Understanding Population Decline Trajectories in Spain using Sequence Analysis

Population decline is a key contemporary demographic challenge. Previous work has measured the national extent of population decline, and we know that it is more acute in Japan and Eastern Europe and is set to accelerate across many industrialized countries. Yet, little is known about the population trajectories leading to current trends of depopulation and their underpinning demographic and contextual factors. To address this gap, we aim to identify and characterize the different trajectories of depopulation in Spain from 2000 to 2020 at the small area level using sequence analysis, spatial autocorrelation analysis, decomposition techniques, and multinomial logistic modeling. We show that while Spain recorded an overall 17.2% national population growth between 2000 and 2020, 63% of municipalities experienced depopulation. We identify six trajectories of population decline, with a well-defined northwest-south divide. These trajectories include mostly rural municipalities, but also certain small- and medium-sized cities. Natural decline comprises the main demographic component underpinning differences in the extent of depopulation across trajectories, and international migration plays an important role in explaining transitions to decline since the financial crisis of 2008. Small and old populations, and, to a lesser extent, remoteness from cities are key features characterizing areas of high decline.     

论宋以来北方人口素质的下降

宋代以来经济重心南移之后,北方地区既失去了劳动人口的数量优势,在人口质量方面也呈现下降趋势,至明清两代更为明显。通过与南方的比较看出,主要表现在化水平的落后,思想观念的陈旧,精神的萎靡与懒惰。以绝望的心态面对穷困的经济状况,以消极的态度对待生产,丧失了信心和再开发能力。片面重农却是粗放耕作,造成产业结构性的贫困,既无开展副业、手工业的技术,更不善于或不屑于从事商业,改造客观世界的能力低下。人口素质的下降是宋以来北方社会经济落后与衰退的一个重要原因。     

The Unfolding of Unreason: Javad Tabatabai's Idea of Political Decline in Iran

Javad Tabatabai, a leading theorist and historian of political thought in Iran, has presented a controversial theory regarding the causes of the decline of political thought and society in Iran over the last few centuries. His ideas on Iranian decline have affected the intellectual debates on modernity and democracy currently underway in Iran. Tabatabai's career-long research has revolved around this question: “What conditions made modernity possible in Europe and led to its abnegation in Iran?” He answers this question by adopting a “Hegelian approach” that privileges a philosophical reading of history on the assumption that philosophical thought is the foundation and essence of any political community and the basis for any critical analysis of it as well. This article critically engages with Tabatabai's ideas of “crisis,” and “decline” by challenging his exposition of the Persian tradition.     

Dog Wars and Human Rights: Perceptions of Political Despotism at the End of the Ancien Regime

During the political crisis in the Salzburg archiepiscopacyat the end of the eighteenth century there was an increase inthe number of violent clashes between huntsmen and poachersin the forest areas. The huntsmen exacerbated the anger of therural communities by shooting dead any farm dogs they foundrunning free. The farmers, for their part, ignored the decreewhich had been in force since the sixteenth century that theyshould either chain their dogs up or restrict their freedomwith a Knüppel, a large piece of wood attached to the neckto hinder their chasing after game. These attacks by the huntsmenwere felt by the peasants to be an arbitrary abuse of politicalpower, and a threat to their farms. They were angered both thatthis limited the ability of the dogs to do their duty in guardingthe farms, and also by the way the dogs' natural guarding instinctswere being undermined. They thought of men and their animalsas different creatures, but they were forced to acknowledgethat the restriction of the dogs' freedom was also an attempton their own liberty. The Dog Wars crystallized a conflict aroundtraditional feudal symbols of subjugation. They show how theimages that the ruling and the ruled had of each other beganto crumble and give way to mutual mistrust. The Salzburg farmershad no need of revolutionary agitators to see that the archiepiscopalstate was moribund. They had their own yardsticks, first andforemost poaching, with which to measure the effective limitsset to their freedom by the state. They were not party to thecontemporary intellectual debates on human rights, but the violenceto their dogs was a clear sign to them of the revolutionaryspirit of the times. The notion of human rights did not enjoylinear growth, but itself progressed by way of conflict. Andthis notion should not be limited to the human condition only—itmust be extrapolated beyond the ideological fixations of thenineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the context of the historyof dogs—man's longest-standing companion, after all—‘human’rights take on a different hue, relativized and yet somehowmore clearly defined.     

