The unlikely independence of Northern Italy

The past fifty years have seen several elements and factors leading to the current homogenization of Italian society: the internal migration from South to North, the development of a more and more industrial and affluent society, the increase of links with Europe/World culture and economy. Nevertheless in the last decade in Northern Italy emerged the political phenomenon of autonomist parties, in particular the most successful of them: the Lega Nord. This success happened in parallel with the loss of power by traditional government parties, also as a consequence of the trial against corruption held in Milan at the beginning of the '90. Italian politics is in turmoil and it is impossible to forecast the duration or even its end. The problem is to determine the most significant elements, and which factors have the greatest effect on the current reality, also to be able to venture a prediction regarding trends. The paper suggests some ethno-nationalism evaluation criteria, useful to assess the more or less successful geopolitical dynamics where there are separatist claims. According with those criteria the Northern Italian political situation has been briefly described and evaluated, with particular attention to electoral results of the Lega Nord party. These results show a well defined geographical distribution and hence the minority condition in the North of the separatist supporters. The actual political debate in Italy has the aim to change some parts of the Constitution in the sense of federalism; it can be a sufficient reply to secessionist claims and it can make the independence of Northern Italy unlikely.     

Voting and borderland minorities: Recent Italian elections and the Slovene minority in eastern Fiuli-Venezia Giulia

This article seeks to link electoral behavior and borderland ethnic minority patterns. Results of the November 1993 mayoral election in Trieste, and the March 1994 and April 1996 national elections in Italy are studied in reference to the distribution of the Slovene minority in Northeastern Italy, specifically in the eastern part of the Region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia adjoining the boundary with Slovenia. The history of this borderland is rampant with conflict and territorial sovereignty changes. Recent events – the end of the Cold War, the breakup of Yugoslavia and independence of Slovenia, and the collapse of the Italian political party system – have served both to ease traditional tensions but also to exacerbate ethnic relations between Italians and the Slovene minority. The impact of Italian electoral reform and political party reformulation on the region is examined. Specifically, Mayor Illy's election in the city of Trieste in 1993 and voting patterns in the borderland Goriziano district of the Italian Senate for both the 1994 and 1996 elections are studied in some detail. The article concludes that while electoral campaigns and election results are marked with ethnic confrontation and contrasts, evidence suggests that, despite continuing nationalist tendencies, greater understanding and cooperation between Italians and Slovenes are emerging.     

NIMBY localism and national inequitable exclusion alliances: The case of syringe exchange programs in the United States

Syringe exchange programs (SEPs) aim to reduce the harm associated with injection drug use (IDU). Although they have been accepted as critical components of HIV prevention in many parts of the world, they are often unwelcome and difficult to set up and maintain, even in communities hardest hit by IDU-related HIV transmission. This research examines socio-cultural and political processes that shape community and institutional resistance toward establishing and maintaining SEPs. These processes are configured and reinforced through the socio-spatial stigmatizing of IDUs, and legal and public policy against SEPs. Overarching themes the paper considers are: (1) institutional and/or political opposition based on (a) political and law enforcement issues associated with state drug paraphernalia laws and local syringe laws; (b) harassment of drug users and resistance to services for drug users by local politicians and police; and (c) state and local government (in)action or opposition; and (2) the stigmatization of drug users and location of SEPs in local neighborhoods and business districts. Rather than be explained by “not in my back yard” localism, this pattern seems best conceptualized as an “inequitable exclusion alliance” (IEA) that institutionalizes national and local stigmatizing of drug users and other vulnerable populations.     

Africa in the rise of rights-based development

This paper explores the rise of rights-based development (RBD) and its endorsement by prominent international institutions (such as the United Nations) and International Development Agencies (IDAs) like the World Bank. It situates RBD in global political context and analyses it in relation to the international politics of development, especially the politics of neo-liberal adjustment policies in Africa. The paper shows how RBD emerged against a backdrop of debate about four international issues associated with neo-liberalism and its discontents, namely globalisation and uneven development; capability and good governance; human rights and human development; and NGOs in the politics of development. Debates about those four issues keep repositioning the state as the central actor in RBD, and holding the state accountable for development (or the lack thereof) under international law. The paper’s basic point is that state-centric RBD is paradoxical and highly political. Greater accountability is being demanded of states––especially in Africa––from the same neo-liberal forces (such as the World Bank) charged with weakening state capacity, undermining democracy, and diminishing state authority. In terms of international power relations and the politics of development, RBD does signal something of a willingness to rethink certain aspects of the dominant neo-liberal agenda. And yet adjusted states are being subjected––in the name of RBD––to novel methods of international surveillance and forms of conditionality. States are ultimately held responsible for human rights violations, even when it is non-state actors (and their neo-liberal policies) that caused those rights to be violated in the first place. RBD is, therefore, a partial answer (at best) to the questions of empowerment and change raised by critics of neo-liberalism.     

