DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE AS A FUTURE CHALLENGE FOR CITIES IN EAST CENTRAL EUROPE

Contemporary cities in East Central Europe (ECE) represent a hybrid type of urban development which is still generally considered to be a special case and is only exceptionally referred to in the recently intensified debate over the European city. Our paper argues that such exclusion is short‐sighted because ECE cities face structural problems similar to those of their Western pendants. Therefore, the contextual frame of urban research needs to be widened and can no longer be restricted to post‐socialist transition. In this regard, one of the main challenges for future urban development will be the consequences of demographic change. Ageing, new patterns of fertility behaviour and more diversified household structures in line with the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) will have significant implications for urban structures and housing markets, as already known for Western Europe. The purpose of this paper is to work out new questions and hypotheses for future urban research with special respect to Polish and Czech cities. Besides West European experience, recent developments in eastern Germany are taken as a frame of reference, assuming that this specific transition case may, in many respects, be regarded as a forerunner for similar developments in its neighbouring countries.     

Governing Social Cohesion in Shrinking Cities: The Cases of Ostrava,Genoa and Leipzig

Social cohesion always appears more frequently as a policy goal of the European strategy that promotes the integration of spatial, economic, and social dimensions of growth. This comprehensive approach also has to deal with the social consequences of demographic change, tackle urban poverty, and guarantee access to amenities in isolated neighbourhoods. Such objectives represent specific challenges for shrinking cities, where processes of population decline, job losses and economic constraints as well as financial restrictions create a much more complicated starting position and might make the achievement of the social cohesion even more difficult than in non-shrinking cities. Set against this background, this paper analyses the efforts of three shrinking cities (Ostrava, Genoa, Leipzig) to promote social cohesion under the condition of urban shrinkage, and examines which policies are being promoted to solve problems such as ethnic segregation, ageing, and socio-spatial inequalities. The results show that even though shrinkage does lead to increased challenges for social cohesion, the attempts of policies to tackle them still appear to be secondary priorities, sectoral rather than comprehensive, and involve a certain delay.     

Handling Sorcery in a State System of Law: Magic,Violence and Kastom in Vanuatu.

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the consequences of a local sorcery accusation that came to the attention of Vanuatu state police, courts and media. The paper discusses what happens to sorcery practices when these become absorbed into a modern, bureaucratic context. The argument revolves around the national imaginary formed by state power and the mass media in people's contemporary lives. In formulating new forms of opposition to sorcery, they also create a new imaginary space of national belonging.     

Policing the Holy Nation: The State and Righteous Violence in Vanuatu

ABSTRACT In Vanuatu, the police force has in recent years been strengthened by foreign government aid. AusAid and NZAid are heavily involved inside the police force, seeking to create ‘good governance’ and to shape Vanuatu's national developments. However, these measures also coincide with some other unexpected developments. Recent cases of violence, and especially of sorcery, have led the police to intervene in a quest for moral order. Police are becoming part of the articulation of new occult understandings of wealth and power. These developments are traced back partly to the history of colonial governance and the idea of righteous violence, but also to current restructurings of the Vanuatu state and growing Christian conceptions of Vanuatu as a holy nation.     

NORWEGIAN SUBSIDIZED THEATRES – FAILURE OR FUTURE?

During the period 1972–1999, the number of Norwegian subsidized theatres was more than doubled, while attendance was largely unchanged. Mainly due to new institutions established during this period, the number of performances increased by about 45%. With about the same total attendance, this means that the attendance per performance decreased by about the same percentage. The number of employees (not counting engaged persons) increased by about 60%. All in all this led to an almost trebling of both costs and public support in real terms. This study deals with possible explanations of this distressing development. Contrary to what is commonly assumed, the new theatres, with cost‐disadvantages of small scale, are only part of the explanation. We provide two main explanations: the crowding out of the subsidized theatres by AV‐media and other performing art institutions, like private theatres and independent performing arts groups, and by other entertainment institutions. In addition, costs have increased substantially due to slow adjustment to reduction in demand, costly arrangements to counter the crowding out effects, and institutional sclerosis. The latter seems to be due to various cost‐increasing arrangements commonly found in public institutions with soft budget constraints, as well as in private monopolies and private firms sheltered by regulations of various kinds.     

REVIEW

Arne Skj?lsvold: Slettab? i Ogna. Forel?pig orientering om en boplass med bosetning fra yngre steinalder og bronsealdet. (Slettab? in Ogna. Preliminary publication of a settlement from Late Stone Age and Bronze Age). Viking XXXVI 1972. 74 pp. 30 Figs. English summary     

Comments on Jan Harding (2005): Rethinking the Great Divide: Long‐term Structural History and the Temporality of the Event. Norwegian Archaeological Review 38, 88–101.

After agreement with Magister Knut Odner, his article was chosen as a subject for review and discussion in the first number of Norwegian Archaeological Review. Offprints of the article were sent to 12 Scandinavian specialists who have worked on problems in Stone Age chronology similar to those discussed by Odner here, and they were invited to participate in the review. We received a positive answer from 5 archaeologists, Egil Bakka, C. J. Becker, Irmelin Martens, Kristen M?llenhus, and Povl Simonsen, and their reviews are published after Odncr's short abstract of his article. Odner's reply follows at the end.