bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Hobbes's Belief in God
Authors: Halliday R. J. , Kenyon Timothy , Reeve Andrew
Published: December 2006

This article explores Hobbes's response to the writings of the Old Testament and to the Book of Job in particular, demonstrating his belief that the art of politics consists in the imitation of the commands of an omnipotent God. This idea of imitation is analysed in Hobbes's treatment of covenant, particularly the covenant with Abraham, which Hobbes identified as the paradigm of all covenants. The same notion of imitation is also illustrated in Hobbes's profound conviction that sovereignty constitutes the soul of the state and Hobbes's belief in an omnipotent God is shown to be consistent with his nominalism, with his undeniable materialism and with his scientific method. Just as the Book of Job revealed the irresistible power of an omnipotent God, Leviathan demonstrated the irresistible power of God's personator, the mortal sovereign. And God's own creation, Man, imitates the permanence of nature in his own artefact, ‘Leviathan’.
Justice and the Lottery
Authors: Goodwin Barbara
Published: December 2006

The departure point of this article is a story by J. L. Borges about an imaginary city, Babylon, where everyone's activities are determined by a lottery. The disguised but omnipresent role of chance in liberal-democratic society is considered, and its implications for justice in such societies is discussed. ‘Babylonian justice’, the allocation of roles and resources by lottery, is then considered, and the parallels between Borges's fable and social contract theories are elaborated. Finally, a case is made for the use of lottery and rotation in societies where stratification and scarcity exist. Given such conditions, the lottery principle, organized chance, is shown to be a necessary part of any mechanism of distribution and any theory of justice.
Between Meaning and Event: An Historical Approach to Political Metaphors
Authors: Rayner Jeremy
Published: December 2006

The recent interdisciplinary interest in the problems of metaphor has had a mixed effect on political studies. Some writers have stressed the creativity of metaphorical utterances, others their ambiguity and vagueness. This difference has arisen because the meaning of a metaphor is the product of an interpretation of an utterance in a given context. Its meaning is thus inherently unstable given the variety of possible contexts. On pragmatic grounds it is suggested that the student of politics is best served by seeking historical contexts for metaphorical meaning, where political metaphors are located in a ‘field’ of meanings composed of previous interpretations.
Another Liberal Theory of Secession
Authors: Birch Anthony H.
Published: December 2006

Harry Beran's contention that secession is a somewhat neglected topic in political theory is accepted but his ‘liberal theory of secession’ is criticized and found wanting. An alternative theory is proposed, based on the assumption that secession from a liberal democratic state cannot be justified unless special circumstances exist. Four special circumstances are suggested and the practical consequences of adopting this approach are then outlined.
Liberty and Economics: A Reconsideration
Authors: Goldsmith M. M.
Published: December 2006

The arguments presented by Fred M. Frohock and David J. Sylvan in ‘Liberty, Economics and Evidence’, Political Studies, 31 (1983), 541–55 need reconsideration. They attribute a theory of economic development to liberalism, but it is held by both liberal and other thinkers only after the late eighteenth century. This theory, that a certain level of economic development is a necessary prerequisite for freedom, is different from the widely-held anti-democratic view that political rights should only be granted to persons holding property. Again, the view that liberty and welfare can be traded-off seems not to be held by many of the ‘liberals' mentioned by the authors. Moreover, the contention that the ‘liberal position’ is empirically incorrect confuses two propositions: (1) that there are economic conditions which are necessary for the existence of freedom; (2) that there are economic conditions necessary and sufficient for freedom. The authors' recommendation of ‘holism’ should not be swallowed whole.
The Good Society? Implications of a Greater Participation by Women in Public Life
Authors: Evans Judith
Published: December 2006

While the man is contending with the sterner duties of life, the whole time of the noble, affectionate and true woman is required in the discharge of her … duties … in the family circle … I believe that (women) are better than men, but I do not believe that they are adapted to the political work of this world … I would not … degrade woman by giving her the right of suffrage … because … woman as she is today, the queen of home and of hearts, is above the political collisions of this world, and should always be kept above them.1

See what a record of blood and cruelty the pages of history reveal! … The male element has held high carnival thus far … overpowering the female element everywhere, crushing out the diviner qualities in human nature … The need of this hour is not territory, gold mines, railroads, or specie payments, but a new evangel of womanhood, to exalt purity, virtue, morality, true religion, to lift man up into the higher realms of thought and action …2
The Answer to the Nineteen Propositions Revisited
Authors: Sanderson John
Published: December 2006

