Forms of Explanation

What is Walsh’s alternative explanation for ‘why people vote against their interests? (If that is indeed the correct question.) What does she mean by group consciousness? How does she define ‘rural consciousness’? (51 7-8) In what sense is she thinking about political understanding in terms of what people have rather than what they lack? In what sense is her study interpretivist? What does it mean to say she is producing a constitutive analysis? Can rural consciousness be understood as a causal mechanism? [come back to this after you complete the reading] How would a positivist analysis differ from Walsh’s? (518-9) Is Walsh engaged in an explanatory analysis? How is categorization important to social identity? How does rural work as a category of identity? What are the key features of Walsh’s methodology? How did she identify her sample? What are the defining features of the groups she spoke to? (521) How did the groups she spoke to understand political power? (522-3) How were rural lifestyles and values understood in contrast to rural ones? (523-4) What is the significance of hard work in rural consciousness? How do Democrats and Repiblicans talk about it differently? What is the role of racism in explaining rural consciousness? (524-5) How are resources and their distribution understood in rural consciousness? (525-6) How does rural consciousness differ from urban and suburban consciousness? (526-9)