ABSTRACT
This chapter presents systematic evidence of the extent to which the Celtic lands have become politically integrated in the United Kingdom since the late nineteenth century. In order to empirically differentiate the types of regionalism, a quantitative measure of peripheral sectionalism, derived from multiple regression analysis of aggregate electoral statistics has been constructed for British counties in the period 1885–1966. The results appear to challenge the diffusion hypothesis—that industrialization necessarily leads to a decline in the level of peripheral sectionalism. The effects of industrialization on national integration in the British Isles have evidently not been unidimensional. Whereas industrialization may be associated with the waning of territorial cleavages within England, no such pattern can be discerned in the Celtic regions and Northern Ireland. The chapter also presents an indirect method of estimating the salience of cultural factors for aggregate voting behavior. The method is indirect in that it does not employ direct measurement of cultural variables but estimates their significance inferentially.
