Institutional Arrangements and the Morphology of Residential Development in the Netherlands,Flanders and North Rhine-Westphalia

Abstract

This article aims to highlight the mechanisms through which institutional arrangements influence the morphology of residential development. By comparing the Netherlands, Flanders and North Rhine-Westphalia, which have quite similar socio-economic and landscape characteristics, it investigates how differences in national institutional environments have contributed to differences in the urban morphology of residential areas. This article fits within a broader institutional “turn” in planning research. While most of these studies focus on how institutions affect the behaviour of actors in the process of planning and development, this article focuses on the physical outcomes of these processes. The institutional analysis of physical outcomes suggests that urban morphology is not only linked to planning systems—the subject of this special issue—but also to housing cultures and property regimes.     

A Path to “Emergent Peace” in Northeast Asia: The Shadow of the Past Matters

This article explores the possibility of institutional multilateralism in Northeast Asia from the perspective of “emergent peace”. The main argument of the article is that a self-organising peace process arising from institutional multilateralism is constrained and enabled by the existing “morphogenetic fields”, the formative social spheres of collective action. Similar ideas or initiatives that are pursued by an agent/agents may result in different consequences depending on the characteristics of the morphogenetic fields. This argument is examined through two case studies. The first is Jean Monnet in Europe, who played a pivotal role in the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), and the other is Ahn Jung-geun in Northeast Asia, who proposed the detailed ideas of pan-Asianism akin to Monnet but failed to play a role as an agent. The case studies demonstrate that the feature of the morphogenetic fields is determined by the characteristics of embedded agency at a critical juncture, while the agency is bounded by the particular spatial and temporal conditions of the morphogenetic fields. In search of an emergent peace process in Northeast Asia, this article particularly highlights the Six-Party Talks, arguing that they are a by-product of, and an alternative to, the San Francisco System.     

The Agnotology of Eviction in South Lebanon's Palestinian Gatherings: How Institutional Ambiguity and Deliberate Ignorance Shape Sensitive Spaces

A significant part of Lebanon's Palestinian refugees live in unofficial camps, so‐called “gatherings”, where they reside on Lebanese land. Many of these gatherings are now threatened with eviction. By means of two qualitative case studies this article explores responses to such eviction threats. Residents, it turns out, engage in deliberate disinformation and stalling tactics and invoke both a professed and real ignorance about their situation. In contrast to dominant discourses that project Palestinian refugees as illicit and sovereignty undermining, I explain these tactics as a reaction to, and duplication of, a “politics of uncertainty” implemented by Lebanese authorities. Drawing on agnotology theory, and reconsidering the gatherings as sensitive spaces subjected to aleatory governance, I propose that residents’ responses to the looming evictions are a manifestation of the deliberate institutional ambiguity that Lebanese authorities impose on the gatherings. As such, the article contributes to understanding the spatial dimensions of strategically imposed ignorance.     

Overcoming barriers to institutional integration in European second-tier urban regions

Within the debates about the socio-economic advantages of cohesive urban regions, several barriers to institutional integration are said to exist, especially when a metropolitan government is absent and integration relies on inter-municipal cooperation. Some barriers are associated with different urban region structures, such as the asymmetric power relations and sociocultural contrasts between municipalities in systems with dominant core cities, or the lack of a leading city to overcome fragmentation and provide a shared identity in polycentric urban regions (PURs). This paper investigates whether urban regions formed around second-tier cities, whose features depart from both dominant core and PUR models, are able to mitigate these barriers when pursuing integration strategies. The analysis relies on interviews with municipal leaders in three representative European case studies, examining how they perceive the barriers to inter-municipal relations in second-tier urban regions. The findings show that perceptions vary not only between regions, with the three cases following different trajectories of integration, but also within regions, according to the geographical and socio-economic context of municipalities and the legacy of past relations. In general, barriers to integration are not minimized without explicit efforts to rebalance power relations, approach political cultures, mobilize core city leadership and develop a metropolitan identity.     

