Signs of Countrymindedness: A Survey of Attitudes to Rural Industries and People

Some political scientists have argued that 'countrymindedness', a set of tenets about the importance of agriculture and rural life, is of decreasing political and social importance. There has been little empirical research to test this, so the authors conducted an exploratory survey of attitudes to rural industries and people. The results reveal that there are some differences in attitudes according to age, location, country of birth and voting intention, which fit with the 'decline of countrymindedness' thesis. Contrary to that, however, there is still a tendency to attribute stereotypical countryminded characteristics to rural people, strong support for farmers' production methods, and very strong belief in the importance of agriculture to the future of the nation. Most surprisingly is that there is quite strong support for providing more government assistance to agriculture, at odds with the market liberalism of the last 30 years.