Subjects and Sovereigns: the grand controversy over legal sovereignty in Stuart England by Professors C. C. Weston and J. R. Greenberg is the sort of work which emerges from prolonged and thoughtful labour in the thick undergrowth of historiography and political pamphleteering.1 However, the treatment by Subjects and Sovereigns of the Civil War period raises two important problems, both of which concern the significance of the king's Answer to the Nineteen Propositions of June 1642. This note will contend (a) that the treatment by Weston and Greenberg of the Answer and the debate to which it belonged makes them appear easier to understand than they really are, (b) that the strictures of Weston and Greenberg on the Answer, and on other Royalist publications which shared its fundamental contentions, are unwarranted.
The Expedience of Tradition: Ireland, International Organization and the Falklands Crisis
Authors: MacQueen Norman
Published: December 2006

The Fianna Fáil Government of Charles Haughey adopted a publicly conspicuous position of independence during the Falklands crisis of April–June 1982. Mr Haughey defended the departure from European Community solidarity and the active role in the UN Security Council on the grounds of ‘traditional neutrality’ while his critics accused him of opportunism and improvisation for domestic political advantage. The sharp deterioration in Anglo-Irish relations caused by the episode has not proved lasting. Nor has there been any significant change in Ireland's overall international relations.
Theories of Regulation and Changes in Regulation: The Case of Financial Markets
Authors: Moran Michael
Published: December 2006

A definition of regulation is offered and the relevance of regulatory theory to understanding change in financial markets is explained. The nature of financial change is sketched. Four major sets of regulatory theories are outlined—teleological, cultural, instrumental and administrative. The adequacy of each in explaining recent changes in securities markets in Britain and the United States is assessed. The article concludes that some cultural and administrative theories perform best, and argues that in the United Kingdom and the United States there is a convergence of regulatory styles.
The Withered ‘Greening’ of British Politics: A Study of the Ecology Party
Authors: Rüdig Wolfgang , Lowe Philip D.
Published: December 2006

Britain appears to be largely removed from the new political tide of ‘green’ parties that is currently sweeping other West European countries. This article will put forward some explanations for this ‘stillborn’ character of ‘green’ party politics in Britain. A detailed scrutiny of the history of the Ecology Party will be provided. It will be argued that the relative weakness of the Party is mainly due to its'failure to attract the support of ‘new social movements’. Particular attention will be paid to the British political system's ability to deal with middle-class protest movements by a mixture of issue suppression and group integration.
An Unresolved Tension in Marx's Critique of Justice and Rights
Authors: Kocis Robert A.
Published: December 2006

A tension persists in Marx's thought between his Kantian respect for the inviolability of persons and his consequentialist ethical theory which defines our moral obligations in terms of advancing historical progress. Since the Kantian part seems to require a theory of rights, the possibility of which the other part denies, his critique of rights is examined and shown to be deficient. In rejecting non-relative standards of right and justice, Marx rejects important implications of his own insights into human moral motivation; and he errs in criticizing the institutions of rights as destructive of community. Whether we consider ‘specific’ or ‘general’ rights, they are not only compatible with community, but necessary foundations for the development of communal feelings. Instead, it is wrongful action—and not the consequent claiming of rights—that is subversive of community.
The British Career Civil Service under Challenge
Authors: Fry Geoffrey K.
Published: December 2006

For the first time in the modern history of British government it is a matter of serious public debate whether or not there should continue to be a career civil service, more particularly a career higher civil service. Important though the advent of the Conservative Government first elected in 1979 has been in bringing the matter of the career civil service to a head, discontent with the kind of service which Sir Charles Trevelyan advocated in the 1850s, and Sir Warren Fisher actually fashioned in the 1920s, for Sir Edward Bridges to celebrate later, has been rife for many years, and this discontent has been present in politicians on all sides. Fabian reformism, though, has given way to more combative attitudes generated by the revived economic liberalism which is present in the Thatcher Government, which creed threatens the bureaucratic self-interest of the career civil service, and which has helped to make that service's relationship with that Government a conflictual one. Foreign arrangements are cited in the discussion which follows about the future of the career civil service, in which it is argued that the Thatcher Government implicitly subscribes to a form of ‘capture theory’ about the role which the career civil service has come to play, with regard to which the Government's attitudes are essentially conservative.
Socialist and Communist Party Attitudes towards Discrimination against Japan's Burakumin
Authors: Neary Ian J.
Published: December 2006

Approximately 3 per cent of the population of Japan belong to an indigenous minority group—known as Burakumin—against whom prejudice and discrimination still exist. After many years of activity the Burakumin Liberation Movement pressured the government into launching an affirmative action programme which has been in operation for 15 years. However, the ‘ Burakumin problem’ has generated fierce controversy within Japanese society, not least between the Japan Socialist Party and the Communist Party of Japan and their supporters within the liberation movement. The paper concentrates on their different theoretical approaches to the problem and discusses some of the practical consequences of the controversy.
The Mediation of Bureaucratic-Professional Influence: Decentralization in Dutch Housing Policy
Authors: Flynn Rob
Published: December 2006

