Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Open government data portals have been embraced for their ability to improve transparency and strengthen democratic control. However, previous studies suggest that this relationship is complex and is conditioned by the portal's design itself and its proper use by interested users. This article analyzes the relationship between open data and democratic control through an analysis of the design and uses of the open government portal of the Metropolitan District of Quito. The structure, organization and presentation of the information is assessed and its online uses are tracked. Evidence indicates that, although some good practices are applied, there are many shortcomings in the portal design and very limited use of the data offered to assess government management.

This paper discusses the conclusive observation of Fernando Calderón and Manuel Castells in their book La nueva América Latina, about the economic development experience lived for the region between 2003 and 2013. Their named this experience “new developmentalism”. The alternative narrative proposed in the essay suggests that there was no developmental moment in the region, but rather a sudden and prolonged boom in foreign income provided by the generalized rise in the prices of basic products, which was used by the emerging political class to increase public spending and finance the constitution of a clientelistic political base on which to sustain his own pre-eminence and conditions of possibility in the face of the electoral cycle. The eleven years of growth based on the monetization of external income did not generate changes in the diversification of the economic base and in the expansion of the export basket, and much less growth in labor productivity to sustain the expansion of the internal market and exports.

This article starts from the following premise: management is an essentially practical activity, therefore, in its daily execution, new skills are acquired for use in managerial action. In this sense, pragmatism is assumed as the philosophical foundation of the managerial profession. One of the essential functions of managers in organizations is decision-making, so every manager aims to decide correctly. However, in the decision-making process, success cannot be envisioned. What is usually done is to observe its implementation, monitor its development and evaluate its impacts and results. It should be noted that managers make decisions in complex contexts, with incomplete information, in unstructured situations and with time constraints. Under these circumstances, the classical rational instrumental model for decision making is incomplete and inadequate, as it is based on the premise that the decision maker has complete and perfect information. This, as you know, is not possible. Given the limited scope of the instrumental rational model, the manager seeks to use all his available capacities and resorts to different schemes in decision-making. Among the non-conventional factors that the manager uses to make decisions, there is intuition, so we will see how this variable is suitable for the manager when making a decision.

This text is a synthesis of the project: "Democratic Leadership for a transforming change towards Human Development", which has been developed by a team of the Theory and Method of Planning Area of the Center for Development Studies (Cendes) of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV). The Project consists of the identification of the theoretical and methodological relationships around Planning-Development, and the construction of an integrated Framework of Reference for the formation of a democratic and transforming leadership.

The idea of a scientific journal as a social network for academic researchers is interesting and increasingly feasible thanks to digital communication tools and online collaboration. Although scientific journals have traditionally been used for research publication, they also have the ability to facilitate collaboration and a community among researchers. In a "social" scientific journal, researchers would be able to interact with their co-authors, colleagues, and other researchers through online comments, discussions, and comparison of notes.

The cities in their growth cause changes by expanding, altering the relief in search of improving living conditions. Thus, they modify natural processes of the physical environment, as has happened in the section of the Quinto River located at the south of the of Villa Mercedes city. The area is characterized by reliefs of Quaternary age. Wind action is the main process involved in the modeling of geoforms in the plain areas surrounding the river valley, with subordinate fluvial participation. The section under study presents a strong anthropic pressure that affects the morphology and dynamics of its channel. The morphodynamic variations of the channel and its possible causes were analyzed based on the multi-temporal analysis carried out for the period 1975-2020, using aerial photographs, Google Earth© satellite images and field reconnaissance. As a main result of the work, the following changes have been recognized: increase in the sinuosity of the channel, rectification of sections and modification of the banks of the channel associated in part with the construction of a retaining wall against floods. Other interventions were also detected, such as extraction of aggregates, the consolidation of a large island, the silting of the Villa Mercedes lake, undermining of the fluvial margins and the armoring of the fluvial bed.

This work reconstructs the social trajectory of Enrique Vargas, a slave, a musician by trade, who joined the first music band in the city of Mendoza and served as a musician in the 11th Battalion of the Army of the Andes. Through the case of Vargas, we investigate the experiences of black musicians in Mendoza at the juncture of the Argentine independence revolution. In the historical restitution we resort to unpublished heterogeneous sources: parish books with information on baptisms, deaths, marriages, judicial files, notarial protocols and government correspondence, among others. The trajectory of Vargas and other subjects of a similar condition reveal the mediation of music in the sociability of slaves, in their freedom strategies, group solidarity and the development of black musicians in the patriotic armies. The exploration of the world of musical slaves provides a more complex and rich panorama than the one known up to now and allows us to discuss some historiographical interpretations about the incorporation of black musicians in the military bands of the patriotic armies.