European Cohesion Policy impact on development and convergence: a local empirical analysis in Portugal between 2000 and 2014

Substantial European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) monies have been directed at regional economic and social development in Portugal in which Portuguese local government plays a vital role. Given the magnitude of funding, an important question turns on the effect of the ESIF on overall local authority performance. This paper focuses on the impact of the ESIF on Portuguese municipality performance and development. In particular, it investigates whether the ESIF improved the performance of Portuguese local government and which factors best explain its effect on municipality development. The analysis considers all 308 Portuguese local authorities for the period 2000–2014. Various policy implications flowing from the empirical results of this analysis are explored.     

Unofficial Road Building in the Amazon: Socioeconomic and Biophysical Explanations

Roads have manifold social and environmental impacts, including regional development, social conflicts and habitat fragmentation. ‘Road ecology’ has emerged as an approach to evaluate the various ecological and hydrological impacts of roads. This article aims to complement road ecology by examining the socio‐spatial processes of road building itself. Focusing on the Brazilian Amazon, a heavily‐studied context due to forest fragmentation by roads, the authors consider non‐state social actors who build ‘unofficial roads’ for the purpose of gaining access to natural resources to support livelihoods and community development. They examine four case studies of roads with distinct histories in order to explain the socio‐spatial processes behind road building in terms of profit maximization, land tenure claims, co‐operative and conflictive political ecologies, and constraints as well as opportunities afforded by the biophysical environment. The study cases illustrate the need for a multi‐pronged theoretical approach to understanding road building, and call for more attention to the role of non‐state actors in road construction.     

Class Interests in Brazilian Archaeology

Archaeology is a practice that exists within various social contexts. As such, the way it is practiced is dependent upon the class interests of those who fund and undertake archaeological investigations. These interests in turn can be influenced by existing political regimes. In this article, I discuss how class interests have influenced the direction of Brazilian archaeology for the past century and a half.     

A Free Trade Area of the Americas in 2005?

In the second presidential summit of the Americas, which took place in April 1998 in Santiago de Chile, 34 heads of states of the Americas announced that they were ready to start negotiating a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), to be concluded by 2005. This article briefly discusses the current trend in favour of regional preferential trade agreements, describes how the proposal for an FTAA came about, explores more than three years of negotiations that made it possible and assesses the probability of its success.     

Knowledge Production in European Regions: The Impact of Regional Strategies and Regionalization on Innovation

In the last 15 years, the regional scale was used to implement innovation strategies in European Union. Departing from the discussion of the relevance of innovation policy at the regional level, the article benefits from the knowledge production function framework to estimate patterns considering 175 European regions. It is intended to understand whether regional innovation strategies developed and applied between 1994 and 2001 were successful at an aggregated level in contributing for knowledge creation measured in terms of patents and high technology patents. The results underline the relevance of private R&D expenditure and medium and high technology employment to increase patent numbers. The models suggest also that administrative regionalization may be important to regional innovation and that the creation and implementation of a regional strategy have a positive contribution for high tech innovation.     

Portugal dos Pequenitos as an urban laboratory for rehearsing national identity

Portugal dos Pequenitos (literally, ‘Portugal for the Little Ones’), a theme park built in Portugal as part of the Centenarian Commemorations of the Portuguese Nation of 1940, has been considered one of the most controversial pieces of Portuguese architecture in the 20th century. Designed between 1937 and 1962 by Architect Cassiano Branco, at the initiative of Bissaya Barreto, it features reproductions of uniquely typical Portuguese architecture built to a child's scale. It includes buildings from mainland Portugal, from the Azores and Madeira islands and from the colonial territories in Africa and Asia. The main aims of this paper are twofold: firstly, to frame Cassiano Branco's architecture in its specific context, in terms of historical contingencies and architectural controversies during the Estado Novo (New State) Portuguese dictatorship (1933–1974), and secondly, to assess the importance of Portugal dos Pequenitos as a laboratory for rehearsing an idyllic urban environment, applying hypothetical principles of national identity.     

