La route antique de Mégare à Thèbes par le défilé du Kandili, dont on a contesté à tort l'existence, correspond à un chemin encore très utilisé au xixe siècle, le Koulouriotiko monopati. Description des restes antiques de cette route et des sites antiques situés tout le long. Les témoignages des historiens antiques sur son utilisation.

Este artículo analiza la incorporación del soft power como elemento de la política exterior de China para América Latina. Sostenemos que China cuenta con soft power y ha desarrollado una estrategia para proyectarlo en el mundo a partir de su política exterior, basándose en su cultura milenaria, en la cooperación internacional hacia los países en desarrollo y en la promoción de su modelo de desarrollo. Asimismo, la inclusión de China del soft power como elemento de su política exterior en la (...) primera mitad de la década de 2000 tendrá efectos medibles en la intensificación de las relaciones con América Latina en la segunda mitad de esa década. (shrink)

This article presents the results of an experiment that completely measures the utility function and probability weighting function for different positive and negative monetary outcomes, using a representative sample of N = 1,935 from the general public. The results confirm earlier findings in the lab, suggesting that utility is less pronounced than what is found in classical measurements where expected utility is assumed. Utility for losses is found to be convex, consistent with diminishing sensitivity, and the obtained loss-aversion coefficient of (...) 1.6 is moderate but in agreement with contemporary evidence. The estimated probability weighting functions have an inverse-S shape and they imply pessimism in both domains. These results show that probability weighting is also an important phenomenon in the general population. Women and lower educated individuals are found to be more risk averse, in agreement with common findings. In contrast to previous studies that ascribed gender differences in risk attitudes solely to differences in the degree utility curvature, however, our results show that this finding is primarily driven by loss aversion and, for women, also by a more pessimistic psychological response toward the probability of obtaining the best possible outcome. (shrink)

What do players of videogames mean when they say they want to shoot zombies? Surely they know that the zombies are not real, and that they cannot really shoot them, but only control a fictional character who does so. Some philosophers of fiction argue that we need the concept of imaginative desires to explain situations in which people feel desires towards fictional characters or desires that motivate pretend actions. Others claim that we can explain these situations without complicating human psychology (...) with a novel mental state. Within their debates, however, these scholars exclusively focus on non-interactive fictions and children’s games of make-believe. In this paper, I argue that our experience of immersive, interactive fictions like videogames gives us cause to reappraise the concept of imaginative desires. Moreover, I describe how i-desires are a useful conceptual tool within videogame development and can shed new light on apparently immoral in-game actions. (shrink)

The European Commission’s proposal to address antimicrobial resistance using transferable exclusivity vouchers (TEVs) is fundamentally flawed. European policymakers and regulators should consider alternatives, such as better funding for basic and clinical research, use of advance market commitments funded by a pay-or-play tax, or enacting an EU Fund for Antibiotic Development.

As artefacts, the worlds of digital games are designed and developed to fulfil certain expressive, functional, and experiential objectives. During play, players infer these purposes and aspirations from various aspects of their engagement with the gameworld. Influenced by their sociocultural backgrounds, sensitivities, gameplay preferences, and familiarity with game conventions, players construct a subjective interpretation of the intentions with which they believe the digital game in question was created. By analogy with the narratological notion of the implied author, we call the (...) figure to which players ascribe these intentions ‘the implied designer’. In this article, we introduce the notion of the implied designer and present an initial account of how appreciators ascribe meaning to interactive, fictional gameworlds and act within them based on what they perceive to be the designer’s intentions. (shrink)

Peterson's objection to my proposal to treat new technologies as social experiments seems straightforward. Doing so would replace the old question ‘Is technology X ethically acceptable?’ (Let us ca...

