Conceptualising and tracing the increased territorialisation of politics: insights from Argentina

The territorialisation of politics is a crucial transformation in state–society relations that has implications on how contemporary politics works. Defined here as the dispute for the physical control of space, be it a municipality, province or portion of land, within one or more politically constituted entities. It does not mean the emergence of a new regime type, but the process through which the territory re-emerges as a new cleavage after neoliberal reforms and authoritarian regimes have weakened/dissolved neo-corporatist arrangements for the resolution of socio-political conflicts in society. It is a cleavage because central political divisions are produced as a result of the physical encounter of or distance between political actors and of the dispute for the control of a territory for sociopolitical goals and causes that are not always territorially defined. Departing from this definition, I also raise potential explanatory hypotheses for the transformations that favoured this transformation in Argentina.Fil: Rossi, Federico Matias. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martín; Argentin

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY CONCERTED ACTION ON HIV SEROPREVALENCE AMONG SEXUALLY-TRANSMITTED DISEASE PATIENTS IN 18 EUROPEAN SENTINEL NETWORKS

Objective: Monitoring HIV infection in sentinel populations of sexually transmitted disease (STD) patients in several geographical areas. This paper describes the main characteristics of the study populations and compares HIV seropositivity rates within and between networks in different subgroups: homo-/bisexuals, intravenous drug users (IVDU) and non-IVDU heterosexuals. Design: HIV testing is performed with informed consent in most networks. It is mandatory for STD patients in Hungary, while the English and Welsh, Scottish and French networks use unlinked anonymous testing. Setting: Eighteen networks in 17 European countries are participating in the study. The networks usually consist of STD or dermato-venereology clinics. Patients: Patients presenting at any of the clinic sites with a new episode of one or more of a selected list of 12 STD were eligible for the study. This study recorded a total of 36827 STD episodes, registered between June 1990 and December 1991. HIV test results were known for 33004 (89.6%) of the patients. Results: HIV seropositivity rates were usually much higher for the homo-/bisexual and IVDU patients than for the non-IVDU heterosexuals. However, HIV-seropositive patients were found among non-IVDU heterosexuals in all but the Czech network. Conclusion: This Concerted Action has successfully launched an HIV sentinel surveillance programme among STD patients in 17 European countries using a standard methodology