A Dynamic Systems Framework for Studying Technological Change: Application to the Emergence of the Potter's Wheel in the Southern Levant

The dynamic systems framework may be considered an alternative to traditional approaches that study technological change. The benefits of this framework are simultaneously methodological and metaphorical. Methodologically, the framework provides a coherent analytic process for studying empirical data to explain the complexity of technological change. Metaphorically, the framework appeals to local-scale interactive mechanisms to account for the origins of change. Applicability of the dynamic systems framework for studying technological change is illustrated with an archaeological case study: the emergence of the potter's wheel in southern Levant during the 4th millennium BC.     

Beyond Food: Placing Animals in the Framework of Social Change in Post-Roman England

Zooarchaeological evidence is combined with anthropological, artistic and historical sources to investigate the role of human-animal interactions during periods of social change in post-Roman England. Data from nearly 500 assemblages covering 1500 years in southern England provide a unique basis to investigate the use of non-livestock animals in diverse areas from cosmology to commodities, companions to status. Results showcase the potential for integrated studies to provide insights into the changing perceptions of animals from creatures that play a role in the afterlife, to those that are earthbound and soulless, to express status and power, to reveal a demand for spectacle and education and to reflect contrasting functions of economy alongside an increasing sentimentality for pets.     

Modeling Interaction in a System of Markets

This paper develops a nested family of market interaction models for the general case of spatial or aspatial goods. Market structure effects are identified in the form of intraregional and extraregional competition. The competing destinations and competing central place models are shown to be special cases of the general modeling framework. An empirical example, using survey data collected from Chicago-area Management and Public Relations (SIC 874) firms, illustrates how the family of models may be used to identify market structure.     

Belief System Continuity and Change in Policy Advocacy Coalitions: Using Cultural Theory to Specify Belief Systems,Coalitions, and Sources of Change

This paper evaluates the prospects for application of the “grid/group” cultural theory (CT), as advanced by Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky, to the Advocacy Coalition Theory (ACF). CT would seem to be relevant to several key aspects of the ACF: the content of the core beliefs that provide the “glue” that binds coalitions; the resilience of core beliefs and associated implications for belief change and learning; and the structure of coalitions and the mechanisms for coordination and control within them. The paper considers the compatibility of the ACF's account of deep core beliefs and coalition structure with that of CT; surveys an array of empirical studies based on variations of CT; and extends accounts of change in cultural identities from CT to the ACF. In addition, we highlight some of the ways in which the ACF may offer important theoretical insights for scholars of CT, potentially clarifying hypotheses concerning the relationships among basic worldviews, more specific beliefs, and behaviors.     

Polycentricity and the Hollow State: Exploring Shared Personnel as a Source of Connectivity in Fragmented Urban Systems

The Ecology of Games (EoG) theory couples institutional rational choice with social network theory, articulating how transaction costs, social capital, and collective action dilemmas shape networks and network outcomes in polycentric governance systems. EoG literature has often focused on social–relational ties across organizational boundaries. However, jurisdictional fragmentation and increased reliance on private contractors in local public service delivery foster another source of network connectivity—shared personnel who work for multiple service providers. Drawing upon novel data of organizational personnel from more than 500 special purpose entities responsible for delivering drinking water to local neighborhoods in the Houston metro area in the state of Texas (United States), we examine how managerial, technical, and financial service delivery personnel connect otherwise independent organizations. We find that districts regulated by a common groundwater management agency and districts which contract with one another are both more likely to share technical and managerial personnel. By studying special districts that have overlapping personnel, we broaden the scope of the EoG framework to include additional layers of governance network complexity. As individual bureaucrats and service professionals play a key role in information transfer and innovation diffusion across organizations, shared personnel networks merit consideration as a mechanism for coordination and collective problem solving in fragmented urban systems.     

The Use of Information Theory in the Modeling of Natural Systems

Systems investigated by geographers include components of inert nature, living organisms and social phenomena. The use of information theory makes it possible to overcome some of the problems involved in the modeling of systems consisting of such a diversity of elements, particularly the problem of a single system of units. The building of inductive models of natural systems is designed to identify the programs of behavior of natural complexes, which in the original systems are merged with structure. An example of such an inductive model is the model of the structure of a southern tayga landscape system. It was built by identifying information relationships between 160 elements on the basis of the equation: J_AB = H_A+H_B—H_AB, where J_AB is the amount of transmitted information, and H_A, H_B, H_AB are the entropies of the receiver, of the transmitter and their joint entropy. The model interrelated a number of properties of soils, unconsolidated sediment, groundwater, relief, plant cover and microclimate. An analysis of the model yielded the hierarchical structure of the system, the main information flows, and the location of the nodes that generate and accumulate information. An attempt was made to calculate the information content of particular elements from the point of view of the system as a whole and the mean rates of information transmission between elements.     

