Literatura académica sobre el tema "Art – political aspects – rome"

Magdalena Karamucka’s book Antyczny Rzym Norwida [Norwid’s Ancient Rome] is the first monographic study of the problem addressed in the title. Ancient Rome is presented in this valuable study from different perspectives: as a geographical, historical and cultural reality and as a literary topos. The starting point for the discussion is a chapter devoted to a Roman episode of Norwid’s biography and his Roman readings. Another subject of analysis are the poet’s political, religious and historiosophical reflections about Rome and his remarks on literature, art and Roman theatre. The main, comparative part is devoted to a meticulous analysis of reminiscences, quotations (paraphrases), titles, etc. taken from works of Roman authors (including Catullus, Horace, Juvenal, Ovid, Virgil), Norwid’s translational work and his Roman correspondence. However, Norwid’s Roma antiqua presented in the monograph is not frozen in a dead form. The author shows in an interesting and convincing way how this romanitas becomes a starting (or reference) point for the author of Quidam in his reflections on almost all aspects of his contemporary times.

In his seminal work, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, Paul Zanker wrote of a problem with nude honorific statuary in Late Republican Rome and of ‘conflict and contradiction’ in the style of Roman portraits during the same period. The ‘problem’ was a matter of nudity and style; it also had a moral dimension. Under political or social pressure, there was a tendency at Rome to express the effects of cultural change in moral terms: viz., literary works concerned with political or social attitudes of the Romans tended to describe elements like luxuria and adulatio(‘luxury’ and ‘sycophancy’) as ‘Greek and decadent in contrast to good, honest, ‘Roman’ values and traditions, such as virtus (‘courage’), fides (‘good faith’), and pietas (‘devotion’). Taking his cue from such attacks on aspects of the hellenization of Rome, Zanker gave a moral dimension to the ‘conflict and contradiction’ he discerned in the style of Roman honorific statues and portraits of the second and first centuries B.C. This idea that art can express moral values, even moral conflict, is of great interest and fundamental significance. The present paper focuses upon the way Zanker applies it to Late Republican statues and portraits in the light of recent scholarship. In particular, it will be argued, firstly, that the form of the art does not really make sense if there was as much conflict with Greek ideas and styles as generalizations from the literary sources might imply; secondly, that a nude or partially nude portrait statue of a living noble or emperor was not as problematic at Rome as is commonly believed; and thirdly, as a consequence, that Zanker's views about moral conflict in the style of Late Republican statues and portraits, and about the stylistic resolution of this ‘conflict’ under Augustus, should be substantially modified.

Motivation: China is now the third largest art market in the world, and thanks to its long history, the country is able to offer a great artistic heritage. Chinese auctioning institutions have become one of the most significant in the world, having a massive global impact on art pricing. By establishing their sales infrastructure in new locales ahead of the traditional mechanisms of primary market commercial galleries, the Chinese auction houses have played a foundational role in the notional construction of new genres of art.Aim: The main purpose of this article is to present a detailed analysis of Chinese auction houses and other auction institutions, with regards to the economic and legal aspects of their operation. The article is cross-sectional, showing how China has become the fastest growing art market in the world. The analysis provides evidence for the existence of various factors that determine the dynamic development of the Chinese art auctions market and determines the differences in the functioning of Chinese and Western auction houses.Results: These results illustrate that exceptional economic and political factors made it possible to significantly develop the Chinese auction market in a very short time.

VR in virtual reality and augmented reality technology is a new technology applied in the field of education in recent years. This paper combs and analyses the educational application research from three aspects: educational games, art education and political education. First, starting from education, the author expounds that virtual reality education is based on the teaching concept of "interesting" games and takes education and teaching objectives as the design concept. Then, it introduces the performance of virtual reality technology in the field of art. This part explains the important role of virtual reality technology in the field of art education. It mainly expounds the practical exploration of VR in teaching, the value of VR in art design teaching, the content of VR in the new path of art design curriculum reform, and the innovation of VR teaching. Finally, the application of virtual reality technology in ideological and political education is proposed. At the end of this paper, the application of VR in these three aspects is summarized and prospected.

Recent feminist critiques of neo-liberalism have argued for care as an alternative structuring principle for political systems in crisis and have proposed that the transformation of the existing capitalist order demands the abolition of the (gendered) hierarchy between ‘care’ ‐ the activities of social reproduction that nurture individuals and sustain social bonds ‐ and economic production. Key to answering what it might mean for care to become the central concern or core process of politics is imagining alternatives outside deeply ingrained and guarded conventions. It is in this imagining that artists have much to contribute, more so still because for many artists, maintaining a practice in neo-liberal contexts demands nurturing collectivities, sensitivities and resourcefulness ‐ essential aspects of care. By focusing on recent Australian examples, this article examines what role artists can play in engaging with, interpreting or enacting care in practices ‐ such as works of self-care, care for country and the environment, care for material culture and heritage, care for institutions and processes, and care for others ‐ which might help forge an alternative ethics in the age of neo-liberalism. This exploration is driven by the need for a contemporary values revolution as we ‐ as a species, as a planet ‐ face existential threats including climate emergency and terminal inequality. Can art be a generative site to work towards alternative ethics that privilege trans-subjective relations predicated on attentiveness and tending, on spending time, on holding space?

Today multilingual communication is increasing as the context of globalization and therefore, contact between different cultures is being practiced in non-western communities in political, business and art meetings. Culture as a critical part of multilingual communication performs several functions in community, has several categories according to different culturologists. The students of translation studies faculty must be aware of constituent parts of multilingual communication, its theoretical basis, basic terms and the role of intercultural competency in translation process. In this paper, cultural aspects of multilingual communication, its concepts and terms, types of culture are discussed. We also provide the definition of the terms of culturology that each Bachelor student of translation studies department must know.

Theatrical Life and Socially-Political Climate of Russian Society: Measurement of Evolution Intensity In limits of theoretically-informational approach to the occurrence of culture and art, the intensity of theatrical life is scrutinizing as degree of tension of its dynamics, which flows from quantitative estimation of the cultural public mean’s role, their investment in formation and development of art of its aspects and genres and importance of events in different periods of time. Appearance of various creative innovations in theatrical life is conditioning by the level of its intensity.

This paper analyzes aspects of Egyptian history, including unique qualities that influenced the Egyptian culture and gave it its identity that has developed throughout the years until today. It will also discuss Egyptian visual arts and its critical role throughout history, including how arts have appeared and developed over Egypt’s lifetime and influenced the Egyptian citizen. Furthermore, this research sheds light on the effects of every political change that took place in Egypt, and how that could be a mirror of the Egyptian civilization, its development and its decline while considering the role of visual arts throughout and after the revolution of 2011. Analyzing Egyptian culture, education, technology, internet and multimedia after the revolution can be imperative to understand the cultural identity and the role of visual arts in Egypt. Thus the mutual relationship between arts and the Egyptian cultural identity will be questioned, along with the way that they impact each other, and finally, how both of them could play a key role in developing Egypt after the 25th of January, 2011 revolution.

Historical documentation regarding public festivals and banquets continually acknowledges the alliance of painting, poetry, music, and design, but in contrast to these records, accounts of artists personal revelries remain scarce. This article discusses the festive, social, political, and artistic aspects of notable gatherings that took place over the past five centuries. Among the examples mentioned are the serious gatherings of Baccio Bandinelli's Academy and the meetings of the Dutch Rhetoricians (Rederijkers); the lavish parties of the 16th century artist Rustici and the modern-day Art Students League;the scandalous doings of the Dutch painters guild (Bentvueghels) in Rome and the antics of the Swedish sculptor Sergel. It also touches upon pre- and postwar banquets in Paris,Futurist and Dadaist gatherings, and the socializing of the New York School.

