bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Changing Party Scene in West Germany and the Consequences for Stable Democracy
Authors: Schoonmaker Donald
Published: August 2009

In the 1980's the West Germany party system finds itself in a new stage of development which bodes well for the continued long-term development of the second republic. Drawing on research from the comparative historical development of party systems and democratic regimes as well as from analysis of the recent elections, it is suggested that the concentration process in the party system of 1949–1983 has evolved into a more dispersed pattern with predominantly positive consequences for the Bonn democracy. The rise of the Greens, the gradual decline of the SPD, and the center-right coalition of CDU/CSU/FDP are analyzed from the standpoint of their contribution to stable and effective democracy. The nature of the coalition dynamics on both sides of the right-left spectrum are discussed with the conclusion that while West Germany is predominantly a Parteiendemokratie, the new forms of participation, the further development of pluralism, and the increased competition of ideas make it a democracy governed essentially by parliamentary parties yet more responsive to extraparliamentary forces.
George Washington on Religious Liberty
Authors: Muñoz Vincent Phillip
Published: August 2009

Despite the Supreme Court's repeated invocations of America's Founding Fathers for First Amendment religion jurisprudence, George Washington's political thought regarding religious freedom has received almost no scholarly attention. This is unfortunate, for Washington's words and actions speak to contemporary Establishment Clause and Free Exercise issues. Washington, moreover, offers an alternative to Jefferson's and Madison's approach to church-state matters. The scholarly exclusion of Washington thus has led to a narrow view of the Founders' thought on religious liberty. This article sets forth Washington's understanding of the right to religious liberty. It pays particular attention to Washington's disagreement with Madison on the propriety of government support of religion. It also draws attention to the limits Washington placed on an individual's right to religious free exercise by focusing on how Washington dealt with Quaker claims for religious exemptions from military service.

Individuals entering into society, must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest. The magnitude of the sacrifice must depend as well on situation and circumstance, as on the object to be obtained. It is at all times difficult to draw with precision the line between those rights which must be surrendered, and those which may be reserved. —G. Washington, Letter submitting the proposed constitution to the President of Congress 17 September 1787
Justice, Politics, and Piety in Sophocles′Philoctetes
Authors: Tessitore Aristide
Published: August 2009

The easy conflation of god(s) and country—what might be called the dual foundations of justice—is challenged and explored in Sophocles′Philoctetes. Odysseus's consistent appeal to the common good and Philoctetes′ troubled attachment to a divinely sanctioned principle of justice are set at odds in a play where the fate of the entire Greek expedition at Troy hangs in the balance. While most read the play as a celebration of young Neoptolemus as he frees himself from the corrupt influence of Odysseus and, through his encounter with Philoctetes, grows in personal integrity, this essay maintains that Neoptolemus comes under the influence of both antagonists because each has something important to teach him. Rather than offering a simple morality tale, Sophocles′ investigation of justice in this play both reveals the depth of the conflict between the requirements of politics and those of piety, and criticizes the extreme embodiments of these perspectives in the figures of Odysseus and Philoctetes.
The Politics of Peace: The Role of the Political Covenant in Hobbes's Leviathan
Authors: Trainor Brian T.
Published: August 2009

The political covenant in Hobbes's Leviathan involves “more than consent, or concord; it is a real unity … made by covenant of every man with every man.” But is it possible for essentially separate individuals to merge their identity with the sovereign power and, if so, how? It is possible, initially, because each man shares a common desire for peace. However, this desire is “contrary to our natural passions” and is largely ineffectual until, through the device of a political covenant, it acquires the institutional support of the sovereign power. The will to peace is the essence of sovereignty; the establishment of a secure peace is its end. Ideally, the sovereign will operate within the parameters of legitimacy thus established. As a result of the political covenant, man's passions are contained, but the subject also acquires an enhanced ability to order his own actions in accordance with the will to peace.
Causality, Meaning and Purpose in Politics
Authors: Singh Raghuveer
Published: August 2009

Political science is in a state of crisis today. The crisis is the result of the scientistic predicament. Man has become the victim of his own reason and knowledge. Scientific rationality and value-neutral theories of knowledge lead to the eclipse of the public realm and the growth of social regimentation, mass manipulation, large-scale indoctrination and totalitarian domination. As a result, thehomo politicusis reduced to thehomo faberand theanimal laboran. What is required is a radical shift in our intellectual perspective. Phenomenological and linguistic-analytical theories of action are inadequate to provide a sound basis for political science.Philosphia perennisalone can restore to politics its full glory and splendor.
Mapping the Temporal Universe of Party Governments
Authors: Merkl Peter H.
Published: August 2009

