It is a book that I have written based on my extensive knowledge of the National Electric System (SEN), and as a Venezuelan, I feel an immense pleasure to be able to contribute in this sense. I am fully aware of all the natural resources we have in our dear and beloved homeland: Venezuela. I remember well what our SEN was in its good and excellent times. I am very proud to announce my project to recover our SEN. We are in Venezuela, the country with the largest proven oil resources, and mo...

This book explores the role of popular forms of social mobilization during Spain's process of transition to democracy. It focuses on the nature of citizenship that was forged during the period of conflict and mobilisation that characterised Spain from the late 1950s until the late 1980s. It offers a two-pronged exploration of social movements at the time. On the one hand, it provides a detailed analysis of four very different cases of social mobilisation: among Catholics, residents, farmer...

Focusing on the processes of political socialisation and democratisation that took place in Spain during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this book brings together specialists who propose the need to rethink the contemporary history of democracy in Spain to build a new narrative.To do so, the authors go down to the local level, where they are able to trace a political culture that forged the foundations of a process of political "modernization" much more complex than what co...

This study reveals how our monetary system reinforces scarcity, and how communities are already using new paradigms to foster sustainable prosperity.In the United States and across Europe, our economies are stuck in an agonizing cycle of repeated financial meltdowns. Yet solutions already exist, not only our recurring fiscal crises but our ongoing social and ecological debacles as well. These changes came about not through increased conventional taxation, enlightene...

Evo Morales rode to power on a wave of popular mobilizations against the neoliberal policies enforced by his predecessors. Yet many of his economic policies bare striking resemblance to the status quo he was meant to displace. Based in part on dozens of interviews with leading Bolivian activists, Jeff Webber examines the contradictions of Morales' first term in office.

Over the past two decades, Zapatista indigenous community members have asserted their autonomy and self-determination by using everyday practices as part of their struggle for lekil kuxlejal, a dignified collective life connected to a specific territory. This in-depth ethnography summarizes Mariana Mora’s more than ten years of extended research and solidarity work in Chiapas, with Tseltal and Tojolabal community members helping to design and evaluate her fieldwork. The result of ...

Venezuela’s Bolivarian Democracy brings together a variety of perspectives on participation and democracy in Venezuela. An interdisciplinary group of contributors focuses on the everyday lives of Venezuelans, examining the forms of participation that have emerged in communal councils, cultural activities, blogs, community media, and several other forums. The essays validate many of the critiques of democracy under Chávez, as well as much of the praise. They show that while governm...

In recent years several Latin American countries have adopted a more assertive and autonomous stance in their foreign policy. The growing rejection of neo-liberalism as an ideological dogma seems to have given space to more pragmatic stances in favour of national interests.

The economics profession is ripe for a paradigm shift. Anomalies proliferate with an increasing number of economists searching for a more valid, reliable and helpful approach, whether it is adjustments in GDP, neoKeynesianism, critical theory, monetary reform, or more sublte changes such as modifying "scarcity" to mean "limits." This little book offers an example of what economics could be with money clarified as never before as a medium of communication whose job is to promote reciprocity...

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.This edited volume examines how economic processes have worked upon social lives and social realities in Latin America during the past decades. Through tracing the effects of the neoliberal epoch into the era of the so-called pink tide, the book seeks to understand to what extent the turn to the left at the start of the millennium managed to challenge historically constituted configurations of inequality. A central argument in the ...

In this day and age, technology has become ever more prominent and omnipresent in our lives. As technological developments emerge and become more ubiquitous, it becomes vital to understand and analyze the impact of technology on society.Drivers of Competitiveness focuses on technology and seeks to analyze its causes and consequences on productivity and competitiveness and to examine the dynamic relationships between the different factors in various contexts. Building on state-of-the-art re...

Over the last few decades Marta Harnecker has emerged as one of Latin America’s most incisive socialist thinkers. In A World to Build, she grapples with the question that has bedeviled every movement for radical social change: how do you construct a new world within the framework of the old? Harnecker draws on lessons from socialist movements in Latin America, especially Venezuela, where she served as an advisor to the Chávez administration and was a director of the Centro Internacional Mi...