This study investigates the effects on organization’s financial performances of, first, the extent to which the organizations are involved in controversial business activities, and second, their level of social performance. These companies can be considered non-socially responsible given the harmful nature of the activities they are involved in. Managers of these companies may still have incentives to pursue socially responsible actions if they believe that engaging on those actions will help them to achieve legitimacy and improve investors’ perception about them. (...) We develop a comprehensive methodology to investigate these corporate social performance (CSP)-related effects in a complex but specific setting. To this end, we analyze a sample of 202 US firms for the period 2005–2008 using a novel method in this area: partial least squares. Our results indicate that, contrary to the general findings in prior literature, companies involved in controversial business activities which engage in CSP do not directly reduce the negative perception that stakeholders have about them. Instead, we found evidence of a positive mediation effect of CSP on financial market-based performance through innovation. (shrink)

Transhumanism is a challenging movement that invites us to rethink what defines humanity, including what we value and regret the most about our existence. Vulnerability is a key concept that require thorough philosophical scrutiny concerning transhumanist proposals. Vulnerability can refer to a universal condition of human life or, rather, to the specific exposure to certain harms due to particular situations. Even if we are all vulnerable in the first sense, there are also different sources and levels of vulnerability depending on (...) concrete social circumstances. Recently, Michael Hauskeller argued about a fundamental incompatibility between transhumanism and vulnerability. He understands vulnerability as an existential category, linked to woundability and mortality. This idea is akin to ontological vulnerability, but it does not notice some important features of social vulnerability. On the other side, transhumanism is a complex and non-homogeneous movement. Here we distinguish between a strong and a weak version of transhumanism. We will propose that the salience of vulnerability is only diminished in the radical one, while a moderate version can reconcile vulnerability with human enhancement. Thus, vulnerability, a concept that has recently gained much importance as an anthropological category in contemporary ethics, is not necessarily at odds with any transhumanist project. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with moral experimentalism, which I describe as the stance according to which moral inquiry is grounded not in objective foundations nor in our subjective inclinations but in our active encounter with things and events and in our communicative interactions with others. The notion of moral inquiry as grounded in objective foundations and that as based on subjective inclinations have traditionally been conceived of not as two independent possibilities but as the two poles of a dramatic Either/Or (...) that has profoundly conditioned, and still does, our perception of and approach to disagreements and conflicts. When the pragmatists, particularly Dewey, advanced the idea of an experimental approach to moral issues, they put it forward as an alternative to these extreme positions and, therefore, as a way out of what they perceived, I think correctly, as a false and pernicious dichotomy. The paper is divided into three parts: In the first section, I set the theoretical foundation of experimentalism as conceived of by the American pragmatists, in particular Peirce and Dewey. In the second part, and drawing mainly on Dewey’s Logic, I explore the procedural implications derived from the application of experimentalism to practice. In the third section, I consider the particularities of the application of experimentalism to the realm of ethics. As I argue, experimentalism is not only a promising approach to moral problems but perhaps the only effective remedy for the increasingly irrational attitudes with which they are today addressed. (shrink)

Este artículo pretende abrir una línea de trabajo en la que confluye el área de la restauración y la didáctica. Se muestra un proceso de restauración basado en la mínima intervención, en cuanto a pérdidas de policromía se refiere, pero se ofrece como una herramienta medio para la enseñanza. El proyecto posibilita que la tabla se exhiba como pieza modelo en una sala del Museo Arte Sacro de Teruel, que el público visualice y conozca el mecanismo técnico de creación de (...) una tabla del siglo XV y que, mediante la recreación virtual y la utilización de imágenes de la misma temática de otras obras de relevancia, se proponga cómo pudo ser la tabla de Olalla en origen. En definitiva, se plantea realizar una prueba piloto que pueda servir para otras obras con circunstancias similares. Palabras clave: pintura gótica, Aragón, siglo XV, restauración y conservación, nuevas tecnologías, educación patrimonial, didáctica de la pintura, musealización.. This project aims to be a new line of work where restoration and didactics fields converge. It shows a process of restoration based on the minimum intervention in terms of loss of polychromy. However, it is offered as a tool for teaching. In this specific case, this table is shown as a model piece through its exhibition in a room at Sacred Art Museum of Teruel. Following this project, it will be possible to visualize and learn the technical mechanism of creation of a 15th century panel reinforced with a virtual recreation using digital media to show how it could have been in origin, as well as using images of the same subject matter of other relevant works. The main focus of this project is to serve as a pilot test for other works with similar circumstances. Key words: gothic painting, Aragon, 15th century, restauration and conservation, new technologies, heritage education, painting education, musealization. (shrink)

