Understanding the social and cultural bases of Brexit*

We use data from a large scale and nationally representative survey to evaluate two narratives about the social bases of Brexit. The first narrative sees Brexit as a revolt of the economically left-behinds. The second narrative attributes Brexit to the resurgence of an English nationalism. There is some, albeit not always consistent, evidence that people in relative poverty or those living in areas that have seen greater Chinese import penetration are slightly more pro-Leave. People living in economically deprived neighborhoods are not more pro-Brexit. Using the Weberian class–status distinction, it is social status, not social class, which stratifies Brexit support. Individuals for whom being British is important are more pro-Leave. But those who see themselves as British rather than English, and those reporting omnivorous cultural consumption are less supportive of Brexit. Overall, there is empirical support for both narratives. But the weight of the evidence suggests a strong cultural dimension in Brexit support.     

Teaching Trump: A Case Study of Two Teachers and the Election of 2016

This case study investigated how two 8th-grade teachers planned for, delivered, and reflected on their teaching of the 2016 Presidential Election. Data sources included classroom observations, teacher interviews, and lesson plans. Despite integrating student-centered lessons about the election with social and political events in US History from1792-1861, one teacher, Ms. Smith, struggled to navigate burgeoning issues that galvanized students. During the six-week unit, both teachers maintained neutral positions on the candidates; however, after the election, Ms. Smith allowed her disdain for Donald Trump to seep into her teaching. Because exigent political events, such as presidential elections, hold great potential to accelerate students' political socialization, more needs to be learned about how teachers do and should manage the teaching of controversial issues in the social classroom.     

The rise of the Latin American far-right explained: dependency theory meets uneven and combined development

ABSTRACT

Latin America is once again passing through a crisis. The so-called ‘pink tide’ of progressive governments gave place to a brown wave of peripheral-fascism. Short-range explanations for the ‘ebbing’ of the pink tide abound in the literature. They focus on the shortcomings of moderate-left administrations, failing to account for the cyclical nature of capitalist crises and for the authoritarian character of the administrations now coming to power. In search of a comprehensive, long-range explanation, this paper goes back to the core question posed by dependency theory half a century ago: is capitalist development even possible in Latin America? The key to answer this question – a concept of development that captures non-converging transformation – was not available to seminal dependency writers such as Frank, Marini, Bambirra and Dos Santos. In this paper, I suggest that the concept of uneven and combined development (UCD) allows for a renewed engagement with dependency's core problem. Conversely, the dependency literature can enrich the analysis of UCD with valuable mid-range concepts, such as ‘super-exploitation’, ‘dominated-dominant’ classes and ‘peripheral fascism’. After establishing the theoretical basis for a political economy of UCD, the paper illustrates the potentialities of this comprehensive theoretical perspective by providing and alternative narrative of the end of the pink tide and the rise of the brown wave in Latin America.     

Upgrading,uneven development,and jobs in the North American apparel industry

In this article we examine the developmental consequences of globalization at multiple scales, using a commodity chains framework to investigate the case of the North American apparel industry. In the first section we outline the apparel commodity chain and offer a brief typology of its lead firms. In the second section we discuss the concept of industrial upgrading and describe several main export roles in the global apparel industry. In the third section we focus on the regional dynamics resulting from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). We contrast the Mexican experience with that of countries in the Caribbean Basin to show the impact of distinct trade policies on export‐oriented development. We argue that NAFTA is creating upgrading opportunities for some Mexican firms to move from the low value‐added export‐oriented assembly (or maquila) model to full‐package production. In the fourth section we explore the unevenness of upgrading dynamics through a comparison of two blue jeans manufacturing clusters in the United States and Mexico: El Paso and Torreon. Our conclusions about upgrading and uneven development in the North American apparel industry emphasize the importance of local, national and regional institutional contexts in shaping inter‐firm networks and their development impact.     

Regulating the new rural spaces: the uneven development of land

With the demise of agricultural productivism, that set of economic and political arrangements which made food production the overriding aim of rural policy, new forms of regulation have come into existence. These are linked to new patterns of development in rural areas which have arisen as economic actors seek to exploit the opportunities presented by the crisis in agriculture. Both development and its regulation have become localised — that is, detached from the national regime associated with productivism. This is leading to increased differentiation. We examine three land development sectors — minerals, farm building conversion and golf — to illustrate how the processes of differentiation are driven by a variety of economic, political and social actors. These are assessed using the notion of ‘arenas of representation’. Two arenas are identified — those of the market and regulation — showing how uneven development of the countryside can be understood as arising from action-in-context. Such differentiation, or the emergence of new rural spaces, is inevitable in the post-productivist era.     

Trump,proto-presidency,and the rise of sane supremacy

This articles opines that America’s far-Left is sowing the seeds of ‘sane supremacy’: first, by unapologetically tarring President Trump as ‘insane’ for political purposes; and, second, legislating for psychiatry to colonize the White House so as to remove Trump on account of his suspected ‘insanity’. This article deploys an anti-sanist lens and uses the notion of ‘prototypicality’ to show how the regressive far-Left portrays Trump as not meeting the ‘normative’, ‘proto-presidential’ standard. Instead of depicting Trump as mentally unfit, we need to focus on his politics and their effects.     