As a nexus of fertility’s finitude and female midlife, menopause is a physical and cultural phenomenon through which the relation between the medicalization of the female reproductive cycle and normative attitudes toward aging become expressed. Age, like other systems of separation, can function as an “instrument of regulatory regimes” and shows similarities to gender in its body-bound, surface-focused, and morally coded position in the sociomedical sphere. However, although age is an influential social category, its reliance on historical and epistemic constructions (...) of the body has not been politicized to a degree comparable to other categories like gender, race, and sexuality. As Kathleen. (shrink)

Here, we focus on the underexplored fictional relevance of videogame glitches. For this purpose, we will make use philosophical theories on fiction, as well as standard suggestions about how best to deal with unintended errors within fiction. Focusing on glitches like that of Red Dead Redemption’s "manimals", we argue that glitches, more than any kinds of mistakes in traditional, non-interactive fictions, can actually have a significant influence on the fictional worlds of the work in which they appear. In particular, we (...) will show that some glitches generate new fictional content without this content being intended by a videogame’s creators, and will offer practical ways for dealing with the inconsistencies that inevitably accompany such glitch-generated fictions. (shrink)

The idea that the state ought to be neutral towards different conceptions of the good life has been an influential principle in liberal theory since the 1970s. It has, however, been subject to criticism by communitarians, multiculturalists and liberal perfectionists. Recently, Peter Balint has attempted to defend state neutrality against its liberal critics as the adequate interpretation of the liberal project by redefining it as a range concept. By arguing that neutrality always occurs within a specific range of permissible conceptions (...) of the good life, Balint provides a convincing rebuttal of neutrality’s critics. In this paper I argue that while neutrality as a range concept provides an adequate account of state neutrality, it also makes it vulnerable to a new line of critique. Since the range of neutrality cannot be deduced from the principle of neutrality itself, neutrality is subject to political developments beyond its own control. I will start by clarifying the notion of neutrality as a range concept. Secondly, I will demonstrate that Balint’s notion of the range concept finds ample support in the wider literature on neutrality. Thirdly, I will argue that, as a range concept, neutrality ultimately depends on politically constituted value judgments. (shrink)

Recent policy developments in the area of livestock husbandry have suggested that, from the perspective of optimizing animal welfare, new animal husbandry systems should be developed that provide opportunities for livestock animals to be raised in environments where they are permitted to engage in “natural behavior.” It is not known whether consumers regard animal husbandry issues as important, and whether they differentiate between animal husbandry and other animal welfare issues. The responsibility for the development of such systems is allocated jointly (...) between farmers, regulators, different actors in the food chain, and consumers. This research focuses on understanding consumer attitudes and preferences regarding the development and introduction of such systems, to ensure that they are acceptable to consumers as well as producers, regulators, and scientists. Consumer perceptions of animal welfare and animal husbandry practices were evaluated using quantitative consumer survey, which focused on two animal husbandry issues – farmed pigs and farmed fish. Following pilot work, 1000 representative Dutch consumers were sampled about their attitudes to either pig or fish husbandry. The results indicated that consumers think about animal welfare in terms of two broad categories related to their health and living environment, but do not think about welfare issues at a more detailed level. Greater concern was expressed about the welfare of pigs compared to fish. Consumer trust in labeling also emerged as an important issue, since consumers need to trust different food chain actors with responsibility for promoting animal welfare, and are reluctant to consider the details of animal husbandry systems. As a consequence, a transparent, enforceable, and traceable monitoring system for animal welfare friendly products is likely to be important for consumers. (shrink)

