Regional Loyalty Research Articles

Living Together: International Aspects of Federal Systems

Living Together: International Aspects of Federal Systems

The 1992 Multiparty Elections in Cameroon

This paper argues that despite almost three decades of single-party rule that was supposed to eliminate regional and ethnic-based parties in Cameroon, ethnicity remains an important variable in the nation's political economy. That was evident in the 1992 multiparty legislative and presidential elections, where voters appear to have been influenced more by ethnic and/or regional loyalty or anticipated patronage and other pork-barrel benefits than by any clearly defined national agenda by the parties.

Katherine Anne Porter's Artistic Development: Primitivism, Traditionalism, and Totalitarianism (review)

Reviewed by: Katherine Anne Porter's Artistic Development: Primitivism, Traditionalism, and Totalitarianism Janis P. Stout Robert H. Brinkmeyer, Jr. Katherine Anne Porter's Artistic Development: Primitivism, Traditionalism, and Totalitarianism. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1993. xix + 237 pp. $27.50 paper. A shift has been evident in Porter studies in recent years from an emphasis on style and symbolic meaning to an interest in biographical and historical contexts. Robert Brinkmeyer's book contributes both to this accumulating body of revisionist scholarship and to the reassessment of Porter as a writer whose thinking was characterized by variation and tension, rather than by unity or internal consistency. Brinkmeyer posits three major transformative shifts in Porter's thinking, all profoundly reflected in her work: primitivism, referring to her experiences in Mexico; traditionalism, referring to her embrace of memory and regional origins and her "choice to rewrite her Texas roots as Deep South tradition"; and totalitarianism, referring to both her World War II and post-War fixation on totalitarian threats to the American republic and her own tendency to adopt social and political ideas that he terms "totalitarian." After identifying and discussing each of the three themes, he summarizes and comments on pertinent stories, addressing primarily Ship of Fools as the example par excellence of her late "hardening conservatism" and "paranoia." The strongest sections of the book are its discussions of Porter's turn toward the South and of her "dissenting sensibility." The argument that she was at her best in the Miranda stories, especially "The Grave," with its integration of memory and vision, is effective though scarcely surprising. The judgment of Ship of Fools as a "failed work of virtuosity . . . forced and overwrought" that reflects its author's negative preoccupations is, in my view, correct. It is unfortunate, then, that these and many other valid and valuable understandings are attached to an excessively rigid and abstract framework [End Page 367] that, by forcing Brinkmeyer's analysis into a tripartite structure of successive stages, oversimplifies and oversystematizes Porter's always unsystematic thinking and thereby distorts it. Her early years in Mexico were not driven by the lure of primitivism (a term that connotes more nearly the self-indulgent wish-fulfillment she saw in D. H. Lawrence than her own interest) but by political zeal joined to a lifelong restlessness. Her time in Mexico did not disrupt her "intellectual continuity and security"; she never had any. And when she left Mexico in 1931 she was not disenchanted with "primitivism and its vitalizing potential" but with official venality and what she saw as the failure of the revolution. The turn to "traditionalism" and a redefined sense of her regional roots that Brinkmeyer attributes to her friendship with Southerners like Allen Tate and Caroline Gordon was partly, odd though it may seem, a result of her time in Mexico, where she experienced the strength of an art rooted in a strong sense of place, tradition, and cultural distinctiveness. And even after that turn she was not by any means consistent in her regional loyalty. Most emphatically, she did not arrive at either a personal totalitarian view or an obsession with totalitarianism (it is not entirely clear which is Brinkmeyer's point) as a kind of terminus. Her political and religious views even after Ship of Fools continued to show at least some degree of variability. Regarding religion, Brinkmeyer finds that Porter made a "dramatic and extreme" turn from the Church in the 1940s and '50s, partly because of her linkage of Catholicism and fascism. It is worth noting that in making this linkage Porter was not alone; rightist Catholics were conspicuous in public discourse in the late '30s and on into the McCarthy years. Her anti-fascism did take on a strong coloration of anti-Catholicism after World War II, but one can also find expressions of loyalty to the Church in these years—just as one can find a strong strain of anticlericalism earlier. In 1962, the year Ship of Fools was published, she wrote to Allen Tate that "of course" she took a Catholic view of things, and in her closing years she took great comfort from the ministrations of the Church. The matter was...