The influence of state bureaucrats and professionals on public policy is empirically and theoretically problematic. Recent work concerning the ‘dual politics thesis' has suggested that bureaucratic autonomy will flourish particularly at the regional level of the state. Evidence about decentralization in the Dutch housing system is reviewed which generally supports this thesis. However, it is argued that regional bureaucratic and professional power in housing policy, and the specific institutional arrangements for decentralization, must also be explained in terms of the distinctive nature of Dutch pillarized society and politics.
The Discipline of the New Democracy: Mrs Thatcher's Domestic Statecraft
Authors: Bulpitt Jim
Published: December 2006

Interpretations of the first Thatcher Administration can be divided crudely into two groups, those which divine some grand purpose and consistency in its operations, and those sceptical of any such conclusions. The former are concerned primarily with its ideas or ideology, the latter with its policies. This article adopts a different perspective. It stresses the need to examine the activities of party leaders in terms of their statecraft—namely the art of winning elections and, above all, achieving a necessary degree of governing competence in office. It suggests that this Administration aimed to achieve a governing competence by reconstructing traditional Conservative concerns with centre autonomy in matters of ‘high politics’. This statecraft was consistently and successfully pursued, although some of the methods initially employed to buttress that autonomy had to be abandoned quickly.
The Forms of Collective Racial Violence
Authors: Davis Terry
Published: December 2006

Explanations for collective racial violence in America and Britain can be classified into three: communal disorder, political contention and class struggle. The first portrays rioting as the expressive acts of aggrieved but disorganized groups, the second as instrumental action by new contenders for political power and the third as authentic class rebellion based upon socially cohesive communities. The areas of disagreement between these three are examined and their different judgements about the character of the violence is assessed. Contrary to the concerns of much empirical research, the primary dispute is over the capability for collective action which ordinary social networks accord oppressed groups. The different approaches either devalue or exaggerate the type of collective action which can be organized on the basis of informal contacts. As a consequence they fail to recognize the occurrence of a fourth type of riot, civil resistance, and incorrectly assess the powerless position which some disadvantaged minorities occupy.
Ian Paisley and the Reformed Tradition
Authors: Iver Martha Abele Mac
Published: December 2006

This article examines the religious beliefs underlying the political ideology of Ulster's fundamentalist politician, Ian Paisley. Paisley claims to follow the Reformation tradition in both his theology and political beliefs, and cannot be understood without reference to this tradition. Adopting an apocalyptic world view from Reformation Protestants such as Knox, Paisley views the Roman Catholic Church as the Harlot of Babylon condemned in Revelation, and this belief underlies his anti-Catholicism. This world view shapes Paisley's understanding of politics because he follows Knox in believing that the political community has a covenantal relationship to God requiring complete repudiation of Roman Catholic ‘idolatry’. Paisley invokes the Scottish covenanting tradition as a model for Protestant political activity in Ulster, advocating resistance against any attempt to show political favour to the Roman Catholic Church.
The Conservative Member of Parliament as Lobbyist for Constituency Economic Interests
Authors: Wood David M.
Published: December 2006

Interviews undertaken in the House of Commons with 70 backbench Conservative MPs in 1983–84 examined the extent to which they pursue their own localized industrial policy strategies as part of their efforts to maintain constituency electoral support. This involves lobbying efforts directed toward ministers in support of local industries, either in defence of jobs, in promotion of new jobs, or in a variety of quests for government benefits or relaxation of restrictions. It was found that 36 of the 70 Conservative MPs could be classified as ‘constituency lobbyists’, reflecting interview evidence that they consider lobbying on behalf of local industries to be a normal and important part of their representative rôle as MPs. The hypothesis that vulnerable constituencies—vulnerable in both political and economic terms—would be represented by constituency lobbyists was tested through the construction of an index of constituency ‘security’. It was found that the more secure the constituency, the less likely is the MP to lobby on behalf of local industrial interests.
The Two Leviathans: R. G. Collingwood and Thomas Hobbes
Authors: Boucher David
Published: December 2006

In this article I draw upon the published and unpublished works of R. G. Collingwood in order to discern the relation between the Leviathan of Hobbes, and that of Collingwood. First, an attempt is made to explain why Hobbes became important for Collingwood, having had no special status in the writings of the latter prior to the composition of The New Leviathan. Secondly, two misconceptions of the ostensible relation between the two Leviathans will be exposed. Thirdly, the two Leviathans are compared at the level of general intent. It is argued that Collingwood never meant merely to update Leviathan in a piecemeal fashion, but instead formulated an entirely different criterion of conduct from that offered by Hobbes. Finally, some of the arguments of the two Leviathans are compared. Principally, Collingwood found Hobbes deficient in failing to provide an adequate account of the perpetual transition from the state of nature to civil life. One of the aims of Collingwood was to make good this deficiency.
One Concept of Liberty
Authors: Megone Christopher
Published: December 2006

In this paper I argue in favour of a single conception of liberty, that picked out by Berlin as negative liberty. However, Berlin's defence of liberty so understood seems to rest on a view not open to the moral realist.