<span style="color: black; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11pt">The paper sets out</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11pt"> to <span>reconstruct the political context of art-making in the State of Epiros under its second ruler </span>Theodore Komnenos Doukas (r. 1215-1230)<span>, paying particular attention to two aspects: first, the ways in which art reflected and articulated political ideology; and second, the role played by works of art in the formation of a Byzantine imperial identity in exile.</span></span>

This inter-disciplinary thesis traces the influence of Greek images of monarchy on Rome, between 323 B. C. and A. D. 14. The first chapter examines the evidence for Greek perceptions of kings, tyrants, good citizens and ideal rulers in the fourth century B. C. The second chapter considers some developments in political theory during the Hellenistic period, and the practice of Hellenistic kingship. The visual media used for representing Hellenistic monarchy are discussed. The first section of the third chapter reviews the evidence for the points of contact between Romans of the Republican era, and the monarchs, artworks and political thought of the Greek world. A second section analyses the evidence both for the evolution of Roman attitudes towards monarchs and monarchy, over this period of interaction, and changes in Roman political and military leadership. The conventional notion that Romans had been consistently hostile to kings since the fall of Tarquinius Superbus is questioned. The increasing resort to proven individuals (e. g. Pompey) for solving domestic and external crises is documented. The final section of this chapter charts developments in the positive representation of Republican leaders in both rhetoric and art, including favourable portrayals of both Caesar and Octavian. It is suggested that the transformation of Roman thought and practice, under Greek influence, facilitated the successful establishment of a monarchical regime after Actium. The creation of the Augustan dynasty is documented in the final chapter. In addition, ideals of leadership, and Augustan ideas about war, peace and empire, are discussed. A chronological treatment of the contemporary (visual and textual) evidence suggests the heterogeneity of Augustus' principate. New identifications are proposed for certain figures in the 'procession friezes' of the Ara Pacis Augustae.

Bibliography: pages 232-240.
This dissertation argues that abstract art is not ideologically neutral. In spite of many artists' anti-fascist stance early in their careers, the mantle of neutrality was assumed as a reaction to the protracted struggle between the two major ideologies confronting artists living in Europe and the United States of America in the period 1933-1953, namely capitalism and communism. These ideologies were not peripheral to artists lives, but were actively debated by both artists and intellectuals and resulted in the establishment of powerful cultural organisations. The ensuing growth in prestige and influence of left-wing artist's organisations was countered by a campaign which included direct suppression of left-wing artists as well as a form of ideological control. This control was vested in what has been called the specifics of patronage and is reflected in the establishment of the Arts Council in Britain and the private art museums in the United States. Changes in the art market have meant that, together with dealers and critics, these institutions wielded almost complete economic control over artists. The prevailing ideology of liberal humanism, which glorified individualism and defined democracy as a middle ground between the left and the right, favoured the development of a seemingly apolitical abstract art style. Analysis of the demise of the Artists International Association and the American Artist's Congress supports the conclusion that the figurative tradition lost prestige as a result of the stigma attached to Socialist Realism and the idealised realism demanded by National Socialism in Germany. Account is also taken of the attempt by well-positioned and influential commentators to identify all forms of realism with totalitarianism. It is not surprising therefore, that it was commonly believed that to paint in an abstract modern style was to strike a blow against fascism. In the same way that realism was identified with the regimentation of Soviet society, the avant-gardes' abstract experiments came to symbolize democracy. Drawing on the texts of writers, critics, artists and theorists, this dissertation shows that the force of the identification of progressive realism with totalitarianism, prepared the way for acceptance of the idea that freedom of expression epitomised freedom in general. In this way, anti-Stalinism and the post-war liberal philosophy of individual freedom, coupled with a search for 'essences' and the 'universal', directed artists inward to the medium of art as relevant subject-matter. This dissertation argues that this identification was ideologically motivated in respect to the balance of social and political power in America.

The statement of the problem for this creative thesis project was: How to construct photomontages that expressed the photographer's personal concerns regarding the human condition and the environmental status of the earth. Secondary components of this problem were the use of color within the work and how to reproduce this color. The goal of this project was: To stimulate individual awareness resulting in a reevaluation of one's own position and responsibilities towards humanity and the environmental status of the earth.A description of the significance of this problem is given along with supportive research. This project provided the photographer with an opportunity to use an artistic process to express environmental concerns that grew out of the photographer's environmental studies.Methods used to solve this problem included the collection of visual elements from readily available pre-printed material such as magazines and books. By combining these elements together in a new context a collage or montage was created. After the montage image was complete it was photographed on color slide film. These color slides were then placed in a projector system connected to a color laser copier. Each slide was projected on to the bed of the copier and scanned. This scanner communicated the image's digital signal to a color laser printer which produced a color laser print.Finally, each photomontage color print was window matted on white 100% acid free rag mat board and placed in a white frame for exhibition. An exhibition was held in the Ball State University Theatre Lounge/Gallery. Included in the appendices of this thesis is a copy of the exhibition flyer, artist statement and press release.A description of each individual piece is provided within_ this thesis. Addressed in this section are the formal properties of each photomontage. Techniques used in the construction of each photomontage are outlined. The expressive elements are identified arid their functions explored as they apply to the montage image. It is within this section that the photographer's opinions and feelings are expressed.The last section of this thesis is the evaluation and conclusion. In the photographer's opinion this project was a success because the photomontages express the personal concerns of the photographer. Also, these photomontages did stimulate awareness and reevaluation in the audience as reported by members of the audience to the photographer.
Department of Art

This Master of Fine Arts submission, consisting of a thesis titled ‘Political Grey: Areas of Ambiguity and Contradiction’ accompanied by an exhibition titled ‘Positions’, encompasses the concept of leadership while uncovering and expressing its ‘grey areas’ in a contemporary and undefined moment in South Africa. The concept of leadership has been complicated throughout the thesis in terms of how it is conceptualised in a traditional royal African art context as well as how Leader-Figures have been and are portrayed in both Western and African portrait genres. The notion that the new is built upon the old is continued throughout my thesis and is evident in the accompanying body of work. This notion is expressed on a number of levels: by the re-contextualisation of the print medium; the creative processes described as ‘postproduction’ which I use in my work; as well as that which is described as a ‘post-transitional’ moment. The recent political history of the country is considered, with reference made to the anti-apartheid movement and resistance art produced. Printmaking, viewed as an archetypal medium for resistance, is discussed, with reference made to its socio-political role during the 1980s as well as to the extent to which it continues to be used by contemporary artists in a different realm of conflict and change. This is demonstrated by the shift from the medium as a tool for protest to the medium as an instrument of political irony and pointed commentary.

This research into Indonesian socialist-realism art, examines how art has shaped the political and social environments of the new order government. This text examines contemporary artists’ attitudes toward social commitment and social commentary during the period 1980-1995. Conflicting views of contemporary Indonesian artists were obtained from research undertaken in Indonesia in 1995. In this thesis, the problem is raised that Indonesian socialist-realism art is not only a style of art for contemporary Indonesian artists, but also as a union of artists’ attitudes towards Indonesian society. This argument is used to further understand modern Indonesian art from the ‘inner’ point of view
Master of Arts (Hons)

A mail survey of Nigerian immigrants in Dallas, Texas, and Chicago, Illinois, was conducted during October and November 1995. Four hundred and sixty-eight Nigerian immigrant families in the two cities were selected by systematic sampling through the telephone books. Return rate was approximately 40% (187). The variables included in the study were media exposure variables, general demographics, immigration traits, U.S. demographics, Nigerian demographics, and political and cultural traits. New variables which had not been included in previous studies were also tested in this study: television talk shows, talk radio, diffuse support for the U.S. political system, authoritarianism, self-esteem, and political participation. This study employed multiple regression analysis and path analysis of the data. This study found that Nigerian immigrants have high preference for television news as their main source of political information. This finding is in consonance with previous studies. Nigerian immigrants chose ABC news stations as their number one news station for political information. Strong positive associations existed between media exposure and length of stay in the United States and interest in U.S. politics. Talk radio positively associated with interest in U.S. politics and negatively associated with length of stay in the United States. Thus, this finding likely means that talk radio is a good source of political socialization for more recently arrived immigrants and those interested in U.S. politics. Significant associations existed between diffuse support for the U.S. government and interest in politics and security of immigration status. This study also found that adjustment to U.S. political culture was a function of media exposure, pre-immigration social class, diffuse support for the U.S. political system, and political knowledge.

