The Future of Democracy: Developing the Next Generation of Citizens

                  We all should concern to promote and support civic engagement and political participation to better outcomes in democracy and development. And to encourage this participation and debate, an ethical, correct and effective electoral and political system is essential. Respect to freedom of speech, respect to privacy, an election without fraud are pillars of democracy and to an engaged citizenship. This post is a summary of the chapter one  and chapter four and published at http://poli375engage.pbworks.com/f/The+Future+of+Democracy.pdf of the book with the incomplete title above, from the series with the title of, "Civil Society: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives".

               The purpose of civic education, broadly defined, is to enhanced the civic engagement. This definition of 'civic engagement' encompasses some aspects of life that we do not usually tag with that label. For example, fundamental research on cancer promises to provide basic knowledge, which is a public or common good of enormous value. Therefore, a cancer researcher is civically engaged, by my definition. To be sure, science is not identical to volunteering or political participation, it has its own standards, logic, and history. In defining civic engagement, I have not invoked a contrast between self-interest and altruism. civic engagement is behavior that influences public matters. One can work for the narrow interests of one's own group. Or one can act in one's individual self-interest. We may admire altruistic engagement more than selfish advocacy, but they are both legitimate. Although we should not exclude self-interested motivations, it is a mistake to assume that participation is always narrowly self-interested. History provides many dramatic examples of altruism and public-spiritedness, including heroic self-sacrifice. And on a daily basis, people frequently define their identities in ways that are not highly individualistic. Often a person participates in civic life not as "I" but as "we" and the we can range from a family to the entire nation. If people always calculated the potential costs and benefits of their behavior to themselves as individuals, then no one would vote. We sometimes define political actors by arraying them on a spectrum from left to right. However, there is another dimension of politics that is orthogonal to this one. At one end of this civic spectrum is a highly participatory, constructive, deliberative, and equitable polity. At the other end is a murderous tyranny. Quite apart from where they stand on the issues that divide the left from the right, people can either be pro- or anticivic. To be civically engaged means not only pursuing legitimate concrete goals (including one's own self-interested and matters of moral principle) but also caring about political system and political culture. Someone who is engaged does not merely participate in politics. He also pauses to ask: Are most people allowed to participate? Or are many citizens completely alienated or excluded? Do we seriously consider a broad range of positions? Do good arguments and reasons count, or has politics become just a clash of money and power? Can we achieve progress on the goals that we happen to share, or have our disagreements become so sharp that we can not ever cooperate? We should support representative political institutions and norms of equality and participation, public goods that are essential to our democracy. Caring about the quality of our democratic system creates a set of ethical dilemmas. The Progressive reform of the early 1900s provides a cautionary example. In an effort to enhance the quality of public discourse and civic participation, Progressives supported nonpartisan newspapers . They restricted the influence of political parties, on the theory that citizens should choose individuals not slates of candidates prescreened by party bosses. One major result of these reforms was to reduce voter turnout, which was lower in 1924. It is much more difficult to participate as a independent, critical individual than as a member of a party. The quality of public reasoning possibly improved after the reforms. It is important to be concerned about the quality of public institutions and debates. While most citizens engage politically as members of some party, we also need citizens to fill nonpartisan roles, ensuring that elections are fair and government is transparent and ethical. While it is useful for editorial writers and bloggers, we also need neutral and factual reporters. We also need organizations to worry about the overall political process and culture. The definition of "civic engagement" that has emerged so far is any action that affects legitimately public matters as long as the actor pays appropriate attention to the consequences of his behavior for the political system. We need citizens to be concerned about our political system and culture and try to improve it, without favoring any particular ideology. Yet, ideological and even self-interested participation is also civic engagement and is part of the system. In this chapter I move to the psychological and developmental benefits that young people may reap from civic engagement itself. It is clear from surveys results that young people who are civically engaged also tend to develop in healthy ways. There is some debate about causality. Civic engagement could improve educational and health outcomes, or the reverse could be true, or both outcomes could arise from some third factor. In one longitudinal study, the correlation between volunteering and success in school was explained by the fact that the more seccessful students chose to volunteer (not the reverse).In that study, volunteering increased participants' interest in pursuing meaningful career, rather than simply making money. It can be profoundly alienating to treat adolescents as potential problems or threats who have nothing to offer a community until they grow up. Voluntary civic engagement may be especially valuable in a culture, which offers most adolescents very little responsibility until they leave their families. Most high school students have little scope for "initiative". a key word in Erik Erickson's developmental theory that Reed Larson defines as "self-directed attention over time". Larson cites evidence that students who work in community organizations learn new ways of speaking about projects that reflect longer time horizont, greater cognitive complexity, and more psychological investment. These changes will serve the youth well in the workforce. In adolescence, Erikson believed, the main task was to develop an identity that would be the basis of career aspirations. They are more likely to form healthy and ethical identities if they have opportunities to join groups that define their membership in ethical terms: for example, service groups that enroll anyone who is truly willing to help. Perhaps more important, the Positive Youth Development approach meets some of our core moral institutions, a long tradition of ethics when he argued that we have two fundamental duties in life: to develop our own character and virtues and to help other pursue reasonable ends of their own choice. To corral other people into behaviors that we find desirable would violate their autonomy. But if we fail to support their development into autonomous, reasonable decision-makers, we shirk a duty. To be sure, children lack full autonomy and can be directed toward a desirable outcome in the interest of their own freedom as adults. This attitude is always the most ethical way to treat other human beings, so long as our efforts to respect their autonomy do not backfire for practical reasons. James Younis and Daniel Hart have more than a dozen studies that follow young people into adulthood and ask questions about their civic engagement and values. One possible explanation is that some people have a personality trait, moral value, or other internal characteristic that predispose them to participate when they are young and still applies when they are older. In that case, the correlation between civic experience and civic values, skills and habits does not reflect causality, it results from some underlying psychological characteristic of an individual. Those who have the right predisposition will participate as soon as they find an opportunity, even if they must wait for adulthood. Our best hope, then is to change hearts and minds:to make people feel more civically responsible. Civic education is mostly a matter of moral exhortation or exposing youth to role models. Young people's behavior within this autonomous sphere is enormously consequential. If an adolescent joins a gang and commits a crime, he can easily ruin his life as well as that of his victims. If he joins the political debate team, then he and his friends can substantially increase their chances of attending a college and thereby boost their capacity to serve their community. It is important not to jump to the conclusion that peer effects are usually bad and that teenagers should be prevented from creating their own social networks. Furthermore, today's adolescents are closer to their parents than their predecessors were. Parents, other adults and institutions should certainly try to influence identities and peer networks by providing some mix of guidance, positive opportunities, and penalties for bad decisions. However, there are limits to what adults and institutions can acomplish, given the opacity of youth culture and young people's resistance to being manipulated. Therefore, it is important that young people themselves have the skills and the right values they need to make their own sphere as constructive as possible. If they know how to create and sustain positive voluntary associations, they may be less likely to join criminal gangs for support and fellowship. If they have skills for conflict resolution, their conflicts are less likely to turn violent. If they have the skills necessary to influence authorities with good arguments, they may be able to change policies that are counterproductive. All of these skills and values are civic. They are the same characteristics that will later make youth effective citizens of the adult polity.

