O,The Roast Beef of Old England! Brexit and Gastronationalism

‘Gastronationalism’ is the idea that there are distinctive and authentic national food cultures that are threatened by the forces of globalisation. It is a myth: there are no unique or authentically distinctive national culinary cultures. But the idea of gastronationalism is a powerful one that can have important political effects, as Brexit shows. In this article, I chart the rise of British food with regard to Britain’s historical relationship with Europe and the EU. I consider how different understandings of British food culture—one more nativist, one more cosmopolitan—have played a symbolic role in the debate on Brexit, before considering the broader relationship between contemporary populist nationalism and gastronationalism.     

The Feminisation of the Conservative Parliamentary Party: Party Members' Attitudes

Under David Cameron's leadership reforms have been made to the Conservative party's parliamentary selection procedures and distinct women's policy initiatives have been developed. This article, based on focus group data with party members, explores attitudes towards measures designed to recruit more women Conservative MPs. Broadly, we find that, despite widespread support for the principle of greater social diversity among PPCs, members are uncomfortable with the specific measures that have been introduced. This is largely on the grounds that anything approaching 'positive discrimination' should be eschewed in favour of the 'meritocratic' selection of candidates. Further, the members tend to resent central party 'interference' in what has traditionally been the domain of local Constituency Associations.     

The Attitudes of the Chinese Middle Class Towards Democracy

Little has been done to quantitatively establish the connection between the middle class and a specific regime type. In an effort to fill in the gap, this study uses Asian Barometer survey dataset to examine the attitudes and orientation of China’s rising middle class. We find that the Chinese middle class does show higher democratic orientation than those we categorize as lower class, but only if class is defined by occupation or by self-identification, and not by income level. We interpret this result to mean that economic development offers new life experiences with the creation of new types of professions and enhances people’s agreement with modern democratic values by arousing people’s consciousness of their new social class status.

差异性教学在中学语文教学中的应用

在中学语文教学中,学生由于学习基础以及学习态度、学习能力等因素的制约,表现出较为明显的差异性。教师应该优化教学手段,运用差异性教学模式,使处于不同学习水平的学生的语文素养都可以得到巩固与提升。差异性教学在中学语文教学中的应用如下:构建有差异性的教学目标;实施有差异性的教学方法;制定有差异性的作业设计。     

The Strange Career of British Democracy: John Milton to Gordon Brown

Political debate in modern Britain has been structured by four narratives or traditions, called here ‘Whig imperialist’, ‘Tory nationalist’, ‘democratic collectivist’ and ‘democratic republican’. The Whig imperialist tradition goes back to Edmund Burke; it is a tradition of responsive evolution, flexible statecraft, genial optimism and abhorrence of dogmatic absolutes. It prevailed for most of the nineteenth century, for most of the interwar period and for most of the 1950s and early‐1960s. Its Tory nationalist counterpart is tense, rebarbative and often shrill. At its core lies a primal fear of the dissolution of authority and a collapse of the social order. Its most notable exponents include Lord Salisbury, Enoch Powell and Margaret Thatcher. The democratic collectivist tradition stresses ineluctable progress towards a just and rational society, to be achieved by a strong, essentially technocratic central state, with the power and will to replace the wasteful, unjust chaos of the market place by planned co‐ordination. Formative influences on it were the great Fabian socialists, George Bernard Shaw and Sidney and Beatrice Webb; it achieved its apotheosis under the Attlee Government of 1945‐51. The democratic republican tradition is much more inchoate: its exponents have been the awkward squad of British democracy. The most glittering stars in the democratic republican firmament were probably John Milton, John Stuart Mill and R.H. Tawney. It stresses active self‐government and republican self respect, embodied in a vigorous civil society and strong local authorities. During the ninety‐odd years since Britain belatedly acquired a more‐or‐less democratic suffrage, the first three traditions have all been tested, almost to destruction. But though the fourth has had great influence on social movements of all kinds, governments at the centre have done little more than toy with it, usually for brief periods. The great question now is whether Britain is about to experience a democratic republican moment.