The current study analyzed the relationship between Coronavirus Awareness, mental health, and willingness to seek professional psychological help. This was made through a quantitative approach, using online questionnaires to collect data from 855 subjects. The questionnaires included the Brief Symptom Inventory to measure mental health indicators, the Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale–Short Form, and the Coronavirus Awareness Scale-10. An Exploratory Factor Analysis suggests that three factors underlie the CAS-10: Coronavirus Concern, Exaggerated Perception, and Immunity Perception. Results indicate a (...) significant positive correlation between Coronavirus Concern and both general anxiety and phobic anxiety symptoms. Immunity Perception is positively related to paranoid ideation and psychotic symptoms. A Mediation Analysis determined that Coronavirus Concern has a significant positive direct effect on Openness to Seeking Psychological Treatment, while Exaggerated Perception and Immunity Perception scores have significant direct negative effects on the Value and Need in Seeking Treatment scores. Indirectly, the relationship between Coronavirus Concern and OPST is significantly mediated by anxiety symptoms. Similar results were found for the VNST subscale. There is a negative significant effect of Immunity Perception over OSPT mediated by Paranoid Ideation. However, the overall model only achieved small r2 coefficients for the OSPT and VNST scores. Comparisons in Coronavirus Awareness between sex, age, and the presence of children and older adults at home were also made. These results are discussed regarding their practical implications for mental health providers and policymakers. (shrink)

A systematic effort to rethink Freud's theory of the unconscious, aiming to separate out the different forms of unconsciousness.

En cada época y en cada civilización existen problemas socialmente importantes que son objeto de especial atención. Son hechos que, por su ámbito de extensión o por su gravedad, tienen una gran resonancia. Es lo que en las últimas décadas ocurre con las adicciones, que constituyen uno de los trastornos emblemáticos de nuestra sociedad.

The subject of this paper is to deep in the way that Guzmán planned to make effective social participation in an authoritarian context like Pinochet's Chile (1973-1990). We will see how Guzmán considered civil participation as an essential requirement in order to get a modern democracy which would be opened in Chile after the military dictatorship. He supported this idea through the concepts of subsidiarity State and liberal economy policy.

La Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas aprobó la Declaración Universal de los Derechos Humanos el 10 de diciembre de 1948, su artículo 26 reconocía el derecho a la educación de todas las personas, la gratuidad y obligatoriedad en los niveles elementales. La igualdad de oportunidades en el acceso a los estudios superiores, el derecho de los padres a escoger el tipo de educación de sus hijos y concretaba el objetivo de la misma como el pleno desarrollo de la personalidad (...) humana y el fortalecimiento del respeto a los derechos humanos y a las libertades fundamentales. Esta Declaración fue el punto de partida de la Comisión constitucional del Congreso de los Diputados encargada de elaborar la Constitución de 1978, para desarrollar el artículo sobre el derecho a la educación. (shrink)

In this paper I propose to conceive of forgiveness as a process of eliminating punitive reactive attitudes, which makes up part of the offended person’s willingness to reestablish a certain type of reciprocal relationship with the offender. Distinguishing among types of reciprocity allows us to realize that forgiveness is a more varied phenomenon than is usually assumed in the philosophical literature, as well as to understand why the dispute concerning the gratuitousnessconditionality of forgiveness is meaningless.

