A critical-realist view of housing quality within the post-communist EU states: progressing towards a middle-range explanation

Employing a long-term perspective, we explore whether ideologically rooted quality outcomes of housing provision under communism have persisted during the post-communist construction of housing markets. Drawing on theories of path-dependent change, we hypothesize that patterns of housing quality still reflect past lines of division, namely the Soviet housing model, and the classical and reformist models of the Eastern Bloc. Using a critical-realist approach to housing quality, we relate households’ experiences to key underlying structures; this ontological depth is then operationalized by means of micro- and macro-indicators used as input for hierarchical cluster analyses. Findings support our main hypothesis, yet there is more diversity in households’ experiences than initially assumed. Our study advances a valuable middle-range epistemological frame for understanding the complex social reality of housing and helps shatter the growing view that communist housing systems were all too similar

Between fallacy and feasibility? Dealing with the risk of ecological fallacies in the quantitative study of protest mobilization and conflict

In recent years, the quantitative study of conflict has increasingly focused on small-scale and/or localized conflicts in the developing world. In this paper, we analyze and critically reflect upon a major methodological shortcoming of many studies in this field of research. We argue that by using group- or macro-level empirical data and modelling techniques, while at the same time theoretically underpinning observed empirical associations with individual-level mechanisms, many of these studies risk committing an ecological fallacy. The individual-level mechanism on which many studies rely concerns the presence of grievances which mobilize people to participate in contentious politics. This motivational approach was also present in early studies on protest mobilization in Western societies, which often relied on similar research designs. However, subsequent advances in this literature and the use of methods that were targeted more directly at the individual level uncovered that grievances alone cannot explain mobilization and that organizational capabilities and complex psychological mechanisms of belonging also form part of the puzzle. While drawing on conflict events as well as survey data from Africa, we demonstrate empirically that here, as well, inferring micro-level relations and dynamics from macro-level empirical models can lead to erroneous interpretations and inferences. Hence, we argue that to improve our understanding of conflict mobilization in the developing world, especially for conflicts with low levels of violence, it is necessary to substantially expand our methodological toolbox beyond macro-level analyses

Cooperation, collective action, and the archeology of large-scale societies

Archeologists investigating the emergence of large-scale societies in the past have renewed interest in examining the dynamics of cooperation as a means of understanding societal change and organizational variability within human groups over time. Unlike earlier approaches to these issues, which used models designated voluntaristic or managerial, contemporary research articulates more explicitly with frameworks for cooperation and collective action used in other fields, thereby facilitating empirical testing through better definition of the costs, benefits, and social mechanisms associated with success or failure in coordinated group action. Current scholarship is nevertheless bifurcated along lines of epistemology and scale, which is understandable but problematic for forging a broader, more transdisciplinary field of cooperation studies. Here, we point to some areas of potential overlap by reviewing archeological research that places the dynamics of social cooperation and competition in the foreground of the emergence of large-scale societies, which we define as those having larger populations, greater concentrations of political power, and higher degrees of social inequality. We focus on key issues involving the communal-resource management of subsistence and other economic goods, as well as the revenue flows that undergird political institutions. Drawing on archeological cases from across the globe, with greater detail from our area of expertise in Mesoamerica, we offer suggestions for strengthening analytical methods and generating more transdisciplinary research programs that address human societies across scalar and temporal spectra

Multi-level agent-based modeling - A literature survey

During last decade, multi-level agent-based modeling has received significant and dramatically increasing interest. In this article we present a comprehensive and structured review of literature on the subject. We present the main theoretical contributions and application domains of this concept, with an emphasis on social, flow, biological and biomedical models.Comment: v2. Ref 102 added. v3-4 Many refs and text added v5-6 bibliographic statistics updated. v7 Change of the name of the paper to reflect what it became, many refs and text added, bibliographic statistics update

Entrepreneurship and regional development in Europe: a comparative, socio-anthropological case study in Germany and Spain

This paper summarises the design, data and results of our research on the emergence and consolidation of forms of institutionalisation based on innovative entrepreneurial action in rural European territorial contexts. The investigation was conducted between the years 2006 and 2010. We present data obtained in two territorial references, the regions of Los Pedroches in Andalusia, Spain and Mühldorf in Bavaria, Germany. The paper explores the contributions of social anthropology to prevailing economic entrepreneurship theory by focusing on intangible, cultural variables that influence the implementation of local entrepreneurial initiatives. Presenting data from a case study of two European rural areas of different levels of economic development, the text argues that entrepreneurial research needs to incorporate qualitative data on the sociocultural preconditions of emerging innovative institutions. The research emphasises the need for a broader concept of entrepreneurial behaviour that is able to overcome the reductionist idea of firm creation, and presents a theoretical model for actor-based territorial development studies founded on the combined social theories of Niklas Luhmann and Pierre Bourdieu.Prispevek predstavlja zasnovo, podatke in rezultate našega raziskovanja pojava ter konsolidacije oblik institucionalizacije, ki temeljijo na inovativnih podjetniških akcijah v ruralnih evropskih kontekstih. Zbiranje podatkov je potekalo med letoma 2006 in 2010, v prispevku pa so predstavljeni podatki dveh regij, Los Pedroches v Andaluziji, Španija ter Mühldorf na Bavarskem, Nemčija. Prispevek proučuje doprinose socialne antropologije k prevladujočim teorijam gospodarskega podjetništva, s tem, da se osredotoča na neoprijemljive, kulturne spremenljivke, ki vplivajo na implementacijo lokalnih podjetniških iniciativ. S predstavitvijo podatkov dveh evropskih ruralnih regij na različnih stopnjah ekonomskega razvoja, želimo pokazati, da preučevanje podjetništva zahteva vključitev kvalitativnih podatkov o družbeno-kulturnih predpogojih vzhajajočih inovativnih institucij. Raziskava poudarja potrebo po širšem konceptu podjetniškega vedenja, s katerim je mogoče preseči zgolj redukcionistično idejo ustanovitve podjetja ter predstaviti teoretski model študij razvoja regij, ki se osredotoča na akterje in temelji na kombinaciji družbenih teorij Niklasa Luhmanna ter Pierra Bourdieuja

Goodbye to Projects? Working paper 1: Annotated bibliography on livelihood approaches and development interventions.

