Eighteen years ago, I started my out-patients' experience as specialist dermatologist. I worked from the very first day with National Health Insurance System. It was a chance to build a huge experience (more than 120,000 visits since then). Over time, relationships with patients have changed, influenced by many factors. To preserve good relationships we have to reflect and to use different approaches. In 2001, my stamp and my signature were enough for a consultation. The cell phone era was at the beginning. Over the years, the process has become more and more complicated. Today, if the computer, internet, different types of applications, software, other devices (printer, card reader, etc.) are not working, my knowledge becomes absolutely necessary, but not sufficient for a consultation. So, the doctor is now, totally dependent on IT issues. Besides instant information, cell phones induce a lack of intimacy. Everyone could reach you everywhere, every moment. You are almost "forced" to give advice on whatsapp, e-mail, messenger and people expect you to answer on-site, otherwise you are not "reachable". Time is the first pressure that we are feeling. Patients want and expect a consultation as soon as possible even you have appointments for the next few weeks. I try my best not to push later than 10 days, if it is a new ordinary consultation. Sometimes, it is possible for me to see the patient on-site (a child, an emergency, pregnant women, etc.). In the literature, time for appointment could vary from 7 working days in Brazil [1], to median 41 days in Canada (Ontario) [2] or median 45 days in US (Pennsylvania) [3] to a certain dramatic situation waiting list of 57 weeks in a unit in UK [4]. The number of consultations tends to increase. It is not only a perception, but a reality, revealed also by a French study (21% increase from 2000 to 2010) [5]. Time is also a burden for the doctor, because the real time for consultation has dramatically reduced in favor of bureaucratic issues. Official papers seem to be more important than people. It is a constant effort to remain emphatic and to really listen to patient's history. The stories that we are ignoring for lacking time could give us important clues for diagnosis, approach, could enforce the relationship and give trust, could relief the worries. "You are the 5th dermatologist I am seeing"- a young woman told me the other day. I looked at her: she was around 20, some pimples on her jaw (not too many) and some tiny scars on her forehead covered by a lot of makeup. Not quite a good start for a relationship. Her expectations were not fulfilled by visiting the other doctors. Maybe the expectations were not realistic, maybe she was fed up trying different things. "How can I propose something new or miraculous when she tried probably "everything"? - I asked myself. I spent at least half an hour discussing about acne, therapeutic options and adjusting the expectations to our limits. It was more a counseling session than a dermatologic consultation. Today, patients are coming in our office very informed. They "know" the diagnosis and sometimes even the treatment they want or need. After "Dr. Google" you can be a second opinion. Dermatology is underestimated even by other physicians that feel competent enough to prescribe medication inducing iatrogenesis [6]. So, what to expect from patients? It is a good thing to have an informed patient. It will save you a lot of time and energy in expanded explanations. But, there is also a lot of incorrect or 1 Dali Medical, Bucharest, Romania 118 misunderstood information, prejudices from other's experience shared on forums, incorrect auto-diagnosis or even incorrect auto-medication. It is our duty to listen and to correct, as much as we can. Patients have to be taught how to choose important information from the constant "soup of news feed". The flux of information is huge, also for doctors as for patients. Thousands of opinions, articles, and new approaches invade our space daily. A good selection criteria for useful, relevant data is absolutely necessary. A "happy" patient seems to be the one with a certain diagnosis, with clear treatment plan, including explaining side effects and with a contact number in case of recurrence [7]. The access of any information being so instant, patients expect a rapid response of the treatment. The result has to be now and definitive. The pressure of quick response is not very subtle, the doctor feeling it as a burden. It takes time to explain and to understand the progression of chronic illnesses. Sometimes, the expectations are to get well with any treatment, eventually without any changes of their life style, even when doctor explains that some habits could aggravate or maintain the lesions. Taking responsibility for some adjustments is an important part to discuss with patient, as part of therapeutic approach. Paternal, omniscient doctor's image is no longer in actuality and patient is an important part of the relationship. Instead of an "infantile" patient, coming for any transitory rash or any mosquito bite, it is better to "grow" him/her as a self-confident "partner". The new and healthy bond has to transform patient from the passive, sometimes passive-aggressive role, into an assumed, informed, pro-active one. Cooperation is the key of healthy relation. Patient has the right to ask for explanations, to discuss therapeutic options, to refuse treatments. Patients have opinions that have to be respected and sometimes corrected if they are distorted. On the way to get therapeutic alliance and long-term cooperation, the doctor-patient relationship has to be personalized, giving value to it. This kind of relationship will make the difference in the end and even the direction is to involve more high tech and robots. Face-to-face relationship will not be replaced by anything and it will be highly appreciated after the "speed" condition passes. More social skills are often required, doctors not being known as the best communicators. Sometimes, doctors are not aware of patients' perception regarding communication [8]. I have got my social skills working day by day, no special courses were made during faculty, unfortunately. "We need fewer memorizers and more thinkers and communicators in modern medicine" is the most recent conclusion of Canadian Debate Series regarding medical students' selection [9]. Another pressure point is the constant fear of errors. With all the efforts of protocols for reducing the risk of mistakes or misconducts, unfortunately there are lots of gaps and debates. The fear of error and malpraxis leads to excess of medication and investigations, sometimes too expensive and useless. Doctors should not be scared by the abundance of products, instruments, techniques, aggressively promoted. They have to be more flexible, more intuitive and more eager to try, making personal experience and not taking results for granted. Many of these products will not pass the test of time, even they are presented as "miraculous". Sometimes, patients' needs are the trigger for experimenting new methods and push us to progress faster. Not only patients are in a rush, doctors too. The race for EMC points is making the doctor more informed, but we have to be careful not to become too superficial. Even a doctor is getting a diploma after a "3 days course", it doesn't mean that he/she will be an expert in that field, not even competent. It will take a lot of time and energy to really get the expertise, that course being only the very first step on the road. The "diplomas wall", real or virtual is a false goal. In the end, the real skills are more important than a sublime image and it will take time to get them. Sometimes, vanity makes the teamwork harder. This will be unproductive for both doctors and patients. It is not a shame to refer the patient to an expert on a field when you feel that you have reached a limit. People are hardly trying to change our state from patient to client, that new status being debatable. Being a client means to take some responsibilities as in a contract. That is the good part. But, fortunately, remaining a doctor means more than providing services. Practicing medicine is a state of knowledge, art, experience, intuition, with magic touches sometimes. Fortunately, with all the changes during the last years, dermatologists seem to remain satisfied with their specialty. A recent Mexican study shows that 93% of dermatologists (with an average of 16 years of practice) were happy with their professional life, more than 98% choosing it once again [10]. Maintaining certain levels of professional and personal happiness, keeping informed and open-minded, avoiding burn-out, trying to fulfill patients' expectations, doctors are not in a battle, but in strong alliance with patients.
Not Available ; The land resource inventory of Adavalli-2 microwatershed was conducted using village cadastral maps and IRS satellite imagery on 1:7920 scale. The false colour composites of IRS imagery were interpreted for physiography and these physiographic delineations were used as base for mapping soils. The soils were studied in several transects and a soil map was prepared with phases of soil series as mapping units. Random checks were made all over the area outside the transects to confirm and validate the soil map unit boundries. The soil map shows the geographic distribution and extent, characterstics, classification, behaviour and use potentials of the soils in the microwartershed. The present study covers an area of 313 ha in Koppal taluk and district, Karnataka. The climate is semiarid and categorized as drought - prone with an average annual rainfall of 662 mm, of which about 424 mm is received during south –west monsoon, 161 mm during north-east and the remaining 77 mm during the rest of the year. An area of about 97 per cent is covered by soils, three per cent by waterbodies, settlements and others. The salient findings from the land resource inventory are summarized briefly below. The soils belong to 9 soil series and 11 soil phases (management units) and 4 land use classes. The length of crop growing period is 150 cm). Entire area has clayey soils at the surface. About 44 per cent of the area has non-gravelly soils, 45 per cent gravelly soils (15-35 % gravel) and 7 per cent very gravelly (35- 60% gravel) soils. About 40 per cent area has very low (200mm/m) available water capacity. Entire area has very gently sloping (1-3%) lands. Entire area has moderately eroded (e2) lands. Entire area has soils that are strongly alkaline (pH 8.4 to 9.0) to very strongly alkaline (pH>9.0). The Electrical Conductivity (EC) of the soils are dominantly 0.75%) in organic carbon. Available phosphorus is low (20 ppm). Available boron is low (4.5 ppm) in the entire area. Available zinc is deficient (<0.6 ppm) in the entire area. Available manganese and copper are sufficient in all the soils. The land suitability for 24 major crops grown in the microwatershed were assessed and the areas that are highly suitable (S1) and moderately suitable (S2) are given below. It is however to be noted that a given soil may be suitable for various crops but what specific crop to be grown may be decided by the farmer looking to his capacity to invest on various inputs, marketing infrastructure, market price and finally the demand and supply position. Baseline socioeconomic characterisation is prerequisite to prepare action plan for program implementation and to assess the project performance before making any changes in the watershed development program. The baseline provides appropriate policy direction for enhancing productivity and sustainability in agriculture. Methodology: The Adavalli-2 micro-watershed (Koppal taluk and district) is located in between 15018' – 15019' North latitudes and 75056' – 75058' East longitudes, covering an area of about 312.58, bounded by Kavalura villages. It falls under Agro Ecological Region (AER)–3: (Deccan plateau, hot arid ecosubregion) Karnataka Plateau (Rayalseema as inclusion), hot arid ESR with deep loamy and clayey mixed red and black soils, low to medium AWC and LGP 60-90 days We used soil resource map as basis for sampling farm households to test the hypothesis that soil quality influence crop selection, and conservation investment of farm households. The level of technology adoption and productivity gaps and livelihood patterns were analyses. The cost of soil degradation and ecosystem services were quantified for each watershed. Results: We found that Social Indicators; Male and female ratio is 56 to 44 per cent to the total sample population. Younger age groups of population are around 63 per cent to the total population. Literacy population is around 74 per cent. Wood is the source of energy for a cooking among 80 per cent. About 40 per cent of households have a Yashiswini health card. Majority of farm households (80 %) are having MGNREGA card for rural employments. Dependence on ration cards through public distribution system is around 100 per cent Swach bharath program providing closed toilet facilities around 20 per cent of sample households. Institutional participation is only 14.8 per cent of sample households. Rural migration to unban centre for employment is prevent among 33 per cent of farm households. Women participation is decisions making are around 40 per cent of households were found. Economic Indicators; The average land holding is 5.12 ha indicates that majority of farm households are belong to marginal and small farmers. 2 Agriculture is the main occupation among 56 per cent and agricultural labours is predominant subsidiary occupation for 39 per cent of sample households. The average value of domestic assets is around Rs 16744 per household. Mobile and television are mass popular mass communication media. The average farm assets values is around 1.05 lakhs, about 40 per cent of sample farmers are owing tractors. The average per capita food consumption is around 683 grams (1860 kilo calories) against national institute of nutrition recommendation at 827 gram. Around 80 per cent of sample farmers are consuming less than the NIN recommendation. The annual average income is around Rs 21973 per household. About 75 per cent of farm households are below poverty line. The per capita monthly expenditure is around Rs 776 per household. Environmental Indicators-Ecosystem services; The value of ecosystem service helps to support investment to decision on soil and water conservation and in promoting sustainable land use. The onsite cost of different soil nutrients lost due to soil erosion is around Rs 8468 per ha/year. The total cost of annual soil nutrients is around Rs 2560349 per year for the total area of 312.58 ha. The average value of ecosystem service for food production is around Rs 8749/ ha/year. Per ha food production services is maximum in chillies (Rs 34357/ha) followed by Bengal gram (Rs 5289/ha), Green gram (Rs. 4483/ha), Maize (Rs. 3801), sunflower (Rs. 3484) and onion (Rs. 1080/ha). The average value of ecosystem service for fodder production is around Rs 4613/ ha/year of maize crop. The data on water requirement for producing one quintal of grain is considered for estimating the total value of water required for crop production. The per hectare value of water used and value of water was maximum in Bengal gram (Rs 41564) followed by Green gram (Rs 40906), Sunflower (Rs 20351), Maize (Rs 15217), chillies (Rs. 2438) and Onion (Rs 672). Economic Land Evaluation; The major cropping pattern is onion (39.32%) followed by sugarcane (17.1%), maize (13.76 %), Bengal gram (9.83 %), green gram (8.2 %), sunflower (7.86 %) and chillies (3.93 %). In Adavalli-2 micro watershed, major soils are Muttal (MTL) series are having shallow soil deep cover around 34 % of area. On this soil farmers are presently growing onion (38 %), sunflower (33 %), bengal gram (19.5 %), maize (5.7 %) and chillies (3.8 %). Dambarahalli (DRL) soil series are having moderately deep soil depth cover around 7 per cent of area, major crops grown are maize. 3 Belagatti (BGT) soil series are having very shallow soil depth covers around 5.23 % of area, the major crop grown is green gram. The total cost of cultivation in the study area for maize ranges between Rs. 17038/ha in MTL soil (with BCR of 1.60) and Rs. 14774/ha in DRL soil (with BCR of 1.34). Green gram in the cost of cultivation of Rs. 20579/ ha in BGT soil (with BCR of 1.15). In bengal gram the cost of cultivation in MTL soil is Rs. 19989 /ha (with BCR of 1.26). In chillies the cost of cultivation in MTL soil is Rs. 27301/ha (with BCR of 2.17). In onion the cost of cultivation in MTL soil is Rs. 7207/ ha (with BCR of 1.1) and sunflower cost of cultivation in MTL soil is Rs. 18680/ha (with BCR of 1.07). Suggestions; Involving farmers is watershed planning helps in strengthing institutional participation. The per capita food consumption and monthly income is very low. Diversifying income generation activities from crop and livestock production in order to reduce risk related to drought and market prices. Majority of farmers reported that they are not getting timely support/extension services from the concerned development departments. By strengthing agricultural extension for providing timely advice improved technology there is scope to increase in net income of farm households. By adopting recommended package of practices by following the soil test fertiliser recommendation, there is scope to increase yield in bengal gram (32.3 %), chillies (97 %), green gram (4.1 %), maize (72.5 to 83.7%), onion (98.9%) and sunflower (49.4%). ; Watershed Development Department, Government of Karnataka (World Bank Funded) Sujala –III Project
A partir de 1980, els canvis polítics, socials i administratius van provocar la desaparició gradual del Servei d'Extensió Agrària a Catalunya, establint-se grups d'assessorament, aliens a l'administració pública, bé adscrits a cases comercials o a grans empreses, o bé formats per professionals en exercici lliure. Aquesta situació, i pel que fa a les explotacions de vaques de llet, fou considerada satisfactòria, tant per l'administració com per altres organismes o estaments socials i econòmics, tot i que hi ha algunes opinions de professionals i ramaders que ho qüestionen. Per aquest motiu, es va plantejar la hipòtesi que les explotacions de vaques de llet, estan necessitades d'un model d'extensió que les ajudi a detectar i a solucionar problemes, per si mateixes. A través d'un mostreig estratificat d'explotacions, es va realitzar un estudi descriptiu del maneig dels sistema productiu, i, alhora, una enquesta de coneixements, dirigida als titulars de 57 explotacions. A la descripció s'insistí en la valoració nutritiva de les racions alimentàries, i en aquells aspectes destacats del racionament – tipus de ració, distribució de la ració, espai per vaca a la menjadora, el confort, els abeuradors, etc. – El tractament estadístic de les dades, fet mitjançant el paquet estadístic SAS (2002), va requerir de la transformació prèvia de la informació recollida, tant de la descripció com de l'enquesta de coneixements. En el pla teòric, mitjançant la revisió bibliogràfica, es demostra la necessitat del model d'extensió per fer front, en general, als canvis d'orientació exigits per la societat a l'agricultura. Tanmateix, es fa palès la idoneïtat del model d'extensió per a la resta de la societat. Dels resultats de l'anàlisi realitzat, cal destacar que en el 70% de les explotacions no es fa cap tipus d'examen o anàlisi dels resultats econòmics, i, només, el 26% dels titulars coneixen, aproximadament, el cost d'un litre de llet. A la majoria de les explotacions, el titular ha perdut el control del factor alimentació, i les racions, subministrades per al conjunt de vaques lactants, es formulen per a valors alts de producció, amb independència de la producció real. En general, són deficitàries en energia en relació a la potencialitat que s'exigeix al contingut proteic, i a les de quota superior, es formula en contingut PDIN per a una producció superior en 14 litres a la mitjana per vaca en lactació i dia. El ramader d'explotacions petites i mitjanes, l'únic estímul que rep, és el d'ampliar o deixar l'activitat. Mentre que, el de les explotacions d'estrats superiors de quota, es veu forçat a delegar el control dels factors de producció en els serveis tècnics, privats. El model d'extensió, esdevé necessari, ja que dóna formació i informació per tal que el ramader decideixi, com empresari, sense delegar aquesta funció. ; A partir de 1980, los cambios políticos, sociales y administrativos, condujeron a la paulatina desaparición del Servicio de Extensión Agraria en Cataluña; oportunidad que fue aprovechada para el establecimiento de grupos de asesoramiento, ajenos a la administración pública, unos adscritos a casas comerciales o a grandes empresas, y otros formados por profesionales en ejercicio libre. Esta situación, considerada satisfactoria por la administración y otros estamentos sociales y económicos, se está cuestionando por algunos profesionales y agricultores. Por lo cual se planteó la hipótesis de que las explotaciones de vacas de leche están necesitadas de un modelo de extensión, que les ayuden a detectar y a solucionar problemas por si mismas. A través de un muestreo estratificado de 57 explotaciones, se realizó un estudio descriptivo del manejo del sistema productivo, y del estado de conocimientos de los titulares de las mismas. Dentro del estudio descriptivo se incidió en la valoración nutritiva de las raciones alimenticias, y en los aspectos destacados del racionamiento – tipo de ración, modo de distribución, espacio por vaca en el comedero, confort, distribución de los bebederos, etc. – El tratamiento estadístico de los datos, realizado mediante el paquete estadístico SAS (2002), requirió la transformación previa, en variables cualitativas y cuantitativas, de la información recogida, tanto de la descripción como de la encuesta de conocimientos. En el plano teórico, y mediante la revisión bibliográfica, se evidencia la necesidad del modelo de extensión, en general, ante los cambios de orientación exigidos por la sociedad a la agricultura. Asimismo, se hace patente la idoneidad del modelo de extensión para el resto de la sociedad. De los resultados del análisis realizado, se destaca que en el 70% de las explotaciones no se realiza ningún tipo de análisis sobre los resultados económicos, y, sólo, el 26% de los titulares conocen, de manera aproximada, el coste de un litro de leche. En la mayoría de las explotaciones, el titular ha perdido el control del factor alimentación; las raciones, suministradas para el conjunto de vacas en lactación, se formulan para valores altos de producción, con independencia de la producción real. En general, son deficitarias en energía en relación con la potencialidad exigida al contenido proteico; en las explotaciones de mayor cuota, se formula en contenido PDIN para una producción superior en 14 litros a la media por vaca en lactación y día. El titular de explotaciones pequeñas y medianas, el único estimulo que recibe, de la administración pública, es el de ampliar o de dejar la actividad. Mientras, el ganadero de las explotaciones mayores, se ve presionado a delegar el control de los factores de producción en los servicios técnicos privados. El modelo de extensión, se hace necesario, para dotar a los ganaderos de un nivel de formación que les permita tomar decisiones, como empresarios, sin delegar el control de la explotación. ; From 1980, politics, socials and administrative changes, lead to the gradual disappearance of Agricultural Service of Extension in Catalonia, with the consequent appearance of groups of advising, free from public administration, ones assigning to commercial houses or great enterprises, and others formed by professionals in free exercise. Opposite to argument of those starting activities of dairy cows operations are well covered with the advice received, one considered the hypothesis that the operations of milk cows were needed of an extension model, which can help to detect problems and find by themselves, the solutions. Through a stratified sampling of the dairy cows, one carried out a descriptive study about management of the productive system, and the fulfilment of a knowledge inquiry to the farmer. In the descriptive study, one influenced in the nutritious valuation of the food rations, and about the outstanding aspects of the rationing - type of ration, way of distribution, space by cow in the feeding place, comfort, distribution of drink trough, etc. – Data processing was made with statistics package SAS (2002). It was necessary the previous transformation of the collected information, as much of the description as of the inquiry of knowledge. In theoretic plane, through bibliographic revision, is demonstrated the necessity of one extension model before orientation changes demanded by the agriculture society, in general. Likewise, it is obviously the suitability of the model of extension for the rest of the society. Through analysis result, one stands up that in 70% of dairy cows is not made any type of examination on the economics results, and, only, 26% of the farmers know, approximately, the cost of a litre of milk. In most operations, the framer has lost the control of the feeding factor, and the rations, provided to dairy cows, are formulated for higher values of production, independently of real production. In general, they are deficiencies in energy in relation with the potentiality demanded to the protein content, and those with the more amount of reference (quota), the ration is formulated in content PDIN, average, for a bigger 14 litres production, average by cow in lactation and day. The farmer of small and medium dairy cows, the only stimulus that he receives, is in the possibility of extending or leaving his activity. However, the farmer of dairy cows with more production or quota, must, unavoidably, delegate the control of the production factors to the private service of experts. The extension model appears like necessary, because it helps to trust and to lean in the expert, without delegating theirs functions of decision.