Better than Cash,but Beware the Costs: Electronic Payments Systems and Financial Inclusion in Developing Economies

This article considers current proposals for using electronic payments systems to promote financial inclusion — that is, to widen the availability of financial and monetary services in developing countries. While such systems can generate significant savings in the operation of monetary systems, payment services markets are typically uncompetitive and require regulatory and broader state interventions to ensure those savings are widely distributed. The use of those systems to broaden the reach of for‐profit lenders raises a number of concerns, as a growing literature has documented how microcredit initiatives in developing countries have resulted primarily in expansions in consumption credit to households, often under predatory terms. The authors advance two original arguments in this connection. First, the perverse results of many microcredit initiatives reflect the underdevelopment of the areas concerned: without broader development strategies, potentially transformative productive projects are rare and unprofitable to finance. In contrast, widespread unmet consumption needs ensure consumption credit offers lenders a profitable alternative business orientation. Second, and in light of this, electronic payments platforms can contribute to economic development by enabling the establishment of well‐regulated or public systems of electronic ‘narrow banks’ restricted from lending, but capable of widening access to affordable payments, savings and insurance services.     

Ancient Egypt in Brazil: A Theoretical Approach to Contemporary Uses of the Past

In this paper we consider archaeology as a product of social interaction, and discuss how ancient Egyptian materiality has been an important part of identity building in Brazil. We begin by reviewing our theoretical setting, and suggest that a postmodern approach is most helpful to our goal of understanding the social context of the public uses of archaeology. The paper then turns to the trajectory of “Egyptomania” in Brazil, from the 19th century onwards, highlighting the importance of cultural movements such as Kardecism and Masonry in this trend. We argue that the use of Egyptian subjects in Brazil has connections with social inequality, racism, and gender biases. Finally, we present a case study on positive recent trends in the presentation of ancient Egypt in school textbooks which highlights critical approaches to the use of ancient Egyptian subjects in contemporary Brazil.     

Book reviews

Local Development — Restructuring, Locality and Economic Initiative in Portugal. Stephen Syrett. Aldershot, Avebury, 1996, US$75.95, ISBN 1 856 28 4840.

Geographic Information Systems: Socioeconomic Applications. David Martin. New York, Routledge, 1996, XXII + 210 pp., £45.00 hb, £14.99 pb, ISBN 0 415 12571 5 hb, 0 415 12572 3 pb.

Town and Country Planning in Britain (11th edition). J. B. Cullingworth and V. Nadin. London, Routledge, 1994, XX + 343 pp., £14.99pb, ISBN 0 415 10708 3.

Towards Visitor Impact Management. Visitor Impacts, Carrying Capacity and Management Responses in Europe's Historic Towns and Cities. J. Glasson, K. Godfrey and B. Goodey (with H. Absalom and J. Van der Borg). Aldershot, Avebury, Urban and Regional Planning and Development Series, 1995, XII + 189 pp., £35.00 hb, ISBN 1 85972 054 4.     

Methods and Approaches for Blind Test Predictions of Out-of-Plane Behavior of Masonry Walls: A Numerical Comparative Study

ABSTRACT

Earthquakes cause severe damage to masonry structures due to inertial forces acting in the normal direction to the plane of the walls. The out-of-plane behavior of masonry walls is complex and depends on several parameters, such as material and geometric properties of walls, connections between structural elements, the characteristics of the input motions, among others. Different analytical methods and advanced numerical modeling are usually used for evaluating the out-of-plane behavior of masonry structures. Furthermore, different types of structural analysis can be adopted for this complex behavior, such as limit analysis, pushover, or nonlinear dynamic analysis.

Aiming to evaluate the capabilities of different approaches to similar problems, blind predictions were made using different approaches. For this purpose, two idealized structures were tested on a shaking table and several experts on masonry structures were invited to present blind predictions on the response of the structures, aiming at evaluating the available tools for the out-of-plane assessment of masonry structures. This article presents the results of the blind test predictions and the comparison with the experimental results, namely in terms of formed collapsed mechanisms and control outputs (PGA or maximum displacements), taking into account the selected tools to perform the analysis.