Brexit,the 2019 General Election and the Realignment of British Politics

The outcome of the 2019 general election—a resounding Conservative majority and an unprecedented defeat for Labour—delivered a decisive electoral verdict for the first time in recent years following a period where British politics has been characterised by instability and indecision. In this article, we draw on aggregate-level data to conduct an initial exploration of the vote. What was the impact of Brexit on the 2019 general election result? How far has Brexit reshaped electoral politics? Was 2019 a ‘realignment election’? And, if so, what are the implications? With a focus on England and Wales we show that, although the Conservatives made gains deep into Labour’s working class heartlands, these gains have been a long time coming, reflected in Labour’s weakening relationship with working class Britain. As such, 2019 is not a critical election but a continuation of longer-term trends of dealignment and realignment in British politics.     

Identity Profiles in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youth: The Role of Family Influences

Sexual identity development is a central task of adolescence and young adulthood and can be especially challenging for sexual minority youth. Recent research has moved from a stage model of identity development in lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) youth to examining identity in a non-linear, multidimensional manner. In addition, although families have been identified as important to youth’s identity development, limited research has examined the influence of parental responses to youth’s disclosure of their LGB sexual orientation on LGB identity. The current study examined a multidimensional model of LGB identity and its links with parental support and rejection. One hundred and sixty-nine LGB adolescents and young adults (ages 14–24, 56 % male, 48 % gay, 31 % lesbian, 21 % bisexual) described themselves on dimensions of LGB identity and reported on parental rejection, sexuality-specific social support, and non-sexuality-specific social support. Using latent profile analysis (LPA), two profiles were identified, indicating that youth experience both affirmed and struggling identities. Results indicated that parental rejection and sexuality-specific social support from families were salient links to LGB identity profile classification, while non-sexuality specific social support was unrelated. Parental rejection and sexuality-specific social support may be important to target in interventions for families to foster affirmed LGB identity development in youth.     

Caregiver and Youth Agreement Regarding Youths’ Trauma Histories: Implications for Youths’ Functioning After Exposure to Trauma

Epidemiological research has demonstrated that youth are exposed to potentially traumatic events at high rates. Caregivers play an important role in youths’ successful recovery following exposures to potentially traumatic events. However, past research has documented poor caregiver–youth agreement regarding youths’ exposures to potentially traumatic events, indicating a potential lack of support for many youth exposed to such events. This study examined caregiver–youth discrepancies in the reports of youths’ lifetime exposures to potentially traumatic events, and the relationship between these reporting discrepancies and youths’ post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, mood symptoms, and functional impairment following disclosures of sexual abuse. Participants included 114 caregiver–youth dyads participating in a family-based intervention at four Child Advocacy Centers in New York City. Standardized measures of trauma history, youth PTSD symptoms, youth mood symptoms, youth functional impairment, and caregiver PTSD symptoms were given in interview format to caregivers and youth at the time of intake into the intervention. The demographic composition of the youth sample was 86.8 % female, 13.2 % male, 32.5 % African American, 54.4 % Latino/a, 2.6 % Caucasian, 0.9 % Asian American, 8.8 % other race/ethnicity. Youth ranged in age from 7 to 16. Results demonstrated poor agreement between youth and caregivers regarding youths’ exposure to a range of potentially traumatic events and regarding youths’ PTSD symptoms, mood symptoms and functional impairment. Both caregiver–youth discrepancies regarding youths’ histories of exposures to potentially traumatic events and caregiver PTSD symptoms were significantly associated with youths’ self-reported symptoms and functional impairment. Only caregiver PTSD symptoms were related to caregivers’ reports of youths’ symptoms and functional impairment. Findings underscore the importance of family support and communication regarding exposures to potentially traumatic events and the detrimental associations of caregiver–youth disagreement about youths’ exposures to potentially traumatic events. Recommendations are provided for the assessment and treatment of families presenting in the aftermath of traumatic exposures.     

Biotechnology and bio-hegemony in Uganda: unraveling the social relations underpinning the promotion of genetically modified crops into new African markets

This paper aims to uncover the social relations used to promote genetically modified (GM) crops into new African markets. It unravels the network of corporate actors, development agencies, policy officials, and research scientists that support the unquestioned dominance of GM in Uganda, which houses one of the largest experimental program dedicated to agricultural biotechnology on the continent. Gramscian insights reveal how these constellations of power align to support biotechnology at the expense of other technological possibilities, and how this consensus maintains its position of dominance while remaining largely unquestioned and unchallenged.     

Book reviews

The following books are reviewed.