The Silesian-born urban-planning architect Lotte Stam-Beese became famous not only in the Netherlands, but also in CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne) circles, for her designs for modern post-war housing districts in the Dutch city of Rotterdam. The path she travelled to get there was a fascinating one, and shows how the course of her life was determined by her training, work, love affairs and relationships during the 1920s and 1930s. This article takes a closer look at her career, with special emphasis on her work at Bohuslav Fuchs's architectural firm in Brno from 1930 to 1932 and her other activities in Czechoslovakia. It will attempt to show how this period and these circumstances helped shape her personal development and the choices she made in her life. This paper is based on various sources consulted in archives in the Czech Republic, Germany, Ukraine, the United States and the Netherlands, as well as literature research. Lotte Beese – her maiden name – grew up in the countryside near what was then the German city of Breslau (now Wrocław in Poland) in a lower-middle-class Protestant family. In those days few girls from such a background received a secondary education. After doing several minor jobs, she persuaded her parents that a course at the Bauhaus in Dessau was the right choice for her. When she began studying there in the 1926-1927 academic year she was already 23, making her one of the older students. In 1928 the Swiss architect Hannes Meyer had been asked to set up an architecture course at the Bauhaus, entitled die neue baulehre ('the new way of building'). Inspired by Functionalist design and Marxist thinking, Meyer saw architecture and building as an elementary process, in which people's biological, mental and physical needs were crucial to the design of housing, and hence of living. Lotte Beese was keen to take the new architecture course. Meyer, who not only set up the course but a year later also succeeded Gropius as director of the Bauhaus, was less prejudiced than his predecessor about the idea of women studying subjects previously reserved for men. Lotte Beese was allowed to take the die neue baulehre course, thus becoming its first female student. Meyer considered her a good student; but he was less encouraging about her future prospects. She could become an architect – provided she married a male architect and worked for his firm. His advice was soon followed almost to the letter – for the two fell in love. Although the Bauhaus was known for its free-thinking attitudes, a conspicuous affair between a female student and the director, who was not only fourteen years older but also married with two children, was simply not acceptable. When their relationship became public knowledge, Meyer told her to quit the course. He found architectural jobs for her, first at his firm in Berlin, later on at architect Hugo Häring's firm in Berlin and finally in Czechoslovakia, where she began work in 1930 as an Entwurfsarchitektin ('design architect') at Bohuslav Fuchs's firm in Brno – the very bastion of Czechoslovakian Modernism with Bohuslav Fuchs as a leading architect. Here she would continue to work for almost two years. A surviving certificate that Lotte Beese received from Bohuslav Fuchs shows that she had worked on six projects during 1930: completion of the Vesna industrial school for girls in Brno, the savings banks in Třebíč and Tišnov, the Moravian Bank in Brno, the Morava sanatorium in Tatranská Lomnica, and drawings for steel structures in low-rise dwellings in Italy. In summer 1930 Hannes Meyer was suddenly dismissed from the Bauhaus, for he was considered awkward and too 'political'. He moved to Moscow where he was appointed professor at the State College of Building and Architecture and chief architect at the Institute for the Construction of Higher and Technical Schools, both based in Moscow. He asked Lotte Beese to live and work with him there. She gladly agreed, and left for the USSR. But their life together was not a success, and after a few months she returned to Brno where she was able to resume work at Fuchs's firm. By now Lotte Beese was pregnant, and she gave birth to a son whose father was Hannes Meyer. Although Fuchs had granted her three months' maternity leave, correspondence with a lawyer reveals that he refused to pay the necessary allowance. Beese took him to court, and appears to have won the case. This did not improve relations between them, and she could no longer return to her job at his firm. Indeed, as an unmarried mother, she was no longer able to find any kind of work in Brno, especially at a time of deepening economic crisis. Now unemployed, she had more time to take part in Brno's left-wing political and cultural life. She was a member of the Czechoslovakian communist party KSČ (Komunistická Strana Československa) and the cultural organisation Levá Fronta. She attended Levá Fronta meetings and she went to discussion evenings on modern literature and lectures by left-wing writers and thinkers. As a member of the KSČ, Lotte Beese helped to organise 'proletarian evenings' and campaigns. By now the city council had banned KSČ assemblies, demonstrations and public meetings. On 30 October 1931, to mark the fourteenth anniversary of the USSR, the party organised a pro-Russian demonstration followed by a public meeting at the Workers' House in a district of Brno called Tuřany. Beese gave a speech at the meeting, and was reported to the police. No longer feeling safe in Brno, she told Meyer she wanted to join him with their child; but he was no longer interested. Now Lotte Beese needed an alternative. With the rise of national socialism in Germany, returning there was hardly an option. Working and living in Russia seemed a better idea. In April 1932, probably with help from her friends in Prague, the left-wing architecture critic, publicist and graphic designer Karel Teige and the Modernist architect Jaromír Krejcar, she set off for the Ukrainian city of Kharkov to work as an architect. She left her son Peter with Krejcar and his then wife, the journalist Milena Jesenská. Lotte Beese worked in Kharkov for Giprograd, the Ukrainian section of the State Institute of Town Planning, and made ground-plan drawings for the sotsgorod ('socialist town') KhTZ – a large, linear housing district on a railway line ten kilometres from the city centre of Kharkov. Built from the late 1920s onwards, the district was intended for employees of the nearby, newly-built Kharkov Tractor Factory. In September 1932 she went to collect her son from Prague and take him to Kharkov. The relationship with Hannes Meyer gradually came to an end. In spring 1933 Lotte Beese ran into her former Bauhaus teacher, the Dutch Functionalist architect Mart Stam. Stam had a responsible position in the 'May Brigade' (led by Frankfurt's former city architect Ernst May), as project manager for the construction of the industrial city of Magnitogorsk in the Urals. Their encounter turned into a love affair. Lotte Beese joined Mart Stam and worked on various urban planning projects, including the renovation of the town of Orsk. Following Mart Stam's refusal on principle to build a new city in an inhospitable area near Lake Balkash that was polluted with copper ore, they had to quit the USSR. After marrying in Moscow, they left for the Netherlands, where they lived and worked in Amsterdam. But their marriage eventually broke down. By then, aged 37, Lotte Stam-Beese – she kept the name 'Stam' after her divorce – was taking a course in advanced and higher architectural teaching in Amsterdam, and she graduated in 1945. She realised that as a qualified architect she had more chance of finding a job in her favourite profession – and she succeeded. In 1946 she was appointed as an urban-planning architect in Rotterdam, which had been devastated in a German bombing raid on 14 May 1940. In 1955 she was promoted to chief architect, and was given the assignment of designing new, modern housing for the whole city. Her designs included three large housing districts developed in a Functionalist style. While working at Bohuslav Fuchs's architectural firm in Brno, Lotte Beese became well acquainted with Modernist architecture. There she also met like-minded people, made friends and was politically active. All this encouraged her to go and work in the new Soviet state and it sharpened her political consciousness. It was not the architecture of individual buildings – the main focus of her work in Czechoslovakia – but social housing in an urban environment that truly appealed to her and would become her specialist field. She designed large estates in green surroundings, where she hoped people would assist and cooperate with their neighbours. In her lectures she regularly used the following quote about Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's posthumous book Citadelle: 'car je suis d'abord celui qui habite', which she interpreted as 'you can only be a human being if you truly have a home.'
The Silesian-born urban-planning architect Lotte Stam-Beese became famous not only in the Netherlands, but also in CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne) circles, for her designs for modern post-war housing districts in the Dutch city of Rotterdam. The path she travelled to get there was a fascinating one, and shows how the course of her life was determined by her training, work, love affairs and relationships during the 1920s and 1930s. This article takes a closer look at her career, with special emphasis on her work at Bohuslav Fuchs's architectural firm in Brno from 1930 to 1932 and her other activities in Czechoslovakia. It will attempt to show how this period and these circumstances helped shape her personal development and the choices she made in her life. This paper is based on various sources consulted in archives in the Czech Republic, Germany, Ukraine, the United States and the Netherlands, as well as literature research. Lotte Beese – her maiden name – grew up in the countryside near what was then the German city of Breslau (now Wrocław in Poland) in a lower-middle-class Protestant family. In those days few girls from such a background received a secondary education. After doing several minor jobs, she persuaded her parents that a course at the Bauhaus in Dessau was the right choice for her. When she began studying there in the 1926-1927 academic year she was already 23, making her one of the older students. In 1928 the Swiss architect Hannes Meyer had been asked to set up an architecture course at the Bauhaus, entitled die neue baulehre ('the new way of building'). Inspired by Functionalist design and Marxist thinking, Meyer saw architecture and building as an elementary process, in which people's biological, mental and physical needs were crucial to the design of housing, and hence of living. Lotte Beese was keen to take the new architecture course. Meyer, who not only set up the course but a year later also succeeded Gropius as director of the Bauhaus, was less prejudiced than his predecessor about the idea of women studying subjects previously reserved for men. Lotte Beese was allowed to take the die neue baulehre course, thus becoming its first female student. Meyer considered her a good student; but he was less encouraging about her future prospects. She could become an architect – provided she married a male architect and worked for his firm. His advice was soon followed almost to the letter – for the two fell in love. Although the Bauhaus was known for its free-thinking attitudes, a conspicuous affair between a female student and the director, who was not only fourteen years older but also married with two children, was simply not acceptable. When their relationship became public knowledge, Meyer told her to quit the course. He found architectural jobs for her, first at his firm in Berlin, later on at architect Hugo Häring's firm in Berlin and finally in Czechoslovakia, where she began work in 1930 as an Entwurfsarchitektin ('design architect') at Bohuslav Fuchs's firm in Brno – the very bastion of Czechoslovakian Modernism with Bohuslav Fuchs as a leading architect. Here she would continue to work for almost two years. A surviving certificate that Lotte Beese received from Bohuslav Fuchs shows that she had worked on six projects during 1930: completion of the Vesna industrial school for girls in Brno, the savings banks in Třebíč and Tišnov, the Moravian Bank in Brno, the Morava sanatorium in Tatranská Lomnica, and drawings for steel structures in low-rise dwellings in Italy. In summer 1930 Hannes Meyer was suddenly dismissed from the Bauhaus, for he was considered awkward and too 'political'. He moved to Moscow where he was appointed professor at the State College of Building and Architecture and chief architect at the Institute for the Construction of Higher and Technical Schools, both based in Moscow. He asked Lotte Beese to live and work with him there. She gladly agreed, and left for the USSR. But their life together was not a success, and after a few months she returned to Brno where she was able to resume work at Fuchs's firm. By now Lotte Beese was pregnant, and she gave birth to a son whose father was Hannes Meyer. Although Fuchs had granted her three months' maternity leave, correspondence with a lawyer reveals that he refused to pay the necessary allowance. Beese took him to court, and appears to have won the case. This did not improve relations between them, and she could no longer return to her job at his firm. Indeed, as an unmarried mother, she was no longer able to find any kind of work in Brno, especially at a time of deepening economic crisis. Now unemployed, she had more time to take part in Brno's left-wing political and cultural life. She was a member of the Czechoslovakian communist party KSČ (Komunistická Strana Československa) and the cultural organisation Levá Fronta. She attended Levá Fronta meetings and she went to discussion evenings on modern literature and lectures by left-wing writers and thinkers. As a member of the KSČ, Lotte Beese helped to organise 'proletarian evenings' and campaigns. By now the city council had banned KSČ assemblies, demonstrations and public meetings. On 30 October 1931, to mark the fourteenth anniversary of the USSR, the party organised a pro-Russian demonstration followed by a public meeting at the Workers' House in a district of Brno called Tuřany. Beese gave a speech at the meeting, and was reported to the police. No longer feeling safe in Brno, she told Meyer she wanted to join him with their child; but he was no longer interested. Now Lotte Beese needed an alternative. With the rise of national socialism in Germany, returning there was hardly an option. Working and living in Russia seemed a better idea. In April 1932, probably with help from her friends in Prague, the left-wing architecture critic, publicist and graphic designer Karel Teige and the Modernist architect Jaromír Krejcar, she set off for the Ukrainian city of Kharkov to work as an architect. She left her son Peter with Krejcar and his then wife, the journalist Milena Jesenská. Lotte Beese worked in Kharkov for Giprograd, the Ukrainian section of the State Institute of Town Planning, and made ground-plan drawings for the sotsgorod ('socialist town') KhTZ – a large, linear housing district on a railway line ten kilometres from the city centre of Kharkov. Built from the late 1920s onwards, the district was intended for employees of the nearby, newly-built Kharkov Tractor Factory. In September 1932 she went to collect her son from Prague and take him to Kharkov. The relationship with Hannes Meyer gradually came to an end. In spring 1933 Lotte Beese ran into her former Bauhaus teacher, the Dutch Functionalist architect Mart Stam. Stam had a responsible position in the 'May Brigade' (led by Frankfurt's former city architect Ernst May), as project manager for the construction of the industrial city of Magnitogorsk in the Urals. Their encounter turned into a love affair. Lotte Beese joined Mart Stam and worked on various urban planning projects, including the renovation of the town of Orsk. Following Mart Stam's refusal on principle to build a new city in an inhospitable area near Lake Balkash that was polluted with copper ore, they had to quit the USSR. After marrying in Moscow, they left for the Netherlands, where they lived and worked in Amsterdam. But their marriage eventually broke down. By then, aged 37, Lotte Stam-Beese – she kept the name 'Stam' after her divorce – was taking a course in advanced and higher architectural teaching in Amsterdam, and she graduated in 1945. She realised that as a qualified architect she had more chance of finding a job in her favourite profession – and she succeeded. In 1946 she was appointed as an urban-planning architect in Rotterdam, which had been devastated in a German bombing raid on 14 May 1940. In 1955 she was promoted to chief architect, and was given the assignment of designing new, modern housing for the whole city. Her designs included three large housing districts developed in a Functionalist style. While working at Bohuslav Fuchs's architectural firm in Brno, Lotte Beese became well acquainted with Modernist architecture. There she also met like-minded people, made friends and was politically active. All this encouraged her to go and work in the new Soviet state and it sharpened her political consciousness. It was not the architecture of individual buildings – the main focus of her work in Czechoslovakia – but social housing in an urban environment that truly appealed to her and would become her specialist field. She designed large estates in green surroundings, where she hoped people would assist and cooperate with their neighbours. In her lectures she regularly used the following quote about Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's posthumous book Citadelle: 'car je suis d'abord celui qui habite', which she interpreted as 'you can only be a human being if you truly have a home.'
