Causality between transnational terrorism and tourism: The case of Spain

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to devise a methodology for estimating the impact of transnational terrorism on tourism. Using monthly data from 1970–1988, we estimate the relationship between terrorism and tourism for Spain. We find that terrorist events have had a significant negative impact on the number of tourists visiting Spain. A typical incident is estimated as scaring away just over 140,000 tourists when all monthly impacts are combined. Moreover, the causality is unidirectional: terrorism affects tourism, but not the reverse.     

Crossing the boundary: Peasants,shepherds, and servants in a western Alpine community

In the historical and anthropological literature, western Alps servants were widely assumed to be few in number, and the importance of the institution of service therefore negligible. This study combines historical-demographic and ethnographic methods to investigate whether this was true of a community in the Italian western Alps with a mixed population of peasants and transhumant shepherds. Surprisingly, a valuable 1951 census reveals that seemingly small numbers hide what was actually a normal phase in the life course of peasant sons whom shepherds recruited to work as servants. Distinct patterns of life-cycle and lifetime service seem to have coexisted in the same community. The evidence also confirms that in southern Europe, as some recent studies have pointed out, the institution of service often was not just the circulation of young men and women between households but an asymmetrical exchange between different socioeconomic groups. Otherwise rigid social and cultural boundaries were thereby crossed.     

Modelling the dynamics of support for a right-wing populist party: the case of UKIP

Similar to a number of other right-wing populist parties in Europe, Great Britain's United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) has experienced increased public support in recent years. Using aggregate data from monthly national surveys conducted between April 2004 and April 2014, time series analyses demonstrate that the dynamics of UKIP support were influenced by a combination of spatial and valence issues. A spatial issue, Euroscepticism, was fundamental, with UKIP support moving in dynamic equilibrium with changing public attitudes towards EU membership. In addition, widespread anti-immigration sentiment and dissatisfaction with the performance of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government combined with the “oxygen of publicity” to propel UKIP's surge. The political context after the 2010 general election helped as well by enabling UKIP to benefit from valence considerations. Many voters continued to doubt the competence of the major opposition party, Labour, while the Liberal Democrats were part of the government and, hence, unavailable as a protest vehicle. Since many of the forces driving UKIP support are beyond its control, the party's prospects are highly uncertain.