Ensayo sobre la contraposición rostro/máscara, donde por 'rostro' se entiende aquello que singulariza a cada ser humano, aquello que hace visible su ser único y valioso, mientras que por 'máscara' se hace alusión a aquello que oculta esa singularidad, aquello que lo remite a una categoría, a un este..

This essay works on the opposition between face and mask, where ‘face’ is understood as that which makes every human being singular, and makes visible her or his unique worth, while ‘mask’ is understood as whatever hides that singularity, and refers to a category, stereotype or cliché. The etymological history that relates face and mask to the concept of person, and the history of modern portrait painting, which alternates representations of face and mask, both lead to a discussion with authors (...) who diagnose a contemporary “defeat of the face” as a result of the crisis of humanism and of ethical individualism, which give meaning and dignity to that face. (shrink)

Para algunos la empatía es “el centro del universo moral”, mientras que para otros juega un papel secundario o, en todo caso, éticamente poco fiable. Acudiendo tanto a sus precursores filosóficos –como Hume y Smith–, como a sus investigadores contemporáneos en el campo de la psicología – como Hoffman y Batson–, este artículo elabora una defensa ponderada del papel de la empatía en la motivación, el desarrollo y el juicio morales, reconociendo sus limitaciones.

The Turing Machine presents itself as the very landmark and initial design of digital automata present in all modern general-purpose digital computers and whose design on computable numbers implies deeply ontological as well as epistemological foundations for today’s computers. These lines of work attempt to briefly analyze the fundamental epistemological problem that rose in the late 19th and early 20th century whereby “machine cognition” emerges. The epistemological roots addressed in the TM and notably in its “Halting Problem” uncovers the tension (...) between determinism and uncertainty, regarded here as the primal and inherent features of machine cognition. Resumen La Máquina de Turing se presenta como el hito y el diseño inicial de un autómata digital presente en todas las computadoras digitales modernas de propósito general y cuyo diseño en números computables establece bases profundamente ontológicas y epistemológicas para las computadoras de hoy. Estas líneas de trabajo intentan analizar brevemente el problema epistemológico fundamental que surgió a finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX mediante el cual emerge la “cognición de la máquina”. Las raíces epistemológicas que se abordan en la TM y, en particular, en su “Problema de detención” ponen al descubierto la tensión entre el determinismo y la incertidumbre, consideradas aquí, como las características primordiales e inherentes de la cognición de la máquina. (shrink)

El presente artículo estudiará la utilidad de la Carta Europea de Turismo Sostenible de Sierra Nevada como herramienta para promover el turismo sostenible en espacios protegidos. Se pretende mostrar cómo la adopción de la CETS ha supuesto una implicación real de las empresas con el territorio incrementado el sentimiento de pertenencia y el asociacionismo activo, así como a la puesta en marcha de actuaciones colectivas e individuales que contribuyen a mejorar la sostenibilidad ambiental, económica y social en los territorios, a (...) atraer turistas responsables motivados por el ecoturismo y a la mitigación y adaptación del territorio al Cambio Climático. (shrink)

Transparency is a quality of corporate social responsibility communication that enhances the relationship between the investors and the company. The objective of this paper is to analyze if the transparency of the sustainability reports is affected by the relationship of companies in different industries with their stakeholders. If this were the case, it would indicate that the pressure of significant stakeholders determines the required level of transparency of the reports. We find that the pressure of some groups of stakeholders improves (...) the quality of transparency of the reports. We extend previous research by studying the effect of stakeholder group pressure on transparency when reporting sustainability. Our results show that transparency is affected by ownership, along with size and global region. (shrink)