Vaikka aiempi tutkimus on osoittanut kansallisen päätöksenteon olevan usein riippuvaista muissa maissa toteutuneista kehityslinjoista, on pysynyt pitkälti arvoituksena, miksi kansallisvaltiot vapaaehtoisesti seuraavat maailmanlaajuisia politiikan muutoksen trendejä. Uusinstitutionalistinen maailmanyhteiskunnan teoria on osoittanut maailmankulttuurin tarjoavan malleja, joita omaksumalla niin kansallisvaltiot, organisaatiot, kuin yksilötkin saavat monet ominaisuuksistaan. Tämän tutkimusperinteen puitteissa toteutetut empiiriset tutkimukset ovat tyypillisesti kuvanneet keskinäisriippuvaista päätöksentekoa globaalien mallien diffuusiona, jonka tuloksena valtioiden institutionaaliset rakenteet ja politiikat samankaltaistuvat. Keskinäisriippuvaisen päätöksenteon operationalisoiminen diffuusion ja isomorfismin käsittein kuitenkin peittää näkyvistä eräitä globaalien mallien muodostumisen ja niiden omaksumiseen johtavien prosessien syvemmän ymmärryksen kannalta olennaisia seikkoja. Tästä syystä kansallisvaltiot on nähty konformisteina, jotka harkitsemattomasti mukautuvat maailmanlaajuisiin kehityssuuntiin. Väitöskirjassani lähestyn näitä ongelmia yhden esimerkkitapauksen – kansallisten bioeettisten komiteoiden maailmanlaajuisen leviämisen – tarkastelun kautta. Tapaus on ajankohtainen ja hyvä esimerkiksi globaaleista politiikkatrendeistä, sillä kansallisten bioeettisten komiteoiden leviäminen yhä useampiin maihin on ollut suhteellisen nopeaa viime vuosikymmeninä. Tähän mennessä tällainen asiantuntijaelin on perustettu jo noin sadassa maassa. Väitöskirjan kolmessa artikkelissa tarkastellaan kansallisen bioeettisen komitean muotoutumista globaalina mallina sekä kyseisen mallin domestikaatiota yhdessä maassa, Suomessa. Tutkimuksen empiirinen aineisto sisältää muun muassa eduskunnassa käytyjä keskusteluja, erilaisia hallinnollisia dokumentteja sekä bioetiikan alueella aktiivisten kansainvälisten järjestöjen tuottamia tekstejä. Väitöskirjassa omaksuttu metodologinen lähestymistapa ammentaa erityisesti tulkitsevasta politiikka-analyysista ja diskursiivisesta institutionalismista. Käytännössä tämä merkitsee sitä, että analyyttinen huomio suuntautuu ideoihin ja diskursseihin, jotka motivoivat kansallisia päätöksentekijöitä ja muita toimijoita toimimaan tavoilla jotka usein johtavat samankaltaisiin reformeihin useissa eri maissa. Väitöskirjan päätulokset lisäävät ymmärrystä globaalien mallien ja kansallisen päätöksenteon dynamiikasta, jonka käsitteellistämisessä maailmanyhteiskunnan teoria on toistaiseksi liiaksi painottanut konformismia ja isomorfismia. Ensinnäkin, tulokset kyseenalaistavat jäykän käsityksen politiikkamallien diffuusiosta, jonka mukaan diffuusio alkaa mallin keksimisestä ja kiihtyy mallin tullessa "institutionaaliseksi imperatiiviksi" potentiaalisten omaksujien keskuudessa. Tutkimuksen tulosten valossa näyttää olevan pikemminkin niin, että globaalit politiikkamallit muodostuvat samanaikaisesti niiden levitessä ympäri maailman. Toiseksi, väitöskirjassa esitetään, että vaikka funktionalistiset selitykset harvoin selittävät sitä, miksi kansallisvaltiot mukautuvat globaaleihin politiikkatrendeihin, on arkiajattelussakin yleisillä funktionalistisilla käsityksillä yhteiskunnan modernisaatiosta kuitenkin keskeinen rooli prosesseissa, joissa kansallisvaltiot näyttävät mukautuvan näihin trendeihin. Kolmanneksi, väitöskirjassa argumentoidaan, että globaalien mallien omaksumiseen osallistuvien kansallisten toimijoiden toiminnan mieli näiden omasta näkökulmasta ei ole muiden matkiminen, vaan pyrkimys yhteensovittaa edustamansa erityiset intressit "kansallisen intressin" kanssa. Globaalin mallin domestikaatio kansalliseen politiikkaan usein avaa kentän kamppailulle, jossa eri toimijat pyrkivät parantamaan tai puolustamaan asemiaan. Maailmanyhteiskunta näyttäytyy väitöskirjan tulosten valossa synkronoidulta järjestelmältä, missä kansallisvaltiot pitävät silmällä toistensa liikkeitä ja reagoivat näihin liikkeisiin omassa toiminnassaan. Kansalliset päätöksentekijät hyödyntävät muissa maissa omaksuttuja malleja kansallisten ja erityisten intressien artikuloimiseen. Maailmanyhteiskunnan käsittäminen synkronoituna systeeminä avaa uudenlaisen näkökulman suvereenien kansallisvaltioiden konformismiin. Synkronisaatio ei merkitse samankaltaistumista, sillä kansallisvaltiot voivat reagoida globaaleihin trendeihin monin eri tavoin. Väitöskirja osoittaa, että jopa silloin kun kansallisvaltiot tekevät samanlaisia reformeja, ei syynä ole se, että niiden päätöksentekijät yksinkertaisesti matkisivat muita tai passiivisesti omaksuisivat ulkopuolelta tulevia malleja. Se, mikä on vaikuttanut maailmanyhteiskunnan teorian näkökulmasta isomorfiseen kehitykseen johtavalta konformismilta, on usein itseasiassa tarkoittamaton seuraus useiden toimijoiden strategisesta toiminnasta kansallisen politiikan kentällä. Tämän johtopäätöksen tarkoitus ei ole aliarvioida maailmankulttuurin vaikutusta kansallisvaltioiden kehityslinjoihin. Pikemmin se merkitsee sitä, että nykyinen maailmanyhteiskunta on jo niin perustavasti synkronoitunut, että useimpien maiden päätöksentekijät jatkuvasti reagoivat samoihin signaaleihin ja siihen, mitä muut maat ovat tehneet tai mitä niiden odotetaan tulevaisuudessa tekevän. ; Although scholars have conclusively established that a great deal of national policymaking actually is interdependent with the trajectories of other countries, it has remained largely a mystery why nation-states voluntarily conform to global policy trends. Neoinstitutionalist world society theory has shown that globalized cultural context produces universalistic scripts from which states, organizations, and individuals derive many of their features. The empirical studies carried out within this tradition have portrayed interdependent policymaking as a process of growing isomorphism brought about via diffusion of global scripts and models. However, operationalization of interdependent policymaking in terms of diffusion and isomorphism hides certain aspects crucial for fuller understanding of the formation of global models and the actual process by which national policymakers end up enacting them. Consequently, nation-states are seen as conformists unthinkingly following current fashions and the rationales of national policymakers in conforming to global trends are neglected. The dissertation approaches these problems through examination of the worldwide proliferation of national bioethics committees (NBCs). These are expert bodies that produce opinions and statements with the purpose of giving advice to governments on ethics-related aspects of formulating health policies and regulating developments in the life sciences. They serve as a good and timely example, because the recent worldwide expansion of NBCs has been relatively rapid and shows no signs of abating. At present, a hundred or more countries either have established an NBC or are in the midst of instituting one. The dissertation comprises three articles, each presenting a case study concerned either with the formation or with the domestication of the global model of NBC. The sources of data analyzed include parliamentary debates, official documents on establishing NBCs, and publications by international organizations active in the field of public bioethics. The methodological approach applied for the dissertation draws from interpretive policy studies and discursive institutionalism. In practice, attention is directed to the dynamics by which ideas and discourses motivate national policymakers to act in ways that, though often not purposely, in effect lead to similar reforms throughout the world. The articles identify the rationales (shaped by world cultural scripts articulated through and with national and particular interests alike) underlying the political moves that led to the creation and codification of the global model of NBC and to its domestication in the case of one country in particular, Finland. In light of the findings from these case studies, three key points can be identified, each of them representing a contribution to the understanding of isomorphism and conformity prevailing in the world polity. Firstly, they call into question the rigid conception of policy diffusion according to which diffusion of a policy model begins with the invention of a model through theoretical abstraction and continues with diffusion that accelerates when enacting a model becomes an "institutional imperative" among potential adopters. The argument made is instead that the formation of global policy models takes place in parallel with the process by which they spread throughout the world. Secondly, the dissertation presents evidence that, although the functionalist conceptualizations are rarely plausible for explaining nation-states' conformity to global policy trends, functionalist imaginaries of "modernization of society" actually have a crucial role in processes whereby nation-states conform to global policy trends. Thirdly, it is argued that, while it is understandable that national policymakers' activities resemble unthinking mimicry from the bird's-eye view of world society theory, the rationale for the national actors involved in enacting global models is not to imitate but to formulate their stakeholder interests in such a way that they converge with the "national interest". The results allow us to see the world polity as a synchronized system wherein nation-states keep an eye on each other's moves and use those moves to justify their own. National policymakers utilize the models adopted elsewhere to articulate both "national" and stakeholder interests. Thinking about the world polity as a synchronized system produces novel insight in relation to the mysterious conformity of sovereign nation-states. What has appeared from the macro perspective of world society theory to be unthinking conformism is actually an unintended side effect of the strategic actions taken by actors in the fields of national policymaking. This conclusion is not intended to underestimate the influence of world culture as portrayed by world society theory. On the contrary, it attests to the validity of that research tradition's central tenet, according to which the common scripts of world culture constitute each nation- state as a member of the world polity. It implies that the contemporary world polity is already so profoundly synchronized that the policymakers of most nation-states constantly react to what other countries have done or are expected to do in the future. Synchronization does not, however, always lead to isomorphism: nation-states can react to global trends in any of various ways. The research for the dissertation shows that even when isomorphism does result, this is not because the relevant nation-states were simply imitating others or passively adopting exogenous models.
Groundwater samples were collected from 63 community wells and boreholes within south-western part of Ashanti Region of Ghana to examine their hydrogeochemical characteristics and elemental features to better understand the sources and mobilization processes responsible for arsenic (As) enrichment as well as the suitability of the groundwater for domestic and agricultural purposes. In addition, gold mine tailings dams were also investigated to ascertain the potential source of As and other trace metals (Fe, Cu, Mn, and Zn) contamination and their dissolution into the adjoining environmental media. Further, two point-of-use As removal technologies were evaluated for their effectiveness and appropriateness. A transparent small volume flow-through cell coupled with a calibrated hand held YSI® Multi-Parameter Water Quality Meter (Model YSI 6 l0-DM/600XL) was used simultaneously to measure indicator field parameters. Anions and cations were determined simultaneously in groundwater samples using Metrohm 761 Compact IC and Dionex 4500i IC system, respectively. Total As and trace metals analysis of the groundwater samples and gold mine tailings were performed on electrothermal and flame atomic absorption spectrometry. As speciation were performed using disposable cartridges. Spatial distribution maps were produced for hydrogen ion concentration (pH), total dissolved solids (TDS), total hardness (TH), electrical conductivity (EC), sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), residual sodium carbonate (RSC) and percentage sodium (% Na) using the geographic information system (GIS). Results for the analysis of groundwater samples from 63 boreholes and wells (depth 1.5-100 m) within the study area demonstrate that the groundwater composition varies from Ca–Mg–HCO3 to Na–K–HCO3 and anoxic in nature. As concentrations ranged from <0.1-72 µg/L and <0.1-83 µg/L during the dry and the wet seasons, respectively. High As concentrations were generally present in the shallow to medium depth (20-70 m) of the aquifer along with high Fe ranging from <0.01-12.3 mg/L and <0.01-16.3 mg/L during the dry and the wet seasons, respectively and relatively low Mn (1.8-498.0 µg/L during the dry season and 2.3-583.8 µg/L during the wet season). The data demonstrated that 59 % of the groundwater samples contained no detectable level of As, 17 and 22 % of the samples gave results with levels of As above the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline value for drinking water standard of 10.0 µg/L, while 24 and 19 % of the samples showed results below the WHO drinking water guideline value during the dry and the wet seasons, respectively. Dissolved inorganic As species predominate with arsenite (As-III) as the main form. It appears that high As concentrations in the study area result from the contribution of different mechanisms which can be grouped into two namely aquifers under oxidizing conditions (aided by sulphide alteration) and aquifers under reducing conditions resulting from the reduction dissolution of arseniferous iron oxyhydroxide that exist as a dispersed phase on the sedimentary grains of the aquifer. In addition, water residence time and different water use practices also influence As concentrations in the groundwater. The results of the gold mine tailings dam revealed elemental concentrations ranging up to 1752 mg/kg As, 75.16 wt.