Suchergebnisse

AbstractPopular interpretations of national identity often focus on the unifying qualities of nationhood. However, societies frequently draw hierarchical distinctions between the people and places who are 'most national', and those who are 'least national'. Little attention is paid to these marginal places within the nation and the experiences of their inhabitants. This article helps to address this by analysing the 'less Welsh' British Wales region of Wales, a country that has traditionally possessed a hierarchical, regionally constituted nationhood. The article studies the British Wales region both 'from above' – considering how some areas develop as 'less national' – and 'from below', introducing empirical ethnographic work into 'everyday Welshness' in this area. Whilst previous work on hierarchical nationhood focuses on how hierarchies are institutionalized by the state, this article demonstrates how people at the margins of the nation actively negotiate their place in the nation. Whilst people in this area expressed a strong Welshness, they also struggled to place themselves in the nation because they had internalized their lowly place within the national hierarchy. The article demonstrates the importance of place and social class for national identity construction and draws attention to the role of power in the discursive construction of hierarchical nationhood.

Welsh devolution has not been adequately theorised. Following the narrow vote for Welsh devolution in 1997, many academics in Wales adopted a nakedly 'celebratory', uncritical view of devolution as a radical change to the British state, taking at face value the claim that it was designed to rejuvenate Welsh democracy. The power relations inherent to the transformation of the British state are rarely discussed in Wales. As a consequence, the developments which have occurred in Wales since devolution – political disengagement, the rise of the far right, the vote for Brexit – seem hard to grasp: it is simply presumed that something has 'gone wrong' with the application of devolution. This dominant way of thinking assumes that devolution was designed to 'work'. Using Gramsci's concept of passive revolution, this article argues that devolution to Wales (and Scotland) was a central plank of New Labour's transformation of both the Labour Party and the British state. Building on a reading of the post-war British state as a historic bloc, I draw attention to the power relations inherent in Welsh devolution and the 'top down' nature of the process, which was led by the Labour party in order to preserve its hegemony in Wales and the United Kingdom as a whole. After outlining the political struggles and strategies of transformismo which occurred within the process of passive revolution, where hegemony is temporarily 'thinned', I contend that contemporary Wales represents a period of interregnum, where the old world (the traditional centralised British state) has died, but a new Welsh state cannot be born. As Gramsci predicted, this has led to the emergence of a host of 'morbid symptoms' in Wales. I conclude by reflecting on the nature of the interregnum and whether 'restoration' or 'revolution' is likely to triumph in Wales.

This study investigated the influence of three variables on current political attitudes of secondary school adolescents at two suburban-rural high schools in the northern Virginia area. Ability, grade level, and sex were examined to determine their influence on attitude measures essential to the develonent of citizenship within the social studies curriculum. The Freedans Scale, Law Scale and Dogmatism Field Scale were administered to a random sample of 180 ninth and twelfth grade adolescents which was equally divided between male and female subjects. The sample was further divided by ability levels (low, average, and high) which were selected by SRA subtest scores in reading, math, language arts, and educational ability. Significant findings were discerned using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), and chi-square analysis. Group and individual differences were examined for each of the independent variables studied as they affected the dependent measures of political attitudes. One three-way and three two-way interactions were tested using the MANOVA. Only one interaction (ability by grade) was significant at the .05 level on the Dogmatism Scale. It was concluded that an increase in grade and ability levels effect lower scores on the Dogmatism Field Scale. Lower dogmatism scores effect an increase in support for the fundamental freedoms embodied in the Freedoms Scale. Sex, as a variable, was the only main effect that did not interact with ability level or grade. The mean scores of the females in the study were slightly higher than the mean scores of the males on both the Freedoms Scale and the Law Scale. These results indicated a greater support for the fundamental freedoms embodied in the Freedoms Scale and a greater respect for the law and government officials for females over males. Separate chi-square analysis of the individual responses to the questions on the Freedoms Scale and the Iaw Scale indicated a total of 21 items from the scales significantly related to ability and 17 items significantly related to grade or sex. No identifiable pattern was discernable which could be generalized into a group description of adolescent support or non-support for combinations of the various items. Curricular approaches were suggested to improve citizenship instruction in the area of political socialization and recommendations were made for future research. ; Ed. D.

We set up an experiment to measure voter preferences trade-offs between competence and honesty. We measure the competence and honesty of candidates by asking them to work on a real effort task and decide whether to report truthfully or not the value of their work. In the first stage, the earnings are the result of the competence and honesty of one randomly selected participant. In the second stage, subjects can select who will determine their earnings based on the fi rst stage's competence and honesty of the alternative candidates. We find that most voters tend to have a bias towards caring about honesty even when this results in lower payoffs.

We set up an experiment to measure voter preferences trade-offs between competence and honesty. We measure the competence and honesty of candidates by asking them to work on a real effort task and decide whether to report truthfully or not the value of their work. In the first stage, the earnings are the result of the competence and honesty of one randomly selected participant. In the second stage, subjects can select who will determine their earnings based on the fi rst stage's competence and honesty of the alternative candidates. We find that most voters tend to have a bias towards caring about honesty even when this results in lower payoffs.

We set up an experiment to measure voter preferences trade-offs between competence and honesty. We measure the competence and honesty of candidates by asking them to work on a real effort task and decide whether to report truthfully or not the value of their work. In the first stage, the earnings are the result of the competence and honesty of one randomly selected participant. In the second stage, subjects can select who will determine their earnings based on the fi rst stage's competence and honesty of the alternative candidates. We find that most voters tend to have a bias towards caring about honesty even when this results in lower payoffs.