The importance of location and scale in rural and small town tourism product development: The case of the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre,Manitoba, Canada

This paper begins with a review of the literature on tourism in rural economies, to establish a framework for analyzing large‐scale tourism products in rural and small town regions. The review is followed by the development of a typology of large‐scale attractions in rural and small town regions, including parks, casinos, events, heritage, and cultural products. The typology leads into the example of the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre (CFDC) in Manitoba, Canada. Located in an agricultural region of south‐central Manitoba, the community of Morden is located 125 km from the provincial capital city, Winnipeg, which had a population of 811,900 in 2016. Morden is also located 35 km north of the border with North Dakota. Thus, while a small town in a traditionally rural region still dependent upon an agricultural economic base, Morden has been recently successful in diversifying its economy, including through manufacturing, services, hospitality, and tourism. In part, this success is due to a south‐central Manitoba location; however, it is also the result of innovative local leadership, including the prioritization of hospitality and tourism related to the CFDC. This paper describes the case study as an example of successful tourism development within an already economically and socially diversifying region.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviews in This Article: Trois ?uvres Inédites de mystiques musulmans: āqq? al-Bal?, Ibn ?, Niffarā. By Paul Nwyia. The Formative Period of Islamic Thought. By W. Montgomery Watt. The Arab Mind. By Raphael Patai. l?m? al-Adab al-M?r f? Mir? (Bio-bibliographical Critical Series), No. 1, h?āūsayn. By Hamdi Sakkut and Marsden Jones. A History of the Crusades. Kenneth M. Setton, general editor. Volume III, The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries , edited by Harry W. Hazard. The Muslim Dilemma in India. By M. R. A. Baig. Who is Maudoodi ? By Maryam Jameelah. A Tacit Alliance. By S. K. Crosbie.     

Explaining accommodation and resistance to demands for independence referendums in the UK and Spain

This article examines why the UK Government accepted the 2014 Scottish independence referendum while the Spanish Government opposes a similar referendum in Catalonia. Adopting a most similar research design, we argue that the variation is best explained by perceived political opportunities by the two ruling parties. These are embedded in different conceptions of the state and constitutional designs, mostly mononational in Spain and mostly plurinational in the UK but multiple and contested in both cases. In Spain, vote‐seeking calculations incentivise the Popular Party to oppose a referendum, while its mononational conception of the state and the Spanish constitutional design provide a further constraint and a discursive justification for their position. In the UK, David Cameron's accommodating position was based on the view that the Scottish referendum was low risk – as support for independence was minimal – with a high reward: the annihilation of the independence demand. The Conservatives have recently adopted a more restrictive position because seeming political advantage has changed. The findings suggest that independence referendums will continue to be rare events.     

Jeremy Bentham on liberty of taste

This article examines Jeremy Bentham’s treatment of taste in his essays on sexuality, in the context of the historical development of the idea of taste as a singular practice with a broadly social character. My analysis of Bentham’s comments on taste in these essays also engages with Bentham’s criticisms of David Hume’s writing on social standards of taste. Bentham’s essays on sexuality enable us to understand why he condemns Hume’s critical, and avowedly unprejudiced, analysis of good and bad tastes, with as much vehemence as he does the anti-democratic attitudes of ‘aristocratical’ taste. In his essays on sexuality, Bentham defines taste as a disposition to derive pleasure, which assumes meaning in a social context where human beings transact with one another to secure and increase their enjoyment. By this definition, judgements on good and bad tastes are aspects of an anti-social practice that exerts a negative influence on what Bentham calls ‘an uncontrolled choice’ that links pleasure to utility.     

An Application of Taylor's Power Law to Measure Overdispersion of the Unemployed in English Labor Markets

Taylor's power law (TPL) is the power relation between mean densities and variance of natural populations, and described as one of ecology's few ubiquitous laws. Although the power model has been increasingly applied in social systems modeling, including economics, this article, using English and Welsh economic data as an applied example, suggests that TPL ought to be imported more carefully. The article seeks to convince readers that ecological population methodologies can have an important role in analysis of human spatial behavior, and that this function should not be diminished in pursuit of quick interdisciplinary results. Through the production of “scale‐adjusted dispersion indicators,” the article proposes an application of TPL that is quite different from its use in ecological modeling.     

Reviews

THE ECOLOGY OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION. F. W. Riggs. Under the auspices of the Indian Institute of Public Administration. Bombay, Asia Publishing House, 1961. Pp. viii + 162. Price 20/‐ sterling.

THE NATURE OF INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY. C. A. W. Manning. London, G. Bell & Sons Ltd., 1962. Pp. xi + 220. English price 30/‐.

STRUCTURE OF AMERICAN FEDERALISM. M. J. C. Vile. London, Oxford University Press, 1962. Pp. x + 206. Australian Price 46/6.

AMERICAN DIPLOMACY IN A NEW ERA. Stephen D. Kertesz (ed.). University of Notre Dame Press, 1961. Pp. 601. U.S. $10.00.

ENCYCLOPAEDIA OP RUSSIA AND THE SOVIET UNION. Michael T. Florinsky (ed.). New York, McGraw Hill Book Company Inc., 1961. Pp. xiv + 624. U.S. $23.

THE TAPROOT OP SOVIET SOCIETY. Nicholas P. Vakar. New York, Harper & Bros., 1961. Pp. xiii + 204. U.S. $4.75.

INDONESIAN ECONOMICS: THE CONCEPT OF DUALISM IN THEORY AND POLICY. Selected Studies on Indonesia by Dutch Scholars, Vol. VI. The Hague, W. van Hoeve, 1961. Pp. xii + 443. U.S. $7.50.

KAUTILYA: A REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS.

THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF COMMUNIST CHINA 1949–1960. T. J. Hughes and D. E. T. Luard. Under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. London. O.U.P., 1961. Pp. viii + 215. Second Edition. Australian price 41/6d.

TOJO AND THE COMING OF THE WAR. R. J. C. Butow. Princeton University Press, 1961. Pp. 540.

PARTIES AND PEOPLE: A SURVEY BASED ON THE LA TROBE ELECTORATE. Creighton Burns. Melbourne University Press, 1961. Pp. x + 173. Australian price 28/6d.