How Social Media Has Changed Activism

                This post is a summary of two articles and a report. The first article is a summary of the book with the title of, "How Change Happens." http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198785392.001.0001/acprof-9780198785392-chapter-12. The second with the incomplete title above was published at http://heatherkallevig.com/how-social-media-has-changed-activism-a-look-at-the-benefits-of-online-collective-activism/ . The third summary is the report and was published in 2010 at https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wpcontent/uploads/issues/2010/04/pdf/progressive_social_movements.pdf

                 Citizen activism is considered as any individual action with social consequences. This type of activity has grown exponentially across the developing world, and is driven by several factors: rapid increases in literacy, access to education, a greater openness to political activity. Urbanization too has played a role, for cities are vividly political places, with demanding in housing, schools, clinics, water and sanitation. Technology is also a factor, which expand possibilities of networking among large groups. I have come across extraordinary citizen activists over the last thirty years. They do so for a number of reasons: to improve their neighbourhood, in response to their sense of what is right and wrong, or because working together in a common cause is fulfilling. Citizen activism certainly includes political activism, but it can be much more. Active citizens provide vital feedback to state decision makers, exert pressure for reform, or solve their problems themselves. bypassing state systems altogether. The organizations people form, known in development jargon as civil society organizations (CSO), they help citizens nourish the stock of trust and co-operation on which all societies depend. Of course, citizens' groups can also reinforce discrimination, fear, and mistrust, called 'uncivil society' by some, their activities can sometimes spill over violence, as in the case of religious or racist pogroms, football hooligans, or paramilitary organizations. Since the 1980s, activists have become prominent in the global media for leading protest movements that have ousted dozens of authoritarian regimes across Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. They have removed dictators and most recently brought down oppressive regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and Lybia. Many autocrats must live in fear that one dat tear gas from the protest outside will invade the comfort of the presidential palace, as thousand of citizens gather outside to demand justice. While other factors contribute to political transitions, boycotts, mass protest, blockades, strikes, and other civil disobedience by cohesive non-violent civic coalitions have proven vital. Most day-to-day efforts of citizens' associations are more mundane than the overthrow of governments, but they are equally important to how change happens. Factory workers, state employees, and small-scale farmers around the world have long realized that getting organized will give them the bargaining power they need to exact a better deal out of markets. Trade unions, producer associations, cooperatives, small business associations, can win fairer wages, prices, or working conditions for their members. Many of them take up lobbying for state regulation or other measures to limit the excessive but hidden power of vested interests. Civil society can help the state become more effective, and states can in turn promote citizen activism by addressing the different kinds of power. State can also promote public education on rights and discriminatory norms and values, or laws that guarantee equitable access to assets and opportunities, not to mention preventing violence and other forms of intimidation. The state can also help build the capacity of interest and identity based organizations and create an enabling environment for excluded groups to organize. Affirmative action for the political representation of disadvantage groups, as well as initiatives and reforms that promote transparency and accountability, can strengthening citizens' ability to take action. Many states see civil society's activists as a double-edged sword: useful when it delivers service and promote jobs and growth, but threatening when it seeks a more fundamental redistribution of power. Active citizens are the unsung heroes of how change happens, putting the people in democracy, holding governments to account, making states and markets work better, and ocassionally erupting into our TV screens to drive tyrants and thieves away from power. Like the other systems discussed in this book, civil society is complex. By immersing ourselves in its highways and byways, nourishing a curiosity for its endless energy, and innovation, we activists will find not only inspiration but the knowledge we need to better support change.