This is an attempt to map out the wide variety of party-dominated democratic systems in the light of concern about the seeming decline of party government in the face of contemporary challenges. The object is to determine the parameters of their institutional, mobilization, and policymaking patterns that may constitute a reasonable definition of party government. With the help of qualitative attribute tables, sixteen systems are compared, including some non-European and some marginal cases. The most important variables indicating a high degree of conformity to the model, not surprisingly, turn out to be an executive-dominated parliamentary system, a bipolar, Left-Right-based party system, a degree of centralization, and considerable problem-solving capacity, even if the parties play only a limited role in policymaking.
Mill and Millians on Liberty and Moral Character
Authors: Clor Harry M.
Published: August 2009

This essay critically explores the efforts of John Stuart Mill and contemporary Millian scholarship to provide a utilitarian justification for a categorical principle of personal liberty. What is distinctive about Mill's argument is its pronounced emphasis upon character development as an essential constituent of happiness; the heart of the argument is that freedom of choice promotes a kind of elevated or worthy human character upon which happiness ultimately depends. Hence, society must be prevented from imposing any conventional or customary morality which would restrict individual autonomy. This case for the sovereignty of personal autonomy is infected with a number of difficulties and ambiguities. Central among these are weighty problems associated with Mill's crucial concept of individuality and its relation to human excellence or nobility of character. The refinements upon Millian doctrine introduced by his current supporters do not, and cannot, resolve its inherent ambiguities.
Mill'sThe Subjection of Women: The Methodological Limits of Liberal Feminism
Authors: Ring Jennifer
Published: August 2009

John Stuart Mill's commitment to empirically based inductive logic shapes the political substance of his theory, limiting his ability effectively to make the argument he wishes to make.The Subjection of Womenis presented as a test case in which Mill wishes to argue for the justice and utility of the emancipation of women. His efforts are thwarted by his inability to argue from anything but an empirical basis, grounding his evidence in historical data which serve both to stereotype women's “good” qualities and to judge women's potential by what is observable from an admittedly unjust history.

The essay reviews respected feminist analyses of Mill with an eye to establishing the natures and limitations of the various perspectives. It briefly discusses Mill'sSystem of Logicwhich provides a detailed example, in pure form, of the methodological problems he faces in theSubjection. The essay then considers the method and content ofThe Subjection of Women, arguing that the shortcomings of Mill's political analysis are the result of his efforts to cling to an impossibly “pure” empiricist methodology.
Community and Conflict in Aristotle's Political Philosophy
Authors: Yack Bernard
Published: August 2009

In this article a widespread misperception of Aristotle's political thought is challenged, a misperception shared even by his champions among recent political theorists: that his concept of political community is derived from an image of organic growth and identity, and thus does not account for political conflict. Familiarity with liberal political thought and institutions has led most of Aristotle's contemporary interpreters to look for counterimages to liberal images of political society in his work. As a result, they tend to ignore or underplay the connections which Aristotle draws between political community and political conflict. By interpreting Aristotle's concepts of political community and political friendship in light of his analysis of political argument in Book 3 of the Politics, the article tries to uncover these connections and their implications.
Hitler's Concentration Camps—An Examination of Conscience
Authors: Kogon Eugen , Gutman R. A.
Published: August 2009

Something the human mind can hardly grasp took place among the German people during the twelve years of the Third Reich. In that corner of Bavarian-Austrian earth that lies between the rivers Inn and Danube, Hitler's home, the legend of the twelve terrible nights (Rauhnaechte) between Christmas and Epiphany is still alive. The legend tells us that wild hordes ride on horses through the air during these nights, bringing storms, unrest and destruction. The people say that it is dangerous to be outdoors alone, lest one be picked up and carried away into the air and made to join the wild riders above.
The British Dominions and Regionalism
Authors: Levi Werner
Published: August 2009