Scenario House, a gallery based installation, is comprised of a room constructed as a ???family room??? within a domestic space, a television with a looped video work and a sound componant played through a 5.1 sound system. The paper is intended to give my work context in relation to the processes leading up to its completion. This is achieved through clarification of the basis for the installation including previous socio-political discourses within my art practice. It then focuses on ways that the installation Scenario House is based on gun practice facilities such as the Valhalla Shooting Club. Further it gives an explanation of the actual production, in context with other art practices. It was found that distinctions between ???war as a game??? and the actual event are being lost within ???simulation revenge scenarios??? where the borders distinguishing gaming violence, television violence and revenge scenarios are increasingly indefinable. War can then be viewed a spectacle where the actual event is lost in a simplified simulation. Scenario House as installation allows audience immersion through sound spatialisation and physical devices. Sound is achieved by design of a 5.1 system played through a domestic home theatre system. The physical design incorporates the dual aspect of a gun shooting club and a lounge room. Further a film loop is shown on the television monitor as part of the domestic space ??? it is non-narrative and semi-documentary in style. The film loop represents the mediation of the representation of fear where there is an exclusion of ???the other??? from the social body. When considering this installation it is important to note that politics and art need not be considered as representing two separate and permanent realities. Conversely there is a need to distance politicised art production from any direct political campaign work in so far as the notion of a campaign constitutes a fixed and inflexible space for intellectual and cultural production. Finally this paper expresses the need to maintain a critical openness to media cultures that dominate political discourse. Art practices such as those of Martha Rosler, Haacke and Paul McCarthy are presented as effective strategies for this form of production.

This thesis is an exploration of the construction of the gendered body in combat in the late twentieth century, in Australia and the United States of America. While it is not a military history, aspects of military history, and representations of war and warriors are used as the vehicle for the analysis of the politics of representing gender. The mythic, the material and the media(ted) body of the gendered warrior are examined in the realms of ‘real’ military histories and news coverage, and in the ‘speculative’ arena of popular culture. Through this examination, the continuities and ruptures inherent in the gendered narratives of war and warriors are made apparent, and the operation of the politics of representing gender in the public arena is exposed. I have utilised a number of different approaches from different disciplines in the construction of this thesis: feminist and non-feminist responses to women in the military; aspects of military histories and mythologies of war specific to Australia and the United States; theories on the construction of masculinities and femininities; approaches to gender identity in popular news media, film and television. Through these approaches I have sought to bring together the history of women in the military institutions of Australia and the United States, and examine the nexus between the expansion of women’s military roles and the emergence of the female warrior hero in popular culture. I have, as a result, analysed the constructions of masculinity and femininity that inform the ongoing association of the military with ‘quintessential masculinity’, and deconstructed the real and the mythic corporeal capacities of the gendered body so important to warrior identity. Regardless, or perhaps because of, the importance of gender politics played out in and through the representations of soldier identity, all their bodies must be considered speculative.

This is an autoethnographic account of the performative practices in the Umbrella Movement (2014, Hong Kong), a struggle that I myself and some fellow artists participated in. Instead of making a discursive analysis of postcolonial identity, this thesis focuses on performative practices and the performativity of artists and their activist counterparts in the Umbrella Movement. This thesis starts with an overview of the political situation in Hong Kong before relating it to the social turn in contemporary art practice and the performative turn in art and research practices. Instead of using performance as a metaphor for understanding cultural phenomena, I persevere with the notion of performance per se, of artists taking part in activism and examining the performativity involved in the process. As an artist/researcher, I have been seeking a research methodology that is compatible with the means and ends of activism being studied and can nourish a reflexive account on the performative practices of resistance in postcolonial Hong Kong. I propose a methodology of 'performative autoethnography' which accentuates the co-performative and intersubjective process as well as the non-textual aspects of embodied experience and of performing struggle in activism. Reviewing the performative practices on macro- and micro-levels, I borrow the term 'microutopia' to depict the imaginary space created by micro-performances used to cope with the discrepancies between utopian ideals and reality. Specifically, I examine the transformative power of some performative tactics employed in the Umbrella Movement: parodic performance of 'over-identification,' improvisation accomplished by collective connectivity and kinetic responsiveness of the performers, and the artist as an intersubjective mediator. Among these tactics, there are recurring claims and recurring forms that add up to a repertoire of protest. Through microutopian interventions staged at the site of protest, the identities of the multitude are constructed through critical engagement. I suggest that we use the concept of 'critical identities' to study how identities are constructed within an open-ended network of social relations, using a critical reflexive lens of performance studies at a precarious moment in which Hong Kong finds itself at a crossroads.

AbstractOperazione Arcevia (OA) is an urban settlement project, born for the purpose of the social, economic, and touristic regeneration of a marginal area in the Marchigiane hills, characterized by its postwar exodus. Conceived between 1972 and 1974 on the initiative of the businessman Italo Bartoletti, like every newly constituted city it was designed with a political and cultural identity by the architect Ico Parisi in collaboration with two renowned critics (Cripolti and Restany), a psychologist, and a large number of artists (Arman, César, Ceroli, Soto, Staccioli, among others). OA remained in its germinal phase, and this was indeed its final result, the fruit of participative work presented at several exhibition events: Venice 1976; Rome 1979). In this ideal city imagined by the erudite group of operators, along with its utopian aspects, there are also practical ones and design hypotheses that can still inspire and provide food for thought: the close collaboration between planners and artists; anti-monumental intentions for art with a social nature and characterized by shared practice; built-up urban relations and the landscape dimension; the coexistence between productive and residential communities and temporary communities, both touristic, in terms of hospitality, and as a secular space in which to take refuge. Cooperating together with Parisi and the critics were 33 artists who together created tavole progettuali (design boards) that combined design, technical design, photographic images, and collages, i.e. fully-fledged works of art and creativity.

AbstractThe semantic field denoted by the two terms ‘policy’/‘politics’ of translation is of central importance because it allows us to focus on two complexes: 1. translation policy in the sense of translational norms and thus the question of the socio-cultural, economic and intercultural conditions that are responsible for the fact that translation takes place and in what form; and 2. the role of translation in the context of political processes of negotiation. Heuristically, three aspects of the political are thus of interest: cultural norms and criteria that decide on the fact and the type of translation (cultural filters); political, religious or economic interests that are linked to translations (calculation) and the significance of translations for all forms of interaction in the political sphere in the narrower sense (diplomacy).

The essay shows the historical and theoretical connections between adult education and distance learning, showing how the latter has made use of the many theories developed since the Andragogic challenge and how it has been able to offer itself as a catalyst for the former. Especially starting from MOOCs, this dual nature of distance learning – that of concretizer and that of reflective catalyst of adult education – are transformed into a research that touches pedagogical aspects (related to continuing education and its strategic role), teaching aspects (related to the methods of structuring training actions), but also and above all ethical-political apects, related to the democratization of Higher Education.

AbstractWhat role does religion play in the displacement, resettlement, and integration of refugees who are brought into the United States? This chapter examines an ongoing initiative, the Religion and Resettlement Project (RRP), that takes as its central premise the idea that religion is a critical aspect for understanding refugees’ mental health and civic lives, fostering civil society, conceptualizing the long-term displacement of refugees, and assisting with their integration. With the RRP, we consider the full range of resettled refugees—from Holocaust survivors to Afghan Special Immigrant Visa holders. In this chapter, we examine key initiatives pertinent to this project, some of the challenges related to its implementation, and areas where further research is needed to better understand this dynamic.

