E. Spencer Wellhofer

Core and Periphery: Territorial Dimensions in Politics

The essay reviews developments of the Core-Periphery paradigm. Two variants of the paradigm are isolated. Both variants define core-periphery relations by three features: characteristics distinguishing core from periphery, the goods exchanged, and the nature of the exchange and the pattern of core-periphery relations. These features form the explanatory variables in the examination of three central problems in social science: the rise of the state, the development of imperialism and colonialism and regional social movements. However, the distinguishing feature of core-periphery analysis is the spatial representation of these dynamics. Yet spatial representations in core-periphery paradigms are latent and poorly developed. Several alternative spatial representations are more effective in displaying core-periphery dynamics, permitting simpler assumptions, introducing temporal dynamics and multi-linear models.

Party Realignment and Voter Transition in Italy, 1987-1996

Between 1987 and 1996, the Italian party system experienced a major realignment. The political alternatives that dominated the postwar period dissolved, and new party and voter alignments emerged. This analysis employs a recently compiled data archive and a new ecological inference technique to examine voter transitions during the period. The disintegration of the ruling party coalition and the appearance of new party alternatives from the center of the analysis. The research highlights the importance of nonvoters, a relatively recent phenomenon in Italian elections, as a precursor of pending party change as well as holding the key to a resolution of the current flux. The new ecological analysis technique generates more robust results than previous techniques and also avoids the pitfalls of survey research.

The Comparative Method and the Study of Development, Diffusion, and Social Change

The research investigates substantive and methodological concerns in comparative research, particularly the confounding influences of within-system developmental or causal dynamics, across-time or within-system diffusion, and across-system or spatial diffusion. The article argues that extra-system influences represent a special case of the unmeasured relevant variable problem resulting in model specification error and that proper model specification can mitigate the problem. Structural equation modeling is advocated as a significant advance in such specifications. The argument is elaborated with time-series data on Argentina from 1908 to 1946 to test the developmental relationship between industrialization and political behavior.

The Mobilization of the Periphery Peron's 1946 Triumph

he electoral triumph of Juan Peron in 1946 produced consequences T for Argentine politics which continue today. No observers of the regime doubt its impact on the mobilization o f the lower strata of society and their institutionalization as a political and economic force through the vehicles of political parties and trade unions. Peron skillfully managed the development of party and trade unions organizations whose legacy is a principal force in the precarious contemporary balance of Argentine politics (DiTella, 1968; Huntington, 1968: 233-234). Yet, given the importance of Peronism as a historical and contemporary phenomenon in Argentina, surprisingly little empirical analysis exists of the initial support for the regime,.that is, the support for Peron in early years and particularly for the electoral triumph in 1946. The existing interpretations of Peron’s initial support emphasize (1) mobilization of previous nonvoters, o r (2) a general mobilization among all voters but particularly those of the growing industrial working class, or (3) a combination of both in the mobilization of newly arrived rural migrants to Buenos Aires who were largely employed in the expanding industrial sector. Such interpretations are not mutually exclusive, of course, but are abstractions from the literature. The literature on Peronism is largely descriptive and speculative, and some authors have resisted class-based interpretations for ideological reasons or accepted class-based analysis only when attributing ‘false consciousness’ to Peron’s working-class support. In addition, such distinctions are abstractions from social reality since

Votes and Votive Candles Modernization, Secularization, Vatican II, and the Decline of Religious Voting in Italy: 1953–1992

The authors examine the effects of modernization and secularization on the vote for the religious party in the Italian First Republic (1948–1992). In addition to modernization and secularization, they also introduce two new factors to the analysis: the importance of institutionalized Church and effects of the Church’s Vatican II reforms. Italy is of particular relevance because of the centrality of the Catholic religion in the Italian society and politics, and the domination of the religious party—the Christian Democracy (Democrazia Cristiana; DC) in the country’s party system until 1992. The authors analyze the impact on the DC vote of a series of indicators of modernization and secularization and of Church organization and reform. The uniqueness of the analysis rests on the exceptional detailed and historical data for the Italian commune (N = 6,140) across this time period and the use of advanced quantitative techniques. The analysis confirms the traditional interpretation of secularization but also stresses effects of the failure of the Church’s reforms of Vatican II. These reforms, which deemphasized the institutionalized Church in favor of a more individualized, spiritual view, were intended as a response to modernization. Instead, the reforms hastened the decline affiliated organizations and the religious party.

