A 6000‐Year‐Old Hand Amputation from Bulgaria—The Oldest Case from South‐East Europe?

A skeleton from Tell Yunatsite in Bulgarian Thrace shows evidence of amputation of the right hand. The individual dates back to the end of the fifth millennium, connecting it to the Late Copper Age of that region. The Chalcolithic settlement on the tell ended immediately after a bellicose assault. Therefore, the question arose if the loss of the hand may be connected with this incidence. Anthropological studies in close collaboration with the archaeologists on site made clear that the abscission took place at an earlier time. This result led to a series of complex questions. These are described in this work. We will show that a congenital origin for the loss of the hand can be excluded, and that the individual survived this severe injury for a certain time span. Several possible explanations for an amputation are discussed. It turns out that a surgical intervention seems to be the most likely reason. It becomes clear that there must have been an excellent medical knowledge in the Copper Age concerning surgery and wound treatment. Furthermore, the survival of the handicapped individual documents a certain social cohesion. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Is State Gambling Policy “Morality Policy”? Framing Debates Over State Lotteries

The politics of so‐called “morality policies” including same‐sex marriage, abortion, gun control, and gambling have captured the attention of both the public and political scientists in recent years. Many studies have argued that morality policy constitutes a category of public policy that has distinctive characteristics (such as technical simplicity and less amenability to compromise) compared with non‐morality policy. However, in a recent contribution Mucciaroni argues that morality “policy” should instead be viewed primarily as a strategy for framing issues. Drawing on examples from the debate over gay rights, Mucciaroni finds that opponents focus on rational‐instrumental or procedural frames more so than engaging in “morality talk.” In this study, I seek to extend Mucciaroni's analysis to the issue of lottery gambling in the United States. Drawing on data from legislative records in four states, I find that lottery critics mostly avoid private behavior‐based morality arguments. Instead, they criticize government's role in sanctioning lotteries and denounce the negative consequences of gambling. Supporters, meanwhile, emphasize the potential benefits of lottery creation and the importance of allowing the state public a voice on the issue. The results indicate that rational‐instrumental arguments coexist alongside morality talk in state lottery debates, and that private behavior morality frames are on the decline while governmental morality frames are on the rise.     

The Developmental State Is Dead—Long Live Social Capital?

At the same time that the World Bank appears to be going through a process of replacing the Washington consensus with the Post-Washington consensus, the notion of social capital is coming to the fore both in development studies and social science more generally. These developments are closely connected to one another analytically: they are liable to stake out a new development agenda based on new Keynesianism and social capital in place of state versus the market; and they reflect more generally the growing influence of mainstream economics over other social sciences.     

Educating Citizens or Defying Federal Authority? A Comparative Study of In‐State Tuition for Undocumented Students

Recent years have witnessed a proliferation of state government policies addressing immigration‐related issues. This article addresses an example of state policy regarding immigration: since 2001, 11 state legislatures have granted undocumented high school graduates in‐state tuition status should they wish to attend public post‐secondary schools, while 18 others have considered, and rejected, the same policy. We argue that these outcomes are largely explicable by the manner in which the policy is presented and debated within state legislatures, especially the terms in which policy targets are socially constructed and state jurisdictional authority is framed. We apply this framework to two states (Kansas and Arkansas) that, in spite of demographic institutional similarities, reached different outcomes on in‐state tuition bills. The different outcomes can be traced to the manner in which policy deliberations in Kansas focused on positive evaluations of undocumented high school students, portraying them as “proto‐citizens,” while in Arkansas debate became centered on the state's jurisdictional authority to enact such a policy, an issue frame that effectively killed the legislation. This article suggests the importance of both social constructions and issue framing when state legislatures become the lead actors in crafting immigration policies.     

Using Excise Taxes to Finance State Government: Do Neighboring State Taxation Policy and Cross‐Border Markets Matter?

In this paper the excise tax policy of U.S. state governments is analyzed with special attention to how this policy is influenced by the level of excise taxation in neighboring states, "border-tax effects," and the relative size of the market located across state boundaries. Using a panel data set, state policies towards the taxation of cigarettes, all alcoholic beverages, beer, distilled liquor, motor fuel, and insurance are investigated within the context of a vote-maximizing model of collective decision making. The role of the industry in that state whose goods and services are singled out for special taxation is also examined.     

Terror or Terrorism? The “Islamic State” Between State and Nonstate Violence

As a non‐state actor that claims its own territory, the “Islamic State” utilizes a spectrum of very different kinds of coercion and violence. Considering the group's aspirations to govern the territories controlled by it, any clear distinction between uses of force and coercion that states typically claim as their legitimate right, and implement terrorist non‐state violence, tends to blur right before our analytically‐focused eyes. This contribution discusses how the group challenges the distinction between “terror from above” and “terrorism from below” as well as the meaning of the dual character of Daesh's belief system between the ideological and the religious for Daesh's repertoire of violence.     

Post‐conflict Statebuilding and State Legitimacy: From Negative to Positive Peace?