Recent policy developments in the area of livestock husbandry have suggested that, from the perspective of optimizing animal welfare, new animal husbandry systems should be developed that provide opportunities for livestock animals to be raised in environments where they are permitted to engage in “natural behavior.” It is not known whether consumers regard animal husbandry issues as important, and whether they differentiate between animal husbandry and other animal welfare issues. The responsibility for the development of such systems is allocated jointly (...) between farmers, regulators, different actors in the food chain, and consumers. This research focuses on understanding consumer attitudes and preferences regarding the development and introduction of such systems, to ensure that they are acceptable to consumers as well as producers, regulators, and scientists. Consumer perceptions of animal welfare and animal husbandry practices were evaluated using quantitative consumer survey, which focused on two animal husbandry issues – farmed pigs and farmed fish. Following pilot work, 1000 representative Dutch consumers were sampled about their attitudes to either pig or fish husbandry. The results indicated that consumers think about animal welfare in terms of two broad categories related to their health and living environment, but do not think about welfare issues at a more detailed level. Greater concern was expressed about the welfare of pigs compared to fish. Consumer trust in labeling also emerged as an important issue, since consumers need to trust different food chain actors with responsibility for promoting animal welfare, and are reluctant to consider the details of animal husbandry systems. As a consequence, a transparent, enforceable, and traceable monitoring system for animal welfare friendly products is likely to be important for consumers. (shrink)

A good reputation is one of the most valuable assets a company can have. A problematic reputation can hinder companies in their performance. In competitive markets where products differ little in price, technology, or availability, reputation can make a difference. Petroleum companies are frequently associated with environmental issues such as oil spills and climate change. Since environmental performance rankings remain inconclusive due to methodological shortcomings, those issues may affect the sector’s reputation. This paper examines whether the observation of a problematic (...) reputation for multinationals in the petroleum sector is sustained by empirical data for the period 1990–2002. Taking in account methodological limitations, the analysis shows two downward trends for all companies, indicating a common reputation effect. The effect of catalyst events is observed for individual companies. However, the contribution of the paper is not only empirical. Conceptually, the results show the complexity of measuring the multidimensional concept of reputation, as well as the importance of the reputation commons, catalyst events, and a reputation mechanism. (shrink)

In the introduction to hisAllgemeine Psychopathologie, published in 1913, Karl Jaspers stated that psychology has little value for the psychopathologist because it focuses on all kinds of interesting matters, but not on normal psychic life. In this article we argue that today, in the year 2013, little has changed in this respect. During the past century, normal psychic life (non-pathological psychic life) has rarely been a topic of research. Clinical psychology has focused primarily on studying three other topics: the mind-body (...) problem (does the mind actually exist, or are we exclusively the result of brain function?), the methodological debate (should psychology use quantitative or qualitative research results as a basis for its expertise?) and the psychotherapy debate (Is psychotherapy effective? If so, which form is the most effective?). Due to this focus, our knowledge in the above-mentioned areas has increased significantly, but the issue raised by Karl Jaspers about normal psychic life has still not been addressed. In this article, we propose that normal psychic life should indeed become the new focus of clinical psychology. We illustrate the importance of this new focus with three examples from clinical psychology: the Global Assessment of Functioning scale, empathy and the emergence of positive psychology during the past decade. We then explore the efficacy of phenomenology for studying this normal psychic life, thereby discovering a useful epistemological basis in Husserl’s systematic phenomenology. Various phenomenological research methods are evaluated in the light of this systematic phenomenology. (shrink)

This article argues that Rousseau's endorsement of male domination and his illiberal views of rape, punishment and the education of women have been seriously underestimated by twentieth century commentators who tend to produce expoisitions of his work that evade, ignore or marginalise this 'darker side' of his educational philosophy.

Als Plato de hedendaagse academie zou aanschouwen, zou hij niet alleen stomverbaasd zijn over de massificatie en de byzantijnse bureaucratie, maar gezien het ethische doel van de universiteit zou hij ook reden hebben om bezorgd te zijn.

The Dutch law states that a physician may perform euthanasia according to a written advance euthanasia directive when a patient is incompetent as long as all legal criteria of due care are met. This may also hold for patients with advanced dementia. We investigated the differing opinions of physicians and members of the general public on the acceptability of euthanasia in patients with advanced dementia.

Part Five of the Amsterdam edition of the Latin text of Erasmus’ Annotations to the New Testament presents his notes on Paul’s letters to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and to the Thessalonians 1 & 2.

