TOPOI – A method for analysing settlement units and their linkages in an urban–rural fabric

Many years, urbanisation research has largely focused the development of urban agglomerations and megacity regions, whereas less attention was paid on the development of medium-sized cities, small towns, villages, or rural areas. Yet many interrelations and spatial linkages between urban and rural areas exist. In this paper, we present a novel method called ‘TOPOI’ for the integrated analysis and description of settlement units in an urban–rural setting. The TOPOI-method enhances the understanding of the built environment by clustering and describing settlement units of similar characteristics with view to their physical form, function, and connectivity. The method is built on known planning parameters, but does not limit the analysis of settlement units to their administrative boundaries. Based on 11 indicators, 13 TOPOI-classes were identified in two exemplary study regions revealing new insights into urban–rural settlement types. This allows a better understanding of urban–rural linkages and therefore opens up new pathways for a more sustainable development.

Migration in Spain: The Role of Cultural Diversity Revisited

<p>In this article, we analyze to what extent cultural diversity brought about by immigrants affects economic activity of the Spanish provinces. To do that, we use panel data techniques that treat cultural diversity as an endogenous variable and account for spatial linkages. The dual nature of immigrants in Spain, that is, working and retired migration, is also considered in our regressions. The outcomes reveal that greater cultural diversity stimulates the economic activity of the Spanish provinces, these gains being reinforced in the case of labor-active migrant and for richer provinces. Our results are robust to diverse specifications, estimation methods, and samples.</p>

Examining the spatial and non-spatial linkages between suburban housing markets

Purpose The purpose of this paper is on developing and implementing a model which provides a fuller and more comprehensive reflection of the interaction of house prices at the suburb level. Design/methodology/approach The authors examine how changes in housing prices evolve across space within the suburban context. In doing so, the authors developed a model which allows for suburbs to be connected both because of their geographic proximity but also by non-spatial factors, such as similarities in socioeconomic or demographic characteristics. This approach is applied to modelling home price dynamics in Melbourne, Australia, from 2007 to 2018. Findings The authors found that including both spatial and non-spatial linkages between suburbs provides a better representation of the data. It also provides new insights into the way spatial shocks are transmitted around the city and how suburban housing markets are clustered. Originality/value The authors have generalized the widely used SAR model and advocated building a spatial weights matrix that allows for both geographic and socioeconomic linkages between suburbs within the HOSAR framework. As the authors outlined, such a model can be easily estimated using maximum likelihood. The benefits of such a model are that it yields an improved fit to the data and more accurate spatial spill-over estimates.

The Macrofoundations

Chapter 2 is the first theoretical chapter developing the contours of the theory of socio-spatial positionality and how it applies to the four types of diaspora entrepreneurs—Broker, Local, Distant, and Reserved. They operate in transnational social fields, simultaneously embedded in different global contexts. The chapter builds on diaspora-, host-land-, and home-land-centric theories and further integrates three streams of thought that have not been in conversation with one another. First, it reimagines transnational social fields from a socio-spatial positionality perspective, considering earlier work in International Political Sociology. Secondly, it draws on scholarship on fragile and weak states in IR, especially on de facto states, and discusses their place in the international system and the rationales through which they engage diasporas abroad. Third, the chapter consults relational theories in IR, demonstrating that durable interactions among actors in international politics form structures spanning borders. These theories are useful to think about configurations of socio-spatial linkages of the four types of diaspora entrepreneurs, at the core of the typology. The chapter then lays out the socio-spatial positionality approach and its major features—relativity, power, fluidity, and perception—while delving deeper into the individual level of analysis. The four types of diaspora entrepreneurs have different socio-spatial positionalities at the intersection of various global contexts that empower them differently to pursue homeland-oriented goals. The chapter ends with a discussion about structure and agency in diaspora mobilizations.