This article is concerned with the potential that statebuilding interventions have to institutionalize social justice, in addition to their more immediate ‘negative’ peace mandates, and the impact this might have, both on local state legitimacy and the character of the ‘peace’ that might follow. Much recent scholarship has stressed the legitimacy of a state's behaviour in relation to conformity to global governance norms or democratic ‘best practice’. Less evident is a discussion of the extent to which post‐conflict polities are able to engender the societal legitimacy central to political stability. As long as this level of legitimacy is absent (and it is hard to generate), civil society is likely to remain distant from the state, and peace and stability may remain elusive. A solution to this may be to apply existing international legislation centred in the UN and the ILO to compel international organizations and national states to deliver basic needs security through their institutions. This has the effect of stimulating local‐level state legitimacy while simultaneously formalizing social justice and positive peacebuilding.     

Brazil's Bolsa Família: A Double‐Edged Sword?

In common with most Latin American countries, as governments embrace safety nets to attack poverty, conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes have become part of mainstream social policy in Brazil. Under president Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995–2002), and especially since Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office in 2003, targeted assistance in education, health and nutrition, now united under Bolsa Família, have expanded rapidly to benefit forty‐four million (24 per cent of the total population), absorbing almost two‐fifths of the social assistance budget earmarked for the poorest sectors. Despite its operational problems, Bolsa Família appears to have been effective in providing short‐term relief to some of the most deprived groups in Brazil. Yet it could prove to be a double‐edged sword. There is a risk that, due to its popularity among both the poor and Brazil's politicians, Bolsa Família could greatly increase patronage in the distribution of economic and social benefits and induce a strong dependence on government handouts. There are also early signs that it may be contributing to a reduction in social spending in key sectors such as education, housing and basic sanitation, possibly undermining the country's future social and economic development.     

A Moldovan ‘sheep'? – framing Moldovan passivity

This article offers a different perspective for understanding Moldovan discourses of passivity by turning its attention to representations of national identity. Its main focus is a Moldovan ballad, Miori?a, and the way in which it discursively both frames and legitimises inaction. It builds on the idea that Miori?a is a central part of the way in which Moldovans represent their identity with respect to the writings of Ion Dru??, its main promoter in Moldovan society. More importantly, the ballad is conceptually linked to national characteristics such as lamentation and kindness, characteristics that can be summed up under the headline of ‘passivity’. Thus, drawing from constructivist and post‐structuralist approaches, the article stresses how these elements inform the Moldovan view of the self, its identity and even its representations of foreign affairs, framing the Moldovan lack of agency on a discursive level.     

Hand in Hand——Chairman Leqoi Visits California

Nurtured by the moist winds of the Pacific Ocean, California is a beautiful American state. Among its famous cities, San Francisco is the one "most favored by Americans".On May 28, a group of Tibetan government officials and entrepreneurs arrived in San Francisco at the start of a 10-day-long friendship visit to the city and the state at large.Meeting Mayor BrownAccompanied by Wang Yunxiang, Chinese Consul General in San Francisco, the Tibetan delegation, led by Leqoi, Chairman of the Tibet     

A Swiss anomaly? A relational account of national boundary‐making

ABSTRACT. This article reviews how major theorists of nationalism – from Ernest Renan to Benedict Anderson – have tried to come to grips with the puzzle that Swiss nationalism and the Swiss state present in view of the monoethnic states that surround it. I will argue that this puzzle disappears when assuming a political sociology perspective that highlights the networks of political alliances underlying nationalist movements and the power structure of recently formed nation‐states. Studying an ‘outlier’ case such as Switzerland helps us to gain insight into the general processes and mechanisms at work in the rise of nationalism and the nation‐state.     

Potemkin Portals or the Real Revolution? The State of E‐Government in Egypt

Effective and optimized e‐government in Egypt faces daunting challenges that are less technical in nature and more over the issues of institutional resistance and of political will. A review of the state of e‐government in Egypt is presented with analysis focusing on the state of service implementation in 2012. The points of discussion on e‐government covered here include:

• E‐subjugation in the guise of e‐government via information control and cyber‐snooping;
• Institutional resistance to the transformation of routine functions into automated systems;
• Institutional resistance to transparency of government operations;
• Analysis of the state of Egyptian ministry websites on six dimensions of e‐government development;
• Discussion on implementation of Egypt's e‐government master plan;
• Commentary on the revolutionary potential of e‐government augmented by vision, competence, and leadership; and
• Caveats that are important to note in moving the vision of e‐governance from concept to practice.

     

Strong Bar,Weak State? Lawyers,Liberalism and State Formation in Zambia

Members of the legal profession exercise potent, though largely hidden, influence on political processes in modern societies. This is taken for granted with respect to established democracies but the political agency of lawyers remains a largely unstudied phenomenon in post‐colonial Africa. This contribution interrogates the role of Zambian lawyers and their Law Association in recent political developments in that country. The central focus of the article is on the Oasis Forum, a unique coalition of lawyers, clergy and feminists that blocked the incumbent president's unconstitutional bid for a third term in office in 2001. The article examines the rising importance of legal process and discourse in the political realm and reflects on the significance of an increasingly aggressive ideology of legalism for state formation in Zambia.