Part Four of the Amsterdam edition of the Latin text of Erasmus’ Annotations to the New Testament presents his notes on St. Paul’s letters to the Corinthians.

Gebhardt in his brief report1 pleads for patient organisations to establish databanks on medical complications. Given the references and the lack of argumentation, there is substantial danger of misinterpretation of the current situation, which in turn may frustrate the process of increased transparency. We would therefore like to respond to this by giving background information and reasons for some of the choices that were made with respect to the registry of complications mentioned by Gebhardt.First, a distinction needs to be made (...) between an error and an adverse outcome, which are often confused. From Gebhardt’s reference to the journalist’s article which discusses the same registry of adverse outcomes, but with the title referring to errors, both Gebhardt and the journalist think errors and adverse outcomes are the same thing. However, an error refers to the process in which something has gone wrong, a substandard performance, regardless of the outcome. It has been explained by others that such a judgement may have a degree of subjectivity.2 An adverse outcome refers to the outcome which is unwanted but does not necessarily imply that an error has been made. This is why the term “adverse outcomes” is used rather than …. (shrink)

We propose a pragmatist account of value change that helps to understand how and why values sometimes change due to technological developments. Inspired by John Dewey’s writings on value, we propose to understand values as evaluative devices that carry over from earlier experiences and that are to some extent shared in society. We discuss the various functions that values fulfil in moral inquiry and propose a conceptual framework that helps to understand value change as the interaction between three manifestations of (...) value distinguished by Dewey, i.e., “immediate value,” “values as the result of inquiry” and “generalized values.” We show how this framework helps to distinguish three types of value change: value dynamism, value adaptation, and value emergence, and we illustrate these with examples from the domain of technology. We argue that our account helps to better understand how technology may induce value change, namely through the creation of what Dewey calls indeterminate situations, and we show how our account can integrate several insights on moral change offered by other authors. (shrink)

This paper is one of the four interrelated action agenda papers resulting from the National Summit on Public Health Legal Preparedness convened in June 2007 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and multi-disciplinary partners. Each of the action agenda papers deals with one of the four core elements of public health legal preparedness: laws and legal authorities; competency in using those laws; coordination of law-based public health actions; and information. Options presented in this paper are for consideration by (...) policy makers and practitioners — in all jurisdictions and all relevant sectors and disciplines — with responsibilities for all-hazards emergency preparedness.Advancing and protecting the public's health depends upon the coordination of actions by many, diverse partners. For effective public health preparedness, there must be effective coordination of legal tools and law-based strategies across local, state, tribal, and federal jurisdictions, and also across sectors such as public health, health care, emergency management, education, law enforcement, community design, and academia. (shrink)

The conclusions drawn by Benjamin Libet from his work with collegues on the timing of somatosensorial conscious experiences has met with a lot of praise and criticism. In this issue we find three examples of the latter. Here I attempt to place the divide between the two opponent camps in a broader perspective by analyzing the question of the relation between physical timing, neural timing, and experiential timing. The nervous system does a sophisticated job of recombining and recoding messages from (...) the sensorial surfaces and if these processes are slighted in a theory, it might become necessary to postulate weird operations, including subjective back-referral. Neuroscientifically inspired theories are of necessity still based on guesses, extrapolations, and philosophically dubious manners of speech. They often assume some neural correlate of consciousness as a part of the nervous system that transforms neural activity in reportable experiences. The majority of neuroscientists appear to assume that the NCC can compare and bind activity patterns only if they arrive simultaneously at the NCC. This leads to a search for synchrony or to theories in terms of the compensation of differences in neural delays . This is the main dimension of the Libet discussion. Examples from vision research, such as “temporal-binding-by-synchrony” and the “flash-lag” effect, are then used to illustrate these reasoning patterns in more detail. Alternatively one could assume symbolic representations of time and space that are not coded in their own dimension . Unless such tags are multiplexed with the quality message , one gets a binding problem for tags. One of the hidden aspects of the discussion between Libet and opponents appears to be the following. Is the NCC smarter than the rest of the nervous system, so that it can solve the problems of local sign and timing on its own, or are these pieces of information coded symbolically early on in the system? A supersmart NCC appears to be the assumption of Libet's camp . The wish to distribute the smartness evenly across all stages of processing in the nervous system appears to motivate the opponents. I argue that there are reasons to side with the latter group. (shrink)