El trabajo desarrollado en este artículo muestra una experiencia docente basada en la Metodología Activa del Aprendizaje Basado en Proyectos en la asignatura de Instalaciones II de la titulación del Grado en Arquitectura Técnica de la Universidad de Burgos. Para alcanzar la excelencia del proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje, se ha diseñado una metodología de trabajo basada en el desarrollo progresivo de un Proyecto de Ejecución mediante subproyectos, con el objetivo de conseguir mejores resultados en el proceso de aprendizaje mediante (...) el desempeño personal, la retroalimentación de procesos y el trabajo cooperativo, todo ello orientado a la excelencia académica y profesional de los estudiantes. Los resultados obtenidos muestran que el ABP es una excelente metodología para el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje de la asignatura de Instalaciones II y para el futuro desempeño profesional de los estudiantes. (shrink)

The first issue this essay examines is the articulation of the cinema of the body, the feminine gestus, and the ‘political cinema’, which begins with the philosophical shout, ‘Give me a body, then!’ and ends with the ‘Third World Cinema’ as a cinema of memory. How is this Deleuzian concept in tension with the one proposed here of ‘missing body’? The second issue concerns the importance of the body for theory and practice within feminist film theory and queer theory. The (...) question of the body is introduced in-between these two lines in the context of a series of Latin American documentaries. The final problem is then how to see and show a body that is missing, like an outside of the body image, and of a certain regime of the visible and the audible that tends to be fixed in topics by the production of technologies of memory. (shrink)

España es el país europeo donde más carne se consume. El consumo de carne y sus efectos es objeto de discusión en distintos ámbitos por su impacto negativo en el medioambiente así como en la salud humana. Por ello, se persigue concienciar a la sociedad para reconsiderar su consumo. En este estudio se explora la actitud de los jóvenes españoles ante el consumo de carne. Los resultados muestran su preocupación por el impacto negativo de la carne pero subrayan barreras como (...) la falta de información por las cuales no están dispuestos a cambiar de hábito en el consumo de carne. (shrink)

El feedback correctivo escrito ha demostrado ser efectivo para el tratamiento de ciertas estructuras gramaticales ; sin embargo, persisten factores que dificultan realizar conclusiones categóricas al respecto. Algunos de estos corresponden al tipo de las formas que se benefician de un tratamiento como este, a los distintos contextos de aprendizaje investigados, a los diversos niveles de competencia lingüística de los participantes, entre otros. La presente investigación estudia dos estrategias de FCE indirecto; a saber, indirecto con indicación y localización e indirecto (...) con indicación, localización y explicación metalingüística, en el tratamiento de la forma comparativa de adjetivos en inglés a nivel escolar. Los objetivos son examinar la efectividad del FCE y robustecer la evidencia empírica en contextos de aprendizaje que han sido insuficientemente indagados. Este primer acercamiento constituye una aproximación inédita que contribuye al fortalecimiento y al aumento de la evidencia empírica existente en el ámbito del FCE. La muestra del estudio correspondió a 24 estudiantes de 8° año de enseñanza primaria con un nivel básico de competencia lingüística en el idioma inglés como lengua extranjera. Los resultados muestran que ambos tipos de feeback promueven el uso preciso de la forma estudiada pero el FCE indirecto con indicación y localización del error es el que consigue mayores logros que se mantienen en el tiempo. Estos antecedentes sugieren una acción facilitadora del FCE en el tratamiento de la forma gramatical apuntada. (shrink)

