Nationalism,identity and landscape in contemporary Galicia

In escaping the territorial trap of the nation-state, political geography has devoted mounting attention to sub-state geographies of nationalism. This paper traces the history, geographies, and politics of Spanish Galicia, in light of the contradictory processes of contemporary European integration and secessionism. After a review of sub-state nationalism, it contextualizes Galician nationalism within Spanish regionalism. It offers an historical overview that highlights the uniqueness of Galician culture and explicates the roots of the current nationalist movement. Finally, it delves into contemporary Galician politics, including its electoral dimensions, cyberpolitics, and banal nationalism, in which territory plays a decisive role.     

Japan and identity change: why it matters in International Relations

Abstract

Two approaches to identity have been employed to explore issues in Japan's international relations. One views identity as constituted by domestic norms and culture, and as constitutive of interests, which in turn cause behaviour. Proponents view Japan's ‘pacifist’ and ‘antimilitarist’ identity as inherently stable and likely to change only as a result of material factors. In the other approach, ‘Japan’ emerges and changes through processes of differentiation vis-à-vis ‘Others’. Neither ‘domestic’ nor ‘material’ factors can exist outside of such identity constructions. We argue that the second, relational, approach is more theoretically sound, but begs three questions. First, how can different identity constructions in relation to numerous Others be synthesised and understood comprehensively? Second, how can continuity and change be handled in the same relational framework? Third, what is the point of analysing identity in relational terms? This article addresses the first two questions by introducing an analytical framework consisting of three mutually interacting layers of identity construction. Based on the articles in this special issue, we argue that identity entrepreneurs and emotions are particularly likely to contribute to change within this model. We address the third question by stressing common ground with the first approach: identity enables and constrains behaviour. In the case of Japan, changes in identity construction highlighted by the articles in this special issue forebode a political agenda centred on strengthening Japan militarily.     

Health‐Care Data Protection and Biometric Authentication Policies: Comparative Culture and Technology Acceptance in China and in the United States

A proliferation of health information technology (HIT) policies to implement dimensions of e‐health, including electronic medical records, electronic health records, personal health records, and e‐prescribing—along with expanding initiatives on mobile health in developed countries and emerging technologies—has sparked academic inquiry into the protection of privacy and data and the technology to protect privacy and data. This article examines HIT policies in the United States and in China and the use of authentication technologies to assess biometrics as privacy's friend or foe in different political frameworks with varying conceptions of privacy. An analysis of privacy in the context of health data protection, challenging relations of trust between patients and providers, the increasing perspective of health data integrity as a cyber‐security issue, and the growing rate of medical fraud and medical identity theft may yield findings of a convergence of views of privacy and biometrics unexpected of contrasting political cultures.     

Regionalism,sub-regionalism and the politics of identity in Oceania

Regional organization in Oceania has a history dating to the early post-war period while the rise of regional identities occurred somewhat later in the context of independence. This paper analyzes regionalization processes and accompanying discourses of regionalism relating to both pan-Pacific and more recent sub-regional developments. It pays particular attention to the dynamics of identity politics in the post-independence period and how these have played out in tensions within and between the varying exercises in regionalization.     

Statelessness,identity cards and citizenship as status in the case of the Nubians of Kenya

Statelessness as a legal and political problem has attracted increasing attention from scholars and international advocacy organisations in recent years. This attention has predominantly focussed on the legal aspects of statelessness, and has generally held the acquisition of citizenship documentation as the primary goal in remedying citizenship deprivation. This article explores the merits of this focus through a case study of the Nubians of Kenya, widely considered stateless until recently. The article connects the focus on citizenship as documented status to a liberal conception of citizenship. The article identifies the ways in which this approach is helpful, that is, as a means of pursuing legal status and possession of individual rights. It then goes on to identify more important ways in which a liberal conception of citizenship falls short of accounting for the Nubians' citizenship problems by neglecting the more collective dimensions of citizenship practice and recognition.     