The first half of the paper explains this and suggests an alternative defence compatible with such a moral position. The defence rests on an account of why we value freedom. In the second half of the paper this negative conception is defended against recent criticism from Charles Taylor. His appeal to qualitative distinctions within freedom is queried, as is the conception of the self that seems required for his outlook.
Intense Preferences, Strong Beliefs and Democratic Decision-Making
Authors: Jones Peter
Published: December 2006

Some decisions require individuals to make judgements rather than to express preferences. Some conflicts of preference arise from different beliefs about the efficacy or propriety of a policy rather than from different wants. Should the ‘intensity’ with which a judgement is made, or a belief is held, figure in decisionmaking in the way that it should ideally influence decisions concerning wants? This article questions the relevance of intensity to matters of judgement and examines how far decision processes that are sensitive to different intensities of preference, such as pressure group activity, vote trading and point voting, are open to criticism for failing to discriminate between intense wants and strong beliefs.
The Nocturnal Council in Plato's Laws
Authors: Klosko George
Published: December 2006

Serious problems are encountered in integrating the nocturnal council, described in Book XII of the Laws, into the institutional structure presented in Plato's earlier Books. These difficulties are addressed by Glenn Morrow in Plato's Cretan City, and most authorities have accepted Morrow's ‘informal view’. This article contends that an alternative account, the ‘institutional view’, accords more closely with the evidence.
When the Earth Belonged to All: The Land Question in Eighteenth-Century Justifications of Private Property
Authors: Vogel Ursula
Published: December 2006

Liberal conceptions of property rights are commonly associated with the idea of absolute, exclusive individual ownership. This article aims to show that, and why land constituted a special problem for eighteenth-century justifications of private property. Kant and Adam Smith are taken as the major exponents of eighteenth-century liberalism—of its natural-rights basis and its utilitarian orientation respectively. Their arguments against the still-existing feudal encumbrances, that is, ‘collective’ forms of landownership, reveal a fundamental tension between libertarian and egalitarian premisses in liberal theory. The vindication of full individual ownership rests crucially upon the right to equal liberty—to an initial equality of starting chances. Yet this assumption of a substantive equality becomes an empty phrase to the extent that the idea of society's original common entitlement to natural resources loses all practical, political meaning.
Corporatism in Crisis: Stability and Change of Social Partnership in Austria
Authors: Gerlich Peter , Grande Edgar , Müller Wolfgang C.
Published: December 2006

While recent developments in Western Europe provide numerous examples of the instability and decay of corporatist arrangements in the face of economic crisis, Austrian social partnership still exhibits remarkable stability. The article tries to explain this stability of corporatist politics in Austria. The Austrian case is also used to demonstrate some limitations of the academic literature on the breakdown of corporatism. However, stability in the Austrian case does not mean that nothing has changed. Changes have occurred within the existing institutional framework. Two main factors in the transformation of Austrian social partnership are pointed out, namely socio-cultural and political changes. Finally, some future perspectives of Austrian corporatism are outlined.
What is ‘a Great Power’?
Authors: Berridge G. R. , Young John W.
Published: December 2006

This article rejects the idea that a great power requires formal recognition or ‘general interests' or an inclination to ‘responsible’ behaviour. Contrary to Martin Wight, it also rejects the view that the demonstration of great military power in war is either a necessary or a sufficient condition of being a great power. It also denies, contrary to William T. R. Fox, that an ability to ‘project’ power worldwide is a necessary condition of being a great power (though it would, of course, be sufficient). On the basis of an investigation of the historical great powers, this article concludes that a great power is one whose reputation for existing or latent military strength may be equalled but not significantly surpassed by that of any other power.
Liberalism, Unintended Orders and Evolutionism
Authors: Paul Ellen Frankel
Published: December 2006

There is something gravely amiss about a liberalism based upon evolutionism, as F. A. Hayek bases his endorsement of the free, open, or ‘Great Society’. Such a society—one based upon individual liberty, autonomy, and free-market institutions —is not guaranteed by the evolutionary process, as Hayek's own indictment of twentieth-century totalitarianism in The Road to Serfdom amply demonstrated.

