German party manifestos are increasingly likely to downplay European issues and reflect negative attitudes toward the EU

Although the 2013 German elections were viewed as having wider importance for the rest of Europe, the issue of Europe itself played only a minor role in the election campaign. Sonia Alonso outlines results from an analysis of German party manifestos to assess the extent to which parties have emphasised European issues in elections since 1949. She notes that there is a downward trend in terms of the inclusion of European issues in manifestos, and that where European issues are mentioned they are increasingly likely to reflect negative attitudes toward the EU

The UK should take on board the lessons from Spain before embracing English devolution

The UK government has committed itself to solving the so called ‘West Lothian question’ whereby Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs can vote on ‘English only’ issues which have already been devolved to the other three countries. Sonia Alonso writes on devolution in Spain, arguing that the UK should learn from the Spanish experience. She states that Spain illustrates the dangers of adopting partisan solutions, which uniquely benefit one major party over another, to constitutional questions. However the country’s recent history also shows that devolution can work if implemented correctly and that both Labour and the Conservatives would stand to benefit from a stable compromise on English devolution

The Eurozone is not suffering from an economic crisis, but a crisis of national politics

One of the most worrying aspects of the Eurozone crisis has been its effect on democracy. Sonia Alonso argues that while the crisis has weakened democracy in several countries, particularly with regard to the implementation of austerity policies against public opposition, this should not be understood as the imposition of technocratic policymaking from Brussels. She writes that national governments have a tendency to downplay their responsibility for European decisions, with national actors in both core and periphery Eurozone members having more scope to shape policy-making than they present to their electorates

‘You can vote but you cannot choose’: Democracy and the Sovereign Debt Crisis in the Eurozone

The objective of this paper is to analyze the alleged unfolding of ‘democracy without choices’ in Europe and its consequences for the quality of national democracies, particularly those of the Eurozone periphery (GIIPS – Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain). The argument is, in a nutshell, that the lack of responsiveness of GIIPS national Governments to their respective national constituencies is the reverse of the medal of an excess of responsiveness in core Euro countries, particularly Germany. Governments are trapped between the pressure to be responsive at home and the need to be responsible to their European partners and the European project. If the trade-off of all democratic politics is between responsiveness and responsibility, Euro core countries have clearly opted for responsiveness (to domestic constituencies) and Eurozone peripheral countries have been forced to be responsible (towards their EU partners and the EU as a whole). As a result, the 2008 financial crisis has led to a three-fold breach inside the EU between core and periphery concerning the pace of economic recovery, the degrees of governmental autonomy and, most important of all, democratic legitimacy. Eurozone peripheral countries are at the losing side of this three-fold breach

The growing economic and ideological breach between Northern and Southern EU countries is pushing Europe towards a perfect storm.

Southern European countries have been hardest hit economically by the Eurozone crisis. Using Eurobarometer data, Sonia Alonso notes that this economic disparity has also had a significant effect on public attitudes. Citizens in Southern European countries now have substantially less trust in government, trust in political parties, and satisfaction with democracy than those in the North. She argues that allied with shifting political attitudes, this breach is likely to lead to increasingly polarised views, creating a new economic and territorial cleavage between north and south

Multinational democracy and the consequences of compounded representation: the case of Spain