This paper is one of the four interrelated action agenda papers resulting from the National Summit on Public Health Legal Preparedness convened in June 2007 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and multi-disciplinary partners. Each of the action agenda papers deals with one of the four core elements of public health legal preparedness: laws and legal authorities; competency in using those laws; coordination of law-based public health actions; and information. Options presented in this paper are for consideration by (...) policy makers and practitioners — in all jurisdictions and all relevant sectors and disciplines — with responsibilities for all-hazards emergency preparedness.Advancing and protecting the public's health depends upon the coordination of actions by many, diverse partners. For effective public health preparedness, there must be effective coordination of legal tools and law-based strategies across local, state, tribal, and federal jurisdictions, and also across sectors such as public health, health care, emergency management, education, law enforcement, community design, and academia. (shrink)

Starting from MacIntyre’s virtue ethics, we investigate several codes of conduct of banks to identify the type of virtues that are needed to realize their mission. Based on this analysis, we define three core virtues: honesty, due care, and accuracy. We compare and contrast these codes of conduct with the actual behavior of banks that led to the credit crisis and find that in some cases banks did not behave according to the moral standards they set themselves. However, although banks (...) and the professionals working in them can be blamed for what they did, one should also acknowledge that the institutional context of the free market economy in which they operated made it difficult to live up to the core values lying at the basis of the codes of conduct. Given the neo-liberal free market system, innovative and risky strategies to enhance profits are considered desirable for the sake of shareholder’s interests. A return to the core virtues in the financial sector will therefore only succeed if a renewed sense of responsibility in the sector is supported by institutional changes that allow banks to put their mission into practice. (shrink)

Only one year after the global wave of protest movements and revolts—starting with the ‘Arab Spring’, then, subsequently, the Indignados movement and Occupy- our appreciation of such movements turned sour. The aim of this contribution is to question the predominantly sceptical and defeatist discourse on these movements. One element central to many defeatist discourses on the 2011 movements, is the way in which a lack of demonstrable ‘outcomes’ or ‘successes’ is retrospectively ascribed to them. Therefore, an alternative approach should be (...) formulated, which would allow us to recognise the significant or valuable aspects of these movements and their practices, without downplaying them as ‘unsuccessful’ or ‘failures’ altogether. Pierre Rosanvallon’s concept of ‘counter-democracy’ and Hardt and Negri’s perspective of a ‘Multitude’ will be evaluated as alternative approaches to current political movements. Although they are meritorious, both perspectives do not go far enough and need further articulation. The notion of ‘prefiguration’, originally derived from contemporary anarchist discourse, could be beneficial to this endeavour. After defining and deepening this concept from an anarchist perspective, it will be applied to one particular context: the occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo, during the 2011 revolution in Egypt. As will be concluded, in its application this concept of ‘prefiguration’ could teach us more about the recent wave of protest movements in general, and could help us to formulate a different approach to such movements. (shrink)

Understanding ownership rights is necessary for socially appropriate behavior. We provide evidence that preschoolers' and adults' judgments of ownership rights are related to their judgments of bodily rights. Four-year-olds and adults evaluated the acceptability of harmless actions targeting owned property and body parts. At both ages, evaluations did not vary for owned property or body parts. Instead, evaluations were influenced by two other manipulations—whether the target belonged to the agent or another person, and whether that other person approved of the (...) action. Moreover, these manipulations influenced judgments for owned objects and body parts in the same way: When the other person approved of the action, participants' judgments were positive regardless of who the target belonged to. In contrast, when that person disapproved, judgments depended on who the target belonged to. These findings show that young children grasp the importance of approval or consent for ownership rights and bodily rights, and likewise suggest that people's notions of ownership rights are related to their appreciation of bodily rights. (shrink)

