Ethnic solidarity and the vote: Mapuche candidates and voters in Chile

In this article, we evaluate ethnic solidarity and the vote in Chile with reference to the Mapuche, the largest and most traditional ethnic group in the country. We use electoral data from the mayoral elections of 2012, drawn from all the municipalities of the Araucanía, the region with the largest percentage of Mapuche population. Using a multi-level linear regression model and controlling for poverty and rurality, we found that Mapuche candidates, regardless of their political orientation, were indeed more successful than non-Mapuche candidates in areas with the greatest concentration of Mapuche voters. Additionally, we used results from an unpublished opinion survey conducted in three municipalities of the Araucanía. We concluded that after controlling for other variables ethnic solidarity prevails as a robust predictor of electoral behaviour, albeit more strongly in rural areas than urban ones. The Chilean case, moreover, is useful for studying the strategies used by the traditional parties that promote this solidarity – that is, by presenting candidates with Mapuche surnames in their lists.     

Minorities to the left: ethno-linguistic identification and vote in Europe

This paper aims at analysing the influence of ethnic and linguistic identities on voting preferences in the left–right ideological scale. Its innovative contribution relays on studying minorities’ voting preferences across 23 European nations, using as dependent variable a novel measurement which combines past voting declaration and experts’ numerical definition on political parties (Chapel Hill Experts Survey). By applying multilevel regression techniques, individual and contextual determinants of voting behaviour are identified, focusing on minorities’ leftist preferences. The results show how ethnic and linguistic identities affect voters’ behaviour, although this impact varies depending on how the left–right dimension is defined (economy or social values) and on some minorities’ characteristics. In addition, the use of hierarchical analysis shows how country-level fractionalisation (ethnic and linguistic) affects individual preferences beyond personal ethno-linguistic identifications.     

Ethnic diversity,ethnic threat,and social cohesion: (re)-evaluating the role of perceived out-group threat and prejudice in the relationship between community ethnic diversity and intra-community cohesion

Research frequently demonstrates diverse communities exhibit lower intra-community cohesion. Recent studies suggest there is little evidence perceived ethnic threat plays a role in this relationship. This paper re-examines the roles of ethnic threat and prejudice in the diversity/cohesion relationship. First, we test threat/prejudice as conceptualised in the literature: as mediators of diversity’s effect. Second, we test a reformulation of the roles of threat/prejudice: as moderators of diversity’s effect. Applying multi-level models to cross-sectional and longitudinal data of White British individuals across England and Oldham (a unique English town case-study) we find neighbour-trust lower in diverse communities. However, perceived-threat/prejudice does not mediate this relationship. Instead, we find perceived-threat/prejudice moderate diversity’s impact on neighbour-trust. The result is diversity only reduces neighbour-trust among individuals who already viewed out-groups as threatening. Longitudinal analysis confirms the importance of out-group attitudes in the diversity/neighbour-trust relationship. In diverse communities, residents whose out-group attitudes improve, or worsen, become more, or less, trusting of their neighbours. However, in homogeneous communities, changes in out-group attitudes are not linked to changes in neighbour-trust. We therefore argue and demonstrate that perceived-threat emerges from other societal processes (such as socio-economic precariousness) and it is when individuals who already view out-groups as threatening experience diverse neighbourhoods that local cohesion declines.     

新世纪初我国民族法制建设的新成果--论《民族区域自治法》的修改

本文阐述了<民族区域自治法>修改的原因、原则、程序、特点和意义.文章指出,此次<民族区域自治法>的修改,以加快民族自治地方发展为主要内容,适应了西部大开发的战略需要;同时,对于完善民族法制建设、推动依法治国进程也具有重要意义.     

Hybridity,ethnicity and nationhood: legacies of interethnic war,wartime rape and the potential for bridging the ethnic divide in post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina

ABSTRACT

Relying on the biographical narrative Leila, a girl from Bosnia and the recorded narratives by adolescents born of wartime rape in Bosnia and Herzegovina we illustrate the difficulties and symbolic implications associated with negotiating hybrid identities in post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina against the dominant post-conflict discourse based on ‘pure’ ethnicities. We argue that in today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina, hybrid identities are marginalized by official politics and societal structures as a legacy of the war. However, they simultaneously embody the symbolic tools through which ethnic divisions could be overcome, envisioning and recalling a multi-ethnic Bosnia and Herzegovina as a supra-national designation.     

当代少数民族大学生宗教信仰状况与思考--西北民族学院大学生宗教信仰调查

本文作者通过发放问卷、抽样调查、统计分析、理论探索等手法，对当代少数民族大学生的宗教信仰状况以及他们对宗教信仰的认识，参加宗教活动的情况，获取宗教知识的途径，对宗教政策和宗教现状的评价，所关心的宗教问题，对宗教与邪教、宗教与迷信的区别以及对待宗教与科学之间的关系等方面进行了较为深入的调查研究，由此总结出少数民族大学生宗教信仰的自身特点，并提出了存在的问题及解决的思路与方法。