In this chapter, we examine the role of Discourse Studies in social media disinformation research. While currently underrepresented, Discourse Studies can provide key insights into why disinformation gains traction through credibility building, tapping into existing political narratives and stereotypes. Discourse Studies, we argue, can also bring much-needed attention to the constitutive role of antagonism in disinformation and to the connection between political practices, power relations and platform designs; aspects that are often overlooked. Drawing on three empirical cases – revolving around the Russian Internet Research Agency, fake Muslim Facebook pages and far-right conspiracy theories disguised as tabloid news – the chapter aims to provide a clearer view of the application of Discourse Studies (in its various forms) to disinformation.

The globalisation of the Western-Christian institutional order in its manifest legal aspects, but not necessarily of its latent religious aspects, puts a supplement of importance onto the need of grasping its genesis. The most decisive note is located — or so we argue — in unfolding the classical division between polis and politics on the one hand, and the household and the art of handling it (management or oikonomia) on the other, in Christian times. These divides delivered the blueprint for the divide that would differentiate, over more than a millennium, the public power of the Roman Empire in its Eastern and Western re-embodiments from that of the Church. We also refer, by way of contrast, to the pre-Christian biblical model of the divide. Further, by contrast to Giorgio Agamben, we specify that while the today thoroughly studied occidental West, availing of a simplified trinitarian creed, instituted legitimate public power as subject to on-going conflictual competition between the so-called ‘two powers’, the still much less studied East struggled to preserve the unity, or as the Byzantines called it, 'symphony', of the Whole in line with its (original) version of Trinitarianism.

Abstract European integration is a concept that embraces a very wide span of developments and institutions. The central core of the integration process, however, is usually, and with some justification, seen as running from the Schuman Plan through to the Rome Treaty, and from there to the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty on European Union. The degree to which this long, uneven process can or ought to be termed a federal one, and the relationship and relevance of federal ideas and practices to it, are matters which have been debated since its very beginning. In this chapter I wish to address certain aspects of this problem again. I wish to argue in particular that the older doctrines of federalism, while in no sense providing a blueprint for integration, do help us to understand what integration is, and to clarify the key issues that confront it now and in the future.

Abstract The rise and decline of those great European exemplars of the successful polity, the cities of Greece and Rome, were for a long while, and indeed often still are, associated with the promotion and subsequent erosion of codes of ethical restraint on individuals’ subjectivity. The development of the modem European State, on the contrary, has been marked by a long-term disintegration of the ethical codes that had been believed hitherto to sustain European civilization. There was a gradual acceptance, eventually even a celebration, of those subjective aspects of individuality which previous political moralities—Graeco-Roman republicanism and its Renaissance revivals, as well as Christianity—had for the most part, seen it as their business to vanquish, suppress, or control for the greater good of the community. The perception of’subjectivist’ threats to social stability derived from the belief that unconstrained or unmoralized individuals’ desires were limitless, their personal interests conflicting, and their emotional susceptibility destabilizing.

Abstract This chapter introduces the central theme of the book: the encounter between Christianity and democratic politics in Italy from the French Revolution to the near present. The Introduction stresses the contemporary relevance of the overall topic, beyond the Italian setting: the current spread of “identity politics” and the increasing use of religion in political and public discourse, recently appropriated by new populist parties and movements, in Italy as well as many other places in the world. At the conceptual level, the chapter indicates the contribution to the state of the art by stressing two interrelated aspects that the book considers crucial for a better understanding of the role that Catholicism and Christian Democracy have played in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: the political dimension of transcendence and spirituality (the development of a distinct Catholic “political spirituality”) and the transformative power of historical experiences. Both aspects are intimately tied to the question of generations and generational analysis. The introduction ends by an outline of chapters and chapter contents.

Abstract This volume has sought to evaluate the comparative literature on political parties in contemporary Western Europe. The individual chapters provide a concise, critical review of the empirical findings of that literature in respect of particular aspects of political parties, and also assess the theoretical and methodological ‘state-of-the-art’ in these areas. It is demonstrated that our knowledge of the nature and role of Western European political parties has increased significantly in recent years. Further, we can also observe that Western European party change is both ongoing and closely related to the rapid development of the wider societies in which those parties operate. That is not to suggest that political parties are wholly dependent upon their environment (a point we shall return to towards the end of this chapter). However, there is much to be said for the proposition that the comparative study of political parties in a liberal democracy may well constitute a ‘never ending story’ for political science.

"The role of history in future studies History is one of the fields of human research and has a strong relationship with politics, political studies and future studies. Future studies are considered a new field in effective and developed scientific research and have an essential role in politics since they influence each other. Future research fields are enhanced by taking advantage of other human and scientific research fields or using interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary methods. One of the fields that future researchers cannot disregard is historical research. This research focused on the two different directions: the fields of future research and history, i.e., past events, on the one hand, their future and scenarios on the other. The research seeks to answer some main questions: What is the common ground and relationship between history as a field of human research with future research? What is the function and purpose of both fields? What are their common keywords? Where will history assist the science of future research? The importance of the research is that working on the relationship between history and future science will keep history away from the past. It also makes future studies more realistic in identifying and cooperating with politics, political reform, management, and other aspects of society and choosing a better future among futures ahead of any society and individual. Moreover, historical research and academic centers in Kurdistan have been less likely to apply history as a science to understand the future. The research aims to find common ground and the effective relationships between the two fields of futures and history and link them by analyzing their content, tasks and methods. The research methodology is descriptive-analysis and has benefited from historical and comparative methods to explain the definitions, emergence, and common grounds for both research's variables."

The investigation of several definitions of the term "political discourse" and the role of translation of them is the main focus of this article. Different categories of linguists and scientists are examined, and the characteristics of stylistic techniques and lexical units used in the translation of speeches by British politicians are explained. The linguistic awareness and worldview of contemporary society are shaped by political discourse. Political discourse encompasses all the elements that are present in the minds of both the writer and the reader and can impact speech generation and perception, such as previous texts, political beliefs and the political context.

Employing a collective case study approach, I intend to assess the degree in which the PARC principles for successful social media strategies have been implemented in two Romanian PR Awards winning campaigns, at the medical services section, in 2017 (Votez pentru sănătate/ I vote for health - Asociaţia Română a Producătorilor Internaţionali de Medicamente, Golden Award for Excellence, and Laboratorul Central – arta diagnosticelor precise/ Central Laboratory – the art of precise diagnostics - Regina Maria Reţeaua Privată de Sănătate, Silver Award for Excellence). The four PARC principles that I will take into account refer to: participatory (interaction with users), authentic (engaging in conversation), resourceful (providing audience with helpful information) and credible (valuable and trustworthy information). Besides the four PARC principles, offline engagement will be also considered since it may generate viral effects. The research questions will focus on the online strategies used in the campaigns, the use of authentic and credible digital story telling for medical services, the degree to which offline engagement is activated in the awareness campaigns, and the extent to which online and/or offline engagement involve the sharing of content on medical services. The findings of this study revealed two main aspects: a) the target audience’s degree of participation throughout the public campaigns for medical services under analysis does not depend on the number of posts, but on the content of posts and on the political situational context; b) Romanian health-care organizations should be more aware of the advantages of the social media role of a community-builder.

In this article, I explore connections between internet use, a huge development in human civilization and its role in educating citizens. Internet is literally considered as a practical key or essential to human development and social advancement causing massive innovation in the world. Over the years, the advent of new media has permeated most aspects of our lives, especially that of the young generation. It is against this background that this paper aims to analyses the present use of the new media by youth to gauge their usage in relation to political participation. This study is a country wide survey covering resources posted on Facebook related Romanian military sites. Practically users are split into groups that accept more or less the politically correct ideas and sometimes accept or fierce reject some kinds of historiography. Besides a survey research using questionnaire as instrument was used to obtain data paper take its data from of samples of content and information's publicly posted on this social engine. The data was analyzed descriptively and inferentially using SPSS 20.0 From the results, majority of the respondents, 89% are social media users having a social media account. A discouraging trend with regard to participation is the very low level of giving comments on general societal issues ranging from social issues, the environment to politics. The youth are more inclined to using the new media for entertainment and finding resources for surface education on hot topics. It is time to use the new media to engage with community leaders and trained historians to comment on issues related to study research data.