Introduction

The Introduction lays out the book’s theoretical and empirical foundations, based on large-scale research conducted among the Albanian, Armenian, and Palestinian diasporas in the UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland. Two questions are of core interest: (1) why do conflict-generated diasporas mobilize in more or less contentious ways; and (2) why do they pursue their mobilizations through host-state, transnational, and supranational channels? Diaspora entrepreneurs are studied with their linkages to contested states experiencing challenges to their sovereignty, specifically de facto states with limited international recognition, Kosovo, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Palestine, respectively. The chapter presents a novel typology of four types of diaspora entrepreneurs based on configurations of their socio-spatial linkages to different global contexts: the Broker, Local, Distant, and Reserved. A two-level typological theory features interactions between diaspora entrepreneurs and homeland governments, parties, non-state actors, and critical events or limited global influences. This chapter presents other intellectual contributions of this book: going beyond analysis of diasporas as groups but focusing on individual agency; considering the socio-spatial positionality of diaspora entrepreneurs to different global contexts, not simply to host-states and home-states; shedding light comparatively on little explored diaspora lobbying in Europe, and integrating scholarship on migrant integration into the study of contested statehood. Scope conditions, methodology, coding, and dataset based on 146 interviews with diaspora entrepreneurs are presented next. The Introduction finishes by laying out the content of the individual chapters.

The Microfoundations

Chapter 3 is the second theoretical chapter focusing on the individual-level perspective on diaspora mobilizations and the two-level typological theory. How do the four types of diaspora entrepreneurs—Broker, Local, Distant, and Reserved—interact with exogenous factors? How do these interactions lead to different modes of contention and channelling of interest through host-states, transnational networks, and supranational organizations? The two-level typological theory is unpacked through each of its constitutive elements: (1) diaspora entrepreneurs, (2) exogenous factors affecting them, and (3) contentiousness and channelling of their mobilizations, through their conjunctural variations. The chapter first conceptualizes diaspora entrepreneurs’ socio-spatial linkages and the typology developed through novel relational coding. Building on earlier work in International Relations, the Politically Relevant Environment (PRE) is discussed next. It is useful to theoretically narrow down the numerous factors affecting diaspora entrepreneurs in a particular context, namely when they are socio-spatially contiguous and affecting existing grievances related to conflict-generated identities of diaspora entrepreneurs. The chapter further theorizes about causal mechanisms and the nine causal pathways emerging through interactions between diaspora entrepreneurs and PRE factors such as host-land foreign policies, homeland governments, parties, non-state actors, critical events, and limited global influences. Four non-contentious pathways, four characterized by a dual-pronged approach, and one more contentious are presented.

Diaspora Entrepreneurs and Contested States

Why do conflict-generated diasporas mobilize in contentious and non-contentious ways or use mixed strategies of contention? Why do they channel their homeland-oriented goals through host-states, transnational networks, and international organizations? This book develops a theory of socio-spatial positionality and its implications for the individual agency of diaspora entrepreneurs, moving beyond essentialized notions of diasporas as groups. Individual diaspora entrepreneurs operate in transnational social fields affecting their mobilizations beyond dynamics confined to host-states and original home-states. There are four types of diaspora entrepreneurs—Broker, Local, Distant, and Reserved—depending on the relative strength of their socio-spatial linkages to host-land, on the one hand, and original homeland and other global locations, on the other. A two-level typological theory captures nine causal pathways, unravelling how the socio-spatial linkages of these diaspora entrepreneurs interact with external factors: host-land foreign policies, homeland governments, parties, non-state actors, and critical events or limited global influences. Such pathways produce mobilization trajectories with varying levels of contention and methods of channelling homeland-oriented goals. Non-contentious pathways often occur when host-state foreign policies are convergent with the diaspora entrepreneurs’ goals, and when diaspora entrepreneurs can act autonomously. Dual-pronged contention pathways occur quite often, under the influence of homeland governments, non-state actors, and political parties. The most contentious pathway occurs in response to violent critical events in the homeland or adjacent to it fragile states. This book is informed by 300 interviews and a dataset of 146 interviews with diaspora entrepreneurs among the Albanian, Armenian, and Palestinian diasporas in the UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland, as well as Kosovo and Armenia in the European neighbourhood.