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Constitutional Preference (constitutional + preference)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences75%

Selected Abstracts

National identity in Northern Ireland: stability or change?

NATIONS AND NATIONALISM, Issue 4 2007
JOHN COAKLEY
ABSTRACT. This article addresses a set of fundamental, long-term factors associated with the Northern Ireland conflict: the pattern of underlying values and attitudes, especially those related to identity, that have helped to shape the nature of intercommunal competition. Using all generally available public opinion data, the article explores in particular the nature of national identity and of related forms of belonging for political behaviour. It notes the mutually reinforcing character of political loyalties within the Protestant community (where national identity, communal affiliation, constitutional preference and party support tend to coincide in a ,Protestant-unionist' package) and the failure of this to be matched within the Catholic community (where the components of the ,Catholic-nationalist' package are less closely interrelated). It concludes by speculating about the implications of these value configurations for political development, suggesting that they are unlikely to contribute to any fundamental political change in Northern Ireland in the short or medium term. [source]

Constitutional Self-Organization of Adenine,Uracil-Derived Hybrid Materials

CHEMISTRY - A EUROPEAN JOURNAL, Issue 24 2007
Carole Arnal-Hérault Dr.
Abstract The alkoxysilane nucleobase adenine (A) and uracil (U) precursors described in this paper generate in solution a complex library of hydrogen-bonded aggregates, which can be expressed in the solid state as discrete higher oligomers. The different interconverting outputs that nucleobases may form by oligomerization define a dynamic polyfunctional diversity that may be "extracted selectively" in solid state by sol,gel transcription, under the intrinsic stability of the system. After the sol,gel process, unique constitutional preference for specific geometries in hybrid materials is consistent with a preferential arrangement of nucleobase systems, favoring the self-assembly by the Hoogsteen geometry. FTIR and NMR spectroscopy and X-ray powder diffraction experiments demonstrate the formation of self-organized hybrid supramolecular materials. Electron microscopy reveals the micrometric platelike morphology of the hybrid materials. The MA,U hybrid material is nanostructured in ordered circular domains of 5,nm in diameter of alternative light and dark rows with an one-dimensional periodicity of 3.5,Å. [source]

Social mobility and constitutional and political preferences in Northern Ireland

THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Issue 4 2001
Richard Breen
ABSTRACT During the past thirty years Catholics in Northern Ireland have experienced unprecedented upward social mobility. Some commentators have suggested that this has led Catholics not merely to adopt the lifestyles of the middle class but also to modify their constitutional preferences, leading to a decline in nationalism. In this paper I examine the relationship between social mobility, on the one hand, and, on the other, both constitutional preferences and political (left or right wing) preferences among Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, using survey data collected in 1996. There is no evidence that Catholics' constitutional preferences are related to their mobility experiences. [source]