The second world war has brought about considerable changes in the British Commonwealth of Nations. These changes are, to a great extent, the further evolution of a process which began early in those colonies now called Dominions. The dependent status given to the colonists did not satisfy them for long. Agitation for self-government began early in the nineteenth century and, as a result of immigration from European countries and the example of the United States, became so widespread that it was granted during the second half of the century. Once the colonies obtained a degree of self-government, a reaction set in, motivated by economic considerations, which prevented the urge for independence from ending in separation from England. The colonists were content with jurisdiction over local affairs, to which later had to be added some rights in the regulation of their foreign commerce. The major aspects of foreign policy and defense remained within England's bailiwick. But as the colonies grew into “adulthood” they claimed a share in this last monopoly of the mother country also.
The Humanism of Peguy
Authors: Bespaloff Rachel
Published: August 2009

In Men and Saints, a second volume of selections, translated with fidelity and intelligence by Anne and Julian Green, the choice of texts offers the American reader the best opportunity to become acquainted with a mind whose true significance is just beginning to be recognized. It was an excellent idea to have first emphasized the humanism on which Péguy's significance is based, a unique humanism which is not fashioned in the quiet of a scholar's retreat, but rather in the anguish of impending destruction: “It is a dreadful anguish,” writes Péguy, “to foresee and to see collective death, whether it be that a whole people goes under in the blood of a massacre, whether it be that a whole people reels and succumbs in the retrenchments of battle.” Before anything else this humanism is a “resistance,” a supreme call-to-arms.
Religious Freedom in Thomas More'sUtopia
Authors: Kessler Sanford
Published: August 2009

Thomas More advocated religious freedom inUtopiato promote civic peace in Christendom and to help unify his fractious Catholic Church. In doing so, he set forth a plan for managing church-state relations that is a precursor to liberal approaches in this area. Most scholars locate the origins of modern religious freedom in Protestant theology and its first mature articulation in Locke'sA Letter on Toleration. This reading ofUtopiashows that modern religious freedom has Catholic, Renaissance roots. The essay discusses how scholars have treated Utopian religious freedom and considers the much vexed question of whether More actually favored this principle. It also presents the historical context for More's analysis, his rationale for religious freedom, its effects on Utopian religion and politics, and More's strategy for promoting religious reform in Europe.
Morality, Nature, and Esotericism in Leo Strauss'sPersecution and the Art of Writing
Authors: Kochin Michael S.
Published: August 2009

Strauss's historical investigation of the use of exoteric writing in Farabi, Maimonides, Halevi, and Spinoza, is in fact his history of the philosophers' exoteric accommodations to the permanent difference in human natures, the difference between the many who require a categorical moral teaching and the few who are capable of ordering their own lives in the face of the hypothetical status of all moral commands. The men of the Enlightenment aspired to render the moral law superfluous for all by constructing a machinery of government powerful enough to compel all to live justly. Strauss critiques this aspiration by leading his reader to face the permanency of the difference between the few and the many. Strauss uses historical scholarship to force the reader to rethink the possibility of contemplation of the eternal or permanent, the possibility that the Enlightenment's historicist epigones have sought to foreclose.
Shaping Modern Constitutional Theory: Bickel and Bork Confront the Warren Court
Authors: O'Neill Johnathan
Published: August 2009

Today constitutional theory is marked by the staying power of originalism, interest in nonjudicial constitutional interpretation, and reconsideration of when judicial review is “countermajoritarian.” Alexander M. Bickel and Robert H. Bork shaped these concerns in the 1960s and early 1970s while they were close friends and Yale faculty colleagues. Both recognized that the Warren Court's liberal activism, when considered in the aftermath of legal realism, demanded a clearer theory of the limits of legitimate judicial power. This article examines their legal and constitutional thought in this period and then briefly surveys how their ideas continue to configure constitutional theory. Current defenders and opponents of originalism are still compelled to wrestle with the imprint of positivism, formalism, and judicial restraint Bork gave the doctrine. Current challenges to the “countermajoritarian difficulty” in favor of nonjudicial interpretation must contend with this influential formulation of Bickel, and they owe more to the Bickel of constitutional “colloquy” than has been appreciated.
Postwar Hungary
Authors: Gyorgy Andrew
Published: August 2009

Since the end of military operations Danubian Europe has been undergoing a social and political upheaval in which, paradoxically, both Communism and a resurgent nationalism seem to be powerful elements. The most significant contributing factor in this atmosphere of political unrest is the all-too-direct domination of the Soviet Union whose policies are guided by conflicting motivations and divergent objectives, results of the flexible strategic and economic considerations of the Kremlin.