                  Today, thanks to the Internet and ICTs, NGOs are discovering new techniques and opportunities for voicing their cause. These new tech are transforming ways people interact and share information. Social media tech are the new platform for online activism. NGOs can effectively use these platforms to reach vast numbers of people using comments, sharing posts, e-mail, etc. Information sharing that used to take work for all involved, from the creators to the receivers, is now as easy as the click of a mouse and a few words. Activism on the tech level is faster and easier than ever before, allowing more people to get involved, and increasing the spread of ideas to a rapidity never before witnessed. The recent Icebucket Challenge by the ALS association is a great example. Videos, pictures, stories and events can be used to rapidly gain the attention of millions. Social media can also be used to raise awareness and gain support. According to Stacy Grau in her book,"Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations," Water.org uses social media to raise awareness, raise funds, and enable participation by allowing interested parties to follow a project from start to finish. This encourages interest, donation and participation. Little do people knows this organization was co-founded by Matt Damon. 

                     A rich history of social movements shaped progressive thought throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Historian Sidney Milkis characterizes the accomplishements of the original Progressive Era as "momentous reconstruction of politics," a description that equally applies to the numerous social movements that aimed to better align political and social order with its ideals of liberty, equality, and opportunity for all. Progressivism as a reform tradition has always focused its moral energy against societal injustice, corruption, and inequality. The activists and leaders of these movements believed deeply in the empowerment of the less privileged in society, the primacy of democracy, and the notion that government should safeguard the common good from unchecked individual and commercial greed. They challenged governments to eliminate its own legal injustices and also harnessed the force of government as a vital tool for advancing human freedom. Central to all progressive movements is the belief that the people do not have to wait for change from the top down, that people themselves can be catalysts for change from the bottom up. Many activists came from middle class or working class backgrounds and possessed the courage and skill, risking great personal danger and sacrifice. Nonviolent themselves, many of these activists faced ridicule, violence, and other hardship in their efforts to push their fellow citizens towards more enlightened positions in line with the country's stated values. Mainstream political parties often ignore activists who engaged in public education and took to the streets to demand justice and political equality. Through direct action campaigns they asked other citizens to join their cause as a matter of conscience and duty to their fellow human beings. As Martin Luther King famously stated in his Letter from Birmingham Jail: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable net-work of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." Progressive leaders themselves learned from the activism of social movements. The collective efforts of these movements eventually helped to turn progressivism itself into a stronger vehicle for human equality, social tolerance, and political rights for all people. The relationship between social movements and progressivism is ultimately one of shared learning and activism in pursuit of common values. The successful development of progressivism in its beginning years depend upon several factors. It required new ideas and philosophical perspectives to challenge the status quo and provide an intellectual foundation for a new form of politics that harnessed government action for the benefit of the many. It required leaders in local and national government to carry these ideas forwards and build coalitions necessary to turn the ideas into concrete policies that culminated in transformative legislation realignment. It required outside visionaries and activists to raise the alarm about injustice and to offer solutions to these problems. The challenges we face today may be more complicated and global in perspective, but the foundational questions for our actions remain. Do we believe that government plays a vital role in promoting human freedom and opportunity or do we think people should be left alone without protection or support? Should markets and corporations be free to do as they please or do they require effective management and regulations to maximize both private and public gains? Are all of our people deserving of individual rights, life opportunities, and personal dignity or do we accept inequalities and differences as inevitable? Do we have obligations to one another and to shared purpose within our society or should we focus on our own well-being and let others do the same? These principles will continue to guide progressives for the generations to come. 

World Press Freedom Day 2017

                 Last 3rd of May, all over the world was celebrated the importance of press freedom. This post is a summary of two articles. The first was published in May of 2017, with the title of, "Critical minds for critical times: Media's role in advancing peaceful, just and inclusive societies".  At   https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/wpfd2017_concept-note_en.pdf . The second was published at https://www.cpj.org/reports/2016/10/impunity-index-getting-away-with-murder-killed-justice.php                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  After declining audiences for traditional media and sliding profits, the proliferation of fake news as exemplified in the coverage of several major political events in 2016 is the latest challenge to affect the media sector. However, every challenge contains within it the seeds of opportunity. Jim Rutenberg from the New York Times has suggested that the explosion in fake news in 2016 may serve to raise the value of real news, concluding: "If so, it will be great journalism that saves journalism." Original, critical, and well-researched journalism is perhaps needed more today than ever before. Sri Lanka journalist Lasantha Wickrematunghe, who was assassinated in 2009, described free media as "a mirror in which the public can see itself sans mascara and styling gel", adding: "From them you learn the state of your nation, and especially its management by the people you elected to give your children a better future". Media's contribution to good governance and development has been recognized in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), adopted by U.N. The 2017 World Press Freedom Day is focused on why it is vital to strengthen free and quality journalism to enable the media to effectively contribute to the achievement of SDG. Specifically, the interrelationships between freedom of expression, justice for all and rule of law, peace, and inclusiveness. The rule of law forms an integral part of a democratic and inclusive society. It protects fundamental freedoms and applies universally to each individual and entity. It is the process through which everyone can be held accountable for their actions. Weak institutions, a weak judiciary, and lack of access to justice greatly impede sustainable development. Without a well-functioning legal environment, the public loses confidence in the democratic process. Only when media are free, independent and pluralistic can they ensure that the rule of law is applied and respected in full. Investigative journalism has a crucial role to play in this respect, by uncovering political and economic corruption and other wrongdoing. Free media and an independent, effective judiciary play a mutually reinforcing role as pillars of democracy. Impunity for crimes committed against journalists amd media professionals is a major obstacle to ensuring the safety of journalists and freedom of expression as a whole. The lack of due legal course affects every member of society, as it perpetuates a cycle of violence and creates a chilling effect through self-censorship. Critical voices on issues of public interest are silenced and informed debate is stifled. The digital era has enhanced opportunities for access to information, the creation and sharing of knowledge, facilitating exchange as well as intercultural dialogue. However, the rise of online hate speech shows that digital tech also carry with them a number of challenges. One of these is striking the right balance between freedom of expression and respect for equality and human dignity. With the advent of digital tech, the flow of information has increased in large measures. As the world progresses through the 21st century, its reliance on ICTs has allowed for a greater participation of the public in the media. Open debates fueled by online sharing applications and news content producers distributing via social media are only a couple of the many examples of reinforced seeking, receiving and imparting of information. Enabled by digital tech, public participation in the media has allowed for a democratization of narrative. ICTs imbue inclusiveness by their global reach and give a voice to everyone with a working internet connection. However, the increased demand for more information has laid bare the role of internet intermediaries, the compromise of the confidentiality of sources, the risks in terms of digital safety, in addition to the rise of online hate speech mentioned above. There is a growing need to consider the right to information along with the value of transparency, in terms of an appropriate balance with the right to impart information and the right to privacy. In addition, efforts are needed to overcome inequalities in terms of information, and ensure that marginalized populations are part of the move towards knowledge societies. Digital illiteracy is another obstacle which needs to be addressed in full before significant strides can be made. Only a well-informed and inclusive society can take its destiny in hand, participate in the democratic functioning of its institutions, and work towards a better future. By enabling the empowerment of citizens, freedom of information is a cornerstone of participatory democracy. It also plays an essential role in promoting accountable and effective institutions. Better information flows can also enhance those institutions'  efficiency and responsiveness, while strengthening citizens' trust in those who govern them. Ensuring inclusiveness also entails empowering those who have traditionally been excluded from participating in and sharing public discourse. Progress towards the achievement of the sustainable development goals will only be complete when equal opportunities are available to all people. Everyone should be given the means to fully participate in all aspects of life. All media are important actors in promoting social inclusion. Their potential to promote dialogue, reflect the diversity of opinions and challenge stereotypes and misrepresentations, should be encouraged.

