World Heritage List: does it make sense?

The UNESCO World Heritage List contains the 900 most treasured sites of humanity's culture and landscapes. This List is beneficial where heritage sites are undetected, disregarded by national decision‐makers, not commercially exploitable, and where national financial resources, political control, and technical knowledge for conservation are inadequate. Alternatives such as market and national conservation lists are more beneficial where the cultural and natural sites are already popular, markets work well, and where inclusion in the List does not raise the destruction potential by excessive tourism, and in times of war, or by terrorists.     

Does it matter where I live?

"The traditional view of the overall health field is criticized and a new perspective embracing the environment, life style, human biology and health care is presented. Spatial variations and distributional patterns in the UK of premature death from coronary artery disease in males and females, lung-bronchus cancer in males, cancer of the female breast, and 'All Causes' for both sexes are described and analysed at national, regional, district and intra-urban scale. High risk and low risk areas/communities for premature death from selected diseases are listed as indicators of local health status."     

Migration and implicit amenity markets: does incomplete compensation matter?

We first develop an empirical approach for generating measuresof wage over or under compensation (incomplete compensation)for location attributes. We then devise a method to test whethermigration is influenced by incomplete compensation in wagesfor location characteristics. An intercity wage regression isestimated where fixed effects capture the impact of site characteristicson wages. We then regress the fixed effects on a comprehensivevector of site attributes, where the residuals from this stagecapture incomplete compensation in wages. The derived measuresof incomplete compensation are included in a standard microdata-baseddiscrete choice model of migration. The results suggest thatincomplete wage compensation for site characteristics mattersin migration decisions, and the findings are consistent withtendencies toward spatial equilibrium in the distribution ofpopulation.     

Race-based districting: does it help or hinder legislative representation?

This paper assesses the impact of using race-based districts on membership diversity of the US Congress and state legislative chambers as well as on electoral competition and voter participation in US Congressional and state legislative elections. In the 1990s membership diversity has increased in the US House of Representatives and state legislative chambers due to increased reliance on the use of race and ethnicity in drawing Congressional and legislative districts. But anecdotal evidence suggests that the creation of more homogeneous districts may lead to a decline in electoral competition, and thus a decline in voter participation in elections held within those districts. Uncompetitive Congressional or state legislative districts are posited to reduce the incentives for candidates or parties to mobilize voters and to restrict the electorate to habitual voters only. A lack of incentives to vote in district elections may diminish overall participation and have consequences in elections for statewide offices. I examine electoral competition and voter participation in recent Congressional and state legislative elections to determine whether electoral competition and voter participation have decreased, and whether that decrease can be linked to changes in the homogeneity of districts. I conclude by suggesting that bodies who adopt districting plans as well as those charged with a review of such plans take into account how line drawing affects electoral competition and voter participation as well as membership diversity.     

How much does urban location matter for growth?

This paper analyses the effect of location characteristics on urban growth using regression cubic splines. Our empirical analysis shows that in Spain, differences in accessibility to major urban centres and geographic isolation help explain differences in population growth rates across municipalities between 2001 and 2014. Moreover, even though physical proximity to large cities is usually assumed to be closely related to the attractiveness of a municipality, we found that urban population growth is even more related to the joint effect of distance to major centres and agglomeration. In this respect, there seems to be a threshold from which agglomeration diseconomies come into play such that a greater proximity to major cities and/or being localized within a more densely populated area goes against local growth.     

Archeology: Dismal science or science of the dismal?

Charles L. Redman, ed. Research and Theory in Current Archeology. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1973. ix + 390 pp. Tables, figures, references, and index. $14.95.     

The brokerage role of supporting organizations inside clusters: how does it work?

The objective of this research is to examine in depth the brokerage roles that supporting institutions play in conducting local business and applying technical knowledge inside clusters. We identify three main roles: a coordination role, characterized by the efforts that organizations play in internally coordinating themselves and establishing a shared institutional framework; an interconnector role, where organizations foster communication along the value chain of the industry; and a gatekeeper role that allows organizations to connect cluster members with external networks. Results obtained in the Toy Valley cluster provide evidence that each kind of supporting organization tends to specialize in specific roles, since universities are best for a coordination role with regard to technical knowledge while private organizations are key for vertical communication and coordination. Similar results were obtained when analysing the extra-cluster contacts that these organizations develop as gatekeepers, as they tend to establish specific communication conduits with similar alters in external networks.     

The politics of the accord does corporatism explain it?

The period between the holding of the National Economic Summit Conference in April 1983 and the 1984 election has seen the politics of the Accord shift from a primary concern with wage setting through the Arbitration Commission to the management of trade‐offs in non‐wage areas between business, government and the ACTU. The politics of the Accord in this period is not understood by adopting an interest group approach to business, the ACTU and the government or by accepting EPAC's view of its own institutional role. Rather, business and the ACTU obey two different logics of collective action and Epac is a ‘disorganising’ institution. It is a representation system based on closure by exclusion called partial corporatism. Partial corporatism benefits business disproportionately and excludes women, welfare recipients and the unemployed.     

International theory: Towards a policy science?

Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics. Addison‐Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1979, pp. 251. US$7.95.

Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics. Princeton University Press, 1976, pp. 445. $25; $11.50 (paper).

Glenn H. Snyder and Paul Diesing, Conflict Among Nations. Princeton University Press, 1977, pp. 578; US$32.50; $11.50 (paper).     

Postcrisis recovery in the regions of Europe: Does institutional quality matter?

