Digital Dialogue? Australian Politicians' use of the Social Network Tool Twitter

The recent emergence of online social media has had a significant effect on the contemporary political landscape, yet our understanding of this remains less than complete. This article adds to current understanding of the online engagement between politicians and the public by presenting the first quantitative analysis of the utilisation of the social network tool Twitter by Australian politicians. The analysis suggests that politicians are attempting to use Twitter for political engagement, though some are more successful in this than others. Politicians are noisier than Australians in general on Twitter, though this is due more to broadcasting than conversing. Those who use Twitter to converse appear to gain more political benefit from the platform than others. Though politicians cluster by party, a relatively ‘small world’ network is evident in the Australian political discussion on Twitter.     

'The last frontier': rationalizing the spread of farming into the boreal woods of Canada, c. 1910–1940

As the twentieth century opened, there were rumours that the cheap land underpinning the dramatic spread of settlement in the previous century might be running out. There were strong motivations, generated particularly by the large body of land seekers with a passion for farming, to hold off the demise of the famous agricultural frontier. Also wedded to the continuation of a frontier were politicians and civil servants across the country. Whether it was a subconscious expectation that the frontier would simply continue or a fear that its disappearance would lead to unpredictable social disturbance, politicians encouraged expansion beyond what was known to be good farmland. The major source of new land, from c . 1910, was the boreal forest. There was a steady accumulation of information about the North that was readily available to government officials but only indirectly to ordinary land seekers. Although the news about farming conditions in the boreal margin was unpromising except for a few pockets, independent and assisted farm settlements continued into the 1930s. The typical two-thirds of farm failure within one generation in most of the new boreal settlements caused a great deal of settler grief and forced reluctant officials to respond to the negative scientific evidence and to reassess frontier nostalgia. The Second World War provided both a denouement of the northern farm settlement and a reason for many people to depart the 'last frontier'.     

For the Community: Scottish Historical Archaeology and the Politics of Land Reform

In Scotland, land reform is, historically and still today, a defining political issue and a subject of debate. Central to this debate are different ideological understandings of the rural past. In this paper, I discuss the nature of the Scottish land question and explore several of the main—sometimes complementary, sometimes conflicting—ideologies concerning land, as put forward or supported by different constituencies: politicians; landowners; crofters; Scots more generally; and members of the Scottish diaspora. I consider the histories to which these ideologies relate and seek to locate the historical archaeology of rural Scotland in its political and social contexts.     

Tweet style: campaigning,governing, and social media in Australia

When politicians use the new tools of social media to talk directly to voters, how strategic are these communications? Do lawmakers change how they present themselves in different situations, tweeting differently during campaigns and when their party is out of power, or tailoring their ‘tweet style’ to the preferences of constituents? I explore these questions by categorising 291,091 tweets by politicians in Australia, a nation that features variation in electoral systems in its two legislative houses and which held an election after widespread adoption of social media. When their party controls government, politicians tweet about their personal characteristics and events more often, avoiding clear ideological positions. When an election is called, politicians both in government and in the opposition rally their bases by tweeting toward their own sides of the ideological spectrum.     

Oslo's Farewell to Urban Sprawl

Sustainable mobility has been an important concern in urban planning and development in Oslo Metropolitan Area since the 1990s. The period has been characterized by concentrated and compact urban development, especially within the municipality of Oslo. This has contributed to a reduction in growth in car traffic. Analyses of selected land use and transport plans and policy documents, professional journal articles and interviews with key actors show that there has been a high degree of consensus about this spatial development strategy. Considerable investments have been made in public transport as well as in road development; the former based on broad consensus. Road capacity increases have been contested among professionals but widely supported by politicians.     

Defusing Land Disputes? The Politics of Land Certification and Dispute Resolution in Burundi

There is a growing interest in localized land registration, in which user rights are acknowledged and recorded through a community-based procedure, as an alternative to centralized titling to promote secure tenure in sub-Saharan Africa. Localized land registration is expected to reduce land disputes, yet it remains unclear how it impacts disputes in practice. This is an urgent question for war-affected settings that experience sensitive land disputes. This article discusses findings from ethnographic fieldwork in Burundi on pilot projects for land certification. It identifies three ways in which certification feeds into land conflicts rather than preventing or resolving them. First, land certification represents a chance for local people to enter a new round of claim making, as those ignored or disenfranchised in earlier rounds see new opportunities. Second, it offers an avenue for institutional competition between different land-governing institutions. Third, certification provides politicians with openings to interfere in tenure relations and to expand their support base. The authors conclude that these problems are not simply a matter of inadequate policy design. Rather, there are crucial political dimensions to land conflicts and land tenure in Burundi, which means that land registration programmes run the risk of inflaming conflictive property relations in rural communities.     