                Violence perpetrated against journalists by criminal groups and local officials allowed impunity to tighten its grip in Latin America, with Brazil and Mexico each moving two spots higher on the index this year. The Impunity Index, published annually to mark the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists calculates the number of unsolved murders over a 10-year period as a percentage of each country's population. Besides Philippines, Mexico, and Brazil, criminal groups and governments officials are also leading suspects in murders of journalists in Russia and India. Each of those countries expect Brazil has appeared on the index since its inception. Brazil has had 15 journalists killed in the past decade with complete impunity. The journalists killed were reporting on politics and corruption outside the major cities. In the past three years, suspects have been convicted in six cases, more than any other country where CPJ has recorded journalist murders, though in only one case has full justice been achieved. Brazil moved two spots higher on the imounity index this year due to new muders. One of them, the editor João Miranda do Carmo, known for criticizing local government officials, was threatened twice, before two men parked outside his house and shot him dead, in July 2016 in the state of Goiás. Before the murder, João do Carmo had informed police of both threats. In more than half of the murders in Brazil examined for this index, the victims were threatened before they were killed.

GDP Growth 2016

          This post is a summary of the book with the title of, "Gaining Momentum?", and published in April of 2017 at  http://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2017/04/04/world-economic-outlook-april-2017

         Consistently good economic news since summer 2016 is starting to add up to a brightening global outlook. The economic upswing that we have expected for some time seems to be materializing: indeed, the World Economic Outlook (WEO) raises its projection for 2017 global growth to 3.5%. At the same time, however, the upgrade to our 2017 forecast is modest, and longer-term potential growth rates remain subdued across the globe compared with past decades. Moreover, while there is a chance growth will exceed expectations in the near term, significant downside risks continue to cloud the medium0term outlook. One salient threat is a turn toward protectionism, leading to trade warfare. Governments should instead follow trade policies consistent with maximum productivity, supplementing those with other policies that better distribute the gains from foreign trade internally, improve the skills and adaptability of their workforce, and smooth the process of adjustment for those adversely affected by the need for economic reallocation. Unfortunately, governments often find it harder to make such domestic improvements than to restrict trade. Policymakers instead must do the hard work of investing in their economies, especially in people, to create greater resilience to a host of potential and ongoing structural changes. The U.S. economy is projected to expand at a faster pace in 2017 and 2018, with growth forecast at 2.3% and 2.5%, respectively. The stronger near-term outlook reflects the momentum from the second half of 2016, driven by a cyclical recovery in inventory accumulation, solid consumption growth, and the assumption of a looser fiscal policy stance. Among commodity exporters, Brazil is expected to emerge from one of its deepest recessions, with growth forescast at 0.2% in 2017 and 1.7% in 2018. The gradual recovery will be supported by reduced political uncertainty, easing monetary policy, and further progress on the reform agenda. After a contraction last year, activity in Argentina is also set to expand by 2.2% in 2017, thanks to stronger consumption and public investment. In Brazil, the pace of contraction has diminished, but investment and output had yet to bottom out at the end of 2016, while fiscal crisis in some states continue to deepen. Inflation has continued to surprise on the downside, allowing for prospects of faster monetary easing. Reforms to boost potential growth are needed not only to restore and improve living standards after the deep recession, but also to facilitate the fiscal consolidation. Imperatives for lifting investment and productivity include addressing long-standing infrastructure bottlenecks, simplifying the tax code, and reducing barriers to trade. Emerging markets and developing economies have become increasingly important in the global economy in recent years. They now account for more than 75% of global growth in output and consumption, almost double the share of just two decades ago.

