Elite Settlement Research Articles

Power in Närke. Elite settlement and animal art AD 150–1125 in a Swedish province

Abstract This survey of archaeological and onomastic evidence, prominently including Style I–III animal art, aims at identifying the most promising locations where elite manorial settlements of the period AD 375–1125 can be expected in the Medieval Swedish province of Närke. One such site of c. AD 600–800 has been partly excavated at Husby in Glanshammar. This parish is one of six that stand out by their unusually rich, numerous and sustained elite indications. A recent campaign of large intensive metal detector investigations has proven both a boon and a bias in terms of new evidence. None of the six most promising parishes would however fall off the elite map even without the new metal detector finds. Of the place names, Tuna appears to be irrelevant to Närke’s elite, while two out of three Husby names correlate with Viking Period elite indicators.

A new chronology for the Welsh hillfort of Dinas Powys

Excavated by Leslie Alcock in the 1950s, the inland promontory fort of Dinas Powys is widely cited as a type site for elite settlements of post-Roman western Britain. Alcock's interpretation and dating of the main defences as a Norman-period castle were effectively disproven in the 1990s, but the excavator's original chronology continues to be cited. Here, the authors present a revised chronology, integrating new radiocarbon dates and stratigraphic analysis to re-evaluate the history of occupation. The new phasing redates the main defences to the early medieval period, which aligns with the site's notable early medieval assemblage. The findings contribute to understanding of post-Roman western Britain and the (re)occupation of late antique hilltop sites more generally.

Elite settlements in island territories: The road to a binding political status referendum in New Caledonia and Puerto Rico

New Caledonia and Puerto Rico are two non-sovereign island territories of France and the United States respectively. Both territories have historically centered their political debate on the definition of their political status and have done so by implementing numerous referendums. Of the two territories, however, only New Caledonia has managed to establish a binding referendum on political status. This raises the following question: How has New Caledonia managed to obtain a binding referendum on its political status while Puerto Rico has failed to do so? One variable present in New Caledonia, but not in Puerto Rico, was the convening of both the metropolitan and territorial political elite with regards to the territory’s change in political status as well as the definition of each status option. While elite theory has been used as a theoretical framework to explain democratization, this article discusses the role of elite settlements with regards to changes in political status among non-sovereign island jurisdictions. I focus on two key events in both case studies. In New Caledonia, I focus on the signing of the Matignon and Nouméa Accords, 1988 and 1998 respectively, while in Puerto Rico I focus on the Plebiscitary Process of 1989-1991.

Commonalities, Differences and Lacunae: Some Comments on Elite Settlement in England and Ireland in the Early Middle Ages

The two papers that inspire this comment piece appear at an interesting time in the study of power structures in the early middle ages. The topic itself has seen renewed vigour among scholars throu...

Practice, Power and Place: Southern British Perspectives on the Agency of Early Medieval Rulers’ Residences

This paper advances understanding of rulership over the fifth to the ninth centuries AD, drawing upon a category of elite settlement from southern Britain known as the great hall complex. Guided by a practice-based conceptual framework, we connect these sites with the embodied regimens, rituals, habits, and activities through which rulership was constituted in the early medieval world. Harnessing recent expanded datasets, we generate insights in three key areas. First, by documenting the significant and sustained antecedent occupation attested at great hall sites, we reveal how rulers exploited the complex multiple pasts of these places to advance symbolic and worldly agendas. Second, we reframe understanding of hall construction as a strategy of elite legitimation by focusing attention on the agency of the skilled practitioners who created these innovative architectural statements and, in doing so, recognize these hitherto neglected specialists as ‘crafters’ of rulership. Third, we use proxies from recently investigated great hall complexes to reconstruct the networks of dependency and interaction which enmeshed these centres. A concluding comparative discussion of southern Britain and Scandinavia contributes shared perspectives on rulers’ residences as a prime arena for the orchestration and creative renewal of early medieval sovereignty.

Analisis Kualitas Pelayanan dan Fasilitas Day-Spa di Medan

The purpose of this study is to find out the quality of services and Day-Spa facilities that correspond to user needs, especially Ubud Family Reflexology, De Spa, and Zengarden in Medan. In Medan City, day-spas are located are many located near shopping malls, elite settlements, office complex, and commercial areas. They are widely consumed by office executives, socialite mothers, college students, babies, and toddlers. In designing a spa building, it needs to observe and consider psychological users, especially consumers, it should be noted that facilities and privacy levels in the room are affecting consumer behavior. The research methods use interviewing, observing, and analyzing the document study. The results from this study indicate that day-spa buildings in Medan do not apply standard facilities and spa services.

