National Identity or National Interest? Scottish,English and Welsh Attitudes to the Constitutional Debate

This article analyses political attitudes to the union in England, Scotland and Wales after the Scottish independence referendum. Using public opinion data, we explore constitutional preferences and perceptions of national grievance, before examining the role that national identity plays in structuring preferences. Our evidence shows that considerable demand exists for nationally demarcated forms of government within the UK, although these constitutional preferences do not translate in support for policy diversity across the UK. We also find evidence that these constitutional preferences relate closely to national identity, but relate also to appeals to national interest.     

England,Englishness and Brexit

In the 1975 referendum England provided the strongest support for European integration, with a much smaller margin for membership in Scotland and Northern Ireland. By 2015 the rank order of ‘national’ attitudes to European integration had reversed. Now, England is the UK's most eurosceptic nation and may vote ‘Leave’, while Scotland seems set to generate a clear margin for ‘Remain’. The UK as a whole is a Brexit marginal. To understand the campaign, we need to make sense of the dynamics of public attitudes in each nation. We take an ‘archaeological’ approach to a limited evidence‐base, to trace the development of attitudes to Europe in England since 1975. We find evidence of a link between English nationalism and euroscepticism. Whatever the result in 2016, contrasting outcomes in England and Scotland will exacerbate tensions in the UK's territorial constitution and could lead to the break‐up of Britain.     

Mandated Community Service in High School and Subsequent Civic Engagement: The Case of the “Double Cohort” in Ontario,Canada

In 1999, the Ontario provincial government introduced into its high school curriculum a requirement that students complete 40 h of volunteer community service before graduation. At the same time, the high school curriculum was shortened from five years to four. Consequently, the 2003 graduating class of Ontario high school students contained two cohorts, the first of the 4-year cohorts that was compelled to complete a mandated community service requirement, and the last of the 5-year cohorts that was not. Using a quasi-experimental design, we surveyed 1768 first-year university students in terms of their perceptions and attitudes about the nature and amount of previous volunteering, attitudes towards community service, current service involvement and other measures of civic and political engagement. Comparisons of the two cohorts indicate that, while there were discernible differences between the two cohorts in terms of their past record of community service, there were no differences in current attitudes and civic engagement that might plausibly be attributed to participation in the mandatory service program. Results are discussed with relation to the current debate concerning the impact of mandatory volunteering policies on intrinsic motivation to volunteer.

Risk Attitudes and Independence Vote Choice

In this article, we examine the impact of risk attitudes on vote choice in the context of a salient referendum with high levels of uncertainty about the consequences of the ballot proposal. Using data from a pre- and post-referendum panel survey conducted in the context of the 2014 independence referendum in Scotland, and a specific battery to measure attitudes to risk, we determine how these attitudes operate in such political contexts. We reach two main conclusions. First, risk attitudes have a direct effect on vote choice, even after controlling for alternative explanations of vote choice such as party identification and leaders’ evaluations. In the aggregate, the effect of risk attitudes on the vote choice contributes to the status quo bias found in referendums. Second, we find that information moderates the effect of risk attitudes on vote choice. Voters who are politically knowledgeable have a greater capacity to predict the consequences of political outcomes and, therefore, they are less affected by their risk attitudes when making their ballot choices.

     

Contextual information renders experts vulnerable to making erroneous identifications

We investigated whether experts can objectively focus on feature information in fingerprints without being misled by extraneous information, such as context. We took fingerprints that have previously been examined and assessed by latent print experts to make positive identification of suspects. Then we presented these same fingerprints again, to the same experts, but gave a context that suggested that they were a no-match, and hence the suspects could not be identified. Within this new context, most of the fingerprint experts made different judgements, thus contradicting their own previous identification decisions. Cognitive aspects involved in biometric identification can explain why experts are vulnerable to make erroneous identifications.     

Multi-level voting and party competition in vertically simultaneous elections: the case of Ukraine

Vertically simultaneous elections to state-wide and regional legislatures provide us with a naturally occurring experiment in which to examine regionalism and multi-level voting. We examine the 2006 vertically and horizontally simultaneous state-wide and regional elections in Ukraine to determine how the internal dynamics of regionalism within a state account for the dissimilarity of voting behavior across electoral levels. Drawing on the party competition literature, we demonstrate that variations in both supply (parties) and demand (voters) produce considerable dissimilarity between regional and state results, with lower levels of consolidation and greater fractionalization at the regional level. We show that political cleavages operate differently across levels, that regional distinctiveness rather than regional authority better predicts first order-ness in regional elections, and that voters display varying tolerance for polarization at the regional and state level.     

Forging a new political culture: Plenary behaviour in the scottish parliament

Part of the appeal of creating a new Scottish Parliament lay in the ability of legislators to re-define the institutional culture of politics. For advocates of change, the Westminster system, with its emphasis on adversarial and male-dominated politics, turned citizens off politics. Devolution advocates argued that a Scottish Parliament, composed of a new type of politician and operating according to modernised rules, would better serve the public. The four principles of the Consultative Steering Group report included among them references to a more open and accessible political system. The 1999 elections introduced a number of new faces but among the 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) are a number of sitting and former local councillors, Members of Parliament and party workers. This article examines these individuals and their behaviour in the first year of plenary debates to determine whether the social characteristics of these MSPs, their gender, their partisan ties or their previous political experiences affects the likelihood of a new model of political debate. It argues that initially the political experience of MSPs affected their levels of participation but that increasingly, position within the Parliament exerts a greater influence. Some social characteristics such as gender, however, continue to influence the extent and manner of participation.     

What Have We Done Wrong? The Responsibilities of the Rich

This paper surveys hostile reactions to claims that the 11 September attacks were understandable in terms of the actions of the west towards poor parts of the world and the rich countries' own public commitments to democracy and affluence at home. The paper argues that domestic resentment is likely to continue to foment because concerted institution-building commensurate with the rich countries' material capacities has been neglected. Much responsibility for the global discontent can be attributed to policies advocated by the west and imposed on both rich and poor countries alike by policy-elites within the rich countries. Intellectuals have a role in re-activating the sorts of high-minded state-building and policymaking capacities that preoccupied them in the immediate post-1945 period.     

One hundred years of women in universities — A confidence trick?

Gabrielle Baldwin, Women at Monash (Monash University) Clayton, Victoria, 1985; Bettina Cass, Madge Dawson, Diana Temple, Sue Willis, Anne Winkler, Why So Few? Women Academics in Australian Universities (Sydney University Press) Sydney, 1983; Madge Dawson and Heather Radi (eds), Against the Odds. Fifteen professional women reflect on their lives and careers (Hale & Iremonger) Sydney, 1984; Patricia Grimshaw and Lynne Strahan (eds), The Half Open Door. Sixteen modern Australian women look at professional life and achievements (Hale & Iremonger) Sydney, 1982; Farley Kelly, Degrees of Liberation. A short history of women in the University of Melbourne, Women Graduates’ Centenary Committee of the University of Melbourne, 1985; Alison Mackinnon, The New Women. Adelaide's early women graduates, Wakefield Press in association with the University of Adelaide Foundation, 1986.