The 1911 International Exposition in Rome: architecture, archaeology, and national identity

This paper discusses the 1911 International Exposition in Rome and illustrates how this patriotic celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Italian Sate utilized symbolic landscapes of architecture and archaeology to promote nationalist sentiments of italianità and romanità centered on the young capital of Rome. Through modern art exhibitions at the Valle Giulia, scientific conferences at the Castel Sant’Angelo, archaeological exhibits on the Roman Empire in the Baths of Diocletian, and regional Italian pavilions in the Piazza d’Armi, exposition officials offered a complex representation of Italian national identity that was modern yet ancient, cosmopolitan yet bucolic, European yet regional, and imperial yet developing.     

Relocating Participation within a Radical Politics of Development

In response to (and in sympathy with) many of the critical points that have been lodged against participatory approaches to development and governance within international development, this article seeks to relocate participation within a radical politics of development. We argue that participation needs to be theoretically and strategically informed by a radical notion of ‘citizenship’, and be located within the ‘critical modernist’ approach to development. Using empirical evidence drawn from a range of contemporary approaches to participation, the article shows that participatory approaches are most likely to succeed: (i) where they are pursued as part of a wider radical political project; (ii) where they are aimed specifically at securing citizenship rights and participation for marginal and subordinate groups; and (iii) when they seek to engage with development as an underlying process of social change rather than in the form of discrete technocratic interventions — although we do not use these findings to argue against using participatory methods where these conditions are not met. Finally, we consider the implications of this relocation for participation in both theoretical and strategic terms.     

The diversity of North American projectile-point types,before and after the bow and arrow

Mimicking paleobiological studies of biodiversity, changes in the diversity of temporal types of North American projectile points are modeled to reveal evolutionary patterns of origination and extinction. Origination is modeled as rapid innovation of multiple point types (high diversity), and extinction is modeled as gradual winnowing of less-efficient types. Introduction of the bow and arrow as a new weapon-delivery system is modeled as an increase in point diversity. Six sequences of points (dart + arrow), six sequences of dart points, and six sequences of arrow points from western North America best match the model when the number of time periods ?5 and the number of types is >3.     

Tradeoffs between Local Taxes and Government Spending as Determinants of Business Location*

Abstract. This paper investigates the effects of local fiscal policy on the location decisions of 3,763 establishments that began operations in Maine between 1993 and 1995. Empirical results, estimated from Poisson and negative binomial regression models, indicate that businesses favor municipalities that spend high amounts on public goods and services, even when these expenditures are financed by an increase in local taxes. This suggests that a local fiscal policy of reduced government spending, to balance a tax cut, may attract fewer new businesses than a policy featuring additional spending and higher taxes.     

Through the eyes of rural notaries: business, community and confessional divisions in seventeenth-century poitou

Historians have often reflected upon the relations between Catholicsand Protestants in the small towns of seventeenth-century France.Using the recorded information on the lives and business dealingsof notaries, this article looks at how they integrated intoand dealt with both confessional groups in the small Poitoutown of Chef-Boutonne. Of the twenty-one men who listed themselvesas notaries in the parish registers, seven left records of theacts they drew up. Using their papers as well as parish registersthe article follows up on these men, their religious affiliation,families, marriages, training as notaries, business dealingsand their selection as godparents for town children. It thenreflects back upon the role of these men and their respectiveconfessional groups in the crucial years between the end ofthe Wars of Religion and the lead-up to the revocation of theEdict of Nantes.     

Partitioned identities? Everyday national distinctions in Northern Ireland and the Irish state

How does political structure affect ethno‐national distinction? Partitioned societies are a good test case where we can see the effects of changed socio‐political circumstances on historically inherited distinction. This article takes nominally identical distinctions of nationality and religion with common historical roots and shows how they are differentially understood in two polities partitioned in 1920: Northern Ireland, a devolved region of the United Kingdom, and the Irish state. Using a data base of interviews with over 220 respondents, of which 75 in Northern Ireland, conducted between 2003 and 2006, it shows how complex, potentially totalising and exclusive ‘ethnic’ and ‘ethno‐national’ divisions are built up from simpler and more permeable distinctions. Respondents interrelate the same elements into a loosely‐knit symbolic structure – different in each jurisdiction – which frames expectations and discourse, and which is associated with different logics of national discourse, one focussing on personal orientation, the other on group belonging. The resultant ‘ethno‐national’ distinctions function differently North and South.