The Government of National Unity as a Long Lasting Political and Economic Solution in Zimbabwe

This paper addresses the effectiveness of negotiated settlements in solving national disputes, with particular focus on the Government of National Unity (GNU) that operated in Zimbabwe from 2009 to 2013. Some of the experts interviewed for this study noted that the elite agreed to have a unity government in order to serve their self-interest. The Zimbabwe African National Unity Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party needed help in solving the crisis at hand while the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party wanted to experience running a government, at the same time reaping the benefits that came with it. We can conclude that the GNU in Zimbabwe was an elite settlement, without involvement of the general populace. The elite only meant to serve their own interests and ignored national interest. When its tenure expired in 2013, the situation in the country reverted into crisis mode, particularly the economy. It is therefore this paper’s position that any national settlement should involve the affected masses and all transitional settlements should have politically neutral players at the forefront, not political actors or individuals with political ambitions.

Optimalisasi Anggaran Biaya Proyek Pembangunan Villa Grand Sinensis Menggunakan Metode Value Engineering

Along with the time, the rise of development in various cities in Indonesia is also increasing. This phenomenon leads to the increase of development demands in all fields, especially in developing cities. One specific place in Malang City that is under the elite settlements construction is the one that located in Tegal Rejo Street 22, Ketindang, Lawang. Based on the previous description, it is very important to implement value engineering in the construction project of Grand Sinensis Villa which is expected to bring alternatives to replace old work items as recommendations for the relevant parties, which provides benefits in the form of cost savings. In the process of budget analysis using the value engineering method, there are 4 stages that will be analyzed, namely: Information Phase, Creative Phase, Analysis Phase and Recommendation Phase. From the results of analysis using Value Engineering method, there are obtained several alternatives that can be proposed, namely: work of concrete items using floordeck with cost savings of: 30,910,797 rupiahs and the installation of water heather using GAS with cost savings of 3.230.000 rupiahs.

The politics of consensus: al-Nahda and the stability of the Tunisian transition

Tunisia&s transition away from authoritarianism has been shaped by a politics of consensus, which has brought together representatives of the former regime with their historic adversary, the Islamist movement al-Nahda. This article argues that consensus politics was a legacy of the authoritarian regime that was re-produced during a democratizing transition. The politics of consensus was encouraged and enabled by al-Nahda, which prioritized its inclusion within this elite settlement to provide political security for itself and the broader transition. However, this came at a cost, engineering a conservative transition, which did not pursue significant social or economic reform. The Tunisian case shows that historical legacies, such as consensus politics, can shape a transition as much as contingent, pragmatic decisions by political leaders.

Varieties of State-Building in Africa: Elites, Ideas and the Politics of Public Sector Reform

Why do some states in Africa seem to be stuck in a spiral of corruption and institutional weakness? Why do others somehow build effective bureaucracies that are able and willing to tackle the challenges of development? The public sector remains the inescapable anchor of development, whether for good or ill, but our understanding of the politics of public sector reform remains shackled by concepts that do not allow for variation or change over time. This paper presents a theoretical framework for understanding variations in public sector reform (PSR): centering the analysis on the intersection of power relations and ideas, the paper shows how the stability of a country’s elite settlement and the coherence of its developmental ideology interact with reform ideas in the PSR policy domain. This framework is explored through a structured-focused comparison of reform experiences in three Sub-Saharan African countries with different elite settlements: competitive Ghana; weakly dominant Uganda; and dominant Rwanda. In Ghana, where successive regimes have focused on political control for partisan purposes, it has been quick reforms compatible with top-down control that have achieved political traction. In Uganda, high-visibility reforms were introduced to secure donor funding, as long as they did not threaten the ruling coalition’s power. In Rwanda, lastly, the regime has fostered and protected various public sector reforms because it envisioned them as instruments for domestic legitimation as constituent elements of an impartial developmental state. In combination, policy domain, elite time horizons, and ideational fit allow us to move beyond blanket statements about isomorphic mimicry or neopatrimonialism, and towards a more nuanced understanding of the varieties of state-building in Africa.

Russia’s local government in the process of authoritarian regime transformation: incentives for the survival of local democracy

ABSTRACTIn 2003, the authorities of Russia launched a comprehensive reform of local government. One of the elements of this reform was the replacement of the previously predominant form of local government, characterised by the presence of directly elected mayors, with the council-manager model. While originally motivated largely by the desire to enhance the efficacy of local government, the reform was implemented concurrently with Russia’s transition to electoral authoritarianism, with the council-manager model emerging as a major tool of authoritarian transformation. This study uses the data from 79 capitals of Russia’s regions in order to identify those factors that facilitated the survival of directly elected mayors in these cities. The analysis reveals that the past trajectories of regime transitions at the regional level in the form of elite settlement, economic resourcefulness, and the lack of politically motivated deference to the federal authorities contributed to the survival of local democracy in Russia.

The Surprising Democratic Behemoth: Indonesia in Comparative Asian Perspective

Indonesia stands out as one of the most successful cases of democratic transformation in Asia, a continent that has been, with several notable exceptions, generally resistant to democratic change over the last three decades. Taking its cue from other Asian democracies, this article considers the degree to which economic modernization and ethnic factors might account for Indonesia's relative democratic success. With regard to both, it is proposed that a key factor has been the failure of Indonesia's political cleavage structure to express social conflicts that might undermine democracy. Instead, Indonesia's democratic model has been based on an inclusionary elite settlement in which powerful political and economic actors have gained a stake in the system, largely through access to patronage. This settlement has consolidated Indonesian democracy, but it has also generated costs that have been borne by relatively disempowered groups, reflected in continuing economic and gender inequality.

When science alone is not enough: Radiocarbon timescales, history, ethnography and elite settlements in southern Africa

The southern African recent past is replete with examples of elite settlements, some of which were occupied sequentially, and by different rulers. Shona, Venda and Tswana traditions identify the many dry stone walled capitals with former kings who ruled during different reigns. This historical reality is often not factored when considering the issues of political centres and urbanism in the Iron Age. The resolution of radiocarbon dating produces an aggregate time that conflates the chronology of capitals or elite centres when they may not have been contemporary – ‘the suck in and smear’ phenomenon described by Baillie (1991) . This article combines historical and archaeological information to develop an alternative explanation for the existence of hundreds of elite Zimbabwe settlements, some of which were synchronous according to the radiocarbon chronology. The main indication is that rather than suffering from a glut of elites, southern African urban and political centres are associated with individual leaders of competing polities which may not have been part of unified hierarchical and sequential structures. The archaeology of the region stands to benefit from understanding the dynamics of politics, power and leadership in this way.

Simulated democracy and pseudo-transformational leadership in Hungary

Simulierte Demokratie und pseudo-transformative politische Fuh- rung in Ungarn«. This paper investigates current Hungarian political develop- ments with the conceptual tools provided by elite and leadership studies. It de- velops an argument about the institutionalization of simulated democracy, which applies to social situations when democratic institutions exist but where their consolidation is hampered by the norm breaching behaviour of elites and other social groups. The article investigates the responsibility of leaders and elites in two sections. First, the failure of the Hungarian elite settlement is de- scribed. Second, the working of simulated democracy is examined with special emphasis on elites' and leaders' behaviour in connection to media law, the new Constitution and other current institutional developments. In the conclusion the authors make an attempt to connect elite and leadership issues to institutional developments and highlight some normative consequences.

The Failure of Democracy in Turkey: A Comparative Analysis

AbstractAlthough Turkey took its initial steps toward establishing democracy in 1950, it has thus far failed to become a fully functioning democracy. Using the comparison cases of Spain and Greece, this article discusses two related variables that are likely to have thwarted the development of full democracy in Turkey: the country's experience with authoritarian rule, and the lack of elite settlement or convergence towards acceptance of the democratic rules of the game. The article ultimately contends that despite the EU's attempt to push Turkey towards full democracy in the modern day it is unlikely that it will become a fully functioning democracy unless it manages to achieve civilian elite agreement regarding the rules of the Turkish democratic game, and that Turkey's experience with authoritarian rule may, in turn, have hindered the development of such rules.

Reassessing the Role of Civil Society Organizations in the Transition to Democracy in Spain

Spain's democratization process has mainly been described as a settlement between political elites in which civil society organizations played little part. Yet the literature on Eastern European democratization sets great store by the role of civil society, both for transition and consolidation. Does this different treatment reflect the approach adopted by analysts or the actual contrasting presence of civil society organizations in the relevant periods? The question prompts this re-examination of the role of civil society organizations in the Spanish transition. It finds that the answer depends in part on definitions of civil society, but mainly on the approach taken by authors in presenting their accounts. It finds that the elite settlement perspective silences or removes agency from the Spanish civil society organizations active in the transition. An alternative view is developed through an in-depth review of the events following the death of the dictator General Franco in 1975 and a textual analysis of Spain's actual definitive settlement, the 1978 Constitution. The research demonstrates that civil society organizations were responsible for disrupting the dictatorship's intention to maintain an authoritarian regime, leaving it no option but to negotiate with civil society organizations such as political parties and trade unions, which were pursuing their own strategic goals towards co-construction of a socially advanced democracy. The article's approach bridges the gulf between top-down and bottom-up accounts of political change in Spain at the end of the Franco regime.