Towards a critical political geography of African development

In this paper we aim to rethink the political geography of African development at the beginning of the 21st century. Central to our thesis are two intertwining legacies, paralleling Edward Said’s Orientalism. The first is the construction of Africa in the western imagination and the second is an enduring trusteeship towards the continent. The core movement we seek to critique and move beyond is the complicity between racialised knowledges about Africa and a series of political interventions that seek to ‘help’ Africans to develop. The paper begins by examining the legacy of colonialism in the policies towards and representations of Africa. Although selective and schematic we argue that what unites these power–knowledge constructions is a sense of trusteeship towards the continent. The next step is to look at ways of decolonising our knowledges as a means to effect more appropriate political engagement with Africa. For this we touch on a range of theoretical positions, but look most closely at the corpus of post-colonial theory for ways of doing this. While not uncritical of post-colonialism we find it potentially useful for destabilising western authority and in addressing questions of popular agency and cultural constructions of exclusion. From here we attempt a reformulation which addresses the role of the state, the politics of place and space, and the ways in which ‘we’––professional geographers––might go about our work.     

Recent immigration to Italy: Character,causes and consequences

During the 1970s Italy changed from being a country of mass emigration to one of mass immigration, taking over from Germany the role of Europe's main recipient of immigrants from less developed countries. By 1991 the officially registered foreign population in Italy stood at 860,000; however, clandestine migrants push the real figure above 1 million. Italy was generally unprepared for this immigration and policy has been slow to evolve. Analysis of residence permit data show that the immigrants come increasingly from Third World, especially African, countries, and that there is a relative concentration in the north of Italy. One third of the immigrants are Moslem. Employment data are scarce but indicate that around two–thirds are involved in low-grade service sector activities (street-trading, domestic service, hotel work etc.). There is a high degree of occupational specialisation amongst certain national groups (Senegalese street-hawkers, Tunisian fishermen, Filipino domestics etc.). The immaturity of the immigration is also revealed by marked gender and age assymetry. Five main causes are suggested as being behind the immigration: ease of entry; Italy's increasing prosperity; segmentation of the Italian labour market, opening up specific niches for immigrant employment; dominance of push factors from the countries of origin; and the demographic collapse in Italy. Within Italy, the reaction to immigration has not been very favourable. Opinion polls indicate that Italians have mainly negative and stereotyped views of immigrants and there is disturbing evidence of growing racism. Further inflows of immigrants are likely, whatever policies Italy attempts to put in place.     

Signs of power: Fascist urban iconographies in Ethiopia (1930s–1940s)

The aim of the present paper is to compare two different patterns of urban iconographies in Ethiopia during 1930s: the one of the Amhara – the traditionally Ethiopian dominant ethnicgroup – and the one of the Italian fascism. The paper gives an historical account of the structure of the Amhara settlements, focusing on the ways the power of their politico-military chiefs, being they the Negus or the Ras, shaped the spatial order of these settlements. When the Italians conquered military Ethiopia in 1936, they started re-shaping this spatial order, erasing the signs of the previous power and imposing their new iconographic apparatus. This was mainly done through urban planning which was devised to `write' the Fascist concepts of progress, order, hierarchy, and racial segregation on the territory. Owing to the short duration of the occupation, the poor material conditions of the colony and the lack of financial resources, such town-planning projects turned out to be just a political rhetoric exercise.     

Modelling of Tsunami Propagation in the Vicinity of the French Coast of the Mediterranean

The problem of tsunami-risk for the French coast of the Mediterraneanis discussed. Historical data of tsunami manifestation on the French coast are described and analysed.Numerical simulation of potential tsunamis in the Ligurian Sea is done and the tsunami wave heightdistribution along the French coast is calculated. For the earthquake magnitude 6.8 (typical value forMediterranean) the tsunami phenomenon has a very local character. It is shown that the tsunami tide-gaugerecords in the vicinity of Cannes–Imperia present irregularoscillations with characteristic periodof 20–30 min and total duration of 10–20h.Tsunami propagating from the Ligurian sea to the west coastof France have significantly lesser amplitudes and they are more low-frequency (period of 40–50min).The effect of far tsunamis generated in the southern Italy and Algerian coast is studied also, thedistribution of the amplitudes along the French coast for far tsunamis is more uniform.     

