Aspects of continuity and change in the Italian placitum, 962-72: The nature and significance of courtroom procedures

During the first seventy-five years of the tenth century in Italy three distinct procedures existed for the purpose of resolving jurisdictional disputes over property. Together they comprise the activity of a special court known only by the general term placitum. The property court, the placitum under discussion here, employed three procedures: (1) a litigation, (2) confirmation to avert possible conflict between two parties over opposing claims, and (3) a request for the confirmation of a commercial transaction.My study considers two problems: what purpose did the courts serve and to whom were they useful; second, what was the nature and intent of the procedures that these courts employed? The answers require an investigation of the personnel who administered the courts and the persons who sought court judgments, since the status and interests of both groups had considerable impact on the legal and institutional developments of this tribunal. The participants were mostly members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and some of the higher lay magnates; by and large they were members of the ruling hierarchy.The property hearing had a long chain of development that reached into the late eight century: over the years it developed distinct procedures and instruments to record the results. These procedures reflect the interface of German and Roman law. We see in the history of this court the development of thoughts about evidence, the validity of written instruments as witnesses, and the role of judges as investigators.     

Financial order and world politics: crisis, change and continuity

Many insist that the world economy today is in the grip of the most severe financial crisis since 1931. Although the origins of this crisis are in dispute, the extent and scale of the changes prompted by it are becoming clear. Among these changes are a recalibration of the relationship between public and private authority, a reconfiguration of the regulatory responsibilities and capacities of the state with respect to the financial system, and a rebalancing of relations of power among states. While the financial crisis has generated points of stress along all of these axes of change, we should be wary of expecting an entirely new global financial order to emerge from the carnage. The complex links between financial order and world politics suggest that this financial crisis will result in an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary transformation in the world's financial order.     

Conquest,ceramics, continuity and change. Beyond representational approaches to continuity and change in early medieval England: a case study from Anglo‐Norman Southampton

Studies of Anglo‐Norman material culture, and pottery in particular, have struggled to see how processes of change are reflected in the material record. In this paper I propose a new approach to the analysis of this material. By reconstructing how people interacted with objects, we can see how the agency to create Anglo‐Norman England was distributed through interactions between people and their surroundings. Furthermore, rather than being reflected in such interactions, continuity and change flowed through engagements with objects, generating unique meanings and experiences. This approach therefore challenges the existing ontology that underlies our understanding of the period and its political developments and ethnic identities.     

Citizenship and religion in the Italian constitutions, 1796-1849

This article explores the link between religion and politics, religious liberty and the rights of religious minorities, by focusing on the constitutions which Italian states adopted and discarded from 1796 to 1849. It concerns questions about the ‘national character’ and the rights and duties of the citizen, and argues that - far from being ‘an outlet’ for material discontent - questions of religious identity and pluralism were integral to the Risorgimento definition of liberty. In this context, the author explores also the Mazzinian vision of a democratic republic inspired by an acephalous and non-hierarchical civil religion, similar to the Unitarian Transcendentalism practiced by some of his New York admirers - a far cry from the ‘religions of politics’ inspired by Saint Simon and Auguste Comte.     

Forestry policy in colonial and postcolonial Zimbabwe: continuity and change

Using the case of Mafungautsi Forest Reserve, this paper discusses continuities and changes in policy and practice at the communal and reserved forest interface in Zimbabwe. Colonial forestry policy in Zimbabwe has often been labelled as oppressive, as communal area citizens were not allowed to participate effectively in its formulation and implementation. Independence in 1980, it was thought, would usher in an era of greater participation within the forestry sector. However, the hope that local communities would have greater input in the forestry policies and management has largely remained unfulfilled. The state institutions responsible for managing forests have largely remained unsympathetic to the involvement of local communities in the management of forestry resources despite the pre-independence rhetoric. Alongside the co-management attempt to make local peasants citizens through their inclusion in decision-making has been the continuity of the colonial policy that treated local peasants who used resources as criminals destroying trees and forests. This paper examines how the fundamental policy perspective of forestry in Zimbabwe still perceives local peasant farmers to be unsustainable exploiters of forests. The local resource users have not remained passive recipients of the repressive forestry policies and practices based on science but have actively contested them since the 1950s.     

Sailing and Sailing Rigs in the Ancient Mediterranean: implications of continuity,variation and change in propulsion technology

Ships and boats form the foundations of the maritime connectivity that is a central part of our understanding of the ancient Mediterranean. While the general chronological sequence of sail and sailing‐rig development is well established, the implications are less‐well discussed. This article sets out how sails and sailing rigs developed in antiquity, with emphasis on the Greco‐Roman world. Subsequently, instances of innovation are defined. Why specific pieces of maritime technology were, or were not, widely adopted is considered. Long‐term technological continuity can be comprehended, and a shared maritime culture of sailing in the ancient Mediterranean is suggested.     