In the first section of this paper, I explore some of the pitfalls for a liberalism grounded on evolutionary foundations: a relucance to tamper with existing institutions which borders on traditionalism; a tension between individualism and holism, the latter born of an evolutionist's concern for the survival of the group; and a relativism derived from evolutionism which seems ill-suited to a liberalism which values freedom.

The last two sections of the paper examine some striking connections between Hayek's liberalism and that of William Graham Sumner and Herbert Spencer. While there are important differences between Hayek's and Sumner's positions, on the one hand, and Spencer's, on the other, all three suffer from a common problem: their liberalism sits uneasily upon evolutionary foundations.
The Liberal Rationale of ‘Rational Socialism’
Authors: Cunliffe John
Published: December 2006

This article draws attention to the ideas of an unduly neglected Belgian thinker, Hippolyte Colins. From the 1830s, Colins addressed many issues in the political theory of property, especially problems of interpersonal, intergenerational and inter-societal justice. His ideas are discussed in the first section. A critical examination of his arguments about justified property regimes enables contemporary disputes (notably in the work of Nozick and Steiner) to be placed in a fresh perspective, offered in the second section. This locates the difficulty of distinguishing between liberal and socialist commitments to particular property systems.
Change and Permanence in Political Parties
Authors: Lagroye Jacques
Published: December 2006

Incessant changes alter political parties in their organization, structure, recruitment and all other characteristics. Nevertheless, they are usually credited with stable features by which they are identified, and which enable them to be classified. If we consider French political parties, it is possible to demonstrate that both change and apparent stability arise from interaction within each party as well as between them and between the social organizations to which they are linked. These interactions and their effects must be related to general processes, such as social and cultural transformation; they cannot be solely explained by specifically political competition.
The Normative Frameworks of Public Policy
Authors: Jobert Bruno
Published: December 2006

This article suggests some tools for the analysis of social conceptions that shape the policy-making process. It defines the three dimensions of policy frameworks and their links with the related notions of paradigm and myth. It analyses the institutionalization of policy framework building and its impact on power relations within the French policy-making process.
Bringing the Constitution Back In: Political Science and the State
Authors: Dearlove John
Published: December 2006

At one time the study of politics centred on the state but for much of this century the emphasis has been on political behaviour and policy-making with governmental decisions explained as a response to societal forces. In the last decade or so, state-centric theorists have sought to bring the state back, arguing that it is more autonomous than society-centred theorists have suggested. I record the retreat of the state in the Anglo-American study of politics and the related rise of a particular kind of political science, going on to outline the more recent growth of a ‘new institutionalism’ which places the state at the very centre of political science. Bringing the state back in to the study of British politics must necessarily involve bringing the constitution back in but in ways that avoid the limitations of the constitutional approach and a narrow legalism.
Explaining Capitalism: The Method of Marx's Political Economy
Authors: Booth William James
Published: December 2006

The central thesis of this article is that Marx's explanation of the significant phenomena of the capitalist economy draws upon a basic theoretical syntax of a determinist/latent functionalist type. This conclusion has three consequences. First, it extends the range of functionalist explanation in Marx beyond its traditional loci, namely the theory of history and the analysis of the role of the state and other institutions in stabilizing capitalism, into the very heart of Marx's project, his political economy. Secondly, it has a powerful, though indirect, impact on our understanding of what might loosely be called the normative component of Marx's writings in as much as it identifies a specific sort of unfreedom peculiar to capitalist society. Thirdly, it shows just how great a challenge is mounted against Marx's project by those who seek to recast its method of explanation along methodological individualist lines. For if the first two points are accurate, rational-choice Marxists are drawn into a critique of both the explanatory and normative core of Marxism.
Green Politics and the New Class: Selfishness or Virtue?
Authors: Eckersley Robyn
Published: December 2006

The predominantly new middle-class social composition of the green movement has become a matter of increasing interest in the wake of the success of green parties and the growth of an international green movement. This paper considers the concept of the ‘new class' in relation to two explanations for the social composition of the green movement. The class-interest argument seeks to show that green politics is a means of furthering either middle-class or new-class interests while the ‘new childhood’ argument claims that the development of the green movement is the result of the spread of post-material values, the main bearers of which are the new class. Against these arguments a more comprehensive explanation is presented, which focuses on the education of the new class and its relative structural autonomy from the production process.
British Political Science and Comparative Politics
Authors: Page Edward C.
Published: December 2006

The internationalization of political science makes it especially difficult to identify a distinctive British approach to comparative politics. While there is certainly evidence of a distaste for cross-national comparison in Britain, this is no more marked than in other countries. In fact, on the evidence of a survey of major journals, Britons make relatively heavy use of the comparative method. British comparative research is less likely to use statistical indicators and methods than that found in other countries. Apart from this, the distinctions between comparative politics here and elsewhere are more matters of style and less matters of substance.
The Obligation to Contribute to Discretionary Public Goods
Authors: Klosko George
Published: December 2006

