José Antonio Piqueras – författare

Cuba's first republican era (1902–1959) is principally understood in terms of its failures and discontinuities, typically depicted as an illegitimate period in the nation's history, its first three decades and the overthrow of Machado at best a prologue to the "real" revolution of 1959. State of Ambiguity brings together scholars from North America, Cuba, and Spain to challenge this narrative, presenting republican Cuba instead as a time of meaningful engagement-socially, politically, and symbolically. Addressing a wide range of topics-civic clubs and folkloric societies, science, public health and agrarian policies, popular culture, national memory, and the intersection of race and labor-the contributors explore how a broad spectrum of Cubans embraced a political and civic culture of national self-realization. Together, the essays in State of Ambiguity recast the first republic as a time of deep continuity in processes of liberal state- and nation-building that were periodically disrupted-but also reinvigorated-by foreign intervention and profound uncertainty.Contributors. Imilcy Balboa Navarro, Alejandra Bronfman, Maikel FariÑas Borrego, Reinaldo Funes Monzote, Marial Iglesias Utset, Steven Palmer, JosÉ Antonio Piqueras Arenas, Ricardo Quiza Moreno, Amparo SÁnchez Cobos, Rebecca J. Scott, Robert Whitney

Cuba's first republican era (1902–1959) is principally understood in terms of its failures and discontinuities, typically depicted as an illegitimate period in the nation's history, its first three decades and the overthrow of Machado at best a prologue to the "real" revolution of 1959. State of Ambiguity brings together scholars from North America, Cuba, and Spain to challenge this narrative, presenting republican Cuba instead as a time of meaningful engagement-socially, politically, and symbolically. Addressing a wide range of topics-civic clubs and folkloric societies, science, public health and agrarian policies, popular culture, national memory, and the intersection of race and labor-the contributors explore how a broad spectrum of Cubans embraced a political and civic culture of national self-realization. Together, the essays in State of Ambiguity recast the first republic as a time of deep continuity in processes of liberal state- and nation-building that were periodically disrupted-but also reinvigorated-by foreign intervention and profound uncertainty.Contributors. Imilcy Balboa Navarro, Alejandra Bronfman, Maikel FariÑas Borrego, Reinaldo Funes Monzote, Marial Iglesias Utset, Steven Palmer, JosÉ Antonio Piqueras Arenas, Ricardo Quiza Moreno, Amparo SÁnchez Cobos, Rebecca J. Scott, Robert Whitney

En la primera década del siglo XXI, la Comunidad Valenciana ha atraído la atención de la opinión pública las amplias mayorías electorales del Partido Popular, la política de grandes y costosos eventos -con las consiguientes inversiones públicas- y por la notoriedad de las causas judiciales relacionadas con la corrupción política que salpican a los principales dirigentes del PP y del gobierno autónomo. La anomalía valenciana emerge como mucho más que una anécdota sobre desviación y abuso de poder o financiación ilegal: revela la creación un sistema que descansa en instituciones democráticas y se sirve de mecanismos irregulares -clientelismo, corrupción, política de medios y neopopulismo- para establecer una hegemonía partidista destinada a prologarse en el gobierno mediante la consolidación de ventajas determinantes que alteran el juego de la competencia pluripartidista. Las prácticas irregulares, denunciadas por los medios y la oposición, en manos de los jueces, tienen una escasísima incidencia en el electorado. El libro se interroga por las mediaciones que intervienen en el sistema de gobierno y por las redes que contribuyen a su éxito. Examinando casos análogos de otros países, adelanta una previsión de los riesgos que para el funcionamiento democrático representa la perpetuación del modelo instaurado.