The European Alps – an exceptional range of mountains? Braudel’s argument put to the test

In his classic work about the Mediterranean in the period of Philipp II, French historian Fernand Braudel designates the European Alps an ‘exceptional range of mountains’ and offers several reasons therefor. In contrast to other parts of Braudel’s work, this argument has gone largely unnoticed in scholarship. This article intends to put it to the test in light of recent publications on the Alps. The first two sections give an outline of Braudel’s dealings with mountain regions and of historical research on the Alps from the 1970s onwards. The third section comments on the suitability of Braudel’s criteria for empirical assessments in a comparative perspective. In the conclusions it is argued that Braudel’s general intuition is still valid to some degree. It is less certain, however, that all the criteria are pertinent. More importantly, the findings emphasize the fact that the history of the Alps cannot be studied without paying close attention to their links with the surrounding lowlands. Thus the question of alpine exceptionality raises the question of the special trajectory of these lowland regions within the larger history of Europe.     

Where Are the Coast-Watchers’ Bones?

In October 1942, five British civilians and 17 New Zealand coast-watchers were executed by Japanese military forces, at Tarawa, Gilbert Islands (Kiribati), in the central Pacific. The bodies were buried in a mass grave, the location of which became obscured when the Japanese constructed military fortifications. A battle was fought at Tarawa in November 1943 whereby the US Marines defeated the Japanese defenders and took control of the island. In the battle more than six thousand men died and their bodies were buried in hastily prepared and often unmarked graves. Since the end of the war the remains of hundreds of Americans and some Japanese have been located and recovered from Tarawa but nothing among the remains has been identified as belonging to the 22 British subjects. A problem in locating the grave of the British has been a lack of any record of its position. In this paper the authors consider the documentary evidence including an important map and a report on the first attempt, using local knowledge, to locate the grave. The specific area of the grave is identified, the date of the executions is confirmed and the reasons behind the order to execute are discussed.     

Are the Economies of Canada and the United States Integrated? Evidence from Cointegration Analysis

In recognition of his contributions to the development of the method of cointegration analysis for analyzing nonstationary time series, late Sir Clive William John Granger (September 4, 1934–May 27, 2009) was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2003. Since then, this method has become a dominant paradigm in empirical economic research. However, this method is not without critics. This article is one in a series to point out some inconsistent arguments used in the development of the method of cointegration analysis. To illustrate by example, we apply the method of time series cointegration analysis and present statistical evidence that supports the proposition that the economies of Canada and the United States are integrated. We conclude this article by laying out a foundation to formally criticize the method of cointegration analysis in subsequent research.     

Are All Policy Decisions Equal? Explaining the Variation in Media Coverage of the UK Budget

A country's budget is one of the most important public policy instruments, as it establishes the government's policy priorities and has the potential to determine winners and losers. The budget, however, is a mixture of different components and these get varying degrees of attention in the media. Drawing on sociology of news research, this paper seeks to explain this heterogeneous coverage of a budget's policy decisions. To do so, it uses a unique data set of over 5,000 articles of press coverage of six UK budgets (2008–2012). These articles are coded for the presence/absence of each of the budget's policy decision, via automated content analysis. On the basis of a multivariate negative binomial model, we find that the salience of a policy decision in the coverage is determined by its cost, whether it is negative (i.e., tax hikes and spending cuts) or positive, the income group that is the most affected by it, and the level of attention given to it by the government.     

Treatment or Placebo: Are State Programs Decreasing the Proportion of Uninsured?

Currently there are over 45 million Americans without health insurance. Recent growth in Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) enrollment of children has filled in the sizable gap created by decreased employer‐sponsored insurance since 2000. While the share of children who are uninsured actually decreased between 2000 and 2003, little progress was made in expanding public insurance to adults. As a result, advocates and policymakers at the federal and state level are searching for approaches to deal with the growing number of the uninsured. Conservatives advocate encouraging individuals to buy private insurance while liberals advocate the provision of health coverage through publicly financed health care. Using a 50‐state multilevel individual growth model, this study estimates the net effect of two state approaches in terms of reducing the uninsured: tax incentives (the conservative approach) and direct‐coverage programs (the liberal approach). The results suggest that these approaches have not achieved the results that many advocates had suggested. In the case of tax incentives, the results suggest that states with tax incentives experience increases in the rate of the uninsured. In the case of direct‐coverage programs, results suggest that states receive no relief in the number of uninsured individuals. Finally, the analysis suggests that the efforts originating at the federal level are most successful. These programs are a continuation of the incremental approach policymakers in America have taken to address the problem of the uninsured, rather than taking steps toward a truly comprehensive solution.     

Are Monarchies Exceptional to the Arab Uprisings? The Resilience of Moroccan Monarchy Revisited

With the onset of the Arab uprisings at the end of 2010 and the emergence of popular demonstrations that raised the issue of crises of legitimacy across the Arab states, the literature on democratization in the Middle East and North African (MENA) studies has taken on new dimensions recently. One of the primary theoretical debates that has surfaced in the post‐2011 era has revolved around on whether or not the demonstrations will lead to regime change or increased authoritarianism in the MENA region. One of the crucial developments of the Arab Spring has, then, been the overthrow of some long‐standing rulers like Ben Ali of Tunisia and Mubarak of Egypt, as well as the questioning of authoritarian regimes by the masses. The public protests submerged some Arab republics, but monarchies found ways to overcome the public outcry through containing the opposition. This paper, therefore, takes the monarchy of Morocco as a case study with the aim of analyzing the methods and regime‐survival strategies the regime has employed to sustain itself and consolidate power in the post‐2011 Arab uprisings era. Additionally, the role of the Justice and Development Party as an emerging threat in the postdemocratization era, and the changing nature of the party’s relations with the palace, will be addressed.     