            Below the GDP growth in 2016 in many countries, from the highest to the lowest GDP growth from previous year.

PanAmerican countries                                     Rest of the world
Dominican Republic  6.6%                                 Ethiopia  8.0%
Panama  5.0%                                                     India  6.8%
Nicaragua  4.7%                                                  Philippines  6.8%
Costa Rica  4.3%                                                 China  6.7%
Paraguay  4.1%                                                    Ireland  5.2%
Bolivia  4.1%                                                       Romania  4.8%
Peru 3.9%                                                           New Zealand  4.0%
Honduras  3.5%                                                   Sweden  3.3%
Guyana  3.3%                                                      Spain  3.2%
Mexico  2.3%                                                       South Korea  2.8%
Colombia  2.0%                                                   Ukraine  2.3%
U.S.A.  1.6%                                                        Netherlands  2.1%            
Chile  1.6%                                                           Germany  1.8%
Canada  1.4%                                                         U.K.  1.8%     
Uruguay  1.4%                                                      Portugal  1.4%
Ecuador  -2.2%                                                   Switzerland  1.3%
Argentina  -2.3%                                                    France  1.2%        
Brazil  -3.6%                                                         Japan  1.0%
Trinidad  -5.1%                                                     Italy  0.9%  
Venezuela  -18%                                                      Russia  -0.2%

The Effect of Education on Brazil's Economic Development

              This post says about the benefits of the improvement of education in Brazil and tell us some of its systematic problems. The high school reform was a good initiative and I hope all states in Brazil can make its implementation next year. The population of Brazil can not and do not want to wait more for this reform. We all should give education the importance it has. There are many reasons to urgent and greater investment in education explained in this post, such as: the demographic window, besides many countries like Brazil possibly being in the middle income trap.   This post is a summary of an article with the title above published in 2012 at http://www.american.edu/cas/economics/ejournal/upload/global_majority_e_journal_3 sandoval.pdf

