Núria Vergés Bosch

On the Relationship between Authority Size and the Costs of Providing Local Services: Lessons for the Design of Intergovernmental Transfers in Spain

Unconditional transfers to local governments in Spain are distributed mainly according to weighted population, with weights rising with population size to account for the higher expenditure responsibilities and needs of bigger municipalities. The authors evaluate the appropriateness of these weights and estimate an expenditure equation with a data set covering more than 2,500 Spanish municipalities in 1999, and the use of a piecewise linear function accounts for the possible nonlinear relationship between costs and population size. The results identify important scale economies for the smallest local authorities and growing per capita costs for higher population sizes. However, the growth in per capita costs is much lower than the one implicit in the weights used in the distribution of transfers.

International mobility of women in science and technology careers: shaping plans for personal and professional purposes

International mobility has become a key requirement in science and technology (S&T) professional career progression. On the one hand, the increasing mobility of women suggests that this may be a way for them to avoid or get away from women-unfriendly working environments. On the other hand, international mobility can present problems for women as they, particularly, have to plan their lives around their professional goals and personal lives. This article addresses the international mobility strategies of women regarding their personal and professional choices. We analyse their motivations to move, the way they manage their lives abroad and the effects of mobility on their lives. The analysis is based on 24 in-depth interviews of highly skilled women working in Spanish S&T sectors. Our main findings show that mobility is a new challenge which may improve womens family lives and professional careers. However, they have to plan carefully their lives on a long-term as well as a daily basis. In this sense, they need strong personal determination and the ability to balance their professional and personal goals. Moreover, their personal decisions depend not only on them as individuals, but also on their partners and families, on wider social values, on the institutional support they enjoy, and on the general public policies which they are affected by.

Fiscal Perception and Voting

The effect of local fiscal policy perception on the electoral process in a representative democracy is investigated. The test is made by using an ordinary least squares regression on a sample of fifty Spanish municipalities. The dependent variable is the relative increase in the number of votes in support of the political party in power between the two previous local elections, and the independent variables are public investment and taxes collected by local government. The empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that fiscal perception affects voters’ behaviour.

'From alliance to trust': constructing Crip-Queer intimacies

AbstractYes, we fuck! (2015) is a documentary that seeks to portray the sexuality of people with functional diversity that focuses on their empowerment and critiques ableism. Its filming has helped to generate alliances between Spanish activist groups, which have been named Alianzas Tullido-Transfeministas (Crip-Queer Alliances). Based on a research project that combined traditional and digital ethnography, this article reflects on how these crip-queer alliances have been constructed. First, we present a genealogy that contextualizes key events and explains their origins. Second, we analyse the construction process of the alliances, from queer to crip and vice versa, in order to reflect on the notions of intimacy that these alliances mobilize, while analysing their discourses and performances around the body, bonding, desire and sexuality. Finally, we explain the potential, as well as the difficulties and challenges, of these alliances. We conclude that they have followed their own situated process, where...Abstract Yes, we fuck! (2015) is a documentary that seeks to portray the sexuality of people with functional diversity that focuses on their empowerment and critiques ableism. Its filming has helped to generate alliances between Spanish activist groups, which have been named Alianzas Tullido-Transfeministas (Crip-Queer Alliances). Based on a research project that combined traditional and digital ethnography, this article reflects on how these crip-queer alliances have been constructed. First, we present a genealogy that contextualizes key events and explains their origins. Second, we analyse the construction process of the alliances, from queer to crip and vice versa, in order to reflect on the notions of intimacy that these alliances mobilize, while analysing their discourses and performances around the body, bonding, desire and sexuality. Finally, we explain the potential, as well as the difficulties and challenges, of these alliances. We conclude that they have followed their own situated process, where activists bring into play their bodies, emotions and intimacies and thus generate enormous potential for political action that questions ableism and heteropatriarchy.

Should Large Spanish Municipalities be Financially Compensated? Costs and Benefits of Being a Capital/Central Municipality

This paper analyse the costs and benefits of being a capital or central municipality, where central costs are understood to be incurred specifically as a result of the problems large municipalities located at the centre of an urban agglomeration face and capital costs are understood to result from the presence of regional and/or central government institutions in the municipality. However, these two qualities might also be beneficial to municipalities, resulting in a direct increase in their fiscal capacity. Here, by estimating an equation of the expenditure needs and the fiscal capacity of Spanish municipalities with more than 75,000 inhabitants, we find that the central costs incurred by large municipalities are offset by their greater fiscal capacity, but that the same is not true for municipalities that serve as political/administrative capitals.