RESUMENEl tratamiento que el arte más vanguardista ha dado a la relación con lo cotidiano, rompiendo las fronteras entre arte y vida, ha tenido una influencia palpable en nuestros comportamientos actuales a la luz de los medios, especialmente televisión e internet. Hoy, nuestra relación con lo cotidiano en gran medida se teje en el mundo internet, que constituye un espacio de socialización y configuración de la identidad. Los valores presentes en la forma de relacionarnos con lo cotidiano han ido experimentando (...) cambios que hoy se dirían ambivalentes: gesto vital-artístico y parte del dispositivo neoliberal de la transparencia. El recorrido por esta relación, poniendo en un mismo escenario voces de procedencias diversas, nos conduce hasta el planteamiento no exento de controversias de nuestra identidad y nuestra vida como una creación artística.PALABRAS CLAVESOCIALIZACIÓN, MEDIOS, ARTISTAS DE LA VIDA, AUTODETERMINACIÓN, BÚSQUEDA-CONTROLABSTRACTThe way in which the most vanguardist art has approached the relation with everyday life, breaking the barriers between art and life, has had a tangible influence on our current behaviour in lights of Mass Media, especially television and Internet. Nowadays, our relationship with day-to-day life develops, to a great extent, in the Internet world, which constitutes a space for socialization and profiling our identity. The values that accompany the way in which we establish the link with everyday life have been undergoing changes that nowadays could be considered as ambivalent: vital artistic gesture and a part of neoliberal mechanism of transparency. The overview of this relation, including voices from various sources, leads us to a conclusion, not at all devoid of controversies, regarding our identity and our life as an artistic creationKEYWORDSSOCIALIZATION, MEDIA, ARTISTS OF LIFE, SELF-DETERNINATION, A SEARCH-CONTROL. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hispanic Utopian Studies and Activism as a PromptJulia Ramírez-Blanco (bio)In the last few years I have come to the Utopian Studies Societýs yearly conference as part of a smaller group, one that has its own parallel history in the left corner of the South of Europe and is networked mostly with Latin America. I am referring to the interdisciplinary research group Histopia, which has its base in Madrid́s (...) Autónoma University, is comprised of twenty-seven researchers from different institutions, and is coordinated by historian Juan Pro. As the name Histopia suggests, it was founded by historians. From the beginning there have been people from other fields, such as political science, architecture, cultural studies, and art history. The aim was always understanding utopianism beyond the study of texts, and centering research in everything that utopianism produces, such as social movements, political programs, and urban programs. In this sense, a premise was to understand utopias not as a footnote in history or a series of eccentric events, but as a guiding force that drives a [End Page 510] history. This placing of utopianism in history was clearly announced in the grouṕs website:Histopia seeks to go beyond the philological approach that predominates in Utopian Studies and to historicize the study of contemporary utopias and dystopias, showing how they respond to the contexts in which they arise, since they reflect the problems and frustrations of a society as well as the aspirations for change it contains, and the conditions of possibility that a particular cultural and emotional framework offers for developing them.1Together with this focus on history, which departs from the more text-centered traditions of an important part of utopian studies, the other main particularity of Histopia is its decentralizing of utopian studies towards the Spanish-speaking world. And to this end, the group also founded the Transatlantic Network for the Study of Utopias, which was created in 2015 to put in communication over 250 researchers, most of them from Latin America, but also from other places such as Australia or Japan.2The Spanish statés research funding programs have provided the bureaucratic framework and the material resources for the research group since 2015. Together with seminars, conferences, or workshops, the resulting publications have been linked with utopian literature, with dystopia, and with a focus on viewing history through the lens of utopia. One of the most recent endeavors has been a radically collective one, articulating a Dictionary of Utopian Places written by a multitude of authors.3 Histopia has also initiated several projects with schools, for the most part ongoing, and there have been many attempts to disseminate its work through radio and video projects. And since its founding, Histopia has tried reaching out beyond the Academy—an effort that is finally gaining success. In 2021 the international conference Intentional Communities: Concrete Utopias in History was extremely fruitful: we saw involved participation both in various interventions, and through activities such as streaming. Participants included people and organizations from social movements and from intentional communities.I want to argue here that the very formation of Histopia was a logical development from certain political triggers—and in particular, the so-called 15M Movement, a series of anti-austerity protests and direct-democracy initiatives that ignited antigovernment activism throughout Spain from 2011 on, culminating in the occupation of urban spaces (“encampments”) and in very large political assemblies. It is not just that the forces of activism were [End Page 511] reignited after 2011, and that its inheritors came together with the Histopia research group; the very existence of Histopia, I am arguing, can be read as a consequence of the 15M encampment and its aftermath.Prefigurative PracticesIn May 2011, following the example of the Arab world, Madrid’s Puerta del Sol was populated by a crowd armed with posters, slogans, and self-made banners. On the inhospitable ground of the square, anonymous persons erected an encampment so complex that it functioned as a miniature city, with spaces for preparing food, for nursery care, for rest, for legal consultation, for anti-racist and/or feminist activity. All work was voluntary, and materials were... (shrink)

