Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Spain 2013'

Since the mid 1990s, the momentum behind Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has increased. CSR has become an important issue at political, academic and business level. Already since the beginning of the last decade, commentators have suggested that CSR seems to differ between European countries and that said differences appear to be shaped by the country context. Nevertheless, in general, so far, only few empirical cross-country studies have been conducted. In addition, said studies focused mainly on the comparison between Europe as a region and the US. The latter are biased by the selection of only few specific European countries, which are regarded as a proxy for Europe as a whole. Hence, said studies deliver partially contradictory results, since they do not consider that CRS is supposed to be Non-Pan-European. Moreover, cross-country studies of international character, going beyond that regional comparison, have been rather superficial in view of CSR issues to be investigated. And finally, only recently, cross-country research in CSR has started to establish a systematic link between CSR patterns and the country specific institutional context. Also in view of the latter, the focus has been set on the comparison between countries of Anglo American/Saxon tradition and Europe, considering again some specific European countries as a proxy for the region as a whole. <p>Given that lack in the literature, the following explicit calls for empirical cross-country research of CSR in Europe have been formulated: First, to explore differences in view of CSR; and second, to find out if country specific institutional mechanisms are influential in shaping said differences. <p><p>Hence, the dissertation aims at filling this gap and to answer said calls for research by presenting a cross-country research involving two European countries, Germany and Spain. The research aims at exploring differences in view of a variety of CSR issues and at finding out if the national institutional contexts are influential in shaping said differences. <p><p>The dissertation consists of five main parts. In part one, the introductory part, the following is pointed out: motivation, main theoretical frameworks of CSR and main CSR issues in CSR literature. Moreover, a detailed overview on the research design of the three papers, which form part two, three and four, is provided. <p><p>In part two, which is composed of one paper, differences in view of CSR concepts and CSR drivers (analytical framework) between Germany and Spain are explored. The methodology applied was a questionnaire-based postal survey among the 500 largest companies in both, Germany and Spain. <p>The results of the study suggest important differences between the two countries over the analytical framework. In comparison to Spanish companies, the German ones seem to be more attached to the "sustainability" concept of CSR, whereas the Spanish companies favour to a major extent the CSR concept, formulated by the EC and the "Triple Bottom Line" concept. In view of CSR drivers, the results imply that German corporations are to a major extent than their Spanish counterparts driven by secondary stakeholders, whereas corporations in both countries seem to be equally pressured by primary stakeholders to become engaged in CSR. In addition, the findings suggest that CSR in Spain seems to be more "voluntary", whereas, in Germany, it seems to be more "regulated". The analysis of the results with regard to "expectations on positive internal" and "positive external effects" as drivers to CSR suggests a "more competitive advantage centred" approach to CSR among Spanish companies than among German ones, where the corresponding approach is "less competitive advantage centred". And finally, the findungs further suggest, that the country context seems to be influential in shaping most of said differences. <p><p>Part three, which consists of one paper, deals with CSR reporting, which is assumed to deliver insights into the institutionalization of the leading reporting guidelines in CSR, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines, CSR agendas and the communicated rationale behind CSR. The methodology applied was quantitative contents analysis of CSR reports. As sample served companies of the utility industry, listed in the main stock indexes in Germany and Spain. <p>The findings of the study suggest that the institutionalisation of the GRI indicators is low in the corporations investigated in both countries. But, it is especially low in German firms. With regard to CSR agendas, the focus of corporate activities appears to lie among German corporations on those attached to environmental responsibilities, whereas Spanish corporations appear to have in this regard a mixed approach, related to their economic, environmental and social responsibilities. But, in contrast to their German counterparts the economic responsibilities are more emphasized. With regard to the communicated rationale behind CSR, German corporations seem to be driven by normative reasons, the Spanish to a major extent by instrumental ones. And finally, the findings imply that the country context seems to be influential in shaping most of said differences. <p><p>In part four, which contains one paper, differences in the understanding of CG in view of its links to CSR are explored. Currently, scholars discuss the link between CG and CSR and their relational models in the theoretical literature. Hence, to explore the understanding of CG and its links to CSR ,an analytical framework was elaborated, based upon said current theoretical debate. The methodology applied was qualitative contents analysis, conducted in the framework of a web site research. The sample consisted of corporations listed in the main stock indexes in both countries. <p>The findings suggest differences between the two countries with regard to the understanding of CG and its links to CSR and the corresponding relational models. In Spain the understanding of CG seems to be to a major extent linked to the "narrow view" of CG, implied by a major focus on shareholders only in view of corporate responsibilities. In contrast, among German corporations the view appears to be "broad", including other stakeholders than exclusively shareholders in this regard. In addition, the results suggest, that the relational model favoured by German corporations consists of CSR being considered as a part of CG, whereas the Spanish companies seem to relate CG to CSR or at least consider both, CG and CSR, as complementary constituents. And finally, the findings suggest that most of the exposed differences seem to be shaped by mechanisms of the traditional national CG systems. <p><p>In the final main part, part five, the overall conclusions of the dissertation have been formulated. These can be summarized as follows. From an overall perspective the three essays contribute to fill the lack in the literature as already pointed out. They constitute an original answer to the calls for research expressed in this regard. Moreover, they contribute to increase the knowledge on differences in CSR between European countries. And furthermore, through paying attention to country specific institutional mechanisms, they enhance the understanding of said differences induced by the country context or country specificity of CSR. In addition, the three essays have raised important implications for managerial practice, public policies, international and (supra) national institutions and for further research. In view of the implications for managerial practice, the findings suggest to sensitize practitioners with regard to the country specificity of CSR and to undertake corresponding measures in e.g. corporate communication, product and market strategies, employer marketing and organizational and management development terms. With regard to the implications for public policies, international and (supra) national organizations, those with regulatory power should increasingly bear in mind to handle more carefully the outsourcing of said power to private institutions, including NGOs, which play an important role in the "oluntary" regulation of CSR. In addition, those institutions, without regulatory power, which issue e.g. voluntary guidelines, should consider the country specificity of CSR and the "one size does not fit all" problem. Concerning the implications of the findings for further research these are the following: 1) to expand the CSR issues to be investigated in cross-country studies; 2) to intensify cross-country research in Europe in view of the number of countries involved; 3) to consider longitudinal approaches in cross-country research in Europe; 4) to expand said research (1-3) also to SMEs; 5) to increase the scope of institutional mechanisms to be investigated; and 6) to intensify cross-country linguistics research in view of CG and CSR. And finally, the findings of the three essays have delivered substantial contributions to enliven the debate, at academic and practitioner level, in view of the international management of CSR in terms of complexity vs. simplicity. <p><br>Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Cette thèse présente les réponses données à la question du fondement du possible et de l’impossible dans la scolastique jésuite espagnole de l’époque moderne :en vertu de quels critères jugeons-nous que telle chose ou tel événement sont possibles, alors que tels autres nous paraissent impossibles ou contradictoires ?La double nature de ce travail, philosophique et historique, s’incarne dès lors en deux volumes à la fois distincts et complémentaires. Le premier volume est consacré à l’analyse philosophique des différentes réponses apportées au problème du possible, entre les premiers pas académiques de la Compagnie de Jésus espagnole jusqu’à son expulsion définitive du royaume en 1767. Après quelques préliminaires généraux sur le développement institutionnel et doctrinal de la scolastique moderne, on y présente successivement les solutions des écoles dominicaine et franciscaine espagnoles du XVIe siècle avant de passer aux différents grands modèles jésuites :les synthèses de Gabriel Vázquez et Francisco Suárez ;l’émergence d’un courant ultra-essentialiste ;la critique inspirée par le nominalisme de Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza ;le développement d’une ontologie conditionnaliste par Juan de Lugo et ses nombreux élèves ;la critique néo-augustinienne de toutes les traditions antérieures par Antonio Pérez et ses nombreux élèves ;le développement d’une ontologie des états de choses par Sebastián Izquierdo ;et enfin le développement d’une série d’autres solutions marginales à la fin du XVIIe siècle. Le travail se clôture sur l’expulsion d’Espagne de la Compagnie de Jésus en 1767 et par quelques réflexions sur la « migration » de ces problématiques vers l’Europe Centrale. <p>Le second volume est quant à lui purement historique et textuel. Il propose l’édition de différents textes, tirés d’ouvrages imprimés anciens ou bien de manuscrits inédits, rédigés par vingt des principaux auteurs engagés dans la querelle des possibles, à savoir, dans l’ordre chronologique :F. Albertini, P. Hurtado de Mendoza, J. de Lugo, R. de Arriaga, Th. Compton Carleton, A. Pérez, F. de Oviedo, M. de Elizalde, T. González de Santalla, T. Muniesa, S. Mauro, S. Izquierdo, G. de Ribadeneira, I.F. Peinado, J. de Sousa, A. Sémery, J. de Campoverde, E. Láriz, Á. Cienfuegos et J. Rufo. Chaque édition de texte est précédée d’une biographie intellectuelle retraçant les principales étapes de la carrière de l’auteur, avec des indications sur ses maîtres, collègues et disciples, ainsi que sur le contexte institutionnel de son enseignement. L’ensemble est précédé d’une étude sur les rapports entre les cours imprimés et manuscrits dans la tradition scolastique moderne. <p>Un troisième et court volume se compose d’un bref « who’s who » scolastique ainsi que d’une bibliographie générale, reprenant toutes les sources primaires et secondaires utilisées.<p><br>Doctorat en philosophie et lettres, Orientation philosophie<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Internal communication is very important in organizations as it has many advantages. Communicators such as marketers should have an internal market in mind and not just the external as it could be a key to success. Media channels that are used to communicate internally also play a big role in what the company is trying to convey to the internal market. Print communication plays a minor role, if any, in smaller companies now that electronic communication is making it easier for businesses to coordinate, educate and motivate internally. However, face-to-face was seen as the most effective tool in internal communication. Finally, there were no findings that the economic crisis in Spain 2013 was affecting the internal communication.

The object of this research is the practice of quality news on internet-native news outlets. It aimed at answering the following questions:<p>1) What is high quality news in internet-native news outlets? What is the criterion?<p>2) What are the process of development and experience of internet as news outlets? Why do professional journalists of traditional media seek internet as news outlets?<p>3) How do journalists use ICTs to make the best of alternative news outlets? What are the operation models and their characteristics?<p><p>This dissertation derived from the assumption that internet-native news outlets are effective journalistic practices to improve the quality of the news. To understand this proposition, various perspectives of definition and the way of measuring the quality of the news were adopted in this research. Practically, three internet-native news outlets were chosen as case studies in this research: The French website Rue89, Belgium website Apache and Spanish website Eldiario. The empirical part of this study includes twenty in-depth interviews and observation in their newsrooms, and basic statistics of top news stories in the home page of six websites from the three countries. Therefore, both quantitative and qualitative methods have been used in this research.<p><p>The contribution of this research is rethinking quality journalism in the digital age and introducing the journalistic experiences of professional journalists. First, this research provides an academic definition for the newly generated websites, and theorizes it as Internet-native news outlets. Next, this research analysed internet-native news outlets systematically, especially importing the European journalism website to the domain of online journalism studies. Moreover, the introduction of journalist’s statues in different countries is a valuable complement for journalism studies. Furthermore, the method of interview, observation and case study were applied in this research, which is a new examination of online journalism research. Finally, internet-native news outlets create a positive interaction between journalists and readers, which also enrich the news issues and news resource. It is quite important to rethink and discover the social problems. These academic explorations certainly confront many challenges because of majority of social and culture factors, but the results would be valuable for the reflection on knowledge construction in the international academy.<p><br>Doctorat en Information et communication<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This doctoral dissertation studies the effect of economic integration on the performance of firms. The ongoing process of global economic integration has been characterized by dismantling of trade barriers and openness to foreign direct investments (FDI). These changes have not only brought opportunities to firms in terms of market access and the possibility to learn about foreign technologies brought in by foreign counterparts. The new economic environment has also posed new challenges through a greater competitive pressure urging firms to continuously align their production patterns to more efficient business practices. The agility of firms to adjust to external shocks, and hence the potential of countries to benefit from economic integration, does presumably not only depend on the internal assets of firms but may also be influenced by government policies and national institutional settings. This conceptual background constitutes the storyline of the doctoral dissertation.<p><p>Chapter 1 of the dissertation is a step forward in understanding the externalities of foreign direct investments on the economic performance of domestic firms. During the late eighties and early nineties, Spain saw an upswing in foreign direct investments that placed the economic at the top of FDI recipients in Europe. To provide fresh insights into the firm-levels responses to FDI, Chapter 1 investigates the effects of foreign direct investment on the productivity of domestic firms within the same sector of activity as foreign firms, and whether FDI externalities differed depending on their level of technology. The empirical results show that foreign presence had an overall positive effect on the productivity growth of domestic firms. The gains were not, however, evenly distributed across firms. Firms closer to the frontier benefited more from FDI than firms far from the technology frontier. <p><p>A further integration of the world economy with new economic actors, like China and India, has highlighted the need for European firms to climb the quality ladder and shift towards high value added products and greater flexibility in delivering new products in order to survive new competitive threats. Chapter 2 is a theoretical and empirical examination of the role of innovation for the export activities of firms. The intuition is that firms through innovation enhance their access to foreign markets by improving cost competitiveness and the quality of products. The Chapter builds on previous literature to develop a trade model in which firms differ in their propensity to innovate and export based on their underlying productivity. The empirical results, in line with the theoretical model, suggest a positive effect of innovation on the probability of participation in export markets.<p><p>The innovative activities of firms may not only depend on their internal assets, but presumably also on their relations with other actors in the national innovation systems. To understand better the role of firms’ relations with the science sector, Chapter 3 turns to one of the major producers of knowledge –universities- and investigates the factors that contribute to the successful transfer of knowledge from universities to the market. The results from Chapter 3 show that universities with established technology transfer policies, procedures, and large and experienced technology transfer offices perform better. <p><p>Previous chapters demonstrate that innovation gives a competitive edge to firms exploring foreign markets. Chapter 4, which is joint work with economists from France’s central bank, investigates how credit market imperfections affect the expansion and survival of firms in foreign markets, which is essential for the design of policies stimulating aggregate trade and competitiveness. Chapter 4 develops a theoretical model to study the impact of credit constraints on the number of newly served export destinations by firms and their exits from the export market and tests it using French firm-level data. The results show that credit constraints negatively affect the number of newly created export relations and have a negative effect on the probability of exit from the export market.<p><br>Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The EU has widened and deepened the single market over time according to a transactionalist discourse of common-interests in integration. This rationale holds that as amounts of cross-border movement increase, Member State populations should perceive the single market as beneficial, thus leading to the creation of an affective European identity. Instead, as consequences of integration have become more visible, resistance to the EU has become more pronounced, especially with relation to the Union's right of free movement of persons. This thesis argues that interest-based theories of integration ignore prospects for resilient national identities to influence the accordance of solidarity ties, so as to color interest perceptions within national public spheres. Combining the literature on European identity, moral panic and communication studies on news framing, it maintains that the popular news media provide a conduit through which these interest perceptions can be taken up through the tendency of news outlets to report events that deviantly threaten underlying identity conceptions. Through content analysis of 'popular' press in the UK, Spain and Poland, it seeks to show how the inane tendency of news to report events in terms of an identity-based narrative can serve to foment moral panic within national publics. Contrary to interest based theories of integration, the EU's discourse clashes with national identity. Disintegration may be posited as the 'proper stance' to be supported on the part of the public in news narrative, if threatening deviance caused by EU migration is to be resolved.<br>Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

