Vol. 22 No. 44 (2020): Reflexión Política (january to april)

Presentation

This edition marks the beginning of a new year for the Journal Reflexión Política, which this April will have been published for 22 years without interruption. This 44^th edition features 10 articles related to the main focus topics of debate and research in political science: Democracy, International Relations, Human Rights and Conflict, and Public Policies and Development. 

In the first section we publish three articles related to democracy, two of which focus on elections, and the other on the role of political elites in regional politics. The first assesses electoral abstention during the 2014 presidential elections in Colombia. John Bedoya and Felipe Nieto identify the factors that influence Colombians who do not turn out to vote by means of a municipal-level analysis of variables related to the economy, violence and political culture. They conclude that electoral abstention is greater in the municipalities with least wealth and greatest violence, whereas aspects related to trust in the institutions do not have an effect on abstention levels.

On their part, Mario Lozano García and Olga Sofía Morcote from Universidad de Boyacá present a study on the breaches of electoral rules by the electoral campaigns of congressional candidates in 2018 in the department of Boyacá, in which by means of an assessment of outdoor political advertising they analyze the behavior of the candidates from that department and the actions taken by the authorities regarding such breaches. Following a legal analysis of the law that regulates this topic and of the publicity of the campaigns themselves, they conclude that there is little knowledge about the laws that regulate this matter, as a result of which there is a high level of informality in the ways the campaigns are publicized, in which they even make use of the department’s public resources and infrastructure.

Lastly, from a historical perspective, an analysis is made of the networks of power and the role of the Colombian regional elites in the creation of the department of Caldas in the early 1960s. The posture of the separatist elites is assessed and their influence in the creation of beliefs in the region and its relationship with the faction-driven dynamics of the political parties of the National Front.

            In the section on International Relations, Edgar Vera analyzes the approach towards international relations during the first term in office of Juan Manuel Santos, particularly regarding the peace process with the FARC, and specifically the approach towards international cooperation. Based on press and documentation analysis, it describes how the central aim was to find international support for topics related to the implementation of the agreement, assistance for the victims of the conflict and transitional justice.

The section on Human Rights and Conflict is comprised by four articles about social resistance movements, transitional justice, and memory. In the article Peasant Guards of Catatumbo. Between self-protection, empowerment, and territorial construction, the authors Alba, Velásquez and Jácome present the results of their study on the organizational and empowerment process of the indigenous communities in the department of Norte de Santander, who developed processes to defend and unify their territory. On their part, the study by Armando Rojas and Juan Gómez addresses the debate on historical memory and the way it can become an educational tool that enables acknowledgment of the other and otherness. The above is in view that the armed conflict, the violence and the violation of human rights have tended to make actors and subjects invisible in Colombia.

Vanessa Paredes, in her research paper on transitional justice from below, assessed the role of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in the participation in the process by the victims of the armed conflict in the city of Pasto, acknowledging the importance of this organization in increasing the visibility and recognition of the victims and their capacity to influence the decision-making process. To close this section, José Manuel Moreno reviews the standards used by the press in Spain to report on the Colombian armed conflict, and specifically on the Ejército de Liberación Nacional guerrillas. He defines framing as the way in which some topics or features are highlighted over others in the mass media, and concludes that in Spain these topics are associated with geopolitics, specifically in connection with Venezuela and its government, as well as with topics related to security. He highlights the absence of information about the paramilitaries, and concludes that it is necessary for the Spanish press to take a more global approach towards information rather than relying on affinity with the elites.

Lastly, the section of Public Policies and Development includes the research paper by Lizeth Nathalia Revelo, which assesses the public policy on assistance to the displaced population, particularly in aspects related to their socioeconomic stabilization. By means of institutional analysis, she explains the factors that produce failure in the implementation of assistance policies, and concludes that a well-designed public policy is insufficient in the absence of inter-institutional coordination and of discussion with the political actors at the territorial entities, which indicates shortcomings in the design for the implementation of public policies. The outcome for the victims in this specific case was failure to obtain the expected results. The article by Ángel Muñoz and Helmer Quintero is a reflection on the utopias on general wellbeing in contemporary cities and societies. Following a review of the various philosophical stances towards utopia, it analyzes the perspective of the historian Yuval Noah Harari, which is based on the utopia of social happiness in terms of a series of variables and indicators that encourage us to move beyond the economy and economic wellbeing, highlighting the importance of human capabilities and social happiness.

We wish to thank the authors who decided to share their research work through our journal and who made possible this new edition. We also thank the colleagues who participated as peer reviewers for the submitted articles. Their work ensures a high level of quality and enables greater academic discussion in the field of political science.

Nadia Pérez Guevara

Editor