Tailored polities in the shadow of the state’s hierarchy. The CLLD implementation and a future research agenda

The paper provides a theoretical contribution to the multi-level governance debate, discussing the role of the policy instruments in tailoring polities for local development strategies. To this purpose, it examines the Community-Led Local Development (CLLD), a policy tool of the EU Cohesion Policy 2014–2020, which has generated more than 3000 local initiatives across the EU. An institutionalist perspective enables a reflection on the multi-level normative dimensions of these local initiatives. A combination of the post-functionalist governance theory, the soft space debate, state-theory and strategic-relational approach provides an interpretative framework to be deployed for a dedicated research agenda. The interpretative challenge is about whether the CLLD enables spatial-temporal fixes in which a deliberative polity pursues a spatial imaginary for an ad-hoc territory. The consequent analytical dimensions can be found in (a) the relationship between attendant ad-hoc polity, policy agenda, territorial design and societal processes; and (b) the meta-governance dimensions that locate the bottom-up constituency of this institutional technology in the shadow of state’s hierarchy. An overview of the CLLD implementation across the EU provides evidence on the latter.     

The Impact of Forum Interdependence and Network Structure on Actor Performance in Complex Governance Systems

One of the main assumptions of the Ecology of Games Framework (EGF) is that governance processes are heavily affected by the interactions among policy actors that take place in multiple decision‐making forums, which often function interdependently. In this article, we use data collected in the Tampa Bay and California Delta water governance systems to examine how “biophysical interdependence”—the extent to which forums deal with interconnected policy problems—impacts the costs that actors face when they participate in forums, which in turn can affect their performance in them. Furthermore, we examine how the individual information exchange networks that actors have (i.e., their ego‐networks) can mediate the previous relationship. We find that actors with networks that have more closure are better able to mitigate the costs associated with participating in biophysically interdependent forums, thus leading to better in‐forum performance. Our findings shed new light on the relationship between structure and function in complex ecologies of games.     

胡适的语言观

胡适倡导的以白话代替文言的语言变革最终导致了新文学运动和新文化运动的发生,胡适进行的语言研究和他对语言研究方法的探索对中国现代语言学的发展产生了深刻的影响.因此,对胡适的语言观进行考察具有重要的意义.本文主要从语言的性质、语言的变革、语言的研究等三个方面对胡适的基本语言观进行全面考察和重新审视,并通过对其语言观的考察来重新解读他的新文学和新文化运动理论,重新评价他在现代语言学研究中的历史功绩.     

目的地制度性行为对目的地品牌资产的作用路径研究——来自西北五省旅游业的市场证据

在旅游消费升级驱动下,目的地品牌化日益成为国内外旅游业竞争的焦点。本文基于制度理论,从游客的全新视角探究在现有的制度环境中目的地的相关制度性行为如何影响目的地品牌资产。数据显示,旅游目的地不但可以通过制度性行为正向影响目的地品牌资产,还会通过品牌合理性的中介作用间接影响品牌资产;研究还进一步发现,不同于一般的精细加工可能性模型适用机制,目的地制度性行为效应的大小独立于目的地熟悉度的高低,目的地熟悉度并不是目的地制度性行为发挥效应的外部条件。本文的研究结论不仅展现了制度效力对目的地品牌建设的重要作用,还能进一步丰富目的地品牌资产研究的路径和方法,并为目的地营销实践提供有价值的参考。     

The Effect of Terrain on Entheseal Changes in the Lower Limbs

One of the main factors involved in entheseal changes (EC) aetiology may be related to the physiological limits of biomechanical loading fixed during bone development, such that higher load during childhood and the adolescent growth spurt leads to a lower frequency of EC during adulthood. In this sense, it is possible that ECs may be related to overloading beyond an individual's normal physiological limits as established during childhood and adolescence. This meta‐analysis tested this aetiological possibility by studying the influence of terrain on the entheses of the lower extremities. The hypothesis is that individuals who inhabited rugged terrain have lower EC than those living in flat terrain. This is because biomechanical loads associated with rugged terrain will lead to a higher normal capacity (defined during skeletal development) mitigating the probability of overloading compared to those living in flat terrain who will therefore have a higher frequency of ECs. To test this, papers reporting EC frequencies in the lower limbs were analysed alongside the local terrain. Terrain was defined into two categories: flat or rugged based on altimetry profile, i.e. the average elevation gains and losses along four specific paths (North‐South, East‐West, Northwest‐Southeast, Southwest‐Northeast). Odds ratios were calculated to compare rugged and flat terrain. The overall results are consistent with the hypothesis that overloading is a factor in EC aetiology. However, when the analysis is conducted by sex and side, this general trend does not always occur. Limitations such as the lack of standardized age ranges could be affecting the outcome, i.e. older individuals have a higher frequency of ECs. The findings of this analysis suggest that the theoretical assumptions associated with the cause of ECs require further testing and evaluation. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.