Publications

Civic Participation in Wales, in place and overtime is part of the Locality, Community and Civil Society theme within the WISERD Civil Society Centre. This podcast gives a brief overview of this project.

Alain Touraine’s distinctive contributions to sociology include his sociological theory of action, the method of ‘sociological intervention’ in the study of social movements, and his critique of modernity which offers a ‘post-social’ approach to contemporary societies. This article explains the key stages of Touraine’s work in the context of post-war social theory in France. It…

This paper explores the ways in which managers of organizations delivering services to the public in Wales talk about and conceptualize the publics using these services. Topics covered in interviews with these stakeholders include: local democracy; responsibility; behavioural shifts; citizen participation; local specificities; responses to devolution. The themes are analysed in the context of neoliberal…

Using data from the educationally mobile (EM) ‘sensitised group’ interviews1 this chapter responds to the question: do experiences of European educational exchange programmes or study abroad make the participants more ‘European’? The biographical approach allows experiences of international educational mobility to be interpreted within the life course as a whole and is designed to reveal…

How far have social theorists in Russia engaged with the international academic world since the era dominated by Soviet-style historical materialism? Mainstream theories in sociology and ‘culturology’ use new vocabulary but remain loyal to ideological interpretations of society and culture. A minority of Russian sociologists have translated, adopted and critiqued Western ideas. Works by three…

Research into ethnic minorities in Wales has gathered pace in recent years. Yet little is known about Wales’ largest ethnic group, the English, although the Welsh–English boundary remains the main marker of ethnic distinction, and migration into Wales from England represents a continuing challenge to the maintenance of distinctive ‘Welshness’ – including Welsh language and…

This article is based on an empirical baseline study undertaken in 2005 which examined the experience of ‘the English’ who have moved and settled into north-west Wales. The movement of the British/white groups and their experiences have been less of a subject for examination and yet a dispersal of ‘the English’/British as both immigrants and…

Both Hayek and Lazarsfeld were path-breaking scholars who contributed greatly to the development of their respective disciplines, yet the disciplinary sub-fields they founded faced contrasting receptions at their point of origin in Austria. Our argument here has been that new ideas need structural, political and individual support to gain ground and leave a mark.