YesThis paper is one in a series of working papers prepared under a research project on Goodbye to Projects? The Institutional Impacts of a Livelihood Approach on Projects and Project Cycle Management. This is a collaborative project between the Bradford Centre for International Centre for Development (BCID) with the Economic and Policy Research Centre (EPRC), Uganda; Khanya ¿ managing rural change, South Africa; and, the Institute for Development Management (IDM), Tanzania. The project is supported by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) under their Economic and Social Research Programme (ESCOR).Department for International Developmen

Transgressive urbanism : borderlands and urban informality of american cities along the panamerican highway

This study explores the ways in which political boundaries can be trespassed in order to develop subaltern forms of urbanism and edge conditions, mainly to the comparative study of border cities in the Americas, predominantly ruled by informal economies, and which are situated alongside the largest land-transport infrastructure on Earth called ‘Pan-American Highway’. This land transport corridor operates as a grand linear urbanism and constitutes the economical catalyst of emerging urban economies in scenarios of political regional integration (‘soft boundaries’) or fortification (demarcations). As result of border pressure, the process of ‘instantness’ has upgraded various informal urban economies to adequate standards of production, consumption and exchange. In terms of regional development, one of the direct impacts of the Pan-American Highway – from Alaska to Patagonia – has been the expansion of formal and informal economic and trade corridors along this main infrastructure network, which is shaping the urban structure of border cities or towns. On one hand, this study reflects on the border conditions of American border cities ruled by formal and informal economies. On another hand, it compares and critically reflects on the socio-spatial principles of infrastructural urbanism and the phenomenon of metapolisation (Ascher, 2004) of urban economies in selected border cities. The novelty of this study lies in the observation and mapping of new spatial schemes in border landscapes alongside the largest infrastructure on Earth

Ways of Thinking and Looking at the Mediterranean City

It’s almost a decade that the social science attitude has changed in evaluating the history and reality of the Mediterranean basin geographic area. The decadence of capitalistic modernisation has created a void in social and cultural relationships. A process of cultural legitimisation has been started, focussed on the Mediterranean image and identity, which is pointing out the problem of local cultures’ knowledge and preservation as fundamental elements for planning and management. Searching for a definition of Mediterranean city, not only through geographical or morphological schemes, the paper considers also social, economic and cultural elements, like the borders’ permeability, the supremacy of the “family” on the State and the pervasiveness of the informal economy. Most of these urban realities reveal a “culture of the derogation” and a great rural immigration that give still significance to a classification of resident population, instead of those based on the service users. Moreover, the large Mediterranean urban areas are usually based on a unique centre, rich of economic and human resources, connected to a hinterland poor and degraded, without any kind of identity. On the economic side, the need of entering in the global market leads most of these cities facing the international scale and finding a strong characterisation. On the social side, it could increase the social exclusions with the danger of conflicts. Anyway, every solution must start from the regional scale with public policies, which aim to promote the consensus, exceeding the urban/rural distinctions and stimulating the local community participation.Mediterranean city, urban theory, models, urban statistics, planning

Transgressive urbanism : borderlands and urban informality of american cities along the panamerican highway

This study explores the ways in which political boundaries can be trespassed in order to develop subaltern forms of urbanism and edge conditions, mainly to the comparative study of border cities in the Americas, predominantly ruled by informal economies, and which are situated alongside the largest land-transport infrastructure on Earth called ‘Pan-American Highway’. This land transport corridor operates as a grand linear urbanism and constitutes the economical catalyst of emerging urban economies in scenarios of political regional integration (‘soft boundaries’) or fortification (demarcations). As result of border pressure, the process of ‘instantness’ has upgraded various informal urban economies to adequate standards of production, consumption and exchange. In terms of regional development, one of the direct impacts of the Pan-American Highway – from Alaska to Patagonia – has been the expansion of formal and informal economic and trade corridors along this main infrastructure network, which is shaping the urban structure of border cities or towns. On one hand, this study reflects on the border conditions of American border cities ruled by formal and informal economies. On another hand, it compares and critically reflects on the socio-spatial principles of infrastructural urbanism and the phenomenon of metapolisation (Ascher, 2004) of urban economies in selected border cities. The novelty of this study lies in the observation and mapping of new spatial schemes in border landscapes alongside the largest infrastructure on Earth

Cities and energy:urban morphology and residential heat-energy demand

Our aim is better understanding of the theoretical heat-energy demand of different types of urban form at a scale of 500 m × 500 m. The empirical basis of this study includes samples of dominant residential building typologies identified for Paris, London, Berlin, and Istanbul. In addition, archetypal idealised samples were created for each type through an analysis of their built form parameters and the removal of unwanted ‘invasive’ morphologies. The digital elevation models of these real and idealised samples were run through a simulation that modelled solar gains and building surface energy losses to estimate heat-energy demand. In addition to investigating the effect of macroscale morphological parameters, microscale design parameters, such as U-values and glazing ratios, as well as climatic effects were analysed. The theoretical results of this study suggest that urban-morphology-induced heat-energy efficiency is significant and can lead to a difference in heat-energy demand of up to a factor of six. Compact and tall building types were found to have the greatest heat-energy efficiency at the neighbourhood scale while detached housing was found to have the lowest