The principle of fairness, first introduced by H. L. A. Hart in 1955, is able to support a workable theory of political obligation upon liberal premises. In a previous paper, ‘Presumptive benefit, fairness, and political obligation’, I argued that the principle can establish general obligations to cooperate in the provision of ‘presumptive public goods' (that is, public goods that are indispensable to the typical member of society). Because a wider range of governmental services is necessary for the provision of presumptive goods, the principle also supports obligations to support ‘discretionary public goods' (goods that are desirable but not indispensable). The ‘indirect argument’ developed in this paper counters the criticisms of my previous paper presented by A. John Simmons in ‘The anarchist position: a reply to Klosko and Senor’.
International Peacekeeping: The Disputants' View
Authors: James Alan
Published: December 2006

International disputants often have reservations about inviting a peacekeeping body to help them contain or settle their conflict. Either or both sides might worry about certain international consequences of this course. Thus, one side might want to refrain from implying that an international issue really exists; both disputants might be concerned that a peacekeeping body could interfere with their freedom of action; and also that it could furnish critical reports about their behaviour. Then, too, there are certain adverse international possibilities which are special to potential host states. They might be conscious that having a peacekeeping body on their soil could give an impression of weakness or doubtful probity, and also of being less than fully sovereign. There are, additionally, certain domestic complications which might ensue for a host state. It could be concerned about the relations of the peacekeepers with its people, about the presence of such a group becoming a controversial political issue, and about the danger of a peacekeeping force ignoring the ground rules of peacekeeping and behaving in a manner which threatened the government's interests.
State Traditions and Comprehensive Business Associations: A Comparative Structural Analysis
Authors: Coleman William D.
Published: December 2006

Recent studies calling for a more disaggregated approach to the study of the state risk rejecting those conceptual tools such as policy style and state tradition that have been developed for studying macropolitical institutions. Taking as a point of departure Dyson's attempt to relate state traditions and modes of interest-group politics, it is demonstrated that a certain symmetry exists between different types of states and the structures of systems of comprehensive business associations. Specifically, France is shown to have a dualistic system corresponding to its dualist polity, West Germany a system specialized by policy area corresponding to its accommodative polity, and Britain, Canada and the US to have competitive, pluralist systems consistent with their adversarial polities. Such correspondence supports trying to treat as a variable the relationship between macropolitical traditions or policy styles and sectoral policy communities.
Through and Through Hegel: Marx's Road to Communism
Authors: Berki R. N.
Published: December 2006

Noting ambiguities in Marx's attitude towards communism uncovers the Hegelian foundations of his concept of communism, here defined as his substantive principle. Initially, Marx professes radical liberal views based on the Hegelian rational state, combined with a critique of modern social conditions. He then moves away from Hegelian state formalism but continues to adhere to the essential core of Hegel's philosophy, reason. The transitional period (1842–44) shows Marx to be critical of communist views, while his substantive principle is now defined as human emancipation. The Manuscripts of 1844 witness Marx embracing communism explicitly for the first time but this concept, while encumbered by Feuerbachian naturalism, still displays the Hegelian features observed earlier. Marx's communism is Hegelian in that it refers to a philosophical vantage-point and summary description of a developing reality, rather than to a goal to be reached.
The Problems of Europocentrism and Evolutionism in Marx's Writings on Colonialism
Authors: Katz Stephen
Published: December 2006

This paper examines the extent to which Marx's thinking on colonialism was Europocentric and evolutionist and the criticisms levelled against him. By examining relevant aspects of Marx's work, we can define more clearly his true ideas on colonialism and sort out the arguments of his critics. The paper discusses Marx and Engels's writings on colonialism for The New York Daily Tribune (1851–62) and examines four theoretical responses to these writings. The conclusion suggests that although Marx's writings on colonialism suffer from a specifically Europocentric bias, this alters but does not negate the overall applicability of Marx's ideas to the third world.
Consumer Sovereignty, Prices and Preferences for Higher-order Goods
Authors: Shearmur Jeremy
Published: December 2006

This paper considers two arguments for markets: prices, within them, allow us to coordinate our activities in situations of dispersed knowledge and ignorance, and markets foster consumer sovereignty. It suggests that these – telling – arguments stand in need of qualification, in the light of consumers' preferences for ‘higher-order’ goods, which may be difficult to exhibit through choices in the market-place. It suggests that such preferences are not easily handled by political means, either – and that we may here face an uneliminable imperfection in our social arrangements. It may be important that we be aware of such imperfections, lest we be tempted away from the best arrangements we can achieve by those who point to such imperfections and promise to offer us a resolution of them.

