ranging from dismissal to concealment, that are employed by companies to avoid transparency. As regulation improves and enforcement expectations rise, it becomes more difficult to dismiss compulsory reporting norms. As a result, some firms engage in more complex concealment strategies to attain corporate legitimacy, depriving stakeholders of regulatory information. The latter point serves to reconcile apparently contradictory explanations in the literature as to whether legitimacy theory might explain partial compliance with SEER regulation. (shrink)

El campo de la comunicación ocupa una extensión muy amplia en la Tradición y en el Magisterio y en de la Iglesia Católica. El objetivo de este artículo es el de hacer un recorrido panorámico por los documentos pontificios y de organismos de la Santa Sede referidos a los medios de comunicación desde la época de la imprenta. Nos detendremos de forma especial en las tecnologías más nuevas, que en su día fueron el cine o la televisión y que hoy (...) están vertebradas por Internet. Esta herramienta está suscitando un interés creciente en los últimos pontificados, en especial en el de Benedicto XVI, a raíz del impulso de la nueva evangelización. (shrink)

By examining the relationship between international law and empire from early modernity to the present, this volume aims at deepening current understandings of the way international legal institutions, practices, and narratives have shaped specifically imperial ideas about and structures of world governance.

Resumen: La imposibilidad del desarrollo para conciliar normativamente imparcialidad con pluralidad responde a un sesgo de carácter ontológico. Esta ruptura, que constituye la esencia misma de los estudios del desarrollo, supone aceptar que cualquier teoría del desarrollo que se precie se encuentra sustancialmente inacabada. De tal imposibilidad emerge, sin embargo, un perfeccionamiento que transcurre dialécticamente en términos de doble negación hegeliana por el cual las distintas teorías van perfeccionándose a partir de un mayor grado de concienciación normativa. Este perfeccionamiento alcanza (...) analíticamente un estado absoluto de desarrollo definido como libertad. Un concepto que perfecciona el presentado por Amartya Sen, facultado para reconciliar analíticamente el sesgo originario.: The impossibility of development to gather normatively impartiality and plurality makes itself to be ontologically incomplete. Nevertheless, the analytical that emerges in the very essence of development discipline implies to accept that any development theory is and will always be unfulfilled. Nevertheless, and beyond that substantive impossibility, an improvement occurs dialectically in terms of Hegelian double negation by which each theory is overcome by a higher grade of normative awareness by the following one. This improvement reaches analytically an absolute dimension of development as freedom. A concept that goes beyond such introduced by Amartya Sen, which it is well able of including all human determinations that ultimately allow to meet analytically those edges of the gap. (shrink)

El sistema de Cooperación Internacional al Desarrollo es epistemológica y operativamente ajeno a la complejidad reinante en su mundo de actuación. Su tradición académica ha venido históricamente determinada por dos reacciones antitéticas. Porun lado, restringe la realidad a un principio universalista donde el desarrollo es interpretado apriorísticamente. Por el otro, se somete a un empirismo extremo donde superando el carácter especulativo del anterior, se incapacita para forjar una teoría sobre lo que realmente funciona. En uno y en otro, el fetichismo (...) de la ayuda terminasiendo el precio que recurrentemente se paga ante la incapacidad para reconciliar ambas posiciones. Se probará cómo una alternativa epistémica, capaz de aunar lo positivo de ambas posturas, minimizaría el impacto negativo de la cooperación, favoreciendoun marco de acción tan eficaz como sostenible. (shrink)

Fichte’s hostility towards Napoleon, as expressed in his lectures of 1813 on the theory of the state, has its origin at the level of principles, and his always very strong admiration for the figure of Napoleon is at the same time so negatively loaded, that Napoleon becomes for Fichte something like an arch-enemy, the enemy par excellence. Napoleon has turned the old European political world upside down in favor of a re-structuration of this order according to the principles of the (...) French Revolution. This is, at least, how Napoleon was seen by the traditional powers that he had caused to fall or that he had shaken them with lasting political and historical consequences. Goethe, Hegel and Fichte have seen him in this perspective with very different attitudes. In this context, Fichte’s hostility towards Napoleon can be considered, at least partially, as a hostility towards the principles of the Revolution. But if these principles represent something like the normative self-understanding of political modernity at all, then the political philosophy of Fichte can be understood as strongly critical to these principles, if not simply as reactionary. It is worthwhile to consider why such a critical and even reactionary position can be derived in a completely consistent way from this philosophy, which has as its center a radicalized concept of freedom, and which at the beginning had even welcomed the outbreak of the Revolution.Die Feindschaft Fichtes gegen Napoleon, so wie sie später in seinen Vorlesungen von 1813 über die Staatslehre Ausdruck findet ist eine Feindschaft, die ihren Ursprung auf der Ebene von Grundsätzen hat, und die die immer sehr starke Bewunderung Fichtes für die Figur von Napoleon so negativ belastet, dass dieser am Ende zwar zu einem tief bewunderten, aber auch zu einem prinzipiellen Erzfeind wird. Nun hat Napoleon die alte europäische politische Welt auf den Kopf gestellt zugunsten einer Umstrukturierung dieser Ordnung nach den Prinzipien der französischen Revolution. So wenigstens ist Napoleon von den traditionellen Mächten, mit denen er sich auseinandergesetzt und die er zum Sturz oder ins Schwanken gebracht hat, empfunden worden. Und so haben Hegel, Goethe und auch Fichte ihn gesehen. Die Feindschaft Fichtes gegen Napoleon muss sich also zumindest teilweise als eine Feindschaft gegen die Prinzipien der Revolution verstehen lassen. Wenn aber diese Prinzipien so etwas wie die normative Selbstauffassung der politischen Moderne überhaupt bestimmen, dann ist die politische Philosophie Fichtes sehr kritisch zu dieser Selbstauffassung oder einfach reaktionär. Und es lohnt sich zu prüfen, warum gerade aus dieser Philosophie, in deren Mittelpunkt ein radikalisierter Begriff von Freiheit steht und die am Anfang den Aufbruch der Revolution sogar begrüßt hat, eine so kritische oder gar reaktionäre Einstellung, und zwar auf eine sehr konsequente Weise sich ergibt. (shrink)