Multiagent Systems and the Dynamics of a Settlement System

In order to simulate the evolution of a system of settlements with a dynamic model, many processes must be integrated: the spatial aggregation of population, the complexification of urban activities, and the increasing hierarchical differentiation of settlements. The model must also simulate the progressive structuration of the settlement system through a growing variety and enlarged range of interactions between its elements. “Multiagent systems” provides a flexible modeling method for dealing with the multiple spatial interactions of cooperation and competition and relations that generate and regulate the evolution of a settlement system. Its principles are described and applied to building an evolutionary model, including a simulation tool. The model combines economic and spatial rules to produce birth, growth, decline, and functional diversification of the towns. The “urban transition” from an agrarian settlement system toward a hierarchical system of trade- and manufacturing-oriented towns and cities can be simulated.     

Seeing Political Settlements through the City: A Framework for Comparative Analysis of Urban Transformation

This article presents a new analytical framework for studying cities in the developing world based on the ‘political settlements’ approach. This has a dual purpose: to enrich comparative urban research by bringing new theoretical ideas to bear on this field, but also to use capital cities as a lens to better understand national political settlements. The central argument is that urban built environments and their transformations in situations of late development reflect the workings of different varieties of clientelism, and by analysing the former we can better understand the latter. Specifically, issues such as the nature of urban land use and land allocation, the pace and form of construction, the effectiveness of environmental regulation and the provision of housing for different income groups are all revealing of political settlements and their broader development implications. The potential of this approach is explored through three narrative ‘sketches’ of contemporary urban development in Eastern Africa: the ‘city as marketplace’ (Kampala), the ‘city as expo’ (Kigali) and the ‘city as construction site’ (Addis Ababa). In presenting this framework, the article seeks to advance debate on epistemological and analytical approaches to the study of both power relations and differential patterns of urban development.     

The Geographic Components of Change in a Migration System

A method for deriving a set of geographic components of temporal change in a system of interregional flows is proposed and applied in an analysis of U.S. interstate migration in the early 1980s. Dynamic change in net migration is conceptualized to consist of system-growth, system-mobility, geographic mix, and competitive components. Hypotheses concerning the structural dynamics of migration systems are suggested, as are some implications for migration-modeling techniques.     

Development of a Methodological Framework for Handling Urban Archaeological Resources: Tarsus Historic City Centre,Turkey

In Turkey, most of the historic city centres have been continuously occupied since early ages, and ongoing research or ad hoc findings indicate urban archaeological resources beneath modern cities. According to the results of such research, archaeological and conservation sites are determined in terms of current legal frameworks. However, urban archaeological resources have not been included in the planning process because of inadequacy in spatial documentation, so archaeological deposits have been seen as problem areas in urban development. Thus, urban archaeological resources — not only subsoil resources, even monumental sites — could not be integrated into urban daily life, so most citizens are not aware of archaeological layers beneath their feet. The research project in Tarsus historic city centre, which is supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), primarily aims to develop a method to include urban archaeology — especially subsoil archaeological resources — into the urban conservation planning process of multilayered historic city centres in Turkey. In this way, planners would be informed, aware, and equipped about the urban archaeological potential at the earliest stages of the planning process. Consequently, urban archaeology, as an inter-/ multi-disciplinary field of research, is going to evolve as a crucial planning analysis in urban conservation including not only archaeological research, but also in evaluating settlement history and issues in urban development.     

