Modelling attribute non-attendance in choice experiments for rural landscape valuation

Non-market effects of agriculture are often estimated using discrete choice models from stated preference surveys. In this context we propose two ways of modelling attribute non-attendance. The first involves constraining coefficients to zero in a latent class framework, whereas the second is based on stochastic attribute selection and grounded in Bayesian estimation. Their implications are explored in the context of a stated preference survey designed to value landscapes in Ireland. Taking account of attribute non-attendance with these data improves fit and tends to involve two attributes one of which is likely to be cost, thereby leading to substantive changes in derived welfare estimates.

Sustainable Rural Tourism: Lessons for Rural Development

Rural areas are recognised for their complex, multi-functional capacities with a range of different interest groups claiming their rights to, and use of, different rural spaces. The current rural development paradigm that is evident across the globe is epitomised by the European LEADER approach. Using evidence from the proposed National Park in Northern Ireland, we ask the question: what is the potential of sustainable rural tourism to contribute to rural development? Within our analysis we consider the scope for adaptive tourism to overcome some of the ongoing challenges that have been identified within the LEADER approach. Four themes are revealed from this analysis: institutional (in)capacity; legitimacy of local groups; navigating between stakeholder interests; and sustainable tourism in practice. These issues, discussed in turn, have clear implications for the new rural development programme.

Cold War Along the Emerald Curtain: Rural Boundaries in a Contested Border Zone

This paper examines how anxieties about ethnic identity proliferate as state borders begin to shift and open in response to accelerating possibilities of cross-border cooperation. As the border becomes more porous, social and cultural boundaries become marked in other ways, spatially re-scaled to reflect new uncertainties consequent upon border change. Using an example from the Irish land border, the paper traces how national space is re-imagined and re-placed in the everyday practices of residents in a violent border zone from which the state is ostensibly retreating. It shows that communal division is as sharply drawn as ever at a time when the ‘visibility’ of the state border itself is beginning to diminish.