As humans interact in the world, they often orient one another's attention to objects through the use of spoken demonstrative expressions and head and/or hand movements to point to the objects. Although indicating behaviors have frequently been studied in lab settings, we know surprisingly little about how demonstratives and pointing are used to coordinate attention in large-scale space and in natural contexts. This study investigates how speakers of Quiahije Chatino, an indigenous language of Mexico, use demonstratives and pointing to give (...) directions to named places in large-scale space across multiple scales. The results show that the use and coordination of demonstratives and pointing change as the scale of search space for the target grows. At larger scales, demonstratives and pointing are more likely to occur together, and the two signals appear to manage different aspects of the search for the target: demonstratives orient attention primarily to the gesturing body, while pointing provides cues for narrowing the search space. These findings underscore the distinct contributions of speech and gesture to the linguistic composite, while illustrating the dynamic nature of their interplay.s in Spanish and Quiahije Chatino are provided as appendices.Se incluyen como apéndices resúmenes en español y en el chatino de San Juan Quiahije. SonGktyiCreCinH, ngyaqCskaEktyiCnoEndaHsonBnaFngaJnoIngyaqCloEktyiCreC, ngyaqCranFchaqExlyaKqoEchaqFjnyaJnoAndywiqArenqAKchinAKyqyaC. (shrink)

In latter-day discussions on corporate morality, duties of commission are fiercely debated. Moral institutionalists argue that duties of commission—such as a duty of assistance—overstep the boundaries of moral duty owed by economic agents. " Moral institutionalism" is a newly coined term for a familiar position on market morality. It maintains that market morality ought to be restricted, excluding all duties of commission. Neo-Classical thinkers such as Baumol and Homann defend it most eloquently. They underpin their position with concerns that go (...) to the core of liberalism—the dominant western political theory that sustains the ideals of both the free market and the free, rational person. Those authors claim that liberalism calls for a fully differentiated market because it resents the politicization of the market. Fully differentiated markets exclude duties of commission. They also claim that full differentiation of the market closes the troublesome gap between moral motivation and moral virtue. Full differentiation redeems the promise of "easy virtue". In this paper moral institutionalism will be rejected from a Kantian point of view, mostly inspired by Herman's thesis on the invisibility of morality. Liberalism may perhaps ban the politicization of the market; it does not forbid its moralization. The idea of a fully differentiated market must also be rejected because it is either morally over-demanding (to the morally autonomous person) or morally hazardous (to the person with failing moral motivation). Contrary to what the moral institutionalists claim, right action, morally, is actually quite difficult in fully differentiated markets. (shrink)

This article discusses the moment in which normative ideas about aging and reproductive embodiment became conceptually linked in the mid-nineteenthcentury medicalization of menopause. The reading centers on the first English book-length publication on menopause, written by E. J. Tilt in 1857, and Foucault’s concept of the medical gaze. I analyze mechanisms of observing, conceptualizing, and treating the body in relation to time and discuss their function in affirming and reworking social norms of age and gender. In doing so, I highlight (...) the political work implicit in contesting conceptualizations of female reproductive bodies, their age-specific pathologies, and directives of surveillance employed in discourses surrounding women’s reproductive health. (shrink)

Some philosophers believe that appeals to promoting or maximizing good consequences are a suspect way of attempting to justify coercive interference with another person's actions. Suppose that is true. If there is a presumption that individuals have a right not to be coercively interfered with, then, foregoing utilitarian type appeals, it would seem that the only way to justify coercive interference of a paternalistic sort would be to show that under certain conditions the presumption fails.