Hungary today is in the twilight zone of liberated states; her domestic politics are a mirror-like reflection of the fundamental tensions among the world powers. The post-war era has undoubtedly seen hopes for a real moral and economic transformation of the country spurred on by a series of significant, if temporary, liberal reform moves. Fair national elections resulting in a decisive Communist defeat and in an acceptable coalition government based on the Smallholders, a national party neither ultra-conservative nor revoluntionary, a thorough land reform, a reasonably free press, a stabilized currency, and a moderately successful process of industrial nationalization were promising landmarks at the beginning of the road toward reconstruction.
Aristotle and the Agrarians
Authors: Marshall John S.
Published: August 2009

Among the ancients Aristotle is the only thinker who furnishes us with a fully developed philosophical conception of man's relationship to the world about him, and then uses this conception as a basis for the determination of man's life in relationship with nature. Part of this philosophy finds its source in certain conceptions reigning among the ancient Greeks, ideas which he as a product of ancient life and civilization most naturally accepted; but another part of it, and a significant part too, is the result of Aristotle's own insight into human life and its meaning. In such studies we must remember that Aristotle was very critical of much in the Greek city-state; and, as a Macedonian he was more sympathetic with an agrarian economy than with the Ionian city economy. We can never understand Aristotle if we take him to be an Athenian, and assume that his sympathies were with Athenian mercantile democracy. He is not bound down to any one ancient economy and has a critical attitude towards all of them. What he has in mind are certain norms or ideals for human life and its relationship to nature, and on these he bases his whole system of social and economic thought and thus throws light upon the systems of social and economic life historically developed.
A Question for Richard Rorty
Authors: Duncan Christopher M.
Published: August 2009

This essay begins with the assumption that Richard Rorty means everything he says; its question, however, is ultimately why he says everything he means. Politically speaking, for someone who is unconstrained by metaphysical concerns about the “right” or the “good,” what counts is not being right, but being successful. Hence my question for Rorty is simply this: why be honest when deception might be more effective? I contend that in the context of American political culture that his honest practice of his philosophy undermines his politics. Unlike other critical accounts, mine focuses on his tactics and Rorty's own failure to accept the burdens and possibilities of his own theoretical work. I then offer Rorty a model of deception for his consideration from Miguel de Unamuno's short story “St. Emmanuel the Good, Martyr,” that he might have made use of had he been more interested in political results than in being thought honest.
Toward a Hayekian Theory of Commodification and Systemic Contradiction: Citizens, Consumers, and the Media
Authors: diZerega Gus
Published: August 2009

F. A. Hayek's theory of spontaneous order applies to more than the market. One implication is that different systems of rules generating different spontaneous orders are biased in favor of different values. Markets serve the values of consumers; democracies serve the values of citizens. No spontaneous order perfectly reflects human values because they simplify the context of choice in favor of core systemic values. This insight enables us to distinguish between systemic and individual resources, and tensions between them. It also enables us to develop models of systemic conflict. Of particular interest are interactions between democracies and markets whose rules reflect different values but influence one another. The increasing commodification of the press shifts this institution from reflecting both democratic and economic values more and more to purely economic values, undermining its capacity to serve citizens. Examples illustrating this argument are explored.
Vietnam: Mr. Johnson's War—or Mr. Eisenhower's?
Authors: Cuddy Edward
Published: August 2009

Conventional wisdom pins responsibility for the Vietnam War primarily on Lyndon B. Johnson. This essay presents a revisionist argument, attempting to shift primary responsibility for the war on President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The case rests heavily on John F. Kennedy's challenge to historians: “How the hell” can they evaluate presidential performances unless they know the “real pressures” and the “real alternatives” confronting the occupiers of the Oval Office. In assessing those pressures, this essay concludes that Eisenhower had the unique luxury of a clean break from President Truman's commitments, thanks to the Vietnamese victory at Dien Bien Phu, and a clear-cut alternative provided by the Geneva Accords. Unfortunately, Eisenhower chose to ignore the Accords, committed America to South Vietnam, and played a major role, during and after his presidency, in creating the heavy pressures that shaped Johnson's Vietnam decisions.
Community and Self-Interest: Marsiglio of Padua on Civil Life and Private Advantage
Authors: Nederman Cary J.
Published: August 2009

