Departament de Dret i Ciències Polítiques

Los populismos y las derivas iliberales de algunos gobiernos ponen en riesgo el funcionamiento constitucionalmente adecuado de las instituciones y organismos encargados de controlar a la mayoría. Ello acaba por debilitar la democracia, entendida como democracia representativa y constitucional, así como la idea de Constitución como límite al poder. En los últimos años asistimos a una erosión gradual de principios e instituciones del Estado constitucional y democrático de Derecho que afecta a los checks and balances entre poderes y también al pluralismo político. Las corrientes populistas e iliberales abogan por dar primacía a los poderes con legitimidad popular, sobre los órganos de control político y judicial, los cuales son considerados como obstaculizadores de la voluntad popular. Pero en realidad instrumentalizan igualmente las instituciones parlamentarias y colonizan los órganos de control, socavando su independencia. Los autores de esta obra reflexionan acerca de estas amenazas. Analizan los déficits del diseño normativo y del funcionamiento de los contrapoderes e instrumentos contramayoritarios. También pasan revista a la eficacia de los límites provenientes de las instituciones europeas e internacionales, así como de la ciudadanía en el ejercicio de sus derechos. El libro plantea propuestas de mejora de la composición y funcionamiento de los contrapoderes y de las relaciones entre instituciones y de estas con la ciudadanía. Todo ello con la pretensión de hacer frente a esas tendencias populistas e iliberales antes de que deriven en regímenes autoritarios.

En este capítulo, se analiza el rol de los Tribunales Constitucionales dentro del Estado Constitucional de Derecho; en particular, su funcionalidad política. Partiendo del reconocimiento de su valioso rol y de su innegable función política como guardianes de la Constitución, analiza las distintas fundamentaciones y formas de entender dicho rol político; concluye que éste proviene de la Constitución misma como documento de consenso que expresa la decisión política fundamental de la comunidad. Asimismo, expone que estos Altos Tribunales desempeñan una función pedagógica y de educación política constitucional. Se explora cómo su dimensión política influye en el desarrollo de la teoría jurídica de las instituciones constitucionales y de los derechos fundamentales, así como, en la emisión de directrices legislativas. Termina estableciendo unas consideraciones de cara evitar que se socave su importante función y se mantenga la legitimidad del control constitucional, de ese modo, se evite que discursos iliberales o populistas erosionen su autoridad.

Providing—and also not providing—public services to unlawful residents implies a certain cost for host societies, and both inclusion and exclusion involve localized renegotiations of fundamental rights, legitimate needs, and social membership. Based on original qualitative research data, this article compares how, why, and under which conditions irregular migrants are granted or denied access to healthcare services provided in London and Barcelona. From a multi-level perspective and by drawing on organization theory, I highlight key differences in how the responsible governments deal with the underlying contradictions and thereby either help or hinder effective policy implementation.

Ideological evil is to place certain ideals above the real and concrete human person, and has been a feature of the twentieth century totalitarian policies, particularly those who have checked out the life and dignity of human beings. Today this evil ideology embodied in the political and legislative impulses that reduce the scope of protection of life and question the dignity of vulnerable life stages (infants, mentally ill, dying). The most important case in Spain today has been the recent Organic Law 2/2010, the law clearly ideological, out of arguments that promote humanity and on the contrary a law that puts the life periods of future citizens in a dangerous area unprotected and dubious puts individual rights and a strong ideological impulses value of human dignity and fundamental rights that flow from it with are, in this case the protection of life and liberty of conscience.

The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown has impacted daily routines, forcing people to stop socializing in person and changing the way people express their feelings and their romantic or sexual interactions. Social distancing has changed the way people behave online, and we expect that engagement in sexting and online sexual victimization behaviors have increased during lockdown. The aim of this paper is to study the prevalence of sexting and online sexual victimization behaviors during the COVID-19 lockdown in Spanish adults in order to explore how social distancing has affected these behaviors. The sample comprised 293 Spanish adults (mean age = 30.3; 66.2% female) who took part in an online survey about their engagement in sexting behaviors and online sexual victimization experiences. Overall results were apparently not supportive of our main hypothesis, showing that both sexting engagement and online sexual victimization decreased during lockdown despite the increase in internet use. Apart from differences in time period of reference, some alternative hypotheses relate to the increased presence of capable guardians according to the routine activities theory and to forced distance as a demotivation to sext. Possible explanations and hypotheses for these results are discussed further in the paper

Traditional stalking and cyberstalking have become a signifi cant legal and social issue in today’s society. Although a sizeable body of research on stalking victimization and perpetration currently exists, very little is known about cyberstalking victimization. Relatedly, there is a dearth of compa-rative research on the topics of traditional stalking and cyberstalking. Examining the prevalence and nature of stalking victimization across national settings will allow for an exploration of the sig-nifi cance of social context in affecting victims’ experiences as well as help highlight the competing infl uences operating in different contexts. Cross-national research on stalking will also provide an opportunity to consider a wide range of alternative options and solutions to the problem. The aim of this study is to compare and contrast the prevalence and nature of traditional stalking and cy-berstalking victimization between American and Spanish university students. This study focuses on university students because there is evidence that they have a higher risk of becoming victims of stalking relative to the general population. Moreover, the comparative analysis undertaking in this study involves a country that has criminalized stalking for almost three decades (the United States) and a country that has just recently enacted an anti-stalking statute (Spain). Such analysis is warranted as it will allow the researchers to engage in critical analyses of current anti-stalking statutes and advocate for innovative, sensible, and effective solutions in addressing the crime of stalking. In addition to presenting the results, the policy implications derived from the study will also be discussed..

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo presentar los rendimientos que una epistemología medial puede ofrecer a la comprensión del derecho penal y su evolución sociohistórica. Tras esbozar el utillaje analítico que la teoría de medios ofrece al derecho, se expone el modo en que los cambios mediáticos -el paso de la oralidad a la escritura impresa, y de ésta a los medios electrónicos y digitalesmodifican el entorno cultural en el que el sistema penal se inserta, y a la postre transforman el mensaje mismo de la justicia penal. Así, la perspectiva medial revela que los mensajes del derecho penal moderno -legalidad, especialización, interpretación de textos, burocratización, etc.- sólo pudieron emerger en un entorno marcado por la cultura y la racionalidad del libro impreso; y que su “crisis” se relaciona con la irrupción de una nueva cultura digital, que estaría sometiendo a importantes tensiones las modernas nociones de justicia penal.

Despite the growing body of research regarding sexting and online sexual victimization, there is little evidence exploring cultural differences in association with those behaviors. The aim of this study was to examine cultural differences in sexting practices by comparing an American sample and a Spanish sample of university students. The original sample was composed of 1799 college students, including 1386 Spanish college students and 413 American Students, with 74% of female participants, and ages ranging from 18 to 64 years old (mean age = 21.26, SD= 4.61). Results indicate that American students sext more than Spanish students and have higher probabilities of being victims of nonconsensual dissemination of their sexual content. However, Spanish students receive more sexts than American students. Although our results show differences between the Spanish and the American samples that might be modulated by cultural factors, the vulnerability of females regarding sexting remains unchanged. Additionally, differences in specific characteristics of the behaviors (such as perceived risk, receiver of the sexual content, intensity of the sexual content, and motive for sexting) were also studied. Further results and implications are discussed in relation to cultural differences