              Brazil has become an economic powerhouse in both Latin America and the developing world. Despite recent success, inequality still persists at high levels. The substandard education system is a contributor to this inequity; however, education reform also represents one of the most effective tools for further growth and a more equal distribution of income. This article investigates how Brazil's failure to raise school learning standards incurs negative long-term effects and outlines the economic benefits of a higher quality education. Brazil is arguably the preeminent economy in Latin America. As the fifth largest country in the world (in both area as well as population), Brazil benefits from vast natural resources and human capital. Human development has not risen proportionally to economic growth. A significant contributing factor to persistent income inequity is the low attainment and low quality of education in Brazil. Abadzi (2007) points out that most children attend both primary ans secondary school, but suffer from some of the highest rates of grades repetition and dropout rates in the world. Investment in quality education is imperative to economic growth. Brazil is undergoing a demographic window of opportunity, and dependency ratios are projected to fall until 2025. To foster a educated workforce, policymakers must make more investments in effective education methods. Reform that demand more efficient use of time and enhance the quality of education are absolutely necessary to sustain growth. As an emerging economy, much research concentrates on Brazil's economic development. A wide variety of publications also discuss the economic benefits of a higher quality education, demographic shifts, systemic failures in the education system, and policy implications to correct resulting inefficiencies. The following four publications are some of the most recent and most comprehensive research papers related to these issues, either referring or focusing on Brazil.    1) A World Bank policy research paper written in 2007 by Helen Abadzi, analyzes systemic problems in education in several countries including Brazil. Her findings reveal that: teachers are often absent from their posts and use time inefficiently. More importantly, the paper has a discussion of policy implications that encourage better teaching pedagogies as well as recommendations for decreasing rates of absenteeism.     2) Another 2007 World Bank policy research paper by Eric Hanushek and Ludger Wobmann explores the link between educational quality and economic growth. According to their analysis, policies that aim to improve education systems in developing nations have significant economic returns. The authors find that long-term reforms to education will substantially increase GDP compared to countries that make no changes. Additionally, the research establishes that quality of education has more implications on economic growth than merely increasing the quantity of schooling. The claim of this report rests heavily on these findings, asserting that education is among the most important investments the brazilian government can make to sustain economic growth.    3)  Bernardo Queiroz and Casio Turra's (2010) report entitled "Window of Opportunity: Socioeconomic Consequences of Demographic Changes in Brazil" discusses recent economic growth in Brazil in relation to population dynamics. They attribute a large working age population and failing dependency ratios as significant causes of recent growth. However, if Brazilian policymakers fail to reallocate public funds to help younger generations, the economy will miss a closing demographic window. The analysis suggest that education reform is paramount to continue economic development and action must be immediate.      4) The analysis by Alain de Janvry, Frederico Finan and Elisabeth Sadoulet (2006) is helpful in assessing the efficacy of cash transfer programs in Brazil. And illustrate how the programs increases attendance and decrease dropout rates. It comes to conclusion that Brazil's cash transfer programs are an efficient use of government money that has the potential to alleviate poverty and further policy innovations should follow these types of programs.     Brazil has also experienced demographic changes that present economic challenges as well as opportunities. Life expectancy has increased since 1960, which implies that more stress is placed on some public programs, especially the pension system. Despite increasing life expectancy, the age dependency ratio, defined as the ratio of dependents (people younger than 15 years and older than 64 years) to the working-age population has fallen in Brazil. Declining fertility rates result in a growing working-age population, and constitue a demographic window of opportunity, which will however close soon. The forthcoming closing of the demographic window suggest that Brazilian policymakers need to make pragmatic investments, especially in the education sector. Hanushek and Wobmann (2007) articulate a clearer relationship between the quality of education and economic growth. By focusing on developing cognitive skills with better methods, "income levels improve mainly through speeding up technological process rather than shifting the level of production function or increasing the impact of an additional year of schooling." Further analysis suggest that enhancing the quality of education has large benefits for economic growth. Brazil is currently experiencing a demographic transition. Due to a decline in birth rates and increase in life expectancy, the working age population will continue to grow until about 2025. This period is often referred to as a "demographic window" because changes in age structure can have significant economic benefits if necessary investments are made before dependency ratios increase. This process boosts GDP over time. As Cardoso and Verner (2008) suggest, "high enrollment rates do not translate into high completion rates or into a high level of schooling by school leavers." They hypothesize that a rise in teen pregnancy contributes to these discouraging statistics. As Cunningham and Jacobsen (2008) point out, "family background has an impact on education attainment and grade repetition." For mant girls, families hardly discourage the decision to leave school. Additionally, studies suggest that an inadequate use of classroom time is one reason why funding does not correlate with higher quality. High rates of teacher absenteeism have devastating effects, such as decline in reading fluency, high dropout rates, and high repetition rates. Studies conducted in the Brazilian state of Pernanbuco illustrate these issues. After conducting unannounced visits to classroom, researchers found that 40% of teachers had been reported missing in the town of Sertão de São Francisco. Moreover, even when teachers are in classroom, they often talk among themselves and waste teaching time. 74% of log books, which track teacher attendance, were not filled out in Pernanbuco schools. Teacher absenteeism remains a challenge for reform. Evidence also suggest that pedagogies used in Brazil often do not bolster cognitive skills. Students need both individual support and hands-on activities to maximize growth in cognitive skills, but inefficient methods undercut the quality of education. Although schools in Pernanbuco were relatively small (25 students on average), they did not received individualized attention. Moreover, hands-on activities and discussion with other students, which promotes better absortion of the material, were only used in 5% of class time. In Pernanbuco also teachers used 28% of classroom time to organize and students often become distracted in this unstructured time. These problems undermine the positive effects of education. Even with greater government spending on education, inefficient use of funds and time in the classroom will not result in achievement gains. Quality education can dimish gender inequalities as well as break the cycle of poverty in poorer regions of Brazil, but as detailed in Abadzi (2007), these regions also suffer from a variety of inadequacies: _ Teachers usually emphasize copying because it provides an easy way to command a classroom, these passive methods fail to engage students and encourage retention of the material. _ Teachers in impoverish regions are often undereducated themselves, and even avoid teaching material they have less command with. As discussed earlier, a major problem in education is teacher absenteeism, and several policy tools can mitigate this problem. For instance, clearer guidelines and positive reinforcement for punctuality would encourage teachers to make more efficient use of time. Moreover, salary increases may incentivize teachers to act more responsibly. Education can generate growth over the long term. These benefits are dependent on quality education, which is evidently not accessed equally by all Brazilians students. Across the country, there are several failures within the education system. According to studies conducted by the World Bank, many schools waste too many valuable resources and time in the classroom. Clearly, the need for reform is urgent.  The success of cash transfer models like Bolsa Escola-Familia programs offers some optimism. This program not only reduces dropout rates but also advances a social agenda that aims to alleviate the multidimensional causes of poverty. Additionally, principals and administrators need to take more responsibility by providing staff with stricter guidelines regarding absenteeism. In conclusion, if Brazil is to achieve its projected success, policymakers must seriously tackle the inadequate education system. Not only does quality education provide an engine for future economic growth but it also bolster Brazil's human development.   

160th Birthday of Aluísio de Azevedo - Part II

                  This week we are going to know more about the same author of the past week, the Brazilian Aluísio de Azevedo. As many literary critics says, what Aluísio really wanted was to modernize Brazil and thus fight its economic and political exclusionary precepts.  This post is a summary of three posts. The first was published at http://wikivisually.com/wiki/O_Corti%C3%A7o. The second was published at   https://lljournal.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2007-1-bletz-texto/. The third was published at https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/aluisio-azevedo/the-slum/

                 O Cortiço (titled in English: The Slum) is an influential Brazilian novel written in 1890 by Aluísio de Azevedo. The novel depicts a part of Brazil's culture in the late nineteenth century, represented by a variety of colorful characters living in a single tenement. The Slum tells the stories of Portuguese and other European immigrants, mulattos, and former African slaves living and working together in a single community. It explores the author's naturalistic beliefs, having various characters being defined and changed by their environment, race and social position. Example are: the division between the mulattos and the hard-working European immigrants, how the climate and culture of Brazil can slowly transform these immigrants' behavior in atavistic ways. In addition the role of women is a key theme, with all female characters in one way or another revealing their purpose in the slum. In 2013 the book became a Musical on Brazilian broadway. Today the play is with Daniel Tupauan and Christian Coronel.

