The Forgotten -ism

“I’d rather not. I don’t like to talk to old people. They make me uncomfortable. They kind of smell weird and make me think about death. Some of them are even racist, so I’d just rather not.” As part of my internship this summer, in which I helped to coordinate the Friday evening dinners at the Gettysburg Senior Center, putting out advertisements to “hang out with old people” wasn’t exactly an easy task. [excerpt

The Orange Order in Scotland since 1860: a social analysis

Book synopsis: Irish immigrants and their descendants have made a vital contribution to the creation of modern Scotland. This book is the first collection of essays on the Irish in Scotland for almost twenty years, and brings together for the first time all the leading authorities on the subject. It provides a major reassessment of the Irish immigrant experience and offers social, cultural and religious development of Scotland over the past 200 years

Acceleration-induced nonlocality: kinetic memory versus dynamic memory

The characteristics of the memory of accelerated motion in Minkowski spacetime are discussed within the framework of the nonlocal theory of accelerated observers. Two types of memory are distinguished: kinetic and dynamic. We show that only kinetic memory is acceptable, since dynamic memory leads to divergences for nonuniform accelerated motion.Comment: LaTeX file, 6 PS figures, 34 page

The Northern Ireland peace process in an age of austerity

The steady drip of dissident Republican attacks forms the backdrop to this special issue of Political Quarterly. Moreover, this comes at a time of economic austerity, when Northern Ireland faces unprecedented cuts to its public sector-dominated economy. The economic crisis in the South adds an additional layer of uncertainty to the picture. In the past, economic deprivation has been associated with conflict in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. Might the peace dividend and constitutional settlement which have underpinned the Northern Ireland 'miracle' since 1994# be under threat? Or is there now sufficient momentum in both of Northern Ireland's main ethnic communities that such an outcome can be safely averted? This paper summarises the thinking of our symposium and special issue on this topic, updating our picture of the Northern Ireland peace process

Modern formation, ethnic reformation: the social sources of the American nation

The question, 'When is the nation?', ranks second in importance only to the related query, 'Why is the nation?' in the contemporary social science and humanities literature on nationalism. This issue is confronted by this essay, which considers Anthony Smith's important perennialist-modernist dichotomy through the lens of the American experience. Along the way, it will address the related but independent question of whether nations are 'top-down' artefacts constructed by the modern state, or 'bottom-up' social formations generated by ethnic groups within civil society. The importance of this theoretical question lies not merely with the antiquarian interest in how our world system of nations emerged, but with the more pressing question of why it is persistently re-created, and, for idealists, how it may be superseded

Nativist cosmopolitans: institutional reflexivity and the decline of “double-consciousness” in American nationalist thought

Debate in the field of historical sociology on the subject of American citizenship and nationality tends to support one of two theories. The exceptionalist argument holds that American nationalist discourse has historically been based on the universal ideals of liberty enshrined in the Constitution, and has been inclusive in character. Critics contend that this was not the case – arguing that the narrative of American national identity has typically been grounded on exclusive ethno-cultural criteria like race, religion or language. This essay attempts to demonstrate that the truth encompasses, yet transcends, both positions. This is not because there were conflicting parties in the nineteenth century nationality debate – indeed, there was a great deal of elite consensus as to the meaning of American nationhood prior to the twentieth century which simultaneously affirmed both the universalist and particularist dimension of Americanism. How to explain this apparent contradiction, which Ralph Waldo Emerson termed "double-consciousness?" This paper suggests that the nineteenth century popularity of dualistic statements of American nationhood, and the eclipse of such conceptions in the twentieth, is a complex sociological phenomenon that can only fully be explained by taking into account the development of institutional reflexivity in the United States

Dominant ethnicity and integration: the Estonian case

From introduction: On October 18-19, 2007, the Tallinn Conference on Conceptualising Integration was held that focused on the Estonian integration policy. While being in the middle of composing the new state programme for the years 2008-2013 at the time of the conference, I’m glad that the conference gave us an opportunity to share our ideas with others and at the same time learn form the experience of other countries

The dynamics of Orangeism in Scotland: social sources of political influence in a mass-member organization, 1860-2001

Like other voluntary associations, fraternities such as the Orange Order underpin political cleavages. The membership dynamics behind such associations are less clear. Rival theories attribute membership fluctuations alternatively to changes in social capital, economic structure, culture, or events. This article uses a pooled time-series cross-sectional model to evaluate competing hypotheses for the period since 1860. Results suggest that membership was linked to longer-term shifts in ethnic boundaries rather than structural or social capital variables, with events playing an intermediate role. Scottish Protestant mobilization against Catholics was less important than Irish Protestant ethnicity, but both were key. Finally, the order has been numerically weaker than many believe; hence its inability—even during the apex of its influence—to shape Tory policy