The Making of '89: Nationalism and the Dissolution of Communist Eastern Europe

Abstract. Designed and delivered as a ‘think-paper’ at the first conference of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism in 1991, this contribution has been revised in the light of subsequent developments but retains the essential flavour and format of the original. The primary objective of the article is to identify the most typical and authoritative stimuli promoting and sustaining the rising tide of nationalism over the five years preceding the collapse of communist Eastern Europe in 1989/91, concentrating on environmental threat, demographic flux, the media revolution and the bankruptcy of supra-national authority. The secondary objective is to reflect on how differing evaluations of these stimuli have influenced rival interpretations of the phenomenon of modern nationalism. Experiencing both a ‘resurgence’ and a ‘regeneration’ (but not a ‘revolution') over the last ten years, nationalism is expected to remain a dominant force across greater Eastern Europe for the foreseeable future.     

Consuming narratives: the political ecology of 'alternative' consumption

This paper examines how political ecology themes of tropical conservation and social justice become representational practices underpinning 'alternative' consumption in the North. The notion of commodity culture is adopted to understand the ambiguous rationalities and ethical assumptions of two sets of consumption practices. The first case considers Edenic myth-making used to assimilate concerns over tropical deforestation in the South to consumption-intensive if conservation-minded lifestyles in the North. The second case looks at fair trade and how concern about social injustice and unfair labour practices in the South is harnessed to solidarity-seeking consumption constitutive of 'radical' lifestyles. The paper suggests these contrasting commodity cultures broadly conform to divergent positions in red–green debates. It argues that both are weakened as a form of social and political 'caring at a distance' due to an uncritical acceptance of consumption as the primary basis of action.     

Clio Raped

Books reviewed in this article: Raymond Martin, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?     

Can Affirmative Motivations Improve Compliance in Emissions Trading Programs?

Early emissions trading programs have obtained a very high rate of compliance, in part by using continuous emissions monitors (CEMs) that automatically record emissions data on a 24‐hour basis. As they expand into a wider range of pollutants and sources, however, such policies will have to rely on less automated forms of self‐reporting. This article asks if improved “affirmative motivations” for compliance based on perceptions of a policy's fairness could reduce the likelihood of underreporting, thereby lowering verification costs without unduly jeopardizing environmental integrity. Using a computerized laboratory emissions trading market, we find that many subjects reported emissions honestly in situations where dishonest reporting would have been more profitable, as well as a statistically significant association of affirmative motivations based on perceptions of a policy's fairness with honest reporting. These results suggest that designing an emissions trading program to increase its perceived fairness among users has the potential to increase honest emissions reporting and reduce monitoring costs.     

REGIONAL POPULATION–EMPLOYMENT DYNAMICS ACROSS DIFFERENT SECTORS OF THE ECONOMY*

ABSTRACT An important subset of the literature on agglomeration externalities hypothesizes that intrasectoral and intersectoral relations are endogenously determined in models of local and regional economic growth. Remarkably, structural adjustment models describing the spatio‐temporal dynamics of population and employment levels or growth traditionally do not include intersectoral economic dynamics. This paper argues and shows that allowing for economic linkages across sectors in these models adds considerable value, especially in forecasting. An econometric model of population–employment dynamics, in which sectoral variations in economic development are explicitly taken into account, is applied to a large urban planning policy proposal in the Netherlands. The empirical analyses suggest that population dynamics are largely exogenous, population changes drive employment in particular in the industry and retail sectors, and employment in all sectors depends strongly on intersectoral dynamics. Intersectoral dynamics appear as important drivers of regional sectoral employment changes; they are even more important than population changes, and their effect shows up clearly even within the Dutch institutional context where strict regulatory housing and planning restrictions are enforced.