Spatial and temporal dynamics of linkage strategies in Arab-Israeli water negotiations

Water issues are inherently multi-faceted and therefore water policy often involves linkages to other issues. By providing opportunities for bargaining, use of policy linkages in transboundary water negotiations can increase the possibilities of reaching agreements; however, they also involve potential political costs. While there is ample theoretical literature on the potential benefits and risks of linkages in transboundary water negotiations, there is little empirical work exploring if, how, and why linkages are implemented in practice, especially in areas of conflict, in which they have perhaps the largest potential impact. This study evaluates the rationales behind decisions to adopt or refrain from linkage strategies by examining their actual use in Arab-Israeli water negotiations. The study finds that the likelihood, scale, and scope of linkages change over time, and they depend on factors such as the political climate, the level of trust between the parties, the degree of power asymmetry between parties, and political affiliation. Other variables such as size of negotiating parties were weakly correlated with likelihood of linkages. Knowing the opportunities and limits afforded by such linkages is crucial for negotiators and policymakers who are often drawn to linkage strategies without considering their inherent risks.     

Minority gentrification: Re-evaluation of class and ethno-nationalism intersectionality

The dominant stream of political geography research links ethnic or racial marginalization and class-based marginalization resulting from gentrification processes. This study presents a new phenomenon of “minority gentrification:” gentrification led by Arab entrepreneurs and business owners in the city of Acre which challenges the dominant research narrative and emphasizes the complexity of the relationship between class and ethnonational identity. Based on a qualitative research method including in-depth interviews with Arab business owners and lower-income Arab tenants, as well as analysis of policy documents and press articles, this study offers the term “stratified marginalization” to describe the relative advantage of Arab and business owners over lower-income Arab tenants. Simultaneously, it describes the trap in which they find themselves between their ethnonational and class identities and the explanations they provide for the gentrification process. Finally, the study describes the tension between Arabs from different classes as a result of gentrification. The research findings contribute to a re-evaluation of class and ethnonationalism intersectionality in a way that recognizes the benefits of gentrification for the middle-class ethnic entrepreneurs on the one hand, and the multiple margins of the lower-class ethnic tenants on the other.     

Examining the Olympics: heritage,identity and performance

A major aspect of Ireland's history is the continual problems of a sectarian nature, yet the issue of 'the troubles' gets scant consideration in the permanent exhibitions mounted in Northern Ireland's museums, and is only beginning to emerge in more temporary exhibitions and statements about museums. In addition, the belief that cultural heritage plays a significant part in conflict resolution in Northern Ireland has long been expressed in statements on education policy and local government programmes. However, the concept of using museums for exploring this history for a positive outcome has not, despite the scale of the political problem, been a high-profile issue in Northern Ireland's museums nor has it had a great deal of academic attention. This paper is a contribution to this gap. It assesses the role that Northern Ireland's museums play in the current political context. It evaluates the reasons why, since their foundation, museums in Northern Ireland have largely chosen to avoid controversial issues in their displays. It considers how attitudes are changing and how museum professionals are tentatively beginning to engage with political issues and enter into dialogue on subjects such as cultural and political identities in Northern Ireland.     

Measuring Learning Outcomes in Museums,Archives and Libraries: The Learning Impact Research Project (LIRP)

There has been legislation in place since the 1970s in Canada's largest province, Ontario, that encourages the identification of significant heritage buildings and is supposed to provide them with at least a degree of protection. Both heritage recognition and most other land use decisions, however, are exercised at the local government level. W'hile conservation of heritage structures has been successful in some places, an alarming number of significant historic buildings in the province continue to be lost. Relying on dozens of volunteers, this study examined thousands of buildings in over twenty Ontario communities and sought to establish how many heritage buildings had been demolished and to determine why these losses were occurring. It was discovered that in the municipalities surveyed over 400 historically recognised buildings had been lost in the last sixteen years. Recommendations for how to deal with this problem are included in the study.     

