Emerging trends in reassessing translation, conflict, and memory

New Approaches on Translation, Conflict, and Memory: Narratives of the Spanish Civil War and the Dictatorship is a collection of essays that endeavours to establish a new dialogue between translation, conflict, and memory studies. Focusing on cultural representations of the Spanish Civil War and the Franco Dictatorship, it explores the significance and the effect of translation within Spain and beyond. Drawing on fictional and non-fictional texts, reports from war zones, and audiovisual productions, the contributors to this volume examine the scope of translation in transmitting the conflict and the dictatorship from a contemporary perspective. Narratives produced during and after the Civil War and the dictatorship both in Spain and abroad have led to new debates arising from the reassessment of a conflict that continues to resonate

Strengthening democracy : stakeholder institutions, public policy and democratic quality, the case of Chile, 1990-1998

This dissertation seeks to contribute to the understanding of democratic "quality"---with particular reference to "Third Wave" democracies---by suggesting an evaluative and methodological tool: an examination of "stakeholder" institutions, which are understood to be institutionalized mechanisms for meaningful political participation. Beginning with the notion that political institutions make a difference in how politics is conducted, the thesis argues that "second tier" stakeholdership institutions---that is, institutions beyond voting and political party rules, such as public hearings, the formal inclusion of encompassing organizations in government decision-making, or public interest law---are extremely important in the deepening of democracy and the attainment of high-quality democracy. The thesis then uses stakeholdership as a foundation to build four models of democracy (hyper-presidential, "cupular", neo-corporatist, and pluralist) each of which vary in terms of stakeholdership and, therefore, in terms of democratic quality. After exploring these themes in the first three chapters, the thesis examines the case of post-authoritarian Chile. By looking at tax reform and judicial reform in Chile since 1990, the thesis analyses political bargaining, modes of inclusion and political institutions to determine the quality of Chilean democracy. The thesis concludes that of the four models articulated earlier, "cupular" democracy best captures the reality of Chile since 1990. Since cupular democracy has very low levels of stakeholdership, the thesis suggests that this is worrisome and makes some tentative recommendations for democratizers, both in Chile and in other relevant contexts

Between Two Pasts

The presence of Evo Morales in the government of Bolivia raised expectations of change with regard to the politics of memory, justice, and the social and economic compensation for victims of the country’s dictatorships between 1964 and 1982. However, according to human rights organizations, these expectations have been only partly fulfilled. This can be explained by three fundamental factors: the government’s pursuit of an alliance with the military in order to accomplish its project, the collapse of the parties and traditional organizations of the left, and the articulation of a new narrative to consolidate the government’s project in terms of indigenous and anti-neoliberal nationalism. The latter two factors have resulted in the systematic political use of long memory (anticolonial resistance) and short memory (the popular protests of the 1990s and 2000s) and the partial displacement of an intermediate memory (the 1952 Revolution) and the memory of the dictatorshipsLa presencia de Evo Morales en el gobierno de Bolivia generó expectativas de cambio con respecto a la política sobre la memoria, la justicia y la compensación social y económica para las víctimas de las dictaduras del país entre 1964 y 1982. Sin embargo, de acuerdo con las organizaciones de derechos humanos, estas expectativas sólo se han cumplido de forma parcial. Esto puede explicarse a través de tres factores fundamentales: la búsqueda de una alianza con los militares por parte del gobierno para poder llevar a cabo su proyecto, el colapso de los partidos y organizaciones tradicionales de izquierda, y la articulación de una nueva narrativa para consolidar el proyecto del gobierno en términos de un nacionalismo indígena y la oposición al neoliberalismo. Los últimos dos factores han resultado en un uso sistemático de la memoria larga (la resistencia anticolonial) y la corta (las protestas populares de los años noventa y el 2000), así como la dislocación parcial de una memoria intermedia (la Revolución de 1952) y la memoria de las dictadura