Welsh Journals

EDITORIAL The editors wish to preface this second volume of Contemporary Wales with an apology both to contributors and readers for its late appearance. It had been our intention to follow the review of the Welsh economy in the last issue with a parallel wide-ranging examination of Welsh politics. For reasons beyond our control, this has not been possible and we have had to postpone it to a later volume. The delay which has resulted has meant that material prepared for publication during the summer of 1988 will now appear several months later than expected. This affects especially the economic review prepared by Dennis Thomas. However, while regretting this, we are confident that it will not detract too greatly from the value of the contents as they appear in what follows. The opening contribution by David Adamson does in fact deal with some of the most fundamental transformations in recent Welsh politi- cal life. In the framework of theoretical debates concerning the linkage between politics and class, Adamson draws on the work of Poulantzas, Wright and others, to argue that the enormous restructuring of the Welsh economy in the decades since the 1960s has had particularly marked effects on the Welsh working class. The industrial and com- munal basis of the previously monolithic 'Labourist' culture and politics of south Wales has been destroyed, opening a space for major developments in party allegiance and ideological orientation. Adamson contends that this does not represent the disappearance of class as a formative element in politics, but rather the emergence of new class configurations, especially amongst the working class. The location of a majority of Welsh workers in new sectors of production new types of manufacturing and service employment as well as in new geographi- cal settings, helps to explain the comparatively unstable, and often contradictory, expression of their political views, including the flow (and ebb?) of nationalist support in south Wales. Adamson represents nationalism as providing an acceptable alternative to Labourism for