The Performance of Policy Networks: The Relation between Network Structure and Network Performance

The importance of policy networks has long been emphasized within the field of policy analysis. However, few attempts have been made to investigate the explanatory power of policy networks using the tools and theoretical concepts provided by social network analysis (SNA). This paper aims to address this need by determining if a relationship exists between the structural features of policy networks, their organizing capacities, and their performance. A comparative case study of four networks within the higher education policy sector confirms the assumption related to the existence of such a relation. It is proposed that an efficient and innovative policy network consists of a heterogeneous set of actors that are centrally and densely integrated. Furthermore, while the level of network heterogeneity is positively related to the function of resource mobilization in the process of policymaking, the level of centralized integration promotes the function of prioritizing. These findings are believed to contribute to our understanding of policymaking in contemporary society. The current paper indicates that a significant explanatory power exists in the concept of policy networks and that SNA is one way of advancing its possibilities.     

The Mesolithic of Southern Scandinavia

The Mesolithic of Southern Scandinavia, with comprises Denmark and Southern Sweden, has been an attractive area for research for several reasons, including the good preservation conditions at many sites. Most of the work has been concentrated on the southwestern part of Southern Scandinavia, but results from more recent investigations mean that other areas can also be analyzed. New finds in the last few years have given us a greater understanding of the Late Paleolithic settlement and of its relation of the Mesolithic. For the Early Mesolithic (10,000–8000 B.P.), interest has focused primarily on the small inland bog sites in the southern part of the area, where the coast has since been submerged. Farther north, where the land has been uplifted, evidence of coastal settlement has been documented. The Late Mesolithic (8000–6000 B.P.) is known chiefly on the basis of its large coastal settlements. In this period, there is also a larger and more varied collection of finds, which makes it possible to discern clear regional differences. There has also been considerable research on the transition from Mesolithic to Neolithic.     

François bauduin's de institutione historie (1561): A primary text behind anders s⊘rensen vedel's de scribenda historia danica (1578)

Although acknowledged as well‐read in contemporary humanist literature, the Danish historian Anders S?rensen Vedel (1542–1616) has never been shown to draw inspiration from any one particular international author of the 16th century (apart from the general influence of Melanchthon and his school). Now, it turns out that the French jurist and pioneer of historical theory, François Bauduin (1520–73), was used extensively by Vedel in one of his early treatises. This leads to a reassessment of Bauduin's intellectual influence around the turn of the century—his theory of history had not yet receded out of sight.     

Food, drink and ritualised communication in the household of Eleanor de Montfort, February to August 1265

This article investigates the use of feasts and gifts of food in the household of Eleanor de Montfort between February and August 1265. In his influential The dangers of ritual, Philippe Buc argued, through a study of early medieval chronicles, that rituals in medieval Europe were regularly targets for disruption and aggressive manipulation either in practice or in the texts reporting the rituals. This article tests Buc’s thesis against administrative records from thirteenth-century England. The evidence from Eleanor’s household accounts is illuminated through a study of contemporary literary sources and didactic texts. It concludes that the administrative records indicate that rituals in practice were less habitually the subject of manipulation and conflict than the literary evidence indicates.     

The Economic Geographies of the Outer City: Industrial Dynamics and Imaginary Spaces of Location in Copenhagen

The paper focuses on the changing economic geographies of the outer city of Copenhagen. The outer city is not a well-defined place but can be understood as a set of processes transforming the urban economic landscape outside the built-up area. Several central and interrelated economic processes transform the outer city. The paper examines the changing industrial dynamics and location spaces within the framework of geographical proximity and relation propinquity in order to examine the social and cultural embeddedness of location. Imaginary spaces of location are the social constructs of the firm (of the interviewee representing the firm). They are representations of the perception, experience and interpretation of the location of the firm. The imaginary spaces of firms in the outer city are different from those of the firms in the built-up area, and a survey points to the fact that multiple rationalities are important in order to understand industrial location.     

‘No Smoke without Fire’: Citizenship and Securing Economic Enclaves in Mozambique

This article explores the complicated interrelationship between economic enclaves, their associated security practices and the formation of national citizens in Mozambique. From the colonial era of company rule to the large‐scale foreign direct investments of the present day, investors have feared the destructive fires of rampant ‘mobs’, unruly workers and the potentially rebellious populace more generally. Signs of smoke point to trouble for investors, who can draw on complex security arrangements, including corporate social responsibility programmes, unions, private security companies, community leaders, state police and specialized state and rapid response units with the latest communications and transport technologies, to try to protect their investments from labour unrest and political demands. Through a variety of ethnographic materials on mega‐investments in the sugar industry over the last two decades, the article explores the centrality of complex security arrangements to strategies of governance that use such arrangements in an attempt to produce disciplined national subjects.