Uterus transplantation (UTx) research has been introduced in several countries, with trials in Sweden and the United States producing successful outcomes. The growing interest in developing UTx trials in other countries, such as Spain, the Netherlands, Japan, and Australia, raises important questions regarding the ethics of surgical innovation research in the field of UTx. This paper examines the current state of UTx in the context of the surgical innovation paradigm and IDEAL framework and discusses the ethical challenges faced by those (...) considering the introduction of new trials. We argue that UTx remains an experimental procedure at a relatively early stage of the IDEAL framework, especially in the context of de novo trials, where protocols are likely to deviate from those used previously and where researchers are likely to have limited experience of UTx. We conclude that countries considering the introduction of UTx trials should build on the strengths of the reported outcomes to consolidate the evidence base and shed light on the uncertainties of the procedure. Authorities responsible for the ethical governance of UTx trials are advised to draw on the ethical framework used in the oversight of surgical innovation. (shrink)

RESUMEN La regla de oro es una de las máximas morales más conocidas a nivel mundial, tanto en su versión negativa -no hagas a los otros lo que no te gustaría que te hicieran a ti-, como positiva -trata a los demás como te gustaría que te trataran a ti-. Aunque pueda entenderse fundamentalmente como una regla de empatía, también tiene un claro aire de familia con otras reglas de equidad y coherencia moral que impulsan una prueba de inversión de (...) roles. El artículo repasa la rica historia transcultural de esta regla, analiza las diferentes interpretaciones posibles y profundiza en las dificultades de aplicación. ABSTRACT The golden rule is one of the best-known moral maxims worldwide, both in its negative version -Don't do to others what you wouldn't like to be done to you-, as well as positive -Treat others as you would like to be treated-. Although it can be understood primarily as a rule of empathy, it also has a clear family resemblance with other rules of fairness and moral coherence that drive a role reversal test. The article reviews its rich cross-cultural history, analyzes the different interpretations and investigates the difficulties of implementation. (shrink)

Not only is writing about ethics and politics, but there is an ethics and a policy of language and thought. Writing and style are a philosophical problems that in this text are guided by three questions: why is written, to whom and what kind of philosophy is chosen. They are timely questions both in the academic environment and in the network world, where writing has become a sort of assumption that is rarely questioned. The heart of the article focuses on (...) addressing writing as a matter of desire taking as reference the work of Deleuze and Guattari. (shrink)

El presente artículo versa sobre el lugar que el cuerpo propio desempeña en la configuración de la identidad personal según Gabriel Marcel. Se intenta plantear el tema de la identidad y el lugar que en ella ocupa la polémica relación entre yo y mi cuerpo, teniendo en cuenta la situación actual de este debate y mostrando con ello las señas de identidad de una sociedad que vive con vehemencia el proyecto de ser uno mismo y la relación entre el ser (...) y el cuerpo. (shrink)

La novela ha sido consagrada como una de las “técnicas de experiencia vicaria” fundamentales, que adiestran nuestra habilidad para ponernos en la piel de otras personas. No han sido pocos los que han visto un claro efecto moral en esa permanente exploración de la alteridad. El artículo repasa los argumentos de los entusiastas de esa idea, los que creen que leer novelas nos hace más empáticos y solidarios; de los moderados, quienes consideran que ayuda ante todo a ejercitar nuestro juicio (...) moral, y de los escépticos, que apenas encuentran ningún fin moral en ese hábito. Revisa a continuación algunas complejidades del desarrollo moral, que hacen improbable una fácil conexión, y termina distinguiendo los modos en que la lectura de novelas sí puede contribuir a cultivar la humanidad que hay en nosotros y a ahondar en el humanitarismo. (shrink)