La présente étude porte sur l'expression de la mémoire féminine dans les fictions traitant de la guerre civile espagnole (1936-1939) et du franquisme. Elle s’intéresse plus particulièrement aux œuvres publiées depuis la fin de la dictature (1975) jusqu’en 2010, en français (Agustin Gomez-Arcos et Mercedes Deambrosis) et en espagnol (Dulce Chacón, Carme Riera, Josefina Aldecoa, Jesús Ferrero, Marifé Santiago Bolaños et Ángeles Caso). <p>Nous nous attachons d’abord à l’étude globale des représentations des expériences féminines de la guerre et de la répression. Dans l’écriture des violences subies comme dans celle des luttes et résistances, la double dimension politique et de genre émerge. L’analyse se resserre ensuite sur les représentations du traumatisme, entre manifestations pathologiques et tentatives de ritualisation. Nous montrons à cet égard comment le récit peut assumer une fonction rituelle.<p>La « poétique du traumatisme » mise au jour dans le corpus d’étude qualifie des réalisations formelles diverses, rassemblées en trois ensembles, correspondant à autant de lieux possibles d’ancrage du traumatisme :le rapport générationnel, le corps et la voix. Une attention spéciale est accordée à la figure de la victime. Des phénomènes tels que la répétition et la délinéarisation, apparaissant à divers niveaux du récit, éclairent le rapport que les fictions entretiennent avec le passé ainsi que leurs positions éthiques et politiques dans le présent de la démocratie. <p><p>The current study explores the expression of women’s memory in literary works dealing with the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and Francoism. It focuses on the fictional narratives published between the end of the dictatorship (1975) and 2010, in French (Agustin Gomez-Arcos and Mercedes Deambrosis) and Spanish (Dulce Chacón Carme Riera, Josefina Aldecoa, Jesús Ferrero, Marifé Santiago Bolaños and Ángeles Caso).<p>The thesis first conducts a global analysis on the representations of women’s experiences of war and repression. In the writing of violence, struggle and resistance, the double political and gendered dimension emerges. The research focuses subsequently on the trauma representations, between pathological manifestations and ritual attempts, and shows how narrative can assume a ritual function.<p>The « poetics of trauma » characterises various formal realisations, divided into three groups. Each of them embodies a possible space for the inscription of trauma :the generational link, the body and the voice. Special attention is given to the figure of the victim. Phenomena such as repetition and delinearisation, that appear at various levels, clarify the relationship that fictional narratives build with the past as well as their ethical and political positions in the democracy.<br>Doctorat en Langues et lettres<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis analyses the impact of the recession on the regional labour markets in Spain by considering three different aspects: the regional unemployment sensitivity to economic variations, the minimum wage effect on youth employment rate and finally, the role of the labour market determinants on internal migration. Firstly, we explore the inverse relationship between unemployment and GDP for the Spanish provinces and the period ranging 1985-2013. After testing the time series properties of provincial GDP and unemployment, we specify static and dynamic versions of the Okun’s law using VAR and PVAR techniques. Both static and dynamic analyses lead us to determine that provinces show large differences in their unemployment sensitivity to GDP shocks. In particular, provinces that show less diversified industries, a more developed services sector and higher rates of labour participation suffer from higher variations in unemployment rates. In the following analysis we evaluate the effect of minimum wages on regional employment rates, taking especially into consideration its influence on youth employment. The work contributes to the literature by focusing on the analysis of a recessionary period but also by considering spatial effects in order to capture the interactions between regional labour markets. The obtained results have shown a negative but quite small effect of the Kaitz index on the employment rate. The disaggregation of youth population into different age groups has allowed us to identify that the youth group most affected by minimum wages is the one between 20 and 24 years old, which is the most common age group of workers that face the school-to-work transition. Finally, we analyse the main determinants of migration between 45 Spanish Functional Urban Areas during the period of the recent economic downturn, in which factors traditionally related to internal migration such as real wages and employment have greatly declined. In order to perform the analysis, we have resorted to a gravity model for bilateral migration flows where several controls and different complex structures of fixed effects have been included in order to avoid potential endogeneity problems as a consequence of variables omission. Results show that real average wages are relevant migration determinants. They exert a strong influence, especially in foreigners and returned nationals and also, they behave as expected for the working age groups. However, the effect of employment rate on migration flows is less clear. The inconclusive results on the role of employment rate on migration are in line with results obtained in eighties and early nineties highly instability period, when migration phenomenon was labelled as “an enigma”.

In the first chapter,a harmonised linked employer-employee dataset is used to study the impact of firm-level agreements on the wage structure in the manufacturing sector in Belgium, Denmark and Spain. To our knowledge, this is one of the first cross-country studies that examines the impact of firm-level bargaining on the wage structure in European countries. We find that firm-level agreements have a positive effect both on wage levels and on wage dispersion in Belgium and Denmark. In Spain, firm also increase wage levels but reduce wage dispersion. Our interpretation is that in Belgium and Denmark, where firm-level bargaining greatly expanded since the 1980s on the initiative of the employers and the governments, firm-level bargaining is mainly used to adapt pay to the specific needs of the firm. In Spain, the structure of collective bargaining has not changed very much since the Franco period where firm agreements were used as a tool for worker mobilisation and for political struggle. Therefore, firm-level bargaining in Spain is still mainly used by trade unions in order to reduce the wage dispersion. <p>In the second chapter, we analyse the impact of the bargaining level and of the degree of centralisation of wage bargaining on rent-sharing in Belgium. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that considers simultaneously both dimensions of collective bargaining. This is also one of the first papers that looks at the impact of wage bargaining institutions on rent-sharing in European countries. This question is important because if wage bargaining decentralisation increases the link between wages and firm specific profits, it may prevent an efficient allocation of labour across firms, increase wage inequality, lead to smaller employment adjustments, and affect the division of surplus between capital and labour (Bryson et al. 2006). Controlling for the endogeneity of profits, for heterogeneity among workers and firms and for differences in characteristics between bargaining regimes, we find that wages depend substantially more on firm specific profits in decentralised than in centralised industries ,irrespective of the presence of a formal firm collective agreement. In addition, the impact of the presence of a formal firm collective agreement on the wage-profit elasticity depends on the degree of centralisation of the industry. In centralised industries, profits influence wages only when a firm collective agreement is present. This result is not surprising since industry agreements do not take into account firm-specific characteristics. Within decentralised industries, firms share their profits with their workers even if they are not covered by a formal firm collective agreement. This is probably because, in those industries, workers only covered by an industry agreement (i.e. not covered by a formal firm agreement) receive wage supplements that are paid unilaterally by their employer. The fact that those workers also benefit from rent-sharing implies that pay-setting does not need to be collective to generate rent-sharing, which is in line with the Anglo-American literature that shows that rent-sharing is not a particularity of the unionised sector. <p>In the first two chapters, we have shown that, in Belgium, firm-level bargaining is used by firms to adapt pay to the specific characteristics of the firm, including firm’s profits. In the third and final chapter, it is shown that firm-level bargaining also allows wages to adapt to the local environment that the company may face. This aspect is of particular importance in the debate about a potential regionalisation of wage bargaining in Belgium. This debate is, however, not specific to Belgium. Indeed, the potential failure of national industry agreements to take into account the productivity levels of the least productive regions has been considered as one of the causes of regional unemployment in European countries (Davies and Hallet, 2001; OECD, 2006). Two kinds of solutions are generally proposed to solve this problem. The first, encouraged by the European Commission and the OECD, consists in decentralising wage bargaining toward the firm level (Davies and Hallet, 2001; OECD, 2006). The second solution, the regionalisation of wage bargaining, is frequently mentioned in Belgium or in Italy where regional unemployment differentials are high. In this chapter we show that, in Belgium, regional wage differentials and regional productivity differentials within joint committees are positively correlated. Moreover, this relation is stronger (i) for joint committees where firm-level bargaining is relatively frequent and (ii) for joint committees already sub-divided along a local line. We conclude that the present Belgian wage bargaining system which combines interprofessional, industry and firm bargaining, already includes the mechanisms that allow regional productivity to be taken into account in wage formation. It is therefore not necessary to further regionalise wage bargaining in Belgium. <p><br>Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Cette thèse de doctorat étudie les mouvements LGBT en Belgique, en France et en Espagne à travers une double comparaison (entre les cas et à travers le temps) qui intègre également les échanges et influences transnationaux et internationaux. Elle examine l’émergence et le développement de la revendication d’ouverture du mariage civil aux couples de même sexe dans ces pays, analysant les convergences en termes de contenu des demandes et de timing des mobilisations. Par conséquent, elle porte sur des convergences au niveau des mouvements sociaux, à l’inverse de la majeure partie de la littérature, qui se concentre sur les convergences de politiques publiques. Cette situation impose de construire une grille d’analyse basée sur la littérature sur les mouvements sociaux, les politiques publiques et les relations internationales (influence des normes internationales). Le développement des revendications relatives au droit au mariage a été retracé de manière généalogique depuis la fin des années 1980. La comparaison repose sur la méthode du most different systems design et un travail empirique important combinant analyse documentaire et entretiens a été réalisé. Cette thèse confirme l’importance de l’étude des échanges et des influences internationaux et transnationaux pour comprendre la politique domestique et insiste sur l’influence cruciale du réseautage transnational sur les revendications des mouvements sociaux. Elle révèle aussi quelques cas de diffusion entre mouvements sociaux et montre comment des caractéristiques et des contraintes communes peuvent inciter les mouvements sociaux à formuler des revendications similaires. Par ailleurs, les discours en faveur du droit au mariage ont été analysés avec soin. L’émergence de cette revendication a aussi été mise en perspective sur le plan historique, ce qui implique de réfléchir aux modalités de transformation des mouvements LGBT au cours des trente dernières années. Pour terminer, la notion de citoyenneté sexuelle a été interrogée et la manière dont l’accès à la citoyenneté a été posé a été examinée à partir du concept de resignification proposé par Judith Butler. <p><p><p>This dissertation looks at LGBT movements in Belgium, France and Spain through a double comparison (between cases and through time), which also takes into account transnational and international exchanges and influences. It investigates the simultaneous emergence and development of same-sex marriage claims in these countries, examining convergences in the content of the claims and the timing of protest. Therefore, it looks at convergences at the level of social movements, unlike most of the literature, which focuses on convergences in public policies. This specific research interests implies building an analytical model based on the literature on social movements, public policies and international relations (influence of international norms). It has also required a genealogical account of the development of same-sex marriage claims in each country from the end of the eighties until now. The comparison is based on the most different systems design method, and an extensive field work combining archives analysis and interviews has been carried out. This dissertation confirms the importance of taking into account international and transnational exchanges and influences to understand domestic politics, and insists on the crucial influence of transnational networking on social movements claims. It also discloses some cases of diffusion between social movements and shows how common characteristics and constraints may induce social movements to make similar but independent decisions. Discourses in favour of same-sex marriage have been carefully analysed, and the emergence of this claim has been put into a historical perspective. This implies a reflection on the transformations of the LGBT movement over the last thirty years. Finally, this dissertation interrogates the notion of sexual citizenship and examines the specific mechanisms through which access to citizenship has been proposed, discussing Judith Butler’s concept of resignification. <p><p><br>Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The negotiations of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) triggered an unprecedented level of protests in the European Union (EU) in several member states. However, it was unclear whether the contestation of TTIP led to the Europeanisation of the national public spheres (Risse, 2010), given the general national fragmentation of the political debate in Europe (Koopmans and Statham, 2010a). This thesis analyses the debate and politicisation of TTIP in the Spanish, French and British media, and aims to answer two research questions. First, how and to what extent were national media discourses about TTIP Europeanised? Second, how does this type of Europeanisation of public spheres contribute to the democratic legitimacy of the EU? In order to answer the two research questions, an interdisciplinary theoretical framework has been put forward. Departing from the literature on the European public sphere (Koopmans & Erbe, 2004; Fossum & Schlesinger, 2007; Eriksen, 2005; Trenz, 2009) and the importance of analysing the Europeanisation of public spheres at the national level (Risse, 2010), the thesis argues that the literature often overlooks the role of conflict in the understanding of the public sphere. The gap in the literature has been addressed through a hybrid conceptualisation of the public sphere, combining a typically Habermasian deliberative approach with Chantal Mouffe’s ‘agonistics’. Empirically, the thesis undertakes a framing analysis of two different data sets through both qualitative and quantitative methods. The first data set is composed of press releases of a diverse group of EU-level political actors, in order to see what is the preferred framing of TTIP by different actors. The second is composed of the written articles dedicated to the TTIP negotiations in nine national news outlets (three from each selected country) in France, Spain and the UK, from the public announcement of the negotiations (February 2013) until the negotiations were officially frozen (November 2016). The actors’ discourse has been developed as a frame-mapping exercise undertaken inductively, identifying how different actors made sense of TTIP and put forward a number of competing frames. The findings of the empirical analysis of actors’ press releases indicate the attempt to strategically politicise or depoliticise the discussions around the TTIP negotiations, framed through different values by the different actors. These frames have been situated in categories, depending on whether they depoliticise TTIP, they challenge it in an agonistic or antagonistic way, or they focus on the negotiations as a process. The framing analysis of the media content on TTIP in the Spanish, French and British public spheres has revealed two separate chronological periods in the TTIP debate based on the presence of frames, measured through a framing ratio. The first period represents the traditional ‘permissive consensus’, while the second illustrates the agonistic politicisation of TTIP. Each national public sphere developed its own dynamics, which shows the importance that the national context has when discussing TTIP and Europe (Diez Medrano, 2003). However, while the Spanish, French and British public spheres have slightly different chronologies in their transitions from the first to the second period, there is a transnational coherence in terms of the frames of reference across the three countries. The findings of the media content analysis, particularly during the second period of the TTIP debate in the three countries, support the argument that there has been a Europeanisation of national public spheres that has happened in combination with a value-based and agonistic (Mouffe, 2013) politicisation. Rather than opposing the EU as a polity, the agonistic politicisation that has taken place in the case of TTIP has legitimised the EU by opening a space for the contestation of the negotiations, while accepting the EU as a political arena. The thesis argues that this agonistic Europeanisation of the national public spheres can lead towards an ‘empowering dissensus’ for European integration. The combination of agonistic politicisation and Europeanisation of public spheres is a process that matches ‘policy with politics’ at the EU level and normalises the EU as a polity by channeling conflict as politics in the Union rather than politics of the Union.<br>Doctorat en Information et communication<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