Elite foundations of liberal democracy

Chapter 1: Elites and Regimes Chapter 2: Disunited Elites and Unstable Regimes Chapter 3: Elite Settlements Chapter 4: Colonial Origins of Consensually United Elites Chapter 5: Convergences among Disunited Elites Chapter 6: Elites and Liberal Democratic Prospects

Latin America, Chile and East Asia: Policy-Networks and Successful Diversification

Latin American countries have a long tradition of attempting to diversify their external relations. In this context, since the end of the Cold War East Asia has gained increasing importance. However, despite the rising interest in improved political and economic links, these attempts at diversification showed only modest results, Chile being a noteworthy exception within this overall trend. The following analysis presents an empirical overview of the development of relations between Latin America and East Asia with special emphasis on Chile, demonstrating how domestic transformation has affected the Asia-Pacific policies of Latin American countries. The main conclusion is that while in most countries domestic conflicts over the future course of political and economic development have hampered the creation of a consistent Asia-Pacific policy, the elite settlement in Chile has enabled strategic actors to create a policy network which provides the institutional basis for successfully diversifying external relations to East Asia.

The Dynamics of Status Symbols: Wildfowl Exploitation in England ad 410–1550

Hawking and the consumption of wildfowl were unquestionably a mark of nobility in later medieval England, and, as such, the archaeological representation of wild birds has come to be viewed as a signature of medieval elite settlement. Like all fashions, however, the social significance of wildfowling and the consumption of different game birds changed through time. Historical evidence does not record clearly when these activities acquired their high-status associations and in the absence of such knowledge it is unwise to assume that wild bird exploitation was always a trait of the medieval elite's lifestyle. This paper sets out to explore how the meaning of wildfowl procurement and consumption changed between the mid-fifth and mid-sixteenth century, and also to examine how perceptions of individual wild species shifted through time. It is argued here that only when we understand the history of their ‘social life’ can we begin to label particular activities or consumables as high status.

What the Democratization Literature Says—or Doesn’t Say—About Postwar Democratization

Herodotus was probably right when he argued wars make history, but whether and when wars make democracy remain open questions. The classics in democratization literature are surprisingly reticent about links between war and lasting democracy. Most of our theoretical literature on democratic transitions or democratic consolidation leaves connection to war either wholly neglected or seriously undertheorized. This perplexing because so many new and renewed democracies emerge in context of war. Of seventy-three democracies founded after 1945 still exist today, over half emerged either in immediate aftermath of a war or as a means of bringing an ongoing war to an end. Table 1 shows how many electoral democracies emerged in a setting. The cases in Table 1 are electoral democracies--meaning they are regimes in which leaders are selected in competitive elections. If we define democracy more strictly and consider only cases in which a full (or nearly full) range of individual liberties provided, pattern same. Half of all regimes formed after World War II are still in existence today were formed in immediate aftermath of war (see Table 2). The percentage of free regimes were founded in settings was as high ten years ago as it today, so existence of postwar democracies far from new. (1) The subject of democratization after war clearly worthy of close attention. What do we currently know (or think we know) about how war affects democratization? What does democratization literature teach us about building democracy in settings? I sketch brief answers to both of these questions in following sections. For purposes of this article, my definition of democracy corresponds to definition used often in canon of democratization literature: democracy is a system of governance in which rulers are held accountable . . . by citizens acting indirectly through competition and cooperation of their elected representatives. (2) Though I acknowledge this a minimalist version of a much more complex and multifaceted phenomenon, I focus on electoral democracy because it defines a politically important and numerically large subset of regimes. Can War Be Good for Democracy? The democratization literature portrays association between war and transition to democracy as broadly positive. Indeed, wars seem to be associated with democratic transitions whether state in question vanquished, victorious, or simply a partner in an inconclusive struggle. It ironic a devastating seems to be an especially propitious setting for a transition to be made. Yet several scholars have marshaled sound evidence in favor of this proposition. They remind us the great majority of historical examples of successful redemocratization ... are ones in which and conquest play an integral part (3) conquest by a democratic power allows for dismantling of problematic military and political institutions; (4) that military failure contributed to downfall or weakening of at least five authoritarian regimes between 1974 and l989 (5); and defeat in warfare often precipitates elite settlements lasting democracy requires. (6) The defeats l ead most readily to a democratic regime change are devastating ones in which are thoroughly replaced. (7) Authoritarian regimes conduct a war successfully may be toppled too. Victory in wars against subversion can eliminate a dictatorship's raison d'etre and provoke a crisis of legitimacy. (8) Surprisingly, elites who face neither victory nor may still make transition to democracy if their armed struggle appears to be both costly and inconclusive. (9) Theorists insist elite compromise democracy requires emerges when leaders recognize that next round of conflict likely to visit disaster on all sides. …