Men of letters, writing lives: masculinity and literary auto/biography in the late victorian period TREV LYNN BROUGHTON, 1999 London: Routledge. 213 pp., ISBN 0 415 08211 0 hardback, £60.00 0 415 08212 9 paperback, £19.99

Adapting to Capitalism: working women in the English economy, 1700–1850 PAMELA SHARPE, 1996, 2000 London: Macmillan. xi + 226 pp., ISBN 0 333 91901 7

Women, Gender and Industrialisation in England, 1700–1870 KATRINA HONEYMAN, 2000 London: Macmillan. vii + 204 pp., £15.50

Breadwinning: New Zealand women and the state MELANIE NOLAN, 2000 Christchurch: Canterbury University Press. 386 pp., ISBN 0 908812 97 3, NZ$39.95

Working-class Culture, Women and Britain, 1914–1921 CLAIRE A. CULLERTON, 2000 London: Macmillan. xii + 221 pp., ISBN 0 333 91290 X

Austerity in Britain: rationing, controls, and consumption 1939–1955 INA ZWEINIGER-BARGIELOWSKA, 2000 Oxford: Oxford University Press. xiii + 286 pp., ISBN 0 19 820453 1, £40.00

Seeing History: public history in Britain now HILDA KEAN, PAUL MARTIN, SALLY J. MORGAN (Eds), 2000 London: Francis Boutle. 193 pp., ISBN 0 9532388 9 X, paperback, £10.00

Migrant Daughter: coming of age as a Mexican American woman FRANCES ESQUIBEL TYWONIAK & MARIO T. GARCIA, 2000 Berkeley: University of California Press. 237 pp., ISBN 0 526 21915 5

The Matriarchs of England's Co-operative Movement: a study in gender politics and female leadership, 1883–1921 BARBARA J. BLASZAK, 2000 London, Greenwood Press. ix + 209 pp., ISBN 0 313 30995 7

Dirt and Desire: reconstructing Southern women's writing, 1930–1990 PAULINE YAEGER, 2000 Chicago: University of Chicago Press. xvii+324 pp., ISBN 0 226 94491 3 paperback, £12.53     

Sixth form girls and bisexual burden

Much of the literature concerning sexual minorities describes various forms of social mistreatment, alongside the psychological ill effects of minority stress. However, bisexual individuals are often described as having additional burdens compared with other sexual minorities. We conceptualise the collective of these social problems as ‘bisexual burden’, and examine for it through the lived experiences of 15 openly bisexual girls (aged 16–17) from sixth form colleges throughout the UK. We show that, among this cohort, decreasing cultural stigma attached to sexual minorities results in participants being more accepted by their heterosexual and gay peers, compared to previous literature, mostly without the negative components of bisexual burden. We find that when mistreatment does occur, it does so immediately after she comes out; however, this diminishes quickly due to the cultural unacceptability of homo/biphobia in these settings.     

The determinants of voluntary judicial resignation in Australia,Canada, and New Zealand

This article compares supreme and high court judicial turnover with respect to voluntary exits and retirements in three Westminster parliamentary democracies, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, for the period 1970–2012. The findings of an event history model indicate that judges who author large numbers of opinions in a given year are likely to stay longer, while those who dissent from their colleagues frequently are more likely to exit early. It was also found that judges are more likely to resign if the party that appointed them was expected to lose government.     

State and Local Government Procurement and the Winter Commission

The Winter Commission proposed a state and local government procurement reform agenda that placed public managers at the core of a depoliticized, deregulated, and more pragmatic public sector contracting process. Drawing on the literature and data from several state and local government surveys, this article shows that between 1992 and 2003, state and local governments’ contracting practices moved in directions consistent with the commission’s reform agenda. By 2003, state and local governments had decentralized and deregulated their contracting processes, were contracting more effectively and in circumstances in which it is more likely to be successful, and had adopted several innovative technologies and management practices.     

Infrastructure and the Vision Thing

Australia faces a transport infrastructure problem requiring complex policy formulation and imaginative problem solving. In opposition, Kevin Rudd committed to improving the nation's infrastructure and addressing the ‘infrastructure bottlenecks’. This task is made more urgent by the Reserve Bank's concern that the infrastructure restraints are causing inflationary pressure. In the short term however, increased Commonwealth infrastructure expenditure would add to the pressure on interest rates. Consequently, the Commonwealth must work with industry and the states on improving operational efficiency in the short term, while planning for infrastructure investments in the longer term. With the political limitations of federalism, a shortage of skilled policy advice, and ministerial inexperience, the Rudd government must set a broad agenda to guide all infrastructure stakeholders.     

The Disruptive and Transformative Potential of Hypertext in the Classroom: Implications for Active Learning

This article describes a further extension of a strategy to move from a teacher-oriented to a student-oriented learning environment through the use of 'collaborative hypertext.' Students were trained in the use of MidasWeb, a Web-based environment for the organization, storage, and retrieval of hypertext documents and images. Over the course of the term students worked in teams to construct their MidasWeb sites by developing the underlying conceptual frameworks for their subject areas and uploading documents. The results of questionnaire surveys of the students suggest that the MidasWeb exercise did achieve our objective of disrupting the traditional relationship between teacher and student to create a more student-centered environment. The more students became involved in the exercise the more they felt empowered with respect to the subject matter of the course and took responsibility for deriving meaning from the information they had obtained. In addition, the experience encouraged them to think about the subject matter across interdisciplinary lines. Because the MidasWeb exercise was structured as a group activity, the effectiveness of the team coordinators had an impact on the success of the teams as well as the nature of the learning experience of the individuals involved. Although the MidasWeb exercise was a successful application of digital technology to classroom learning, it was not a resounding success, because the impact on the students in the course was not uniform. While a substantial majority of them found MidasWeb to be very involving and moved toward student-centered learning, approximately one third of them, especially students who were uncomfortable with computer technology, did not benefit fully from the exercise. This suggests that in the future more time should be spent on training, and that MidasWeb needs to be made more user friendly for unsophisticated users.