While social vulnerability in the face of disasters has received increasing academic attention, relatively little is known about the extent to which that knowledge is reflected in practice by institutions involved in disaster management. This study charts the practitioners' approaches to disaster vulnerability in eight European countries: Belgium; Estonia; Finland; Germany; Hungary; Italy; Norway; and Sweden. It draws on a comparative document analysis and 95 interviews with disaster managers and reveals significant differences across countries in terms of the ontology of vulnerability, its sources, reduction strategies, and the allocation of related duties. To advance the debate and provide conceptual clarity, we put forward a heuristic model to facilitate different understandings of vulnerability along the dimensions of human agency and technological structures as well as social support through private relations and state actors. This could guide risk analysis of and planning for major hazards and could be adapted further to particular types of disasters.

No abstract

In this article, we examine the reconstruction and commodification of the national space through digital technologies by using the case of Estonian e-residency. E-residency or ‘virtual residency’ is an initiative of the Estonian government which gives foreigners global access to Estonian e-services via state-issued digital identity. We explore the ways in which the ideas of the ‘virtual state’ and ‘virtual residency’ have been employed for purposes of nation branding and national reputation management, and how the different logics of nation branding and nation building combined in the concept of e-residency have been negotiated in the national context. The study draws on a qualitative textual analysis of the official website of e-residency directed at foreign audiences and the national media coverage of the project addressing domestic publics. The analysis indicates that while the imagery constructed around the notions of the ‘virtual state’ and ‘virtual residency’ makes it possible to turn the national space into a commodity, presented outwards as a globally extensible and open transnational space, domestically it makes it possible to appeal to ‘intact national space’ and to legitimise e-residency as a ‘socio-culturally safe’, digitally mediated internationalisation of the society. This article forms part of the Theorizing Media in Nation Branding Special Issue.

This study explores how government-supported digital ID systems evoke novel conceptions of platform-based state-individual relationship by drawing on the concept of platformization and Estonian e-residency as the empirical case. E-residency is a policy concept introduced by the Estonian government, which allows foreigners to apply for a state-issued digital ID in order to gain remote access to Estonian public and private e-services. Based on qualitative interviews with individuals having an e-resident digi-ID, we examine the ways in which they construe e-residency from the perspective of stateindividual relationship. Our findings indicate that apart from a transactional service-based relationship, being an e-resident can also imply a sense of membership in the state and thus serve as a basis for transnational belonging. Hence, the digital state is not only perceived as a platform manager and a service provider, but also as a membership organisation enacting its rules of inclusion through its digital ID schemes.

This paper examines the construction of public images of new genetics and gene technology in the media by focusing on the example of the Estonian Genome Project. Being one of the few countries where such a large-scale population based genome bank is being established, Estonia serves as a particular case for investigating public representation and reception of gene technology. Of special interest are the discursive strategies of framing and argumentation applied by different social groups for justifying and legitimating, as well as criticising and challenging the implementation of the genome bank. As the study suggests, the domestic public discourse on the genome project has to a great extent been influenced by modernist ethos, regarding scientific and technological development inevitable and progressive. Yet it will be argued that the significance attributed to the genome bank in public extends beyond medical and scientific domain, being introduced by its initiators and proponents as a joint national venture contributing to the country's further development and its worldwide reputation as an innovative and high-technological small state. However, while focusing primarily on the advantages arising from the project, the domestic media coverage has provided little critical reflection about the broader social and ethical implications of gene technology and human gene databases.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract