Civic Structure Research Articles

Adaptive Reuse Strategy for Abandoned Historic Villages in Asir (Saudi Arabia)

How can we reinvent abandoned villages of cultural and historical value that seem of no practical use? How can we sustain unique vernacular cultures in an age of progressive globalization? These are the questions social scientists, urban planners, architects, and archaeologists grapple with around the world in the light of rising urbanization and progressive depopulation of rural communities. This paper describes the traditional architecture of abandoned rural settlements in the southwestern region of Asir in Saudi Arabia and examines the present situation from the residents' viewpoints. Departing from a framework of a dynamic understanding of heritage, the author proposes a process of adaptive reuse and revitalization. The research starts by posing several questions. What future do we imagine for abandoned villages that historically have played a significant role in the civic structure of a community and contribute to forming a society's memory and identity? Can we suppose that the adaptive reuse of abandoned villages makes a positive contribution to the circular economy while solidifying a dynamic understanding of heritage as an ongoing social and cultural process? To this effect, the author conducted a phased research project focused on the adaptive reuse of one abandoned village near the region's capital of Abha. The architectural research entailed architectural surveys and documentation as well as qualitative inquiries. The author hopes that this project and its results will be a further stepping-stone in motivating people to find cultural, social, and economic value in their heritage and to make their properties a vital component of the circular economy by passing on traditional knowledge of vernacular building techniques to younger generations

عہد نبوی میں ریاست مدینہ کا شہری نظم و نسق اور عصر حاضر میں اس کی معنویت

The establishment of a state is essential to unite society. The study of Islamic history tells us that the foundations of the Prophetic state of Madinah were very enduring. So, we can say that a state which will be established in modern times must adhere to the principles of that prophetic state. This article explains the principles and structure of the prophetic state of Madinah. It urges us to establish states similar to that state. The principles of Madinah state were important and its civic administration structure was very ideal. This state promoted the prosperity, education, peace, and health of the public. That is why an educated, peaceful, healthy, and sincere society was formed under the patronage of the Madinah state.

The tale of a two-tiered city: Community civic structure and spatial inequality in post-Katrina New Orleans

ABSTRACTIn this article, I investigate the long-term consequences of community civic structure on postdisaster recovery. Tracing various signs of recovery after Hurricane Katrina, I find that community civic structure is associated with deepening, rather than reducing, spatial inequality in New Orleans and report 3 findings. First, community civic structure contributes far more to repopulating communities on higher ground than low-lying neighborhoods. Second, despite the similar level of civic resources before Katrina, community civic structure has cast different impacts on reducing vulnerabilities across neighborhoods after Katrina. Though a dense civic structure helped attract more resilient populations in high-lying neighborhoods, the opposite happened in low-lying neighborhoods. Finally, community civic structure is associated with the city’s racialized geography, concentrating more Whites in the city’s safer areas and Black residents in the low-lying communities. These findings raise caution against pursuing community-based resilience as a postdisaster strategy.

The “knowledge front”, women, war and peace

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce the idea of the “knowledge front” alongside ideas of “home” and “war” front as a way of understanding the expertise of university-educated women in an examination of the First World War and its aftermath. The paper explores the professional lives of two women, the medical researcher, Elsie Dalyell, and the teacher, feminist and unionist, Lucy Woodcock. The paper examines their professional lives and acquisition and use of university expertise both on the war and home fronts, and shows how women’s intellectual and scientific activity established during the war continued long after as a way to repair what many believed to be a society damaged by war. It argues that the idea of “knowledge front” reveals a continuity of intellectual and scientific activity from war to peace, and offers “space” to examine the professional lives of university-educated women in this period. Design/methodology/approach The paper is structured as an analytical narrative interweaving the professional lives of two women, medical researcher Elsie Dalyell and teacher/unionist Lucy Woodcock to illuminate the contributions of university-educated women’s expertise from 1914 to the outbreak of the Second World War. Findings The emergence of university-educated women in the First World War and the interwar years participated in the civic structure of Australian society in innovative and important ways that challenged the “soldier citizen” ethos of this era. The paper offers a way to examine university-educated women’s professional lives as they unfolded during the course of war and peace that focuses on what they did with their expertise. Thus, the “knowledge front” provides more ways to examine these lives than the more narrowly articulated ideas of “home” and “war” front. Research limitations/implications The idea of the “knowledge front” applied to women in this paper also has implications for how to analyse the meaning of the First World War-focused university expertise more generally both during war and peace. Practical implications The usual view of women’s participation in war is as nurses in field hospitals. This paper broadens the notion of war to see war as having many interconnected fronts including the battle front and home front (Beaumont, 2013). By doing so, not only can we see a much larger involvement of women in the war, but we also see the involvement of university-educated women. Social implications The paper shows that while the guns may have ceased on 11 November 1918, women’s lives continued as they grappled with their war experience and aimed to reassert their professional lives in Australian society in the 1920s and 1930s. Originality/value The paper contains original biographical research of the lives of two women. It also conceptualises the idea of “knowledge front” in terms of war/home front to examine how the expertise of university-educated career women contributed to the social fabric of a nation recovering from war.

