The Three-Fold Nation (Part 1)

Writing in This month's edition of Barn, Richard Wyn Jones discusses the famous 'Three Wales Model' of political voting patterns in Wales. Devised in the early 80s, is it still relevant today?

Before the advent of devolution contemporary Welsh politics received very little attention in our universities. It wasn't considered to be a subject that merited attention. It didn't count. Remembering the whole spate of disingenuous rhetoric heard in our higher education institutions over the years regarding their commitment to Wales, one can't forgive such a situation. But one can, perhaps, understand it. Before creating the Welsh Office in 1964 Welsh politics didn't have a lot of institutional substance. And after the 1979 referendum, well, if the people of Wales were so contemptuous of the whole idea of Welsh politics, what surprise is there that our universities felt free to do the same thing? More difficult is to understand and even harder is to forgive the fact that Welsh universities continue to ignore the politics of Wales ten years after the people of Wales voted in favour of devolution and eight years after establishing the National Assembly. But, more's the pity, that's how it is. The only exception is Aberystwyth University. Not only is there the Department of International Politics, and its Institute of Welsh Politics, now a home to more specialists on Welsh politics than the total all the other political departments of the rest of Wales' universities, but, as well as that, that department and its predecessors was the home to pioneering work done prior to the arrival of devolution.

It was in Aberystwyth that Peter Madgewick and his colleagues did the research work which is the basis to his pioneering volume The Politics of Rural Wales: A Study of Cardiganshire (1973), the first book on Welsh politics to employ a systematic use of evidence in respect to public opinion. Denis Balsom, too, was a member of staff at Aberystwyth when he devised his famous 'Three Wales Model'. Although I had the privilage of attending a course on Welsh politics taught by Denis Balsom during my time as a student in the College by the Stream, and thus had the opportunity to hear of the model from the mouth of the man himself, only later did I come to fully appreciate Denis' achievement in devising it. When Welsh politics became my own chief research interest about a decade ago I quickly realised that it was through the lense created by this model that every political specialist from outside of Wales with any interest in us thought of our politics.

The 'Three Wales Model' springs from work carried out at the same time between Balsom, Madgewick and Denis van Mechelen. It is a work based on a survey of Welsh constituents held in Wales at the time of the 1979 General Election - the only survey of its kind before the Welsh Politics Institute took it up again in 1997. The three men's work reached its intellectual highpoint with the publication of an essay in the British Journal of Political Science in 1983 under the title 'The Red and the Green: Patterns of Partisan Choice in Wales.' As the subtitle suggests, this is a heavy enough academic text. However, the central conclusions are easy to understand and to gain an insight from. Welsh voting patterns are under the magnifying glass here, and the first step the authors take is to differentiate between those who claim a British identity on the one hand, and Welsh identity on the other hand (now we have more interest in the way people feel a combination of Welshness and Britishness - but that's another story). Among the first group there is a voting pattern similar to the patterns that are seen in the rest of Britain (toaday we'd note more particularly England - yes, another story again!). But among the Welsh things are different. Support for the Conservatives is very weak in this group. Rather, Labour dominates, except among those belonging to that relatively small group of Welsh people who feel a strong 'cultural attachment' to Welsh and Welsh speaking culture. From this group comes the support for Plaid Cymru. And what determines the grade of 'cultural attachment' of any individual? Put simply, a connection with the Welsh language and Nonconformity.

It is an important and pioneering text published in one of the most respected journals in the world in the field of political science. But I can suggest that it wasn't read very often. I'm also fairly sure that at least 95% of those who have heard of the 'Three Wales Model' have neither seen nor heard of the writing that is its basis. Because Denis Balsom's achievement -and the genius of his model- was to take the conclusions of the research work and communicate it through a striking visual medium. The conclusions from the world of dry statistics was transfered to the medium of a map of Wales (published in John Osmond's edited volume, The National Question Again: Welsh political identity in the 1980s [1985]). A map divided in three parts with every part representing one of the three groups of voters noted in the research. In 'British Wales' (Clwyd, Powys, Gwent, South Glamorgan, Pembrokeshire) most people share a British identity and, because of it, one finds an electoral struggle between the British parties and hope for the Conservatives. In 'Welsh Wales' (West Glamorgan and the Valleys) there is a strong feeling of Welsh identity but low levels of 'cultural attachment'. This is then the stronghold of the labor Party. In the 'Bro Gymraeg' (Old Gwynedd, Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire) Welsh identity tends to be seen walking hand in hand with a strong cultural attachment, and this is the region where Plaid Cymru succeeded to make an impression.

Of course, the model is crude and tends to over-simplify things; it's also easy to raise questions as to the exact borders of the designated regions because patterns of identity don't pay much attention to Westminster constituency borders. And if I were to bore you I would raise doubts as to how exactly a 'cultural attachment' is designated and measured. But as well as boring you, there would be a danger that splitting hairs li8ke this would lose sight of the model's value. Models of this type don't claim to be all-encompassing. Rather than try to clarify everything, they try to draw attention to - and clarify - a number of significant and important trends. The 'Three Wales Model' does this. It is also - and this is another proof of its worth - useful. It offers a handy and hassle-free way for commentators to discuss different developments in Welsh politics: look at the interpretations of the results of the 1997 Referendum in terms of the way 'Welsh Wales' and the 'Bro Gymraeg' were united to ensure a victory for the 'Yes' campaign, or the interpretations of the results of the 1999 Assembly Elections that emphasised the success of Plaid Cymru in winning substantial support beyond the borders of the 'Bro Gymraeg', and especially in 'Welsh Wales'.

The Three-Fold Nation (Part 2)