¿Crisis o transición? Caracterizaciones intelectuales. Del dualismo argentino en la apertura democrática

This article presents an analysis of the conceptual organization of the "democratic transition" model, through which an important sector of social scientists represented the military dictatorship crisis in Argentina in 1982, and interpreted its advent and ending, to guide the society towards its definitive democratization. This model was based on ideas and conceptual structures produced and used in the Argentine society to describe and to interpret the political process. We will explain that the notion of "crisis" was replaced for the democratic transition model; this paradigm was made according to the classic frames of Argentine thinking, and for this reason it was not only an interpretative frame to the inauguration of a new era and the final overcoming of the democratic instability, but also a perspective on political past and the causes of “authoritarianism”.Este trabajo presenta un análisis de la organización conceptual del modelo de “transición a la democracia” mediante el cual un amplio sector de científicos sociales conceptualizó la crisis de la última dictadura militar en la Argentina en 1982, e interpretaron su advenimiento y desenlace, para guiar a la sociedad hacia su definitiva democratización. Este modelo estaba sustentado en nociones y estructuras conceptuales producidas y empleadas en la sociedad argentina para describir e interpretar el proceso político. La noción de “crisis” revirtió en una aplicación del modelo de transición a la democracia que, aún cuando se propuso como un marco interpretativo volcado a la inauguración de una nueva era y a la superación definitiva de las interrupciones democráticas, conllevó una perspectiva sobre el pasado político y, en especial, sobre las causas del “autoritarismo”, que se forjó dentro de los moldes clásicos del pensamiento argentino

Emergent Learning: A Framework for Whole-System Strategy, Learning, and Adaptation – With 2024 Prologue

Editor’s Note: This article, first published in print and online in 2016, has been republished by The Foundation Review with minor updates. The field of philanthropy is exploring what it takes to achieve impact in complex environments. The terms “adaptive” and “emergent” are beginning to be used, often interchangeably, to describe strategies by which funders can tackle complexity. This article proposes distinguishing between the two and explores more deeply how the research into complexity can inform philanthropic practice. While approaches like systems mapping, scenario planning, and appreciative inquiry have been put forward as useful approaches to expanding perspectives and seeing whole systems, the field needs a framework for going beyond these planning tools in order to actually create the conditions in which emergence can happen — by expanding agency beyond the walls of the funder, distinguishing between goals and strategies, encouraging experimentation around strategies, and supporting whole-system learning, which requires shorter, faster, more rigorous real-time learning and more cross-pollination among peers. This article offers Emergent Learning as a framework to support the creation of these conditions and describes how the tools help make thinking visible and support real-time and peer learning. It looks at two organizations that have embraced Emergent Learning to support a more emergent approach to achieving a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts