The aim of this group is to study local and regional development in Uruguay as a long-run economic and social process. The analytical framework for studying the development of different territories (Departments and regions) necessitates a complex view of the processes of capital accumulation and structural change, the determinants of which are understood to be the result of social, economic, institutional and historical processes. In this sense, the possibilities for local and regional development are related to the development of internal capabilities. For this reason we place an emphasis on analyzing the endogeneity of the process. Endogeneity is understood as the ability to generate internal change or to internalize external processes in a positive way, in the context of globalization. In particular, the border relations within the context of the South American southern cone region are considered important in order to better understand the process of development of the country, and within it (among its regions). At the same time, approaches regarding sustainable development, with a view towards its economic, social and environmental dimensions, as well as the interrelations between these, have a transversal presence in the group’s research agenda, promoting an integral view of the phenomenon of development in the territory.
The group’s primary lines of research are: i) Departmental GDP and regional development in Uruguay, 1900-2000, ii) convergence and divergence in Uruguay’s regional development, 1984-2011, iii) decentralization and financing local development.
Objectives
Contribute to the understanding and characterization of local and regional development in Uruguay, and to its explanatory factors, from a long-term perspective for the period 1900-2000 and from a medium-term perspective for the period 1985-2012.
In particular, we hope to find evidence on the importance of endogenous capabilities of territories (Departments, localities) in order to explain relative performance in terms of economic and social development.
In the process of pursuing the above-mentioned objectives we hope to construct a set of indicators of local and regional development, as well as of its determining factors. The information processed and elaborated constitutes a contribution for future research.
Another objective is to analyze the recent process of decentralization being implemented in the country and to study, with the help of international experiences, the possibilities for financing local development in Uruguay.
Purpose
Inquiring about the patterns of interaction within clusters can provide a valuable insight into the cooperation and competition strategies followed by firms. However, such internal patterns are difficult to identify using conventional methods. This study aims to apply a social network analysis approach to identify and analyze different sub-groups of firms within a dairy cluster. These sub-groups seem to respond to different forms of productive organization, with different levels of territorial anchorage.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors study the dairy cluster in the south-west of Uruguay, where one of the country’s main industries is located. The authors use data from semi-structured interviews applied to managing directors of 40 dairy industrial firms. The authors analyze the collaboration network among firms and industry support organizations. Using a community detection algorithm, the authors identify strategic groups of firms and organizations within the network. The authors analyze information from the interviews to delve deeper into the strategies pursued by actors in each of these sub-groups.
Findings
The four groups identified by the algorithm respond to particular logics associated not only with collaborative behavior, but also with territorial distribution and competitive strategies pursued by firms. In particular, these communities show a positive association between the centrality of their nodes in the network, the size of their firms, their export orientation and their innovative capacity. These associations indicate the co-existence, within the cluster, of different local productive systems and other forms of productive organization.
Originality/value
The paper illustrates how different strategies of firms within a cluster can be understood using social network analysis. This approach is particularly interesting in agri-food clusters, where their wider dispersion in the territory often implies their firms following different collaborative and competitive strategies, and different levels of territorial anchorage.
The literature on collaborative and policy networks has identified that they can go beyond the limitations of traditional policy designs to address complex problems such as poverty, educational dropout or exclusion. However, not all networks allow for comprehensive responses, since in addition to a high level of collaboration, comprehensiveness requires the existence of intersectoral (or not exclusively intrasectoral) relationships. A network of organizations dedicated to the design and implementation of policies in a city with a high incidence of socioeconomic vulnerability in Uruguay is analyzed. Social network analysis of the relational structures of the organizations is carried out. First, the main characteristics of the network are described. Second, segregation measures are calculated to test the level of association of the relationship structure with respect to the sectoral characteristics of the organizations or whether they are independent of the sector to which they belong. In this case, the network would allow a comprehensive response to the problems addressed by the policies.
The aim of the article is to analyze the relationship between agricultural cooperativism and territorial develop-ment in Uruguay. First, the theoretical bases of the territorial development approach are presented, highlighting the coincidences with cooperativism. From this, the category of endogenous development is proposed as the main link between the two approaches. The methodology consists of a descriptive and exploratory analysis, with a historical focus, based on a bibliographic and documentary review, secondary information and inter-views with key actors. To obtain the results, the history and evolution of cooperativism in Uruguay is analyzed, and then it focuses on agricultural cooperativism, its origins, its most representative cases and its evolution. The results show a positive contribution of agricultural cooperatives to territorial development, supported on an important role of public policies. Cooperatives promotes the competitiveness of the territory in international markets but protects the local productive systems of small producers from the logic of concentration and exclusion of transnational capital. In turn, cooperatives favor endogenous capacities for innovation and the construction of local social capital and networks that are the basis of local development strategies.
