Citizenship in the Faroe Islands: Participant,Parochial or Colonial?

This article analyses citizenship and political culture in the Faroe Islands based on a quantitative survey carried out in summer 2004. Located theoretically in the tradition of Scandinavian citizenship investigations and its predecessors in the 'civic culture' tradition of Almond and Verba, four areas of citizenship are analysed: political engagement, democratic participation, political efficacy and democratic identity. The main hypothesis is that the character of citizenship in the Faroe Islands is very similar to that found in the Scandinavian countries in general. While most of the results found confirm this hypothesis, there are a number of special features that demand alternative explanations. Thus, the fact that the Faroese score much below the Scandinavian average concerning 'postmodern' forms of political participation like political consumption or boycott of goods, and that gender differences are bigger than in other Scandinavian countries when it comes to female representation in the Faroese parliament and in government, seems better explained by the relative remoteness of the islands from the Scandinavian political and cultural mainstream (the parochialism hypothesis). Also the fact that the Faroese are much less confident in speaking at public meetings, sending letters to newspapers or complaining to authorities than, for example, Danes in general calls for an alternative explanation. As these features go together with much less knowledge about and confidence in the Danish parliament ('Folketinget') and a lower level of efficacy towards the parliament than among Danes in general, the most likely explanation seem to be found in the way in which Danish supremacy has affected political culture in the Faroe Islands (the colonialism hypothesis).     

What Kinds of Trade Liberalization Agreements Do People in Developing Countries Want?

One of the most striking developments in the global economy in the past decades is the rapid proliferation of preferential trade agreements (PTAs), with many of them concluded among or with participation of developing countries. On the presumption that current popular debates on trade policy are not so much about whether citizens want free trade but rather what kinds of trade liberalization they want, we examine individual trade policy preferences with regard to PTAs that can vary in content along several dimensions. To that end we carried out conjoint choice experiments embedded in representative surveys in three developing countries that differ strongly in income levels, political system, and trade liberalization history: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Vietnam. We conceptualize trade policy preferences as preferences over the scale and scope of trade liberalization, environmental and labor standards, and labor market access (migration). Two main findings emerge. First, non-economic considerations, such as sympathy/antipathy toward particular countries and environmental and labor rights concerns influence citizens’ preferences at least as much as factors based on standard economic logic. Second, preferences over particular facets (attributes) of trade liberalization, that is PTA content, are surprisingly consistent across countries, despite strong differences in macro-economic and political context.     

Factors Explaining Public Participation in the Central Government Budget Process

This paper attempts to examine which factors explain public participation in the budget process in an international comparative approach. In particular, we investigate which socioeconomic, institutional, and political factors promote public engagement in the central government budget process. Using a sample of 93 countries, our results indicate that Internet penetration, population diversity, governmental financial situation, and budget transparency determine opportunities for public engagement in the central government budget process. In addition, we show that not only budget transparency promotes public participation but also public participation is necessary to enhance budget transparency.     

Linguistic and visual strategies for portraying immigrants as people deprived of human rights†

The majority of news items on sub-Saharan immigrants in the Spanish press refer to their arrival by jumping the fences of Ceuta or Melilla or landing in small boats at the Spanish coast. The data in this article consist of all the news items published on the arrival of sub-Saharan immigrants in Spain by jumping the fences of Ceuta and Melilla, items that appeared in the digital editions of the two most popular Spanish newspapers, El País and ABC, from 1 January 2012 to 1 January 2015. The principles of critical discourse analysis and visual grammar are used to deconstruct the linguistic and visual portrayal of sub-Saharan immigrants when they try to enter Spain by jumping the fence. This research reveals that the immigrants jumping the fence at Melilla are represented as wild and dangerous. There is no reference to their human rights. The study thus aims to provide a visual analysis of the way in which the arrival of these immigrants is represented visually in two serious newspapers. In this way, the study aims to unveil visual ways of negative representation of immigrants, who are portrayed as dangerous invaders.     