"Democracy is feasible in multinational states. Sub-state nationalism in Europe has grown stronger, not weaker, during the last decades. And this has taken place because of democracy and not in spite of it. The cohabitation of democracy and nationalism is guaranteed by the establishment of compounded representation. The political decentralization of the state produces a multiplication of the sources of representation. Territorial representation becomes as important as individual representation, and sub-state nationalists lose incentives to defend a type of political representation that is ethnically based in favour of one that is territorially based. As a result, membership in one nation ceases to exclude membership in another and dual national identities become the rule and not the exception. I shall use the case of Spain as an illustration of this process. Spain is a paradigmatic case of how to establish a stable democracy in a multinational state with deeply entrenched nationalist conflicts. Thus, it is the best possible illustration in order to defend the viability of democracy in multinational societies under constraining conditions (new democracy, the presence of secessionist terrorism, highly mobilized minority nationalisms, etc.). In fact, Spain in 1977 lacked most of the conditions established by Dahl (1971) as essential if a country with considerable subcultural pluralism was to maintain its conflicts at a low enough level to sustain polyarchy." (author's abstract)"Demokratie in multinationalen Staaten ist möglich. In Europa hat der regionale Nationalismus in den letzten Jahrzehnten an Einfluss gewonnen und nicht verloren. Dies geschah wegen und nicht trotz der bestehenden Demokratien. Die Vereinbarkeit von Demokratie und Nationalismus wird durch die Einrichtung gemischter Formen von Repräsentation gewährleistet. Die politische Dezentralisierung des Staates führt zu einer Vervielfachung der Quellen von Repräsentation. Territoriale Repräsentation wird genauso wichtig wie individuelle Repräsentation, und regionale Nationalisten verlieren das Interesse, eine politische Repräsentation zu verfechten, die auf ethnischen Unterschieden basiert, sondern setzen auf eine territoriale politische Repräsentation. Das hat zur Folge, dass die Zugehörigkeit zu einer Nation die Zugehörigkeit zu einer anderen nicht länger ausschließt und eine doppelte nationale Identität nicht mehr die Ausnahme, sondern die Regel darstellt. Die Autorin veranschaulicht diesen Prozess am Fall Spaniens. Spanien stellt einen beispielhaften Fall dafür dar, wie eine stabile Demokratie in einem multinationalen Staat mit tief verwurzelten nationalistischen Konflikten etabliert werden kann. Spanien ist daher das beste Beispiel für die Sicherung der Überlebensfähigkeit von Demokratien in multinationalen Gesellschaften unter ungünstigen Bedingungen (neu etablierte Demokratie, das Bestehen von sezessionistischem Terrorismus, starker Nationalismus von Minoritäten etc.) dar. Tatsächlich fehlten Spanien 1977 die meisten Bedingungen, die Dahl (1971) als entscheidende Voraussetzungen dafür ansah, dass ein Land mit ausgeprägtem regionalem Pluralismus Konflikte auf einem so niedrigen Niveau halten kann, dass eine Polyarchie von Bestand sein kann." (Autorenreferat

Framework For Performance Analysis of Optical Circuit Switched Network Planning Algorithms

Projecte final de carrera realitzat en col.laboració amb Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausann

Study of the mechanisms involved in the regulation of O2 consumption kinetics during exercise.