La consolidation des droits de l'Homme comme principe politique du processus d'intégration européenne fut articulée par les relations entre la Communauté économique européenne et les dictatures franquiste en Espagne et des colonels en Grèce. Ces deux régimes aspiraient à maintenir un statut d'États associés à la CEE :les débats politiques qui furent tenus à leur égard contribuèrent à la fixation d'une conditionnalité politique pour la participation au processus d'intégration européenne.<br>Doctorat en Histoire, art et archéologie<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Human activities have contributed to the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2). This anthropogenic gas emission has led to a rise in the average Earth temperature. Moreover, the ocean constitutes the major sink for anthropogenic CO2 and its dissolution in surface waters has already resulted in an increase of seawater acidity since the beginning of the industrial revolution. This is commonly called ocean acidification. The increase in water temperature could induce modifications of the physical and chemical characteristics of the ocean. Also, the structure and the functioning of marine ecosystems may be altered as a result of ocean acidification. <p>Phytoplankton productivity is one of the primary controls in regulating our climate, for instance via impact on atmospheric CO2 levels. Coccolithophores, of which Emiliania huxleyi is the most abundant species, are considered to be the most important pelagic calcifying organisms on Earth. Coccolithophores are characterized by calcium carbonate platelets (coccoliths) covering the exterior of the cells. They form massive blooms in temperate and sub-polar oceans and in particular along continental margin and in shelf seas. The intrinsic coupling of organic matter production and calcification in coccolithophores underlines their biogeochemical importance in the marine carbon cycle. Both processes are susceptible to change with ocean acidification and warming. Coccolithophores are further known to produce transparent exopolymer particles (TEP) that promote particle aggregation and related processes such as marine snow formation and sinking. Thus, the impact of ocean warming and acidification on coccolithophores needs to be studied and this can be carried out through a transdisciplinary approach.<p>The first part of this thesis consisted of laboratory experiments on E. huxleyi under controlled conditions. The aim was to estimate the effect of increasing water temperature and acidity on E. huxleyi and especially on the calcification. Cultures were conducted at different partial pressures of CO2 (pCO2); the values considered were 180, 380 and 750 ppm corresponding to past, present and future (year 2100) atmospheric pCO2. These experiments were conducted at 13°C and 18°C. The cellular calcite concentration decreases with increasing pCO2. In addition, it decreases by 34 % at 380 ppm and by 7 % at 750 ppm with an increase in temperature of 5°C. Changes in calcite production at future pCO2 values are reflected in deteriorated coccolith morphology, while temperature does not affect coccolith morphology. Our findings suggest that the sole future increase of pCO2 may have a larger negative impact on calcification than its interacting effect with temperature or the increase in temperature alone. The evolution of culture experiments allows a better comprehension of the development of a bloom in natural environments. Indeed, in order to predict the future evolution of calcifying organisms, it is required to better understand the present-day biogeochemistry and ecology of pelagic calcifying communities under field conditions.<p>The second part of this dissertation was dedicated to results obtained during field investigations in the northern Bay of Biscay, where frequent and recurrent coccolithophorid blooms were observed. Cruises, assisted by remote sensing, were carried out along the continental margin in 2006 (29 May – 10 June), 2007 (7 May – 24 May) and 2008 (5 May – 23 May). Relevant biogeochemical parameters were measured in the water column (temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, Chlorophyll-a and nutrient concentrations) in order to determine the status of the bloom at the time of the different campaigns. Calcification has been shown to be extremely important in the study area. In addition, TEP production was significant at some stations, suggesting that the northern Bay of Biscay could constitute an area of important carbon export. Mortality factors for coccolithophores were studied and the first results of lysis rates measured in this region were presented. <p>Results obtained during culture experiments and comparison with data reported in the literature help to better understand and to predict the future of coccolithophores in a context of climate change. Data obtained during either culture experiments or field investigations allowed a better understanding of the TEP dynamics. Finally, the high lysis rates obtained demonstrate the importance of this process in bloom decline. Nevertheless, it is clear that we only begin to understand the effects of global change on marine biogeochemistry, carbon cycling and potential feedbacks on increasing atmospheric CO2. Thus, further research with a combination of laboratory experiments, field measurements and modelling are encouraged.<p><p><br>Doctorat en Sciences<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Tras un trauma histórico, la memoria colectiva puede sufrir patologías similares a las de la memoria individual. Para tratar esta memoria herida, las sociedades – o los segmentos de estas aquejados de una memoria herida – deben iniciar un proceso de anamnesis para realizar un trabajo de duelo. Una de las manifestaciones de ese proceso anamnésico es la cultura de la memoria, de la que forma parte la “escritura de la memoria” en la que se inscriben Dulce Chacón y Marie-Célie Agnant.<p><p>Dulce Chacón desea recuperar la memoria de las vencidas en la Guerra Civil española, víctimas de la represión de la postguerra. En el caso de Marie-Célie Agnant, se trata de la voluntad de recuperar la memoria de las inmigrantes haitianas llegadas a Quebec huyendo de la represión del régimen duvalierista. Esta memoria herida remonta hasta la herida originaria de la esclavitud y rinde homenaje a las esclavas cimarronas. <p><p>En esta Tesis, proponemos un análisis comparativo desde una perspectiva transdisciplinar de la recuperación de la memoria en la obra de estas dos autoras.<p><p>L’objet de ce travail est l’étude comparée de l’œuvre de Dulce Chacón et de Marie-Célie Agnant sous l’angle de l’écriture de la mémoire. Bien que fondamentalement littéraire, cette étude est abordée sous un angle transdisciplinaire, puisqu’elle a recours à des outils psychanalytiques, sociologiques, philosophiques ou historiques.<p><p>L’écriture de la mémoire, dans laquelle s’inscrivent ces deux auteures, fait partie de façon active du procesus d’anamnèse collective. <p><p>Tout aussi bien Marie-Célie Agnant, écrivaine québécoise d’origine haïtienne, que Dulce Chacón, écrivaine espagnole, se positionnent en tant qu’écrivaines-témoin pour récupérer la mémoire blessée. Dans le cas d’Agnant, il s’agit de la mémoire de la migration, de la répresion du régime duvalieriste et, plus loin encore, de la mémoire de l’esclavage et du marronnage. Dans le cas de Chacón, il s’agit de la mémoire de la guerre civile espagnole et de la répresion franquiste de l’après-guerre. <p><p>À travers l’analyse de l’oeuvre littéraire de ces deux auteures issues de deux contextes différents, ainsi que du constat des caractéristiques communes, cette thèse doctorale propose une poétique de l’écriture de la mémoire basée sur une grille d’analyse qui comprendra des aspects contextuels, paratextuels et intratextuels au niveau discursif, sémantique et stylistique.<p><p><br>Doctorat en Langues et lettres<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Mestrado em Finanças<br>Nos recentes anos temos vindo a observar um aumento da dívida soberana nos países como os PIIGS (Portugal, Grécia, Irlanda, Itália e Espanha). Isto fez com que os investidores, gradualmente começassem a refugiar os seus investimentos em países seguros como a Alemanha. Neste trabalho, queremos perceber como progrediu o risco da dívida pública para os PIIGS, comparativamente com a Alemanha para as diferentes yields (2, 5 e 10 anos), entre 2000 e 2013. Para medir este risco usamos uma medida bastante conhecida, chamada Value at Risk (VaR). Mas, será este VaR um método de avaliação apropriado do risco de dívida soberana? Do ponto de vista do investidor, uma questão importante surge, qual foi a percepção do risco, entre 2000 e 2002 (período em que o EURO entrou em vigor), e entre 2002 e 2008 (período antes da crise)? E depois de 2008 (crise financeira e crise da dívida soberana)? E por fim, o que é que pode explicar a crise da dívida soberana em termos de risco de crédito? As principais conclusões deste trabalho são que os PIIGS, apresentam uma volatilidade elevada (países com maior risco), o que implica um elevado VaR e uma baixa correlação em contraste com o que é observado na Alemanha. Outra conclusão obtida foi a de que os resultados do VaR são diferentes dependendo do país e do período em questão.<br>In recent years, we have observed an increase in sovereign debt on countries such as the PIIGS (Portugal, Greece, Ireland, Italy and Spain). This led investors to, gradually start to refugee their investments in safer countries like Germany. In this work we intend to study how did the public debt risk for PIIGS progressed, comparatively with Germany in different yields (2, 5 and 10 years), between 2000 and 2013. To measure this risk we used a well know measure, called Value at Risk. But, is VaR an appropriated valuation method of sovereign debt risks? In that sense, this work is innovative. Despite being a very relevant subject, no evidence was found on studies done of the use of VaR to measure this type of risk faced by European investors. From the point of view of the investor an important issue is performed, what was the risk perception, between 2000 and 2002 (period of entry into force of the Euro) and between 2002 and 2008 (period pre-crisis)? And after 2008 (financial crisis and sovereign debt crisis)? And ultimately, what can explain the debt sovereign crisis in terms of credit risks? The main conclusions of this work are that PIIGS, present higher volatility, which means they are riskier countries, also present higher VaR and low correlation, in contrast to what is observed in Germany. Another conclusion reached is that, the results are different depending on the period and country.

Notre recherche concerne les bandas, associations composées de musiciens amateurs interprétant un répertoire musical aux sonorités principalement hispaniques et basques. <p>Les premières sont apparues dans le sud-ouest de la France dans les années soixante, suite à l’engouement de musiciens français pour les formations musicales qui accompagnaient les fêtes espagnoles, notamment celles de San Fermin à Pampelune. <p>Les musiciens du Sud-Ouest ont reproduit le modèle qu'ils avaient observé, certains l'ont fait dans les détails, d'autres ont aménagé le modèle en fonction des habitudes de leur localité.<p>Par la suite, des bandas sont apparues dans d'autres régions de France et même en Belgique.<p>Des éléments ont favorisé cette diffusion :la présence de sociétés musicales dans les communes qui ont adopté la pratique musicale des bandas, l’existence de relations de jumelage entre communes dont l’une est le siège d’une banda, la présence de liens historiques entre communes, le contexte global de perte de succès des fanfares et harmonies locales.<p>Notre recherche nous a amenée à observer plusieurs phénomènes :une certaine hispanisation du Sud-Ouest de la France à travers l’apparition des bandas, une diffusion de cette pratique musicale et festive en France et en Belgique souvent accompagnée de mouvements de (re)constructions identitaires, de revendications d’authenticité et de conflits de légitimité. <p><p>A notre connaissance, notre thèse est la première recherche analysant l’univers des bandas sur un espace géographique aussi étendu. Celle-ci est en outre la première étude concernant la propagation de cette pratique. <p>De plus, cette recherche aborde les bandas de différents points de vue, à travers leur histoire, leurs participations aux fêtes, leurs rôles dans les fêtes, dans les corridas, les courses landaises et les ferias, la volonté pour les bandas situées en dehors du Sud-Ouest de créer des fêtes qui leur correspondent dans ces régions où il n’existe pas de lieux festifs qui leur soient spécifiques. <p>D’un point de vue musical, nous abordons la problématique du répertoire des bandas, les conflits au sujet de leur modification, de leur modernisation, de leur authenticité, de leur « tradionalité ». Nous analysons également les situations d’apprentissage musical que les bandas produisent, que ce soit de manière informelle ou que ce soit organisé en écoles de musique. <p>A travers notre recherche, nous espérons ainsi construire une mémoire de ces formations musicales, un éclairage sur cette pratique, son origine, sa propagation, son appropriation et les moyens de réinvention mis en œuvre par les musiciens pour la rendre cohérente avec leur localité. Cette logique de réinvention provoque de nombreux conflits internes entre bandas conservatrices et bandas modernistes et c’est dans ces discours revendicateurs que l’on perçoit l’importance que chaque banda tient dans la vie des musiciens.<p><br>Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Depuis une quinzaine d'années, l'Espagne traverse un mouvement de réflexion complexe ayant trait au legs de la violence d'Etat perpétrée sous la Guerre Civile (1936-1939) et sous la dictature franquiste (1939-1975). Ce mouvement de « récupération de la Mémoire Historique », selon la dénomination autochtone, regroupe un ensemble d'initiatives militantes (mobilisations « mémorielles », de « victimes », de lutte contre l' « impunité »), qui reproduisent les lexiques et les pratiques en vogue dans les contextes de post-conflit (lutte pour la « justice, la vérité, la réparation, exhumations de fosses communes,»...). Cette thèse analyse les logiques de production de catégories nouvelles de la protestation (« disparus », « victimes », « vérité et justice »...), la circulation internationale de compétences militantes propres au post-conflit (exhumations, militantisme des droits de l'homme »...), des nouvelles lectures à porter sur la violence passée. Cet espace protestataire étant majoritairement composé par un personnel héritier ou issu de la gauche républicaine espagnole, cette thèse rend compte des manières dont ce nouveau militantisme des droits de l'homme a contribué à recomposer l'espace protestataire de la gauche espagnole<br>Over the last decade in Spain, the legacy of the political violence perpetrated throughout the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the Francoist regime (1939-1975) became a significant issue among various protest movements. “The Recovery of Historical Memory Movement”, according to the local denomination, gathers a large scale of collective actions in which prevails the use of typical “postconflict” resources, practices and registers : collection of testimonies, mass grave exhumations, mobilization for “Justice, Truth and Reparation”, etc. This thesis analyzes the social logics underlying the production of new protest categories (“disappeared”, “victims”, “truth and justice”), the international circulation of specific “conflict resolution” expertises and authorities (exhumations, human rights militancy), and new readings of past violence. This protesting space being predominantly composed of actors heiring or stemming from the Spanish republican left, I will analyze the ways by which this new human rights militancy has contributed to the recomposition of the local leftist militancy

This dissertation examines how Philippine (or Filipino) authors emphasise the need for articulating or “re/membering” cultural identity. The researcher mainly draws from the theory of Caribbean critic, Stuart Hall, who views cultural identity as an articulation which allows “the fragmented, decentred human agent” to be considered as one who is both “subject-ed” by power but/and one who is capable of acting against those powers (Grossberg 1996 [1986]: 157, emphasis mine). Applied to the Philippine context, this writer argues that, instead of viewing an apparent fragmented Filipino identity as a hindrance to “defining” cultural identity, she views the “damaged” (Fallows 1987) Filipino history as a the material itself which allows articulation of identity. Instead of reducing the cultural identity of a people to what-they-could-have-been-had-history-not-intervened, she puts forward a vision of identity which attempts to transfigure these “damages” through the efforts of coming-to-terms with history. While this point of view has already been shared by other critics (such as Feria 1991 or Dalisay 1998:145), the author’s contribution lies in presenting re/membering to describe a specific type of articulation which neither permits one to deny wounds of the past nor stagnate in them. Moreover, re/membering allows one to understand continuous re-articulations of “new” identities (due to current migration), while putting an “arbitrary closure” (Hall) to simplistic re-articulations which may only further the “lines of tendential forces” (such as black or brown skin bias) or hegemonic practices.<p><p>Written as such (with a slash),“re/membering” encapsulates the following three-fold meaning: (1) a “re-membering”, to indicate “a putting together of the dismembered past to make sense of the trauma of the present” (Bhabha 1994:63); as (2) a “re-membering” or a re-integration into a group and; as (3) “remembering” which implies possessing “memory or … set [ting] off in search of a memory” (Ricoeur 2004:4). As a morphological unit, “re/membering” designates, the ways in which Filipino authors try to articulate cultural identity through the routes of colonisation, migration and dictatorship. <p><p>The authors studied in this thesis include: Carlos Bulosan, Bienvenido Santos, N.V.M. Gonzalez, Nick Joaquin, Frank Sionil José, Ninotchka Rosca, Jessica Hagedorn, and Merlinda Bobis. Sixty-years separate Bulosan’s America is in the Heart (1943) from Hagedorn’s Dream Jungle (2003). Analysis of these works reveals how articulation is both difficult and hopeful. On the one hand, authors criticize the lack of efforts and seriousness towards articulation of cultural identity as re/membering (coming to terms with the past, fostering belonging and cultivating memory). Not only is re/membering challenged by double-consciousness (Du Bois 1994), dismemberment and forgetting, moreover, its necessity is likewise hard to recognize because of pain, trauma, phenomena of splitting, escapist attitudes and preferences for a “comfortable captivity”. <p><p>On the other hand, re/membering can also be described as hopeful by the way authors themselves make use of literature to articulate identity through research, dialogue, time, reconciliation and re-creation. Although painstaking and difficult, re/membering is important and necessary because what is at stake is an articulated Philippine cultural identity. However, who would be prepared to make the effort?<p>------<p><p>Cette thèse démontre que, pour les auteurs philippins, l’articulation ou « re/membering » l'identité culturelle, est nécessaire. Le chercheur s'appuie principalement sur la théorie de Stuart Hall, qui perçoit l'identité culturelle comme une articulation qui permet de considérer l’homme assujetti capable aussi d'agir contre des pouvoirs (cf. Grossberg 1996 [1986]: 157). Appliquée au contexte philippin, cet auteur soutient que, au lieu de la visualisation d'une identité fragmentée apparente comme un obstacle à une « définition » de l'identité culturelle, elle regarde l’histoire philippine «abîmée» (Fallows 1987) comme le matériel même qui permet l'articulation d’identité. Au lieu de réduire l'identité culturelle d'un peuple à ce qu’ ils auraint pû être avant les interventions de l’histoire, elle met en avant une vision de l'identité qui cherche à transfigurer ces "dommages" par un travail d’acceptation avec l'histoire. <p><p>Bien que ce point de vue a déjà été partagé par d'autres critiques (tels que Feria 1991 ou Dalisay 1998:145), la contribution de l'auteur réside dans la présentation de « re/membering » pour décrire un type d'articulation sans refouler les plaies du passé, mais sans stagner en elles non plus. De plus, « re/membering » permet de comprendre de futures articulations de « nouvelles » identités culturelles (en raison de la migration en cours), tout en mettant une «fermeture arbitraire» (Hall) aux ré-articulations simplistes qui ne font que promouvoir des “lines of tendential forces” (Hall) (tels que des préjugés sur la couleur brune ou noire de peau) ou des pratiques hégémoniques.<p><p>Rédigé en tant que telle (avec /), « re/membering » comporte une triple signification: (1) une «re-membering », pour indiquer une mise ensemble d’un passé fragmenté pour donner un sens au traumatisme du présent (cf. Bhabha, 1994:63); (2) une «re-membering» ou une ré-intégration dans un groupe et finalement, comme (3)"remembering", qui suppose la possession de mémoire ou une recherche d'une mémoire »(Ricoeur 2004:4). Comme unité morphologique, « re/membering » désigne la manière dont les auteurs philippins tentent d'articuler l'identité culturelle à travers les routes de la colonisation, les migrations et la dictature. <p><p>Les auteurs inclus dans cette thèse sont: Carlos Bulosan, Bienvenido Santos, NVM Gonzalez, Nick Joaquin, Frank Sionil José, Ninotchka Rosca, Jessica Hagedorn, et Merlinda Bobis. Soixante ans séparent America is in the Heart (1943) du Bulosan et le Dream Jungle (2003) du Hagedorn. L'analyse de ces œuvres révèle la façon dont l'articulation est à la fois difficile et pleine d'espoir. D'une part, les auteurs critiquent le manque d'efforts envers l'articulation en tant que « re/membering » (confrontation avec le passé, reconnaissance de l'appartenance et cultivation de la mémoire). Non seulement est « re/membering » heurté par le double conscience (Du Bois 1994), le démembrement et l'oubli, en outre, sa nécessité est également difficile à reconnaître en raison de la douleur, les traumatismes, les phénomènes de scission, les attitudes et les préférences d'évasion pour une captivité "confortable" .<p><p>En même temps, « re/membering » peut également être décrit comme plein d'espoir par la façon dont les auteurs eux-mêmes utilisent la littérature pour articuler l'identité à travers la recherche, le dialogue, la durée, la réconciliation et la re-création. Bien que laborieux et difficile, « re/membering » est important et nécessaire car ce qui est en jeu, c'est une identité culturelle articulée des Philippines. Mais qui serait prêt à l'effort? <p><br>Doctorat en Langues et lettres<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