In his article, the author considers the works by the famous political opponents of Bolsheviks: N.D. Avksentiev, V.P. Zenzinov, K. Goppers, A. Budberg, K.V. Sakharov, G.K. Guins and D.F. Rakov, in which the activities of A. Kolchak and his government are evaluated. Their evaluation concerns such aspects as the interrelations between Kolchak and the representatives of the «Allies» army, the reaction to the coup and proclaiming him Supreme Governor of Russia, evaluation of his real possibilities and abilities and also of the internal political situation in Siberia and Far East. According to the author, this evaluation does not contradict the conclusions of Soviet historiography. Taking into account the attempts made to re-examine the image of A. Kolchak consolidated in historiography, the author suggests one should evaluate his activities from the perspective of the historicalgeopolitical approach rather than from the perspective of the class theory. Taking into consideration the role of foreign states in his political biography, his choice during the years of the Civil War was not between the Red and the White but between Russia and foreign intervention. The proposed approach allows us to consider the political activities of A. Kolchak in a broader context and to make judgment about him from the geopolitical perspective rather than from the perspective of the class theory. In this case, the criterion for evaluation of the activities of the politician are his actions aimed at the defense of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the state.

The goal of the European Union is to reduce the risk of poverty and social exclusion. The risk of social exclusion involves various risk factors that adversely affect family life as well as everyday needs. Indirect discrimination also leads to social exclusion. In essence, social exclusion represents multidimensional marginalization that does not contribute to social integration policies aimed at creating an integrated and socially active society. French sociologist Emile Durkheim has already stressed that the inclusion and union of individuals are essential to maintaining social cohesion and preventing social exclusion. He also stressed the importance of social solidarity, which is linked to shared values, beliefs and norms in society and which can help to prevent social exclusion and promote social integration, and described the evolution of society from mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity. Social exclusion is a complex social and political problem, which is governed legally at the national and local levels, as there are socially excluded groups also in rural areas. The legislative framework was summarised using document analysis. A qualitative research approach was used to explore the manifestations of social exclusion and identify recommendations to address them. The research involved 11 semi-structured interviews with representatives of organisations working on the problems and integration of socially excluded groups. The research aims to identify the problems of and solutions to social exclusion in rural areas. The research has concluded that there are enough projects and programmes promoting wellbeing and social protection, yet the projects do not achieve the desired results in most cases. Based on the idea of social solidarity, today's society is more likely to cooperate, which indicates a more cohesive society and a willingness to seek help from responsible organisations.

After the introduction of the then Article F.1 TEU by the Amsterdam Treaty, later supplemented by the Nice Treaty, Hungary has earned the dubious reputation to be the first Member State against which an Article 7 TEU procedure has been triggered. While the predominantly political process is apparently stalled for the time being, the Court had to deal with various aspects of the deteriorating rule of law situation. Although forming part of an undeniably fragmented approach, the Court’s judgments nevertheless clearly attest the retrogressive developments in Hungary since 2010. The analysis of the Court’s jurisprudence is based on the qualitative measurement of the rule of law indicators drawn up by the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe. The identification of the cases pertinent to our investigation presents a challenge by itself as there is no label attached to a case dossier titled “rule of law”. In addition, several relevant cases deal with issues which prima facie do not have a bearing on this topic. Thus, e.g. the case relating to the radical lowering of the retirement age for Hungarian judges apparently revolves around age discrimination in the workplace while in fact these measures were politically motivated and had an adverse effect on judicial independence. The subject-matter of the cases identified so far range from the independence of the judiciary and regulatory bodies to the functioning of NGOs and higher education institutions; from the criminalisation of assistance for asylum seekers to the judicial challenge of the conditionality regulation. Most cases are infringement proceedings initiated by the European Commission but the Court was also turned upon through preliminary reference or actions for annulment. By analysing the submissions of the parties, the opinions of the Advocate General as well as the Court’s assessment thereof, the paper aims to evaluate the role of the Court: its potential and the limitations. While not denying the Court’s contribution to the provision of consistent responses against the systemic threats against EU values, there are various institutional and procedural constraints hampering the Court’s ability to secure compliance in the subject area.

In the study „Performer Valentina Cojocaru: aspects of heritage creation in the Folklor Orchestra” the author proposes a new interpretation of the meaning of ideational and pragmatic structures, represented by genres and styles included in the repertoire of neo-traditional music from the Soviet era of Moldovan SSR. The study focuses on issues concerning the context of the emergence and assertion of neotraditional art in the 1960s and 1980s as a branch of popular culture and mass culture, closely connected to the political agenda of the Soviet government. The path and stages of the artist's professional evolution are highlighted. Valentina Cojocaru's repertoire delimits two strategic aesthetic directions: one focused on the traditional folk ethos, the other – on the values of the new communist vision of the world. The main genera, styles and thematic species are discussed and exemplified.

The historical and philosophical understanding of human influence on climate change allows us to conclude that a significant share of responsibility for the emergence of environmental and, in particular, climatic problems lies with science. According to the researchers, the natural scientific aspects of climate change are widely covered by the media, while ethical issues are ignored or blocked in media publications, negotiations and discussions on climate. Modern research also does not pay enough attention to the cultural, political and psychological aspects of the consequences of climate change, as well as their role in the development of effective climate change policy.

The author uses symbiosis as metaphor and tool to create food-related projects that critically examine the anthropogenically induced impact of global warming on food chains. She argues that "art-through-food" projects promote an alternative worldview informed by the utopian premise that art can facilitate reflexivity and influence behavior to prevent future massive starvation by safeguarding the future of food. Three projects reveal the workings of energy flows in ecosystems to reimagine hybrid relations with living matter and with systems that are biological, technological, social, and political. They establish sustenance networks in which symbiotic interactions between several actors form the basis for a reevaluation of our human relationships to the planet and the fungal, plant, and animal agents within it. Based on assemblages with multiplicities that cofunction via a viral logic of contagion, projects explore aspects of symbiosis in human/plant/bacterial consortiums (the Bichi project), as well as symbiotic intelligence combining computing with neural networks (@Comestiblemealplan). Informed by research linking various scientific fields with art and technology, projects explore networks of relations between entities tangled in interdependence and involving parasitism, mutualism, adaptation, and resilience. Congruent with a larger systems approach in which symbiosis is the core principle replacing an essentialist conception of individuality, hybrid works contribute research and knowledge production with the potential to assess and generate affective insights and acts in the world.

Political culture is the values, beliefs, and emotions that members of a society express about the political regime and their role in it (Pickering, 2022, p. 5). Norms, values, attitudes and practices considered integral to a “culture of democracy”, according to the Council of Europe, include: a commitment to public deliberation, discussion, and the free expression of opinions; a commitment to electoral rules; the rule of law; and the protection of minority rights; peaceful conflict resolution. The consolidation of democracy involves not only institutional change, but also instilling a democratic culture in a society (Balčytienė, 2021). Research on democratic consolidation in various countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) finds that a key impediment to consolidation is the persistence of old, authoritarian political culture that undermines political and civic participation. This rapid review looks at aspects of democratic culture and potential ways to foster it, focusing on educational initiatives and opportunities for civic action — which comprise much of the literature on developing the values, attitudes and behaviours of democracy. Discussion on the strengthening of democratic institutions or assistance to electoral processes is outside the scope of the report.