Land reforms and territorial integration in post-Tsarist Estonia, 1918–1940

After the declaration of independence in 1918, the Estonian government initiated a number of land reforms within a relatively short period of time. Although the reforms varied in aim, they led to similar outcomes in terms of the status and structure of landed properties. This paper explores, first, how the land reforms transformed a diversity of tenure systems into a coherent property regime, and second, how the reforms related to the political discussion on the proper spatial organization of land rights in Estonia. I argue that an important aim of the reforms was to contribute to the spatial and cultural consolidation of the new nation. The paper places the land reforms in a geopolitical context, proposing that the land reforms served to fend off a number of real and perceived threats to territorial integration. The paper is based on statements by politicians and intellectuals of the time, and on land reform records stored in Estonian State Archive.     

Professional Politicians as the Subjects of Moral Panic

The media, the public and politicians themselves often express a fear that Australian political life is increasingly dominated by ‘professional politicians’, who are seen as careerist, lacking in commitment and disconnected from the reality of ordinary lives. The article analyses the meanings given to the term ‘professional politicians’ and their relationship to other definitions and characteristics of professionalism. It also uses the concept of moral panic to analyse the concerns expressed about ‘professional politicians’. This concept, first formulated in 1972 in Cohen's study of alleged youth violence in a small town in the United Kingdom, is most often associated with studies of social deviance. This article demonstrates how, in a later period, it can be extended to apply to politicians, a group traditionally more often identified as a perpetrator of moral panics than the subject of them.     

New Challenges in Land Use in Nepal: Reflections on the Booming Real-estate Sector in Chitwan and Kathmandu Valley

Domestic commercial land acquisition is a recent phenomenon in Nepal; it is rapidly expanding and increasingly occupying productive agricultural land for real estate and other non-agricultural commercial purposes. This paper analyses the present situation and the implications of domestic land acquisition, and identifies actors and forms of land deals and associated conflicts. The study was conducted in Kathmandu Valley (27° 32′ 13″ N to 27° 49′ 10″ N and 85° 11′ 31″ E to 85° 31′ 38″ E) and Chitwan District (83°54′ 45″ to 84°48′15″ E and 27°21′45″ to 27°52′ 30″ N), the areas of Nepal most affected by domestic land acquisition. In the absence of statistical material, purposive sampling was used to identify households for a survey of 208 respondents; this was complemented by qualitative research and a review of media and other documents. Respondents confirmed that land acquisition is increasing at a very rapid rate and is driven by a nexus of politicians, land brokers and real-estate actors, and that it has caused not only food insecurity but also numerous conflicts between local people and the land deal actors. Existing policies and legislations were found to be inadequate to address the challenges brought about by the domestic land acquisition process in Nepal.     

The Land that Disappeared: Forceful Occupation,Disputes and the Negotiation of Landlord Power in a Bangladeshi Bastee

Through the lens of the ‘disappearance’ of a piece of land, this article analyses land relations in a Bangladeshi bastee (slum). The author builds an understanding of the local negotiation of ownership in an area where dakhal (forceful occupation) is the main starting point for the assessment of ownership. The property regime in the bastee emerges out of a web of relationships between different landlords, strongmen, elected officials and (local and national) politicians. These relations are not only crucial for maintaining existing dakhal patterns, but also for guaranteeing land sales, negotiating and settling disputes and, in the final instance, for negotiating power relations in the bastee itself.     