On November 20, 1943 young Higgins landing craft operator Leon Cooper ferried U.S. Marines of the Second Division ashore on the island of Betio, Tarawa Atoll. The Tarawa landing was to be the first American amphibious assault in World War II and at Red Beach it challenged an entrenched force of 5,000 Japanese soldiers. The fighting lasted only seventy-six hours but it remains one of the bloodiest offenses during WWII. Nearly 1,700 Americans died and over 2,000 wounded during the battle at Tarawa. Most of the dead, both American and Japanese alike, were quickly buried in unmarked graves and cemeteries on the island. Since WWII, some American remains have been recovered, accounted for, and returned to the United States. However, the remains of 564 U.S. Marines and countless Japanese soldiers have yet to come home. Several years later... Leon Cooper had returned home and made a life as a computer company executive. Since retiring, the 89 year old Malibu veteran has stumbled upon a new fight in a familiar place. A few years ago he learned of a landfill covering the bodies of his fallen comrades at Red Beach. Outraged he began spending his own money and raising awareness about the build-up of garbage and debris on hallowed ground. His efforts have resulted in nationwide recognition and a documentary, Return to Tarawa: The Leon Cooper Story. However, the ultimate goal has yet to be realized. Leon has made it his last work to clean-up Red Beach. Apart from local and regional governments not cooperating, rising sea levels have also posed a threat to Leon's efforts. With an intending doom dictating the timeline, the clean-up of Red Beach pales in comparison to the relocation of 10,000 natives from their homes in one of the poorest regions on earth. If not addressed the issues at Red Beach will simply be underwater. The moral line made at this juncture divides right from wrong and outlines actions in each. Are mounds of trash atop soldier's remains simply 'out of sight and out of mind'? Or is their trash in our oceans atop forgotten hero's buried at sea? History tells a story of man's inhumanity to man; a tale of war that led men to kill other men for shared principals and the translation of that naivety into a nation dumping trash on a graveyard. It is the goal of this thesis to explore the qualities of humankind that are embodied in a soldiers sacrifice by creating an architecture that controls degrading conditions in spite of certain destruction. This, a municipal waste management facility, chooses to hold the sacrifices of soldiers above their deaths and carries their bodies from the trash into a memoriam that eases trauma into memory while instituting new possibilities, new activities, and new images for a hopeful future.

Aquesta tesi doctoral està centrada en el funcionament dels partits d'àmbit estatal (PAES) en estats compostos a través de tres perspectives desenvolupades en quatre capítols: la dimensió orgànica, la institucional i l’electoral. Els PAE que operen en un context institucional multinivell han de fer front a una nova realitat política que modifica el seu funcionament ordinari, tant a les institucions de govern i oposició com en el funcionament orgànic i electoral del partit. Operar en estat compost implica per als partits la necessitat d’establir uns espais de decisió interna entre el partit i les organitzacions territorials del mateix partit, però també pot implicar donar respostes a l’aparició d’arenes electorals diverses, fent front a electorats que competeixen en clivelles electorals diverses i Partits d’Àmbit No Estatal que reclamen nous mecanismes d’autogovern o de govern compartit amb l’Estat. Aquest context ha contribuït al sorgiment d’una literatura que connecta la influència de l’element territorial en els partits. Concretament, durant la dècada dels 2000 s’han donat les primeres passes en la incidència de la descentraltizació en les estructures orgàniques i els mecanismes de decisió interna; l’impacte en l’arena electoral i l’evolució dels sistemes de partits en diversos nivells territorials. Aquest treball es desenvolupa seguint el camí iniciat durant la dècada dels 2000, amb l’interès de conceptualització aquesta qüestió, a través de l’anàlisi de continguts empírics en funció d’estudis de cas enfocats al cas del PSOE. Aquesta tesi contribueix a aquest debat presentant quatre capitols que adrecen la qüestió de com s’adapten els PAES, i més concretament el PSOE, a un context multinivell. La tesi analitza el període 2003-2011 i planteja els mecanismes que contribueixen a que les seccions subestatals dels PAES puguin dur a terme estratègies pròpies.<br>This doctoral thesis is focused on how Statewide Parties (SWP) operate in compound states. SWP operating in multi-level institutional contexts need to face a new political reality that modifies their regular activity. In this thesis three dimensions are considered in the four chapters, not including the conclusions: the organic dimension; the electoral dimension and the institutional one. Parties operating in a compound state need to stablish intern decision-making rules between the central organization and the regional branches of the organization. But it needs to find out new responses regarding the plurality of electoral arenas, confronting Non Statewide Parties claiming for more self-rule or share-rule dynamics. This context has fostered the proliferation of literature connecting the effect of the territorial issue on parties. More specifically, during the 2000s literature has paid attention on the effect of political decentralization on organic structures of the party, including intern decision-making; the impact on the electoral arena and the evolution of party systems on a plurality of territorial levels. This thesis responds to the literature on this question by presenting both conceptual and empirical contents on this topic. This doctoral thesis addresses the conceptual and empirical debate by presenting four chapters addressing this topic. The thesis addresses the mechanisms affecting the capacity of substate PSOE branches to develop their own strategies. The thesis focuses the analysis on an eight years period (2003-2011), including a comparative paper of the Statewide Parties capacity to drive to modify the Italian and Spanish Territorial Models.

The present thesis is divided into three parts. In Part I we address a problem within Higher-Spin Gauge Theory in dimension three: namely, that of computing the asymptotic symmetry algebra of supersymmetric models, describing an infinite spectrum of integer and half-integer higher-spin fields. In Part II we investigate higher-spin theories in dimension four or greater, where we classify the consistent cross interactions between free gauge fermions of arbitrary spin and a photon or a graviton. A third part supplements the bulk of the manuscript with technical appendices. <p><p>Part I is concerned with the Higher-Spin Theory extending the anti-de Sitter orthosymplectic Supergravity in three dimensions. After recalling the construction of the latter we exhibit the structure of the former, and then explain how to generalize the boundary conditions for Supergravity to the higher-spin case. Following the usual procedure, we compute the form of the residual gauge parameter and then identify the Poisson-bracket algebra governing the asymptotic dynamics. It is found to be a nonlinear, supersymmetric algebra of the W-infinity type with same central charge as pure Gravity in the Virasoro sector, which is a subalgebra thereof. The simply supersymmetric case is treated explicitly whereas the details of the extended cases are relegated to the appendices. <p><p>Part II deals with the interaction problem for gauge fermions coupled to Electromagnetism and Gravity in flat spacetime of arbitrary dimension. First we recall the so-called BRST-Antifield techniques, which reformulate the deformation problem as a cohomological one, recasting the familiar Noether procedure for finding out interactions in a mathematically systematic way. We then use these methods to classify and obtain expressions for the gauge-invariant cubic couplings between a symmetric tensor-spinor and a spin-1 and spin-2 gauge field. With no input from previous works, we find the complete list of interaction terms with minimal assumptions and in particular shed light on the quartic obstructions to full consistency.<br>Doctorat en Sciences<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Cette thèse s'inscrit dans le cadre de la physique mathématique des interactions fondamentales. Elle porte sur l'étude des théories de champs qui décrivent les particules élémentaires. En particulier, les théories de champs de spin élevé (plus grand ou égal à 2) sont analysées. Mis à part pour le graviton, vecteur supposé des interactions gravitationnelles, il n'y a aucun indice que ces champs soient présents dans la nature. Cependant leur existence n'est pas impossible théoriquemement et ils interviennent dans la théorie des cordes, candidate pour une théorie quantique d'unification de toutes les forces fondamentales y compris la gravitation. En effet, les modes de vibration de la corde élémentaire sont décrits par des champs de spin élevé.  <p>Dans ce travail, la dimension de l'espace-temps est laissée arbitraire, ce qui entraine la possibilité d'avoir plusieurs sortes (= représentations) de champs différentes ayant le même spin.<p>Le premier aspect traité dans cette thèse concerne les dualités, symétries qui relient entre elles plusieurs théories. Il est montré que différentes représentations de champs de spin élevé sont duales au niveau de l'action. En particulier, en dimension quatre, la dualité échange la composante électrique et la composante magnétique d'un même champs. Cette propriété est ensuite utilisée pour introduire des sources magnétiques pour les champs de spin élevé. La construction généralise les travaux de Dirac sur le couplage au champ électromagnétique de monopoles magnétiques. Une condition de quantification est également dérivée pour des quantités conservées, qui généralise la condition de quantification de Dirac pour la charge électrique en présence de monopoles magnétiques.<p>La deuxième partie de la thèse est consacrée aux interactions de champs de spin élevé. L'analyse est effectuée dans le formalisme de champs et d'antichamps dévelopé par Batalin et Vilkovsky. Elle repose sur la procédure de déformation de l'équation maîtresse mise au point par Henneaux et Barnich. Les champs étudiés sont les champs de spin deux exotiques (c-à-d différents du graviton) ainsi que les champs de spin trois complètement symétriques. Pour les premiers, il est prouvé que toutes les interactions doivent être abélienne. Il n'y a donc pas d'équivalent de la théorie d'Einstein pour ces champs. Dans le cas des champs de spin trois, plusieurs vertex cohérents au premier ordre sont obtenus.<p><p><br><p><p>In this thesis, we consider two aspects of higher-spin gauge field theories: dualities and interactions.<p>The first aspect is related to the presence of dualities, i.e. 'hidden' symmetries among gauge field theories. Do two higher-spin theories corresponding to different irreducible representations of the Poincaré group have the same physical content. Duality relations were already known at the level of the equations of motion and Bianchi identities, here we prove (in some cases) that these dualities hold also at the level of the action. As a consequence, the dual theories are formally equivalent. For example, in five space-time dimensions the spin-two theory of Pauli and Fierz is dual to the theory of a mixed-symmetry spin-two field written by Curtright. <p><p>In four space-time dimensions the duality exchanges the electric and magnetic degrees of freedom of the field. This property leads us to introduce external magnetic sources for higher-spin fields, thereby generalizing to arbitrary spin the work of Dirac on the coupling of magnetic monopoles to the electromagnetic field. Similarly to the quantization condition on the product of the electric and magnetic charges for electromagnetism, there is a quantization condition on the product of conserved ``electric' and ``magnetic' charges for higher spins.<p><p>The second aspect of higher-spin gauge field theories that is analysed in this thesis is the problem of interactions. Self-interactions of exotic spin-two gauge fields are studied, as well as self-interactions of completely symmetric spin-three fields. This is done in the BRST field-antifield formalism developped by Batalin and Vilkovisky, using the technique of consistent deformations of the master equation proposed by Barnich and Henneaux. <p><p><br>Doctorat en sciences, Spécialisation physique<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

La présente thèse, intitulée ``Investigations on electric-magnetic duality in gravity and higher spin theories'', constitue un étude sur la dualité dans les théories de la gravitation et de spins élevés dans le cadre des symétries cachées qui apparaissent après la réduction dimensionnelle de la Relativité Générale et la Supergravité. Elle a comme but de clarifier, en utilisant le formalisme Hamiltonien, la relation entre le graviton et son champ dual (en général, un tenseur de symétrie mixte (D-3,1)) en dimension abitraire, ainsi que la recherche de la généralisation de la symetrie de dualité, par méthodes identiques, aux théories de champs de spin élevé et l'exploration du comportement des champs fermioniques sous l'action de la dualité. La thèse est divisé en cinq chapitres. Le premier chapitre constitue une introduction au sujet des dualités et symétries cachées dans les théories de l'electromagnetisme, la gravitation et la supergravité. Le deuxième chapitre est dédié à l'étude de la dualité dans la gravité linéarisée à dimension D=4: d'abord, on rappelle comment résoudre les contraintes du formalisme Hamiltonien en termes de deux prépotentiels et la forme que l'action prenne après cette résolution. De plus, on reformule l'action en termes de certaines tenseurs invariantes de jauge et trouve une expression non-locale de l'action en termes de deux métriques. En outre, on établisse l'estructure des equations de mouvement covariantes comme une condition de ``twisted self-duality'' et vérifie qu'elles sont equivalentes à un sous-ensemble de celles-ci qui ne contient pas des dérivées temporelles de deuxième ordre. Ce sous-ensemble est aussi obtenu comme les equations de mouvement qui se derivent de l'action écrite en termes des prépotentiels. Dans le troisième chapitre, on généralise cette construction ci-dessus à dimension arbitraire D, où le champ dual du graviton est décrit par un tenseur de symétrie mixte (D-3,1): les contraintes sont résolues en termes de prépotentiels, qu'on utilise afin de construire une action locale, pour finalement obtenir son expression non-locale en termes du graviton et son champ duel. Dans le dernier chapitre, on étudie l'extension de la dualité au système de l'hypergravité linéarisée: la contrainte fermionique est résolue, et les transformations de supersymétrie pour les prépotentiels sont obtenues, ainsi que l'action de la dualité sur les champs fermioniques.<br>Option Physique du Doctorat en Sciences<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Nous avons investigué les propriétés des champs de jauge de spin élevé libres à travers une étude de divers aspects de leur dynamique hamiltonienne. Pour des champs se propageant sur un espace-temps plat, les contraintes issues de l'analyse hamiltonienne de ces théories de jauge ont été identifiées et résolues par l'introduction de prépotentiels, dont l'invariance de jauge comprend, de façon intrigante, à la fois des difféomorphismes linéarisés généralisés et des transformations d'échelle de Weyl généralisées et linéarisées. Cela a motivé notre étude systématique des invariants conformes pour les spins élevés. Les invariants correspondants ont été construits à l'aide du tenseur de Cotton, dont nous avons établi les propriétés essentielles (symétrie, conservation, trace nulle; invariance, complétude). Avec ces outils géométriques, l'analyse hamiltonienne a pu être complétée et une action du premier ordre écrite en termes des prépotentiels. Nous avons constaté que cette action possédait une invariance manifeste par dualité électromagnétique; cette invariance, combinée à l'invariance de jauge des prépotentiels, fixe d'ailleurs uniquement l'action. En outre, de façon générale, cette action s'est révélée être exactement celle obtenue à travers une réécriture des équations du mouvement des spins élevés comme des conditions d'auto-dualité tordue (non manifestement covariantes).Avec un intérêt pour les extensions supersymétriques, nous avons amorcé la généralisation de cette étude aux champs fermioniques. Le champ de masse nulle libre de spin 5/2 a été soumis à la même analyse, et son prépotentiel s'est révélé partager l'invariance de jauge conforme déjà observée dans le cas bosonique général. Le supermultiplet incorporant les spins 2 et 5/2 a ensuite été considéré, et une symétrie rigide de son action, combinant une transformation de dualité électromagnétique du spin 2 avec une transformation de chiralité du spin 5/2 a été construite pour commuter avec la supersymétrie. Dans une autre direction, nous avons étudié les propriétés d'un champ tensoriel chiral de symétrie mixte dans un espace-temps plat à six dimensions: une (2,2)-forme. Son analyse hamiltonienne a été réalisée, des prépotentiels introduits et l'action de premier ordre obtenue s'est encore une fois révélée être la même que celle obtenue à travers une réécriture des équations du mouvement comme des conditions d'auto-chiralité (non manifestement covariante).Finalement, nous nous sommes penchés sur les charges de surface des champs fermioniques et bosoniques de spin élevé se propageant sur un espace-temps à courbure constante. Cela a été réalisé par une analyse hamiltonienne de ces systèmes, les contraintes étant identifiées aux générateurs des transformations de jauge. Injectant dans ces générateurs des valeurs des paramètres des transformations de jauge correspondant à des transformations impropres de jauge (imposant une réelle variation physique sur les champs) a ensuite permis d'évaluer la valeur de ces générateurs pour des champs résolvant les équations du mouvement: elle s'est bien révélée finie et non-nulle, constituant les charges de surface de ces théories.<br>Doctorat en Sciences<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This dissertation provides a geopolitical and gender analysis of the border that was built between 2005 and 2010 to stop unwanted migration from Senegal to Spain. I combine an investigation of institutional practices and of the experiences of migrants who crossed (or tried to cross) that border. This work constructs a genealogy of the Spanish - Senegalese border, including the obstacles placed to stop unwanted migration and the strategies adopted by migrants to enter EU space. To do so I draw from three bodies of literature: scholarship on migrant transnationalism, critical geopolitics, and feminist political geography. This analysis is built on extensive primary research complemented by secondary data, including life histories, participant observation, and interviews with migrants, members of their transnational social networks, former smugglers, service providers, supra-state organizations, state bureaucrats, and state security forces, as well as official statistics, legislation, and media accounts. I contend that gender is an articulating factor of international migrations. In the case of contemporary Senegalese migration to Spain, I argue that the re-enforcement and militarization of the border was disproportional to the number of migrants using land and sea routes. These efforts were partly responsible for a decrease in illegal migration by land and sea after 2007, but migration by air and secondary migration from other countries of the EU (which represent the majority of the migrant flow) was unaffected. Despite the obstacles placed to stop it, the migration of Senegalese continued and even increased during this period, mainly thanks to the support that transnational social networks provided to migrants. The main consequence of the preventive and defensive anti-immigration measures adopted was a re-territorialization of the EU border. The findings suggest the importance of integrating a variety of scales in the study of the processes, actors, and mechanisms involved in the territorial re-definition of state and supranational borders. In the case of the EU, I contend that as a response militarization is ethically questionable, economically wasteful, and inadequate. Finally, this study suggests the need to engage in a mobile cartography of the migrant transnational network to account for its transformations across time and space.

