Digital Resources: Piedra Rodante (Mexico’s Rolling Stone Magazine)

Author(s):  
Luis González-Reimann ◽  
Eric Zolov

The short-lived Mexican countercultural magazine, Piedra Rodante (Rolling Stone), is a unique and invaluable primary source for researchers interested in the global sixties from a Latin American perspective. From December 1970 to January 1972, Piedra Rodante reproduced translated articles and interviews from Rolling Stone magazine, together with original reporting by Mexican music critics and writers on a vast array of topics relevant to youth in the context of late 1960s and early 1970s Mexico. Piedra Rodante was launched by a young advertising executive, Manuel Aceves, a follower of the US and British countercultural and rock scene. In 1971, Mexico’s own countercultural movement, known as La Onda, was bursting with artistic creativity as well as marketing potential, especially in the music industry. In the wake of the 1968 student movement, however, Mexico’s government was wary of the untethered political potential mobilized by La Onda (epitomized by the outdoor rock festival, Avándaro, held in September 1971). With little warning, the government shuttered Piedra Rodante as part of a broader suppression of La Onda throughout the culture industry. Absent a missing issue 0, this fully digitized collection of issues 1–8 is the only complete set available to the public.

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Joyce

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the 2016 elections for Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) and to compare them with those that took place in 2012. It seeks to evaluate the background of the candidates who stood for office in 2016, the policies that they put forward, the results of the contests and the implications of the 2016 experience for future PCC elections. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based around several key themes – the profile of candidates who stood for election, preparations conducted prior to the contests taking place, the election campaign and issues raised during the contests, the results and the profile of elected candidates. The paper is based upon documentary research, making particular use of primary source material. Findings The research establishes that affiliation to a political party became the main route for successful candidates in 2016 and that local issues related to low-level criminality will dominate the future policing agenda. It establishes that although turnout was higher than in 2012, it remains low and that further consideration needs to be devoted to initiatives to address this for future PCC election contests. Research limitations/implications The research focusses on the 2016 elections and identifies a number of key issues that emerged during the campaign affecting the conduct of the contests which have a bearing on future PCC elections. It treats these elections as a bespoke topic and does not seek to place them within the broader context of the development of the office of PCC. Practical implications The research suggests that in order to boost voter participation in future PCC election contests, PCCs need to consider further means to advertise the importance of the role they perform and that the government should play a larger financial role in funding publicity for these elections and consider changing the method of election. Social implications The rationale for introducing PCCs was to empower the public in each police force area. However, issues that include the enhanced importance of political affiliation as a criteria for election in 2016 and the social unrepresentative nature of those who stood for election and those who secured election to this office in these contests coupled with shortcomings related to public awareness of both the role of PCCs and the timing of election contests threaten to undermine this objective. Originality/value The extensive use of primary source material ensures that the subject matter is original and its interpretation is informed by an academic perspective.


2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 199-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewa Sapiezynska

Two narratives dominate the literature about the state of freedom of expression in postliberal Venezuela, and they have few points in common, since they depend on different conceptualizations of the notion of freedom of expression. While the traditional liberal narrative focuses on the negative freedom that prohibits state interference, the postliberal narrative is based on positive freedom that encompasses the collective right of self-realization, particularly for the previously marginalized. During the government of Hugo Chávez, the discourse of freedom of expression was renewed, placing it in the context of power relations, accentuating positive freedom, and emphasizing the role of the public and community media. The establishment of the international public channel TeleSUR has revived the 1970s debate about the right to communication and contributed to the creation of a new Latin American-ness. En la literatura predominan dos narrativas acerca del estado de la libertad de expresión en la Venezuela posliberal las que tienen pocos puntos en común porque parten de visiones distintas del concepto de la libertad de expresión. Mientras la narrativa liberal tradicional enfoca sólo en la libertad negativa que previene la injerencia estatal, la narrativa posliberal se centra en la libertad positiva que abarca la autorrealización del derecho colectivo, también de los previamente marginalizados. Durante el gobierno de Hugo Chávez el discurso acerca de la libertad de expresión se renueva, insertando el concepto en el contexto de las relaciones de poder, acentuando la libertad positiva y enfatizando el rol de los medios públicos y comunitarios. El establecimiento del medio público internacional TeleSUR revive los debates sobre el derecho a la comunicación de la década de los 70 y aporta a la creación de una nueva Latinoamericanidad.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-108
Author(s):  
María Belén Albornoz

In the 2020 Prague Virtual Conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), Langdon Winner was awarded the society’s John D. Bernal Prize jointly with Sharon Traweek. The Bernal Prize is awarded annually to individuals who have made distinguished contributions to the field of STS. Prize recipients include founders of the field of STS, along with outstanding scholars who have devoted their careers to the understanding of the social dimensions of science and technology. This response to Winner’s Bernal lecture considers his legacy beyond the US. The author traces Winner’s influence in Ecuador and Latin America more generally through a tracing back of Winner's politea which draws on Plato’s technē as a model for understanding inherently political artifacts.


Subject US economic outlook. Significance Before the COVID-19 outbreak, economic activity was growing at 2.0-2.5%, the stock market and employment were close to record highs, new home sales were rising and consumer spending had momentum. The immediate outlook for the US economy is now very unclear as the number of COVID-19 cases has surged above 3,800 and the virus is present in 49 states, prompting President Donald Trump to declare a national emergency on March 13. To bolster financial market liquidity and support businesses and households, the Federal Reserve (Fed) cut rates by 100 basis points to 0-0.25% on March 15. Impacts The public spending for the COVID-19 outbreak will add to the budget deficit as no party is willing to raise taxes in an election year. The Fed may cut rates more but will risk inflation if rates stay low too long; if recovery is rapid, rates may rise sooner than expected. Heavily indebted firms and individuals will seek assistance from the government, especially in the travel and entertainment industries. A sharper economic downturn will test Trump’s managerial skill as his voters expect him to be able to resolve their problems quickly.