                When Aluísio de Azevedo first published O Cortiço in 1890, it was immediately recognized as an important literary event. Still on every mandatory reading list in Brazil today, the novel is interpreted as a high point in Brazilian naturalism, heavily influenced by French deterministic thinkers. Already in his own time, literary critics emphasized the similarities between O Cortiço and Zola's works, particularly L'Assomoir (1877). It is certainly true that Brazil lacks the history of racial hatred that characterizes the U.S. But lack of racial hatred does not turn out to have led to lack of racial discrimination. Indeed, racial prejudices and deterministic legacies form a fundamental part of a novel as O Cortiço and should be recognized as such. Rather than seeing Latin American naturalist novels as imitations of European counterparts, one should consider XIX century Latin American intellectual endeavours as appropriating existing models for their own unique situations and means. Debates about race were of course prominent in Brazilian culture of that time, and only partly correspond to European positivist and deterministic ideas. Brazilian naturalist novelists created a more or less fictional space in which creatively conjured elements - people, forces, exogenous events - interact. They inhabited the landscape as both voyeur and active participant, and their writing comprised an act of creation, not just of literary art but, in certain ways, of society itself. Still readable for a XXI century audience, O Cortiço is a deeply pessimistic reflection of the social ills that plagued the Carioca society of the period right before Abolition, the 1870s. Brazilian Positivist ideas coincided with Abolition in 1888, whose aftermath saw the mobilization of numbers of former slaves from rural areas towards the cities. Around the same time, foreign immigration started, and both movements caused a wide process of destabilization of traditional society and culture. Displacement plays a crucial role in O Cortiço, both in the fate of the black slave Bertoleza as in the lives of the Portuguese immigrants linked to the cortiço São Romão.  According to Thomas Skidmore one should be careful not to confuse racial ideologies in the U.S. with Latin America. In Brazil, racial attribution depended on how the person looked and on particular economic circumstances of that person, which led to the racial fluidity for which Brazil is famous. In other words: Social class and material wealth will directly influence the categorization of a person. O Cortiço is a result of urban modernization that can not be controlled. It is well documented how, in typical naturalist fashion, Azevedo researched his subject matter as if he were a scientist, a doctor searching for a cure of a sick patient, the nation's body. Ethnographer and sociologist Gilberto Freyre for instance, affirmed that: "Aluísio de Azevedo let in his book a portrait disguised in novel that is less literary fiction than the sociological documentation of a phase and a characteristic aspect of Brazilian formation." With these research methods, Brazilian naturalist novelist created a more or less fictional space in which creatively conjured elements: people, forces, exogenous events interact in a given sequence. Azevedo inhabits the city as both voyeur and active participant, and his writing comprises an act of creation, not just of literary art but, in certain ways, of Carioca urban society itself. Azevedo mostly rejects determinist notions in the portrayal of the male characters, but his attitude towards women, particularly the immigrant women is still largely dictated by the supposedly scientific ideologies of his time. Although I agree with Elizabeth Marchant that Azevedo shows a peculiarly hostile attitude towards his female characters in general. For many Brazilian, the figure of the immigrant was closely related to modernity and progress. However, the construction of the female immigrant differes significantly of that of her male counterpart. The immigrant woman is assumed to be unchanging and authentic, but her immigrant status makes her a suspect holder of any national tradition. She is supposed to represent both continuity, as a female, and modernity, as a immigrant and thus seems trapped, caught in either insanity or prostitution. For Azevedo, attempts to modernize the country by means of European immigrants are doomed to fail. Brazil is simply too overwhelming and the Europeans who come 'to make the America' discover that they themselves are being remade. For Azevedo, a tireless abolitionist, Brazil will never become a modern country unless it addresses its heritage of slavery and injustice. Immigrants will not contribute to improving their new country, if the local institutions of slavery and the pseudoaristocratic culture of the wealthy as set on destroying whatever modernizing effects immigration could possible have.

               This enormously popular and influential Brazilian novel, published in 1890, is a landmark work of accusatory naturalism whose energetic author at his best deserves comparison with Balzac and Zola. The story concerns two obsessive love affairs and their disastrous consequencs: that Romao, an avaricious landowner who gives up everything (including his mistress) to pursue a wealthy woman, and that of the hulking, well-meaning Jeronimo and the mulatto spitfire Rita Bahiana, for those sake he destroys several lives, including his own. Azevedo is a passionate, sometimes hortatory writer, who tends to overmanage and needlessly explain, but his portrayals of urban discontent, rampant materialism, and especially of restless souls shaped and driven by their desires have an immediacy and authority that transcend (while not quite eschewing) melodrama, and have aged remarkably well.

160th Birthday of Aluísio de Azevedo

             Last Friday, 14th of April, the Brazilian writer Aluísio Azevedo would complete 160 years old. So this post is a tribute to him. As a Naturalist writer he showed us a reliable picture of the late XIX century in Brazil. The Naturalism-Realism literary movement was very important for the advancement of many other movements and fairer laws, and consequently justice, human rights,  and above all the truth, because only facing the realities of our lives and talking abou it, we can do a fair analysis and then humankind can evolve. This post is a summary of three articles. The first was published https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alu%C3%ADsio_Azevedo.The second https://www.amazon.com/Slum-Library-Latin-America/dp/0195121872. The third was published at file:///C:/Users/Luciano/Downloads/POST-PEER-REVIEW-PUBLISHERS.PDF

            Aluísio Tancredo Gonçalves de Azevedo (1857-1913) was a Brazilian novelist, caricaturist, diplomat, playwright and short story writer. Initially a Romantic writer, he would later adhere to the Naturalist movement. He introduced the Naturalist movement in brazil with the novel O Mulato, in 1881. Azevedo was born in São Luís to David Gonçalves de Azevedo (the Portuguese vice-consul in Brazil). He was the younger brother of the playwright Artur Azevedo. As a child, Aluísio loved painting and drawing, and would move to Rio de Janeiro in 1876, where his brother Artur was living already, to study at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes. After graduating, he drew caricatures for many journals. His father's death in 1878, made him return to São Luís. He then initiated his writer career, publishing in 1880 a typical Romantic novel. He helps on the creation of a journal named O Pensador, where he wrote abolitionist articles. In 1881 he publishes the first Brazilian Naturalist novel: O Mulato, that deals with the themes of racism. Consolidating his career as a writer, he returned to Rio. He would write endlessly during the period of 1882-1895. Dating from this period are his famous novels, Casa de Pensão, (1884) and O Cortiço (1890), and many other works written in partnership with his brother, or with Émile Rouède. In 1895 he became a diplomat. He served in Japan, England, Italy and Argentina, where he died.