Performing Counter-Hegemonic Common(s) Senses: Rearticulating Democracy,Community and Forests in Puerto Rico

Political ecologists have developed scathing analyses of capitalism’s tendency for enclosure and dispossession of the commons. In this context commons are analyzed as a force to resist neo-liberalism, a main site of conflict over dispossession, and a source of alternatives to capitalism. In this paper we elaborate a view of the commons as the material and symbolic terrain where performative re-articulation of common(s) senses can potentially enact counter-hegemonic socio-ecological configurations. Expressly drawing on the concepts of hegemony, “common-senses” (inspired by Antonio Gramsci) and “performativity” (developed by Judith Butler), we argue that counter-hegemony is performed through everyday practices that rearticulate existing common senses about commons. Commoning is a set of processes/relations enacted to challenge capitalist hegemony and build more just/sustainable societies insofar as it transforms and rearranges common senses in/through praxis. The paper draws on the experience of an anti-mining movement of Casa Pueblo in Puerto Rico, which for the last 35+ years has been developing a project self-described as autogestion. The discussion pays special attention to Casa Pueblo’s praxis and discourses to investigate how they rearticulate common senses with regard to nature, community and democracy, as well as their implications for counter-hegemonic politics.     

The grey area between nationality and citizenship: an analysis of external citizenship policies in Latin America and the Caribbean

Literature on diaspora engagement policies, transnational and extra-territorial citizenship has painted the increasing recognition of dual nationality and the extension of state policies to the diaspora as a signal of states leaving behind the paradigms of exclusive nationality and residence as conditions to exercise citizenship. In doing this, this literature tends to treat citizenship and nationality as synonyms. By analysing the citizenship policies of 22 Latin American and Caribbean states towards their nationals who reside abroad and/or acquire another nationality, we add key nuances to such consideration: nationality and citizenship may relate to different legal statuses – with important consequences for migrants – and there might be differences also between the citizen rights of nationals by origin and of nationals by naturalization. In particular, we show that citizenship and nationality interact in different ways when it comes to the preservation of rights for emigrants: the distinctions allow restricting the portability of citizenship rights for nationals by birth, and other groups of nationals, depending on the exclusivity, and origin, of their national belonging. These distinctions tell a potentially different story of how citizenship is conceived of by states as they approach the challenges of membership and participation posed by emigration, and paint a less rosy picture with regard to the demise of exclusive nationality.     

外部约束与东亚经济结构转型

长久以来,东亚经济增长一直是在供求要素结构不完备的经济体系下实现的,这一内在缺陷决定了东亚需要借助外部力量才能实现经济增长。外部力量既是东亚外向型经济增长的结构基础,也是影响或控制东亚经济增长的主要制约因素。2008年全球金融危机的爆发预示着有利于东亚经济增长的外部环境发生逆转,迫使东亚开始新一轮的结构调整与转型。而此次结构调整与转型将主要通过对过去经济运行体系特别是市场要素缺失的矫正来实现,以尽可能减少外部力量对经济增长的负面影响。     

我国猫Candidatus Mycoplasma haemominutum的分子鉴定及其系统发生关系

无菌采集30份猫血样品,进行全血基因组DNA的抽提,用文献报道的方法筛选出感染猫血巴尔通氏体的样品。挑取2份阳性的DNA样品,用能扩增大多数真细菌16S rRNA基因的通用引物进行PCR扩增,扩增产物经克隆、测序后,获得大小为1456bp的核苷酸序列(登录号为AM745338)。序列比对和系统进化分析发现,该序列与猫血巴尔通氏体(DQ825442)的16S rRNA基因序列相似性达到99.7%,按照新的分类命名应称之为CandidatusMycoplasma haemominutum,从而从分子生物学水平证实了此种猫的血营养菌在广东省的存在。系统进化分析结果也证实,在以往的分类中被归属于"附红细胞体属"和"血巴尔通氏体属"的病原体应归为同一个属,这类血营养菌在系统发生上与肺炎支原体最靠近,应归于支原体属,是一种血营养性支原体。     

亚慢性锰中毒对鸡肝中锰铁铜锌钙含量的影响

在饲料中添加600、900、1800mg/kgMnCl2建立亚慢性锰中毒模型,分别在试验开始后第30、60、90d剖杀鸡取肝组织,采用火焰原子吸收法检测了锰、铁、铜、锌及钙含量。结果显示,与对照组相比,各染锰组鸡肝中锰、铜含量升高;锌呈波动性升高;铁、钙含量降低,呈一定的时间-剂量效应。其中锰与铜呈显著正相关,锰与铁呈显著负相关。表明,过量锰对鸡肝中铁、钙、铜、锌等元素有不同程度的干扰,对肝造成损伤。