% Fe, 1848.12 mg/kg Mn, 92.17 mg/kg Cu and 177.56 mg/kg Zn. Sulphate was the dominant anion throughout the leachate, reaching a maximum dissolved concentration of 58.43 mg/L. The As concentration levels of the mine tailings were very much higher than the Netherlands soil protection guideline value of 55 mg/kg. A higher amount of the total As content in the mine tailings registered leaching levels in a range of 0.04–0.56 %. It was observed from the study that the groundwater was predominantly soft in nature and its pH in desirable range which is within safe limits for domestic use during the dry season while 82.8 % of the analyzed groundwater samples registered a non-desirable pH range (acidic) during the wet season. The results for the spatial distribution of pH, TDS, TH, EC, SAR, % Na and RSC of the groundwater samples analyzed generally appear to be within safe limits. The two point-of-use As removal technologies evaluated shown that the Three-earthen pot system is the most effective and appropriate technology. Moving forward, it is my anticipation that the findings of this study will serve as a master piece to advice policy makers, well and borehole owners about the dangers or potential risks associated with As and other trace metals in drinking water supplies sourced from groundwater and how these can be managed. In addition, this research has identified high-risk As-contaminated areas, potential health issues, methodology for assessing As in groundwater, and a broad outline of two point-of-use As treatment options which can target risk populations to protect public health and help shape the national, regional, municipal and districts water monitoring policies. ; Es wurden Grundwasserproben von 63 gemeinschaftlichen Brunnen und Bohrlöchern im Südwesten der Region von Ashanti in Ghana entnommen, um ihre hydrogeochemischen Eigenschaften und ihre elementare Beschaffenheit zu analysieren. In diesem Zusammenhang wurde das Ziel verfolgt, die Quellen und die Mobilisierungsprozesse, die für die Arsenanreicherung (As) verantwortlich sind, besser zu erfassen. Gleichzeitig ging es auch darum, die Eignung des Grundwassers im Bereich der Haushalte und der Landwirtschaft zu prüfen. Des Weiteren wurden auch Goldminenbetriebe erforscht, um sich über die potentielle Arsen-Quellen-Kontaminierung und die Kontaminierung durch andere Spurenmetalle (wie z.B. Fe, Cu, Mn und Zn) zu versichern und die Auflösung in den angrenzenden Bereichen der Umgebung festzustellen. Des Weiteren wurden die Entfernungstechnologien mit zwei Nutzungspunkten für As auf ihre Wirkungskraft und Eignung überprüft. Eine transparente Durchflusszelle mit einem geringen Volumen, gekoppelt mit einem kalibrierten, manuellen Multiparameter-Wasserqualitätsmesser des Typs YSI® (Modell YSI 6 l0-DM/600XL) wurden gleichzeitig eingesetzt, um die Feldparameter des Indikators zu messen. Die Anionen und die Katoden wurden gleichzeitig in den Grundwasserproben ermittelt. In diesem Zusammenhang wurden jeweils das System Metrohm 761 Compact IC und das System Dionex 4500i IC eingesetzt. Die Gesamtanalyse der As- und Spurenmetallwerte innerhalb der Grundwasserproben und in den Goldminenbetrieben wurden mit Hilfe der elektrothermischen Flammen-Atomabsorptionsspektrometrie ermittelt. Die Speziation des As wurde mittels Einwegkartuschen bestimmt. Es wurden räumliche Verteilungskarten für die Konzentration der Wasserstoffionen (pH), die Gesamtmenge der aufgelösten Festkörper (TDS), die Gesamthärte (TH), die elektrische Leitkapazität (EC), das Absorptionsniveau von Natrium (SAR), die Menge des Restnatriumkarbonats (RSC) und den Prozentsatz von Natrium (% Na) erstellt. Dies erfolgte mittels des geographischen Informationssystems (GIS). Die Ergebnisse der Analyse der Grundwasserproben von 63 Bohrlöchern und Brunnen (von einer Tiefe von 1,5 bis 100 m) im Rahmen des Forschungsbereiches beweisen, dass die Grundwasserzusammensetzung unterschiedlich gestaltet ist und von der Beschaffenheit des Typs Ca–Mg–HCO3 bis zur Beschaffenheit des Typs Na–K–HCO3 und der anoxischen Beschaffenheit reicht. Die As-Konzentrationen waren in der Trocken- bzw. in der Regenzeit im Bereich zwischen <0,1-72 µg/L bzw. <0,1-83 µg/L g angesiedelt. Hohe As-Konzentrationen waren im Allgemeinen im seichten Bereich bis zu einer mittleren Tiefe (von 20 bis 70 m) des Aquifers vorhanden. Hier fanden sich auch entsprechend hohe Fe-Mengen zwischen <0,01-12,3 mg/L und <0,01-16,3 mg/L während der Trocken- bzw. Regenzeit. Der Mn-Wert war während der Trockenzeit ziemlich niedrig (zwischen 1,8 und 498,0 µg/L während der Trockenzeit und zwischen 2,3 und 583,8 µg/L während der Regenzeit). Die Daten bewiesen, dass 59 % der Grundwasserproben ein nicht erfassbares Niveau von As aufwies. 17 und 22 % der Proben ergaben As-Niveaus oberhalb des von Seiten der Weltgesundheitsorganisation (WHO) vorgeschriebenen Wertes für den Trinkwasserstandards in Höhe von 10,0 µg/L, während 24 und 19 % der Proben Werte während der Trocken- bzw. Regenzeit unterhalb des Wertes der WHO-Richtlinie für Trinkwasser ergab. Die aufgelösten unorganischen As-Typen herrschen mit dem Arsenittyp (As-III) als Hauptform vor. Es geht hervor, dass die hohen As-Konzentrationen innerhalb des Bereichs der Studie auf den Beitrag der verschiedenen Mechanismen zurückzuführen sind, die in zwei Aquifere aufgeteilt werden können: einerseits das Aquifer bei oxydierenden Bedingungen (die durch eine Sulphidalteration unterstützt werden) und andererseits das Aquifer bei reduzierenden Bedingungen, die auf die reduzierende Auflösung des As-haltigen Eisenoxidhydroxids zurückzuführen sind, das in Form einer Dispersionsphase auf den Sedimentkörnern des Aquifers vorhanden ist. Des Weiteren beeinflussen auch die Aufenthaltszeit des Wassers und die verschiedenen Praxen der Nutzung des Wassers die As-Konzentrationen im Grundwasser. Aus den Ergebnissen des Stauwerks der Goldminen gehen Konzentrationen bis zu 1752 mg/kg As, 75.16 wt.% Fe, 1848.12 mg/kg Mn, 92.17 mg/kg Cu und 177.56 mg/kg Zn hervor. Sulfat war das Hauptanion im Sickerwasser und erreicht eine höchste Konzentration bei Auflösung in Höhe von 58,43 mg/L. Die Konzentrationsniveaus des Arsens der Goldminen lagen weit über der niederländischen Richtlinie für den Bodenschutz, die einen Wert in Höhe von 55 mg/kg vorschreibt. Eine höhere Gesamtmenge an As-Gehalt in den Goldminen ergab Sickerwasserniveaus im Bereich zwischen 0,04 und 0,56 %. Im Rahmen der Studie wurde beobachtet, dass das Grundwasser hauptsächlich weich war und sein pH-Wert im vorgeschriebenen Bereich lag, d.h. innerhalb der sicheren Grenzwerte für den häuslichen Gebrauch während der Trockenzeit, während 82,8 % der analysierten Grundwasserproben während der Regenzeit einen unerwünschten pH-Wert (als Säuren) aufwiesen. Die Ergebnisse hinsichtlich der räumlichen Verteilung von pH, TDS, TH, EC, SAR, % Na und RSC der analysierten Grundwasserproben befinden sich innerhalb der sicheren Grenzwerte. Die Entfernungstechnologien für As mit zwei Nutzungspunkten, die im Rahmen der vorliegenden Studie bewertet wurden, haben aufgezeigt, dass das System mit den drei Erdkolken die wirkungsvollste und angemessenste Technologie darstellt. Im weiteren Verlauf der Forschungsarbeit nehme ich vorweg, dass die Erkenntnisse dieser wissenschaftlichen Arbeit der Beratung von Politikern, Besitzern von Brunnen und Bohrlöchern dienen werden, um sie bezüglich der Gefahren und potentiellen Risiken in Verbindung mit diesen Phänomenen des As aufzuklären. Ich denke hier beispielsweise an andere As-Spurenelemente in der Trinkwasserversorgung, die aus Grundwasserquellen stammen. Die Studie behandelt auch die Modalitäten, nach denen diese Risiken und Probleme bezüglich des As gemanagt werden können. Des Weiteren wurden im Rahmen dieser Studie As-kontaminierte Bereiche mit hohem Risiko, potentielle gesundheitliche Probleme, eine Methode für die Bewertung des As im Grundwasser und ein allgemeines Konzept mit zwei Nutzungspunkten als Optionen zwecks As-Entfernung behandelt. Diese Behandlungsoptionen richten sich an die dem Risiko ausgesetzte Bevölkerung als Zielgruppe, um die öffentliche Gesundheit zu schützen und die nationalen, regionalen, Gemeinde- und Bezirksrichtlinien für die Überwachung der Gewässer auf politischer Ebene zu gestalten.
Aboriginal representatives contemplating an open argument with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission(ATSIC) about funding or representation sometimes caution each other:'don't shoot the banker'. There is little doubt that this volume of essays on ATSIC will be taken in some quarters to be doing just that, but they are intended, and should be viewed, in a more constructive light. They are a collective attempt to analyse this complex organisation after six years of its operation, and to open up debate about reform. The writers adopt a variety of perspectives on the role and impact of ATSIC, and they do not agree with each other on all points. The volume as a whole concentrates on the representative role of ATSIC, its presentation of itself as the supreme Aboriginal representative and political body. It does not echo the fairly common, and often misplaced, criticisms of waste and inefficiency of ATSIC as a development program funding organisation. The writers understand the difficulties faced by staff, councillors and Commissioners in meeting the massive problem of Aboriginal material advancement. They would all feel, however, that ATSIC can also make its problems greater by ignoring much of the advice, experience and community knowledge of other Aboriginal organisations and individuals. The essays in this book span the wide area in Aboriginal politics that ATSIC itself covers. HC (Nugget) Coombs opens the volume with a reminder of the history and origin of the present structure, which is a far cry from the recommendations of his report that led to the abolition of its predecessor, the National Aboriginal Conference (NAC). He is particularly critical of ATSIC's electoral system which neglects to include existing community-based representative organisations. Several of the chapters are concerned with problems of ATSIC Regional Councils. In particular, Rowse's examination of the emerging political consciousness of Regional Councillors complements Finlayson and Dales's analysis of the frustrations of Regional Planning from the participants' perspective, and the tensions this produces between the Regional Councils and ATSIC itself. Smith's chapter concerns the problem of dealing with Aboriginal cultural complexity and diversity in a single structure. The chapter places the regional concerns examined by Rowse, and Finlayson and Dale, in the context of ATSIC's national funding and policy strategies. Both my chapter and Dillon's are concerned also with these 'big picture' issues. I examine ATSIC's role as the political representative of a distinct and separate people which, due to Australia's international obligations, has a right of political self-determination in association with the nation state. I find it is not constituted to perform this well, and has its effectiveness further reduced by having the incompatible responsibility of Aboriginal development and welfare funding. Dillon looks for the reasons for confusion and ineffectiveness of ATSIC's many roles in the turbulent history of its foundation, and the complexities of Aboriginal political life. He concludes ATSIC would do better if it did less, backed off from its claim to be supremely representative, and made better use of its unique position within government, rather than distinct from it. The range of these essays shows clearly one immediate problem with assessing ATSIC - it has no single and easily grasped corporate nature. Any statement about ATSIC must suffer from being aimed at only one of the manifestations of this highly complex organisation to the neglect of others. This is as true for an outside observer as for the varied participants. Even a Regional Council Chairperson may from time to time be heard to refer to their Council's 'trouble with ATSIC', as if they were not themselves ATSIC. Thus, there is a danger of allowing critical points levelled at one aspect of the organisation to overshadow or neglect contradictory elements of the same organisation that are moving in alternative directions. In comparison with previous administrative arrangements ATSIC has been an enormous step forward for indigenous control of important aspects of life. Equally, it has over its first six years of operation provided a proving ground for much indigenous expertise and raised, wittingly or not, high expectations. It is the voices of those pushing at the outer limits of ATSIC's capabilities that, by and large, the authors of the essays in this volume are used to hearing. From these essays on diverse regions and areas of ATSIC's operation some common themes emerge. All papers reveal that greater regionalisation of the ATSIC structure and greater integration with Aboriginal communities and their organisations is called for. Regionalisation is now recognised to be a positive step by many people within ATSIC itself, but this needs to go further than simply increasing local control over development plans. Most of the papers, but in particular Rowse's analysis of the opinions of Regional Councillors, and Finlayson and Dale's description of their planning problems, lead to the conclusion that: • Funding needs to be aggregated much more than at present. Blocks of funds for broad purposes should be made rather than the multitude of single project schemes that now abound. Many block grants could be allocated on at least a triennial basis rather than following the present annual bidding cycle. Problems of accountability can be overcome, as they are in other publicly-funded organisations. • Regional Councils should be integrated much more firmly with existing regional and local community organisations. • If this is done, Regional Councils must be better resourced to act as regional representatives. Regional Plans must be seen as part of the political accommodation between whites and Aborigines in a particular region, not just as money grant wish-lists. This requires greater use of Regional Office resources, and a reexamination of the role of the Regional Office itself. Changes of this nature are being increasingly driven by the need for better representation of Aboriginal interests in the regions, particularly as a result of the Native Title Act 1993 and the mediation requirements of the National Native Title Tribunal. More powerful regional bodies, with more security of funding, which gain a wider role for themselves as representatives, rather than simple distributors of funds, would bring into question ATSIC's national role. While firmly defending itself from outside criticism, ATSIC nationally often does not seem to have a clear policy about its role. • Is it the cradle-to-grave care provider it often suggests it ought be? • Is it the Aboriginal parliament its original conservative critics feared it would be? • Or should it simply be a coordinating and consultation body to render more effective development programs administered by other bodies? The confusion of functions, and resultant frustration, revealed in many of the chapters in this book lead to the conclusion that ATSIC should not try to be all of these things it is neither possible nor required. Its representative structure relies too much on rather simple and formal electoral principles at the national Board level, providing no means of ensuring the necessary synthesis and balancing of community voices. To have a 'representative structure' is not the same as to actually be politically representative. Nor does ATSIC's control of Aboriginal material development programs mean that Aborigines are at last running their own affairs. There is more to self-determination than this. In practical terms as well it cannot fund and administer every aspect of Aboriginal development. It does not have the expertise, and if it were to acquire it this would be a wasteful duplication. As presently structured, it is equally far from being able to offer Aborigines self-government, either regionally or nationally. Self government must necessarily develop regionally. Even if the regional developments suggested here do occur, this will not automatically make the elected board, or the bureaucratic office holders, more authentically representative of Aboriginal voices. A broader forum is required for this. One in which Regional Councils and community organisations can directly participate, as my chapter suggests. Mike Dillon also points out, ATSIC would be more effective accepting itself as part of government - a rather privileged and potentially influential part. It should use its power of closeness to government, coupled with its relative independence, to influence more effectively the other Commonwealth program and policy providers. It could then strategically allow the emergence of a more independent forum for the diversity of Aboriginal political views. This may be the role it eventually accepts at the national level- the coordinator of national Aboriginal development policy. With a regional structure more effectively empowered to reflect regional needs it could perform this function well, and contribute its voice as the arm of Aboriginal material development - one powerful voice among many of the legitimate Aboriginal representative organisations throughout the country.
