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During the first decades of the 20th century, the supply of paper for the printing industries in Mexico became a problematic issue. Production difficulties, price increases and poor distribution during the monopoly of the San Rafael factory started a deep debate on the modernization and interference of the State in the paper industry. This article analyzes the transition between the private monopoly and the creation of the public company, Productora e Importadora de Papel Sociedad Anónima (PIPSA) in 1935, during the government of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940). Through parliamentary debates, press articles and ministerial reports, the questioning of the monopoly as a public policy, the birth of PIPSA and the results in its first years of operation will be explained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper demonstrates, using a panel data model, that mainly firm-specific (microeconomic) versus macroeconomic variables affect the long-run profitability of a group of banks in Mexico in the pre- and COVID-19 periods. Interbank deposit, deposit rate, bank size, size of non-performing loan portfolio, delinquency, operating expenses, traditional deposit, salary, unemployment, and interest rate have statistical influence on bank profitability, but this relationship changes in the COVID-19 period. These results can be useful in the decisions of the different areas of banks, as well as for the design of public policies aimed at maintaining the stability of the banking system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extension of the Religious Conflict to the north of Mexico had different times and ways compared to the center-west of the country. The northern region has generally been considered not very Catholic, due to Protestant influence and liberal political tradition, which is why it has been taken for granted that the north did not participate in the Catholic mobilization in response to the anticlerical policies of postrevolutionary governments. This vision began to change since Jean Meyer, in the 1990s, pointed out that in Chihuahua, during the Religious Conflict, took place a notable Catholic social and political activity. Although an armed conflict did not break out in 1927, a vigorous social Catholicism had taken root in Chihuahua and all the major Catholic organizations of the time were present and active. New research confirms that, at least Chihuahua was the scene of intense Catholic activity in the 1920s and 1930s that managed to attenuate and delay the onslaught of official anticlericalism. This paper will address in particular the recovery of regional Catholicism after the armed conflict, evidencing the notable impulse and presence of Catholic social and political organizations in the regional scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Territorial inequality associated with the location of population and activities, access to infrastructure and services, employment and material living conditions, is a historical reality in Latin America. This phenomenon has accompanied the demands of successive development models, and since the mid-twentieth century it has begun to be recognised in its full complexity with the installation of developmentalist governments. As a result, various public policies were adopted that failed to have a significant impact on these inequalities or to address their social consequences. Given the need to reformulate approaches, optimise resources and overcome obstacles in the implementation of public policies, this paper seeks to analyse the policies on the government agenda in Argentina from the change of management materialized at the end of 2019, identifying the limitations, achievements and potentialities of the policies proposed in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico and their effects on territorial inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with popular dissatisfaction with liberal-capitalist democracy, at the beginning of the 21st century there is a governmental shift to the left in Latin America, in which Mexico is recently participating, with the arrival of the Morena party to power. The social movements that promote these political projects convey leftist utopias that seek to institutionalize themselves in political systems and public policies. However, this process of utopian institutionalization presents tensions and contradictions within the so-called party-movements. In this paper I present a methodological proposal for utopian analysis, which I apply to the "Colectivo La Calle", a group that is part of the lopezobradorista movement in Mexico. I analyze three utopias mediated by this group and find that indeed the Colectivo is mobilizing against Morena's pragmatism. This result adds to previous literature, which, given contemporary governmental experiences, questions the ability of the Latin American institutional left to overcome conservative hegemony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyze how the video surveillance puts the personal data that manage in a space of legal indeterminacy, and how generates process of social and space classification that derive, sometimes, in forms of social exclusion. The perspective that frame the capacity that individuals have to construct autonomy and control spaces against the stratification and domination logics. From this perspective, it's analyzed how the weak or inexistent regulation of video surveillance cameras in Mexico can affect the citizenship practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Micro-enterprises have traditionally been considered a burden for development, from both the theoretical perspective of social sciences as well as policy praxis. However, for some years now, some of the specialized literature has presented evidence that despite their low productivity, the contribution of the informal economy to job creation and income in less-developed economies is significant. Given that other countries have begun to develop policies to encourage productivity in the informal sector, the main purpose of this paper is to understand, through a review of the regulations that support micro-enterprises, as well as new decrees and regulations, the current position of Mexico in this debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourse theory is useful for understanding the creation of borders, whether material or imaginary. This paper addresses three situations on Mexico's southern border between 2000 and 2015 in which elements of discourse theory may be applied. The outcomes were the following: 1) correlations may be made between the elements of the discourse moving from the northern to the southern border, but not in the opposite direction; 2) the process of securitising the discourse about migrants is continuous, and new securitising elements are regularly added; 3) an "elastic borders" phenomenon exists, where borders extend or retract, thereby creating new border regions; and 4) discourses around the southern border are constructed with more pejorative elements than the northern, despite the fact that crime rates are higher in the north. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the economic, politic and social conditions around the construction of the Queretaro’s Intercontinental Airport in Mexico. Rural communities surround this airport and the research is oriented to analyze what kinds of changes have been produced in one of the most important locality: San José de Navajas. In order to do so, it is study the negotiation process that allow to expropriate the community land, the conflicts generated as a result of it and the changes in the labor conditions and labor identity of the inhabitants. The research team also studies the expectative of development created in the community as a result of the arrival of foreign direct investment, which supposed to create new jobs in benefit of the community. The results of the research show how negatives effects are produced when government takes unilateral decisions and do not consider the opinion of the community residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]