National Identity and Consciousness in Everyday Life: Towards a Sociology of Knowledge of Greek-Cypriot Nationalism

Abstract. The concomitants of nationalism and ethnic separation upon Greek-Cypriot consciousness are examined from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge and phenomenological analysis. The focus is upon the perception of Self and the social construction of Greek-Cypriot identity. The issue is examined in light of the ideological contest between Greek nationalism and Cypriotism. Whereas Greek nationalism sets the parameters of ideological orthodoxy and is the dominant force on the level of political consciousness, Cypriotism predominates on the level of everyday consciousness. One key consequence of the ideological class between Greek-Cypriot nationalism and Cypriotism is a structural ambivalence that characterises Greek-Cypriot perceptions of Self and Other. This ambivalence has been one of the main obstacles to the legitimation of an independent Cypriot polity and continues to impede the functional coexistence of the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot people on the island.     

Milieux innovateurs: Determinants and policy implications

National and regional differences are more and more frequently explained by differences in milieux. This type of explanation raises three questions: Can we identify milieux? What are the determinants of milieux? Are there differences between industries in the matter of determinants of milieux? Most studies on milieux innovateurs are based on case studies and qualitative data. This paper is quantitative and comparative in nature. It attempts to identify milieux and their determinants by using data from the 1999 Statistics Canada Innovation Survey. Based on two synthetic indicators of interactions (weak/strong) and learning (weak/strong), four categories of milieux innovateurs are differentiated which become the dependent variables. In order to see what the determinants of the various milieux innovateurs are and to see in what ways the most favorable milieux innovateurs compare to the others, binomial logit models have been estimated for four industries using the following independent variables: competitive pressures, barriers to knowledge exchange, use of government support, number of employees, collaborative arrangements, R&D activities, regions.     

Legal uncertainty,resistance to royal taxation and rural revolts in late medieval France: the case of Beauvoir-sur-Mer and Bois-de-Céné (1480)

In 1480, the inhabitants of Beauvoir-sur-Mer and Bois-de Céné, two small towns on the Atlantic coast of Poitou, in France, rebelled against the officials in charge of collecting the salt tax and arrested some of them. Despite the fact that the resulting civil disturbance had few long-lasting consequences, the case is an effective illustration of the dynamics of rural revolts at the end of the fifteenth century. This article demonstrates how violence was only the last stage of protest against royal taxation; the riots had been preceded by legal resistance and negotiations. The article also shows how the events were permeated and fuelled by judicial complexity and a climate of legal uncertainty surrounding the rights of French officials to collect the tax. These revolts must then be understood not simply as a reaction to excessive taxation, but more as self-defence against royal officials who refused to acknowledge the rights of the inhabitants of these towns.