La Corporación Universitaria Autónoma de Occidente cuenta con el Centro de Estudios Ambientales para el Desarrollo Sostenible (CEADES), adscrito a la Vicerrectoría de Investigaciones, el cual tiene entre sus objetivos la aplicación de conocimientos y experiencia profesional e institucional para brindar asesoría a entidades territoriales y organismos públicos y privados en diferentes campos de la gestión ambiental como es la planificación, ordenamiento, etc. Es así como, a través de este centro, la Corporación Universitaria Autónoma con el Ministerio del medio Ambiente, la Universidad Nacional, La CVC, La Gobernación del Valle del Cauca y el Municipio de Yumbo, ejecutaron el plan de acción ambiental local, PAAL, para el municipio de Yumbo, el cual es "un conjunto de programas, proyectos y subproyectos que en respuesta a una planificación y una programación, se encaminan a la ejecución de obras y servicios que buscan modificar las condiciones ambientales del Municipio"1. De acuerdo a la información recolectada en este proyecto y en otros proyectos el Centro de Estudios Ambientales para el Desarrollo Sostenible ha detectado la necesidad de contar con un Sistema de Información Ambiental y como un subsistema un Sistema de Información Geográfica Ambiental que responda a las necesidades de disponer de información georeferenciada sobre flora, fauna, recursos hídricos, zonas de alto riesgo, zonas de alto impacto ambiental, etc. ; Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey ITESM;Corporación Universitaria Autónoma de Occidente ; Lista de figuras 4 Lista de Tablas 6 1 INTRODUCCION 7 2 MARCO TEORICO 10 2.1 Los Sistemas de Información Geográfica (SIG's) 10 2.2 Nacimiento y Evolución de la Tecnología de los SIG's. 12 2.3 Sistemas de Información Geográfica 13 2.3.1 Definiciones. 13 2.3.2 Operaciones con un SIG 16 2.3.3 Componentes principales del SIG 18 2.3.3.1 Equipos. 18 2.3.3.2 Programas. 19 2.3.3.2.1 Entrada de datos. 19 2.3.3.2.2 Almacenamiento y Gestión de la base de datos 20 2.3.3.2.3 Procesamiento de datos 20 2.3.3.2.4 Interacción con el usuario (edición de gráficos/mapas) 20 2.3.3.2.5 Salida y presentación de los datos 20 2.3.4 Recursos humanos y organización 21 2.4 Etapas de construcción de un SIG. Tipos de Datos Gráficos 21 2.4.1 Datos Vectoriales 21 2.4.2 Datos Raster 22 2.4.3 Digitalización 24 2.4.4 Edición 25 2.4.5 Topología 25 2.5 Los Sistemas de Información Geográfica y las Empresas de Servicios Públicos. 26 2.6 CINTEL y los Sistemas AM/FM en Colombia. 27 2.7 El modelo relacional 28 2.8 El modelo objeto - relacional 29 2.9 Sistemas manejadores de bases orientados a objetos (SMBDOO) 32 2.9.1 Definición de un Sistema Manejador de Bases de Datos (SMBD) 32 2.9.2 Características de los Sistemas Manejadores de Bases Orientados a Objetos (SMBDOO) 33 2.9.3 Sistema Manejador de Bases de Datos 36 2.9.3.1 Persistencia 36 2.9.3.2 Concurrencia 36 2.9.3.3 Recuperación 37 2.9.3.4 Gestión del Almacenamiento Secundario 37 2.9.3.5 Facilidad de Consultas 38 2.9.3.6 Lenguajes de Consulta 38 2.9.4 Falta de correspondencia 39 2.10 El Modelo Orientado a Objetos 40 2.11 Métodos 42 2.12 Acceso y Manipulación de los Atributos. 42 2.13 Modularidad 43 2.14 Jerarquía 44 2.15 Tipos (control de tipos) 44 2.16 Concurrencia 45 2.17 Persistencia 46 2.18 Características del Modelo Derivadas de los Conceptos de Objeto y Clase 48 2.18.1 Características derivadas del concepto de objeto 48 2.18.2 Identidad 49 2.18.3 Construcción de los Identificadores de Objetos 50 2.18.3.1 Dirección Física 50 2.18.3.2 Dirección Estructurada 51 2.18.3.3 Subrogado. 51 2.18.3.4 Subrogados con tipo 52 2.18.3.5 Longitud de los Identificadores 52 2.18.3.6 Visibilidad de los identificadores 53 2.18.3.7 "Swizzling" 53 2.18.3.8 Enlaces 53 2.18.3.9 Agregación 53 2.19 Características derivadas del concepto de clase 54 2.19.1 Asociación 54 2.19.2 Herencia Simple y Múltiple 55 2.19.3 Herencia Múltiple 57 2.19.4 Polimorfismo 58 2.19.5 Agregación 59 2.19.6 Metaclase 59 2.20 Características Avanzadas de los SMBDOO 60 2.20.1 Versiones 60 2.20.2 Evolución de Esquemas 62 2.20.3 Migración de instancias entre clases 63 2.21 Modelo Propuesto por ODMG-93 64 2.22 Modelo de Objetos de ODMG - 93 66 2.22.1 Herencia 68 2.22.2 Clases 68 2.22.3 Jerarquía de Tipos 69 2.22.4 Tipo Objeto 70 2.22.5 Tipo Type 72 2.22.6 Tipo Excepción 72 2.22.7 Tipo Iterador 72 2.22.8 Tipo Colección 73 2.22.9 Tipo Estructura 73 2.22.10 Tipo Literal 74 2.22.11 Tipo Propiedad 74 2.22.12 Tipo Atributo 74 2.22.13 Tipo Relación 75 2.22.14 Tipo Operación 75 2.22.15 Transacciones 75 2.23 Base de Datos 76 2.24 Compatibilidad de Tipos 77 2.24.1 Compatibilidad de tipos entre objetos 77 2.24.2 Compatibilidad de tipos entre literales 77 2.25 Lenguajes de Definición (ODL), Manipulación(OML) y Consulta(OQL) 77 2.25.1 Lenguaje de Definición 77 2.25.2 Lenguaje de Manipulación 79 2.25.3 Lenguaje de Consulta 79 2.26 Aspectos de la Tecnología 80 2.27 Ejemplos de Ventajas en BDOOs 81 2.28 Posibles Problemas 82 2.29 Proveedores y Productos 83 2.30 Nuevas Tecnologías 87 2.31 UML (Lenguaje de Modelado Unificado) 89 2.32 Diagramas del UML 90 2.32.1 Diagramas de casos de uso 91 2.32.2 Diagrama de clases 92 2.32.3 Diagramas de Estados 93 2.32.4 Diagramas de Secuencia 94 2.32.5 Diagramas de Colaboración 94 2.32.6 Diagramas de Actividades 95 2.32.7 Diagramas de componentes 96 2.32.8 Diagramas de Distribución 96 2.33 Estado del Arte 97 3 EL MEDIO ECOSISTÉMICO 100 3.1 Geología Regional 100 3.2 Geomorfología y Relieve 103 3.3 Hidrografía 104 4 ETAPAS Y ACTIVIDADES EN EL DESARROLLO DE SOFTWARE ORIENTADO POR OBJETOS USANDO UML 108 4.1 Etapa de análisis de requerimientos 108 4.1.1. Identificación de Requerimientos 108 4.1.2. Recolección de Información 109 4.1.3. Especificación de requerimientos 109 4.1.4. Requerimientos Funcionales 109 4.1.5. Requerimientos No Funcionales 110 4.2 Etapa de análisis y diseño 111 4.2.1 Construcción del Modelo Objeto 113 4.2.2 Identificación de clases de objetos 113 4.2.3 Descripción de clases 116 4.2.4 Identificación de atributos 117 4.2.5 Descripción de asociaciones 122 4.2.6 Agregaciones 123 4.2.7 Herencias 125 4.2.8 Definición de Operaciones 126 4.2.9 Identificación y Descripción de Actores 131 4.2.10 Descripción de Casos de Uso y Modelo de Casos de Uso. 131 4.2.10.1 Caso de Uso: Gestión de Mapas 131 4.2.10.2 Caso de Uso: Búsqueda de Información Geográfica 132 4.2.10.3 Caso de Uso: Despliegue de Información Multimedial 132 4.2.11 Diagramas de Secuencia 133 4.2.11.1 Diagramas de secuencia para el caso de uso: Gestión de Mapas 134 4.2.11.2 Diagramas de secuencia para el caso de uso: Búsqueda de Información Geográfica 136 4.2.11.3 Diagramas de secuencia para el caso de uso: Despliegue de Información Multimedial 138 4.2.12 Diagramas de Clases de MapObject 139 4.2.13 Diagramas de clases de la aplicación 139 4.2.14 Descripción de Clases y Operaciones 140 4.2.15 Esquema de mapas incorporados en el SIG 142 4.2.16 Esquemas de las bases de datos 143 4.3. Implantación 146 4.3.1. Pantallas del sistema 149 4.3.1.1. Ventana de presentación 149 4.3.1.2. Áreas de trabajo 149 4.3.2. Criterios para la elección de la Herramienta de Desarrollo 154 4.3.2.1. Características de las herramientas. 154 4.3.2.1.1. SIG 154 4.3.2.1.2. Lenguaje de desarrollo 155 4.3.2.2. Prioridades para el desarrollo 155 4.4. Análisis comparativo de Productos GIS 158 4.4.1. ArcView 158 4.4.2. MapInfo Professional 159 4.4.3. MicroStation GeoGraphics 160 4.4.4. Cuadro comparativo de productos GIS comerciales. 161 4.4.5. Conclusión final sobre algunos productos SIG's comerciales 162 5 CONCLUSIONES 164 6 BIBLIOGRAFIA 165 7 NOTAS 167 ; Maestría ; The Autonomous University Corporation of the West has the Center for Environmental Studies for Sustainable Development (CEADES), attached to the Vice-rector for Research, which has among its objectives the application of knowledge and professional and institutional experience to provide advice to territorial entities and public and private organizations in different fields of environmental management such as planning, ordering, etc. Thus, through this center, the Autonomous University Corporation with the Ministry of the Environment, the National University, the CVC, the Government of Valle del Cauca and the Municipality of Yumbo, executed the local environmental action plan, PAAL, for the municipality of Yumbo, which is "a set of programs, projects and subprojects that in response to planning and programming, are directed to the execution of works and services that seek to modify the environmental conditions of the Municipality" 1. to the information collected in this project and in other projects, the Center for Environmental Studies for Sustainable Development has detected the need to have an Environmental Information System and as a subsystem an Environmental Geographical Information System that responds to the needs of having georeferenced information on flora, fauna, water resources, high risk areas, high environmental impact areas, etc.
A competitive city is a city that successfully facilitates its firms and industries to create jobs, raise productivity, and increase the incomes of citizens over time. Worldwide, improving the competitiveness of cities is a pathway to eliminating extreme poverty and to promoting shared prosperity. The primary source of job creation has been the growth of private sector firms, which have typically accounted for around 75 percent of job creation. Thus city leaders need to be familiar with the factors that help to attract, to retain, and to expand the private sector. This document aims to analyze what makes a city competitive and how more cities can become competitive.
Bertrand Badie on the Trump Moment, the Science of Suffering, and IR between Power and Weakness
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IR retains a traditional focus on the game of power between states as its defining characteristic. But what, so asks Bertrand Badie, if this means that our discipline is based on a negation of our humanity? A giant in Francophone IR, Badie has labored to instead place human suffering at the center of analysis of the international, by letting loose sociological insights on a truly global empirical reality. In this Talk, Badie—amongst others—challenges the centrality of the idea of state power, which makes little sense in a world where most of the IR agenda is defined by issues emanating from state weakness; argues for the centrality of suffering to a more apt IR; and uses this to contextualize the Trump Moment.
Print version (pdf) of this Talk
What is (or should be), according to you, the biggest challenge / principal debate in current International Relations? What is your position or answer to this challenge / in this debate?
Unquestionably, it would be the matter of change. It is time to conceptualize, and further than that, to theorize the change that is happening in the field of International Relations (IR). Humans have always had the feeling that they are living in a period of upheaval, but contemporary IR is really characterized by several landmarks that illustrate the drastic extent of change. I see at least three of them.
The first one concerns the inclusive nature of the international system. For the first time in the history of mankind, the international system covers nearly the whole humanity, while the Westphalian system was an exclusively European dynamic in which the United States of America entered to turn it into a system, that I would call, Euro-North-American.
The second element, around which publications abound (see notably Mary Kaldor's work, Theory Talk #30), is the deep mutation of the nature of conflict. War used to be, in the Westphalian model, a matter of competition between powers. Today we have the feeling that weakness is replacing power, in that power cannot any longer function as central explanatory term of conflictual situations, which are rather manifestations of state weakness. Think of 'failing' or 'collapsing' states, which refers to the coming apart of nations that have been built badly as well as the deliquescence of social ties. This new form of conflictuality completely turns the international environment upside down and constitutes a second indicator of transformation.
The third aspect concerns mobility. Our international system used to be fully based on the idea of territory and boundaries, on the idea that fixity establishes the competences of States in a very precise way. In this perspective, the state refers to territory—as the definition given by Max Weber states very clearly—but today this territorial notion of politics is challenged by a full range of mobilities, composed of international flows that can be either material, informational, or human.
These are three indicators illustrating a deep transformation of the inner nature of IR that encourage me to speak about 'intersocial relations' rather than 'interstate relations'. The notion of interstate relations no longer captures the entirety of the global game. Our whole theory of IR was based on the Westphalian model as it came out of the peace of Westphalia, as it was confirmed by the accomplishment of the nation-state construction process and as it dominated the historical flow of international events until the fall of the Berlin wall.
Until the fall of the wall, all that was not related to Europe or to the United States of America, or more precisely North-America, was simply called 'periphery', which says enough. Today, by contrast, the periphery is central at least regarding conflictuality. We should therefore drop our Westphalian prism and build up new analytical tools for IR that would take these mutations as their point of departure. Doing away with our Westphalian approach to IR would mean questioning both our classical IR theories and questioning the practical models of action in international politics, which means the uses of diplomacy and warfare.
How did you arrive at where you currently are in your thinking about International Relations?
You know when we write, when we work, we are first of all influenced by our dissatisfaction. The classical Westphalian approach to IR, as I said earlier, did not satisfy me as I had the feeling that it was focusing on events that no longer had the importance that we kept giving them—for instance the arms race, great power politics, or the traditional diplomatic negotiations—while I was seeing, maybe this was the trigger, that the greatest part of suffering in the world was coming from places that IR theory was not really covering.
I have always told my students that IR is the science of human suffering. This suffering exists of course where we are—in Europe, in North America, they exist everywhere in the world—but the greatest part is outside of the Westphalian area, so the classical approach to IR gives a marginal and distorted image. Africa and the Middle East seen through the Westphalian prism are a dull image, strongly different from the extraordinary wealth, both for good and bad, that these areas of the world have. I've also always held that in a world where 6 to 9 million people starve to death each year, the main foci of traditional IR were derisory. Even terrorism, to which we collectively attribute so much importance, hardly comes near how important a challenge food security is.
My three latest books take a stand against traditional IR theories. In Diplomacy of Connivance (2012) I tried to show that the great power game is really a game way that is much more integrated than we usually say and that this game plays out in all multilateral fora. There is indeed a club, and that is precisely what I wanted to describe, a club of powers—one which results to the detriment of less powerful members in the international system.
In Le Temps des humiliés ('the era of the humiliated', 2014), I tried to crystallize what the classical theory could not express, which is domination seen through the lens of the dominated, humiliation as felt by the humiliated, violence as experienced by the desperate. For instance, even if we look at powers as accomplished as China today—sharing the first place with the USA in terms of GDP—we have to admit that their historical experience of humiliation constitutes a huge source of inspiration when it comes to the elaboration of its foreign policy.
And then, in my last book Nous ne sommes plus seuls au monde ('we are no longer alone in the world', 2016), this critique was even more explicit. We are writing an IR that encompasses only about one billion of human beings, while forgetting all the others. Today it is simply no longer true that these old powers are setting the international agenda. Global politics today is written by the little, the weak, the dominated; often with recourse to extreme forms of violence, but this needs to be analyzed and understood, which would mean to totally change the IR theory.
We should not forget that in large part, IR theory was a given as the USA triumphed in 1945. The well-known 'great power politics' that dominates traditional IR theory, inaugurated by Morgenthau and supported by so many others, described what was true at that time: the ability of American power to set us free from the Nazi monster. Today the challenge is strongly different, and it is by the way meaningful that two of the greatest American internationalist political scientists, Robert Keohane (TheoryTalk #9) and Ned Lebow (Theory Talk #53), have both written books that elude to the end of this global order (respectively After Hegemony and Goodbye Hegemony). Well what interests me is exactly to dig into what comes after hegemony.
What would a student need to become a specialist in International Relations or understand the world in a global way?
First of all, I would advise them to rename their science, as I said earlier, and to call it intersocial relations. The future of what we call IR comes down to the ability to understand the extremely rich, multiple and diversified interactions that are happening among and across the world's societies. It does not mean that we have to completely abandon the state-centric perspective, but rather dethrone states from the middle of this multiplicity of actors in order to realize how very often these states are powerless when faced with these different actors. That would be my first advice.
My second advice would be to look ahead and not back. Do not let yourself be dominated by the Westphalian model, and to try to build up what we need—since almost nothing has been done yet today to construct this post-Westphalian, meta-Westphalian model. Beyond power, there are things that we still misidentify or overlook while they are the driving forces of today's and tomorrow's IR. From this point of view, sociology could prove particularly useful. I consider, for instance, that Émile Durkheim is a very important inspiration to understand the world today. Here is an author to study and to apply to IR.
The third advice that I would give them would be to not forget that IR or intersocial relations are indeed the sciences of human suffering. We should be able to place suffering at the core of the thinking. We've lost far too much time staring at power, now it is time to move on to place human suffering at the center. Why? First of all because it is ethically better; maybe will we be able to learn from it? But also because in today's actual international politics suffering is more proactive than power, which is not necessarily optimistic but if recognized, would allow us a better questioning of new forms of conflictuality. Perhaps unfortunately, the international agenda is no longer fixed with canons, but with tears. Maybe this is the key point on which we should concentrate our reflection.
Your insistence on placing suffering at the center of IR scholarship seems to place you firmly alongside those who recognize "grievance" ratherthan "greed" as a central logic of international politics. What do you make of this parallel?
You are right: the idea of grievance, of recrimination, is a structuring logic of the international game today. We did not see it coming for two reasons. First of all because our traditional analysis of international politics presupposed a unity of time, as if the African time, the Chinese time, the Indian time and the European time where all identical. Yet this is completely wrong because we, in our European culture, have not understood that before Westphalia there were political models, political histories, that profoundly marked the people that would then shape contemporary politics. Remember that China is 4000 years of empire, remember that precolonial Africa was composed of kingdoms, empires, civilizations, philosophies, arts... Remember that India also is multi-millenary. The Westphalian time came to totally deny and crush this temporality, this historicity, almost in a negationist way, which means that, in the spirit of those who were defending the Westphalian model, only this model was associated to the Renaissance; and that the age of enlightenment and reason with a big R had a calling to reformat the world as if it were a hard drive. This was a senseless bet, a bet for which our European ancestors who led it had excuses because at that time we did not know all these histories, at that time we did not have all the knowledge we today have of the other and thus we simply resolved it, through the negation of alterity. Yet, IR ought on the contrary aspire to the accomplishment of alterity. Inevitably, all those who saw themselves denied their historicity, over several centuries and even several millenaries, accumulated a feeling of recrimination, of particularly deep grievances.
The second element is that all of this happened in a context of disequilibrium of power resources, linked to different factors that reflected indeed the fact that at a given moment of time western powers were both literally and figuratively better armed than other societies. Abovementioned negation of alterity was mapped onto, and amplified, by the forceful imposition of a multilateral system that turned into the worst situation, into a proclaimed hierarchy of cultures; as a result and there were, as Jules Ferry put it in the France of the 19th century, 'races'; as in, 'We have the obligation to educate inferior races'. It is not the beginning of history, but it is the beginning of a history of humiliation. And through subsequent waves of globalization, this humiliation has turned into a central nerve running through international life. A nerve that has been used by both the powerful, who made a tool out of humiliating the others to better dominate them (think here of the opium wars, colonization) and simultaneously a nerve that fed the reaction of mobilization in the extra-Westphalian world by those that had to stand up against those who were humiliating them. So you see how it truly lies at the basis of IR. In my mind, it became a forceful paradigm, it explains everything, even though others factors continue to weigh in on actual dynamics.
In order to appreciate all this, we need a sociological approach, which has for me two aspects. Both these aspects must be considered together for the approach to be well understood. The first one is a timeless aspect, which is to consider that everywhere and in all eras politics is a social product. Politics cannot be understood as somehow outside society. This I would say contradicts the majority of IR scholars, who believe excessively in the autonomy of politics and of the state—even if only for analytical purposes. The second element of this sociological approach is the historical or temporal component. That is what I was talking about earlier: with globalization the social fabric strongly progressed compared to the political fabric, and considering that intersocial relations grew, we need a sociological approach to understand them.