Issues and crisis management in a convergent environment

Increasingly issues and crisis management are occurring in an interactive environment in which activists use online communications and networks to attack organisations and promote campaigns. This paper outlines examples of such developments and suggests that there is a still a need to consider them within the context of the overall social and economic environment as well as from a technological viewpoint. It also argues that technological change accentuates issues and crises rather than creating new forms of crises. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

Ideological identity,issue-based ideology and bipolar affective polarization in multiparty systems: The cases of Argentina,Chile, Italy,Portugal and Spain

In multiparty contexts, we know that affective polarization tends to cluster in ideological blocs, although the factors driving this process are still quite unexplored. In this paper, we contribute to filling this gap in the literature by exploring the capacity of ideological identity vis-à-vis issue-based ideology to polarize sentiments towards party voters into two opposing left-right blocs. Specifically, we provide empirical evidence that affective attachments to ideological labels increase the affective distance between ideological blocs to a greater extent than issue extremity and issue consistency. These bipolarizing effects of ideological identity persist even when the identity is inconsistent with issue-based ideology. Additionally, we show that bipolar affective polarization exerts little reverse influence on ideological identity. We support these arguments using an original survey from the TRI-POL project carried out in five multiparty systems: Argentina, Chile, Italy, Portugal and Spain.     

Model of Legal Framework for Soil and Aquifer Protection in Mesoamerican Countries

In response to the interest of Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panam/t, and Dominican Republic governments, members of the Mesoamerica Project, in developing a common approach for the regulation of the integral management of hazardous materials and wastes contaminated sites, learning from Mexico＇s experience in the field, a systematic review of key legislations to support it in each country was developed, having in mind the right to a healthy environment as a human right. Particular attention was paid to the crucial factors to consider for the effective application of the intended regulation, regardless of the differences on the particular legal regimes in each country.     

Biometric Security and Privacy Using Smart Identity Management and Interoperability: Validation and Vulnerabilities of Various Techniques

The central position of this article is that validation and interoperability are paramount for the effective and ethical use of biometrics. Illuminating the relevance for policymakers of the science underlying the security and privacy aspects of biometrics, this article calls for adequate and enforceable performance metrics that can be independently corroborated. Accordingly, the article considers biometrics and forensics for the dual challenges of addressing security and privacy using smart identity management. The discussion revolves around the concepts of “personally identifiable information” (PII) and interoperability with emphasis on quantitative performance analysis and validation for uncontrolled operational settings, variable demographics, and distributed and federated operations. Validation metrics includes expected rates of identification/misidentification, precision, and recall. The complementary concepts of identity and anonymity are addressed in terms of expected performance, functionality, law and ethics, forensics, and statistical learning. Biometrics encompasses appearance, behavior, and cognitive state or intent. Modes of deployment and performance evaluation for biometrics are detailed, with operational and adversarial challenges for both security and privacy described in terms of trustworthiness, vulnerabilities, functional creep, and feasibility of safeguards. The article underscores how lack of interoperability is mostly due to overfitting and tuning to well‐controlled settings, so that validation merely confirms “teaching to the test” rather than preparation for real‐world deployment. Most important for validation is reproducibility of results including full information on the experimental design used, that forensic exclusion is allowed, and that scientific methods for performance evaluation are followed. The article concludes with expected developments regarding technology use and advancements that bear on security and privacy, including data streams and video, de‐anonymization and reidentification, social media analytics and cyber security, and smart camera networks and surveillance.     

The strategies and proposals for ecological port construction in China

The rapid development of ports has caused serious environmental pollution in China. With the promotion of conservation culture recently, a brand-new developing pattern of port is brought forward, namely ecological port. The definition and conceptual model of ecological port were discussed in the beginning of this paper. Based on the analysis and comparison of experiences in environmental protection and construction of the advanced ecological ports in U.S.A., Japan, Australia, and U.K., the issues facing with ecological port development were discussed and corresponding countermeasures were suggested. The suggestions were mainly concerned with eco-port plan, environmental protection policies, index system development, port function and industry structure transformation, and development patterns for ecological port in China.