The socio-political consequences of regional economic divergence in Britain: 1983-2018
Regions and nations of Britain have become still more economically divided in recent decades. This is sometimes supposed to have led to misery, distrust and political alienation in poorer regions, which might accordingly have developed more left wing, pro-welfare and authoritarian attitudes. This paper assesses the extent to which social and political attitudes in different regions and nations of Britain have indeed become more polarised, in line with regional economic divergence. Our analysis is primarily based on the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey series, which started in 1983. Keeping Scotland separate, within England and Wales we find broad North-South regional economic divergence, especially with respect to London, but surprisingly little sign of corresponding divergence on a wide variety of social and political attitudinal measures, including happiness, interpersonal trust, political trust, political engagement, economic values, liberal values and party support. There have been only slight tendencies for worsening self-reported health outcomes and greater political alienation in the North relative to the South, but also some convergence on economic left-right attitudes and party support. One possible reason for the absence of much North-South socio-political divergence is that greater prosperity in the South may have been a mixed blessing, as greater income growth has been accompanied by intra-regional inequality and higher cost of living. While there has been remarkably little change in broad North-South socio-political divides over the past forty years, in various respects both London and Scotland have followed distinct trajectories.
Date:
17 May 2021, 13:00 (Monday, 4th week, Trinity 2021)
Venue:
This seminar will be held online via Teams. Attendees outside of the Sociology Department are more than welcome: please contact graduate-studies@sociology.ox.ac.uk for an invitation link.
Speaker:
Stephen Fisher (Associate Professor of Political Sociology, Trinity College, Oxford)
Organising department:
Department of Sociology
Organiser:
Christiaan Monden (University of Oxford)
Part of:
Department of Sociology Trinity Term Lectures
Booking required?:
Not required
Cost:
Free
Audience:
Members of the University only
Editor:
Natasha Cotton