Dode Akabi: A Reexamination of the Oral and Textual Narrative of a “Wicked” Female King

This article is a deconstruction of the received oral tradition about Naa Dode Akabi I, a female King of the Ga people in the modern nation of Ghana, West Africa. It offers a critical reexamination of the existing oral and textual narratives of Dode Akabi I, while analyzing gendered inversions in Ga society during Akabi’s leadership of the Ga in the seventeenth century. It furthermore illuminates the evolution of the place of women in Ga civic structure and the rights of succession within an acknowledged patrilineal polity. This article is situated within larger methodological paradigms and the historiography of female leadership in West Africa. In examining the history of Akabi, this work synthesizes several historiographies on Ga and the Atlantic World, and makes an important contribution to African gender and women’s history.

‘Non siamo clandestini. Siamo i nuovi cittadini'. Le mobilitazioni dei migranti tra percorsi di cittadinanza e istanze di riconoscimento

In the last few years there has been a significant increase in studies on migrants' associations and political participation. These analyses generally focus on the macro- social aspects of migrants' associations and political participation: scholars combine this phenomenon with the study of social capital and networks on one hand, and the concepts of civic community and political opportunity structure on the other. Nevertheless there is still a lack of attention to both the internal dynamics of migrants' associations, and the conflictual aspects of their mobilizations. The paper presents the results of an empirical study conducted in the city of Milan examining specific forms of migrants' associations claiming citizenship and political rights. The narratives of the migrants involved in these associations shed light on their subjective perception both of mis-recognition as humans from Italian institutions and paternalistic support from Italian activists. These conflictual elements are the reason they establish associations and embark on forms of mobilization. Special attention is devoted to an impressive protest that saw migrants occupying the top of a disused industrial chimney in November 2010. The protest - which came about against the outcome of the 2009 amnesty described by migrants as ‘fraudulent', and at the same time aimed to relaunch the mobilization of migrants in Italy after many years of inactivity - failed after 2 months. Internal divisions within the Immigrants' Committee on the way to conduct the protest was one of the main reasons for its failure.

The Archaic Polis of Azoria: A Window into Cretan ‘Polital’ Social Structure

This article seeks to build a structural model for the development of the Cretan polis through an analysis of the civic structure of Archaic Azoria. Azoria’s civic structural network is compared to that of the early polis on mainland Greece. Insights gained from comparative modeling of elite-sponsored civic structure in these two regions are applied to Crete, allowing us to construct a more robust network of early ‘polital’ structure for that island. Results of this analysis indicate that Cretan elites constructed their positions within the Cretan polis through methods such as exclusion. They additionally show that the unique relationship between civic institutions and those of the Cretan inter-polital sanctuary highlights the role that the institutions within the andreion and within civic cult play in polis development, as well as elucidating the unique character of the family–community interface on Crete. Results of this analysis highlight important issues in the emergence of the Cretan polis, and suggest fruitful future research.

The Archaic Polis of Azoria

This article seeks to build a structural model for the development of the Cretan polis through an analysis of the civic structure of Archaic Azoria. Azoria’s civic structural network is compared to that of the early polis on mainland Greece. Insights gained from comparative modeling of elite-sponsored civic structure in these two regions are applied to Crete, allowing us to construct a more robust network of early ‘polital’ structure for that island. Results of this analysis indicate that Cretan elites constructed their positions within the Cretan polis through methods such as exclusion. They additionally show that the unique relationship between civic institutions and those of the Cretan inter-polital sanctuary highlights the role that the institutions within the andreion and within civic cult play in polis development, as well as elucidating the unique character of the family–community interface on Crete. Results of this analysis highlight important issues in the emergence of the Cretan polis, and suggest fruitful future research.

The Mexican Common Property Forestry Sector

This report summarizes preliminary findings of the Mexican National Database and Community Survey Project which examines linkages between institutional characteristics in Mexico’s common property forestry sector and economic and environmental outcomes. Framing the Mexican agrarian community as a unit of analysis characterized by its history, individual members, resources, civic structure and property rights, we use institutional economic analysis to motivate project design and research on three aspects of Mexican community forestry governance: first, how communities have engaged forest resources to participate in forestry markets; second, how internal models of forestry management are reflect historical circumstances and practices, policy trends and managerial preferences that are independent of vertical integration levels; third, correlation among market participation, internal organization and performance outcomes such as conservation levels, wealth and income indicators and public and private goods investment. The project employs unique community-level survey data collected in Durango and Michoacan between 2005 and 2007 to summarize basic statistics to describe the sector from the point of view of the project’s objectives. Preliminary results reveal an inverse relationship between integration into production chains and material wealth measures, no correlation between internal governance models and vertical integration, and significant regional variation in institutional characteristics. The emerging profile shows continually evolving and varied common property institutions and questions “one-size-fits-all” business models, pointing to the need for more specific understandings of the community forestry sector. The lessons learned can be applied to address the future role of “community” in Mexican economic and environmental policy, and, on a larger scale, the meaning of community forestry management in sustainable development strategies.

The Role of Civic Structure in Achieving Performance-Based Watershed Management

Traditional solutions to solving the problem of non-point source pollution from agricultural sources have been to write and enforce regulatory rules and create top-down financial incentives to shift land use practices. What has been overlooked are the roles that social pressure and internal beliefs and knowledge play in achieving sustainable practices. In this research, a model for achieving and sustaining targeted water quality outcomes is developed. A case study is used to illustrate how the civic structure and social connections among farmers in a common watershed provide an effective strategy for creating performance-based goals that can lead to better water outcomes.

Civil Religion at the Hearth

In this paper, I bring both functionalist and conflict perspectives onto an intimate stage where the interplay between civic and private religious life can be observed: the home. I will argue that American civil religion in its current state is the result of two competing visions of the relation between public policy and private religious experience. Further, that these incompatible visions derive from the archaic structure of the early Roman civilization that provided the origin of America’s civil religion, and the modern civic structure of the post-Enlightenment era through which America’s civil religion matured. Finally, I will show that the struggle between these visions is clearly illustrated in the effort to bring public policy and private religious experience to bear on an ideology of the family.

Small Town Civic Structure and Interlocal Collaboration for Public Services

Local governments are responsible for financing and providing an array of public services ranging from police, fire, and emergency medical services to streets, parks, and water. Two mechanisms, civic structure and interlocal collaboration, have the potential to solve the problem of providing high–quality public services in the face of declining resources and increasing needs. We find that civic structure—citizen engagement in solving public problems—is positively and strongly associated with perceived quality of small town public services. Although many rural towns have entered into service agreements with other local governments, this approach is not significantly associated with citizen ratings of overall service quality. Citizens seem to prefer their local government directly providing police services rather than entering into interlocal agreements. This suggests that leaders and heads of departments providing public services need to carefully assess which services are most appropriately shared across governments to achieve cost savings and which support sense of community and would be better provided directly.