Entrepreneurial Regionalist Planning in a Rescaled Spain: The Cases of Bilbao and València

European politics and planning have recently been characterized by a shift to economic entrepreneurialism at sub-national scales, and the planned redevelopment of the city-region in pursuit of global competitiveness, which scholars have interpreted in light of political-economic “rescaling” or regionalization and the emergence of a “new regionalism.” Analyzing rescaling largely in terms of shifting economic and institutional structures, however, many accounts underestimate the complexity and enduring power of so-called ‘old’ regionalist politics of culture and identity as backdrop to urban redevelopment planning. In this paper we address how the urban planning process mediates between the seemingly dichotomous tendencies of regionalized entrepreneurialism and cultural regionalism. Using case studies of two Spanish autonomous regions and their major urban centers – the Basque Country or Euskadi (Bilbao) and the Comunitat Valenciana (València) – we review the historical geography of planning in the European region in order to explore how cultural regionalism collides with economic rescaling and entrepreneurialism, in and through the planned landscape. We propose that such emerging and hybrid politics and planning be understood as a form of entrepreneurial regionalism, a culturally inflected form of economic competitiveness characteristic of but not unique to the Spanish region. This specific notion of entrepreneurial regionalism may illuminate how planners mediate global and local imperatives within political discourse and landscapes that materialize them, and allow us to better reconceptualize the relationship between economic globalization, state restructuring, and cultural politics in a new Europe of the Regions.     

Magnitude of industrialization in Jordan

In spite of Jordan's insignificant natural resources and geopolitical problems, industrial development is being emphasized in Jordan since 1972. Industries are now the second largest sector of economy. Industries contributed 10% of the GDP in 1972, 19.5% in 1989 and 17.4% in 1993. This is remarkable as the national investment in industries is declining. The investments for industrial development was 30% of the total national investment in five year development plans (1976–1980), 23% in the next plan (1981–1985), and 13% in the following plan (1986–1990).The number of; industries has increased from 2500 in 1959 to 4684 in 1974, to 8533 in 1984, and 18600 in 1992. The employment or labor force also increased from 10,000 in 1959 to 70,000 in 1988, and to 110,000 in 1992. It represents about 16.4% of the total labor force in Jordan, the index number of industrial production also increased from (100) in 1979 which was the same base year, to (151) in 1983 to (205) in 1987 and to (215) in 1993. The study was based on three hypotheses: (i) the magnitude varies from one industry to another at the national (Jordan) and local (governorate levels), (ii) temporal change in the magnitude of industries has taken place during the period 1979–1992, (iii) the temporal change in the magnitude of industries was positive in some industries and negative in others.     

Political polarization at the national and the intra-urban levels: the role of Moscow in Russian politics and socio-political cleavages within the city

The results of the 1993–1996 national elections in Moscow by administrative districts municipal areas and wards are considered. The author identifies and explains the origins of the principal electoral patterns in the largest and relatively the most prosperous Russian city and interprets them in terms of the relationship between the processes of social and political polarization at the national and the inter-urban levels. He determines the peculiarities of the political views of specific social groups and of residents of various types of housing. Stability and dynamics of the electoral geography is also examined.     

The politics of identity: Ethnicity, minority and nationalism in Soviet Estonia

Identity has become one of the core concepts of political geography. This reflects the wide recognition of a post-structural conception of society and space, as well as the acknowledgement of the political character of identity. The present article focuses on the politics of identity, and discusses the politicized forms of identity as related to the Soviet state building policies and the Estonian spaces of resistance. It will be argued that neither identity nor the political demand in Soviet Estonia can be viewed in isolation from their historical and social contexts. Both Soviet state politics and the Estonian spaces of resistance reflected the prevailing conceptions of past and the contemporary political realities. This article examines those preconceptions of the political and territorial development in Soviet Estonia, and also illustrates the interdependent character of state politics and non-state activism. The first part of the article concentrates on the Soviet state building practices – the use of power, symbols, education – and the second part examines the various forms of non-state activism of Estonians.     

Is Bulgaria becoming warmer and drier?

