THE NEIGHBOURHOOD EFFECT IN A LOCAL ELECTION

One of the more popular ideas in electoral geography is that there is a positive correlation between residential proximity and voting behaviour. Often referred to as the neighbourhood effect, the idea is quite simply that individuals within a given local area tend to vote similarly. The process involves, it is suggested, social contacts between neighbours leading to political discussion and information flow which exerts an influence on the way people vote. Closely related to, but distinguishable from the neighbourhood effect is the friends-and-neighbours effect whereby neighbours of a particular candidate will tend to know him better, discuss him more, and support him more avidly than they will other candidates. Since the concepts of the neighbourhood effect and the friends-and-neighbours effect have been adopted into the literature of political geography, and have become central as explanatory models for certain spatial patterns of voting behaviour,¹ the rather inconclusive and contradictory findings of researchers using these concepts require examination, and the concepts and process require an empirical test.     

Book reviews

Transmigration in Indonesia, by J M Hardjono. Oxford in Asia Current Affairs. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press 1977; xv, 116 pp, 8 maps, 15 tables. £6.00.

Myths and Legends of Indonesia, by Jan Knappert. Singapore: Heinemann Educational Books (Asia) Ltd, 1977; 198pp. £2.40.     

MAYAN OBSIDIAN: SOURCE CORRELATION FOR SOUTHERN BELIZE ARTIFACTS

High-precision neutron activation measurements have been made on mesoamerican obsidian from Ixtepeque and El Chayal which are thought to be the major sources of volcanic glass artifacts in pre-Columbian times. These results are compared with measurements on obsidian artifacts from Lubaantun, Wild Cane Cay, Frenchman's Cay and Moho Cay.     

INTENSITY OF THE GEOMAGNETIC FIELD IN THE UKRAINE AND MOLDAVIA DURING THE PAST 6000 YEARS

Archaeomagnetic intensity measurements are reported for 200 leaked clay samples taken from bricks, pottery kilns, furnaces and hearths, etc.     

CHEMICAL COMPOSITIONS OF TEN SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS DENARII

X-ray fluorescence analyses of ten Septimius Severus denarii, all having the catalog number Cohen 777, and all minted in a.d. 196, show the following: (1) copper and silver concentrations in the ten coins cover a rather broad range, (2) lead and gold concentrations correlate with the silver concentrations, (3) no elements, except silver, correlate directly with the copper contents, (4) two coins have very nearly the same compositions, but this could actually be explained by chance, given the precision of the analyses and the range of compositions found for all ten denarii, (5) weights, thicknesses, and diameters of the coins varied over a relatively wide range, but densities varied only slightly. Assuming reasonably homogeneous melts of coinage alloy, X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyses of many more Severus denarii of a.d. 196 should enable one to deduce several details of the mint operation such as (1) the number of dies in use of C. 777 coins at one time, (2) the overall batch size of coins, and (3) the number of different Severus denarii minted from the same batch of alloy. With improved precision of XRF analyses now possible, it only remains for a source of Severus denarii to be found to enable testing of this hypothesis.