Publications

The UK has traditionally been viewed as a classic example of a unitary state in which central institutions dominate decision making. The recent Labour Government sought to counter this convention through devolution to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London and administrative decentralization to the English regions. This article examines New Labours efforts to promote sub-national…

The differentiation of rural development in eastern coastal China has been exaggerated by the rapid rural restructuring under globalization, since economic reforms and an open-door policy were initiated in 1978. The problems associated with rural restructuring in China may in part be addressed by drawing on experiences and achievements from other countries, including Britain, which…

This article deals with issues relating to trade union density and the fact that while over the past 30 years, union densities have followed a declining path in all regions, this retreat was not uniform across space. Analysis of the Labour Force Survey reveals that Wales exhibits among the highest levels of union density in…

Education and skill are increasingly used by states around the world as a central organizing principle in the regulation of migration flows. Immigration theorists have often claimed that use of education and skill to determine “who should get in” to a country is non-discriminatory, innocent and legitimate. Using the example of Canadian immigration policy, this…

Paul Peterson’s (1981) City Limits was to become one of several landmark publications in the study of urban politics during the 1980s and 1990s. It pioneered the argument that, amid the unravelling of the 1960s Great Society welfare accord and associated War on Poverty1 and now confronting the deindustrialisation of their maturing economies and the…

British Politics 6(3) pp 379-396 On the basis of extensive new empirical evidence, this article offers an assessment of how post-devolution Wales has determined the strategies employed in attempts to engage with, and influence, EU policy-making processes. The primary focus of the article is on domestic political capacity construction, rather than specifically about the impact…

This article considers Goffmans conceptualization of interaction order at the margins of society in encounters between urban welfare workers and their clients. Observations from these encounters demonstrate practices relating to the situated management of stigma and identity, and the accomplishment of role within these service encounters. A reading of Goffmans theoretical contribution lies in revealing…

The paper reviews public discourses and research on the safeguarding of other people’s children by adults at the neighbourhood level. There is much empirical evidence pointing to the existence of thriving informal communities of support and informal childcare for parents across the social classes. There appears to be less empirical evidence related to intervening with…

During the course of this article we examine data gathered from two research meetings in which coding issues and data organization are being discussed in relation to the use of the software package Atlas.ti. The meetings were concerned with the organization and coding of semi-structured interviews carried out by three different groups as part of…

Sociologia Ruralis 51(3) pp 219-237 This article explores the significance of researchers positionality for the interpretation of local cultures of rurality. Drawing on personal experience of studying the apparent emergence of a new squirearchy in an English village, it argues that backyard ethnographies, in which researchers study worlds with which they are already familiar if…