Some philosophers believe that appeals to promoting or maximizing good consequences are a suspect way of attempting to justify coercive interference with another person's actions. Suppose that is true. If there is a presumption that individuals have a right not to be coercively interfered with, then, foregoing utilitarian type appeals, it would seem that the only way to justify coercive interference of a paternalistic sort would be to show that under certain conditions the presumption fails.

It often appears that leading politicians in Belgium consider the results of the municipal elections in the light of national polities. They stick to the thesis that the municipal poll-results, at least in the bigger towns, are more and more influenced by the constellation of the nation's politics.Is it really so that the municipal elections indicate the hearings of the national political situation? Can one draw conclusions from the results of these elections as if they were national ones? And can (...) one,any how, compare municipal to parliamentary elections? By comparison of the results of municipal elections 1964 and of parliamentary elections 1965 it was checked which shifts in party-choice havehappened during this short period of eight months. If no oscillations, or only a few, were detected between both elections, one could conclude that the municipal elections 1964 indicated indeed the hearings of the parliamentary elections 1965.Successively, the national and provincial results of these elections were compared and the party-shifts on national and provincial level were calculated.To make a relevant comparison between the election-results on a lower level, a comparable basic unity had to be found. As there were no municipal data available at parliamentary elections on one side, andonly municipal results at the municipal elections on the other side, the least possible unity for which parliamentary election-results are known, the electoral canton namely, was chosen as a comparison-basis. For that purpose however the results per party had to be additioned in all municipalities belonging to one canton.Part of the electoral cantons was unfit for use as comparison-material for two reasons : the highly varied and often strongly local-coloured political party-structure on one hand, the big number of municipalitieswithout elections on the other hand. So we were bound to make a choice out of 212 electoral cantons. Finally the cantons with a maximum of 4 municipalities were chosen, which limited the number of cantons to 28. These cantons were classified by degree of urbanisation according to the typology of W. Van Waelvelde and H. Van der Haegen.In that classification the percentages of votes in favour of the political parties, at the occasion of these elections, were tabulated and compared.The participating parties and lists were grouped as much as possible around the traditional parties to which they were most related. So we distinguish in Flanders : CVP, BSP, PVV, VU, CPB and other parties ;in the Walloon region: PSC, PSB, PLP PCB, French-speaking lists and other parties.For this analysis we also thought it was relevant to control separately the shifts of the electoral corps in the Flemish, the Walloon and the Brussels cantons. These shifts were then specified according to thedegree of urbanisation.To measure the size of the party-shifts for these elections, the external election-shift standard was calculated for the chosen Flemish, Walloon and Brussels cantons, with a special attention for the degree of urbanisation. Finally we examined which attitude was assumed by the government, the governmental and the opposition parties, in relation to the results of the municipal 1964 elections.It appeared that some notable party-shifts had been realized during the short period between the municipal elections of 1964 and the legislative elections of 1965. In general, a certain polarization has taken place due to a centrifugal vote-shift to the left and still more to the right. The direction of vote-shifts, which had shown at the municipal elections of 1964, was affirmed at the legislative elections of 1965 and for some parties, CVP and PVV namely, it was even accentuated. The parallelism between both elections in relation to the direction of the vote-shifts did not mean however that the size of these shifts was the same everywhere. The image of the shifts was different according to linguistic region and degree of urbanisation.The analysis of the urbanisation-degree showed that the level of oscillations grew higher as the urbanisation-degree grew lower. Seen per linguistic region, the largest shifts had taken place in the Walloon cantons. According to the calculations of the electoral shift standards during the period 1964-1965, the lowest oscillations were noted in the Flemish and Brussels cantons, i.e. the voting-behaviour of the big agglomerations during the municipal elections of 1964 were the closest to the national electoral pattern. Seen that way they were, up to a certain degree, a value-measure for the general policy.Finally the remark should be made that the limitation to the two above-mentioned elections does not allow any generalization of the obtained conclusions. The short period between those elections was itself an exceptional situation which may have been of influence on the results of the comparisons. (shrink)