Models of Core and Periphery Dynamics

The essay reviews developments of the Core-Periphery paradigm. Two variants of the paradigm are isolated: the neoclassical model and neo-Marxian model. Both variants define core-periphery relations by three features: characteristics distinguishing core from periphery, the goods exchanged, and the pattern of core-periphery relations. The models differ in their analyses and assumptions derived from neoclassical and neo-Marxian economic theories. An examination of these assumptions reveals some strengths and weaknesses of each. Recent contributions to both variants seek to overcome previous criticisms, but largely fail.

‘Things fall apart; the center cannot hold’: Cores, peripheries and peripheral nationalism at the core and periphery of the world economy

Abstract In the past several years social scientists have elaborated ‘core- periphery models’ of political change. Such models sought to overcome the nation-state and ‘whole-nation’ bias in comparative research. In these models cores and peripheries are distinguished by three characteristics: a set of attributes for each, characteristics of exchange relations and characteristics of interaction patterns. Central to these models is a territorial structuring of political behavior in which cores and peripheries form geographical contexts for politics. Thus, spatial relations between cores and peripheries achieve significant explanatory power with diffusion processes from the core to the periphery and the peripheral reaction to these playing a key role in accounting for political behavior in each. One such political manifestation is peripheral nationalism, defined as an emotive reaction of cultural defense against the diffusion of economic, political and cultural dominance from the core. This paper examines three explanations for the rise of peripheral nationalism in late nineteenth-century Britain and early twentieth-century Argentina, marking two sites in the core and periphery of the world system. The results demonstrate similarities in social origins of peripheral nationalism at both sites as the product of the economically and culturally marginal middle strata threatened by the expanding influence of the core. However, the research also supports the hypothesis that at the periphery of the world economy during times of economic contraction the economically and culturally marginal lower strata may be mobilized into mass movements. The research concludes that both within-nation-state and global core-periphery dynamics provide concepts for understanding political behavior.

Agrarian Capitalism, Property Rights, and Rural Class Behavior

The research examines the relationship between class behavior and agrarian capitalism. Agrarian capitalism is a mode of production in which the forms of production vary according to the internal distribution of property rights and market involvement. Property rights are defined as appropriated advantages to dispose of valued goods for gain: land, labor, capital goods, the technology of husbandry and the enterprise produce. Bundles of these rights define enterprise types. Two general hypotheses are tested: the greater the engagement of the enterprise in the market, the greater the potential for political activity: the greater the alienation of property rights from the cultivator/worker, the more likely the commitment to redistributive politics. Additional hypotheses are tested by Latent Variable Path Analysis with data from Argentina between 1908 and 1946.

Religion, Rurality and Voting: Secularisation, Landownership and Italian Electoral Behaviour, 1953–2008

This article analyses the importance of socio-economic and religious factors in explaining the long-term electoral decay of the dominant party in Italy’s so-called First Republic – the Catholic DC – and the emergence of the regional autonomous Lega Nord (Northern League) from the DC’s remains. On the basis of a unique data set, this paper examines the effects of modernisation and secularisation of the DC electoral decline with particular reference to the change over time of the religious and rural constituencies, i.e. the two main DC reservoirs of votes; and the attraction of former DC voters to the Lega Nord, particularly in the old DC territorial bastion of support, characterised by high religiosity and concentration of farmers. The research demonstrates the relevance and persistence of structures profondes such as religion and rural property in electoral behaviour over a long span of time ranging from 1953 to 2008.

Two Nations: Class and Periphery in Late Victorian Britain, 1885-1910

Structural equation modeling techniques test a series of hypotheses on the mobilization of class voting in late Victorian Britain. The enfranchisement of the working class triggers an organizational proliferation as parties seek to mobilize the new citizenry as well as a countermobilization of religious and territorial cleavages which divide the working-class vote along pre-industrial cleavage lines. Class voting appeared as early as the 1895 election as the newly enfranchised voters of 1884 supported the Labour and Lib-Lab parties. During the period the Liberals became increasingly isolated with their middle class, Nonconformist base as organized labor in particular moved to Labour and the LibLabs. Conservative support appears stable among middle-class and Catholic voters. Models of regional politics show Central England to evolve quite differently, with class voting less important than in the remainder of the country. In the periphery the Liberals appealed to the Celticfringe, while Labour garnered the working class vote. The mobilization of the lower strata, which might have united class against class, generated a countermobilization, which divided the periphery against the center. Two nations, between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each others habits, thoughts and feelings as if they were dwellers in different planets; who are formed by different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws . .. the rich and the poor. Benjamin Disraeli (Sybil, 1845) The latter half of the nineteenth century and the first years of the twentieth witnessed a movement toward the full incorporation of Europes working classes into political life. This development took place on two broad fronts: the gradual removal of institutional barriers to full citizenship, and the emergence of new organizational forms aimed at mobilizing the new citizenry. The politicization of the lower strata created the potential for extreme class polarization within