The Relationship Between Full Employment and Technological Change in Western Europe

Author(s):  
Per Holmberg
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Peter Schauer ◽  
Stephen Shennan ◽  
Andrew Bevan ◽  
Sue College ◽  
Kevan Edinborough ◽  
...  

The authors of this article consider the relationship in European prehistory between the procurement of high-quality stones (for axeheads, daggers, and other tools) on the one hand, and the early mining, crafting, and deposition of copper on the other. The data consist of radiocarbon dates for the exploitation of stone quarries, flint mines, and copper mines, and of information regarding the frequency through time of jade axeheads and copper artefacts. By adopting a broad perspective, spanning much of central-western Europe from 5500 to 2000 bc, they identify a general pattern in which the circulation of the first copper artefacts was associated with a decline in specialized stone quarrying. The latter re-emerged in certain regions when copper use decreased, before declining more permanently in the Bell Beaker phase, once copper became more generally available. Regional variations reflect the degrees of connectivity among overlapping copper exchange networks. The patterns revealed are in keeping with previous understandings, refine them through quantification and demonstrate their cyclical nature, with additional reference to likely local demographic trajectories.


Author(s):  
Ginta Pērle-Sīle

The subject of this article is a court case between Aumeisteri nobleman Berhard Magnus von Wulf (1732–1784) and the minister of Palsmane and Aumeisteri parishes Friedrich Daniel Wahr (1749–1827) about the suspension of the minister from his duties from 1775 to 1779. The aim of the research is to approach the court case as evidence of the different opinions of several social groups where extreme colonial ideas in Vidzeme meet Enlightenment ideas from Western Europe. At the same time, the court case is a source of contextual information for a better understanding of the development of Wahr’s literary and folkloristic heritage. The research is based on studies of documents found in the Latvian State History Archive that are approached using the culture-historical and comparative methods, thus trying to contextualize certain events in a specific place and time. The results of the research show the Palsmane and Aumeisteri society as typical of the second part of the 18th century. The existence of specific social groups, particularism, and the implementation of colonial attitudes by the local nobility are also evident. The attitude of Wahr towards Latvian peasants shows the influence of Enlightenment, especially his efforts in education. The relationship between the parish and its minister incorporates evidence of a syncretic praxis with pagan and Christian traditions. In the light of political events of that particular time, i. e. peasant rebels in Vidzeme, the court case allows Wulf’s accusations to be treated as an opportunity to decrease the implementation of Enlightenment ideas, thus safeguarding the local nobility’s power. At the same time, the court case is a source of biographic, private, and daily life details. The broad range of the parish territory which was often challenging to navigate, the modest means of the minister, and distancing of the local nobility on the one hand, along with the influence of enlightenment ideas, on the other hand, are the most probable grounding for Wahr’s folkloristic and literary work.


2017 ◽  
Vol 155 (9) ◽  
pp. 1353-1370 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. GORASH ◽  
R. ARMONIENĖ ◽  
Ž. LIATUKAS ◽  
G. BRAZAUSKAS

SUMMARYWinter hardiness of wheat is a complex trait involving a system of structural, regulatory and developmental genes, which interact in a complex pathway. The objective of the present work was to study the relationship among the main traits determining the level of adaptation and the possibility for target manipulation of breeding material by using molecular markers and phenological parameters. Wheat cultivars from different ecoclimatic environments of Europe were included for analysis. Gene-specific assay showed that photoperiod sensitivity of the studied cultivars was determined by polymorphism in the Ppd-D1 allele. The study established the relationship among winter hardiness, LT50 (the temperature at which 50% of plants are killed), photoperiod sensitivity, vernalization duration and earliness per se genes in the environment of Lithuania. The cultivars from Northern and Western Europe exhibited stronger requirement for vernalization and photoperiod. Although the group of cultivars from the southern latitudes were characterized by earliness, they possessed a stronger level of LT50. The level of LT50 was found to be the most crucial component of winter hardiness, the other traits served as supplementary components.


2020 ◽  
pp. 79-96
Author(s):  
Leila Brännström

In recent years the Sweden Democrats have championed a clarification of the identity of the ‘the people’ in the Instrument of government. The reference, they argue, should be to the ethnic group of Swedes. This chapter will take this ambition to fix the subject of popular sovereignty as the point of departure for discussing some of the ways in which the contemporary anti-foreigner political forces of Northern and Western Europe imagine ‘the people’ and identify their allies and enemies within and beyond state borders. To set the stage for this exploration the chapter will start by looking at Carl Schmitt’s ideas about political friendship, and more specifically the way he imagines the relationship between ‘us’ in a political and constitutional sense and ‘the people’ in national and ethnoracial terms. The choice to begin with Schmitt is not arbitrary. His thoughts about the nature of the political association have found their way into the discourse of many radical right-wing parties of Western and Northern Europe.


Author(s):  
Stephen Biddle

This chapter examines the theory and practice of continental warfare, with particular emphasis on the relationship between ideas on conventional land warfare and actual experience since 1900. It considers technological change, including mechanization, as the central challenge facing modern theorists as well as tactical and doctrinal responses that emerged very quickly in reaction to modern weapons' radical lethality. These responses emphasized cover, concealment, tight integration of suppressive fire and movement, depth, and reliance on withheld reserves at the cost of lighter forward deployments. These concepts subsequently formed the foundation for most modern systems of tactics and doctrine. The chapter explores the relationship between theory and practice in continental warfare by focusing on four case studies: the European theatre in the First and Second World Wars, the Arab–Israeli War of 1973, and the Gulf War of 1991.


Author(s):  
Robert Jackson ◽  
Georg Sørensen

This chapter examines three important debates in International Political Economy (IPE). The first debate concerns power and the relationship between politics and economics, and more specifically whether politics is in charge of economics or whether it is the other way around. The second debate deals with development and underdevelopment in developing countries. The third debate is about the nature and extent of economic globalization, and currently takes places in a context of increasing inequality between and inside countries. This debate is also informed by the serious financial crisis of 2008 and has raised questions regarding the viability of the current model of capitalism in the United States and Western Europe.


Author(s):  
Arne Sølvberg

The deep penetration of computers in all realms of society makes technological change the key driver for changing our lives. This will result in a change in approach, from viewing the role of IT as mainly supporting other disciplines, to the integration of IT concepts, tools and theory into modelling theories of the supported disciplines. This chapter discusses some aspects of the relationship between the IT as a modelling discipline, and the modelling disciplines of the domains where IT is applied. IT deals with data and data processes, while application domain models deal with entities of the domain and how they interact. Cross-competence models must deal with both, and with how models of the information technology discipline relate to the various models of the domain disciplines.


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