Nobody is exempt from the law of the market, the consumers' sovereignty.1
Norms, Procedures, and Democratic Legitimacy
Authors: Barnard Frederick M.
Published: December 2006

The overall thrust of the argument points in two opposite directions: it pleads for dimming the contrast commonly drawn between political philosophy and political science but calls for a more radical distinction between the activities of politics and of philosophy, and between its rationality and that of political mediation. Within the first strand of the argument, the fact-value problem is re-examined, whilst within the second strand – the central theme of the article - the operatively legitimizing source of political norms is viewed within a procedural locale that is recognizably democratic, in that its validation is a matter of opinion, of appraisal and reappraisal in and through civic activity itself, and not directly the work of extra-political doctrines that substantively predetermine it. Although not thus preconditioned, procedural democracy is portrayed as being governed by a cognitive and institutional ‘space’ in which the ‘conversion’ of doctrinal ‘isms' issues in ‘performative principles, rather than a regime of pragmatic ad hocism.
Opinion Research and the Counter-Revolution in American Political Science
Authors: Dryzek John S.
Published: December 2006

The identity of political science, its tenuous orthodoxies and continuing divisions, is bound up with its history. The historical subject of this essay is the rise of one particular orthodoxy, the socio-psychological model of opinion research and voting behaviour originally associated with the University of Michigan. This rise helps constitute a conservative defence of American liberal democracy in the early cold war, owing much to the peculiar politics of that era. The contemporary payoff of this historical reconstruction is an identification of the vulnerabilities and invulnerabilities of the model as highlighted by its struggles with the understandings it superseded and the contingent political context of these struggles. The substantial legacy for the discipline as a whole merits careful critical scrutiny, especially given changes in the political context since the 1950s, and the end of the cold war.
Falling from a Tightrope: Doctors and Lawyers between the Market and the State
Authors: Brazier Margaret , Lovecy Jill , Moran Michael , Potton Margaret
Published: December 2006

The organization of the medical and legal professions in Britain has depended heavily on ideologies of self-regulation, and on different institutional creations inspired by those ideologies. Self-regulation balances professions between the market and the state. In recent years both medicine and the law have been subjected to greater competition in the market, and greater control by the state. Part of the explanation for change lies in conditions particular to medicine and law but the similarity in recent regulatory experiences can only be explained by the working of common external forces. Two are identified: the impact of long-term cultural change on a regulatory balancing act originally created in an undemocratic and hierarchical society; and the impact of a modernizing elite in British government seeking to use state power to reverse the decline in British competitiveness.
The Conservatives and Training Policy 1979–1992: From a Tripartite to a Neoliberal Regime
Authors: King Desmond S.
Published: December 2006

Despite the growth in government spending upon training programmes under the Conservatives, this policy remains understudied in the literature on Thatcherism. To explain this policy the author identifies four, New Right-based, components of the Conservatives' training objectives: the weakening of trade unions and the apprenticeship system; linking the receipt of unemployment benefits with participation in training or work activity; advantaging employer preferences in the implementation of training programmes; minimising government intervention and acting only in response to unemployment. The author argues that these aims have been developed in a way consistent with neoliberal principles. The Conservatives have effected a shift from a national tripartite regime to a local, employer-dominated neoliberal training regime.
Spinoza on Positive Freedom
Authors: West David
Published: December 2006

Much of the liberal tradition in political thought has shared Isaiah Berlin's fears about all positive concepts of liberty. Indeed these fears seem justified in relation to Marx and Hegel. However, the danger of a tyrannical paternalism derives not from the concept of positive freedom itself but from the reification of the self associated with rationalism. Spinoza's monism and his notion of individual conatus make any rationalist reification of the self implausible. Consequently his account of positive freedom enriches rather than undermines the commitment to negative liberty, whilst also helping to explain his ability to reconcile liberal toleration with the strikingly Hobbesian premisses of his political philosophy.
Privatization as a Political Priority: The British Experience
Authors: Dobek Mariusz Mark
Published: December 2006

This article challenges conventional approaches to Thatcher's privatization campaign in which privatization has been judged on the basis of its economic or public policy merits. The privatization programme of the Thatcher Government was driven by political objectives and thus it was more coherent than has been usually asserted. Politicians are motivated by maximizing their political benefits (power) rather than by the pursuit of the common good, that is optimal economic and public policies. Unlike some other papers who have considered the political aspects of the Conservative privatization programme, this paper introduces a distinction between what were the Conservatives' perceptions of the political consequences of privatization and the actual effect of this programme.
Constructing and Deconstructing Liberty: A Feminist and Poststructuralist Analysis
Authors: Coole Diana
Published: December 2006