Lors d’un exercice à une intensité au-dessous du seuil ventilatoire 1 (V1), la réponse fondamentale de la cinétique de la consommation de dioxygène (V̇ O2) s'élève de manière mono- exponentielle, atteignant un état stable après quelques minutes. Cependant, lors de l'exercice à une charge de travail constante au-dessus de V1, la cinétique de V̇ O2 est caractérisée par un début de l’état stable retardé et une deuxième augmentation de V̇ O2 superposée à la réponse initiale de V̇ O2.Cette augmentation lente de V̇ O2 est appelée la composante lente (V̇ O2sc). Il a été proposé que cet excès de V̇ O2, reflet de l'inefficacité musculaire, provienne principalement des muscles exercitant; cependant, à ce jour, les mécanismes putatifs à cette augmentation sont toujours mal compris. Plusieurs théories ont été proposées, parmi lesquels : a) la combinaison de processus liés à la fatigue nécessitant un recrutement supplémentaire de fibres pour compenser les fibres déjà fatiguées, et b) l'influence potentielle des différents profils métaboliques de différentes populations de types de fibres. Le but de cette thèse est de clarifier et de nourrir le débat sur les causes de V̇ O2sc, en particulier pour ces deux derniers paradigmes. Trois expérimentations ont été réalisées pour mesurer la concordance et les interférences de différentes cinétiques de fibres musculaires et la fatigue musculaire avec la V̇ O2sc. Les résultats de cette thèse sont les suivants : 1) Lors d’un exercice difficile, l'altération des propriétés neuromusculaires des extenseurs du genou (reflétant les processus de fatigue) n’a été significativement réduite qu’après 20-30 min d'exercice, alors que la V̇ O2sc avait fini de croitre. Ce résultat suggère qu'une relation temporelle entre la fatigue et la V̇ O2sc ne semble pas exister et, par conséquent, le développement de la fatigue n'est pas une condition essentielle pour le développement de la V̇ O2sc. 2) La fonction neuromusculaire évaluée à l’aide d’une stimulation double (Ddb, 100 Hz) pendant l'exercice d'extension du genou n'a pas été altérée dans le domaine difficile. En revanche, dans le domaine intense, la diminution significative de la force maximale et du taux maximal de développement de la force lors de la Ddb, reflétaient des processus de fatigue et étaient partiellement corrélées au développement de V̇ O2sc relatif. Par conséquent, les résultats suggéraient que la V̇ O2sc dans les domaines difficiles et intenses n'est pas le produit d'un mécanisme identique. 3) Afin de construire une nouvelle courbe combinant les principes de Henneman et de superposition, les trois courbes de transitions (repos-modérée, modérée-difficile et difficile-intense) ont été alignées dans le temps et sommées. Les résultats ont montré que globalement les paramètres de la cinétique de la courbe reconstruite n'étaient pas significativement différents d'une transition depuis le repos à un exercice d'intensité intense. Cela suggère que le recrutement supplémentaire de fibres n'était pas présent et que l'apparition de V̇ O2sc est au moins liée, sinon le résultat, des différentes propriétés métaboliques des fibres musculaires. Ces résultats évidence, lors de l'exercice chez l'homme, que les processus de fatigue représentés par des altérations des propriétés neuromusculaires ne sont pas une condition sine qua non pour le développement de la V̇ O2sc dans le domaine difficile, et que l'apparition du V̇ O2sc pourrait être le iétés métaboliques des fibres musculaires. -- Below the gas exchange threshold (GET), the fundamental response of O2 consumption (V̇ O2) kinetics rises monoexponentially, reaching a steady state after a few minutes. However, at a constant work rate exceeding the GET, the response is characterized by a delayed onset and a second rise in V̇ O2 superimposed on the initial V̇ O2 response. This slowly developing rise in V̇ O2 is termed the slow component (V̇ O2SC). This excess of V̇ O2, a reflection of muscle inefficiency, has been proposed to arise primarily from the exercising muscles; however, to date, the putative mechanisms are poorly understood. Several theories have been proposed, including the combination of fatigue-related processes requiring additional fiber recruitment to compensate for the already fatigued fibers and the potential influence of the different metabolic profiles of different fiber-type populations. The aim of this thesis is to clarify and nourish the debate on the causes of the V̇ O2SC, especially for these last two paradigms. Three different experiments were performed to measure the concordance and interferences of different kinetics of muscle fibers and muscle fatigue with the V̇ O2SC. The findings of this thesis are as follows: 1) During exercise at heavy intensity, the alteration in the neuromuscular properties of the knee extensors (reflecting fatigue processes) was significantly reduced after only 20-30 min of exercise, while the V̇ O2SC was stable. The results suggest that a temporal relationship between fatigue and the V̇ O2SC does not appear to exist; therefore, the development of fatigue is not an essential requirement to elicit the V̇ O2SC. 2) Neuromuscular function assessed through doublet stimulation (Ddb, 100Hz) during knee extension exercise was not altered in the heavy domain. In contrast, in the severe domain, the significant diminution in maximal force and maximal rate of force development during the Ddb, reflected fatigue processes and were partially correlated with the development of the relative V̇ O2sc. Therefore, the results suggest that the V̇ O2sc in the heavy and severe domains is not the product of an identical mechanism. 3) After constructing a new kinetics curve combining the Henneman and superposition principles, the three different intensity curves (moderate, heavy and severe) were time aligned and summed. The results showed that overall kinetics parameters from the reconstructed curve were not significantly different from one transition to severe-intensity exercise. This suggests that additional fiber recruitment was not present and that the appearance of the V̇ O2sc is at least related to, if not the result of, the different metabolic properties of muscle fibers. These results provide evidence in exercising humans that fatigue processes portrayed by alterations in neuromuscular properties are not a sine qua non for the development of the slow component in the heavy domain, and that, the appearance of the V̇ O2sc could be the result of the different metabolic properties of muscle fibers

La piedra en el charco (Artículos periodísticos de Juan Carlos Onetti en Marcha y Acción)

Sin resume

As long as democratic legitimacy stems from national politics, governments will have few incentives to make responsible decisions at the EU level

When national governments make decisions at the EU level they have to balance policies which are in the national interest of their own state and policies which are in the wider interest of Europe as a whole. Based on the work of Luuk Van Middelaar, Sonia Alonso and Juan Rodríguez Teruel discuss the competing responsibilities which national governments face within the European Union. They argue that as long as democratic legitimacy stems primarily from the level of national politics, there will be few incentives for governments to make genuinely responsible decisions at the European level. Ultimately, only a stronger European democracy can solve this dilemma