The Sectarian Surge in the Middle East and the Dynamics of the Regional States-System

This article explores the role of sectarianism in the international relations of the Middle East. How has sectarianism altered the conduct of regional politics, and how has the regional states-system impacted on sectarianism? A framework combining constructivism and realism is designed and deployed to analyse the enduring dual features (material power balance, identity contests) of the regional states-system and then to dissect the interaction of sectarianism and the current regional power struggle.

Establishing and Registering Identity in the Dutch Republic1

The Dutch Republic had a broad range of means to establish an individual's identity, and a rudimentary ‘system’ of identity registration, essentially established at the local levels of town and parish. This chapter seeks to provide a description of the ways in which the Dutch established an individual's identity. The various registration methods covered almost the entire population of the Dutch Republic at some stage in their life, and it is argued that on balance identity registration in the Dutch Republic was fairly successful. The chapter contends that the degree to which identity was registered and monitored in the early modern era in the Netherlands, while certainly not wholly effective, is remarkable given the absence of a centralized state and the lack of a large bureaucracy.

Baxter Permutations, Maj-Balances, and Positive Braids

In this paper we present two interesting properties of 321-avoiding Baxter permutations. The first one is a variant of refined major-balance identity for the 321-avoiding Baxter permutations, respecting the number of fixed points and descents. The second one is a bijection between the 321-avoiding Baxter permutations with the entry 1 preceding the entry 2 and the positive braid words on four strands.