Author(s):  
David Omand

How governments understand and thus come to conceptualise and explain current and future threats and the calibration of their response across all the levers open to government at home and abroad is seen as key to sound strategy. The prevailing approach to domestic security planning after 9/11 as part of the British counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST, is seen as heavily influenced by the growing application of risk management as a planning tool in government generally and is contrasted with the US approach. The influence of unrelated external events, including the revelations of Edward Snowden, is examined as a factor disturbing the domestic calculus of the ‘thermodynamics’ of counter-terrorism: how the government can best exercise its primary duty to protect the public in the face of a severe terrorist threat and yet maintain civic harmony and uphold democratic values and the rule of law at home and internationally. This chapter argues that the overall challenge for the future is to maintain public confidence that it is possible for government having absorbed such lessons to discharge its responsibilities for public safety and security whilst behaving ethically in accordance with modern views of human rights, including personal privacy, in a world where deference to authority and automatic acceptance of the confidentiality of government business no longer holds sway.


Author(s):  
Jeffery Morris

Governments rely on regulatory science to support decisions related to the protection of human health and the environment. Not only is regulatory science produced and used differently than discovery-driven science practiced outside the government, but it also has its own means of being communicated within democratic societies and has its own challenges for public engagement. This chapter examines how regulatory science is communicated within the US federal government, principally by the US Environmental Protection Agency, using nanotechnology and biotechnology as case studies to illustrate the challenges of, and opportunities for, engaging the public on the use of scientific information to inform decisions on the introduction and use of emerging technologies into society.


2000 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Santiso

The current moment seems to be a hiatus. Not one of an empty throne, but more that of two masters of time who are fighting over the control of time - the state and the market. Beyond the transfer of sovereignty over a period of time, these reforms are above all testimony to the inexorable acceleration of contemporary temporalities. Making the transfer from the public to the private sphere, from the “master of the clocks” that is the state to the new “master of time” that is the market - instantaneous and short-term oriented, on duty 24 hours a day - also means wagering on an acceleration of the economy. The implicit or explicit hope of these reforms is above all to relaunch growth, to give a new élan. To encourage savings is to reinforce investments and therefore to contribute to more rapid growth.


2012 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 74
Author(s):  
Jonathan Porat

There is a large push by the United States government to improve the effectiveness and responsiveness of the US regulatory regime. Established proposals aim to improve US regulatory policy by making it easier for the public to use judicial review as a tool to respond to overly burdensome regulations. Much of the debate over the effectiveness of these proposals focuses on more visible regulatory outcomes. Unfortunately, the effect of judicial review on regulatory development is often overlooked. If judicial review promotes less comprehensive regulatory analysis through the presence of inflexible judicial deadlines, then regulatory reform promoting judicial review ironically may not prevent negative regulatory outcomes. This paper empirically measures whether regulations with judicial deadlines are developed less comprehensively than regulations with laxer statutory deadlines. This paper will determine how the differences in the development of regulations with judicial deadlines should influence the way that the government analyzes proposals for regulatory reform.


1989 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
L. Ronald Scheman ◽  
Norman A. Bailey

The long anticipated collapse of the economies of Latin America is already underway. The facts:•In Argentina, the currency devalued over 1,000% in less than four months and was close to a free fall as the Central Bank has no resources to stabilize the market and riots wracked provincial cities.•Brazil approaches hyperinflation now running at close to 1,000% as the government has given up on trying to curb inflation through traditional means and resorted to extensive indexing to enable the people to cope.


2007 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Murray

While the world has changed dramatically in the last five decades or so, transportation has not been able to keep pace with the overall development. However, in order to ensure prosperity of a country or a state, it is imperative that the ability to move people and products must improve. This paper examines the status of transportation infrastructure and its funding in the State of Washington, USA and suggests some new approaches towards public-private partnership (PPP) in the area. In the process, the success and some of the challenges of PPP are also discussed. In the US, traditionally, people were not charged direct tax such as a toll for using the roads, the primary mode of financing transportation being gas tax. The new sources of revenue collection being developed include: Specific roadway pricing Mileage-based user fees Real-time variable rate roadway pricing. Traditionally, in the US, the public sector shouldered the main responsibility for managing transportation�acquire right-of-way (ROW), design, finance, operate, own, and maintain while the private sector was only allowed to build roads following all the regulation and permits introduced by the government. The reformed PPP model awards ‘design-build’ contracts on a competitive ‘best-value’ basis instead of the conventional ‘low-bid’ basis and thus turn over the design build responsibility to the private sector leaving with the government the financing and maintenance of the roads. The idea is to give road to everybody while allowing the private sector to earn some profit and the public sector to save some money. However, PPP could face a problem if: the traffic and revenue estimates are wrong traffic and revenue risks are taken by private sector but at a huge price construction costs are underestimated the people do not accept the proposition the PPP legislation is not favourable. For any infrastructure project such as transportation to succeed, what is most critical is a set of factors including feasibility, essentiality, reliable revenue forecasts, collateral, credibility, political stability, and transparency. Above all, the government has the responsibility to all its citizens while the private sector is accountable to its stockholders and business partners. What is therefore important is to see how the two parties meet their obligations while building a suitable transportation infrastructure.


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