Making destiny manifest: United States territorial expansion and the dispossession of two Mexican property claims in New Mexico, 1824–1899

In the aftermath of the war of expansion against Mexico, the United States undertook a lengthy adjudication process of Spanish and Mexican property claims throughout the newly acquired territory. In New Mexico, nearly all Spanish and Mexican community land grants were either rejected by U.S. courts or were acquired by commercial interests during a period of intense land speculation. In addition to legal explanations of dispossession, most historical land grant research has emphasized the role of commercial speculators in the dispossession of land grants. The Santa Fe Ring, a loose affiliation of lawyers, politicians, federal and territorial officials and commercial investors, became a potent political and economic force in New Mexico during the 19th century. This article explores the adjudication and speculation histories of two Mexican property claims: the Petaca and Town of Vallecito de Lovato. The dearth of historical knowledge of the practices and tactics of land dispossession in specific New Mexico land grants continues to obscure the full story of U.S. territorial expansion and the history of the transformation in property relations. This article sheds new light on the extent and intensity of commercial speculation and the contribution of those efforts to undermine legitimate claims.     

土地利用的八维空间解析

土地的本质是一定范围的空间,土地利用是在一定范围的空间内安排土地用途和土地功能的活动集合。解构土地利用空间维度,构建土地利用从低维到高维转变的土地利用思想,有利于拓展现代土地利用创新理念。基于主题分析法的研究表明：①土地利用存在八个维度的拓展方向,分别是聚点发展、轴线开发、平面发展、立体发展、分时利用、混合用途、功能叠加和空间共享;②土地利用维度可归纳为空间、时间和功能三个层面,并且各维度之间存在较强的关联性;③依据土地利用维度从低到高,以聚点发展为初始维,构建土地利用的八维空间理念。土地利用八维空间理念的明晰,有利于增益人们对土地用途和土地功能空间配置和组合的认知,从而有利于现代土地利用的创新实践。     

The Purposes of Land Settlement in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1898–1914: Drawing Paths through the Weeds

This article examines the programme of land surveying and registration that was undertaken by the British-led administration of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan in the period 1898–1914. The Legal Secretary, Edgar Bonham Carter, stated that programme was the most important project of his division in this period. Scholars have shown that the programme, known as land ‘settlement’, was used to build alliances with elites and to clarify title for European investors in the new irrigation scheme at Gezira. This article argues that, as such, the ambitions of land settlement were relatively limited. In many other colonies, and in Britain itself, politicians and administrators across the political spectrum saw the reform of private property in land as the key for addressing structural problems in agricultural labour. One might have thought that, the Sudan, land settlement might have provided a means of addressing the dependence on slave labour in agriculture. The article demonstrates that, except for a small number of administrators (including Bonham Carter), this was not the case. The general indifference to slavery itself carried through to an indifference to the transformative potential of land law. The article examines the proposals of this minority of administrators, and contrasts their views with the majority’s focus on land settlement as demonstration and opportunity to enhance state power.     

Some Aspects of State–NGO Relationships in India in the Post-Independence Era

This article discusses some aspects of state–NGO relationships in India at the central and local levels from 1947 onwards. It draws its analytical framework from studies which incorporate organizational complexities and characteristics, political, social, and economic realities, associational cultures of individual countries, and human agency in analysing state–NGO relationships. It examines the applicability to India of some propositions on state–NGO relationships which are found in the literature. The author argues that there are observable differences in state–NGO relationships in various localities; these are illustrated through a set of case studies of local state–NGO interactions in the context of housing and land policies for the urban poor. Despite these differences, however, the author argues that the relationship at the local level can be generally characterized by the hostility of politicians, party workers, local élites, lower level bureaucrats, and lower level employees of the state toward NGO activity.     

Redistribution of Land in Post-Communist Romania

A geographer discusses changes in the ownership of state and collectivized rural land in post-communist Romania. In an analysis based on historical and recent ownership data as well as on the author's interviews with 205 landholders from East and West Romania, local officials, as well as politicians, the study examines how the country's rural land has been redistributed after 1989. The combination of restitution and distribution is singled out as the unique feature of the Romanian land reform that sets it apart from the less equitable procedures adopted by other post-communist countries. Similarly different, as noted in the paper, is the high share of Romania's agricultural sector in the country's labor force. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: P32, Q15, Q24. 4 figures, 4 tables, 38 references.     

