Interculturalism in Times of Crisis

This article locates the discussion of this Special Section within the wider analysis of Interculturalism and intercultural dialogue as a new way of framing dynamic inter‐ethnic and broader community relations, and considering how perceived and real crisis affects both states’ and societys’ understandings of ethnicity, culture and diversity. Taking cases from Catalonia, Spain, the European Union, this Special Section's multi‐level approach illustrates how intercultural dialogue can be developed at the sub‐State, State, Region and international levels. By surveying the articles in the Special Section, this introduction critiques the Interculturalism framework and develops it. Crucially, drawing out insights from across these different types of groupings and from theorists offering a range of perspectives, this collection is able to offer new insights on Interculturalism, its relations with Multiculturalism, and forms of intercultural dialogue.     

An Integrated Approach to Managing Change

Complex systems often involve a huge number of variables whose interdependence must be taken into account. This makes the adoption of an integrated approach essential for the proper management of a wide range of aspects related to human life, from social matters to the environment. In particular, this paper takes into consideration three different experiences in which the use of an integrated approach represented the most effective response for managing the evolving realities we took into consideration. We focused on the issue of land management, with particular attention to the problem of monoculture in Brazil. Then we analyzed the attempted cooperation between the States of the Aral Sea area for efficient water management of the basin and, finally, we dealt with the matter of energy efficiency and how the production of home integrated systems could lead to a better rationalization of energy consumption in the near future.      

The spatiality of hope: mapping Canada's Northwest energy frontier

Maps engage both with the ‘not there’ and the ‘not yet' by simultaneously envisioning the future and tracing the lines of new geographies of development. Starting from these premises, the paper explores the complex relationship between cartography and hydrocarbon exploration in the Canadian Northwest. Through a selection of maps and mapping initiatives, it is shown how cartography has sustained specific geographic imaginaries of the North, such as the ‘energy frontier’, by infusing diverse hopes in the map-readers. Frontier-making through maps is, in this sense, a particularly difficult process to grasp, being influenced by overlapping interventions and agendas. The paper argues that it is because of their continuous mobilization of hope – regardless of whether this is directed towards oil or sovereignty – that maps should be treated as extremely powerful technologies, which contribute to transforming Canada’s northwest energy frontier into a ‘sticky’ and thus potentially unescapable site of promise.     

The PAYG system and the optimal redistribution instrument in an overlapping generation model

Using a two‐period overlapping generation (OLG) model, this article seeks to identify the optimal redistribution policy instrument in terms of aggregate welfare when agents differ according to their labour condition. We use five policy specifications: (i) early redistribution to the young informal generation; (ii) late redistribution to the informal old generation; (iii) a mix between early and late redistribution; (iv) redistribution from the current formal young generation to the current formal old one; and (v) a non‐redistribution scenario. With inelastic labour supply, we show that transferring to the young performs better as a redistribution policy. This result is robust across different parameter values.     

Likelihood and bayesian approaches to inference for the stationary point of a quadratic response surface

In response surface analysis, a second order polynomial model is often used for inference on the stationary point of the response function. The standard confidence regions for the stationary point are due to Box & Hunter (1954). The authors propose an alternative parametrization, in which the stationary point is the parameter of interest; likelihood techniques and Bayesian analysis are then easier to perform. The authors also suggest an approximate method to get highest posterior density regions for the maximum point (not simply for the stationary point). Furthermore, they study the coverage probabilities of these Bayesian regions through simulations.     

Material Flows Accounting: A Biophysical Approach to Macroeconomic Sustainability

The increasing dimension of socio-environmental problems make sustainability a macroeconomic issue and new methodological instruments are needed. In this paper, Material Flows Accounting is presented as a new statistical approach for an evaluation of macroeconomic sustainability. Based on the pre-analytic vision that economies are an open system embedded in the environment, it provides an overview in tonnes of annual material inputs and outputs of an economy. It quantifies the physical dimension of societies and analyses the “size” of the human economy in the geo-biosphere. As it provides information about efficiency and material requirements, it is a very important method for analysing whether a nation is moving towards sustainability or away from it. Used in many official statistics, it will become one of the most powerful tools in describing sustainability at the macroeconomic level. In this paper, after the presentation of the Material Flows Accounting approach, an Italian case study is considered.     

An Assessment of the Psychometric Properties of Italian Version of CPGI

The aim of this study was to adapt to the Italian context a very commonly used international instrument to detect problem gambling, the canadian problem gambling index (CPGI), and assess its psychometric properties. Cross-cultural adaptation of CPGI was performed in several steps and the questionnaire was administered as a survey among Italian general population (n = 5,292). Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient was 0.87 and can be considered to be highly reliable. Construct validity was assessed first by means of a principal component analysis and then by means of confirmatory factor analysis, showing that only one factor, problem gambling, was extracted from the CPGI questionnaire (an eigenvalues of 4,684 with percentage of variance 52 %). As far as convergent validity is concerned, CPGI was compared with Lie/Bet questionnaire, a two-item screening tool for detecting problem gamblers, and with both depression and stress scales. A short form DSM-IV CIDI questionnaire was used for depression and VRS scale, a rating scale, was used for rapid stress evaluation. A strong convergent validity with these instruments was found and these findings are consistent with past research on problem gambling, where another way to confirm the validity is to determine the extent to which it correlates with other qualities or measures known to be directly related to problem gambling. In sum, despite the lack of a direct comparison with a classic gold-standard such as DSM-IV, the Italian version of CPGI exhibits good psychometric properties and can be used among the Italian general population to identify at-risk problem gamblers.