The aims of this research were twofold: first, to compare the levels of organisational harmony between family and non-family firms and, second, to study the influence of organisational harmony on family firms’ performance (profitability, longevity and group cohesion). Starting from a definition of organisational harmony as a value and considering the importance of the management of organisational values, we use the main topics indicated by the general literature (organisational climate, trust and participation) to analyse organisational harmony, as well as three (...) other topics for performance (profitability, survival and group cohesion). Results indicate that family firms have higher levels of these three qualities than non-family firms, and that the levels of trust, participation and organisational climate have a positive and significant influence on the performance of family firms. These results can be understood as a consequence of the influence of family social capital on organisational social capital and so on the performance of family businesses. From the perspective of institutionalism, the higher levels of harmony existing in family businesses are a reflection of the pressures that the owning family as an institution exercises on the organisational social capital in its companies. (shrink)

The use of conventional manufacturing methods is mainly limited by the size of the production run and the geometrical complexity of the component, and as a result we are occasionally forced to use processes and tools that increase the final cost of the element being produced. Additive manufacturing techniques provide major competitive advantages due to the fact that they adapt to the geometrical complexity and customised design of the part to be manufactured. The following may also be achieved according to (...) field of application: lighter weight products, multimaterial products, ergonomic products, efficient short production runs, fewer assembly errors and, therefore, lower associated costs, lower tool investment costs, a combination of different manufacturing processes, an optimised use of materials, and a more sustainable manufacturing process. Additive manufacturing is seen as being one of the major revolutionary industrial processes of the next few years. Additive manufacturing has several alternatives ranging from simple RepRap machines to complex fused metal deposition systems. This paper will expand upon the structural design of the machines, their history, classification, the alternatives existing today, materials used and their characteristics, the technology limitations, and also the prospects that are opening up for different technologies both in the professional field of innovation and the academic field of research. It is important to say that the choice of technology is directly dependent on the particular application being planned: first the application and then the technology. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this article we analyze the attempt that young Simone Weil made for thinking time and change, and for deciphering the participation that the world and the mind may have in its configuration. To achieve this, we set out to elucidate two concepts that we believe synthesize her approach: the first one is astonishment, understood both in its quality of incessant intuition that reveals the human impotence to understand the present, and in its quality as a mediating instance between (...) ignorance and approximate human science of the phenomenal field. The second concept we analyze is that of directed time, significant of the first Weilian philosophy in that it reveals the subjugation of man to the present, the only tangible time. This determination allows us to understand the meaning of the past as an abolished existence, and the future as a virtual nucleus of possibilities towards which the human being prepares his action and work thanks to his faculty to devise projects. Finally, we try to show the problematic tension that young Weil discerned between the law of the immediacy of the world, and the law of time that imposes intermediate steps to the realization of all human activity. (shrink)

La compasión es una actitud que ha sido objeto de ataques, que ha sido catalogada como un egoísmo encubierto o bien como una pose lastimera que poco o nada contribuye para el auxilio debido a las personas en desgracia. Pero, es precisamente el despojo y los daños que las personas sufren los que llevan a pensar cómo es posible «salvar» esas vidas, no permitir que se pierdan y afirmar que la vida vale la pena. En virtud de ello, la compasión (...) o misericordia ha de ser repensada con miras a concederle el lugar adecuado dentro del mundo sanitario. Su significado ético pasa, por tanto, por una elucidación racional –qué es- y los rasgos que la caracterizan –fragilidad, desgracia, reconocimiento, solidaridad-. El símbolo da que pensar, y la reflexión ética, en este caso, se nutre de la parábola del Buen Samaritano. (shrink)