Para hacerse una idea de la riqueza contenida en las 25 variables contempladas en el Índice IDERE LATAM basta con observar su desglose según las ocho dimensiones citadas. De este modo, la educación incluye información de cuatro indicadores: alfabetismo, estudios de educación superior, matrícula en educación inicial y años de educación. Por su parte, la salud incorpora tres indicadores relativos a la mortalidad infantil, el número de suicidios y la esperanza de vida al nacer. Asimismo, la variable Bienestar y Cohesión incluye un grupo de cinco indicadores relativos a la situación de pobreza, trabajo informal, coeficiente de Gini, conexión a internet e ingreso de los hogares por persona. La Actividad Económica, en tanto, contempla los indicadores de desempleo, PIB por habitante y tamaño del mercado, mientras que la variable Instituciones incluye los ingresos propios del gobierno regional, la participación electoral regional, y el índice de percepción de la corrupción. La variable Género contempla como indicadores la actividad laboral femenina y el índice de desarrollo de género. Por su parte, la seguridad incluye como indicadores el número de homicidios y el índice de paz global. Finalmente, la variable Medioambiente incorpora como indicadores las energías renovables, las áreas naturales protegidas y la calidad de los recursos naturales valiosos. El Índice de Desarrollo Regional - Latinoamérica (IDERE LATAM) se sitúa en la misma línea del esfuerzo y planteamiento de aquel trabajo pionero del PNUD sobre el Índice de Desarrollo Humano, a partir del enfoque de las capacidades humanas, impulsado por Amartya Sen y Martha Nussbaum, entre otros, para quienes el desarrollo se entiende como una expansión de las oportunidades que tienen las personas para ejercitar sus libertades de elección en la consecución de objetivos en distintas áreas relevantes para sus vidas.
The deep inequalities in Latin America require a territorial emphasis on diagnosis and policy
recommendations in order to promote human and sustainable development. To contribute to
this objective, a composite and multidimensional regional development index appropriate to
the particular Latin American context is proposed. The index confirms: 1) the existence of large
territorial development gaps; 2) a general situation of medium to low regional development; 3) a
heterogeneity in the distribution between regions of the factors that favor or delay development.
The index shows potential as a tool to identify specific challenges in each region and, within the
framework of a multi-stakeholder and multi-level dialogue, contribute to generating impactful
territorial development agendas.
Previous literature on innovation in developing countries has studied the relevance of public policies and support organisations, which can compensate for the weaknesses of local innovation networks. However, from a social network approach, this issue remains understudied. Aiming to fill this gap, this paper analyses the role of support organisations in four cluster networks of Uruguay.
The relationship between collaboration, geography and innovation has been analysed in economic geography. However, little is known from a social‐network perspective about whether different geographical levels of embeddedness may determine the way networks affect innovation. To address this issue, we compare the effects of regional vs. country‐level Spanish networks on future patenting. If we consider the country‐wide network, our statistical analysis reproduces the findings of the previous literature. However, negative effects prevail at the regional level, while the influence seems to be rather positive at the country level. We thus conclude that the embeddedness at different geographical scales exerts differing influence on innovation.
This article studies the transnational corporations’ ownership and investment relationships between countries. Using Thomson Reuters SDC Platinum database on mergers and acquisitions and social network analysis techniques, the paper analyzes the international mergers and acquisitions network (IMAN), where vertices are 211 countries and edges represent the flow of international mergers and acquisitions between them. After elaborating the IMAN, it estimates the fitness of Borgatti and Everett (2000) core-periphery model to the network. Furthermore, it analyzes the fitness evolution between 1999 and 2013 and identifies core, semi-periphery and periphery countries. Results confirm the existence of a sharp and persistent coreperiphery structure in the relations between countries. The core is made of only 15 nations that are almost completely interconnected among them and responsible for most of investments in transnational corporations. 41 semi-peripheral countries are relatively well connected while achieving about one fourth of investments. Finally, the remaining 155 nations in the periphery are mostly disconnected among them and only receive marginal investments from the core and semi-periphery nations. These results reveal that the ownership and control of the means of production at the global level is driven by polarized and unequal relationships between countries.
Social policy networks consisting of diverse and independent organizations are a popular instrument to implement policy at community level. However, little is known about the way in which different types of organizations collaborate in these networks and if these interactions depend on the nature of their funding (public/private) and/or their remit of activity. These characteristics have implications on the type of resources organizations might depend on and, therefore, on their participation in networks. The type of the links established in these interorganizational arrangements varies in terms of the resources that organizations depend on to address power imbalances.
Networks of organizations involved in public policy implementation require strong interaction, concerted action and high degrees of collaboration to be effective. However, little is known about how different types of organizations involved in implementation of multi-sectoral social policies interact in these networks. In this article the relationship between organizational characteristics and network position is explored, as well as how the intensity of collaborations can also determine organizations’ involvement in networks. The nature of funding (public/private) and the remit of activity of organizations are found to determine their influence and importance in social policy networks. Furthermore, the network position of the organizations also depends on the level of intensity of their interactions. These results can guide public administrators when developing and promoting networks to involve a particular type of actor and also policymakers as to which types of ties are more aligned with the implementation of a particular policy.
This paper aims to analyze the relationship between inter-firm collaboration network and the type of innovation strategies that can be followed by firms: buy or make innovation. In particular, the authors seek to analyze which are the network topologies that facilitate firms following a buy innovation strategy compared to those network properties that encourage internal R&D activities.
Networks of organizations involved in public policy implementation require strong interaction, concerted action and high degrees of collaboration to be effective.
Recent publications in the area 
