La crisis del movimiento socialdemócrata en América Latina

Just a few years ago, the social democratic movement in Latin America seemed to have taken on a new life. The election of John F. Kennedy and the "new look" of his policy towards Latin America raised great hopes among the Social Democrats of the Latin American countries. Today, they have declined. The economic gap between Latin America and the industrially advanced nations is widening; very few reforms have been carried out under the Alliance for Progress; military dictatorships have replaced civilian regimes. These events indicate the illusion of the Social Democratic vision of profound change, but also the failure of the Social Democrats and their attempt to make that vision a reality. In this paper, a general sketch is made of the international social democratic movement in Latin America and the performance of social democratic movements in some of the countries of the continent.Hace apenas unos años, el movimiento socialdemócrata en América Latina pareció haber cobrado una nueva vida. La elección de John F. Kennedy y el "new look" de su política para América Latina despertó grandes esperanzas entre los socialdemócratas de los países Latinoamericanos. Hoy en día, ellas han disminuido. La brecha económica entre América Latina y las naciones industrialmente avanzadas es cada vez más grande; muy pocas reformas han sido realizadas bajo la Alianza para el Progreso; dictaduras militares han reemplazado a regímenes civiles. Estos acontecimientos indican lo ilusoria de la visión socialdemócrata del cambio profundo, sino también el fracaso de los socialdemócratas ni su intento de hacer realidad dicha visión. En este trabajo se hace una semblanza general del movimiento socialdemócrata internacional en América Latina y de la actuación de los movimientos socialdemócratas en algunos de los países del continente

Social innovation: (accompanying) instrument for addressing societal challenges?

The importance of social innovation for overcoming societal challenges is now widely recognised. In addition to their contribution to the transformation of socio-technical systems, they are also assigned an important role in flanking disruptive technological developments and coping with crisis situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, the theoretical understanding of social innovations is very heterogeneous, which is detrimental to both the development of measurement concepts and indicators and the well-founded derivation of innovation policy measures. Building on recent research, a conceptual process model of social innovation is developed and subsequently used to analyse four case studies (energy communities, autonomous driving, corona warning app, social housing in Vienna). In addition, the report deals with rationales for justifying state interventions in social innovation, as well as with the use of new policy instruments to support social innovations in four pioneering countries. It also assesses the current state of research on the measurement and indicators of social innovation. It concludes with implications for the research and innovation policy debate in Germany

Rights of Pachamama: The emergence of an earth jurisprudence in the Americas

Earth jurisprudence represents an alternative approach to the law based on the belief that nature has rights. In this view, a river has the right to flow, species have the right to continue to exist in the wild, and ecosystems have the right to adapt and evolve over time. Proponents of Earth jurisprudence argue that, by treating nature as exploitable resources, contemporary legal systems actively promote environmental harms. Recognising rights of nature, they argue, will transform core values and inspire social changes that promote economic development which respects nature’s limits. Since 2006, rights of nature have been recognised by some sub-federal public bodies in the United States and by the governments of Ecuador and Bolivia. This paper sets out to answer two questions. First, what explains the legal recognition of rights of nature in Ecuador and Bolivia? Second, what factors impede a wider adoption and implementation of Earth jurisprudence? Amongst the constraints, it will be argued, is that Ecuador and Bolivia continue to pursue an extractivist economic development model, with assertions of national sovereignty over natural resources tending to prevail over Earth jurisprudence and environmental conservation