Do you think that the Trump period constitutes a fundamental break with the conduct of IR?
Trump himself maybe not, but what he represents certainly. If we look at the USA today we see, since the new millennium, three models succeeding each other. After 11-09 there was a time of neo-conservatism where globalization was considered by American leaders as a means or maybe a chance to universalize the American model, willingly or not. By force, as was the case in Iraq in 2003. This model failed.
This lead to a second model which I would describe as a liberal model, neo-liberal, incarnated by Obama who learnt from the lessons of the failure of neo-conservatism, and had the courage to question the hypothesis hitherto considered as indisputable of American leadership in the world, and who considered that the USA could win only through soft power or smart power or free-trade. That is the reason why Obama was just a little bit interventionist and was counting a lot on the TTIP and on all these transregional agreements.
With Trump we arrive at a third model, one that I would call neo-nationalist, that looks at globalization in a different way. In his perspective, globalization constitutes a chance to satisfy the national American interests. The idea of the national comes back after a long interlude of a globalizing vision. It does not mean that we are not interventionist anymore. What happened in Syria proves it. It means that we will intervene not according to the needs of globalization but rather to American interests. It is about sharing a strong and powerful image of the USA on the one hand and on the other serving the concrete interests of the American people and nation.
This neo-nationalist model is not defended only by Trump, that is the reason why I was saying that we should not consider Trump individually. We find it exactly the same way with Putin. We find it by many other world leaders, such as Erdogan or Duterte or Victor Orbán—really different figures—or Marshal Sissi in Egypt.
We find it as well in attitudes, for instance Brexit in Great Britain, in right-wing neo-populism in Europe: Ms. Le Pen, Mr. Wilders... or in a certain left-wing neo-populism as Mélenchon in France. It is in the air, seeming almost a passing fad. But it constitutes perhaps a double rupture within IR. First of all because since the emergence of globalization, let's say around the 70's, the national interest as a thought category was bit by bit replaced with approaches in terms of collective goods. Today by contrast we witness the abandonment of this image of collective goods for a return to the national interest. This is very clear in Trump's renouncing of the COP21 of Paris. At the same time, second, this constitutes some form of the rehabilitation of the idea of power, which again seeps into the language of IR.
You know the IR scholar is not a neutral person, we have to use our science towards positive action and for the definition of sound public policies. Going against the idea of collective goods, casting doubt on the ideas of human security, environmental security, food security, and sanitary security is extremely dangerous because the composition of national interests and egoism will never converge to a globally coherent policy. It is the weak that will suffer first.
And the same time that power is reinstated as a driving principle of IR praxis, the paradox is that great powers are becoming more and more powerless. If we look only since 1989, and ask, when did state power ever triumph in IR? Where did the strongest ever find a battleship enabling him to resolve a problem to his benefit and according to his goals? Never. Not in Somalia, not in Afghanistan, not in Iraq, not in Syria, not in Palestine. Nowhere. Not in Sahel, not in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Nowhere. So I am a little worried, indeed, about this naive and old-fashioned rehabilitation of state power.
Can we say that globalization, or rather the ambition of integration at either the European or global scale, has failed? Can today be considered a good moment to bury of the idea of integration?
I do not like burials, it is not an expression that I would use, but your question is very pertinent. For around twenty years I have been saying and teaching that regional integration constituted an intermediary and realistic level of adaptation between the era of the nation state and that of globalization, which means that I believed for a long time that regional integration was the final step towards a global governance of the world.
I thought for a long time that what was not possible at the global scale, a global government, was possible at the regional level and this would already strongly simplify the world map and thus go in the way of this adhesion to the collective dimension required by globalization. Nevertheless, not only Europe suffers a setback, but all the regional constructions in the world are in a similar situation. Mr. Trump openly shoves the NAFTA agreement, MERCOSUR is down as every State that is composing it has recriminations against it, and we could extend the list… All the forms of integration that have been set by Chavez around his Bolivian ideal have ceased to exist; Africa progresses very slowly in terms of regional integration; the Arab Maghreb Union, which is an essential device, totally failed. Thus indeed the situation does not look good.
In the case of Europe there is a double phenomenon: on the one hand, there is this really grave failure due to the secession of Great Britain from Europe, and then there is a general malaise of the European model. Brexit is really rare, if you look at the contemporary history of IR it is simply unprecedented that a state shuts the door on a regional or global organization. As far as I remember, it only happened a few times before, with Indonesia in the UN in 1964, which lasted only 19 months. It happened with Morocco with the African Union and Morocco is currently reintegrating in it. This British situation came as a thunderbolt, worsened by the fact that paradoxically it is not so much because of regional integration that the British voted against the European Union. It was more from an anti-migration, xenophobic and nationalist (in reference to that nationalism trend that I was earlier talking about) perspective and what is dramatic is that we can clearly see that the nationalist sentiment is really attacking the inner principles of regional integration.
I was saying that in the European case there are internal problems which run even deeper than the British defection, and I will underline at least two of them. First of all there is a democratic deficit of Europe, meaning that Europe was not able to match electoral spaces with the ones where decisions get made; people still vote at the national level while the decisions are taken in Brussels. In consequence, democratic control over these decisions is extremely weak. How to resolve this equation? And here the breakdown is total since very few people are coming up with suggestions. The other factor of this crisis is, according to me, the fact that Europe has been built with success after World War II in a progressive way around association and indeed, Durkheim proved it, the integrative logic makes sense. Unity makes strength and it did make strength once in Europe to prevent war, a third World War, and secondly to encourage the reconstruction of European countries where economy was totally collapsed. This time is now over and it is the fault of Europe to not have known how to recontextualize itself, to react to the new contexts.
Paying one more time tribute to Durkheim who guessed it right, Durkheim said that there are two ways of constructing social ties: around association and around solidarity. I think that the time of association is now over, we should enter in the time of solidarity, which does not consist in saying 'We Germans are associated with Greece', but rather 'We Germans are joined together with Greece because we know that if Greece collapses, in a long term perspective, we will suffer the consequences'. Thus this idea of fundamental unity is an idea that has been a little bit overlooked, abandoned by the Europeans and now they find themselves in a complete paralysis.
Is the decolonization period still having an impact on contemporary IR?
Oh totally, totally. I would first say because it is a major event in the field of IR, which made the World switch from 51 sovereign States of the UN in 1945 to 193 today but above all, a very aggravating circumstance, is that this decolonization has been a complete failure and this failure weighs enormously on international politics.
It has been a failure because decolonization assumed the format of copying the western state model in countries that were accessing independence, while this model was not necessarily adapted, which provoked a proliferation of failed states, and these collapsed states had a terrible effect on IR.
Secondly because decolonization should have led to the enrichment and to the substantial modification of multilateralism, by creating new institutions able to take charge of new challenges resulting from decolonization. Yet, except the creation of UNCTAD in 1964 and of UNDP in 1965, there have been very little innovations in terms of global governance. Thus global governance remains dominated by what I earlier called 'the club', which means the great powers from the north, and this is very dysfunctional for the management of contemporary crises. Then also because the ancient colonial powers happen to find new forms of domination that did somehow complicate the international game. Thus in fact decolonization is a daily aspect of the crisis that the international system faces today.
In conclusion, which question should we have asked? In other terms, which question have we forgot?
I found your questions very pertinent as it allowed the discussion of themes that I consider essentials. Now, the big problem that makes me worry is the great gap between the analysts and the actors in IR. I am not saying that the analysts understood everything, far from it, but I think that IR theorists are very conscious of some of these transformations I have mentioned. If you look at some great authors such as James Rosenau, Ned Lebow or Robert Keohane, to name just a few—there are way more—they all contributed to the reconstruction of IR.
What truly strikes me is the autism of political actors, they think that they are still at the time of the Congress of Vienna and that is an extraordinary source of tension. Thus as long as this spirit of change does not reach political actors, maybe Barack Obama was the first one to enter this game and then the parenthesis was closed, as long as there will not be this move towards the discovery of a new world, maybe as well through the inclusion in our reflection about the international fabric such partners as China, it is not normal that this very powerful China does not have any choice but to share the paradigm and the model of action proper to occidental diplomacy, as long as we would not have done this precise effort, well, we will remain in the negation of the human, and that is the essential problem today, we are unable to understand that at the end there is just one unity, which is the human being.
I had the chance to visit 105 countries and everywhere I met the same men and the same women, with their pain, with their happiness, their hardship, their joy, their sorrow, their needs that were everywhere identical. As long as we will not understand that, well, we will be living in a world that is in total contradiction with what it is truly and essentially. We will live in a world of artifice and thus a world of violence.
Related links
Read Badie's The Arab Spring: A starting point (SER Études 2011) here (pdf)
Forty-five years of existence of "Cuadernos de Administración" is and will always be a reason for celebration for the academy: The School of Administration and its Editors confirm their enthusiasm and conviction, by continuing to edit and successfully fulfilling the purpose for which they were created. The "Cuadernos" have been a means of information on scientific academic developments in the field of business administration and related areas of knowledge. For the authors and editors of this publication, the greatest satisfaction is knowing that their writings, periodic content, messages, findings and opinions have been understood, studied and applied. As readers, the motivation is to find great innovations in each edition, which will allow them to understand how to overcome the current challenges that they are currently experiencing in the fields of economics, business, management, as well as a guide on how to adapt to the new onus's realities. And even more, to help you to plan the immediate future that serves as a guide to modern management and mainly in the different areas: public, industrial, commercial, health, justice and education. In short, we are always waiting for new information and guidance services to make the necessary decisions in the orientation and administration of organizations with leaders awarded to contribute the improvements of future societies. For the Founders of the magazine "Cuadernos" is an honor and pride, to celebrate forty-five years, from the first publication to see our dreams materialized and turned into such an impressive publication, reaching 45 years is the evidence of the great achievement, " Having done it well", that we celebrate today. In 1976 in the Department of Administration, with the collaboration of our Master Andrés Sevilla and the professor Leonel Monroy, we created: a means of communication and information of knowledge and academic developments. "Cuadernos" was part of the strategy and information medium of the innovations of our teachers, when we began to conceptualize and direct the New School of Administration in the 1970s. Andres Sevilla, Hugo Restrepo, Hernando Arellano, Jaime Lopez, Leonel Monroy, Leon Blank, Alberto Merlano, Alberto Guitis, Miguel Bernal, Octavio Garcia, Fabio Villegas, Jose Manuel Arenas, Hernan Alvarez, Harold Edgar Perea, Bernardo Barona, Ricardo Pabon, come to mind in these moments of celebration. To all of them, an immense gratitude for their support, collaboration - and for their contributions - in the realization of this academic strategic component. The results of "Cuadernos" in its forty-five years of existence have been reflected in the editions and articles of researchers, our university's professors and business leaders, with national and international recognition, for the innovations presented, in the scientific field of business management. To all of them, our deepest gratitude for their work in the realization of our dreams, they have all played the role of managers and actors of this great academic educational development. Finally, like forty-five years ago, let me remember the projection of those dreams. we said at that time:"This is the first issue of the Cuadernos de Administración, a newsletter for teaching purposes, which we hope will become the magazine of the School of Management of the Universidad del Valle.""The Department of Business Administration, which gave a decisive impetus to the administration of organizations in the region more than ten years ago, has since been constantly evolving; its task of producing knowledge to teach and to share it with other sectors of the university and the city through this means of information.""Individuals inclined for the profession of business management have been helped by us to improve their knowledge in the field of the organization and its dynamic agent the administrator. We desire, in the years to come, to maintain the service of those whom we have served (our graduates) and will serve; similarly, to new sectors that have not had a link with the University; we want to be an authoritative voice in a society that must and needs to be well managed.""One way to do this is by guiding, through qualified information, all those who run and manage organizations (public and private), with the desire to be used for their daily work, today and tomorrow. We want this to be your newsletter, for you to understand that it is, to feel it and to want it to be." We hope in this way, through you, transcend the community." Milton J. Mora Lema Cali, 1976.Let us now share some reflections that could contribute to the future of "Cuadernos" and its information mission in the field of Management, for the academic training of current and future generations. Clearly, in the last years of the 20th and 21st centuries, a transformative revolution has occurred in all fields and levels, from the individual to the organizational globalization of human talent. We, as actors and managers of new developments, must then reflect on how our present actions can impact the future, our environment and the quality of life of our children, relatives and living beings. And this means accepting responsibility for our decisions and actions in the face of these potential problems. It is necessary to become aware of the need to avoid the undesirable future and to choose other alternatives to obtain sustainable development. And from this vision, participate with reliable information that guides management training. Undoubtedly, the development and growth of contemporary societies are a consequence of the level of education, strategies and institutional educational models. In the field of management and business, educational models have contributed to the formation of leaders with levels of knowledge of contemporary organizations, aware of these realities and with the ability to analyze management decisions. In our case, "Cuadernos", faithful to its development mission, will continue to maintain its leading role, providing information on research, knowledge innovations in Management and Management training and the like of the modern world. In this context, what should be its orientation to contribute to the solution of the main problems that we are experiencing, in Western societies, for example, in the management of ecosystems, in the quality of life of the surrounding societies, in modern management for companies and businesses in the industrial, commercial, public institutions, health, justice and other fields. What competencies, concepts and distinctive values are necessary to guide the formation of the leaders of the organizations, their ethical and human formation, that they contribute to consolidating justice and equity for their societies? The training of modern management must be aimed at contributing to the construction of a better world with quality of life for the benefit of all human beings and their ecosystems. What then will be the role of the "Cuadernos" of the future "? The knowledge, science and technology, in the world's leading countries, have become strategies to generate new processes of political, educational and institutional development. Scientific and technological innovations, new knowledge and information have generated cultural changes, new technological developments applied to the innovation of new processes, new ways of working and major changes in contemporary organization, which have required the development of qualified human talent in these cutting-edge technologies. A society stronger in scientific and technological knowledge requires greater investments in education, research and development. There must be policies and strategies where the citizen can value the importance of knowledge and its application, based on the scientific and technological results generated in the country for the solution of real problems in Colombia today aggravated by the post-pandemic Covid 19. The use of technology is allowing us to solve the main challenges of the planet: feeding the entire population, to guarantee access to drinking water, education for all, sustainable energy and caring for the environment, among others. Within this trend, what should be the orientation of Cuadernos, to detect the new trends and innovations that have transformed, the economies, the management and administration of contemporary organizations? Of course, these challenges would imply being open to transform in the field of education, in the habitual mentalities, the strategies of the businesses and the styles of management. With educational innovations, online content is growing, and will continue in this trend improving, as well as, the obsolescence of knowledge every five years and the content of teaching changing every year. These challenges imply a revolution in the content and the media of Cuadernos?"Each edition of the journal Cuadernos would be full of: Timely research, relevant business and management advice, interesting case studies The participation of teachers and researchers will be the backbone of the Journal, with their contributions from the new findings, obtained in the doctorate and teaching research. This academic technological contribution, when applying science to practice, would lead to development, growth and would raise the levels of knowledge and training to the postgraduate and professional levels, as well as the quality of life. The content of our magazine would be designed to inform and inspire its readers to grow and achieve their individual goals. "The above reflections would be a great challenge for the Faculty of Administration Sciences and therefore, for Cuadernos de Administración to continue and maintain its informative academic leadership. Playing the role of Alma Mater, spreading knowledge to sensitize and train its leaders and citizens, with training for modern management, administration and leadership solutions and developments. In this way, the "Cuadernos" magazine will continue to contribute to the economic, technological and cultural growth of its readers, fulfilling the mission for which they were created and also contributing to the development of the New Colombia that all Colombians yearn for. Let us keep making our dreams come true. Thanks. ; Forty-five years of existence of "Cuadernos de Administración" is and will always be a reason for celebration for the academy: The School of Administration and its Editors confirm their enthusiasm and conviction, by continuing to edit and successfully fulfilling the purpose for which they were created. The "Cuadernos" have been a means of information on scientific academic developments in the field of business administration and related areas of knowledge. For the authors and editors of this publication, the greatest satisfaction is knowing that their writings, periodic content, messages, findings and opinions have been understood, studied and applied. As readers, the motivation is to find great innovations in each edition, which will allow them to understand how to overcome the current challenges that they are currently experiencing in the fields of economics, business, management, as well as a guide on how to adapt to the new onus's realities. And even more, to help you to plan the immediate future that serves as a guide to modern management and mainly in the different areas: public, industrial, commercial, health, justice and education. In short, we are always waiting for new information and guidance services to make the necessary decisions in the orientation and administration of organizations with leaders awarded to contribute the improvements of future societies. For the Founders of the magazine "Cuadernos" is an honor and pride, to celebrate forty-five years, from the first publication to see our dreams materialized and turned into such an impressive publication, reaching 45 years is the evidence of the great achievement, " Having done it well", that we celebrate today. In 1976 in the Department of Administration, with the collaboration of our Master Andrés Sevilla and the professor Leonel Monroy, we created: a means of communication and information of knowledge and academic developments. "Cuadernos" was part of the strategy and information medium of the innovations of our teachers, when we began to conceptualize and direct the New School of Administration in the 1970s. Andres Sevilla, Hugo Restrepo, Hernando Arellano, Jaime Lopez, Leonel Monroy, Leon Blank, Alberto Merlano, Alberto Guitis, Miguel Bernal, Octavio Garcia, Fabio Villegas, Jose Manuel Arenas, Hernan Alvarez, Harold Edgar Perea, Bernardo Barona, Ricardo Pabon, come to mind in these moments of celebration. To all of them, an immense gratitude for their support, collaboration - and for their contributions - in the realization of this academic strategic component. The results of "Cuadernos" in its forty-five years of existence have been reflected in the editions and articles of researchers, our university's professors and business leaders, with national and international recognition, for the innovations presented, in the scientific field of business management. To all of them, our deepest gratitude for their work in the realization of our dreams, they have all played the role of managers and actors of this great academic educational development. Finally, like forty-five years ago, let me remember the projection of those dreams. we said at that time:"This is the first issue of the Cuadernos de Administración, a newsletter for teaching purposes, which we hope will become the magazine of the School of Management of the Universidad del Valle.""The Department of Business Administration, which gave a decisive impetus to the administration of organizations in the region more than ten years ago, has since been constantly evolving; its task of producing knowledge to teach and to share it with other sectors of the university and the city through this means of information.""Individuals inclined for the profession of business management have been helped by us to improve their knowledge in the field of the organization and its dynamic agent the administrator. We desire, in the years to come, to maintain the service of those whom we have served (our graduates) and will serve; similarly, to new sectors that have not had a link with the University; we want to be an authoritative voice in a society that must and needs to be well managed.""One way to do this is by guiding, through qualified information, all those who run and manage organizations (public and private), with the desire to be used