Are We Postcolonial Yet? Tales from the Battlefield

This paper questions whether archaeological thinking and practice have become post-colonial and ethically and politically aware and sophisticated, and comments on a number of instances (militarization of archaeology, sponsorship by ethically tainted global corporations, global publishing practices, the declaration of western metropolitan museums as ??universal??) where neo-colonial regimes of truth and practice are present, even amongst groups and organisations that advocate de-colonisation. It proposes that new theoretical insights are generated at the moments of inevitable and at times necessary confrontations with these neo-colonial regimes. Finally, it conjures up the figure of new global immigrant in order to not only highlight their plight and the need for archaeologists to fight racism and xenophobia, but also to point out that the exilic position, the on-going questioning of our deep-left attachments to nation-states, institutions and structures, provides the space for radical critique and for new ontological possibilities to emerge.     

Are secessionists making the right arguments for independence?

There are roughly 70 secessionist movements around the world, and all of them advance arguments for why they deserve independence. These include restorative rights, remedial rights, primary rights, a history of conflict and functionality-based arguments. However, no one has conducted a comprehensive analysis to see how these arguments (or grievances) match reality. That is, are secessionists making the right arguments given their context? To answer this question, we utilise a data set of potential secessionist grievances to determine what normative arguments each secessionist movement ought to make given their setting. We conduct a content analysis of the normative appeals/grievances that have actually been made by specific secessionist movements since 2000. We then compare the predicted grievances against the actual grievances and summarise the patterns. The results matched our predictions where restorative rights, remedial rights and functionality-based arguments are concerned. Our analysis returned a positive and statistically significant relationship. However, we found no evidence that those making conflict-related arguments were more likely to exist in conflict settings. Interestingly, the findings for primary rights were the opposite of our expectations; it is the secessionists with the most political voice, not the least, that are the keenest to stress primary rights.     

Who Are Your Neighbors? The Role of Ideology and Decline of Geographic Proximity in the Diffusion of Policy Innovations

States adopt policy innovations within the confines of a dynamic American federal system, but our study of policy diffusion tends to be fairly static. Single‐policy studies incorporate temporal variation, but for only one innovation. Macro‐level analyses examine broad patterns, but often by completely pooling across policy and time. This makes it difficult to identify how diffusion patterns change over time, though Walker's early work explicitly identified such temporal instability. This study specifically examines how neighbor and ideological cues change in importance over time using a dataset of 556 policies adopted from 1960 to 2014. While the findings demonstrate the generality of many key internal, external, and policy‐level determinants of adoption, there is variation in these effects across time. Most important is the relative stability of ideological similarity between adopters and declining influence of contiguous neighbors. Further, political polarization plays a role in conditioning neighbor and ideological cues.     

Renewable Electricity in the EU: Are We Meeting the Targets?

This paper analyses differences in the degree to which European Union countries have achieved the renewable electricity (RES-E) targets set by the European Commission for each Member State for 2010. After defining an RES-E target achievement (TA) indicator, both conventional and novel techniques are used to examine the main features of its distribution, including the degree of inequality, external shape and intra-distribution dynamics, for the 1996–2006 time period. The analysis demonstrates that disparities in TA have been strongly reduced and that intra-distribution mobility was very high.     

Are the global media and entertainment conglomerates having an impact on cultural diversity? A critical assessment of the argument in the case of the film industry

This paper critically examines the dominant discourse on the global media and its impact on cultural diversity. The term cultural diversity suffers from the lack of good definition and criteria to assess its degree and change over time in specific markets. The paper also argues from an economic perspective that the distinctive economic features of the film business has led to market concentration, which, however, is ‘natural’ and does not trigger the application of competition law to rectify it. A particular problem is the assumed link between the market structure and its performance, which is not definitively supported by theory or empirical research. It is argued that the discussion in the media and entertainment studies literature is sometimes based on flawed reasoning and insufficient evidence. It is suggested that we start with the important discussion on what state of cultural diversity cultural policy should strive to achieve.     

Are the most productive regions necessarily the most successful? Local effects of productivity growth on employment and earnings

Economists typically celebrate productivity growth as the chief way to improve living standards. Productivity growth may reduce costs, improve quality, or lead to innovation and new products, but if demand is insufficiently elastic, productivity growth can lead to weakening of labor markets. We study county‐level effects of productivity growth and productivity levels on growth in employment, income, and earnings. The results suggest that productivity growth generally suppresses job growth but has boosting effects on earnings and, to a lesser degree, on per‐capita income, although there is considerable variation across geographies and specific outcomes.     

Are the United States and Europe heading for divorce?

If current headlines are to be believed, the United States and Europe are not just drifting apart. The question is, how serious is the rift? There are major differences between them–including differing regional priorities, diverging issue agendas and fundamentally different approaches to meeting the challenges of the post‐Cold War period. These differences suggest that the US‐European relationship will continue to drift. Although continued drift has its costs (notably in the missed opportunities for cooperation on a host of international issues), the US and Europe should recognize that this change in the terms and nature of their relationship is made possible by the very success of their fifty years of partnership, which has produced a Europe that today is more peaceful, democratic, and united than at any time in history.     

Are the equatorial electrojet and counterelectrojet centered invariably on the dip equator?

The H, D and Z variations at Huancayo (dip angle 2°N) in the South American dip equator region were compared during a sequence of days (11–16 January 1964) having extraordinarily large afternoon counterelectrojets. It was noticed that both the electrojet and counterelectrojet showed large latitudinal excursions (exceeding 2° dip angle or 1° latitude) on different days as also at different hours of the same day.