This article attempts to analyse the current climatic variations based on air temperature and precipitation data from 18 stations for the 1916–1993 period. No substantial changes have been established in the annual air temperatures, averaged over the whole country's area, but there is evidence of late fall cooling and winter warming in the recent decade. A marked drought set in during 1982–1993, which in SW Bulgaria which reached a record level for the last 100 years both in terms of its duration and intensity. Climatolgical patterns contributing to these observations are discussed.     

Entrepreneurial Regionalist Planning in a Rescaled Spain: The Cases of Bilbao and València

European politics and planning have recently been characterized by a shift to economic entrepreneurialism at sub-national scales, and the planned redevelopment of the city-region in pursuit of global competitiveness, which scholars have interpreted in light of political-economic “rescaling” or regionalization and the emergence of a “new regionalism.” Analyzing rescaling largely in terms of shifting economic and institutional structures, however, many accounts underestimate the complexity and enduring power of so-called ‘old’ regionalist politics of culture and identity as backdrop to urban redevelopment planning. In this paper we address how the urban planning process mediates between the seemingly dichotomous tendencies of regionalized entrepreneurialism and cultural regionalism. Using case studies of two Spanish autonomous regions and their major urban centers – the Basque Country or Euskadi (Bilbao) and the Comunitat Valenciana (València) – we review the historical geography of planning in the European region in order to explore how cultural regionalism collides with economic rescaling and entrepreneurialism, in and through the planned landscape. We propose that such emerging and hybrid politics and planning be understood as a form of entrepreneurial regionalism, a culturally inflected form of economic competitiveness characteristic of but not unique to the Spanish region. This specific notion of entrepreneurial regionalism may illuminate how planners mediate global and local imperatives within political discourse and landscapes that materialize them, and allow us to better reconceptualize the relationship between economic globalization, state restructuring, and cultural politics in a new Europe of the Regions.     

Pesticides in export and domestic agriculture: Reconsidering market orientation and pesticide use in Costa Rica

The environmental impact of agro-export production in developing countries remains an important research topic. The political economy-inspired literature on developing country agro-exports maintains that export crops are pesticide intensive – or, more generally, environmentally destructive – while local and national market crops are less pesticide intensive, or environmentally benign. If used to draw conclusions about the impact of national market versus export market expansion, this view has significant limitations, most importantly the comparison of high-commodity value export crops with low-commodity value crops for national market. To overcome this and other limitations of prior analyses, this paper addresses the question: how does market orientation influence pesticide intensity where the same crops are grown for both the national market and for export? Data from a survey of Costa Rican vegetable farmers are used to compare pesticide intensity of 27 vegetable crops, five of which are produced for both national and export markets. The general pattern that emerges is that national market vegetables are more pesticide intensive than export vegetables in the area. Yet, controlling more for the crop variable is important, and specific comparisons of the five vegetables grown for both markets – carrot, chayote, corn, green beans, and squash – illustrate that market orientation alone does not determine pesticide intensity, but that it is jointly influenced by regulatory risk, crop value, and pest susceptibility, among other factors. Continued attention to both political economy and ecological processes in “second nature” will allow political ecology to make important contributions to understanding pesticide problems and implementing agroecological solutions.     

Comments on: Carbonatites in a subduction system: The Pleistocene alvikites from Mt. Vulture (southern Italy) by d'Orazio et al., (2007)

[D'Orazio, M., Innocenti, F., Tonarini, S., Doglioni, C., 2007. Carbonatites in a subduction system: the Pleistocene alvikites from Mt. Vulture (southern Italy). Lithos 98, 313–334] describe a new finding of alvikite Ca-carbonatite at Vulture. They stress its importance as being the first carbonatite to be discovered in a subduction environment. They suggest that this rock is different from the other Italian carbonatites, considered as ‘rocks sharing a carbonatitic affinity’, which are radiogenic and chemically diluted by addition of sedimentary limestone. They note that Vulture ‘alvikite’ is not diluted and is very unradiogenic with respect to other Italian carbonatites. However, they maintain that Vulture ‘alvikite’ carbonate is derived from subducted limestones. We present an account of the field relationships relating to the above-mentioned rocks, setting the geological and petrographic records straight and describing pyroclastic rocks. We did not find that these rocks are formed from alvikite dykes or lava, but instead recognised them to be a continuous blanket of ‘flaggy’, welded tuff. We found that the rocks consist of physically separated melilitite and carbonatite juvenile lapilli settled into a carbonatite ash matrix form the rock. We disagree with the geochemical interpretation of the rock by [D'Orazio, M., Innocenti, F., Tonarini, S., Doglioni, C., 2007. Carbonatites in a subduction system: the Pleistocene alvikites from Mt. Vulture (southern Italy). Lithos 98, 313–334], and are particularly concerned by their conclusion of its carbonate origin. We remark on the rock's geodynamic assignment in the frame of an extensional tectonic setting, also referring to the other Italian carbonatite occurrences. We reject any ad hoc modified subduction as a direct source of Vulture and Italian carbonatites.     