This paper investigates how institutional quality and its components (quality, impartiality, and control of corruption) are associated with the economic recovery in the aftermath of the global recession (2010–2016). The evidence suggests that the postcrisis dynamism of a region depends on whether its economy is accompanied by a good governance at the local level. The results also show the heterogeneity in the effects of institutional characteristics and other traditional determinants of growth for the high-income club (core) and the low-income club (periphery), respectively. This evidence can provide indications to define ad hoc policies apt to mitigate the recent surge in inequality among EU regions.     

Students: Are they really so conservative?

In order to test the proposition that students in the late 1970s were markedly more conservative than the students of the late 1960s, a sample of 550 University of Queensland students was surveyed in September 1979 employing a questionnaire similar to that administered to 272 Queensland students in 1969. The contemporaneous campaign against the Queensland government's ban on street marches, providing as it did frequent opportunities for participation in protest, facilitated comparison at the level of participation in protest as well as that of attitudes. Although students’ political party preferences had moved to the left, the pattern of attitude change was less consistent, the most marked and consistent change being the decline in confidence in political authorities. Although students’ views of protest politics were no less favourable, their preparedness to participate had declined. Perhaps the most striking change was, however, the rise in interest and participation in politics amongst women.     

Participatory Watershed Development in India: Can it Sustain Rural Livelihoods?

The purpose of this article is to assess the impact of policy interventions through watershed development (WD) on the livelihoods of the rural communities. This is done by assessing the programme in the context of a sustainable rural livelihoods framework, that is, looking at its impact on the five types of capital assets and strategies required for the means of living. The article also examines the vulnerability and stability of these capital assets, as well as analysing which people participate in the programme and enhance their livelihoods through sharing its benefits. In the light of the analysis, it is argued that watershed development holds the potential for enhanced livelihood security even in geo‐climatic conditions where the watershed cannot bring direct irrigation benefits on a large scale. In such fragile environments, however, watershed development is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for sustaining rural livelihoods. While the focus of watershed development is primarily on strengthening the ecological base such as water bodies (including traditional tanks), grazing lands and wastelands, it should be complemented with other programmes which focus on landless poor households in order to make it pro‐poor. In the context of low rainfall regions where improvement in irrigation facilities is slow, agriculture alone cannot support the communities. Policies and programmes should aim at creating an environment for diverse livelihood activities, which are the choice of the household rather than distress activities.     

What happened to provocation in science and technology studies?

Science and technology studies (STS) is an important and often controversial interdisciplinary field which has proved to be provocative and influential. But has its institutionalization and influence occurred at the expense of some of its provocative power? This paper considers the fate of provocative ideas associated with STS as they become appropriated and transformed by new social institutions and audiences. It aims to sketch a preliminary framework for analysing the social dynamics of the persistence and/or attenuation of its ideas and impacts. The argument reviews the main early aspirations and targets of STS. It suggests that changing emphases in STS can be understood as responses to successive versions of the principle of symmetry. It argues that the continual renewal and recruitment of audiences for STS is central to sustaining its capacity for provocation.     

Multicultural democracy: can it work?

After differentiating multicultural democracy (MD) from other types of democracy (liberal, consociational, ethnic and Herrenvolk), this article explores both the conditions favouring MD and the problems it faces. The main obstacle to MD is the model of the ‘nation–state’, which has been the basis of legitimacy in most liberal democracies since the French Revolution. Multiculturalism has existed in many non–democratic states (such as colonial and traditional empires) and in city–states. A distinction is made between minimal MD (the simple tolerance and legal protection of cultural diversity) and maximal MD (the celebration, encouragement and official support thereof). The article concludes that minimal MD is the more feasible of the two, and that political and social conditions for it are the most favourable in urban environments, especially in city–states.     

Global change in the mesosphere-lower thermosphere region: has it already arrived?

This tutorial review describes some possible future scenarios for changes in temperature and water vapor in the mesosphere-lower thermosphere (MLT) region (50–100 km). The structure and dynamics of this region are controlled by physical processes, some of which are very different than in the lower atmosphere, such as gravity-wave breaking, radiative transfer in non-local thermodynamic equilibrium and airglow cooling. The couplings between the various atmospheric properties are illustrated by the use of a 2D zonally-symmetric model ranging from 16 to 120 km. The importance of temperature and water vapor for the occurrence and scattered brightness of mesospheric clouds (at a height of about 83 km) is described in terms of their influence on nucleation, growth and sedimentation of ice particles. At the cold mesopause at high latitude, IR effects would warm the region without dynamical feedbacks, which in the 2D model to be described, cause a net cooling at all latitudes and seasons. The effects of a future doubling of carbon dioxide and methane (and a past halving) are examined by means of the same 2D model. All models predict a future lowering of temperature throughout much, if not all of the MLT region, as a result of enhanced IR cooling and dynamical feedbacks. The rise of methane will lead to an enhancement of water vapor concentrations throughout the upper atmosphere. The cloud existence region, defined in terms of water-ice saturation, is predicted to extend to lower-latitude, high population areas in the future. In a glacial-era scenario, the existence region is found to be confined to a small region near the summertime polar mesopause. Over the past century, with a doubling of methane and a 30% increase in carbon dioxide, the mesospheric cloud existence region may, have advanced from near the pole to its current location inside the 50°–90° latitude zone. The uncertainties in current models and need for further studies are discussed.     

Sociology or social science?

Modern sociology has set itself up as a specialised discipline dissociating itself from the broad-ranging theories of development of the early sociologists and breaking the links with economics, social anthropology and politics which had formed such an exciting unity in their works or at least in their lives.     

Sociology or social science?

Modern sociology has set itself up as a specialised discipline dissociating itself from the broad-ranging theories of development of the early sociologists and breaking the links with economics, social anthropology and politics which had formed such an exciting unity in their works or at least in their lives.