             First published in 1890, and undoubtedly Azevedo's masterpiece, The Slum, is one of the most widely read and critically acclaimed novels ever written about Brazil. Indeed, its great popularity, realistic descriptions, archetypal situations, detailed local coloring, and overall race-consciousness may well evoke Huckleberry Finn as the novel's North American equivalent. Yet Azevedo also exhibits the naturalism of Zola and the ironic distance of Balzac. While tragic, beautiful, and imaginative as a work of fiction, The Slum is universally regarded as one of the best, or truest portraits of Brazilian society ever rendered. This is a vivid and complex tale of passion and greed, a story with many different strands touching on the different economic tiers of society. Mainly, however, The Slum thrives on two intersecting story lines, In one narrative, a penny-pinching immigrant landlord strives to become rich investor and then discards his lover for a wealthy woman. In the other, we witness the innocent yet dangerous love affair between a strong, pragmatic, gentle sort of immigrant and a vivacious woman who both live in a tenement owned by said landlord. The two immigrant are Portuguese, and personify two alternate outsider responses to Brazil. A deftly told, moving, and hardscrabble novel that features several stirring passages about life in the streets, the melting-pot realities of the modern city, and often unstable mind of the crowd, The Slum will captivate anyone who might appreciate a less political take on the nineteenth-century naturalism of Crane or Dreiser.

              This article will analyse spatial relations and practices in O Cortiço in order to demonstrate the novel's strong social-political critique of XIX century in Brazil. Brazilians critics of the time and thereafter were almost unanimous in seeing local naturalist novels as too close to Zola's works. Later critics tended to repeat what Baguley called the 'already established and seemingly set of arguments' against Zola and Naturalism by Marxist critics. Nelson Sodré, for instance, describes Brazilian Naturalism as having the same vulgar materialism, the same artistic narrowness, the same pedantic scientism of evolutionism and determinism, the same fascination with feminine hysteria and for pathological manifestation in general. After asking why Brazilians writers tended to prefer Zola as a model to Flaubert, and Comte and Spencer to Marx. Flora Sussekind answer by claiming that the 'bedroom affairs' of Brazilian Naturalism provided conservative and confortable substitute for the social problems that the writers were aware of, but preferred not to discuss. For Azevedo's novel does not fit the 'bedroom model', as it discusses social relations between different classes, and even slavery and abolition. It is not Azevedo's depiction of social conflict, however, that receives most praise from critics: the majority of them list as the most definitive quality of the novel its capacity to portray the movement of the crowds and collective forces. A quality also attributed to Zola. The critic Lúcia Pereira says that the best thing about O Cortiço is its panoramic vision and its capacity to show the spectable of the masses. Another critic, Álvaro Lins rehearses the same argument, claiming that Azevedo was never able to maintain a psychological attitude towards the isolated man, but he knew surprisingly well how to penetrate human groups. O Cortiço in spite of being considered one of the best novels in Brazilian literature, has received few detailed analyses of its social processes, its structure, or indeed almost any other of its aspects. It has deserved a treatment similar to that accorded to Zola's novels until 1950s, that is, a lack of engagement with the text itself on the part of the critics, even though, unlike Zola texts, it was considered a good novel. An important exception is Antonio Candido's superb article 'De cortiço a cortiço', the first study to take seriously Azevedo's engagement with the world of labour, profit, competition, visible economic exploitation. Even so, for Candido there is little sense of injustice in the novel and none of class exploitation, just nationalism and xenophobia, an attack on the immigrant's abuse. As a social product, the tenement is also a space of control.The long row of houses allows the landlord to keep a close eye on the lives of the inhabitants, repressing them any time he sees fit. In his role as the owner of the tenement, he has the right to evict anybody that annoys his authority, and that right is never questioned by the inhabitants of the tenement. In other words, the spatial and social organization of the tenement is highly determined by the logic of rent monopoly, a logic that assures in daily practices the hegemony of one class over others. In his descriptions of the tenement and its inhabitants, Azevedo at times resorts to some of the familiar tropes of Naturalism. As an environment, the tenement is also said to have an unavoidable influence over the people who live in it, such as Pombinha. If in order to read Azevedo we need to make reference to Zola it is not because of the 'fatalism' or 'determinism' of both authors, nor simply to compare the collective scenes in their novels. The main lesson Azevedo seems to have learned from his French Master was the critique of the dominant economic and social order. In Zola, an extremely acute visual sense and very detailed descriptions creates a world where people seem dwarfed by the things around them. They create a sense of space that is oppressive and unchangeable, reflecting a well-established social and economic order where upward movement by the poor, although promised, is actually very rare. In Azevedo, short, almost schematic descriptions of sceneries serve as a minimal structure for a space that is made up of people and that is constantly being produced and changed by people. The reason why the lack of descriptions in O Cortiço may have to do with the fact that in Brazil, unlike France, the upper class did not need detailed descriptions to visualize the space of the poor, In brazil, all they had to do was open their window.