Debates about liberty have been dominated by discussion about the relationship between its negative and positive conceptions. In accepting this framework, political theorists have left unquestioned certain foundational ideas that both concepts share but which actully constrain our thinking about freedom. This relates in particular to subjectivity and our assumptions about the free self. This critique uses feminist and poststructuralist approaches and explores the implications of the spatial metaphors which both concepts of liberty invoke.
The Collective Dimensions of Political Morality
Authors: Gross Michael L.
Published: December 2006

Collective moral action is analysed using two models: a deontological, non-strategic model emphasizing right moral judgment and individual action and a rational, strategic model emphasizing the need to overcome free-rider problems. While these models fail to explain satisfactorily collective moral action each provides valuable insights which are used to examine three case studies: successful collective action to rescue Jews in Europe and failed action to confront Japanese-American persecution during World War Two. Several striking conclusions emerge. First, enlightened moral judgment is not a necessary condition for collective moral action. Instead a complex structure of action emerges in which organizational leaders acting within parochial groups manipulate incentives and substitute public goods. Second, enlightened political actors are very often the most politically impotent. This emerging paradox severely attenuates the moral basis of political action which underlies normative theory.
On Hobbesian Resistance Theory
Authors: Burgess Glenn
Published: December 2006

As many have observed, Hobbes's political theory contained elements of an inchoate resistance theory. The present article identifies those elements, and considers their significance for the general interpretation of Hobbes's thought. It is suggested that Hobbes's resistance theory provides evidence of his belief that the artificial commonwealth was built upon foundations of natural morality. If the sovereign ruler of any commonwealth infringed natural morality then she might well face the natural punishment of rebellion, even though in the artificial realm of civil law this rebellion could never be justified. In the light of these remarks, the interpretation of Hobbes given by Howard Warrender is re-examined. Although Warrender's conclusion that Hobbes grounded natural morality in the command of God cannot be sustained, it is shown that much else in Warrender's work remains valid. In particular, his contention that Hobbes was a genuine natural law thinker seems more defensible when Hobbesian resistance theory is properly understood.
Governance, the World Bank and Liberal Theory
Authors: Williams David , Young Tom
Published: December 2006

We examine the recent debates about governance, focusing particularly on the World Bank and identify certain factors which have in recent years moved the Bank's thinking beyond narrowly economic notions of development. Our account is tentative and we suggest further avenues of research. We try to connect the Bank's thinking systematically with key features of liberal discourse and suggest that this can do much to illuminate practice. We illustrate this with a discussion of the growing relationship between the Bank and NGOs, to contribute to forms of analysis which go beyond the ideas vs. interests polarities that still inform so much of contemporary social and political theory.

There ought not to be two histories, one of political and moral action and one of political and moral theorizing, because there were not two pasts, one populated only by actions, the other only by theories. Every action is the bearer and expression of more or less theory-laden beliefs and concepts; every piece of theorizing and every expression of belief is a political and moral action.

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, p.61
Consensus and Diversity in Elite Opinion: The Views of the British Foreign Policy Elite in the Early 1990s
Authors: Sanders David , Edwards Geoffrey
Published: December 2006

The paper reports the results of a systematic and comprehensive survey of the attitudes of the British foreign policy élite that was conducted under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in 1990. British élite attitudes towards four major international actors – the United States, the EC, the Soviet Union and Japan – are examined in terms of trade relations, financial relations, political relations and security relations. It is argued that the complex pattern of consensus and dissensus evident in the attitudes displayed by the élite – a pattern that can be broadly characterized as agreement on ‘core’ values and disagreement on ‘peripheral’ values – is probably conducive to ‘good’ policymaking. A companion study analyses the extent to which the élite's attitudes appear to be changing over time and considers the distinctive attitude sets that are evident among different segments of the élite.
Heidegger's Decline: Between Philosophy and Politics
Authors: Ansell-Pearson Keith
Published: December 2006

Philosophy is the most serious of things, but then again it is not all that serious. (T. W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics)
Economic Performance, Management Competence and the Outcome of the Next General Election
Authors: Sanders David
Published: December 2006

The paper discusses the prospects for successfully forecasting the outcome of the next UK general election. It focuses on the problem of deciding which estimation period should be used in order to produce a particular set of political forecasts. A series of forecasting equations are developed based partly on different estimation periods and partly on different assumptions about which particular economic perceptions will prove decisive in British politics over the next year or so. Although the precise results of the various forecasting models differ, they all converge on the conclusion that the Conservatives are unlikely to recover sufficiently on the basis of purely economic considerations to win the next general election.