The stratification of nature in the Dierentuinwijk of Ghent : a park and a sewer as two poles of development in a new quarter for the city

In 1905 the city-engineer Victor Compyn presents the project for the allotment of the ‘Muinkmeersen’, partly on the grounds of the former zoological garden of Ghent. He structures the residential areas around two components. In the north we find a square, the ‘Muinkpark’, that is in fact a small remnant of the zoological garden. In the south, the Oude Schelde is being filled up and substituted by a sewer. There, Compyn plans a star-shaped street pattern that consists of two diagonal streets and one central north-south oriented axis that connects the square with the junction of the southern streets. With the filling up of the Oude Schelde, the last testimony of the former ‘natural’ hydrography of the Muinkmeersen had disappeared. Or not entirely, for the ‘course’ of the Tentoonstellingslaan – one of the two diagonal streets in the south – almost completely equals that of the filled up branch of the Schelde. Like zoological gardens and municipal parks, networked infrastructures for sewerage and drinking water can be understood as urban constructs of nature. Each in its own way, they display the ambition to canalize nature in a concentrated and systematical way in order to give shape to a severely controlled urban landscape. By exhibiting its gratifying components in zoological gardens, public parks, and the conscious planting of avenues on the one hand, and by hiding and diverting its disagreeable properties underground on the other, nature is being deliberately stratified into a visible and an invisible pole. In the case of the Dierentuinwijk these two poles are explicitly deployed to give shape and meaning to a newly built part of the city. During the Belle Epoque, city engineers, urban planners and theorists were particularly concerned about a rather ‘picturesque’ approach, where the presence of nature was manipulated in order to intensify the experience of the city. Many among them were present at the Premier Congrès International et Exposition Comparée des Villes, held in Ghent in 1913. Lectures were held by Raymond Unwin, Charles Buls, Joseph Stübben, Louis Vander Swaelmen, and also by engineer Alphonse Soenen who had formerly collaborated with Compyn, drawing a plan that indicated the vaulted and filled up waterways of Ghent. Through the specific case of the Compyn project for the Dierentuinwijk of Ghent, this paper intends to examine whether the implementation of underground infrastructures can be read as an equivalent counterpart of other constructs of nature in the city, such as municipal parks and planted avenues. It questions to what extent the filtering away of nature – especially waterways – is applied as a means of manipulation of nature and the urban landscape. Therefore, the paper will not only discuss the project of Victor Compyn, but will also confront it with the general discourses of the picturesque-minded contemporaries of Compyn at the time

Agenda control in EU referendum campaigns : the power of the anti-EU side

European Union (EU) referendums provide unique opportunities to study voters’ attitudes toward a distant level of governance. Scholars have long tried to understand whether EU referendum results reflect domestic (dis-)satisfaction with the incumbent governments or actual attitudes toward the Union. Finding evidence supporting both domestic and European factors, the recent focus has thus turned to referendum campaigns. Recent studies emphasise the importance of the information provided to voters during these campaigns in order to analyse how domestic or European issues become salient in the minds of voters. These studies nonetheless overlook the asymmetrical political advantage in such campaigns. The broader literature on referendums and public opinion suggest that in a referendum, the ‘No’ side typically has the advantage since it can boost the public's fears by linking the proposal to unpopular issues. This article explores whether this dynamic applies to EU treaty ratification referendums. Does the anti-EU treaty campaign have more advantage than the pro-EU treaty campaign in these referendums? Campaign strategies in 11 EU treaty ratification referendums are analysed, providing a clear juxtaposition between pro-treaty (‘Yes’) and anti-treaty (‘No’) campaigns. Based on 140 interviews with campaigners in 11 referendums, a series of indicators on political setting and campaign characteristics, as well as an in-depth case study of the 2012 Irish Fiscal Compact referendum, it is found that the anti-treaty side indeed holds the advantage if it engages the debate. Nonetheless, the findings also show that this advantage is not unconditional. The underlying mechanism rests on the multidimensionality of the issue. The extent to which the referendum debate includes a large variety of ‘No’ campaign arguments correlates strongly with the campaigners’ perceived advantage/disadvantage, and the referendum results. When the ‘No’ side's arguments are limited (either through a single-issue treaty or guarantees from the EU), this provides the ‘Yes’ side with a ‘cleaner’ agenda with which to work. Importantly, the detailed data demonstrate that the availability of arguments is important for the ‘Yes’ side as well. They tend to have the most advantage when they can tap into the economic costs of an anti-EU vote. This analysis has implications for other kinds of EU referendums such as Brexit, non-EU referendums such as independence referendums, and the future of European integration

Theory and Cyberspace

International Relations (IR) theories have been useful in the past for examining world events. Rather than looking at a world event and trying to comprehend every factor that can be analyzed, we can use various IR theories to gain a more focused perspective, and therefore a better understanding. But with the advent of cyber security issues and cyber warfare, will these same theories be as useful, or will they have issues when applied to this new domain? When examining the applicability of two major IR theories, deterrence theory and compellence theory, we find that certain theories have major problems with this unique dimension, while others thrive. Indeed, to apply deterrence theory to this new area has multiple problems, which tend to be unsolvable. Compellence theory, on the other hand, enjoys a number of benefits when used in cyberspace. Such a finding can drastically change policies, and alter how nations, friend or foe, interact with each other

Prostheses for a disabled city : implementing an artificial hydrography in the urban fabric of Ghent

This paper tries to examine the impact and the origins of the establishment of an artificial water supply network and a sewerage in the urban fabric of Ghent. In what context did they come about, and, if there was, what was their impact on the morphological structure of the city. Did they cause a sweeping change to its genetic code and did they manage to implement a rigorous and rational organization in the fungus of streets, passages, moats and ditches of Ghent. As these networks fulfill a function that was formerly performed by their ‘natural’ counterparts, i.e. rivers, canals and wells, the above-mentioned questions have to be posed in the broader context of the evolution of the urban hydrography of Ghent in general