Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2009
In a recent article in this journal, Peter Schneider, Jane Schneider and Edward Hansen (1972) examine the role of regional elites and noncorporate groups in the European Mediterranean and proceed to elaborate a model that should allow us to understand more clearly the dynamics of social and economic change in underdeveloped peripheral regions. The two areas which they have selected for detailed consideration, and which consequently form the empirical basis for a model of broader applicability, are Western Sicily and Catalonia. Sicily I know only from the literature, but my impression is that it can more realistically be regarded as an underdeveloped peripheral region with the structural attributes described and analyzed by the authors. Catalonia, though, is a different matter, and it is to the Catalan case that I will be addressing myself.