The rise of the Indo-Pacific: understanding ideational change and continuity in India's foreign policy

In 2011, the concept of the Indo-Pacific began to appear in India's foreign policy discourse. This article argues that rather than signalling a dramatic shift in India's foreign policy, however, the way in which the Indo-Pacific has been interpreted by the Indian leadership suggests significant continuity as well as change, which is contrary to the goals of the concept's most fervent proponents in India. The article seeks to develop a framework for understanding ideational change and continuity in foreign policy by theorising the interplay between ideas, political and economic flux, and social expectations related to effective and legitimate state-building. It is argued that the Indo-Pacific concept has instigated a new emphasis on regional architecture-building to manage the ongoing regionalisation in the area between the Indian and Pacific Oceans as a result of heightened trade flows and production and investment linkages. Yet, the Indo-Pacific concept, like the new policy ideas on regional engagement that preceded it—the Look East policy and the ‘extended neighbourhood’—has been articulated in ways that are also compatible with long-standing ideas—such as non-alignment—about what constitutes appropriate international behaviour. This reflects the nature of the broader state project that has emerged since 1990, which, while encompassing a new focus on economic growth and competitiveness as being essential to effective state-building, continues to prioritise older ideas about what constitutes effective and legitimate state-building.     

The European Union in South-East Asia: continuity and change in turbulent times

This article looks at the creation of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) and itsimpact on European Union-South-East Asian relations. It suggests that as withother regions of the world, the EU uses framework agreements to regulatecontact with other international actors. The article argues that the EU's renewed interest in the region, signposted by the Commission's 'Towards a new Asia strategy' and the proposal 'Creating a new dynamic in EU-ASEAN relations', as well as the formation of ASEM, is driven by three principal concerns: a need to meet the challenges of the post-Cold War period by extending structured contact to new interlocutors beyond ASEAN; a need to restate the EU's credentials as a stakeholder in the region, thus legitimizing European political and economic interests alongside those of other global actors such as the United States and Japan; and a new-found interest in defining acceptable economic and human rights standards as a precondition of privileged contact with the EU.
However, while ASEM offers greater connectivity between different activitiesof the EU and may bring a more coordinated approach to the relationship, it is unlikely to lead to a qualitative shift in engagement. For a variety of reasons–notably the lack of geographical proximity, economic asymmetry, and a preoccupation with central and eastern Europe-South-East Asia will remain a marginal area of engagement for the EU. With regard to future developments,structured contact between the EU and South-East Asia will survive not leastbecause of the potential economic importance of the latter and the continuingcompetition in the region from the United States, Japan and China.     

The planning dialectic of continuity and change: The evolution of metropolitan planning in Madrid 1

City planning deals with designing and managing institutions that affect the future quality of urban places. The research reported in this article is on the evolution of urban planning in Madrid from 1857 to 1995. In Madrid, important aspects of planning have changed over this period, while others have remained almost unaltered. The tension between forces supporting continuity or struggling for change provided an animating dialectic that explains the evolution of urban planning and its institutions in Spain's capital. This dialectic of continuity and change is inherent in the nature of planning institutions themselves, as we argue in the conclusion, and has important implications for planning theory.     

Ideological change and settlement continuity in the French countryside: the development of agricultural syndicalism in Loir-et-Cher during the late-nineteenth century

The development and spread of new ideas within rural France during the late-nineteenth century was essentially effected within an old pattern of rural settlements. In general, this paper considers the basic dichotomy between nucleated and dispersed settlements and its influence on the spatial patterning of a particular rural ideology, agricultural syndicalism. It also examines the role of the basic conflict between urban and rural attitudes in the transformation of ideas about the organization of agricultural activity. More specifically, this paper analyses the relationships between the clustering of populations, proximity to urban centres, literacy levels and the spatial diffusion of agricultural syndicalism in Loir-et-Cher during the late-nineteenth century. It concludes that the character of rural settlements was not a directly moulding influence on the spread of agricultural syndicalism, that the transformation of rural ideologies was essentially achieved under urban influence and that generalizations about agricultural syndicalism applicable at one scale are not necessarily applicable at another scale.     

Spain's and Poland's Road to NATO: the problem of continuity and change in the foreign policy of a democratising state

The aim of this article is to compare the Spanish and Polish road to NATO from the perspective of the shape of the foreign policy and its possible restructuring in states undergoing the process of democratic transformation. The study of both cases shows that the reorientation of the foreign policy of a democratising state results to a large extent from external conditions at the global and regional levels although the internal conditions may hinder or accelerate the reorientation. The example of Spain demonstrates that in a firm and stable international system (the bipolar system) it is extremely difficult to change the direction of foreign policy, even if there are internal premises such as democratisation, well-organised opposition supporting the change and social support. In the case of Poland, the flexible and unstable international system made it possible to radically change the direction of its foreign policy. The existing internal premises without the appropriate external context would not have been enough to generate the reorientation of foreign policy. The comparative study of Spanish and Polish cases should be treated as an introduction to the broader analysis on the subject of the restructuring of foreign policy in the democratising state. Democratic transformation processes which took place in Europe from the mid-1970s provide broad empirical material for further scientific work in this area.