integrated class locations. The concept is criticized both theoretically and
empirically, but it has a certain robustness so that it continues to be taken
seriously even by those sociologists who denounce it. At core, it is based on the
urban black experience in the USA and translates badly to the UK and Western
Europe. In part the theoretical problem is that it is too early to be sure whether
such a phenomenon has developed, because it depends largely on the inheri-
tance over generations of these characteristics, and outside of the USA there
has not been time for a second generation to mature and risk passing on its own
inheritance. (See alsoWelfarism.)
Unilateralism
Unilateralism is the removal by one side in a potential armed conflict of an
entire class, or at least a significant proportion of one, of weapons, whether of
not any other country agrees to do so. It first came to prominence in the British
anti-nuclear movement of the 1950s, led by the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament (CND) after its foundation in 1958, which had the specific
objective of persuading the government of the United Kingdom to abandon all
of its nuclear weapons, irrespective of the actions of other countries (see
pressure groups). During the late 1950s and early 1960s CND attracted
considerable mass support for its unilateralist campaign, as was especially
demonstrated during its annual symbolic march from the town of Aldermaston
(the site of the nuclear weapons research establishment) to London. It also
attracted politically important support from within theLabour Partyand
certain trade unions. The Labour Party adopted a motion advocating unilateral
nuclear disarmament in 1960, but has always veered away from unilateralism
when in government. CND and unilateralism experienced a revival of support
during the late 1970s and 1980s, initially associated with the decision to base
US ground-launched cruise missiles on British soil. This class of missile was
multilaterally abandoned under theIntermediate Nuclear Forces (INF)
Treatyof 1987, but the public opposition to the missiles in the UK and other
Western European countries was of less significance here than the new impetus
to general disarmament which accompanied theGorbachevera in the Soviet
Union.
The unilateralist position is not, in principle, restricted to nuclear weapons.
Clearly any fully-fledged pacifist, who holds that it is wrong in any and all
circumstances to use force, would logically be required to be in favour of total
unilateral disarmament. British advocates of disarmament in the 1930s had also
used the term, but not in such a strictly pacifist sense. What makes unilateralism
special is that it isnotnecessary to be pacifist to adopt it, and many unilateralists
insist that they support at least the current, and possibly a considerably
increased, level of defence spending onconventional arms. The arguments
Unilateralism