AUTONOMOUS AND COLLABORATIVE LEARNING BY DOING A ZOTERO LIBRARY ON FEMINIST RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES

In current higher education, working towards an education-learning model that places students in the centre, we need to facilitate their autonomous and collaborative learning, as well as their skills to develop research projects. However, higher education students find it difficult to integrate Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools for the management of bibliographic information in their research projects when they work autonomously. In this regard, our project aims to facilitate their autonomous and collaborative learning through the construction, use and dissemination of an on-line Zotero library on feminist research methodologies. This project is interuniversity and interdisciplinary. It is being carried out with postgraduate students on gender and women studies, as well as students of sociology, both graduates and postgraduates. For this communication, on one hand, we briefly introduce the project and its specifics. On the other hand, we analyse the implementation of its first two phases firstly, the design of the project and its materials, and secondly the construction of the on-line library through selecting, managing and evaluating bibliography items. Our main results show that students experience several difficulties and a great diversity of starting points to effectively use ICT tools such as Zotero. However, they understood the usefulness of ICT tools like Zotero and showed great satisfaction in learning to select, organize and evaluate bibliographic references autonomously and in collaboration. In addition, they have developed their ability to think critically about the content of feminist research methodologies. In this regard, we conclude that, with the creation of specific tasks and guidelines to balance class levels, integrating ICT tools like Zotero in education can work to facilitate autonomous and collaborative learning and improve student’s skills in developing research projects.

Women in ICT: Opportunities for Their Inclusion in an International Labor Market

ICT is a key sector for developing contemporary economies and it entails an opportunity for increasing the employment rates internationally. Women were traditionally underrepresented; therefore, we need to reinforce their role in the international labor market. Before the implementation of positive actions, we need to know what is the situation and experiences of women in ICT workplaces. Through the Spanish Labor Force Survey we analyze the evolution of women. Despite the economic crisis, data shows that women have as good job prospects as men in the ICT labor market. However, women present higher levels of qualifications than men in the same category which may be interpreted as a sign of gender discrimination. Significantly, women display more critical opinions regarding the average work week.

Moving towards Accommodating Women with ICT: Paying Attention to Self-inclusion Mechanisms

Recent developments of new information and communication technologies, as well as feminisms, are essential for understanding the major changes in our societies today. Feminist research of technology, traditionally, has been focused on explaining the exclusion of women from technologies. However, a move towards inclusion is already being carried out intensively. This involves investigating the experiences of women in ICT and thereby making visible their trajectories and mechanisms towards inclusion, as well as the challenges and opportunities that are generated thereby. In this article I aim to explore the processes of self-inclusion of women in ICT and specifically to show the main mechanisms that they have followed and activated to self-include in ICT. To do this I have relied on shared experiences of a purposive sample of artistic technologists and computer technologists in Barcelona, by conducting interviews and focus groups. As a result I show a series of mechanisms that women follow and activate to access, remain in, advance, and even transform ICT. These mechanisms go beyond learning and include not only doing gender but also undoing it as well as ICT. Thus, Women in ICT seek to access and progress in ICT adapting to certain circumstances but also changing them to generate and regenerate ICT in order not just to be assimilated but better to accommodate with ICT.

Inclusion and promotion of women in technologies

In the information and knowledge society gender transformations have characterized the social changes of recent years, while information and communication technologies (ICT) have taken an essential role for social development. Nevertheless, even if women have accumulated an incredible talent in order to confront todays challenges, the technological system seems not to be prepared to include, retain and promote them through the technological careers that they deserve. Research about gender and technology related with female occupation has pointed out several causes for female exclusion that should be addressed from an interdisciplinary approach. Most of the research has been focused on finding out the barriers that make more difficult to access and promote women in technological occupations. However, there is still a need to identify and foster enablers of womens full inclusion in technologies. Carrying out a mix methodology in between quantitative and qualitative methods, we aim at providing different solutions to facilitate and promote womens presence and retainment in technological careers.