for their daily work, today and tomorrow. We want this to be your newsletter, for you to understand that it is, to feel it and to want it to be." We hope in this way, through you, transcend the community." Milton J. Mora Lema Cali, 1976.Let us now share some reflections that could contribute to the future of "Cuadernos" and its information mission in the field of Management, for the academic training of current and future generations. Clearly, in the last years of the 20th and 21st centuries, a transformative revolution has occurred in all fields and levels, from the individual to the organizational globalization of human talent. We, as actors and managers of new developments, must then reflect on how our present actions can impact the future, our environment and the quality of life of our children, relatives and living beings. And this means accepting responsibility for our decisions and actions in the face of these potential problems. It is necessary to become aware of the need to avoid the undesirable future and to choose other alternatives to obtain sustainable development. And from this vision, participate with reliable information that guides management training. Undoubtedly, the development and growth of contemporary societies are a consequence of the level of education, strategies and institutional educational models. In the field of management and business, educational models have contributed to the formation of leaders with levels of knowledge of contemporary organizations, aware of these realities and with the ability to analyze management decisions. In our case, "Cuadernos", faithful to its development mission, will continue to maintain its leading role, providing information on research, knowledge innovations in Management and Management training and the like of the modern world. In this context, what should be its orientation to contribute to the solution of the main problems that we are experiencing, in Western societies, for example, in the management of ecosystems, in the quality of life of the surrounding societies, in modern management for companies and businesses in the industrial, commercial, public institutions, health, justice and other fields. What competencies, concepts and distinctive values are necessary to guide the formation of the leaders of the organizations, their ethical and human formation, that they contribute to consolidating justice and equity for their societies? The training of modern management must be aimed at contributing to the construction of a better world with quality of life for the benefit of all human beings and their ecosystems. What then will be the role of the "Cuadernos" of the future "? The knowledge, science and technology, in the world's leading countries, have become strategies to generate new processes of political, educational and institutional development. Scientific and technological innovations, new knowledge and information have generated cultural changes, new technological developments applied to the innovation of new processes, new ways of working and major changes in contemporary organization, which have required the development of qualified human talent in these cutting-edge technologies. A society stronger in scientific and technological knowledge requires greater investments in education, research and development. There must be policies and strategies where the citizen can value the importance of knowledge and its application, based on the scientific and technological results generated in the country for the solution of real problems in Colombia today aggravated by the post-pandemic Covid 19. The use of technology is allowing us to solve the main challenges of the planet: feeding the entire population, to guarantee access to drinking water, education for all, sustainable energy and caring for the environment, among others. Within this trend, what should be the orientation of Cuadernos, to detect the new trends and innovations that have transformed, the economies, the management and administration of contemporary organizations? Of course, these challenges would imply being open to transform in the field of education, in the habitual mentalities, the strategies of the businesses and the styles of management. With educational innovations, online content is growing, and will continue in this trend improving, as well as, the obsolescence of knowledge every five years and the content of teaching changing every year. These challenges imply a revolution in the content and the media of Cuadernos?"Each edition of the journal Cuadernos would be full of: Timely research, relevant business and management advice, interesting case studies The participation of teachers and researchers will be the backbone of the Journal, with their contributions from the new findings, obtained in the doctorate and teaching research. This academic technological contribution, when applying science to practice, would lead to development, growth and would raise the levels of knowledge and training to the postgraduate and professional levels, as well as the quality of life. The content of our magazine would be designed to inform and inspire its readers to grow and achieve their individual goals. "The above reflections would be a great challenge for the Faculty of Administration Sciences and therefore, for Cuadernos de Administración to continue and maintain its informative academic leadership. Playing the role of Alma Mater, spreading knowledge to sensitize and train its leaders and citizens, with training for modern management, administration and leadership solutions and developments. In this way, the "Cuadernos" magazine will continue to contribute to the economic, technological and cultural growth of its readers, fulfilling the mission for which they were created and also contributing to the development of the New Colombia that all Colombians yearn for. Let us keep making our dreams come true. Thanks.
Forty-five years of existence of "Cuadernos de Administración" is and will always be a reason for celebration for the academy: The School of Administration and its Editors confirm their enthusiasm and conviction, by continuing to edit and successfully fulfilling the purpose for which they were created. The "Cuadernos" have been a means of information on scientific academic developments in the field of business administration and related areas of knowledge. For the authors and editors of this publication, the greatest satisfaction is knowing that their writings, periodic content, messages, findings and opinions have been understood, studied and applied. As readers, the motivation is to find great innovations in each edition, which will allow them to understand how to overcome the current challenges that they are currently experiencing in the fields of economics, business, management, as well as a guide on how to adapt to the new onus's realities. And even more, to help you to plan the immediate future that serves as a guide to modern management and mainly in the different areas: public, industrial, commercial, health, justice and education. In short, we are always waiting for new information and guidance services to make the necessary decisions in the orientation and administration of organizations with leaders awarded to contribute the improvements of future societies. For the Founders of the magazine "Cuadernos" is an honor and pride, to celebrate forty-five years, from the first publication to see our dreams materialized and turned into such an impressive publication, reaching 45 years is the evidence of the great achievement, " Having done it well", that we celebrate today. In 1976 in the Department of Administration, with the collaboration of our Master Andrés Sevilla and the professor Leonel Monroy, we created: a means of communication and information of knowledge and academic developments. "Cuadernos" was part of the strategy and information medium of the innovations of our teachers, when we began to conceptualize and direct the New School of Administration in the 1970s. Andres Sevilla, Hugo Restrepo, Hernando Arellano, Jaime Lopez, Leonel Monroy, Leon Blank, Alberto Merlano, Alberto Guitis, Miguel Bernal, Octavio Garcia, Fabio Villegas, Jose Manuel Arenas, Hernan Alvarez, Harold Edgar Perea, Bernardo Barona, Ricardo Pabon, come to mind in these moments of celebration. To all of them, an immense gratitude for their support, collaboration - and for their contributions - in the realization of this academic strategic component. The results of "Cuadernos" in its forty-five years of existence have been reflected in the editions and articles of researchers, our university's professors and business leaders, with national and international recognition, for the innovations presented, in the scientific field of business management. To all of them, our deepest gratitude for their work in the realization of our dreams, they have all played the role of managers and actors of this great academic educational development. Finally, like forty-five years ago, let me remember the projection of those dreams. we said at that time:"This is the first issue of the Cuadernos de Administración, a newsletter for teaching purposes, which we hope will become the magazine of the School of Management of the Universidad del Valle.""The Department of Business Administration, which gave a decisive impetus to the administration of organizations in the region more than ten years ago, has since been constantly evolving; its task of producing knowledge to teach and to share it with other sectors of the university and the city through this means of information.""Individuals inclined for the profession of business management have been helped by us to improve their knowledge in the field of the organization and its dynamic agent the administrator. We desire, in the years to come, to maintain the service of those whom we have served (our graduates) and will serve; similarly, to new sectors that have not had a link with the University; we want to be an authoritative voice in a society that must and needs to be well managed.""One way to do this is by guiding, through qualified information, all those who run and manage organizations (public and private), with the desire to be used for their daily work, today and tomorrow. We want this to be your newsletter, for you to understand that it is, to feel it and to want it to be." We hope in this way, through you, transcend the community." Milton J. Mora Lema Cali, 1976.Let us now share some reflections that could contribute to the future of "Cuadernos" and its information mission in the field of Management, for the academic training of current and future generations. Clearly, in the last years of the 20th and 21st centuries, a transformative revolution has occurred in all fields and levels, from the individual to the organizational globalization of human talent. We, as actors and managers of new developments, must then reflect on how our present actions can impact the future, our environment and the quality of life of our children, relatives and living beings. And this means accepting responsibility for our decisions and actions in the face of these potential problems. It is necessary to become aware of the need to avoid the undesirable future and to choose other alternatives to obtain sustainable development. And from this vision, participate with reliable information that guides management training. Undoubtedly, the development and growth of contemporary societies are a consequence of the level of education, strategies and institutional educational models. In the field of management and business, educational models have contributed to the formation of leaders with levels of knowledge of contemporary organizations, aware of these realities and with the ability to analyze management decisions. In our case, "Cuadernos", faithful to its development mission, will continue to maintain its leading role, providing information on research, knowledge innovations in Management and Management training and the like of the modern world. In this context, what should be its orientation to contribute to the solution of the main problems that we are experiencing, in Western societies, for example, in the management of ecosystems, in the quality of life of the surrounding societies, in modern management for companies and businesses in the industrial, commercial, public institutions, health, justice and other fields. What competencies, concepts and distinctive values are necessary to guide the formation of the leaders of the organizations, their ethical and human formation, that they contribute to consolidating justice and equity for their societies? The training of modern management must be aimed at contributing to the construction of a better world with quality of life for the benefit of all human beings and their ecosystems. What then will be the role of the "Cuadernos" of the future "? The knowledge, science and technology, in the world's leading countries, have become strategies to generate new processes of political, educational and institutional development. Scientific and technological innovations, new knowledge and information have generated cultural changes, new technological developments applied to the innovation of new processes, new ways of working and major changes in contemporary organization, which have required the development of qualified human talent in these cutting-edge technologies. A society stronger in scientific and technological knowledge requires greater investments in education, research and development. There must be policies and strategies where the citizen can value the importance of knowledge and its application, based on the scientific and technological results generated in the country for the solution of real problems in Colombia today aggravated by the post-pandemic Covid 19. The use of technology is allowing us to solve the main challenges of the planet: feeding the entire population, to guarantee access to drinking water, education for all, sustainable energy and caring for the environment, among others. Within this trend, what should be the orientation of Cuadernos, to detect the new trends and innovations that have transformed, the economies, the management and administration of contemporary organizations? Of course, these challenges would imply being open to transform in the field of education, in the habitual mentalities, the strategies of the businesses and the styles of management. With educational innovations, online content is growing, and will continue in this trend improving, as well as, the obsolescence of knowledge every five years and the content of teaching changing every year. These challenges imply a revolution in the content and the media of Cuadernos?"Each edition of the journal Cuadernos would be full of: Timely research, relevant business and management advice, interesting case studies The participation of teachers and researchers will be the backbone of the Journal, with their contributions from the new findings, obtained in the doctorate and teaching research. This academic technological contribution, when applying science to practice, would lead to development, growth and would raise the levels of knowledge and training to the postgraduate and professional levels, as well as the quality of life. The content of our magazine would be designed to inform and inspire its readers to grow and achieve their individual goals. "The above reflections would be a great challenge for the Faculty of Administration Sciences and therefore, for Cuadernos de Administración to continue and maintain its informative academic leadership. Playing the role of Alma Mater, spreading knowledge to sensitize and train its leaders and citizens, with training for modern management, administration and leadership solutions and developments. In this way, the "Cuadernos" magazine will continue to contribute to the economic, technological and cultural growth of its readers, fulfilling the mission for which they were created and also contributing to the development of the New Colombia that all Colombians yearn for. Let us keep making our dreams come true. Thanks. ; Forty-five years of existence of "Cuadernos de Administración" is and will always be a reason for celebration for the academy: The School of Administration and its Editors confirm their enthusiasm and conviction, by continuing to edit and successfully fulfilling the purpose for which they were created. The "Cuadernos" have been a means of information on scientific academic developments in the field of business administration and related areas of knowledge. For the authors and editors of this publication, the greatest satisfaction is knowing that their writings, periodic content, messages, findings and opinions have been understood, studied and applied. As readers, the motivation is to find great innovations in each edition, which will allow them to understand how to overcome the current challenges that they are currently experiencing in the fields of economics, business, management, as well as a guide on how to adapt to the new onus's realities. And even more, to help you to plan the immediate future that serves as a guide to modern management and mainly in the different areas: public, industrial, commercial, health, justice and education. In short, we are always waiting for new information and guidance services to make the necessary decisions in the orientation and administration of organizations with leaders awarded to contribute the improvements of future societies. For the Founders of the magazine "Cuadernos" is an honor and pride, to celebrate forty-five years, from the first publication to see our dreams materialized and turned into such an impressive publication, reaching 45 years is the evidence of the great achievement, " Having done it well", that we celebrate today. In 1976 in the Department of Administration, with the collaboration of our Master Andrés Sevilla and the professor Leonel Monroy, we created: a means of communication and information of knowledge and academic developments. "Cuadernos" was part of the strategy and information medium of the innovations of our teachers, when we began to conceptualize and direct the New School of Administration in the 1970s. Andres Sevilla, Hugo Restrepo, Hernando Arellano, Jaime Lopez, Leonel Monroy, Leon Blank, Alberto Merlano, Alberto Guitis, Miguel Bernal, Octavio Garcia, Fabio Villegas, Jose Manuel Arenas, Hernan Alvarez, Harold Edgar Perea, Bernardo Barona, Ricardo Pabon, come to mind in these moments of celebration. To all of them, an immense gratitude for their support, collaboration - and for their contributions - in the realization of this academic strategic component. The results of "Cuadernos" in its forty-five years of existence have been reflected in the editions and articles of researchers, our university's professors and business leaders, with national and international recognition, for the innovations presented, in the scientific field of business management. To all of them, our deepest gratitude for their work in the realization of our dreams, they have all played the role of managers and actors of this great academic educational development. Finally, like forty-five years ago, let me remember the projection of those dreams. we said at that time:"This is the first issue of the Cuadernos de Administración, a newsletter for teaching purposes, which we hope will become the magazine of the School of Management of the Universidad del Valle.""The Department of Business Administration, which gave a decisive impetus to the administration of organizations in the region more than ten years ago, has since been constantly evolving; its task of producing knowledge to teach and to share it with other sectors of the university and the city through this means of information.""Individuals inclined for the profession of business management have been helped by us to improve their knowledge in the field of the organization and its dynamic agent the administrator. We desire, in the years to come, to maintain the service of those whom we have served (our graduates) and will serve; similarly, to new sectors that have not had a link with the University; we want to be an authoritative voice in a society that must and needs to be well managed.""One way to do this is by guiding, through qualified information, all those who run and manage organizations (public and private), with the desire to be used for their daily work, today and tomorrow. We want this to be your newsletter, for you to understand that it is, to feel it and to want it to be." We hope in this way, through you, transcend the community." Milton J. Mora Lema Cali, 1976.Let us now share some reflections that could contribute to the future of "Cuadernos" and its information mission in the field of Management, for the academic training of current and future generations. Clearly, in the last years of the 20th and 21st centuries, a transformative revolution has occurred in all fields and levels, from the individual to the organizational globalization of human talent. We, as actors and managers of new developments, must then reflect on how our present actions can impact the future, our environment and the quality of life of our children, relatives and living beings. And this means accepting responsibility for our decisions and actions in the face of these potential problems. It is necessary to become aware of the need to avoid the undesirable future and to choose other alternatives to obtain sustainable development. And from this vision, participate with reliable information that guides management training. Undoubtedly, the development and growth of contemporary societies are a consequence of the level of education, strategies and institutional educational models. In the field of management and business, educational models have contributed to the formation of leaders with levels of knowledge of contemporary organizations, aware of these realities and with the ability to analyze management decisions. In our case, "Cuadernos", faithful to its development mission, will continue to maintain its leading role, providing information on research, knowledge innovations in Management and Management training and the like of the modern world. In this context, what should be its orientation to contribute to the solution of the main problems that we are experiencing, in Western societies, for example, in the management of ecosystems, in the quality of life of the surrounding societies, in modern management for companies and businesses in the industrial, commercial, public institutions, health, justice and other fields. What competencies, concepts and distinctive values are necessary to guide the formation of the leaders of the organizations, their ethical and human formation, that they contribute to consolidating justice and equity for their societies? The training of modern management must be aimed at contributing to the construction of a better world with quality of life for the benefit of all human beings and their ecosystems. What then will be the role of the "Cuadernos" of the future "? The knowledge, science and technology, in the world's leading countries, have become strategies to generate new processes of political, educational and institutional development. Scientific and technological innovations, new knowledge and information have generated cultural changes, new technological developments applied to the innovation of new processes, new ways of working and major changes in contemporary organization, which have required the development of qualified human talent in these cutting-edge technologies. A society stronger in scientific and technological knowledge requires greater investments in education, research and development. There must be policies and strategies where the citizen can value the importance of knowledge and its application, based on the scientific and technological results generated in the country for the solution of real problems in Colombia today aggravated by the post-pandemic Covid 19. The use of technology is allowing us to solve the main challenges of the planet: feeding the entire population, to guarantee access to drinking water, education for all, sustainable energy and caring for the environment, among others. Within this trend, what should be the orientation of Cuadernos, to detect the new trends and innovations that have transformed, the economies, the management and administration of contemporary organizations? Of course, these challenges would imply being open to transform in the field of education, in the habitual mentalities, the strategies of the businesses and the styles of management. With educational innovations, online content is growing, and will continue in this trend improving, as well as, the obsolescence of knowledge every five years and the content of teaching changing every year. These challenges imply a revolution in the content and the media of Cuadernos?"Each edition of the journal Cuadernos would be full of: Timely research, relevant business and management advice, interesting case studies The participation of teachers and researchers will be the backbone of the Journal, with their contributions from the new findings, obtained in the doctorate and teaching research. This academic technological contribution, when applying science to practice, would lead to development, growth and would raise the levels of knowledge and training to the postgraduate and professional levels, as well as the quality of life. The content of our magazine would be designed to inform and inspire its readers to grow and achieve their individual goals. "The above reflections would be a great challenge for the Faculty of Administration Sciences and therefore, for Cuadernos de Administración to continue and maintain its informative academic leadership. Playing the role of Alma Mater, spreading knowledge to sensitize and train its leaders and citizens, with training for modern management, administration and leadership solutions and developments. In this way, the "Cuadernos" magazine will continue to contribute to the economic, technological and cultural growth of its readers, fulfilling the mission for which they were created and also contributing to the development of the New Colombia that all Colombians yearn for. Let us keep making our dreams come true. Thanks.