Public Perceptions of Expert Credibility on Policy Issues: The Role of Expert Framing and Political Worldviews

How do individuals assess the credibility of experts in various policy domains? Under what conditions does the public interpret particular scientific knowledge claims as being trustworthy and credible? Using data collected from an online survey experiment, administered to 1,507 adult residents of Quebec, this paper seeks answers to these questions. Specifically, we examine variation in the way members of the public perceive the credibility of scientific experts in the areas of climate change, shale gas extraction, cell phones, and wind farms. Our results contribute to the existing literatures on public perceptions of policy experts, framing, and cultural theory. We find that individuals evaluate expert credibility based on the way in which experts frame issues, and on the congruity/dissonance between these expert communication frames and one's underlying worldview. However, we also identify limits to these framing effects. Our findings shed light on the interaction of framing and political worldviews in shaping public perceptions of expert credibility in various policymaking contexts.     

Perceptions of Britishness

Abstract. The aim of this paper is to contribute to scholarly debate about the nature of national identity by exploring a set of empirical data relating to the complex case of Britishness. The paper considers, with reference to the findings of field-work conducted within a Pakistani community in London, what can be learnt about Britishness from the attitudes of young British Pakistanis. It is apparent that for such young people British national identity does not have a fixed content: their remarks draw attention to several different ‘boundaries of Britishness’ which operate in the popular imagination of people in Britain. These include the civic boundary, according to which citizenship is the primary criterion of nationality; the ‘racial’ boundary which defines as British those individuals believed to have British ancestry or ‘blood’; and the cultural boundary, according to which Britishness is a matter of the culture, values or lifestyle to which one adheres.     

Perceptions of Discrimination

Despite legal efforts to eliminate employment discrimination, lawsuits and demonstrations suggest that many federal employees believe they are subject to discriminatory practices. This article analyzes responses to a governmentwide survey of federal employees in order to understand such perceptions more fully. Propositions examined, and at least partially supported, include that minority groups hold identifiable, but structurally different, belief systems with regard to discrimination, and that there are identifiable factors correlated with these perceptions.     

Israeli Perceptions of Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism

Zionist thinkers assumed that the establishment of a Jewish state, which entailed a fundamental change in traits that non-Jews found contemptible, would bring an end to anti-Semitism. Yet after the 1967 war, the Soviet Union, the Western left and Third World governments, previously supportive of Israel, placed Israel in the camp of Western imperialism, while the emerging New Left identified Israel as imperialistic and racist. Against the background of the change in the international climate, debates in Israel over anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism were shaped by domestic politics. While the right saw anti-Semitism as the cause of hostility to Israel, the left argued that anti-Zionism, rooted in political arguments about the Middle East conflict, fanned the flames of anti-Semitism. The attitude to anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism became a cultural code, highlighting the divide between left and right, and between religious and secular.     

政局动荡与学潮起落——九一八事变后学生运动的样态及成因

九一八事变引发的学生请愿示威运动启动迅猛,经历两个发展阶段后很快结束。学潮规模巨大,行动激烈,对当局的冲击程度超过以往的学生运动。但此次学潮未形成全国统一的组织和一致的奋斗目标,也未与工农商各界相结合而形成持久运动。运动受到的影响因素十分复杂,在国民党当局的化解政策和众多因素影响下归于平息。     

旅游地的衰落与产品更新

旅游地的衰落是个普遍现象。如果资源和市场条件许可,衰落期的旅游地能够通过产品更新实现复兴。本论述了产品更新的条件,分析了产品更新的方式。