The new institutionalist school of economics addresses the divergence between countries' long-run economic performance by attributing it to differences in institutional heritage. Institutions which suppress the kleptocratic inclinations of governments and enshrine a 'credible commitment' to protect property rights encourage productive activity. But that is not to say states that cannot ensure universal property rights have not achieved economic growth. Such governments may resort to clientelist arrangements that guarantee a subset of asset holders their property rights will be protected in exchange for political and economic support. Such a system of 'crony capitalism' is an inefficient allocator of resources but it can ensure political stability which in turn allows an otherwise weak government to preside over sustained growth. This thesis compares the fortunes of Spain and Argentina, two 'crony capitalist states' characterised by distributional conflict, between 1950 and 2000. The principal hypothesis is that Spain's economic performance far outstripped that of Argentina over subsequent decades because the web of alliances between the state and society included a greater variety of economic interests than its Argentine counterpart and consequently achieved a closer approximation of a credible commitment to universally guarantee property rights. Argentine corporatism constructed in the late 1940s by president Juan Peron failed to integrate powerful interests and Argentine society is consequently defined by a variety of well-organised and powerful economic interest groups that compete for a share of national rent. The executive is forced to negotiate directly with these groups to secure support for new economic policy rather than operate through an effective state bureaucracy. Interests left out of the alliance will act to change the policy or remove the president, resulting in Argentina's perpetual cycle of economic and political instability. In Spain, the executive presided over a state segmented between interest groups. Each group was rewarded in return for loyalty with control over the ministry pertinent to a particular area of Spanish society. Economic interests such as labour, business and agriculture, meanwhile, were represented through compulsory membership of a monolithic syndicate. Within this bureaucracy, different factions representing a variety of economic interests engaged in a war of attrition to shape policy before the arbitrating dictator. This highly centralised state bureaucracy survived the transition to democracy and Spanish political parties abandoned their class-based identities and became mass movements organised under disciplined hierarchies of control. Thus negotiations over reform continued to operate within the state which ensured political stability which is a pure public good and encourages productive activity.

Before the crisis Catalonia and the rest of Spain received high volumes of immigration - of which much was 'illegal'. This was despite formally strict controls - EU policy - and different governments in Madrid claiming to operate a legal model of migration - leading to identification of a 'policy paradox'. In the same period immigration became problematized, which in Catalonia allowed xenophobic politics to gain popular support - despite being a territory proactive at integrating newcomers. This research aimed to identify the undercurrents of these contradictions and respond to questions on the relative impact of business, state, national and electoral factors. It surveys literature on migration paradoxes and theories, develops an original conceptual framework by critically assessing a range of radical writing, performs quantitative and secondary study of the Catalan, Spanish and European economic and policy contexts (in general and regarding immigration), and analyses findings from interviews with privileged 'insiders' and observers (employers, union leaders, migrant activists and policy advisors). Policy contradictions and the problematization of immigration were identified as rooted firstly in the inherent contradictions of the capitalist state. States must ensure availability of new reserves of labour to guarantee accumulation and make savings by not having to 'socially reproduce' 'imported' labour power. Yet their abstract national and bounded character propels constant nationcraft - a process best performed invisibly and negatively by symbolically and practically excluding migrants from territory, rights and citizenship. Dynamics are further driven by the desire to be seen to preserve the 'rule of law' and guarantee the exclusivity of national 'social contracts'. Nation-building in policymaking was detected by uncovering the national-linguistic considerations behind the controversial drive to devolve immigration powers to Catalonia. Mushrooming irregularity was a result of migrant agency and the restrictive tendencies of the Aznar administration and EU. Despite the Popular Party (and EU) being notably pro-business, tensions emerged with employers who lobbied alongside unions to bring about the liberalisations introduced by the Zapatero government (2004-2011). Employers benefit from the (continued) institutional conditioning of migrant labour and irregular hiring has been tolerated - aided by a relatively informal and insecure labour market. Yet it is a mistake to see high levels irregularity simply as labour policy. The unequal and instrumental nature of European integration meant the Spanish State played a border policing role that threatened its labour needs before the crisis. This led to political 'fudge' based on varying models of irregularity-amnesty-irregularity, and reinforced pro-European and Hispanist migrant recruitment tendencies. Changes in government have reshaped policymaking (and increased or decreased related tensions) but less-democratic influences were identified in interviews and a clear political economy of immigration can be identified.

The main theme of the diploma thesis is the division of companies. The thesis is divided into two parts, a theoretical and a practical one. The theoretical part deals with the legal, accounting and tax framework of the division. The chapter on legislation primarily tackles its development within the European Union and the Czech Republic. The part on accounting concentrates on the determination of the accounting period, valuation of assets and deferred tax regarding the division, while the section on tax legislation adopts the perspective of the Tax Code, corporate income tax and value added tax. The main part of the thesis is practical and offers a comparative analysis of divisions implemented in 2013. First of all, the method of obtaining the data for analysis is described, and then the most part of the chapter deals with the presentation of the result of the analysis.

Based on longitudinal qualitative research, the paper analyses manifestations and mechanisms of the repression of activists of the Spanish protest movement 15M, and effects of this repression perceived by activists. To contextualize this, the background of the movement, its goals, and its achievements are described. The movement started in 2011, protesting the social crisis, the consequences of austerity policies, and corruption. It had viable effects on the framing of the current situation, in political attitudes and also, indirectly, on the political system. The Spanish government has responded to movement activities with repression and with new laws that interviewees characterize as a further restriction of the civil right to demonstrate and protest. Findings indicate that the combination of overt and covert repression have effects far beyond the manifest acts of the repression itself.

El objetivo principal de la tesis es analizar los factores más importantes de las estrategias de ubicación de la industria del mueble en España y Dinamarca. El análisis combina investigación cualitativa y cuantitativa. Con la investigación cualitativa se desarrolla el análisis de estrategias de macro ubicación de la industria y el análisis de estrategias de micro ubicación de las empresas en clústeres. Con el análisis cuantitativo (índice de Grubel y Lloyd-GL y análisis de regresión lineal múltiple) se determinan los factores económicos geográficos importantes que afectan el Comercio Intra-Industrial. El análisis de la macro situación de las industrias de muebles de los dos países muestra que Dinamarca tiene ventajas en la producción y el diseño. Para competir con Dinamarca, España está tratando de remediar el declive de su producción al proporcionar ayuda financiera directa a estas empresas y al alentar la exportación de muebles a países emergentes. Además, España está dedicando mayor esfuerzo en su fase de diseño de I+D. El análisis de la micro situación de las empresas de muebles en clústeres en los dos países muestra que Dinamarca tiene ventajas en el transporte debido a altos niveles de consolidación. De esta forma, reducen más costes que España. Sin embargo, las compañías de ambos países no tienen ventajas comparativas en la producción y el diseño debido a las diferentes situaciones de las compañías. Los resultados del estudio también demuestran que hay tres factores, la producción, el diseño y la promoción, que son significativamente más importantes para las compañías en clústeres en los dos países. El transporte es menos importante que estos tres factores. Sin embargo, desde un punto de vista macro del clúster, el transporte es importante ya que puede reducir el costo de todo el clúster debido a la consolidación eficiente. El análisis del Comercio Intra-Industrial genera dos hallazgos importantes. Una es que el Comercio Intra-Industrial en España está más diversificado que en Dinamarca por las siguientes dos razones. La primera, los cinco principales socios comerciales de Dinamarca son países europeos. Sin embargo, en los cinco principales socios comerciales de España, solo tres de ellos son países europeos, mientras que dos son países no europeos. España tiene comercio bilateral con estos dos países no europeos porque pueden utilizar la ventaja de transporte del Mar Mediterráneo. La segunda razón, que se extrae del análisis de regresión, es que España realiza frecuentes intercambios comerciales con países con un PIB alto. Este fenómeno no se encuentra en Dinamarca. Otro hallazgo es que los dos países compiten por el mercado europeo debido a las distancias geográficas; además, las fronteras comunes son importantes para ambos, y los principales mercados de importación y exportación para ambos países son Europa. Esta tesis aporta implicaciones valiosas a nivel de método y de contenido. El método utilizado en esta tesis tiene algunas diferencias en comparación con la literatura de la economía geográfica. Por ejemplo, en la investigación cuantitativa del Comercio Intra-Industrial, se utilizó el método de regresión por mínimos cuadrados generalizado, que es diferente del método de regresión utilizado en otras investigaciones. Desde el punto de vista del contenido, la tesis tiene contribuciones en las siguientes tres partes. Primero, identificó que las estrategias utilizadas en los clusters de los dos países son diferentes. Las estrategias de las empresas españolas se centran en la calidad. Dinamarca enfatiza la ventaja de costos y la calidad al mismo tiempo. En segundo lugar, esta tesis descubrió las características del clúster nacional de Dinamarca. En tercer lugar, este análisis también identifica factores que no se mencionan en análisis previos en la literatura, como las decisiones de ubicación y dos nuevas tendencias de subcontratación.<br>The main objective of the thesis is to analyse the most important factors of location strategies of the furniture industries in Spain and Denmark. The analysis combines both qualitative and quantitative research. Qualitative research includes the macro location strategies analysis of the industry and micro location strategies analysis of the companies in the clusters. Quantitative analysis (Grubel and Lloyd-GL index and multiple linear regression analysis) is to ascertain the important geographic economics factors affecting the Intra-Industry Trade. The analysis of the macro situation of the furniture industries of the two countries shows that Denmark has advantages in production and design. To compete with Denmark, Spain is trying to remedy their production decline by providing direct financial aid to these companies and encouraging furniture exports to emerging countries. Furthermore, Spain is putting more effort into its design-phase R&D. The analysis of the micro situation of the furniture companies in the clusters in the two countries shows that Denmark has advantages in transportation due to high consolidation levels. In this way, they reduce more costs than Spain. However, the companies in the two countries do not have comparative advantages in production and design due to the companies’ differing situations. The result also exhibits that production, design and promotion are important for the companies in clusters in the two countries. Transportation is less important than these three factors. However, from the macro point of view of the cluster, transportation is important since producers’ efficient consolidation of transport can lower the cost of the whole cluster. In the analysis of the Intra-Industry Trade, there are two important findings. One is that the Intra-Industry Trade in Spain is more diversified than in Denmark for the following two reasons. First, all the five major trade partners of Denmark are European countries. However, in the five major trade partners of Spain, only three of them are European countries, whilst two are non-European countries. Spain has much two way trade with these two countries because they can use the transportation advantage of the Mediterranean Sea. Second, the result of the regression analysis demonstrates that Spain undertakes frequent two way trade with high GDP countries. This phenomenon is not found in Denmark. Another finding is that the two countries compete for the European market due to geographical distances; additionally, common borders are important to both, and the main import and export markets for both countries are Europe. The dissertation has both contribution in the method and content. The method used in this thesis has some differences compare to the literature of the geographic economics. For example, in the quantitative research of the Intra-Industry Trade, the generalized least square regression method was used, which is different from the regression method used in other research. From the point of view of the content, the dissertation has contributions in the following three parts. First, it identified that the strategies used in the clusters in the two countries are different. The strategies of Spanish companies focus on the quality. Denmark emphasises the cost advantage and quality at the same time. Second, this dissertation discovered the characteristics of the national cluster of Denmark. Third, this analysis also talked about factors that are not mentioned in other analyses such as location decisions and two new trends of outsourcing.

