Social Innovation and Crisis in the Third Sector in Spain. Results,Challenges and Limitations of ‘Civic Crowdfunding’

Based on the evolution and institutional transformation of the Welfare State and its relationship with the Third Sector of Social Action, the present article describes and analyzes the aspects of the financial crisis and resources that the sector is currently suffering. In regards of these structural transformations the evolution, characteristics, limitations and opportunities offered by ‘civic crowdfunding’ in Spain between the years 2011 and 2015 as an innovative social practice for the increase of the own funding between the entities of the Third Sector of Social Action and the changes that must be experienced by the sector in order to optimize and improve its self-funding ratios through this mechanism are examined. The high index of success of financing social projects (96.5%) through this tool, and the annual growth during the analyzed period shows the potential of civic crowdfuding. On the other hand, the small size of the bankable projects (95.2% less than 10,000 euros), as well as the low total amount collected (2,665,384 euros) indicates that civic crowdfunding is still an insufficient mechanism to mitigate the severe public resource cuts suffered by the entities of the Third Sector of Social Action and also to bring these entities closer to the objective of self-financing. Finally, we formulated a series of recommendations aimed at improving the self-financing ratios of the Third Sector of Social Action, including a more efficient and cooperative use of civic crowdfunding.     

Limits of regulatory responsiveness: Democratic credentials of responsive regulation

Responsiveness and accountability constitute the process of democratic representation, reinforcing each other. Responsiveness asks elected representatives to adopt policies ex ante preferred by citizens, while accountability consists of the people's ex post sanctioning of the representatives based on policy outcomes. However, the regulatory literature tends to interpret responsiveness narrowly between a regulator and regulatees: the regulator is responsive to regulatees’ compliance without considering broader public needs and preferences. Democratic regulatory responsiveness requires that the regulator should be responsive to the people, not just regulatees. We address this theoretical gap by pointing out the perils of regulatory capture and advancing John Braithwaite's idea of tripartism as a remedy. We draw out two conditions of democratic regulatory responsiveness from Philip Selznick – comprehensiveness and proactiveness. We then propose overlapping networked responsiveness based on indirect reciprocity among various stakeholders. This mechanism is the key to connecting regulatory responsiveness with accountability.     

Negotiating justice: legal pluralism and gender-based violence in Liberia

The plural legal system in post-conflict Liberia expresses tensions between modern and customary institutions. This article seeks to understand how Liberians navigate choices in the plural legal system to address gender-based violence cases. By asking how and why people make the choices they do, we highlight how Liberians solve tensions between institutions, by creating flexible categories that allow them to pursue a course of action that does not compromise their ability to access social networks and resources.     

Media and subnational democracy: the case of Bahia,Brazil

It is a well-known fact that the transition to and consolidation of democracy in Latin America have been problematic, especially at the subnational level. It is also commonplace to equate an independent media system with a strong democracy. While each of these fields has witnessed important developments in the last decade or so, there have been sparse attempts to draw the theoretical links between them. In this article, I argue that there are important insights to be gained from such an endeavour. Bahia, a state in north-eastern Brazil, is an ideal case study to bring these perspectives together. This study offers fresh insights on state–society relations at the subnational level and on the contemporary interaction between the public and the private spheres in Latin America. Last but not least, it will also provide a better grasp on the challenges democratization faces at the subnational level and the role of the media in them.     

Managing the difficult past: Ukrainian collective memory and public debates on history

This article analyzes the status of difficult historic events in Ukrainian collective memory. Difficult elements of collective memory are defined as those which divide society on basic matters, such as identity and national cohesion, and events which are being actively forgotten because of the role of Ukrainians as perpetrators. Three such issues were analyzed: World War II and the role of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the Holocaust, and the ethnic purge of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia in 1943–1945. Utilizing data from quantitative and qualitative studies, the author showcases the significance of these issues for contemporary Ukrainian identity and Ukraine’s relations with its neighbors. In particular, the evaluation of World War II and the role of the UPA in Ukrainian history polarizes Ukrainian society to a great degree. At the same time, this element of national history is used to construct a common, anti-Russian identity. The difficulty of relating to the memory of the Holocaust and the ethnic purge in Volhynia is of a different character. These events are problematic for Ukrainian collective memory because they demand a painful settling of accounts with the past. At present, only Ukrainian elites are willing to work on these subjects, and only to a limited degree, while the common consciousness either denies or ignores them altogether.     