藏北小拉萨 历史城市景观框架下的索县城市设计研究与探索

正西藏拥有与大自然相融合的文化景观,在世界范围内都称得上独特而突出。索县属那曲地区,位于藏北高原和藏东高山峡谷结合部。针对索县自身的情况,我们从宏观的文化线路、中观的上水格局与文化资源、微观的产业容器设计三个层面对这个藏北小城予以研究和探索,构建为一个全面立体的城市设计体系,希望从空间上助推其早日实现"藏北小拉萨"的美好愿景。     

Reconceptualizing Major Policy Change in the Advocacy Coalition Framework: A Discourse Network Analysis of German Pension Politics

How does major policy change come about? This article identifies and rectifies weaknesses in the conceptualization of innovative policy change in the Advocacy Coalition Framework. In a case study of policy belief change preceding an innovative reform in the German subsystem of old‐age security, important new aspects of major policy change are carved out. In particular, the analysis traces a transition from one single hegemonic advocacy coalition to another stable coalition, with a transition phase between the two equilibria. The transition phase is characterized (i) by a bipolarization of policy beliefs in the subsystem and (ii) by state actors with shifting coalition memberships due to policy learning across coalitions or due to executive turnover. Apparently, there are subsystems with specific characteristics (presumably redistributive rather than regulative subsystems) in which one hegemonic coalition is the default, or the “normal state.” In these subsystems, polarization and shifting coalition memberships seem to interact to produce coalition turnover and major policy change. The case study is based on discourse network analysis, a combination of qualitative content analysis and social network analysis, which provides an intertemporal measurement of advocacy coalition realignment at the level of policy beliefs in a subsystem.     

Multiple Partial Couplings in the Multiple Streams Framework: The Case of Extreme Weather and Climate Change Adaptation

In this paper, I draw insights from a detailed case study of adaptation policymaking to develop a novel interpretation of John Kingdon's original work that shows how policy entrepreneurs can couple the problem, policy, and political streams through multiple partial couplings. Researchers and policymakers often assume that extreme weather opens a window to adopt policies aimed at adapting to long‐term climate change. However, empirical evidence shows that crises can redirect attention to urgent, short‐term goals. Using the Multiple Streams lens in an abductive case study, I investigate how these competing forces interact to influence the policy process. By unpacking Kingdon's familiar “streams” metaphor and elaborating his overlooked concept of partial couplings, I illustrate how the policy entrepreneurs' strategy of issue linking explains Australia's adoption of the 2007 Water Act, one of the world's first major adaptation policies, at the height of its decade‐long Millennium Drought. Employing this novel theoretical understanding offers new insights into this important case. I conclude by developing tentative hypotheses for testing in future studies.     

论元明清时期的西南少数民族土司土官制度与改土归流

羁縻职官制度既是我国少数民族传统职官制度的主要形式,也是以皇权统治为核心的封建王朝实行的基本民族政策。元明清时期的西南少数民族土司土官制度是诸朝历代羁縻职官制度的进一步发展和集大成。土司土官制度既是皇权统治下二元结构的职官制度,也是最终将少数民族纳入统一职官制度管理的一种过渡和准备。土司土官制度始于元代,盛行于明代,衰落于清代,其残余一直延续到新中国成立。土司土官制度的兴衰始终与改土归流活动联系在一起。     

"尚文"—"尚武":论周代世风移易问题

尚"文"之风贯穿于有周一代,这是周代世风的总体特征.然而细分起来,西周-春秋-战国几个时段的世风还是有所发展变化的.春秋时期,世风尚未走出尚"文"的樊篱,"武"、"勇"依然属于"文"的范畴,"文"、"武"概念,其内涵展现出交融趋势.而到了战国时期,"武"超脱了"止戈为武"的范畴,走上了"文"的对立面,成为武勇、武力的总称,个人武勇为世所重.这种转变是时代发展的必然,促进了战国时期社会的发展,推动了秦统一六国的进程.这股强大的尚武之风一直到秦汉时期仍有余绪.     

Challenges and Dilemmas in Implementing the Americans With Disabilities Act: Lessons From the First Decade

The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 represents a strong national commitment to protecting the full rights and opportunities of persons with disabilities. This article traces evidence of the impact of the ADA's implementation and compliance during its first decade.     

Strengthening the Polycentric Urban System in Europe: Conclusions from the ESDP

The first European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) document agreed in May 1999 calls for closer cooperation at the EU level in response to the challenges posed by globalization and the increasingly transnational impact of spatial development in Europe. The ESDP maps out a common approach to spatial development in the EU member states and supports an integrated perspective for European spatial development which goes beyond specialist viewpoints. This article focuses on the relationship between key statements on the European urban system contained in the ESDP and the 'real' structures and changes within this urban system. It also examines possible conclusions from the ESDP for urban policy in Europe in the light of the activities already launched to translate the ESDP into practice in the urban dimension of European spatial development.