National innovative performance is a key driver for sustainable growth (Pavitt, 1980). National innovative capacity may be improved by fostering industrial Research and Development (R&D), by funding academic research and by effectively supporting university-industry interactions in order to strengthen the linkage between R&D and product development. In a context of growing relevance of external sources of innovation, where the industry, rather than relying on internal R&D, increasingly engages in ‘open innovation’ (Chesbrough, 2006), the role played by universities is crucial. The essays presented in this thesis focus mainly on academic R&D and knowledge transfer mechanisms from the university viewpoint, as opposed to government or industry perspectives. These essays contribute to our understanding of how universities organise themselves to adapt to this changing context. In other words, the thesis looks at the ‘reflexivity’ norm of the system associated with the entrepreneurial university, as established by Etzkowitz (2004); or “a continuing renovation of the internal structure of the university as its relation to industry and government changes, and of industry and government as their relationship to the university is revised”. <p>Universities play a major role in the national innovative capacity of a country as producers and transmitters of new knowledge (see for instance, Adams, 1990; Mansfield, 1991; Klevorick et al. 1995; Zucker et al. 1998; Cohen et al. 2002; Arundel and Geuna, 2004; Guellec and van Pottelsberghe, 2004). While European countries play a leading global role in terms of scientific output, they lag behind in the ability to convert this strength into wealth-generating innovations (this is known as the ‘European paradox’, see for instance Tijssen and van Wijk, 1999; and Dosi et al. 2005). This level of innovation may be improved by different factors; for instance, by fostering an entrepreneurial culture, or by increasing industry’s willingness to develop new products, new processes. One of these factors relies on the notion of an ‘entrepreneurial university’. Universities, in addition to the two traditional missions of research and teaching, foster their third mission of contribution to society, by improving the transfer of knowledge to the industry. New tools and regulations have been established to support universities in this process. Since the early 80’s, academic technology transfer offices (TTOs) have been created, dedicated employees have been trained and hired, incubators for the launch of new academic ventures have been set up, academic or independent pre-seed investment funds have been founded and laws related to the ownerships by university of their invented-patents have been promulgated. <p>But what exactly stands behind the notion of ‘entrepreneurial university’? There exist more different descriptions of a similar concept or of a similar evolution than a general agreed definition. Indeed, "(…) There is high heterogeneity, there is no such thing as a typical university, and there is no typical way to be or become an entrepreneurial university" (Martinelli et al. 2008, p.260). However some similar patterns of what is or should be an entrepreneurial university may be identified.<p>First, there is this notion of a revolution experienced by universities that now have to integrate a third mission of contributing to economic development aside of their traditional academic missions. “(…) But in the most advanced segments of the worldwide university system, a ‘second revolution’ takes off. The entrepreneurial university integrates economic development into the university as an academic function along with teaching and research. It is this ‘capitalisation of knowledge’ that is the heart of a new mission for the university, linking universities to users of knowledge more tightly and establishing the university as an economic actor in its own right” (Etzkowitz, 1998, p.833). <p>This revolution finds its origin in a necessary adaptation of universities to an external changing environment where modern societies put a strong emphasis on knowledge. “The concept of the entrepreneurial university envisions an academic structure and function that is revised through the alignment of economic development with research and teaching as academic missions. The transformation of academia from a ‘secondary’ to a ‘primary’ institution is a heretofore unexpected outcome of the institutional development of modern society (Mills, 1958). In consequence, the knowledge industry in modern societies is no longer a minor affair run by an intellectual elite, an activity that might be considered by pragmatic leaders as expendable; it is a mammoth enterprise on a par with heavy industry, and just as necessary to the country in which it is situated (Graham, 1998, p.129)”, quoted by Etzkowitz et al. (2000, p.329).<p>The notion of an ‘entrepreneurial university’ also exceeds the simple idea of the protection of academic intellectual property by patents owned by universities and their out-licensing as well as the launch of new ventures. It encompasses an overall change of how the university is organised. “In the gruesome and heady world of changing external environments, organizations – including universities – will need to seek opportunities beyond their existing competences (Hamel and Prahalad, 1989, 1994), which suggests the need for an entrepreneurial orientation (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996)”, quoted by Glassman et al. (2003, p.356). This entrepreneurial orientation will only be possible if the overall organisation of the university changes. “An entrepreneurial university, on its own, actively seeks to innovate how it goes about its business. It seeks to work out a substantial shift in organizational character so as to arrive at a more promising posture for the future. Entrepreneurial universities seek to become 'stand-up' universities that are significant actors on their own terms” (Clark, 1998, p.4). <p>The notion of entrepreneurial university also encompasses the concept of academic entrepreneurship in its broad sense. For a university to become entrepreneurial, individual academics also have to adapt and to behave in an entrepreneurial way. This concept is not solely conceived here as the launching of new ventures by academics (a view embraced by Shane, 2004, for instance). It relates more to the view of Stevenson, Roberts and Grousbeck (1989), referenced by Glassman et al. (2003, p.354) or “the process of creating and seizing an opportunity and pursuing it to create something of value regardless of current available resources.”<p>The difficulty facing universities is then to adapt to their external environment while preserving the integrity of their two traditional academic missions. However, some conceive this challenge as precisely an ability that characterise the very intrinsic university’s nature. "The uniqueness of the university,(…) lies in its protean capacity to change its shape and function to suit its temporal and sociopolitical environment while retaining enough continuity to deserve its unchanging name” (Perkin, 1984, p.18). <p>Furthermore, others perceive this challenge as a tension that has always been at the root of the university’s character. “The cherished view of some academics that higher education started out on the Acropolis of scholarship and was desecrated by descent into the Agora of materialistic pursuit led by ungodly commercial interests and scheming public officials and venal academic leaders is just not true for the university systems that have developed at least since 1200 A.D. If anything, higher education started in the Agora, the market place, at the bottom of the hill and ascended to the Acropolis on the top of the hill… Mostly it has lived in tension, at one and the same time at the bottom of the hill, at the top of the hill, and on many paths in between” (Kerr, 1988, p.4; quoted by Glassman, 2003, p.353).<p>Nevertheless, it appears that some institutions, the ones integrating the best their different missions and being the most ‘complete’ in terms of the activities they perform, will be better positioned to overcome this second revolution than other institutions. “Since science-based innovations increasingly have a multidisciplinary character and build on "difficult-to-codify" people-centred interactions, university-based systems of industry science links, which combine basic and applied research with a broader education mission, are seen as enjoying a comparative advantage relative to research institutes” (OECD, 2001 quoted by Debackere and Veugeleers, 2005, p.324). Or as stated by Geuna (1998, p.266), in his analysis of the way the different historical trajectories of European universities are influencing their ability to adapt to the current changing environment, “ (…) the renowned institutions of Cluster IV (pre-war institutions, large in size, with high research output and productivity) are in a strong position both scientifically and politically, and can exercise bargaining power in their relations with government and industry. (…) On the other side, universities in the other two clusters (new postwar universities, characterised by small size, low research output and low research orientation and productivity, whether involved in technological research or in teaching), with very low research grants from government, are pushed to rely more heavily on industrial funding. Being in a weak financial position, they may find themselves in an asymmetric bargaining relationship with industry that they may be unable to manage effectively.”<p>To summarize, one could attempt to define the broad notion of an ‘entrepreneurial university’ as follows. An entrepreneurial university is a university that adapts to the current changing environment that puts a stronger emphasis on knowledge, by properly integrating the third mission or the capitalisation of knowledge aside of its two traditional missions. This adaptation requires a radical change in the way the university is organised. It will require important strategic reorientation from the top but also, and mainly, it will require from the individual academics to better seize new opportunities to generate value (not only financial but also scientific or academic) given scarcer resources. Renowned and complete universities (with teaching, basic and applied research) have an edge over other institutions to overcome this second revolution.<p>This notion of ‘entrepreneurial university’ has drawn criticisms. For example, academics’ interactions with industry could impact negatively on research activities by reorienting fundamental research towards more applied research projects (Cohen and Randazzese, 1996; David, 2000), by restricting academic freedom (Cohen et al. 1994; Blumenthal et al. 1996; Blumenthal et al. 1997), or by potentially reducing scientific productivity (see for instance van Zeebroeck et al. 2008 for a review on this issue). The present work does not address the issue of the impact of increased interactions with the business sector on traditional academic missions nor the question of whether universities should become entrepreneurial or not. Instead, the essays start from the idea that the ‘entrepreneurial university’ notion is part of the intrinsic nature of modern universities, or at least, is a part of its evolution. Industry-university relationships are not a new phenomenon; it can be traced at least to the mid- to late-1800s in Europe and to at least the industrial revolution in the USA (Hall et al. 2001). What is evolving is the nature of such relationships that become more formal. The present analysis starts then from the general observation that some universities (and researchers) are more entrepreneurially-oriented and better accept this mission than others. From that stems the primary research question addressed in this thesis: are there characteristics or conditions leading to a smooth coexistence of traditional and new academic missions inside an entrepreneurial university? And if so, what are they?<p>Existing work on the entrepreneurial university is a nascent but already well developed field of research. The aimed contribution of this thesis is to analyse the topic under three specific but complementary angles. These three perspectives are explored into the four main chapters of this work, structured as follows. Chapter 1 is titled “Turning science into business: A case study of a traditional European research university”. It introduces the topic by investigating the dynamics at play that may explain the propensity of a traditional, research-oriented university to start generate entrepreneurial outputs, while being not full-fledge entrepreneurially organised. Exploring the importance of “new” entrepreneurial outputs, as defined as patents and spin-off companies, compared to other ways of transferring new knowledge to the industry, Chapter 2 reviews the literature on the variety of knowledge transfer mechanisms (KTMs) used in university-industry interactions. It is titled “University-Industry interactions and knowledge transfer mechanisms: a critical survey”. Given scarcer structural funds for academic research and increasing pressure on academics to diversify their activities in terms of being involved in patenting or spin-off launching, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 investigate the role played by individual characteristics of researchers in attracting competitive, external funding. Chapter 3 presents stylised facts related to external fundraising at ULB and characteristics of researchers who attracted these funds over the period 1998-2008. The empirical analysis on associations between individual characteristics of researchers (intrinsic, scientific and entrepreneurial) and the extent of funds attracted from different sources (national, regional and business) is presented in Chapter 4, titled “The determinants of academic fundraising.” Chapter 5 concludes and suggests ideas for future investigation on this topic. Chapter 6, in appendix of the present work, titled “A note on the drivers of R&D intensity”, is not directly linked to the issue of the entrepreneurial university. It has been included to complement the studied topic and to put in perspective the present work. Academic research and university-industry interactions constitute important drivers of a national R&D and innovation system. Other factors are at play as well. Looking at this issue at the macroeconomic level, Chapter 6 investigates to what extent the industrial structure of a country influences the observed R&D intensity, and hence would bias the well-known country rankings based on aggregate R&D intensity.<p><br>Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Research on social movements has traditionally addressed issues of movement emergence and mobilisation, paying little attention to their outcomes and consequences. Moreover, despite research on the political consequences of social movements accelerating in recent years, much has been left under researched, no more so than the impact social movements have on one of the most important actors in liberal democracies: political parties. This paper extends social movement research by examining whether social movements have an impact on political parties and under what conditions impact is more likely to take place. The empirical analysis, investigating whether anti-austerity social movements have had an impact on social democratic parties in Ireland and Spain during the years 2011 to 2016, suggests that the relationship between social movements and political parties is both under-theorised and under-researched, and mistakenly so. The paper finds that while parties are more likely to be influenced by social movements when certain conditions are present, social movements can also have unintended impacts on parties. Ultimately, this paper encourages research on political parties, and particularly research on party change, to pay greater attention to social movements and for social movement research to pay greater attention to political parties.

Ce travail est une contribution ab initio à la caractérisation d'halogénures diatomiques de métaux de transition. Nous avons choisi de caractériser la structure électronique des chlorures de métaux de transition du groupe Vb (NbCl et TaCl) et du fluorure de nickel car une série de spectres les concernant ont été enregistrés mais aucune donnée théorique fiable n'était disponible dans la littérature.<p><p>Pour étudier ces molécules, nous avons appliqué une procédure de calcul à deux étapes qui permet de tenir compte des effets de corrélation électronique et des effets relativistes. Dans la première étape, nous avons réalisé des calculs CASSCF/ICMRCI+Q de grande taille qui tiennent compte de l'énergie de corrélation et introduisent des effets relativistes scalaires. Dans la deuxième étape, le couplage spin-orbite est traité par la "state interacting method" implémentée dans le logiciel MOLPRO. Nous avons développé des stratégies de calcul basées sur ces méthodes de calcul et adaptées aux différentes molécules ciblées. Ainsi, pour les molécules NbCl et TaCl, nous avons utilisé des pseudopotentiels relativistes scalaires et spin-orbite, tandis que pour la molécule NiF, nous avons réalisé des calculs tous électrons.<p><p>Nous avons d'abord testé la stratégie de calcul sur les cations Nb+ et Ta+. Ensuite, nous avons calculé pour la première fois les structures électroniques relativiste scalaire et spin-orbite des molécules NbCl (de 0 à 17000 cm-1) et TaCl (de 0 à 23000 cm-1). A l'aide de ces données théoriques, nous avons interprété les spectres expérimentaux en collaboration avec Bernath et al. Nous avons proposé plusieurs attributions de transitions électroniques en accord avec l'expérience mais nos résultats théoriques ne nous ont pas permis de les attribuer toutes. Néanmoins, nous avons mis en évidence une série d'autres transitions électroniques probables qui pourraient, à l'avenir, servir à l'interprétation de nouveaux spectres mieux résolus. <p><p>Outre son intérêt expérimental, cette étude a permis de comparer les structures électroniques des molécules isovalencielles VCl, NbCl et TaCl, mettant en évidence des différences importantes.<p>L'élaboration d'une nouvelle stratégie de calcul pour décrire les systèmes contenant l'atome de nickel représentait un véritable défi en raison de la complexité des effets de corrélation électronique. Notre stratégie de calcul a consisté à introduire ces effets en veillant à réduire au maximum la taille des calculs qui devenait considérable.<p>Nous l'avons testée sur l'atome Ni et appliquée ensuite au calcul des structures électroniques relativiste scalaire et spin-orbite de la molécule NiF entre 0 à 2500 cm-1. Nous avons obtenus des résultats qui corroborent l'expérience. <p><br>Doctorat en Sciences<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Dieser Text ist ein Klassiker der vergleichenden Politikwissenschaft. In den 1960er Jahren erarbeitete Juan Linz am Beispiel des Franco-Regimes das Konzept eines dritten Regimetyps neben Demokratie und Totalitarismus. Es sollte der wirkungsmächtige Anstoß zum Nachdenken über autoritäre Regime werden: Ein Nachdenken, das angesichts aktueller weltpolitischer Entwicklungen fortgesetzt werden muss - und wozu diese erste deutschsprachige Übersetzung des Klassikers einen Beitrag leistet.

Linguistic minorities are playing a crucial role in determining how states are reimagining themselves in more plural and inclusive ways. Pressure from both supranational and sub-state levels of government has meant that the repression of linguistic minorities by state institutions is no longer acceptable and even attitudes of neglect are widely condemned. However, while there has been a noticeable change in attitudes towards linguistic minorities in many European states, the specific role of the central state in relation to these groups remains ambiguous and merits further study. This thesis thus compares the language policies of the central states of Spain and Italy between 1992 and 2010, concerning two specific linguistic minorities in each country. These include Catalan-speakers in Catalonia and the German-speaking minority in Alto Adige/Südtirol, which have received considerable recognition and find themselves in a comparable situation within their respective states. In contrast, the Asturian- and Sardinian-speaking minorities have received the most minimal recognition at both the regional and state levels. Three sources of primary data were identified for the purposes of this study: official state documentation and legislation, elite interviews with political and institutional representatives, and state-wide newspapers. The research reveals the rationales, ideologies and motivations behind the actions of the central states of Spain and Italy in their approaches towards these distinct groups. New insight is provided by considering cases which have not previously been compared, as well as focusing on the typically hidden language policies of the state in contrast to the visible and widely studied policies implemented at the regional or provincial levels. This approach allows conclusions to be drawn on the extent to which both states may be moving away from the traditional monolingual nation-state model and provides recommendations for future approaches to linguistic minorities at the state and European levels.

A general recursion method (method of adlayers) for calculating the exact Green function in an arbitrary overlayer is developed. The method as presented applies to an s-band tight-binding Hamiltonian with hopping between nearest-neighbours only. The general.isation of the method to a multi-orbital band structure is described. The overlayer we consider is deposited above the (100) surface of a simple cubic semi-infinite nonmagnetic metallic substrate occupying the half-space z < O. The aim of the present thesis is twofold: firstly, the ground state of a ferromagnetic overlayer is investigated. In particular, the local densities of states (LOOS) of an overlayer are calculated using the method of adlayers. The method of adlayers is very simple, computationally stable and extremely accurate. The numerical results for the LOOS and the Hartree-Fock (HF) occupation numbers of a single-adlayer and a seven-adlayer overlayer are presented. The surface and bulk DOSs for an overlayer of seven atomic planes are compared. The presence of an adlayer may induce surface states if a strong enough perturbation occurs at the surface. Such surface states are automatically included in our method of adlayers. Secondly, spin waves in a transition metal overlayer are investigated within the framework of the itinerant theory of magnetism. The overlayer is modelled by a single-orbital tight-binding band with a strong intra-atomic repulsion U (one band Hubbard model). All the matrix elements of the HF dynamic unenhanced susceptibility in the overlayer are computed from the HF one-electron Green functions. Spin waves are then poles of the full dynamic enhanced susceptibility which is determined in the random phase approximation (RPA). It is demonstrated that a very high accuracy in solving the HF ground state is needed to determine correctly spin wave modes. When this requirement is fulfilled, the Goldstone theorem at zero wavevector and zero frequency is very well satisfied. Numerical results for the spin wave spectra of a single-adlayer are presented for a range of values of U. Spin wave energies for a single-adlayer, for an unsupported layer and the exchange stiffness constant 0 of an unsupported layer are compared. Finally, all the computed spin wave branches of an overlayer of seven atomic planes are presented and discussed. The disappearance of spin waves in the Stoner continuum is illustrated and the possibility that a surface spin wave mode might occur is briefly discussed.

This paper discusses the development of an energy systems model for the southern countries of Europe. More precisely, for three main actors of the South of the European Union: Spain, Italy and Portugal. The three of them are currently facing economic difficulties due to the world financial crisis. To satisfy their energy demand at the less cost-effective price and following the EU policies in terms of greenhouse emissions requires a deep analysis of the current situation and an accurate forecast for the upcoming years. There are several EU (EU 20/20/20, treaty of Lisbon and EU ETS) and UN (Kyoto Protocol) policies that are taken into account in the model to build the most realistic scenarios that can happen in the three countries in the following years. This paper is based on the electricity consumption coming from the residential, industrial and commercial sectors. The model is developed in the open source program OSINDA (OSeMOSYS with INterface and DAtabase). It considers different possible scenarios for the three countries from 2010 to 2050 and asses the paths to follow in terms of infrastructure investments for the upcoming years. The baseline scenario takes into account the current taxes in CO2 emissions, the current capital, fixed and variable costs and the prices of the imports of fossil fuels. Then, there are plausible futures that analyze different possible scenarios (with the normal uncertainty of the future). The source code and modelling data is publicly available under the intellectual protection of Creative Commons®.

This diploma paper is dealing with causes, development and solutions of high unemployment rate among young people in Spain, which belongs to the highest in Europe. Spanish labour market is put in context with macroeconomic data which are compared with European Union. Main purpose is to find out causes of high unemployment rate of young people, who are a threatened group on the labour market and thus experienced the biggest impact of economic depression. Based on the undertaken analysis, one of the main causes, beside the economic depression, is also rigid labour legislation which leads to dual labour market. Other significant factors are also education and immigration. Structural reforms conducted on the labour market in the years 2010 and 2012 are valuated, despite certain fractional less successful measures, as positive.