Fiscalité impériale et finances municipales au ive siècle

For a long period of time, it has been maintained that the later part of the history of the Roman Empire was characterized by the progressive rise of imperial absolutism, at the expense of the liberties traditionally enjoyed by the Mediterranean cities. The bleak situation depicted by the Codes regarding taxation and the authoritarian behavior of the imperial bureaucrats reinforced by the depressing testimonies issued by Libanios or Lactantius led classic and modern historiography to use rare and dubious indices — all in all, two Julian’s decrees, one sentence by Ammianus and one by Libanios — to conclude that the central State had destroyed civic autonomy during the reigns of Constantine or Constance II by seizing municipal properties and incorporating them into its own domains. Although cities had lost part of their previous financial capacity by the end of the 4th century, some recent studies have challenged the confiscation scenario. This leads to a contradiction that requires a completely renewed approach of that historiographic hurdle. What most likely happened is a very different set of events. The classical civic model had been relying for centuries on the financial responsibility of landed elites who could seize most of the ancient economies’ surpluses in return for bearing the costs and responsibilities of ruling them. This is why we will be able to prove that civic lands and taxation were across the classical world characterized by a very low yield of return. As Rome turned into an Empire of citizens, increasing internal economic pressure and more efficient external enemies gradually exposed the shortcomings of that system and led the energetic emperors who ruled from Aurelian to Diocletian to undertake a radical overhaul of its financial and political organization, following the 3rd century crisis. As a direct result, the civic structure on which the Empire was still relying entered into a deep and extended crisis as a direct consequence of the Tetrarchy’s fiscal reform as landed provincials’ interests collided with the State financial needs. Surprisingly enough for those who still believe that the Late Empire is essentially the history of a long decline and fall, most of the ancient evidence of those times, including epigraphical testimonies, nonetheless points to a strong economical recovery until well into the 5th century, even in some areas of the West, and actually increasing the stakes of this struggle for wealth control. This conflict eventually reached its climax as Julian tried to restore the traditional civic model, and we will explore how our main scenario is allowing us to get closer to what this emperor’s aspirations might have been and the reasons for his failure. From Diocletian through Theodosius, we will thus demonstrate that the policy shifts we are able to highlight are illustrating the different phases of a continuous competition between cities and Empire for the control of the sources of wealth, which traditionally got mistaken for confiscations and the ruthless imposition of an Imperial power that no Roman emperor was ever able to achieve. Maybe the outcome of that conflict was not what it seemed to traditional historiography: the rise of Imperial bureaucracy and then the apparent theocracy which seems to develop at the end of the 4th century are eventually parallel to an effective devolution of the State’s economic powers under the Theodosian dynasty which ultimately benefited categories of provincial holders of nominally imperial titles, spreading a level of wealth among the landed classes maybe never achieved before. As the old civic autonomy finally died during the course of the 4th century, paradoxically destroyed by the last pagan emperors, powerful new local structures were able to replace it, relying on new financial circuits and supported by the cohesive strength of the new religion. The Christian city was then to become the true heir to the pagan city, linked by an impressive continuity to its Imperial past.

Associations and Ideologies in the Locations of Urban Craft Production at Harappa, Pakistan (Indus Civilization)

A number of factors can affect spatial associations among production areas for different crafts. Surprisingly, survey and excavation of craft production areas from the Harappan Phase (2600–1900 calibrated B.C.) at the Indus urban site of Harappa have revealed no evidence that production locations were related to control by nonproducers. Instead, the distributional groupings of craft production areas were at least partially related to similarities in manufacturing processes. The three craft categories were extractive‐reductive crafts such as lithic‐ and shell‐working, pyrotechnologically transformative crafts such as metal and pottery production, and bridging crafts like talc/steatite and faience production that have both reductive and high heating stages. The patterns of association may relate to knowledge relationships between the producers or to requirements of manufacturing. Other factors in production location may have been Harappan views of what constituted distinct crafts, the value of the goods produced, and the likely consumers. A further factor, hinted at by the location of production areas on the various mounds of Harappa, may have been Indus ideological beliefs about civic structure and the proper placement of manufacturing within city centers.

Solving the Problems of Iowa Food Deserts: Food Insecurity and Civic Structure*

Abstract Rural regions include places where food sources are not evenly distributed, leading to areas of concentration and food deserts—places where few or no grocery stores exist. Individuals are hypothesized to depend on personal connections and the civic structure of where they live to help them solve the problem of food insecurity. We find that residents living in poor rural counties with few grocery stores and perceptions of high civic structure are significantly less likely to be food insecure. A great deal of food giving and receiving is reported, but these personal connections do not decrease the odds of being food insecure. Lower incomes and being younger increase the odds of food insecurity. Our findings suggest that investments in strengthening the social structure of rural communities along with strategies that increase incomes can help households solve the problem of food insecurity.