Assessment Methods for Sea-RelatedHazards in Coastal Areas

Italian legislation provides for hazardcontingency plans to be prepared by the regional,provincial and local authorities. Despite the extentof damage often caused on the Italian coasts by theaction of the sea, sea related hazards have so farbeen usually ignored; only recently a limited budgetin some provinces was allocated for the analysis ofrisks related to storm damage.The present paper reports on the proceduresand the techniques employed and tested within theframework of the provincial contingency plan onthe coast of the Salerno province in Italy (Figure 1).The work was mainly oriented to the evaluation ofthe potential damage that can be caused by the directaction of waves on coastal areas and on thepreparation of hazard maps. The methods and the datathat can be used to evaluate the risks are reviewed here,first by rapid examination of the wave fieldformation offshore and its transformation on shallowwater and then by considering the run-up on beachesand infrastructures; the paper is focussed inparticular on these latter problems, which – formsome point of view – are original and specific tocivil protection problems.     

International Mineralogical Association 16th General Meeting at Pisa,Italy, September 3–8,1994

International Mineralogical Association 16th General Meeting at Pisa, Italy, September 3–8,1994     

International Mineralogical Association 16th General Meeting at Pisa,Italy, September 3–8, 1994

International Mineralogical Association 16th General Meeting at Pisa, Italy, September 3–8, 1994     

Environmental and climatic conditions at a potential Glacial refugial site of tree species near the Southern Alpine glaciers. New insights from multiproxy sedimentary studies at Lago della Costa (Euganean Hills, Northeastern Italy)

It has been hypothesized that refugia of thermophilous tree species were located in Northern Italy very close to the Alps, though, this hypothesis has yet to be tested thoroughly. In contrast to Central and Southern Italy with its relative wealth of data, only a few fragmentary records are currently available from Northern Italy for the last Glacial (Würm, Weichselian). Our new study site Lago della Costa lies adjacent to the catchment of the megafans of the Alpine forelands and the braided rivers of the Northeastern Po Plain that have so far inhibited the recovery of continuous Glacial and Late-Glacial records. We analyze pollen, plant macrofossils, charcoal and ostracods to reconstruct the vegetation, fire and lake history for the period 33,000–16,000 cal. BP. We compare our data with Glacial records from Southern Europe to discuss similarities and dissimilarities between these potential refugial areas. A comparison with independent paleoclimatic proxies allows to assess potential linkages between environmental and climatic variability. New macrofossil and pollen data at Lago della Costa unambiguously document the local persistence of boreal tree taxa such as Larix decidua and Betula tree species around the study site during the last Glacial. The regular occurrence of pollen of temperate trees in the organic lake sediments (fine-detritus calcareous gyttja) suggests that temperate taxa such as Corylus avellana, Quercus deciduous, Tilia, Ulmus, Fraxinus excelsior, Carpinus, Abies alba and Fagus sylvatica, most likely survived the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) at favorable sites in the Euganean Hills. The percentage values of temperate trees are comparable with those from Southern Europe (e.g. Monticchio in Southern Italy). We conclude that the Euganean Hills were one of the northernmost refugial areas of temperate taxa in Europe. However, the relative and absolute abundances of pollen of temperate trees are highly variable. Pollen-inferred declines of temperate tree communities (e.g. Quercetum mixtum) and low ostracod-inferred water levels at Lago della Costa correspond to the cold Heinrich events H-2 (LGM; 23,000–19,000 cal. BP) and H-3 (around 28,000 cal. BP), as recorded in the marine sediments of the North Atlantic. Similar patterns of significant temperate tree population collapses during cold Heinrich events are recorded at southern Mediterranean sites (e.g. Monticchio and the Alboran Sea). These findings suggest close linkages between Northern Atlantic and South-Central European climates during the past Glacial.