This dissertation analyzes the strategies that Spanish and Hispano-African authors employ when writing about Africa in the contemporary novel (1990-2010). Focusing on the former Spanish colonial territories of Morocco, Western Sahara, and Equatorial Guinea, I analyze the post-colonial literary discourse about these regions. This study examines the new ways of conceptualizing Africa that depart from an Orientalist framework as advanced by the novelists Lorenzo Silva, Concha López Sarasúa, Ramón Mayrata, María Dueñas, Fernando Gamboa, Montserrat Abumalham, Javier Reverte, Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa, and Donato Ndongo. Their works are representative of a recent trend in Spanish letters that signals a literary focus on Africa and the African Other. I examine these contemporary novels within their historical context, specifically engaging with the theoretical ideas of Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), to determine to what extent his analysis of Orientalist discourse still holds value for a study of the Spanish novel of thirty years later. In addition, the work of theorists such as Gil Anidjar, Emmanuel Levinas, James C. Scott, Ryszard Kapuściński, Georges Van den Abbeele and Chandra Mohanty contribute to the analyses of specific works. These theorists provide a theoretical framework for my thesis that contemporary Spanish authors are writing Africa in ways that undermine and circumvent the legacy of Orientalist discourse. I seek to highlight the innovative approaches that these authors are taking towards their literary engagement with Africa. The imaginary that pertains to Africa has served an integral role in the history and creation of modern Spain, and it is illuminating to trace the influences that it continues to exert on Spanish writers. In the last thirty years, Spain’s relationship with Africa has dramatically changed through peace treaties, the independence of nations, migratory patterns, tourism, and in other substantial ways. Within this dissertation, I address these changes by focusing on literary representations of political engagement, gender issues, and travel to highlight how Africa is represented in light of these recent developments. As Spanish authors continue to engage with and to write about Africa, this study hopes to show that Orientalism is no longer a prevalent discourse in the contemporary Spanish novel.

The Western Mediterranean realm is considered as a region highly sensitive with regard to climate changes and landscape transformations. Within its semi arid and semi humid areas, even slight climatic changes but also human interventions may result in far-reaching consequences in respect of environment and ecological systems. Thus, research on landscape development has a high relevance in geosciences, especially in the light of current climate change research. It is a major concern to reveal regularities and patterns in past landscape evolution in order to provide a basis for the assessment of future developments. For the reconstruction of late Quaternary environmental conditions fluvial sediments play an important role as they almost uniquely reflect landscapes and landscape changes on a regional scale. This is due to the fact that fluvial dynamics and all enclosed processes are based on multi-causal relationships and a variety of factors like climatic conditions, vegetation development, human impact, or tectonic activity finds expression in fluvial dynamics. About 70 % of the Iberian Peninsula is influenced by moist Atlantic air masses, but in the whole area there is a considerable research gap concerning the exploration of fluvial archives. Taking this into account, this dissertation aims to systematically work out fluvial sediment successions of two river systems, namely the Jarama River in central Spain and the Guadalete River in southwestern Spain. For complementary considerations, first stratigraphic results from the middle to lower Guadalquivir River in southern Spain will be consulted. In a first step, the objective is to intensively study and document sediment profiles for the purpose of deriving a valuable composite profile for each river system. In a second step, the significance of these composite profiles regarding palaeoenvironmental conditions as well as changes will be examined. Beside the reaction of fluvial systems towards climatic changes, relationships with other influencing factors are a main issue. On the basis of a supra-regional comparison a possible coupling of fluvial geomorphic systems and large-scale climate fluctuations shall be analyzed. Furthermore, it is intended to address issues like system connectivity or varying response times and response durations. The bases for these considerations are abundant sedimentary profile records supported by electrical resistivity tomography and percussion drillings. Stratigraphic work includes the differentiation of sediment units, the identification of soil horizons, and the correlation of specific layers and horizons across different profile sections based on sedimentologic and pedogenetic characteristics. Subsequent soil-chemical and sedimentological laboratory analyses on certain key-profiles imply grain-size analyses, the measurement of organic carbon content, calcium carbonate content, pedogenic and total iron contents, as well as magnetic susceptibility. Laboratory analyses are used to strengthen results of field work and to differentiate between soils and soil sediments in ambiguous cases. The chronological resolution of the sediment successions will be provided by radiocarbon dating. The final aim is to work out a detailed fluvial sedimentation history for the late Quaternary. The precise characterization of the catchment areas, together with a comparison of the stratigraphic findings and secondary archive information from the literature, will enable the identification of relationships between fluvial dynamics and different influencing factors. In this dissertation, 36 profile sections have been worked out intensively. Furthermore, 13 percussion drillings were conducted in floodplain positions with insufficient exposure conditions. For the chronological frame 70 radiocarbon samples have been dated. The obtained results show a significant pattern of sedimentation periods and phases of stability associated with soil formation for each river system. The sedimentation history of the Guadalete and Guadalquivir Rivers could be reconstructed for the last 15 ka, while conclusions with regard to sedimentation dynamics of the Jarama River could be drawn for a period of 43 ka. Thanks to an abundance of available studies on other terrestrial archives with climatic or environmental relevance, it was possible to assess the influence of different parameters such as climate, vegetation, humankind, tectonics, and base-level changes on fluvial sedimentation dynamics. It emerged that, first and foremost, rapid climate changes had significant impact on the mobilization of sediments in the catchment area as well as their deposition in floodplain positions. On the other hand prolonged periods of climatic amelioration caused floodplain stability along with soil formation, as documented for the time spans between 13.3 and 12.7 ka, 7 and 5.1 ka, 2.8 and 2.3 ka, 1.4 and 1.2 ka, as well as 0.8 and 0.5 ka cal. BP in several river systems. Periods of increased sedimentation were initiated by phases of climatic aridification that affected fluvial systems through the weakening of the vegetation cover and the accentuation of the hydrological discharge regime. Corresponding patterns have been found for the time intervals between 8 and 7 ka, 5 and 3.8 ka, 2.2 and 1.5 ka, as well as around 1 ka and 0.4 ka cal. BP. The supra-regional effectiveness of the factor climate is contrasted by a strong regional individuality of the river catchments that is expressed by further, regionally limited phases of fluvial activity. Crucial to this development – apart from regional climate differences – are, inter alia, tectonic movements as evidenced for the Jarama River system in central Spain, or late Pleistocene and Holocene sea-level fluctuations that primarily affected fluvial dynamics along the lower course of the Guadalete River in southwestern Spain. Furthermore, it can be shown that variations in time and duration of fluvial system response are attributable to differing buffer capacities of river catchments towards external influences. The increase of human impact during the late Holocene apparently provoked a reinforcement of the effects of climatic impulses. There are clear evidences for the participation of humans in the mobilization of sediments; however, concerning the degree of influence it is hardly possible to differentiate between the factors humans and climate<br>Der westliche Mediterranraum gilt als landschaftlich und klimatisch hochsensible Region, für deren semiaride bis semihumide Gebiete bereits kleinere klimatische Änderungen, aber auch Eingriffe des Menschen, mit weitreichenden Folgen für Umwelt und ökologische Systeme verbunden sein können. Forschungen zum Landschaftswandel nehmen hier vor allem vor dem Hintergrund des derzeitigen Klimawandels einen hohen Stellenwert in den Geowissenschaften ein. Ein wichtiges Anliegen ist dabei, in früheren Landschaftswandeln Muster zu entdecken, welche als Grundlage für Bewertungen zukünftiger Veränderungen dienen können. Für die Rekonstruktion spätquartärer Umweltbedingungen kommt fluvialen Sedimenten eine besondere Rolle zu. Wie kein anderes Archiv spiegeln fluviale Sedimentabfolgen Landschaftszustände und -entwicklung auf regionaler Ebene wieder. Dies ist dem Umstand geschuldet, dass fluviale Dynamik mit allen inbegriffenen Prozessen auf polykausalen Zusammenhängen beruht und somit eine Vielzahl an Faktoren, wie klimatische Verhältnisse und Vegetationsentwicklung, menschliche Einflussnahme oder tektonische Aktivität Ausdruck in fluvialer Dynamik finden. Von feuchten atlantischen Luftmassen geprägte Gebiete nehmen etwa 70 % der Fläche der Iberischen Halbinsel ein, allerdings besteht hier eine erhebliche Forschungslücke im Bereich der Analyse fluvialer Archive. Diesem Umstand soll in vorliegender Dissertation in Form einer systematischen Aufarbeitung der fluvialen Sedimentabfolgen zweier Flusssysteme in Zentralspanien (Rio Jarama), sowie in SW-Spanien (Rio Guadalete) Rechnung getragen werden. Für ergänzende Betrachtungen werden dabei erste Befunde zur stratigraphischen Gliederung des Guadalquivir-Mittellaufes in S-Spanien herangezogen. Ziel der Arbeiten ist es zunächst über umfangreiche Aufnahmen und Dokumentationen von Sedimentprofilen ein belastbares Standardprofil für jedes Flusssystem zu erarbeiten und dieses hinsichtlich der Aussagekraft in Bezug auf Paläoumweltbedingungen und vor allem -wandeln zu prüfen. Neben der möglichen Reaktion fluvialer Systeme auf klimatische Änderungen, stehen dabei vor allem auch Beziehungsgeflechte zu anderen Einflussfaktoren im Vordergrund. Anhand eines überregionalen Vergleichs soll eine mögliche Kopplung fluvialmorphologischer Systeme an großräumige Klimafluktuationen untersucht werden, zudem soll weiteren Themenkomplexen, wie der Konnektivität verschiedener Systeme oder unterschiedlichen Reaktionszeiten und -geschwindigkeiten nachgegangen werden. Grundlage für diese Betrachtungen bilden dabei aus zahlreichen Geländeaufnahmen resultierende Profilaufnahmen, sowie Ergebnisse geoelektrischer Messungen und Bohrsondierungen. Stratigraphische Arbeiten belaufen sich zunächst auf die Untergliederung verschiedener Sedimenteinheiten, die Ausweisung von Bodenhorizonten, sowie die Korrelation einzelner Schichten und Horizonte über unterschiedliche Profile hinweg anhand charakteristischer sedimentologischer und pedogenetischer Merkmale. Nachfolgende bodenchemische und sedimentologische Laboruntersuchungen an ausgewählten Profilen sollen über die Bestimmung von Korngrößenverhältnissen, Gehalten an organischem Kohlenstoff, Kalk- und Eisengehalten, sowie der magnetischen Suszeptibilität die Geländebefunde stützen und in unklaren Fällen eine Unterscheidung von Böden und Bodensedimenten erleichtern. Die zeitliche Auflösung der Sedimentabfolgen soll über Radiokarbondatierungen realisiert werden, mit dem letztendlichen Ziel, eine detaillierte fluviale Sedimentationsgeschichte für das Spätquartär zu erarbeiten. In einem weiteren Schritt werden begleitend zu einer detaillierten Einzugsgebietscharakteristik die chronostratigraphischen Befunde einem intensiven Vergleich mit in der Literatur verfügbaren Studien an Sekundärarchiven zugeführt, um Beziehungsgeflechte zwischen fluvialer Dynamik und verschiedenen Einflussfaktoren aufzudecken. Im Rahmen dieser Dissertation konnten zunächst 36 Profilaufschlüsse detailliert bearbeitet und zudem 13 Rammkernsondierungen in Flussauenpositionen abgeteuft werden. Für den chronologischen Rahmen wurden 70 Radiokohlenstoffproben datiert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen ein deutliches Muster von Sedimentationsphasen und Zeiten der Stabilität mit einhergehender Bodenbildung für jedes Flusseinzugsgebiet. Dabei konnte die Sedimentationsgeschichte der Flusssysteme Rio Guadalete und Rio Guadalquivir für die letzten 15.000 Jahre und des Rio Jarama für die letzten 43 ka rekonstruiert werden. Dank der Fülle an verfügbaren Studien an terrestrischen Vergleichsarchiven mit klima- und umweltrelevantem Bezug war es möglich, den Einfluss der unterschiedlichen Parameter Klima, Vegetation, Mensch und Tektonik, bzw. Erosionsbasis auf die fluviale Sedimentationsdynamik zu prüfen. So zeigte sich, dass vor allem rasche Klimaänderungen in der Lage waren die Mobilisierung von Sedimenten im Einzugsgebiet und deren Ablagerung in den Flussauen zu initiieren. Dahingegen bewirkten anhaltende klimatische Gunstphasen eine Stabilisierung mit einhergehender Bodenbildung, wie für die Zeiträume zwischen 13.3 und 12.7 ka, 7 und 5.1 ka, 2.8 und 2.3 ka, 1.4 und 1.2 ka, sowie 0.8 und 0.5 ka cal. BP für sämtliche Flusssysteme zu verzeichnen ist. Perioden verstärkter Sedimentation folgten in der Regel Phasen klimatischer Aridifizierung, welche über eine Schwächung der Vegetationsbedeckung und Akzentuierung des hydrologischen Abflussregimes in der Lage waren auf das fluviale System Einfluss zu nehmen. Entsprechende Muster konnten für die Zeiträume zwischen 8 und 7 ka, 5 und 3.8 ka, 2.2 und 1.5 ka, sowie um 1 ka als auch 0.4 ka cal. BP dokumentiert werden. Dem überregional wirksamen Einfluss des Faktors Klima steht jedoch eine starke landschaftsgeschichtliche Individualität der verschiedenen Regionen gegenüber, welche in weiteren, regional begrenzten Phasen fluvialer Aktivität zum Ausdruck kommt. Ausschlaggebend sind hier neben der Ausbildung regionaler Klimaunterschiede unter Anderem tektonische Verstellungen, welche für das in Zentralspanien gelegene System des Rio Jarama belegt werden konnten, oder spätpleistozäne und holozäne Meeresspiegelschwankungen, welche sich vor allem auf die fluviale Dynamik im Unterlauf des in SW-Spanien gelegenen Rio Guadalete auswirkten. Desweiteren können Unterschiede in Reaktionsdauer und -geschwindigkeit fluvialer Systeme mit variierendem Puffervermögen der Flusseinzugsgebiete gegenüber äußeren Einflüssen erklärt werden. Das intensivierte Wirken des Menschen im Spätholozän führte allem Anschein nach zu einer Verstärkung der Wirkung klimatischer Impulse, wobei sich klare Evidenzen für eine Beteiligung des Menschen an der Sedimentmobilisierung erkennen lassen, der Umfang des Einflusses des Menschen aber in der Regel nicht klar von dem des Klimas zu trennen ist

