Social Mobility, Leadership and Political Change in Jamaica (Separata)

Bell, Wendell, Social Mobility, Leadership and Political Change in Jamaica, Separata from University of California Committee on Political Change, Grant No. 2288 – Penrose Fund, Los Angeles, California, 1963(?).

Excerpt:

This project was a study, extending from 1956 to 1963 of the transition of the Caribbean island of Jamaica from a British colony to an independent nation-state, a political status which Jamaica achieved on August 6, 1962. Although most of the data were the results of a mail questionnaire survey conducted in Jamaica in the spring and summer of 1958, the general conclusions reached were based, additionally, on discussions and interviews with leaders and others in Jamaica at various times during 1956, 1960, 1961, and 1962. The purposes of the study were (1) to explore and discover the causes of nationalism, i.e., to determine those factors which produce nationalist attitudes, that underlie a person’s desire and drive for political independence, and those which in others result conversely in preferences for colonial status and opposition to national movement; (2) to describe the changing social composition and power of different types of elite groups during the transition to nationhood; and (3) to analyze attitudes of Jamaica elites toward the big decisions of nationhood, i.e., toward those actions most significant in shaping the future character of the Jamaican polity, economy, and society.