THE BORDER POPULATION EFFECTS OF EU INTEGRATION*

ABSTRACT Border cities or regions are in theory more affected by the EU integration process than more central locations as it more drastically influences their transaction costs and market potential. We find a positive empirical effect of EU enlargement as measured by the growth in population share along the integration borders. This effect is active for a limited distance (70 km) and time period (30 years), and is more important for large cities and regions. Despite this positive EU enlargement effect along the border, a location close to a border remains a burden in view of the (larger) negative general border effect.     

Prediction and its discontents: guidance for Australia from the debate over social science forecasting

The well-documented failure of many experts to predict many events of strategic importance—from 9/11 to the global financial crisis to the Arab Spring—has led to a fashionable belief amongst some academics and popular commentators that prediction is a ‘fool's errand’. Problems inherent in forecasting political events, such as cognitive biases, strategic interaction, complexity effects and various others, make this an attractive position. However, although a proper degree of humility is warranted about the ability to predict strategic events, this article argues that not making predictions at all is not an option. No genuinely workable policy advice could flow to Australian policy makers unless analysts are able, however roughly, to try to forecast the future. Moreover, with some hard, determined work, social scientists have recently produced work which promises to be able to foresee important events such as state failures and civil wars with reasonable accuracy. Experts should be encouraged to make, and should routinely be evaluated on, predictions about their area of expertise. Even failed predictions can be useful in pointing up gaps in knowledge and understanding which would otherwise have remained opaque.     

To Die on the Steppe: Sino-Soviet-American Relations and the Cold War in Chinese Central Asia, 1944–1952

Through a narrative retelling of a little known but incredible journey from Xinjiang to New York City made by a group of ethnic Russians in the mid-twentieth century, this article shows how some of the earliest and most poignant manifestations of the Cold War, including nuclear rivalry and espionage, were made evident in Chinese Central Asia. Wrapped up within an intense competition for resources, information, and influence between the United States, the Soviet Union, and two Chinese regimes, the Russians at the heart of this article reveal how the Cold War was a truly global conflict which was intimately experienced by ordinary peoples and often times in the places most far removed. This episode is furthermore a reminder that even if the Cold War did produce stability at the macro-level, the outcomes of the strategic rivalry and competition between the Soviet Union and the United States were violent and tragic, not necessarily or exclusively for these countries but especially for their allies and accomplices.     

‘I had a hard time actually trying to catch the essence of Englishness’: participant photography and the racialised construction of place and belonging in a South London suburb

This article draws on findings from a study conducted in a South London suburb that employed photograph participation methods alongside semi-structured qualitative interviews in order to explore the extent to which identifications as English are racialised. While initial data analysis utilised a somewhat reductive photo-elicitation approach, this article presents findings from a reanalysis in which the photographic data were approached on an equal footing with verbal constructions of Englishness. It will be demonstrated that the mobility and movement within space reflexively discussed and captured by participants provide important new perspectives on the ways in which associations between Englishness, whiteness and a sense of belonging are stabilised and destabilised in relation to racialised, gendered and classed interpretations of place. However, whilst these findings are valuable, the reanalysis also raises serious questions about the hugely difficult, even futile, task requested of participants—that of ‘representing Englishness’—during the photography stage of the methodology. The article will conclude by arguing that studies such as these should ideally try to enable ‘messier’ and more socially positive outcomes to emerge.     

Recounting,retrieving, rereading: approaches to the history of genocide

This essay, delivered at a conference that commemorated Primo Levi, asks about the continuing status of witnesses' testimony about the Holocaust and genocidal murder as their generation disappears. It finds their particular contribution to lie less in what they report than their claim to moral authenticity, as confirmed by their own suffering; and it points out the problematic aspects of subjective identification this may raise, especially by comparing witnesses' accounts with the alleged authenticity of Holocaust fiction. On the other hand, the limits of archival evidence, which are manifested almost as retrieved archaeological artefacts, are also highlighted, as are the difficulties of history centred on victims as collective protagonists. In the end, it is proposed, keeping witnesses present through continued re-examination and reading forms the historian's only recourse against the inevitable dilemmas of writing the history of mass atrocities.     

The mystery of plague in medieval Iceland

This article is aimed at encouraging scholars to continue to take critical, interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the cause and scale of historic plague outbreaks. It does this by reinvestigating two recorded outbreaks of plague in Iceland in 1402–4 and 1494–5. It is argued that these were episodes of pneumonic plague, caused by Yersinia pestis, and that the likely mortality was no more than 25% of the population in both cases. This contrasts with the higher rates (50–60% and 30–50%) postulated elsewhere. Although it is recognised there are other explanations for plague in Iceland, greater caution needs to be taken in interpreting the direct and indirect evidence for its demographic effects. A lower mortality rate fits better with a less widespread and more fragmented epidemic. The numbers and types of Icelandic farms which might have been vacant during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries are given more detailed consideration than in previous accounts. ‘Farm abandonment’ in the fifteenth century was continually driven by a series of environmental and economic factors and need not be interpreted as a demographic collapse caused solely by the plague. Greater attention is also given to understanding how plague could have reached Iceland and the biological, ecological and sociological factors which might then have sustained it.     

Macusani obsidian from southern Peru: A characterization of its elemental composition with a demonstration of its ancient use

Transparent obsidian artifacts have been reported for the northern Lake Titicaca Basin. Based on instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) of these artifacts a distinct chemical group was identified. Yet, the location of the source of transparent obsidian in the southern Andes remained unreported in the archaeological literature. This paper reports on the chemical composition and geographic location of a source of transparent obsidian from the Macusani region of Peru. Through the use of INAA and portable X-ray fluorescence (PXRF) we demonstrate that Macusani obsidian or macusanite comprises (at least) two chemical groups. One of these groups was used for making artifacts during the Archaic Period. Artifacts made of this obsidian were found more than 120 km from the source and yet, one-third of the obsidian artifacts encountered at Macusani were from the non-local source of Chivay which is 215 km to the southwest.