The thesis studies one of the main problems in Spain: mass unemployment. It is not a short-term problem, but a structural feature of the Spanish socio-economic system since at least the end of the 1970s, which remains unresolved. We argue that the fundamental cause of this mass unemployment lies in the deficient Spanish productive system and its peripheral integration into European and global capitalism. This is most apparent in the collapse of the Francoist economic regime and the crisis of the democratic Transition, when the unemployment rate shot up to 21%. This legacy endures, chiefly, because the mentioned causes persist, which in addition impose the “external constraint” on economic growth and employment. The process is as follows: 1) when the economy grows and generates employment, imports increase faster than imports and far exceed them; 2) typically, the deficit has to be financed by some sort of foreign indebtedness, until 3) the capacity to pay these liabilities is called into question and difficulties in accessing external finance arise. All of this forces or compounds a more or less traumatic contraction of domestic demand to bring external deficits down to the level for which they can obtain foreign finance. So it happened in the developments leading to the Stabilisation Plan (1959) and through the crisis of the democratic Transition (1977-1985), the accelerated integration into the European Union (1986-1993) and the millennial boom leading to the current crisis. Besides, international trade relations also impact domestic employment when foreign finance does not falter. Between 1995 and 2007, the number of hours worked in Spain increased by 44%. Out of this rise, we prove that the vast majority (41.3 percentage points) corresponds to “Domestic Effects” and 2.7 to “Foreign Effects”. Therefore, Spanish employment benefited from international trade despite the huge trade deficits. Nonetheless, we also show that these trade relations, the Spanish productive model and the economic growth rates above those of the main trade partners implied an increasing accumulation of foreign debt. The effects of these changes in international competitiveness were negligible and, contrary to conventional opinion, more beneficial to Spain than to Germany, France and Italy. Catalysed by Global Financial Crisis, by 2008 it became apparent both the private and foreign over-indebtedness, which were two sides of the same coin. This prevented the reproduction of the growth model. As a consequence, and given the “austeritarian” stance of the Eurozone’s, Spain operates again, de facto, under the external constraint, which hinders the viability of policies for a return to growth as a sustainable remedy for mass unemployment. The thesis also provides theoretical and methodological contributions to the field of macroeconomics and suggests broad policy recommendations.<br>La tesi estudia un dels principals problemes d’Espanya: l’atur de masses. No és un problema conjuntural, sinó una característica estructural del sistema soci-econòmic espanyol com a mínim des de finals dels anys 1970, que no s’ha resolt mai. Argumentem que la causa principal d’aquest atur de masses resideix en la deficient estructura productiva espanyola i la seva integració perifèrica en el capitalisme europeu i global. Això és especialment evident en el col·lapse del sistema econòmic franquista i la crisi de la Transició a la democràcia (1977—1985), quan es va disparar la taxa d’atur fins al 21%. Aquest llegat perdura, sobretot, perquè també ho fan les causes esmentades, que a més imposen la “restricció externa” al creixement econòmic i de l’ocupació. El procés és el següent: 1) quan l’economia creix i genera ocupació, les importacions creixen més i superen de llarg les exportacions; 2) el dèficit típicament s’ha de finançar amb alguna forma d’endeutament extern, fins que 3) la capacitat de pagament d’aquest passiu és qüestionada i sorgeixen dificultats per seguir accedint al finançament extern. Això força o agreuja una contracció de la demanda domèstica més o menys traumàtica per reduir els dèficits fins al nivell que poden obtenir finançament. Així es comprova en la trajectòria que va conduir al Pla d’Estabilització (1959), durant la crisi de la Transició democràtica (1977—1985), amb l’accelerada integració a la Unió Europea (1986—1993) i l’expansió que desemboca en la crisi actual. Però les relacions comercials també afecten l’ocupació domèstica quan el finançament extern no escasseja. Comprovem que de l’augment del 44% de les hores treballades a Espanya entre el 1995 i 2007, la immensa majoria (41,3 punts percentuals) correspon a ‘efectes domèstics’ i 2,7 a ‘efectes externs’. Així, l’ocupació espanyola es va veure directament beneficiada per les relacions comercials amb l’exterior tot i l’enorme dèficit comercial. Ara bé, també mostrem que aquestes mateixes relacions, model productiu i taxes de creixement econòmic per sobre dels nostres socis comercials van comportar l’acumulació creixent de deute extern. L’efecte dels canvis en la competitivitat internacional va ser molt menor i, contràriament al discurs dominant, més beneficiosos per Espanya que per Alemanya, França i Itàlia. Amb l’esclat de la crisi financera global es va evidenciar tant el sobreendeutament privat com l’exterior, que eren dues cares de la mateixa moneda. Això va impedir reproduir el patró de creixement. En conseqüència, i ateses les polítiques “d’austeritat” de l’Eurozona, Espanya opera un cop més, de facto, sota la restricció externa, que dificulta la viabilitat de les polítiques necessàries per un retorn al creixement com a remei contra l’atur massiu. La tesi també fa contribucions teòriques i metodològiques a la macroeconomia i proposa línies de política econòmica.

Nous avons investigué les propriétés des champs de jauge de spin élevé libres à travers une étude de divers aspects de leur dynamique hamiltonienne. Pour des champs se propageant sur un espace-temps plat, les contraintes issues de l'analyse hamiltonienne de ces théories de jauge ont été identifiées et résolues par l'introduction de prépotentiels, dont l'invariance de jauge comprend, de façon intrigante, à la fois des difféomorphismes linéarisés généralisés et des transformations d'échelle de Weyl généralisées et linéarisées. Cela a motivé notre étude systématique des invariants conformes pour les spins élevés. Les invariants correspondants ont été construits à l'aide du tenseur de Cotton, dont nous avons établi les propriétés essentielles (symétrie, conservation, trace nulle; invariance, complétude). Avec ces outils géométriques, l'analyse hamiltonienne a pu être complétée et une action du premier ordre écrite en termes des prépotentiels. Nous avons constaté que cette action possédait une invariance manifeste par dualité électromagnétique; cette invariance, combinée à l'invariance de jauge des prépotentiels, fixe d'ailleurs uniquement l'action. En outre, de façon générale, cette action s'est révélée être exactement celle obtenue à travers une réécriture des équations du mouvement des spins élevés comme des conditions d'auto-dualité tordue (non manifestement covariantes).Avec un intérêt pour les extensions supersymétriques, nous avons amorcé la généralisation de cette étude aux champs fermioniques. Le champ de masse nulle libre de spin 5/2 a été soumis à la même analyse, et son prépotentiel s'est révélé partager l'invariance de jauge conforme déjà observée dans le cas bosonique général. Le supermultiplet incorporant les spins 2 et 5/2 a ensuite été considéré, et une symétrie rigide de son action, combinant une transformation de dualité électromagnétique du spin 2 avec une transformation de chiralité du spin 5/2 a été construite pour commuter avec la supersymétrie. Dans une autre direction, nous avons étudié les propriétés d'un champ tensoriel chiral de symétrie mixte dans un espace-temps plat à six dimensions: une (2,2)-forme. Son analyse hamiltonienne a été réalisée, des prépotentiels introduits et l'action de premier ordre obtenue s'est encore une fois révélée être la même que celle obtenue à travers une réécriture des équations du mouvement comme des conditions d'auto-chiralité (non manifestement covariante).Finalement, nous nous sommes penchés sur les charges de surface des champs fermioniques et bosoniques de spin élevé se propageant sur un espace-temps à courbure constante. Cela a été réalisé par une analyse hamiltonienne de ces systèmes, les contraintes étant identifiées aux générateurs des transformations de jauge. Injectant dans ces générateurs des valeurs des paramètres des transformations de jauge correspondant à des transformations impropres de jauge (imposant une réelle variation physique sur les champs) a ensuite permis d'évaluer la valeur de ces générateurs pour des champs résolvant les équations du mouvement: elle s'est bien révélée finie et non-nulle, constituant les charges de surface de ces théories.<br>Doctorat en Sciences<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Aquesta tesi doctoral tracta sobre l’estudi de les inversions del sector assegurador espanyol en el període cronològic 1984-2015. El marc temporal ve delimitat pels canvis legislatius. De manera resumida, els objectius de la tesi doctoral s’enumeren tot seguit. En primer lloc, revisar els antecedents històrics, la regulació i les contribucions bibliogràfiques des de la vessant inversora de les entitats per tal de complementar la visió de conjunt que es té del sector assegurador. En segon lloc, recopilar magnituds quantitatives sobre diverses variables relacionades amb el sector assegurador que permetin estimar la seva evolució en perspectiva històrica i subratllar els canvis i tendències en el comportament del sector. En tercer lloc, analitzar la contribució del sector assegurador a l’estabilitat del sistema econòmic en general. En quart lloc, es pretén identificar l’estratègia d’inversió del sector a partir de l’anàlisi de les característiques estructurals de la cartera. En cinquè lloc, aportar evidència empírica sobre el paper del sector assegurador en el finançament del deute públic espanyol. Finalment, en sisè lloc, situar la importància del sector assegurador espanyol en el context internacional i apuntar diferències i similituds en les pautes d’inversió dels diferents països de l’entorn europeu. Aquesta tesi indaga sobre els factors que confereixen solvència financera al sector assegurador espanyol, per tal d’esbrinar com s’ha blindat per afrontar les fluctuacions dels mercats financers. El sector assegurador espanyol gestiona uns recursos considerables (227.427 milions d'euros, que representen el 21,03% del PIB, l'any 2015) i d’una importància creixent (l'any 1986, les inversions només representaven el 3,29% del PIB). Per tant, la gran dimensió que ha assolit el volum de les inversions del sector assegurador espanyol justifica la seva anàlisi detallada per les conseqüències que té en l’estabilitat de determinats segments dels mercats financers i per la creixent influència que està assolint el sector assegurador en el conjunt de l’estalvi nacional. Abans de 1984, hi havia condicionants històrics, legals i financers que limitaven la diversificació de les inversions de les entitats asseguradores espanyoles. Després de la liberalització de l’any 1984, del desenvolupament d’alternatives reals d’inversió i de l’experiència comparada d’altres països, l’estratègia conservadora no s’ha modificat i la diversificació és una assignatura pendent. Malgrat l’aixecament de les restriccions, el deute públic espanyol continua sent el principal actiu de la cartera. En el període 1984-2015, les companyies del sector han dedicat una mitjana del 27,48% del total de les seves inversions a comprar deute públic espanyol. L’observació de l’evolució de l’estructura percentual del balanç de les entitats asseguradores espanyoles reflexa amb claredat l’augment de la renda fixa, en detriment dels immobles. L’any 1984, la renda fixa representava el 21,65% de l’actiu, mentre que l’any 2008 ja sumava el 55,64%. Aquest moviment ha estat causat per l’increment del negoci del ram vida, ja que l’actiu financer que millor s’adequa a la dinàmica dels seus compromisos són els bons de renda fixa, tenint en compte que cal garantir rendibilitat i estabilitat a llarg termini. D’altra banda, canvis normatius provinents d’Europa i un entorn inflacionari més controlat van limitar l’aptitud dels immobles com a instrument de cobertura de les provisions tècniques. L’any 1984, les inversions immobiliàries sumaven el 18,24%, mentre que l’any 2008 únicament representaven el 2,66%. En relació a la renda variable, la inversió s’ha mantingut en uns nivells anecdòtics, entre l’1,29% i el 4,20% de l’actiu de les entitats asseguradores espanyoles, en el període 1984-2008. Així doncs, malgrat l’aixecament de les restriccions legals que històricament havien condicionat la composició d’actius i malgrat el desenvolupament del mercat borsari espanyol com a alternativa real d’inversió, la renda variable no ha trobat el seu lloc en la distribució d’actius del sector assegurador espanyol.

This thesis investigates the gradient flow of Dirac-harmonic maps. Dirac-harmonic maps are critical points of an energy functional that is motivated from supersymmetric field theories. The critical points of this energy functional couple the equation for harmonic maps with spinor fields. At present, many analytical properties of Dirac-harmonic maps are known, but a general existence result is still missing. In this thesis the existence question is studied using the evolution equations for a regularized version of Dirac-harmonic maps. Since the energy functional for Dirac-harmonic maps is unbounded from below the method of the gradient flow cannot be applied directly. Thus, we first of all consider a regularization prescription for Dirac-harmonic maps and then study the gradient flow. Chapter 1 gives some background material on harmonic maps/harmonic spinors and summarizes the current known results about Dirac-harmonic maps. Chapter 2 introduces the notion of Dirac-harmonic maps in detail and presents a regularization prescription for Dirac-harmonic maps. In Chapter 3 the evolution equations for regularized Dirac-harmonic maps are introduced. In addition, the evolution of certain energies is discussed. Moreover, the existence of a short-time solution to the evolution equations is established. Chapter 4 analyzes the evolution equations in the case that the domain manifold is a closed curve. Here, the existence of a smooth long-time solution is proven. Moreover, for the regularization being large enough, it is shown that the evolution equations converge to a regularized Dirac-harmonic map. Finally, it is discussed in which sense the regularization can be removed. In Chapter 5 the evolution equations are studied when the domain manifold is a closed Riemmannian spin surface. For the regularization being large enough, the existence of a global weak solution, which is smooth away from finitely many singularities is proven. It is shown that the evolution equations converge weakly to a regularized Dirac-harmonic map. In addition, it is discussed if the regularization can be removed in this case.<br>Die vorliegende Dissertation untersucht den Gradientenfluss von Dirac-harmonischen Abbildungen. Dirac-harmonische Abbildungen sind kritische Punkte eines Energiefunktionals, welches aus supersymmetrischen Feldtheorien motiviert ist. Die kritischen Punkte dieses Energiefunktionals koppeln die Gleichung für harmonische Abbildungen mit Spinorfeldern. Viele analytische Eigenschaften von Dirac-harmonischen Abbildungen sind bereits bekannt, ein allgemeines Existenzresultat wurde aber noch nicht erzielt. Diese Dissertation untersucht das Existenzproblem, indem der Gradientenfluss von einer regularisierten Version Dirac-harmonischer Abbildungen untersucht wird. Die Methode des Gradientenflusses kann nicht direkt angewendet werden, da das Energiefunktional für Dirac-harmonische Abbildungen nach unten unbeschränkt ist. Daher wird zunächst eine Regularisierungsvorschrift für Dirac-harmonische Abbildungen eingeführt und dann der Gradientenfluss betrachtet. Kapitel 1 stellt für die Arbeit wichtige Resultate über harmonische Abbildungen/harmonische Spinoren zusammen. Außerdem werden die zur Zeit bekannten Resultate über Dirac-harmonische Abbildungen zusammengefasst. In Kapitel 2 werden Dirac-harmonische Abbildungen im Detail eingeführt, außerdem wird eine Regularisierungsvorschrift präsentiert. Kapitel 3 führt die Evolutionsgleichungen für regularisierte Dirac-harmonische Abbildungen ein. Zusätzlich wird die Evolution von verschiedenen Energien diskutiert. Schließlich wird die Existenz einer Kurzzeitlösung bewiesen. In Kapitel 4 werden die Evolutionsgleichungen für den Fall analysiert, dass die Ursprungsmannigfaltigkeit eine geschlossene Kurve ist. Die Existenz einer Langzeitlösung der Evolutionsgleichungen wird bewiesen. Es wird außerdem gezeigt, dass die Evolutionsgleichungen konvergieren, falls die Regularisierung groß genug gewählt wurde. Schließlich wird diskutiert, ob die Regularisierung wieder entfernt werden kann. Kapitel 5 schlussendlich untersucht die Evolutionsgleichungen für den Fall, dass die Ursprungsmannigfaltigkeit eine geschlossene Riemannsche Spin Fläche ist. Es wird die Existenz einer global schwachen Lösung bewiesen, welche bis auf endlich viele Singularitäten glatt ist. Die Lösung konvergiert im schwachen Sinne gegen eine regularisierte Dirac-harmonische Abbildung. Auch hier wird schließlich untersucht, ob die Regularisierung wieder entfernt werden kann.

Le décret royal du 1924 est souvent considéré le point culminant de la campagne séfardiste du sénateur espagnol Ángel Pulido. Il s'agit d'une initiative qui reflète l’ambiguë de toutes les dynamiques espagnoles envers les Séfarades. La loi de 2015, relative à l’octroi de la nationalité aux descendants des juifs expulsés au XV siècle, et le décret royal de 1924 ont été choisis respectivement comme le point d'arrivée et le point de départ de ce travail. Durant cette période, a eu lieu une série d'événements qui ont constitué l'épine dorsale de cette communauté imaginée appelée Sefarad. Sefarad correspond à un espace indéfini résultant d'une erreur d'interprétation biblique. Cependant, pendant des siècles l'idée de Sefarad a continué à être associée à l'espace géographique connu comme l'Espagne et, à partir de la seconde moitié du XXe siècle, le gouvernement espagnol s'est de plus en plus identifié à cet espace idéal. Ce processus de superposition vise à soutenir les intérêts nationaux. La loi de 2015, ainsi que le décret royal de 1924, sont deux initiatives qui s’adressent à l'opinion publique internationale plutôt qu’aux Séfarades. Ces deux lois sont révélatrices d'une tendance politique espagnole basée sur des argumentations séfardistes. L'objectif de ce travail est donc de montrer comment le gouvernement espagnol, à travers la reproduction de cette rhétorique séfardiste, a réussi à reconstruire une communauté imaginée connu comme Sefarad<br>The Royal Decree of 1924 is often considered the culminating point of the campaign of Spanish senator Ángel Pulido. It’s an initiative that reflects the Spanish ambiguity towards Sephardim. The law of 2015 concerning the granting of nationality to descendants of Jews expelled in the XV century and the Royal Decree of 1924 were respectively chosen as the starting point and the end point of the present work. During this period, there was a series of events that have been the backbone of this imagined community called Sepharad. Sepharad corresponds to an undefined space resulting from a biblical misinterpretation. However, for centuries the idea of Sepharad continued to be associated with the geographical area known as Spain. From the second half of the twentieth century, the Spanish government has increasingly identified himself with this ideal space. This superposition process aims to support the national interests. The law of 2015 and the Royal Decree of 1924, are two initiatives addressed to the international public opinion rather than Sephardim. These two laws are indicative of a Spanish political tendency based on sephardist argumentations. The purpose of this work is to show how the Spanish Government, through the reproduction of this sephardist rhetoric, managed to rebuild an imagined community known as Sepharad