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Support for Nation and Government Among English Children: A Comment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Ian Budge
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Extract

In ‘Support for Nation and Government among English Children’ (this Journal, Volume 1, pp. 25–48) Dennis, Lindberg and McCrone present extensive new evidence on British political socialization, which they associate with a general decline in support for the British system. So powerful is their interpretation of the evidence in relation to British stability, that there is a temptation to take it as the only logical consequence of the data reviewed. This Comment is intended to suggest that another interpretation is possible, that Britain may remain stable in spite of somewhat more critical attitudes among the young and indeed that such critical attitudes may contribute positively to stability.

Type
Comments
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , July 1971 , pp. 389 - 392
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

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References

1 The Glasgow surveys were carried out from February—July 1966 by J. A. Brand, Ian Budge, Michael Margolis and A. L. M. Smith. The Belfast surveys were mounted by Ian Budge and Cornelius O'Leary from June-December 1966.

2 They related to support for majority decision of issues, support for parties in local government, desire for change in local government, partiality and corruption in local government. A further difference from the investigation carried through by Dennis et al. lay in the fact that the surveys were concerned with adults, not children.

3 This definition of stability derives from Dahl, R. A., Who Governs? (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), p. 311.Google Scholar It is applied to Britain in Budge, Ian, Agreement and the Stability of Democracy (Chicago: Markham, 1970), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

4 The same might be said of disagreement with the idea that the British system of government is one that all countries should have (Table 3). The British system did not in fact survive in most of the countries to which it was exported in the last decade.

5 Stradling, R., ‘Socialization of Support for Political Authority in Britain’, British Journal o Political Science, I (1971), 121–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 For speculation and some evidence that extended popular support may not be necessary for stability see Budge, Agreement, Chapters 1, 2, 8, 9. Editorial note: a further comment on the same article, by Professor Birch, will appear in Vol. I No. 4 of the Journal.