Palaeohabitat of first settlement sites 1500–1000 B.C. in Guam,Mariana islands,western Pacific

Based on computer-aided models and geoarchaeological excavations, palaeohabitat renderings can account for ancient site locations and contexts much different from today in terms of sea level, coastal dynamics, slope erosion, nearshore ecosystems, native forests, and other factors. A case study illustrates this research in Guam of the Mariana Islands of the western Pacific, with specific reference to the 1500–1000 B.C. time interval. This time interval includes the oldest known archaeological sites in the Mariana Islands, directly relevant for understanding the context of ancient Austronesian population dispersals in the larger western Pacific region. The results also help toward larger understanding of coastal adaptations in dynamic settings.     

A Review of “The Line Through the Heart: Natural Law as Fact,Theory, and Sign of Contradiction”

Abstract

Responding to Samuel Huntington's argument in Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity, this article explores the problematic character of American national identity. While Huntington presents himself as trying to conserve a traditional American identity based on both political creed and Anglo-Protestant culture, I contend that America's founding political theory and its philosophic sources are ambiguous on the question of culture and national identity. The Declaration of Independence and the social contract theories that helped inform it seem to invite a kind of cosmopolitan commitment to a creedal identity while at the same time leaving open the possibility of a more exclusive cultural identity. In the end, this ambiguity works to undermine a public sense that the political order should try to conserve a particular culture, a tendency that is furthered by a democratic regime's natural inclinations toward universalism and egalitarianism. It seems, then, that the problem of the preservation of American cultural identity is rooted in the very culture that Huntington wishes to preserve.     

EXPLORING THE NUMBER OF FIRST‐ORDER POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS ACROSS COUNTRIES: SOME STYLIZED FACTS*

ABSTRACT Why do some countries have no first‐order administrative subdivisions (e.g., states or provinces), whereas other countries have over 80? Recently, economists have started to look at the optimal size of countries and forces influencing the creation of local political jurisdictions like school districts. This paper provides the first analysis of the “missing middle” level of political jurisdictions common to all countries. We empirically examine how country size, natural transportation infrastructure, location, population fractionalization, and level of development affect the number of first‐order subdivisions. The number of first‐order subdivisions is shown to be associated in a nonlinear way with measures of fractionalization—exhibiting a U‐shaped Kuznets curve for ethnic heterogeneity and an inverted Kuznets curve for lingual and religious heterogeneity. This is a different and more complex relationship than that found for local political jurisdictions where greater heterogeneity is associated with more districts suggesting that first‐order political subdivisions may serve a different role.     

Partisan Efficiency in an Open-Rule Setting: The Amending Process in the U.S. Senate, 1865–1945

Given significant differences between the House and Senate's amending processes, one would anticipate the Senate majority party to be far less successful when voting on the floor. However, recent work has demonstrated that majority party success on the Senate floor is remarkably similar to the House. We argue that an overlooked explanation for majority party success stems from its ability to control intra-party amending activity through coordination between members of the majority party. Utilizing a new data set consisting of all amendments receiving recorded roll call votes in the Senate from 1865–1945, we demonstrate that majority party extremists refrain from offering amendments despite the relative open-floor setting. Nevertheless, chamber majorities cannot restrict minority legislators from offering amendments designed to force them to cast uncomfortable votes and delay the legislative process.     

Articulating minority nationhood: cultural and political dimensions in Québec's reasonable accommodation debate

Given their precarious position within larger states, national minorities cannot rely on federal governments to affirm their nationhood. Moreover, insofar as nationhood is predicated on a shared history, language and culture, immigrants place additional strains on the maintenance of national distinctiveness and the political claims that derive from it. In 2006–2007, following a series of confrontations over religious practices in the public sphere, Québec's provincial government appointed the Bouchard–Taylor Commission to investigate avenues for the accommodation of immigrant‐related cultural and religious differences. While it failed to generate policy, the commission did provide a discursive space for the (re)assertion of Québécois nationhood. Analysing the production of national identity in newspaper debates of the Bouchard–Taylor report, we offer an alternative to the ethnic–civic paradigm in nationalism theory. Rather than treat ethnic and civic as two separate ends of a single continuum, we conceptualise a relationship between two dimensions: one of culture and one of politics. We show that in contemporary articulations of Québec national identity, the prerequisites of political membership derive their meaning from a productive tension between blood‐based and adoptive conceptions of national culture.     

Understanding local innovation systems in peripheral tourism destinations

Tourism destinations in peripheral areas are often large regions established by centralised government agencies to encourage collaboration between dispersed communities and foster innovation. Relatively little research attention has been paid to the impact that centrally defined destination boundaries have on whether and how small communities contribute to innovation at a regional level. This paper examines the case of Burra, a small town in rural South Australia. It analyses the networking, collaboration and knowledge exchange behaviour of tourism stakeholders in the context of the state-government-defined ‘Clare Valley’ tourism region. Data were drawn from a web-based social network analysis, in-depth interviews, historic document analysis and field observations. The study found that the local tourism system had limited aspirations and capabilities to collaborate with other towns in the region. Lack of regional engagement was only partially due to intra-regional competition and resistance to regional boundaries. More significant barriers included a local culture of operating in isolation, an embedded reliance on public sector leadership to manage systemic interactions, an aging system with limited ambition to change and an inability to harness in-migrants and externally based stakeholders to stimulate knowledge transfer. Changing the imposed destination boundaries would have limited impact on the operation of the local system. The paper concludes that effective regional destination development in peripheral areas needs to be better informed by more detailed understandings of local tourism systems and their capacities to engage.