The toing and froing of proposals and counterproposals for a ceasefire in Gaza has been going on for months now. The talks between the Israeli government and Hamas, however, have never really been about numbers: how many hostages to release, which ones, in return for how many and which prisoners, and how many days of truce. The sticking point is another: Hamas calls for the end of the war, and the Israeli government for the end of Hamas. This means that, in reality, the stand-off is all about the "day after". How can a government be established in Gaza that ensures freedom and development on one side, and security on the other one? And yet, that's what no one has been working on. While most mediators admit by now that Hamas will not be destroyed, in the ceasefire talks the issue of the "day after" continues not to be factored in.A question of political agency In the dock there is especially Benjamin Netanyahu. But ultimately, from the Palestinian perspective, Netanyahu plays his role: the role of the enemy. He pursues his own interests. And the Palestinians have been clear from the beginning: they want to master their future. They do not want the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) to stay in Gaza, but neither do they want for it to be replaced by the United Nations, or Arabs countries. And rightly so. But they have not said much else. And of the famous national unity government that they swear is almost ready, there is no trace. For the record: that's what they have been swearing since the start of the rift between Fatah and Hamas, and the first of many attempts at mending it, the Prisoners' Document drafted by Marwan Barghouti. It was 2006.[1] Vladimir Putin too tried to mediate with a reconciliation summit. Even Xi Jinping. But obviously, the most active are the Arab countries. Contrary to appearances, yet, they are the least suited to such an effort. First, because they support, and often fund, this or that faction, this or that figure, and thus, they are not seen by the Palestinians as neutral. Second, and above all, because they are not democratic countries. How can we expect the Palestinians to form a legitimate and representative government with the advice of Egyptian president Abdel al-Sisi, who has no such government in Cairo? Or of the government of the Emirates, whose parliament is only consultative? Or of Saudi Arabia, where people do not even vote? Indeed, these actors are all focused on the reconstruction. Nothing else. But the priority is another: Palestinians must be again a political subject. Elections were last held in 2006. The term of Mahmoud Abbas, who is 88 years old, in a population whose average age is 21.3, expired in 2009. And in 2018, the Legislative Council was dissolved. From then onwards, Mahmoud Abbas has ruled by decree.[2] Alone. Since 7 October, he has still never addressed the Palestinians.Bringing the Palestinian Authority out of the doldrums It is a deeper issue, of course. The Palestinian Authority has structural flaws that derive from the very Oslo Accords it was established by: giving the Authority many responsibilities and little power. Under occupation, it is not easy to be a political subject. With the territorial fragmentation and the unrelenting raids and round-ups, it is a challenge just to meet. But it is inescapable: the "day after" demands first and foremost a radical change, a change at the top. While so far, Mahmoud Abbas' only innovation has been the appointment of a new prime minister, Mohammad Mustafa – his main advisor. This time, there is really national unity. The name agreed upon is that of Nasser al-Qudwa, a veteran diplomat from Fatah, but from Marwan Barghouti's Fatah – as well as Yasser Arafat's nephew. Firm and determined, but never uncompromising, he is used to dealing with Israel, and above all, with Hamas: to which he openly asked for evolution. An evolution some in Hamas say they are ready for, should there be a similar evolution on Israel's side: according to its 2017 Charter, while revendicating the Palestinian right to an "integral territorial unit" from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean, and from Ras al-Naqurah in the North to Umm al-Rashrash in the South, Hamas states (art. 20) that it "considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus."[3]According to Mousa Abu Marzouk,[4] who is in charge of its International Relations, and other senior members, Hamas is now ready to take a step back, to enter a national unity government, and in perspective, also to lay down arms.[5] I might be wrong: but of all the Hamas leaders I have met, Yahya Sinwar is the least ideological. He insists that the Arabs serve Palestine, not the other way around, and has a primary goal: the end of the Occupation.[6] This does not mean that Hamas recognises Israel's right to exist, neither does it mean that it does not support the idea of "Palestine from the river to the sea". It simply means that repeated statements by Hamas's leaders suggest that this goal is not within reach.What Europe can do That's where Europe comes in. In the Middle East, the European model of society is largely viewed as a role model. Guarantee of rights, protection of minorities, welfare systems, true elections: it is an example for many. You go to the Gulf for the salary, you are told by the twenty-year-olds looking for a visa: but for life, you go to Europe. No one has more authority, and more skills, to help the Palestinians outline a strategy for the "day after". Europe knows how to form a national unity (or a coalition, or a caretaker) government. What's more, Europe has close and longtime relationships with the Palestinians. Relationships that are not just institutional, but personal – and thus, independent of the political orientation of those in power. Why did Ireland, along with Spain and Norway, just recognise the State of Palestine? Because of the Troubles, of course, of the sensitivity of those who have experience of war, but also because of the relational capital built over the years by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire.[7] Ministers and prime ministers and presidents, past and present, diplomats, academics, activists, NGOs, parties, think tanks: those the Palestinians trust, and listen to, are many.Time to make a difference (in Ramallah) The Palestinians fear that by forcing Mahmoud Abbas to step down, together with all the cronies mentioned in the Panama Papers, there would be street-fighting. But Mahmoud Abbas is 88 years old: he will soon be forced out anyway. And with no deal, what will happen? Spend a night in Jenin Hospital: with so many M16s around, there are more casualties from family feuds than from IDF raids. So far, Europe's actions have just resulted in importing and amplifying the conflict, splitting into pro-Israelis and pro-Palestinians. It's time for Europe to do its part. And make a difference. Because to prepare the ground for the "day after", the main stumbling block is not in Gaza; it is in Ramallah.Francesca Borri is an Italian journalist specialising in the Middle East. She writes for La Repubblica and for Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's largest newspaper.[1] The Prisoners' Document was signed in 2006 by all most influential Palestinian prisoners following Hamas's victory in the legislative elections. It calls for a national unity government within the PLO framework. See Marwan Barghouti et al., National Conciliation Document of the Prisoners, 28 June 2006, https://www.un.org/unispal/?p=208621. It was the first of many reconciliation attempts, up to the Cairo Declaration of 2021, when Fatah and Hamas agreed on a new proportional electoral law and called for new elections – later annulled by Mahmoud Abbas. See ECFR web project: Mapping Palestinian Politics: Legislative Elections (2021) – Cancelled, https://ecfr.eu/special/mapping_palestinian_politics/legislative-elections.[2] Kali Robinson, "Who Governs the Palestinians?", in CFR Backgrounders, last updated on 28 May 2024, https://www.cfr.org/node/250515#chapter-title-0-5.[3] "Hamas in 2017: The Document in Full", in Middle East Eye, 2 May 2017, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full.[4] "Senior Hamas Leader: We Seek to Join the PLO and Be Part of Its Commitments", in Al Quds, 14 December 2023, https://www.alquds.com/en/posts/104169.[5] Abby Sewell, "Hamas Official Says Group Would Lay Down Its Arms If an Independent Palestinian State Is Established", in AP News, 25 April 2024, https://apnews.com/article/4912532b11a9cec29464eab234045438. See also Mustafa Barghouti, the main Fatah-Hamas mediator, in this interview with German daily TAZ in January 2024: Francesca Borri, "Hamas ist Teil unserer Gesellschaft", in TAZ, 27 January 2024, https://taz.de/!5986884.[6] Francesca Borri, "Gaza. It's Time for Change", in Il Venerdì di Repubblica, June 2018, https://www.europeanpressprize.com/?p=9963.[7] Website of the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates: Mairead Maguire, https://www.nobelpeacesummit.com/?p=4691.
With most through to another four years of office, in their latest meeting Bossier Parish police jurors reverted to their typical arrogance and obtuseness. Perhaps they should pay attention to the shape of their future: what happened at the last Bossier City Council meeting.
Recent election results guaranteed nine jurors would return to office. The one runoff that remains will send a new member to the Jury since District 10 four-decade veteran Jerome Darby retired, but vying as his replacement leading into the runoff is his brother Democrat Julius Darby. Republican challenger Keith Sutton defeated incumbent Republican Mac Plummer in District 12, while the GOP's Pam Glorioso beat incumbent Democrat Charles Gray in District 9.
But over the past two years, all jurors had engaged in questionable, if not illegal, acts. They hired, knowing full well it was against the law, Butch Ford as parish administrator, because he was not a registered voter in Bossier Parish. He would not become one until ten months into his tenure, but even now some dispute remains over whether that residence qualifies for that purpose. They also filled completely the parish's Library Board of Control with themselves, a move which is of uncertain legal status and unprecedented across the state.
When at that latest meeting a couple of citizens questioned the reappointment of Republican Juror Doug Rimmer to the Board, drawing upon attorney general documents that declared sitting jurors on library boards was dual officeholding, as well as questioning why all five board members had to be jurors when in a parish approaching 130,000 residents surely there were more than enough non-jurors willing to serve, the likes of Rimmer and another juror on the Board, Republican Julianna Parks, at jury meetings and other forums have asserted the necessity of having jurors on the Board because of alleged and nebulously specified problems with the Board. As well, at this meeting Rimmer stated, on the advice of Parish Attorney Patrick Jackson, that the ability for jurors to serve on the Board was unquestioned.
The problem is, in addition to the Attorney General's office publicly taking the opposite position, case law not addressing this exact situation – at the meeting Jackson erroneously implied that it had and in favor of his interpretation – and conflicting statutes that seemingly give a parish the ability to dodge dual officeholding restrictions in this instance, Jackson himself doesn't have a good track record when it comes to understanding what the law means concerning appointments in parish government. In the past, he told jurors that, absent a court ruling otherwise which eventually happened, that Jury appointee Robert Berry to the Cypress Black Bayou Recreation and Water Conservation District could serve in that capacity and as the agency's executive director without violating dual officeholding law. And Rimmer stated at a recent Republican Parish Executive Committee meeting that Jackson also advised jurors they could appoint Ford as parish administrator despite his voter registration not being in Bossier while he looked to rectify that, which appears nowhere in the law and an action Ford showed no signs of pursuing until this space publicized his continued registration in Caddo parish ten months after his appointment.
Worst of all, Jackson either apparently was unaware of, tacitly approved of, or actually counseled in favor of the fact that the Board, then comprised of Rimmer, Republican Bob Brotherton who won reelection, and Gray illegally had made Ford interim library director in October, 2022, in contravention of R.S. 25:215 that states any head of a library system must have qualifications under R.S. 25:222, or a certification by the State Board of Library Examiners. Ford would serve six months in that job.
This unequivocally illegal action by three jurors (probably four, as minutes of that meeting never haven been made widely available, if they exist; the next meeting's minutes imply at that previous meeting Republican Juror Glenn Benton had been appointed but it's unknown whether he participated in the vote to appoint Ford) belies the argument that jurors were necessary to "clean up" the Board. In fact, they disgraced it and themselves by behaving illegally.
And the whole argument of juror necessity to respond to some problem is untenable, if not a mendacious excuse to justify the juror takeover. In fact, jurors were serving on the Board as long ago as 2016, when the Jury expanded the Board to include Rimmer and Brotherton with five other citizens (boards can have five to seven members). If there were alleged difficulties, not only have these been going on a long time, but also jurors by definition contributed to these so how can adding more jurors – and retaining the two already there – solve for problems jurors already are creating? So what's so great about juror service on the Board if they act illegally and supposedly badly enough to need outside intervention?
Of course, to clarify about whether jurors can serve on the Board, a simple request to the Attorney General's office for an opinion could be pursued. That would take a resolution passed by the Jury, but no juror has suggested this happen – perhaps because they know their policy might be in trouble. And the dismissive attitude that Rimmer and other jurors showed in the meeting towards citizen concerns on this issue illustrates their haughtiness and a belief they are above the citizenry, if not the law, emboldened now by recent electoral success.
If it stays that way. And it may not, if the latest Bossier City Council meeting indicates anything. Because three years ago, the Council was much like the Jury today. Back then five members of almost two decades or more service on the Council, actively supported by another more junior member, ran the show with little transparency, using their voting power and a compliant mayor to foist an avalanche of unneeded capital spending fueled by debt onto the backs of the citizenry.
However, the stench of that awakened enough voters so that two of the graybeards lost their jobs and eventually were replaced by newcomers Republicans Chris Smith and Brian Hammons. Since then, the pair have become increasingly vocal about use of tax dollars going to genuine needs rather than to monuments, figurative and literal, to long-serving councilors' egos.
While Hammons missed the last meeting, Smith more than made up for the both of them with a display of this critical attitude over spending. On an item for more capital expenditures for parks and recreation, Smith pointed out that in recent years over $20 million in tax dollars had gone for capital expenditures at the Tinsley Park complex, yet tax-paying citizens often couldn't use these in being crowded out instead by out-of-towners paying fees to use these.
Sparring with head of the Bossier City Department of Parks and Recreation Clay Bohanan, who with past mayoral and current Council graybeard support has pursued a model that puts revenue generation ahead of citizen ability to use certain facilities, Smith not only fought back against Bohanan's arrogance, who was joined by graybeard Democrat Councilor Bubba Williams implying that their exclusionary pay-to-play model was unimpeachably correct, but he also made the heretical suggestion that in following that model it would make more sense just to sell off the facilities to private operators.
In the larger scheme of things, Smith's argument was that instead of taxpayer dollars going to paying of the principal and interest on debt on things of little value to the citizenry, it could be reserved to fund employee raises, particularly for public safety personnel. When Williams subsequently challenged (actually calling untrue) a Smith statement that Bossier City's salaries ranked at the bottom of the region by pointing to a study done a couple of years back comparing Alexandria's public safety salaries to others in the state that put Bossier City police in the middle of the pack, Smith trumped him with his own very recent data looking at regional agencies, almost all in Texas, which had Bossier City salaries at or near the bottom.
Such argumentation would have been unheard of coming from the Council three years ago. But Smith and Hammons' elections in 2021 brought a breath of fresh air into Council debates that until then had been almost always get-along-go-along with no dissension on big spending plans with total disregard of airing out negative implications of that spending.
Hopefully, those kinds of debates will commence and flourish now that at least one reform-minded outsider, Sutton, will join the Jury. Glorioso was part of the cabal united with the Council graybeards when she served as Bossier City chief administrative officer until her boss lost reelection, so it seems unlikely that she would act differently in opening up the Jury. Perhaps Darby's opponent Democrat Mary Giles would ally with Sutton, while Julius Darby seems unlikely to.
But as the events surrounding Bossier City government over the past couple of years have shown, you don't have to have a majority to change the atmosphere. Perhaps a couple of years from now the sunshine even one dissenter can bring will have started to show results in curbing the Jury's penchant for lawless, sanctimonious behavior while deflating its members' attitude of insufferably unaccountable behavior.