In this critical reading, the importance of learning about some aspects related to the history, evolution, regulations, achievements, and challenges of higher education in Colombia is raised. This knowledge is especially relevant for tertiary education teachers. With this purpose in mind, the beginnings of such an educational system in the colonial period, as well as the transformations and milestones reached during the various historical, political, and economic changes that our country has had, are described. A description of the current state of tertiary education in Colombia is also offered through statistical data. Additionally, the laws, decrees, and resolutions that make up the legal framework, as well as the governmental bodies in charge of regulating its operation and guaranteeing the quality of the programs, are explained. It also examines the role that icts have in innovation processes and the changes and legislation that have arisen because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is concluded that, despite its evident evolution, Colombian higher education still faces challenges that require the proposal of pedagogical, technological, and political measures that adjust to the needs of all the agents involved.

This Emerging Issues Report explores the relationship between education, conflict, and (in)stability in South Sudan, drawing on a wide range of academic, policy, and programming literature. There is a growing body of research on the ways in which education can both exacerbate conflict and contribute to peace. The 4Rs framework (focusing on aspects of Redistribution, Recognition, Representation, and Reconciliation) provides a holistic way to explore and address the education system’s relationship to economic, social, cultural and political development processes; and its role in producing or exacerbating inequalities that fuel grievances and ultimately conflict (Novelli et al., 2019, 2016). The 4Rs framework is adopted throughout this report, at the start of each main section, providing summaries of key issues in the delivery of education and outcomes in South Sudan. These summaries are also presented in this overview. The report also looks at the interaction of donor interventions in education with conflict and stability in South Sudan, focusing on the Girls’ Education South Sudan (GESS) programme (see below), but also drawing on a few other interventions. While there is a range of donor reports and other literature that outline and discuss these initiatives and their impacts, there is limited research that makes explicit connections to their interactions with conflict and (in)stability.

India has a unique and complex religious history, with faith and spirituality playing an important role in everyday life. Hinduism is the majority religion, and there are many minority religions. India also has a complicated class system and entrenched gender structures. Disability is another important identity. Many of these factors determine people’s experiences of social inclusion or exclusion. This paper explores how these intersecting identities influence the experience of inequality and marginalisation, with a particular focus on people with disabilities from minority religious backgrounds. A participatory qualitative methodology was employed in Chennai, to gather case studies that describe in-depth experiences of participants. Our findings show that many factors that make up a person’s identity intersect in India and impact how someone is included or excluded by society, with religious minority affiliation, caste, disability status, and gender all having the potential to add layers of marginalisation. These various identity factors, and how individuals and society react to them, impact on how people experience their social existence. Identity factors that form the basis for discrimination can be either visible or invisible, and discrimination may be explicit or implicit. Despite various legal and human rights frameworks at the national and international level that aim to prevent marginalisation, discrimination based on these factors is still prevalent in India. While some tokenistic interventions and schemes are in place to overcome marginalisation, such initiatives often only focus on one factor of identity, rather than considering intersecting factors. People with disabilities continue to experience exclusion in all aspects of their lives. Discrimination can exist both between, as well as within, religious communities, and is particularly prevalent in formal environments. Caste-based exclusion continues to be a major problem in India. The current socioeconomic environment and political climate can be seen to perpetuate marginalisation based on these factors. However, when people are included in society, regardless of belonging to a religious minority, having a disability, or being a certain caste, the impact on their life can be very positive.

Over the last 20 years, Mexico redefined the role of the state in its economy through an ambitious program to liberalize trade, promote efficiency and reduce the size and scope of the state-owned sector. In Mexico, privatization led to a significant improvement in firm performance, as profitability increased 24 percentage points and converged to levels similar to those of private firms. From this increase, at most 5 percent can be attributed to higher prices and 31 percent to transfers from workers, with the remaining 64 percent representing productivity gains. There is evidence that privatization provides other social benefits, as greater access to services, which usually follows privatization, leads to welfare gains for the poorest consumers that outweigh any increase in prices. Moreover, an often-overlooked aspect of privatization is its fiscal impact, whereby the proceeds from the sale are augmented by reduced subsidies and increased taxes and can help pay off debt or finance social spending. The Mexican privatization program can provide a valuable guide to privatization dos and donts: First, the privatization process must be carefully designed and run in a transparent way. Special requirements such as bans on foreign direct investment or cash-only payments lead to substantial price discounts for firms sold, while simplicity breeds competition and leads to higher prices. A transparent program can also help quell the tendency of politicians to favor their friends by tweaking the rules of the game. Second, restructuring firms prior to privatization is counterproductive in raising net sale prices and should be avoided. Governments spend substantial resources on politically motivated investment or efficiency programs that are not valued by bidders and which can rarely be justified on the social ground on which they are sold. Additionally, restructuring programs lengthen the privatization process considerably and lower prices for firms sold in the case of Mexico, each month of delay reduced the sale price by 2.2 percent. Finally, this paper argues that it is essential to carefully deregulate and re-regulate privatized firms to ensure that they behave appropriately as well as to provide a corporate governance framework to ensure firms are able to finance their operations without relying on the Government for help.

Reaching the goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework requires commitment at all political levels and in all sectors. The State of Saxony also has to contribute its share. Saxony has a great potential, but also faces particular challenges. Almost half of the land area is used for agriculture, mainly for arable farming. However, only around eight percent of the land is farmed ecologically4. Intensification and monotonization of agriculture, as well as the use of pesticides and fertilizers, significantly contribute to the loss of biodiversity. Agriculture plays a crucial role as a habitat for biodiversity5. It is indispensable to promote biodiversity-friendly use, increase the proportion of land under organic farming, and establish corresponding methods in conventional agriculture. As a producer of fossil fuels, especially by the Lusatian and Central German lignite mining regions, Saxony is also strongly affected by the energy transition. The expansion of renewable energies needs to be nature-compatible and in harmony with the protection of biodiversity. Approaches to multifunctional landuse may provide support in this regard. Prof. Dr. Edeltraud Günther, Director of UNU-FLORES, emphasizes the need to consider biodiversity in the resource nexus. Saxony has good prerequisites to meet these challenges. With its Saxony Biodiversity 2030 Program, it has a revised biodiversity strategy to meet the global targets. In addition, Saxony is home to major research institutions that intensively focus on biodiversity. Research, education, and science communication play a central role in this context. Prof. Tshilidzi Marwala, Rector of UNU and Under-Secretary- General of the UN, emphasized the key role of education in his opening address of the DNCi 2023: 'Education is the key to unlock our potential. It empowers us to become stewards of our environment by providing us with a deep appreciation for biodiversity and inspiring sustainable practices in every aspect of our lives. By integrating transformative education at the international, national, and local levels, we can create profound change in attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors.' The DNCi 2023 participants had a hands-on experience of the importance of education and science communication on biodiversity thanks to a guided tour of the Botanical Garden. Many thanks to Prof. Dr. Christoph Neinhuis, Director of the Botanical Garden, and Dr. Barbara Dietsch, Scientific Director of the Botanical Garden, for these valuable insights. As part of the DNCi 2023, co-organized by UNU-FLORES, the IOER, and TU Dresden, we succeeded in bringing together different stakeholders from science, government, civil society, and the private sector to create a dynamic platform for exchange and collaboration on the topic of biodiversity. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all participants for their commitment during the event and beyond, and to the Saxon State Ministry of Energy, Climate Protection, Environment and Agriculture for supporting the event within the framework of its cooperation with UNU-FLORES.

