The political imaginaries of blockchain projects: discerning the expressions of an emerging ecosystem

There is a wealth of information, hype around, and research into blockchain’s ‘disruptive’ and ‘transformative’ potential concerning every industry. However, there is an absence of scholarly attention given to identifying and analyzing the political premises and consequences of blockchain projects. Through digital ethnography and participatory action research, this article shows how blockchain experiments personify ‘prefigurative politics’ by design: they embody the politics and power structures which they want to enable in society. By showing how these prefigurative embodiments are informed and determined by the underlying political imaginaries, the article proposes a basic typology of blockchain projects. Furthermore, it outlines a frame to question, cluster, and analyze the expressions of political imaginaries intrinsic to the design and operationalization of blockchain projects on three analytic levels: users, intermediaries, and institutions.</p

Prefigurative Post-Politics as Strategy:The Case of Government-Led Blockchain Projects

Critically engaging with literature on post-politics, blockchain and algorithmic governance, and drawing also on knowledge gained from undertaking a three-year empirical study, the purpose of this article is to better understand the transformative capacity of government-led blockchain projects. Analysis of a diversity of empirical material, which was guided by a digital ethnography approach, is used to support the furthering of the existing debate on the nature of the post-political as a condition and/or strategy. Through these theoretical and empirical explorations, the article concludes that while the post-political represents a contingent political strategy by governmental actors, it could potentially impose an algorithmically enforced post-political ‘condition’ for the citizen. It is argued that the design, features and mechanisms of government-led projects are deliberately and strategically used to delimit a citizens’ political agency. In order to address this scenario, we argue that there is a need not only to analyse and contribute to the algorithmic design of blockchain projects (i.e. the affordances and constraints they set), but also to the metapolitical narrative underpinning them (i.e. the political imaginaries underlying the various government-led projects)

Spirit of ‘68.The ‘next’ role of the art/design school?

From the current political and cultural landscape, the workshop sought to develop discussions surrounding the potential for art and design education to instigate and make socio-political comment and change. The rationale for the study coincides with the forthcoming 50th anniversary of the ‘Spirit of ‘68’, in which dominant ideologies across Europe were interrogated, attacked and in some cases, overturned. Integral to this historical climate were the role of students, particularly those engaged in art and design courses, who challenged and changed educational policy and the future landscape of the arts. Much like the cultural climate of the late 1960s, our own times seem to question the validity of the arts within education (particularly in relation to funding and the provision of courses) whilst promoting a distrust in a liberal elite and a de-politicised population. The aims of the workshop were twofold; to consider the ways in which Art School (and in the UK this includes Design Schools too) education had changed since the student led revolutions in 1968, and, to consider the ways in which Art School Thinking could be integral to daily life in the 21st century

Fiscal Transparency and Accountability

Best practices in governmental budgeting and financial management often center on improving transparency to induce accountability and ensure fiscal health. This investigation draws on data collected as part of the Volcker Alliance’s Truth and Integrity in Government Finance project and analyzes transparency practices to determine how easily structural deficits can be seen. A review of the literature discusses the merits and effects of transparency, the possible pitfalls, transparency measurement indices, and best practices guidelines. The methodology describes data collection techniques to analyze explicitly disclosed structural deficits, multi-year revenue and expenditure forecasts, and other long-term liability forecasts. Our results show that only 13 states explicitly disclose and analyze structural deficits; five states have multi-year forecasts for revenues, expenditures, and major programs; five states project debt service schedules into the future, and no states project future pension, OPEB, and deferred maintenance costs

Decentralizing Geographies of Political Action:Civic tech and Place-Based Municipalism

This article introduces the concept of ‘place-based civic tech’ — citizen engagement technology codesigned by local government, civil society and global volunteers. It investigates to what extent creating such a digital space for autonomous self-organization allows for the emergence of a parallel, self-determining and more place-based geography of politics and political action. It finds that combining online tools with offline collaborative practices presents a unique opportunity for decentralization of power and decision-making in a manner which both politically motivates civil society and begins to update the infrastructure of democracy. The discussion is supported by a combination of primary and secondary data, with research methods including ethnographic and participatory observation techniques. Research data is drawn from a range of empirical sources, including an in-depth case study of the radical municipalist movement in Spain. The article concludes that there is a clear and compelling narrative of cities taking power back, in the form of a plural and globally networked movement. As such, this study contributes to both the theory and practice of civic tech, collective impact, municipalism and place-based urban politics while emphasizing the need for further research on experiments and movements currently existing below the academic radar

Estudio de factibilidad para la implementación de un k-centro en la ciudad de Babahoyo

Plásticos Industriales C. A. inicia sus actividades comerciales para el hogar en octubre de 1.961, en la ciudad de Guayaquil, con dos inyectores y seis obreros, el primer artículo de plástico de la empresa fue “una cubeta para hielo”. La compañía siguió creciendo en la fabricación de artículos para el hogar debido a las propiedades del plástico: durabilidad y bajo costo. Continuando con la expansión en 1.964 la empresa lanza al mercado la primera gran industria de calzado y botas de PVC. Durante los años setenta se produjo el crecimiento más agresivo de la compañía en donde además de ampliar las dos líneas ya existentes incursiona también en la línea de calzado de lona y PVC (tipo tenis) y además juguetería, viniles y tubería de PVC. La empresa cuenta con una nueva planta de producción y centro de distribución la cual está ubicada en el km. 7.5 de la vía Daule, en Guayaquil. Hoy PICA maneja más de 6.000 artículos y emplea aproximadamente a 1.200 personas