Brexit,Global Cities,and the Future of World Order

The emergence and role of global cities provide a rubric by which we can understand Brexit and illuminate the present tensions between those who favor open economic policies and those who favor closed economic policies. Economic inequality, political disenfranchisement, and social exclusion at the regional level are now driving a fresh interrogation of the relatively open world order that requires global cities—sites densely populated with institutions necessary for orchestrating global economic activity. While questions about the legitimacy of economic openness may undermine the economic output, political power, and cultural influence of global cities, those same cities may, if they harness economic output for broader regional benefits, demonstrate the potential of an alternative and newly legitimate open world order.     

Brexit and the Future of the Left

The referendum on British membership in the European Union divided not only the society in the UK but also the left both in Britain and all over the continent. This division however is produced not so much by this specific debate but by a deeper problem of the left capitulating ideologically and accepting neoliberalism as something objectively inevitable (even without publically recognizing it), replacing class struggle by ‘progressive’ cultural values that themselves form an essential part of the new capitalist hegemony. Leftist intelligentsia with its cultural critique of capitalism is no alternative to the current system, rather it is one of its pillars. While class division was very visible in the Brexit vote, with the working class and poor massively voting for ‘Leave’, most of the left either sided with the establishment or was wavering. Thus the success of the ‘Leave’ vote can be claimed by nationalists. Even after this political disaster instead criticizing itself leftist intelligentsia is blaming the people for being provincial and not accepting their progressive European values. However it was exactly the mass of common people in England who by voting for ‘Leave’ contributed to the formation of the new European agenda. Overcoming and unmaking bureaucratic, authoritarian, and neoliberal EU institutions is the only way to progress towards the making of a new democratic Europe.     

The contradictions of uneven development for states and firms: Capital and state rescaling in peripheral regions

Recent studies suggest that processes of capital and state rescaling are generating new socio-spatial inequalities within nation-states. I explore rescaling in the understudied context of a peripheral region through the case of a global apparel merchant, Lands’ End, and its decision to relocate its call and distribution centers to Dodgeville, Wisconsin. I argue that an empirical exploration of rescaling in peripheral regions demonstrates the need for two revisions to this literature: (1) an extension of the rescaling literature to capture the multi-scalar construction of socio-spatial inequalities and how the interactions between these different scales influence local outcomes; (2) an extension to firms the kind of analysis that scholars have applied to states—that is, we must consider both the rescaling strategies pursued by states and firms, as well as the contradictions both face as a result of new and existing socio-spatial inequalities.     

Gender,poverty, and inequality: a brief history of feminist contributions in the field of international development

This paper provides a brief history of feminist contributions to the analysis of gender, poverty, and inequality in the field of international development. It draws out the continuous threads running through these contributions over the years, as the focus has moved from micro-level analysis to a concern with macro-level forces. It concludes with a brief note on some of the confusions and conflations that continue to bedevil attempts to explore the relationship between gender, poverty, and inequality.     

Pandemic in the Time of Trump: Digital Media Logic and Deadly Politics

This paper examines the power of a mediatized President to use reflexive propaganda—the rules and assumptions of digital media—to define a public health crisis. During the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, President Trump engaged in attention-based politics, or the use of media to draw attention of the largest audience to himself, at the expense of an efficient response to a major public health crisis. The repetitive tweets, with a common form—vulgar and combative language, usually against journalists—converted Donald Trump into a digital meme and enabled the President to dwell on his distorted accomplishments and TV ratings, to downplay health risks, and initially define the lethal virus as a benign hoax.     

The Crisis of Masculinity for Gendered Democracies: Before,During, and After Trump

The mobilized masculinity of democracies today is often presented as either a natural way for men to respond to the economic and political challenges of globalization or as a return to the patriarchal style of politics of the past. This article argues instead for an understanding of liberal democracy itself as gendered, being the collective masculinity of brotherhoods representing rivalrous nations. The first great transition from patriarchies and monarchies to brotherhoods and democracies is not being unmade now but facing a second transition to a different understanding of gender and power. This normative rise of a partnership model in families and politics is incomplete and highly contested everywhere. In the United States, it has become a partisan conflict expressed in gender terms. The Republican defense of the brotherhood state and its exclusive version of national good is countered by a newer but increasingly institutionalized vision of democracies as representing women and men equally. By more explicitly demasculinizing family headship and political leadership, social justice movements and the Democratic Party symbolically resist the restoration of gender norms privileging breadwinners and brotherhoods.     