Limits reaffirmed: new wheat frontiers in Australia, 1916–1939

At the opening of the twentieth century, it was apparent that good agricultural land was getting scarce even in the New World. There was still a strong political need, especially in countries that owed their existence to an agricultural frontier, to open new land and increase farming population. During the 1920s, Isaiah Bowman in the United States devised what he called “scientific settlement”, a form of social planning. In the countries that had already embarked on extending their farm land, their initiative was something less than scientific settlement. As an illustration, South Australia and New South Wales legislated the resumption of certain pastoral areas for re-allocation as primarily wheat-based farmlands that would provide the heavier rural population sought by politicians. The need to reward soldiers for service in the First World War became a major stimulus to expansion. Whereas there was ample evidence of the unreliability of conditions in most of the areas chosen, the authorities dispatched settlers to relatively small properties and provided only disjointed and tardy support. When the new wheat frontier proved to be expensive and rife with failures, the authorities blamed the settlers. In the circumstances, however, the performance of the settlers was more praiseworthy than the weight of historical opinion has suggested. Even the soldier settlers, who were put at a disadvantage by the high cost of their land and interest, ultimately achieved a success rate comparable to that of civilian ‘closer’ settlers who generally had better land and easier terms of purchase.     

石河子市土地利用变化及主要地类驱动力研究

通过分析石河子市土地利用的变化,探讨了其土地利用总体变化和各主要地类的驱动机制。社会经济因素是该区域土地利用总体变化的主导性驱动因素。而人口和经济增长是石河子市土地利用总体变化的首要社会经济类驱动因子,其次农业是技术发展。农业结构调整、产业结构转移是耕地利用变化的主导性驱动因素,而城镇化和工业化发展则是引起建设用地变化的主导性驱动因素。     

Permanent Populism: The Howard Government 1996–2007

This article argues that populism was a permanent feature of John Howard's government and that populism and the associated tactic of wedging were adopted to secure the government's position and to eliminate populist rivals such as One Nation. Margaret Canovan describes the use of populist techniques by mainstream politicians as politicians' populism. She also suggests that democracy has both redemptive and pragmatic faces and that when too great a gap opens between democracy's two faces, populism is likely to emerge. The experience of four terms of the Howard government indicates that when politicians knowingly use populism they can successfully eliminate populist alternatives such as One Nation. The costs for democracy, however, are high, and in the case of the Howard government included neglect of minority rights, the growth of distrust in the institutions of representative democracy, increased community cynicism, the reluctance of the Opposition to speak out on a number of human rights issues for fear of losing support, and opportunistic policy making.     

A framework for path-dependent industrial land transition analysis using vector data

Industrial land is under transition globally. Insights into this transition are important to plan a sustainable future. Since industrial land follows parcel shapes and the transition process requires multi-year data to observe the impacts of such changes, multi-year vector data should be used to analyse industrial land transition. This paper presents a framework to analyse path-dependent regional industrial land transition processes using vector data. A step by step instruction is presented. In the analysis, the changed percentages of land use in the surroundings of appeared or disappeared industrial land are visualized. The visualized surrounding land use compositions give planners an idea on what causes land use transitions, the most frequent transition forms and their impacts on the surroundings, purely from a land use point of view to reduce data collection efforts. The North Brabant region in the Netherlands is used as a case study. The region is split into urban and non-urban areas to show the generic applicability of this framework.     

Planners’ analysis and opportunism – benefit analysis in the Swedish HSR-project: a preliminary analysis

The dominating form of analysis in the transport sector is cost–benefit analysis (CBA). This study investigates the purpose and use of an alternative analysis intended to complement CBA in the Swedish high-speed rail project. According to CBA calculations, the project is heavily unprofitable. While some politicians called for project termination, the project leadership launched an alternative benefit analysis that calculated only benefits (disregarding costs). This was intended to be a basis for decision making on station localization and financing agreements, but it was quickly downplayed due to its methodological inconsistencies. However, the project leadership still used the identified benefits opportunistically as a counterweight to the negative CBA results. They also engaged local-level civil servants and politicians in making the reports. This built political momentum and made the local-level civil servants and politicians adopt the mindset of the project. This study shows how a methodologically flawed analysis is used for political manoeuvring. From a scientific CBA perspective, this is alarming, but from a political perspective it is not surprising. The findings echo earlier research showing that analysis for decision making is often used for political purposes. The results suggest that future research should consider how opportunism in alternative benefit analysis can be limited.