The present study analyzes the relation between energy transition and the job creation potential in Latin America. It capitalizes on companies' characteristics to infer potential hiring process drivers in forthcoming years. The analysis is based on an econometric model on cross-sectional data to explain the dependent variable "potential hiring rate" depending on the firm's size (based on the number of clients), area of activity or technology, employees' level of education, and the existence of labor policies. The data came from 338 companies interviewed, including generation, transmission, distribution, energy transition services, oil and gas, and construction companies in six Latin American Countries (Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama, and Uruguay). The econometric study focused on 135 companies that declared hiring new employees in the next year concerning the time they were interviewed. The results show that the smaller energy companies with a larger participation of a qualified workforce will tend to have a higher expected hiring rate in the forthcoming year, implying an inverse relationship between a firm's size and potential hiring rate. The model findings convey that as the workforce is compounded with more qualified employees, the higher the expansion of the company's labor force will be, particularly in renewable generation companies. There is an additional aspect worth considering about the factors behind the company's potential hiring rate, and it is the question of job quality. The results suggest that firms hiring more are those with a lower number of policies in place. It can be explained by the fact that more traditional companies tend to have better-established policies, such as hydrocarbon and utilities. These are not the companies with the highest increase in the workforce. This takeaway raises a discussion about whether a change in the job's quality is associated with the energy transition or if it is just associated with new entrants that will become traditional in the following years. Moreover, it also helps to explain some of the political economies of the labor market that may play a role in the energy transition process. Therefore, one of the present study's main takeaways is the need to analyze deeper and promote job quality in smaller energy companies.