Según Emmanuel Levinas, el sentido de la ética consistiría en una orientación pre-ontológica que hace que, en lugar de meros seres que están-conlos- otros, seamos seres que son-para-losotros, de modo que en la proximidad del cara-a-cara, el rostro del otro despierta en nosotros una responsabilidad para con él . Sin embargo, para cumplir con la llamada del rostro a menudo es necesaria alguna forma de mediación , alguna forma de “saber” que supone distancia y corre, por tanto, el permanente peligro (...) de olvidar su sentido. De ahí las aporías y las dificultades inherentes a la proximidad sobre las que reflexiona la segunda parte de este artículo. (shrink)

In this interview, James L. McClelland responds to questions regarding connectionist models of cognition, a theory inspired by information processing in the brain. McClelland explains the distinction between symbolic and non-symbolic processing for a better understanding of mental processes. He argues that connectionist models can perform the computations which we know the brain can perform. In addition, he responds to several general questions on the perspectives of computational models of cognition.

Research on salesperson creativity remains as one of the most under-researched topics in the sales literature despite the evidence that encouraging creativity in the sales domain is a source of competitive advantage. This paper aims to fill this research gap by exploring the influence of perceived ethical climate on salesperson creative performance, paying special attention to the role that emotions play in this process. Data provided by 176 supervisor–salesperson dyads confirm that the trust/responsibility dimension of an ethical climate is positively (...) related to salesperson creative selling by increasing salespeople's organizational pride. Similarly, the perception of unethical selling practices negatively affects salesperson organizational pride, reducing the expression of creative behaviors. Moreover, the negative effect of unethical selling practices on creative performance is stronger (more negative) when salespeople's identification with an organization increases. Managerial implications and future research directions are also addressed. (shrink)

With size, voting discipline, and technical resources superior to those of most Brazilian parties, in the last two decades, the support of the Agrarian Caucus has become crucial for the realization of presidents’ legislative agenda. In a country where 87 percent of the population is urban, how have representatives of the agrarian elites become key players in bargaining on nonagrarian issues? This article argues that Brazilian agrarian elites have been so successful because they have devised an electoral strategy that maximizes (...) their leverage in a fragmented party system with ideologically weak right-wing parties. Empirically, I show how agrarian elites in Brazil finance legislative campaigns, mobilize voters, and subsidize the legislative work of politicians from their ranks, independently of their partisan affiliation. Theoretically, I discuss the advantages of a candidate-centered electoral strategy: self-representation and multipartisanship. While self-representation has granted agrarian elites direct access to agenda-setting positions within Congress, having members in many parties has increased the number of agenda-setting positions they can control and guaranteed their presence in the legislative coalition of right- and left-wing presidents alike. (shrink)

A wide array of species throughout the animal kingdom has shown the ability to distinguish between quantities. Aside from being important for optimal foraging decisions, this ability seems to also be of great relevance in group-living animals as it allows them to inform their decisions regarding engagement in between-group conflicts based on the size of competing groups. However, it is often unclear whether these animals rely on numerical information alone to make these decisions or whether they employ other cues that (...) may covary with the differences in quantity. In this study we used a touch screen paradigm to investigate the quantity discrimination abilities of two closely related group-living species, wolves and dogs, using a simultaneous visual presentation paradigm. Both species were able to successfully distinguish between stimuli of different quantities up to 32 items and ratios up to 0.80, and their results were in accordance with Weber's law (which predicts worse performances at higher ratios). However, our controls showed that both wolves and dogs may have used continuous, non-numerical cues, such as size and shape of the stimuli, in conjunction with the numerical information to solve this task. In line with this possibility, dogs' performance greatly exceeded that which they had shown in other numerical competence paradigms. We discuss the implications these results may have on these species' underlying biases and numerical capabilities, as well as how our paradigm may have affected the animals' ability to solve the task. (shrink)