Dealing with Austerity: a case of local resilience in Southern Europe

Southern countries are undergoing a severe economic crisis that has renewed debates about the available strategies to economise their public resources. Political leaders have launched a wide range of different strategies aimed at reducing spending. According to generally accepted political discourse, drastic actions should be taken to guarantee economic and financial sustainability in times of austerity. We explore the main measures adopted by Spanish municipalities in order to examine their impact in budgetary terms. First of all, we identify the most frequently implemented mechanisms including organisational structure, public services and operational economic restructuration. After their quantification, we monitor the presence and impact of each set of policies to analyse the relationship between concrete measures and effective economic impact. The effective reduction of budgets is being implemented but data show that local governments are resilient to non-compulsory changes. The ‘government at a distance’ policy pursued by the central state administration has effectively reduced budgets but has not affected the institutional core of Spanish local governments.     

Childhood Adversity and Early Initiation of Alcohol Use in Two Representative Samples of Puerto Rican Youth

Early alcohol use is associated with multiple negative outcomes later in life, including substance use disorders. Identification of factors related to this very early risk indicator can help inform early prevention efforts. This study prospectively examined the relationship between childhood adversities and early initiation of alcohol use (by age 14) among Puerto Rican youth, the Latino subgroup at highest risk for alcohol use disorders in adulthood. The data come from the Boricua Youth Study, a longitudinal study of Puerto Rican youth in two sites (South Bronx, New York, and the standard metropolitan area of San Juan, Puerto Rico). We focus on youth who were ages 10 and older at Wave 1 [M _{age at Wave 1} (SE)?=?11.64(0.05), N?=?1259, 48.85?% females]. Twelve childhood adversities were measured at Wave 1 and include 10 adverse childhood experiences commonly studied and two additional ones (exposure to violence and discrimination) that were deemed relevant for this study’s population. Early initiation of alcohol use was determined based on youth report at Waves 1 through 3 (each wave 1 year apart). Cox proportional hazards models showed that, when considered individually, adversities reflecting child maltreatment, parental maladjustment, and sociocultural stressors were related to early initiation of alcohol use. Significant gender interactions were identified for parental emotional problems and exposure to violence, with associations found among girls only. Adversities often co-occurred, and when they were considered jointly, physical and emotional abuse, parental antisocial personality, and exposure to violence had independent associations with early alcohol use, with a stronger influence of exposure to violence in girls compared to boys. The accumulation of adversities, regardless of the specific type of exposure, increased the risk for starting to drink at a young age in a linear way. The associations between childhood adversities and early alcohol use were generally consistent across sociocultural contexts, in spite of differences in the prevalence of exposure to adversity. Our findings highlight the importance of targeting multiple adversities and expanding the notion of adversity to capture the experiences of specific groups more adequately.     

Food sovereignty and new peasantries: on re-peasantization and counter-hegemonic contestations in the Basque territory

This paper contributes to debates about the potential of re-peasantization and its contribution to food sovereignty with a case study from the global North, where such questions are relatively under-studied. I examine how Euskal Herriko Nekazarien Elkartasuna (EHNE)-Bizkaia, a Vía Campesina member organization from the Basque Country (Spain), advances food sovereignty through re-peasantization. I also analyze the motivations of new peasants engaged in agroecology, their understandings of food sovereignty, and the challenges that they face. Using a Gramscian political ecology framework, I argue that whereas re-peasantization contributes to a shift from corporatist to counter-hegemonic struggles, the political-economic and biophysical contexts structure agroecological production in ways that limit the extent to which new peasantries can become ‘agents of their own history’. I conclude that closer attention to peasants’ messy practices of making a living is needed to address questions of political agency.