Selecting Socio-Economic Metrics for Watershed Management

The selection of social and economic metrics to document baseline conditions and analyze the dynamic relationships between ecosystems and human communities are important decisions for scientists, managers, and watershed citizens. A large variety of social and economic data is available but these have limited use without theoretical frameworks. In this paper, several frameworks for reviewing social-ecosystem relations are offered, namely social sanctions, sense of place, civic structure, and cultural differences. Underlying all of these frameworks are attitudes, beliefs, values, and norms that affect which questions are asked and which indicators are chosen. Much work and significant challenges remain in developing a standard set of spatially based socio-economic metrics for watershed management.

Rural Housing Adequacy and Civic Structure

One persistent problem that many small rural towns face is housing adequacy, which encompasses interior and exterior structural conditions; assessments of heating, cooling, and sanitation systems; and residence size relative to space needs. The creation and reproduction of vibrant rural communities is grounded in the capacity of citizens to solve local housing problems. We posit that towns with strong norms of mutuality, high information flows, and inclusive behaviors have a civic structure that produces the capacity to frame and resolve housing concerns. We find that perceptions of civic structure are a significant factor in explaining the variation in rural housing adequacy, net of income, age, and tenure. This implies that the social and political environment is an important influence on the quality of housing stock found in rural places.

Small Town Services and Facilities: The Influence of Social Networks and Civic Structure on Perceptions of Quality

In this research, it is posited that perceptions of the quality of services and facilities in small towns are dependent on the social organization of those places. Two components of this social organization are the social capital that inheres among individuals and the civic structure of the town. This hypothesis is tested using multi‐level models that combine individual‐level social capital and community‐level civic structure to explain variations among 99 rural towns in Iowa. I find that civic structure contributes positively and significantly to effects between communities, while individual‐level social capital is positive and a significant contributor to effects within communities. The civic structure models explain 32 percent of the variance in perceptions of the quality of core public facilities and services and 43 percent of the variance in secondary public‐private services. The strong contributions of individual social capital and civic structure suggest that investments in the micro and macro social structure of small towns can assist in strengthening perceptions of community infrastructure.

Private Lives, Public Spirit: A Social History of Britain, 1870-1914.

Part 1 Themes and interpretations - an overview of British 1870-1914: continuity and change the impact of empire the emergence of individualism and collectivism from ancient constitution to great the nationalization of culture gender modernity and the lost domain paradox and plurality Victorians and Edwardians. Part 2 Demography, death and disease: people and cities patterns of fertility patterns of mortality society, sickness and medicine. Part 3 Family and household: the Victorian family family size and structure domestic economy patriarchalism motherhood childhood sexual relations family life. Part 4 Property: perceptions of property the distribution of property aristocratic property middle-class property working-class property property and politics. Part 5 Work: work and gentility structure, skill and organization alienation, leisure and the work ethic industrial relations work and the working class culture and context. Part 6 Religion: the issue of secularization the sociology of church attendance the churches and civic structure the structure of belief religion and society. Part 7 Society and the state: the bases of the state the mid-Victorian state changing political culture contradiction and expansion finance, bureaucracy and policy crime, law and police ambiguities of power. Part 8 Society and theory: the of society atomism, organicism and evolution historicism and idealism theory and the social problem the language of race perceptions ofpoverty decay and degeneration society, liberty and character - echoes of Greece and Rome.

Federal-Local Relations and the Mission of the City

The administration's emphasis on New Federal ism requires those concerned with governing to reexamine the complex intergovernmental system, and particularly the role of the city in that system. Traditionally, municipal government has been the level of government closest to the people and responsible for answering their needs. With the advent of World War II, however, the traditional roles reversed themselves to the point where, in 1944, federal government accounted for 89 percent of total government expenditures, whereas local governments expended only 6.4 percent of that total. The modern inclination to create "paragovernments" for special purposes has compounded the imbalance of the intergovernmental system. The current dilemma is to find a suitable split for governmental services, supported by a more equitable financial split. In resolving this dilemma, cities must be accepted as an integral part of the federal system. Local governments should have a clear voice in decisions in such policy areas as growth management, taxation, transfer payments and quality of life enhancement. The resources of cities should be conserved and fully utilized, and the mission of the city to create "a visible regional and civic structure, designed to make man feel at home with his deeper self and his larger world," should be implemented.