Book Reviews

Over the past 150 years, different perceptions concerning the cultural influence that historic buildings should exert on modern life have evolved within the British Isles and Continental (especially Central) Europe. Despite a conservation revival, together with the declining influence of International Modernism by the 1970s, in facilitating the reduction of conceptual differences within state conservation agencies throughout Europe, subsequent events did not allow this process to go much further. The political changes in Central Europe following the end of the Cold War and the subsequent restructuring of the world economy helped to re-emphasise the basic problem. That is, the extent to which the material remains of the past should be considered more as reactive cultural icons or more as proactive normative elements within the European civic tradition. An examination of the general operating philosophies of state conservation agencies in England and Germany can give a plausible insight into how differing values placed on the past and contemporary significance of historic buildings can be directly related to the level of vernacular continuity deemed appropriate within different European regions. The question is also raised whether the convergence of similar urban lifestyles across the European Continent will enable historic material remains to become either integrated and moral realities or hermetic and virtual realities within the broader framework of European civic life.     

Robustness of Social‐Ecological Systems: Implications for Public Policy

We conceptualize social‐ecological systems (SESs) as complex adaptive systems where public policy affects and is affected by the biophysical system in which it is embedded. The study of robustness of SESs combines insights from various disciplines including economics, political science, ecology, and engineering. In this paper we present an approach that can be used to explore the implications for public policy when viewed as a component of a complex adaptive system. Our approach leverages the Institutional Analysis and Development framework to provide a platform for interdisciplinary research that focuses on system‐wide outcomes of the policy process beyond just policy change. The main message is that building robustness can create new vulnerabilities. Fail‐free policies cannot be developed, and instead of a focus on the “right” policy, we need to think about policy processes that stimulate experimentation, adaptation, and learning.     

Trans-Subsystem Dynamics: Policy Topography, Mass Opinion, and Policy Change

We argue that the treatment of trans-subsystem change, and particularly the role of public opinion in fostering such change, within the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) has been underspecified. We propose a model of "policy topography" that combines the concepts of public opinion, clusters of linked subsystems, and policy issue venues. While the ACF has characterized subsystems as relatively self-contained, we argue that they are more usefully understood as operating in a relatively permeable fashion among evolving clusters of subsystems linked together by networked relations, strategically overlapping policy considerations, and public opinion disruptions. The "policy topography" model offers opportunities to assess the relationships across policy subsystems, and to better specify the critical relationship between public policy and mass opinions. We offer examples, and suggest hypotheses along with avenues for appropriate empirical analysis.     

明洪武时期内迁蒙古人辨析

洪武时期 ,明朝廷对北元采取积极的招抚政策 ,被认为是蒙古人的故元官兵大规模南下 ,直接导致了北元复国失败和分裂瓦解。作者通过对南下故元官兵的由来、民族构成和蒙古人特点的分析 ,认为所谓南下蒙古人 ,实际上绝大多数是改朝换代时北退的元朝官兵。他们中汉族占有相当比重 ,其中的蒙古人也具有久居中原、深受儒家文化熏陶的特点。正是因为这些内在因素的存在 ,才使明朝的招抚政策发挥了有效的作用。     

汉武帝对匈奴政策新论

本文试图在分阶段叙述汉武帝武力征伐匈奴的基础上 ,着重探讨汉武帝利用属国“与单于争其民”的方式去笼络、分化、瓦解匈奴 ,以及对匈奴进行经济文化渗透等 ,以期更为全面地认识汉武帝的匈奴政策。     

唐朝对高句丽政策的形成、嬗变及其原因

本文在前人研究的基础上 ,认为唐朝对高句丽政策的形成与嬗变 ,即从开始的怀柔与安抚转变到连续不断的征伐 ,都是国内和国际形势的变化使然。在对这种变化进行全面论述后 ,认为救助新罗 ,稳定朝鲜半岛局势是最主要的原因。唐朝对高句丽的征伐和消灭 ,积极的意义是使这一地区的政治维持了近两百年的和平与稳定局面。