Constitution, document of culture and barbarism

Based on Walter Benjamin’s reflections on history and social struggles, this paper drafts an analysis of the relations of the subject with some problems of constitutional theory, in a first effort to bring the field nearer to social philosophy. After tracing a short narrative on modern constitutionalism and its new relationship with the historical time, we argument that Constitution shall be seen as a cultural document of memory of the social struggles of the past and at the same an object of the struggles of the present. Some inconclusive reflections on the possibility of human emancipation through law are presented as conclusion

Resource recovery and remediation of highly alkaline residues : a political-industrial ecology approach to building a circular economy

Highly alkaline industrial residues (e.g., steel slag, bauxite processing residue (red mud) and ash from coal combustion) have been identified as stocks of potentially valuable metals. Technological change has created demand for metals, such as vanadium and certain rare earth elements, in electronics associated with renewable energy generation and storage. Current raw material and circular economy policy initiatives in the EU and industrial ecology research all promote resource recovery from residues, with research so far primarily from an environmental science perspective. This paper begins to address the deficit of research into the governance of resource recovery from a novel situation where re-use involves extraction of a component from a bulk residue that itself represents a risk to the environment. Taking a political industrial ecology approach, we briefly present emerging techniques for recovery and consider their regulatory implications in the light of potential environmental impacts. The paper draws on EU and UK regulatory framework for these residues along with semi-structured interviews with industry and regulatory bodies. A complex picture emerges of entwined ownerships and responsibilities for residues, with past practice and policy having a lasting impact on current possibilities for resource recovery

State, Nationalism, and Civic Exclusion: Historical Notes from the Bolivian Case

Las insuficiencias de la construcción nacional en Bolivia han sido tradicionalmente explicadas a través del fracaso del proyecto integrador del republicanismo decimonónico. El presente artículo sostiene que, por el contrario, la consolidación de la nación liberal y la adopción de una ciudadanía extendida a toda la población habrían perjudicado a los intereses de las élites políticas y económicas criollas. El deseo de conservación de su poder de clase, heredado de las jerarquías coloniales orientó, primero, la prolongación del pacto colonial con las poblaciones indígenas y, luego, el cambio en el modelo económico, la privatización de las tierras comunales y la racialización de la cuestión indígena. Las comunidades del Altiplano, dotadas de un débil sentimiento de pertenencia nacional, reaccionaron ante los ataques a su autonomía oscilando entre el sometimiento, la negociación y la violencia, aprovechando los conflictos entre facciones de la élite criolla para asumirse como un actor influyente en la vida política boliviana.The shortcomings of nation-building in Bolivia have traditionally been explained as the failure of the integration project designed by nineteenth-century republicanism. This article argues that, on the contrary, liberal consolidation of the nation and the adoption of expanded citizenship would have harmed the interests of Creole political and economic elites. The conservation of its class power inherited from the colonial hierarchy oriented, at first, the extension of the colonial pact with indigenous people and, later on, the change of the economic model, the privatization of communal lands and the racialization of the indigenous issue. Altiplano communities, caracterized by a weak sense of national belonging, reacted to these attacks on their autonomy with tactics of submission, negotiation and violence, while taking advantage of conflicts between factions of the Creole elite to become an influential player in Bolivian political life