Hormones and history: the evolution and development of primate female sexuality

Sexual behavior is required for reproduction in internally fertilizing species but poses significant social and physical risks. Females in many nonprimate species have evolved physical and behavioral mechanisms restricting sexual behavior to when females are fertile. The same hormones producing female fertility also control these mechanisms, assuring that sex only occurs when reproduction is possible. In contrast to nonprimate mammals, hormones do not regulate the capacity to engage in sex in female anthropoid primates, uncoupling fertility and the physical capacity to mate. Instead, in primates, sexual motivation has become the primary coordinator between sexual behavior and fertility. This dependence upon psychological mechanisms to coordinate physiology with behavior is possibly unique to primates, including humans, and allows a variety of nonphysiological influences, particularly social context, to regulate sexual behavior. The independence between hormonal state and sexual behavior allows sex to be used for social purposes. This complex regulation of primate sexuality develops during adolescence, where female monkeys show both hormonally influenced sexual motivation and socially modulated sexual behavior. We present findings from rhesus monkeys illustrating how social context and hormonal state interact to modulate adolescent and adult sexuality. It is argued that this flexibility in sexual behavior, combined with a tight regulation of sexual motivational systems by reproductive hormones, allows sexual behavior to be used for nonreproductive purposes while still assuring its occurrence during periods of female fertility. The evolutionary pressures that produced such flexibility in sexual behavior remain puzzling, but may reflect the importance of sexuality to primate social attraction and cohesion.     

Brexit and the Economics of Political Change in Developed Countries

The economic forces underlying Brexit—and the election of Donald Trump in the US—are similar, but they are also well advanced in many European countries, where much of the population faces similar material insecurity and stagnation. These frustrations can easily be channelled by right-wing xenophobic forces. To combat this, the EU needs to undo some of its design flaws and particularly its adherence to fiscal austerity rules. Only a more progressive and more flexible union based on solidarity of peoples is likely to survive.     

Belonging,believing, behaving,and Brexit: Channels of religiosity and religious identity in support for leaving the European Union*

Having an Anglican affiliation is known to be associated with support for leaving the European Union (EU) in Britain. Religiosity, conceived as strength of religious attachment, has received comparatively little treatment. We investigate religiosity via electoral, household, and attitudinal surveys, distinguishing the effects of “behaving” and “believing.” The association between religiosity and EU Referendum vote choice and position is identified before and after inclusion of values, attitudinal, and civic engagement measures. Consistent with established findings, in socio-structural models Anglicans are more likely to support Brexit than religious Nones. More frequent church attendance is associated with being more pro-Remain. The Anglican effect is primarily mediated by anti-immigrant attitudes, authoritarianism, and salience of ethnic identity, suggesting a Christian nationalist aspect to Leave support. The attendance effect is mediated by warmer attitudes toward immigrants, and social capital. Notably, those exhibiting stronger orthodox belief tend to feature a stronger attachment to “Leave,” with this partly mediated by authoritarianism. To evaluate the net effect of religion on civic life, we should pay more attention to the cultural content of religious beliefs, and how they structure other values and attitudes.     

Trump and the legacy of a menacing past

The inability to learn from the past takes on a new meaning as a growing number of authoritarian regimes emerge across the globe. This essay argues that central to understanding the rise of a fascist politics in the United States is the necessity to address the power of language and the intersection of the social media and the public spectacle as central elements in the rise of a formative culture that produces the ideologies and agents necessary for an American-style fascism. In this project, education is central to politics, which demands understanding and critically interrogating, in particular, the role of the conservative media in suppressing history, normalizing a discourse of racial hatred, and advancing the most poisonous elements of neoliberalism. The essay calls for a comprehensive notion of politics and education that draws from history, imagines a present that does not imitate the future, and employs a language of critique and hope in the service of building a new broad-based political formation. If fascism begins with language so does the possibility of a radical social imaginary in which to envision a democratic socialist order that both challenges the menacing momentum of a fascist politics and the savagery of neoliberal capitalism.     

Demography,population growth,and population policy in China: a brief history from 1940 to the present

For some 3 decades after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Chinese studies have had to life with the paradoxical situation in which the abundance of population on the mainland, ever increasing in number predictably and inexorably, was couples with a scarcity of data about the nature and patterns of demographic change, ever harder to come by. As increasing amounts of new demographic data from China, sometimes produced jointly between Chinese and foreign researchers, become available, it is clear that previous methods, technics, and styles of analyses habituated by 3 decades of minimal data from China will become inadequate and obsolete. In 1957 Ma Yinchu put forth 3 main proposals for population control: 1) to conduct another national census to gain more demographic statistics, 2) to advocate widespread public education to inform people of the importance and practical knowledge of birth control combined with propaganda on the disadvantages of early marriages and the benefits of late marriage, and 3) family planning, by popular use of contraception, is the most effective method for population control. It is argued that 1) the years 1950-1958 consisted of a period of fermentation and preparation, 2) the post-leap years, 1959-1965, constituted a period of trial implementation of emerging policies, 3) 1966-1971 was an uncontrolled period, and 4) only the years after 1971 may be viewed as a period during which serious implementation took place. Overall, the selections in this volume are intended to inform both China scholars and social scientists interested in recent developments in Chinese population studies.