The paper develops an analytical framework designed to examine social policy as a strategic approach to issues of state-society relations and the problem of governance in Latin America. The paper argues that in Latin America and particularly Brazil social protection policy flowed from initiating capacity concentrated originally in the state, and specifically in a technobureaucratic elite connected to a strong executive. The policy, however, produced structures wherein initiative capacity was dispersed into a multiple of intermediate points at the nexus between the state and civil society. This in turn led to an immobilized dissipation of initiative capacity in this specific policy area which was symptomatic of, and reinforcing to, a generalized immobilism or power implosion that periodically has gripped these sociopolitical formations, producing shifts from formally democratic to authoritarian regimes and vice versa.
RESUMENEl trabajo desarrolla un modelo analítico diseñado para examinar las políticas sociales como un acercamiento estratégico para las temas como la relación Estado-sociedad y el problema de la governabilidad en América Latina. El trabajo sostiene que la política de protección social en Latinoamérica y especialmente en Brasil, procedió de una capacidad inicial concentrada originalmente en el Estado, especificamente en una élite tecnoburocrática relacionada con un Ejecutivo fuerte. Sin embargo esta política produjo estructuras dentro de las cuales la capacidad de iniciativa fue dispersada en un múltiple de puntos intermediarios con un nexo entre el Estado y la sociedad civil. Ello a su vez llevó a una disipación inmobilizada de la capacidad de iniciativa en esta área específica de la política, que fue sintomática e impulsó un inmobilismo generalizado o una implosión de poder que periódicamente azota estas formaciones sociopolíticas produciendo cambios de democracias formales hasta regímenes autoritarios y vice versa.Throughout the 1980s the main contours of political economy in Latin America were shaped by conscious efforts of governments to deal with two interrelated questions that created an air of crisis which pervaded the region. On one side there were concerted attempts to conduct transitions from authoritarian to more democratic modes of governance; on the other, governments in the region confronted an acute and persistent economic crisis-the worst in the modern history of some countries-symbolized by huge foreign debts which caused havoc with the crucial capital flows of most nations. Not surprisingly the economic crisis severely complicated the task of constructing democratic regimes in many countries, while some older democracies like Venezuela felt the stability of their regimes shaken. The concern in all countries is that open modes of mass-based democracy cannot produce the "political will" to impose austerity programs to curtail mass consumption which both national and international policy elites argue are necessary to treat the underlying economic problem (Nelson 1990).Hence, ...
We describe the performance results for the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) far ultraviolet (FUV) and near ultraviolet (NUV) detectors. The detectors were delivered to JPL/Caltech starting in the fall of 2000 and have undergone approximately 1000 hours of pre-flight system-level testing to date. The GALEX detectors are sealed tube microchannel plate (MCP) delay line readout detectors. They have a 65 mm diameter active area, which will be the largest format on orbit. The FUV detector has a spectral bandpass from 115 -180 nm and the NUV detector has a bandpass from 165 -300 nm. We report here on the performance of the detectors before and after integration into the instrument. Characteristics measured include the background count rate and distribution, gain vs. applied high voltage, spatial resolution and linearity, flat fields, and quantum efficiency.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.