Banco de la República is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2023. This is a very significant anniversary and one that provides an opportunity to highlight the contribution the Bank has made to the country’s development. Its track record as guarantor of monetary stability has established it as the one independent state institution that generates the greatest confidence among Colombians due to its transparency, management capabilities, and effective compliance with the central banking and cultural responsibilities entrusted to it by the Constitution and the Law. On a date as important as this, the Board of Directors of Banco de la República (BDBR) pays tribute to the generations of governors and officers whose commitment and dedication have contributed to the growth of this institution.1 Banco de la República’s mandate was confirmed in the National Constitutional Assembly of 1991 where the citizens had the opportunity to elect the seventy people who would have the task of drafting a new constitution. The leaders of the three political movements with the most votes were elected as chairs to the Assembly, and this tripartite presidency reflected the plurality and the need for consensus among the different political groups to move the reform forward. Among the issues considered, the National Constitutional Assembly gave special importance to monetary stability. That is why they decided to include central banking and to provide Banco de la República with the necessary autonomy to use the instruments for which they are responsible without interference from other authorities. The constituent members understood that ensuring price stability is a state duty and that the entity responsible for this task must be enshrined in the Constitution and have the technical capability and institutional autonomy necessary to adopt the decisions they deem appropriate to achieve this fundamental objective in coordination with the general economic policy. In particular, Article 373 established that “the State, through Banco de la República, shall ensure the maintenance of the purchasing power of the currency,” a provision that coincided with the central banking system adopted by countries that have been successful in controlling inflation. In 1999, in Ruling 481, the Constitutional Court stated that “the duty to maintain the purchasing power of the currency applies to not only the monetary, credit, and exchange authority, i.e., the Board of Banco de la República, but also those who have responsibilities in the formulation and implementation of the general economic policy of the country” and that “the basic constitutional purpose of Banco de la República is the protection of a sound currency. However, this authority must take the other economic objectives of state intervention such as full employment into consideration in their decisions since these functions must be coordinated with the general economic policy.” The reforms to Banco de la República agreed upon in the Constitutional Assembly of 1991 and in Act 31/1992 can be summarized in the following aspects: i) the Bank was assigned a specific mandate: to maintain the purchasing power of the currency in coordination with the general economic policy; ii) the BDBR was designatedas the monetary, foreign exchange, and credit authority; iii) the Bank and its Board of Directors were granted a significant degree of independence from the government; iv) the Bank was prohibited from granting credit to the private sector except in the case of the financial sector; v) established that in order to grant credit to the government, the unanimous vote of its Board of Directors was required except in the case of open market transactions; vi) determined that the legislature may, in no case, order credit quotas in favor of the State or individuals; vii) Congress was appointed, on behalf of society, as the main addressee of the Bank’s reporting exercise; and viii) the responsibility for inspection, surveillance, and control over Banco de la República was delegated to the President of the Republic. The members of the National Constitutional Assembly clearly understood that the benefits of low and stable inflation extend to the whole of society and contribute mto the smooth functioning of the economic system. Among the most important of these is that low inflation promotes the efficient use of productive resources by allowing relative prices to better guide the allocation of resources since this promotes economic growth and increases the welfare of the population. Likewise, low inflation reduces uncertainty about the expected return on investment and future asset prices. This increases the confidence of economic agents, facilitates long-term financing, and stimulates investment. Since the low-income population is unable to protect itself from inflation by diversifying its assets, and a high proportion of its income is concentrated in the purchase of food and other basic goods that are generally the most affected by inflationary shocks, low inflation avoids arbitrary redistribution of income and wealth.2 Moreover, low inflation facilitates wage negotiations, creates a good labor climate, and reduces the volatility of employment levels. Finally, low inflation helps to make the tax system more transparent and equitable by avoiding the distortions that inflation introduces into the value of assets and income that make up the tax base. From the monetary authority’s point of view, one of the most relevant benefits of low inflation is the credibility that economic agents acquire in inflation targeting, which turns it into an effective nominal anchor on price levels. Upon receiving its mandate, and using its autonomy, Banco de la República began to announce specific annual inflation targets as of 1992. Although the proposed inflation targets were not met precisely during this first stage, a downward trend in inflation was achieved that took it from 32.4% in 1990 to 16.7% in 1998. At that time, the exchange rate was kept within a band. This limited the effectiveness of monetary policy, which simultaneously sought to meet an inflation target and an exchange rate target. The Asian crisis spread to emerging economies and significantly affected the Colombian economy. The exchange rate came under strong pressure to depreciate as access to foreign financing was cut off under conditions of a high foreign imbalance. This, together with the lack of exchange rate flexibility, prevented a countercyclical monetary policy and led to a 4.2% contraction in GDP that year. In this context of economic slowdown, annual inflation fell to 9.2% at the end of 1999, thus falling below the 15% target set for that year. This episode fully revealed how costly it could be, in terms of economic activity, to have inflation and exchange rate targets simultaneously. Towards the end of 1999, Banco de la República announced the adoption of a new monetary policy regime called the Inflation Targeting Plan. This regime, known internationally as ‘Inflation Targeting,’ has been gaining increasing acceptance in developed countries, having been adopted in 1991 by New Zealand, Canada, and England, among others, and has achieved significant advances in the management of inflation without incurring costs in terms of economic activity. In Latin America, Brazil and Chile also adopted it in 1999. In the case of Colombia, the last remaining requirement to be fulfilled in order to adopt said policy was exchange rate flexibility. This was realized around September 1999, when the BDBR decided to abandon the exchange-rate bands to allow the exchange rate to be freely determined in the market.Consistent with the constitutional mandate, the fundamental objective of this new policy approach was “the achievement of an inflation target that contributes to maintaining output growth around its potential.”3 This potential capacity was understood as the GDP growth that the economy can obtain if it fully utilizes its productive resources. To meet this objective, monetary policy must of necessity play a countercyclical role in the economy. This is because when economic activity is below its potential and there are idle resources, the monetary authority can reduce the interest rate in the absence of inflationary pressure to stimulate the economy and, when output exceeds its potential capacity, raise it. This policy principle, which is immersed in the models for guiding the monetary policy stance, makes the following two objectives fully compatible in the medium term: meeting the inflation target and achieving a level of economic activity that is consistent with its productive capacity. To achieve this purpose, the inflation targeting system uses the money market interest rate (at which the central bank supplies primary liquidity to commercial banks) as the primary policy instrument. This replaced the quantity of money as an intermediate monetary policy target that Banco de la República, like several other central banks, had used for a long time. In the case of Colombia, the objective of the new monetary policy approach implied, in practical terms, that the recovery of the economy after the 1999 contraction should be achieved while complying with the decreasing inflation targets established by the BDBR. The accomplishment of this purpose was remarkable. In the first half of the first decade of the 2000s, economic activity recovered significantly and reached a growth rate of 6.8% in 2006. Meanwhile, inflation gradually declined in line with inflation targets. That was how the inflation rate went from 9.2% in 1999 to 4.5% in 2006, thus meeting the inflation target established for that year while GDP reached its potential level. After this balance was achieved in 2006, inflation rebounded to 5.7% in 2007, above the 4.0% target for that year due to the fact that the 7.5% GDP growth exceeded the potential capacity of the economy.4 After proving the effectiveness of the inflation targeting system in its first years of operation, this policy regime continued to consolidate as the BDBR and the technical staff gained experience in its management and state-of-the-art economic models were incorporated to diagnose the present and future state of the economy and to assess the persistence of inflation deviations and expectations with respect to the inflation target. Beginning in 2010, the BDBR established the long-term 3.0% annual inflation target, which remains in effect today. Lower inflation has contributed to making the macroeconomic environment more stable, and this has favored sustained economic growth, financial stability, capital market development, and the functioning of payment systems. As a result, reductions in the inflationary risk premia and lower TES and credit interest rates were achieved. At the same time, the duration of public domestic debt increased significantly going from 2.27 years in December 2002 to 5.86 years in December 2022, and financial deepening, measured as the level of the portfolio as a percentage of GDP, went from around 20% in the mid-1990s to values above 45% in recent years in a healthy context for credit institutions.Having been granted autonomy by the Constitution to fulfill the mandate of preserving the purchasing power of the currency, the tangible achievements made by Banco de la República in managing inflation together with the significant benefits derived from the process of bringing inflation to its long-term target, make the BDBR’s current challenge to return inflation to the 3.0% target even more demanding and pressing. As is well known, starting in 2021, and especially in 2022, inflation in Colombia once again became a serious economic problem with high welfare costs. The inflationary phenomenon has not been exclusive to Colombia and many other developed and emerging countries have seen their inflation rates move away from the targets proposed by their central banks.5 The reasons for this phenomenon have been analyzed in recent Reports to Congress, and this new edition delves deeper into the subject with updated information. The solid institutional and technical base that supports the inflation targeting approach under which the monetary policy strategy operates gives the BDBR the necessary elements to face this difficult challenge with confidence. In this regard, the BDBR reiterated its commitment to the 3.0% inflation target in its November 25 communiqué and expects it to be reached by the end of 2024.6 Monetary policy will continue to focus on meeting this objective while ensuring the sustainability of economic activity, as mandated by the Constitution. Analyst surveys done in March showed a significant increase (from 32.3% in January to 48.5% in March) in the percentage of responses placing inflation expectations two years or more ahead in a range between 3.0% and 4.0%. This is a clear indication of the recovery of credibility in the medium-term inflation target and is consistent with the BDBR’s announcement made in November 2022. The moderation of the upward trend in inflation seen in January, and especially in February, will help to reinforce this revision of inflation expectations and will help to meet the proposed targets. After reaching 5.6% at the end of 2021, inflation maintained an upward trend throughout 2022 due to inflationary pressures from both external sources, associated with the aftermath of the pandemic and the consequences of the war in Ukraine, and domestic sources, resulting from: strengthening of local demand; price indexation processes stimulated by the increase in inflation expectations; the impact on food production caused by the mid-2021 strike; and the pass-through of depreciation to prices. The 10% increase in the minimum wage in 2021 and the 16% increase in 2022, both of which exceeded the actual inflation and the increase in productivity, accentuated the indexation processes by establishing a high nominal adjustment benchmark. Thus, total inflation went to 13.1% by the end of 2022. The annual change in food prices, which went from 17.2% to 27.8% between those two years, was the most influential factor in the surge in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Another segment that contributed significantly to price increases was regulated products, which saw the annual change go from 7.1% in December 2021 to 11.8% by the end of 2022. The measure of core inflation excluding food and regulated items, in turn, went from 2.5% to 9.5% between the end of 2021 and the end of 2022. The substantial increase in core inflation shows that inflationary pressure has spread to most of the items in the household basket, which is characteristic of inflationary processes with generalized price indexation as is the case in Colombia. Monetary policy began to react early to this inflationary pressure. Thus, starting with its September 2021 session, the BDBR began a progressive change in the monetary policy stance moving away from the historical low of a 1.75% policy rate that had intended to stimulate the recovery of the economy. This adjustment process continued without interruption throughout 2022 and into the beginning of 2023 when the monetary policy rate reached 12.75% last January, thus accumulating an increase of 11 percentage points (pp). The public and the markets have been surprised that inflation continued to rise despite significant interest rate increases. However, as the BDBR has explained in its various communiqués, monetary policy works with a lag. Just as in 2022 economic activity recovered to a level above the pre-pandemic level, driven, along with other factors, by the monetary stimulus granted during the pandemic period and subsequent months, so too the effects of the current restrictive monetary policy will gradually take effect. This will allow us to expect the inflation rate to converge to 3.0% by the end of 2024 as is the BDBR’s purpose.Inflation results for January and February of this year showed declining marginal increases (13 bp and 3 bp respectively) compared to the change seen in December (59 bp). This suggests that a turning point in the inflation trend is approaching. In other Latin American countries such as Chile, Brazil, Perú, and Mexico, inflation has peaked and has begun to decline slowly, albeit with some ups and downs. It is to be expected that a similar process will take place in Colombia in the coming months. The expected decline in inflation in 2023 will be due, along with other factors, to lower cost pressure from abroad as a result of the gradual normalization of supply chains, the overcoming of supply shocks caused by the weather, and road blockades in previous years. This will be reflected in lower adjustments in food prices, as has already been seen in the first two months of the year and, of course, the lagged effect of monetary policy. The process of inflation convergence to the target will be gradual and will extend beyond 2023. This process will be facilitated if devaluation pressure is reversed. To this end, it is essential to continue consolidating fiscal sustainability and avoid messages on different public policy fronts that generate uncertainty and distrust. 1 This Report to Congress includes Box 1, which summarizes the trajectory of Banco de la República over the past 100 years. In addition, under the Bank’s auspices, several books that delve into various aspects of the history of this institution have been published in recent years. See, for example: Historia del Banco de la República 1923-2015; Tres banqueros centrales; Junta Directiva del Banco de la República: grandes episodios en 30 años de historia; Banco de la República: 90 años de la banca central en Colombia. 2 This is why lower inflation has been reflected in a reduction of income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient that went from 58.7 in 1998 to 51.3 in the year prior to the pandemic. 3 See Gómez Javier, Uribe José Darío, Vargas Hernando (2002). “The Implementation of Inflation Targeting in Colombia”. Borradores de Economía, No. 202, March, available at: https://repositorio.banrep.gov.co/handle/20.500.12134/5220 4 See López-Enciso Enrique A.; Vargas-Herrera Hernando and Rodríguez-Niño Norberto (2016). “The inflation targeting strategy in Colombia. An historical view.” Borradores de Economía, No. 952. https://repositorio.banrep.gov.co/handle/20.500.12134/6263 5 According to the IMF, the percentage change in consumer prices between 2021 and 2022 went from 3.1% to 7.3% for advanced economies, and from 5.9% to 9.9% for emerging market and developing economies. 6 https://www.banrep.gov.co/es/noticias/junta-directiva-banco-republica-reitera-meta-inflacion-3

This exhibition gathers a number of artworks belonging to a diverse group of Latin American embassies and diplomats and their delegations and organizations in Washington, D.C. For a city that boasts such a wealth of artistic institutions on the National Mall, representing art from all corners of the world (the National Museum of African Art, the Freer and Sackler Galleries for Asian arts, and the National Gallery of Art with its impressive collection of European art from the Middle Ages to the present, to name a few), the absence - for whatever reason- of a major institution in the nation¿s capital representing the arts of Latin America is, in itself, a rather negative statement of sorts. This fact, combined with the proclivity of the press to report on the usually not-so-positive aspects of the social, political, and economic realities of the region, tends to indiscriminately put the prestige of Latin American countries at risk, and creates an unappreciative feeling among the public toward a region that, despite its inconsistencies, has excelled culturally for centuries.