The Portable Radio in American Life by Michael Brian Schiffer

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 171 out for study. He pays scant attention to the economic and occupa­ tional backgrounds of trailer owners, the negative reaction of many communities to the hordes of “trailerites” at their door, and the confusion over the trailer’s legal status as either a vehicle or a house. More should have been said about communities’ response to the trailer invasion, which took the form of zoning laws, regulation of length of stay and sanitation, and imposition of fees and taxes to pay for local services. State regulation of trailer camps and trailer components—brakes, hitches, and lighting—also begs for treatment. Thornburg does devote part of the book to an analysis of the psychological roots and social implications of trailer life, focusing on traditional American values that trailer life violently contradicted: home, family ties, accumulation of material possessions, privacy, regional loyalty, restful retirement, and the work ethic. But he does not explain what drove some Americans to forsake these values and become itinerant trailer dwellers, nor does he explain how trailer design and technology evolved to serve the needs of itinerants in various circumstances and economic strata. The trailer revolution was a complex phenomenon that involved many motives and many classes of people, from wealthy pleasure seekers to poor Americans seeking only to survive. This revolution spawned a new type of vehicle and a new type of housing, both of which are still prevalent, though in vastly different forms. The birth of the trailer movement deserves as much scholarly attention as the adoption of the automobile itself. Thornburg has done some homework and has produced a casual narrative, a “good read” that skims over the subject, hitting some points and missing others. It is an exploratory book that adds some useful facts to the body of information about trailers but leaves the reader wanting to know more. Roger B. White Mr. White is responsible for automotive history at the National Museum ofAmerican History. He is working on an illustrated history of motor homes and camping trailers. The Portable Radio in American Life. By Michael Brian Schiffer. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991. Pp. xvii + 259; illustrations, bibliography, index. $45.00 (cloth); $24.95 (paper). Rarely has the uncertain process by which a particular type of consumer product assumes a succession of contradictory forms been so clearly traced as in this history of the portable radio from 1890 to 1965. Michael Brian Schiffer is an archaeologist who believes that everyday objects best reveal the life of an era; he also happens to be a radio “buff” in the best sense of that word. He illustrates his study with photographs of dozens of radios from his 172 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE own collection (meticulously identified and dated), as well as scores of images from trade journals and advertisements. His account is based on detailed knowledge of the technical development of radio and on a lively, risk-taking awareness of cultural factors involved in shaping that development. While tracing the hesitant, often unintentional, frequently broken line ofdevelopment running from the awkward field sets ofWorld War I to the pocket-sized transistor radios of the late 1950s, Schiffer in­ tegrates an impressive array of disparate material—biographical sketches of Maxwell, Tesla, Marconi, and Hugo Gernsback; electrifi­ cation of the home; emergence of mass production and distribution; outlines of the consumer culture between the world wars; amateur radio and the radio craze of the 1920s; development of broadcasting and changes in its formats over the years; the shrinking of radio sets during the Depression (to save on materials) and the primacy of radio as a medium at that time; civilian applications of military technologies from World War II; competition from television; development of subminiature tubes and transistors; the impact of the baby boom, suburban life, youth culture, and rock ’n’ roll on broadcasting and the size ofradios; and varying responses to competition from theJapanese. Schiffer maintains throughout the book a hands-on mastery of his material and a smooth, witty style that effortlessly clarifies complex subjects. He remains keenly aware of such small but crucial details as innovations in batteries and the comparative costs (related to average wages) of...

The World of the Russian Peasant: Post-Emancipation Culture and Society.

The Russian peasant commune after the reforms of the 1860s, Boris Mironov peasant women and their work, Rose Glickman the woman's side - male outmigration and the family economy in Kostroma province, Barbara Engel peasant and proletariat - migration, family patterns and regional loyalty, Robert Johnson peasants in uniform - the Tsarist army and peasant society, John Bushnell peasants and schools, Ben Eklor popular justice, community and culture among the Russian peasantry 1870-1900, Stephen Frank popular religion in 20th century Russia, Moshe Lewin images and ideas in Russian peasant art, Anthony Netting the Russian peasant movement of 1905-1917 - its social composition and significance, Maureen Perrie.

Stagnation as a Basis of Regionalism: A Lesson from Indonesia

Regionalism can be defined simply as a strong sentiment of loyalty or attachment among the population of a geographical segment of a state to that particular territory. As such, regionalism inhibits national integration by hindering the emergence of widespread popular identity with the nation. What makes regionalism particularly significant is that, unlike other horizontal divisions, it is the only source of fragmentation which by itself can threaten the physical integrity of the state. The prevalence of regionalism in an acute form is without doubt one of the most serious and immediate problems facing many of the new states of Asia and Africa. Nevertheless, the hypotheses offered to explain the intensity of regionalist sentiment are still inadequate. The most widespread of the explanations is expressed in terms of what Geertz has called primordial attachment.' Along with kinship, race, religion, language and custom, region is also regarded as an independent focus of loyalty and identity. More often, regionalism is seen simply as the expression of sentiments based on one or more of the other primordial ties. Presumably, a region which is dissimilar from much of the rest of the country in terms of one characteristic is likely to be more regionalist than a region without such distinctiveness. Presumably, regionalism is even stronger where there are several peculiarities focused or overlapping in a particular region. Closely related to and often combined with this explanation is the hypothesis that strong regional loyalty reflects distinctive historical experience, derived perhaps from the memory of past glories or conflicts. A history of intermittent or prolonged conflict with and resistance against other regions has also been cited as the basis of intense regionalist sentiment, particularly when at least one of the other regions has become closely identified with the central government. Another common explanation takes regionalism to be the expression of rational economic or power considerations. Assertions of strong regionalist loyalty are often thus attributed to dissatisfaction with the region's prevailing or impending share of either material goods or political power. Each of these explanations suffers from obvious difficulties, but only the

The Loyalty Program of the United States Government

Mr. White is professor of public administration at the University of Chicago. He has been a member of the U.S. Civil Service Commission and of the seventh regional loyalty board; and is now a member of the Loyalty Review Board. This article, written especially for the Bulletin, is designed to be purely factual in character.