The essay addresses the construction of the common good as viewed by one of the most controversial thinkers of the later Middle Ages. Marsiglio of Padua presents an extended argument for the compatibility of the material advantage of individuals with civil association by basing his conception of the community on the benefits that accrue to human beings from realizing their “natural” self-interests. According to Marsiglio, it is in the nature of human beings to seek their own physical well-being, which is best achieved by living communally. Hence, Marsiglian society is ultimately arranged according to the principle of promoting the goal of private advantage, the fulfillment of which is equivalent to the common good. The argument contains distinct elements of some of the main themes of modern economic rationality, yet also builds a bridge to a substantial idea of community.
The American Polity: A Systematic Ambiguity
Authors: Roelofs H. Mark
Published: August 2009

This paper constructs, within the American liberal consensus, a conceptual frame into which the great paradoxes of American politics can be fitted without significant omission or unexplained contradiction. The foundation of the American liberal consensus is seen to be a Protestant-bourgeois individualism divided against itself. This fundamental division issues into conflicting visions of America as a democracy. In national, legitimizing myth, America is seen as a Protestant-tinctured social democracy organized in terms of sovereignty of the people, confederalism, separation of powers, and popular government. On the other hand, in the ideology of America as a legally functioning state, it is a bourgeois, liberal democracy organized in terms of constitutionalism, federalism, mixed government, and representative government. These distinctions make possible a consistent explanation of the consensus-cleavage paradox that lies at the core of American political life. They also explain the persistent ambiguity that confuses the democratic character of the American political system and also the biformalism of its major institutions.
Who Shall Interpret? The Quest for the Ultimate Constitutional Interpreter
Authors: Murphy Walter F.
Published: August 2009

The question of WHO is the ultimate constitutional interpreter poses one of the fundamental problems with which a coherent constitutional theory must come to grips. Any answer will be closely connected to other basic theoretical interrogatives, such as WHAT is the constitution and HOW should it be interpreted. Three principal theories compete here: Judicial supremacy, legislative supremacy, and departmentalism. This paper suggests a sort of analysis that transforms the question of WHO from one that yields a universally applicable response into a more complex set of queries about degrees of deference one institution owes another under varying circumstances. What emerges is a modified version of departmentalism.
The Junkers and the Prussian Administration from 1918 to 1939
Authors: Muncy Lysbeth W.
Published: August 2009

The Junkers, as popularly conceived today, are considered to have been die evil genius of the German people, prompting their authoritarianism, their statism and their militarism. The popular conception is faulty when it uses die term “Junker” to include all German or even all Prussian nobles and fails to recognize diat Junkers come only from the historic eastern provinces of Prussia. It comes nearer to die trudi in its political judgment. For there is no doubt that die Junkers, who were able to defend dieir reactionary principles of absolute monarchy through their traditional and substantial political influence at Court, in die army, in the civil administration and dirough party politics, were a prime politcal cause of Prussia's failure to reform its government along liberal and popular lines before 1918.
After World War II
Authors: Gurian Waldemar
Published: August 2009

The events that are happening before our eyes are less clear than those of the past because we do not know their meaning, their place in the epoch which is developing. We know the isolated facts, but we do not know their significance; we do not know to what whole they belong and therefore we overestimate some and underestimate others. Who could have realized, for example, that the meetings of some obscure Russian revolutionaries in 1903 would mean the formation of a party of world-historic importance? Who could have believed in 1919 that not General Ludendorff but an unknown private of Austrian origin, Adolf Hitler, would become the decisive figure in the history of German nationalism, its leader and, as it seems today, its executioner?

We do not know the present, because we do not know die future, and therefore we are ignorant of what will be retained as a lasting trend from the mass and maze of today's happenings.
Russia and Freedom
Authors: Fedotov G.
Published: August 2009

The harassing problem of our days is that of freedom in Russia. It is not the problem of whether or not freedom exists in the USSR. No one, except ignorant tourists can entertain any doubt on this score. What preoccupies all of us is the feasibility of the resurrection of democracy in victorious Russia. Only reactionary hoodlums, remnants of the so-called “Black Hundreds” of the Tsarist time can feel happy in a Moscow reviving the spirit of Ivan the Terrible. Apologists for the Moscow dictatorship, yesterday's Socialists and liberals, lull their conscience by a belief in Russia's early liberation. The anticipated evolution of the Soviet regime impels them to accept light-heartedly, or even triumphantly, the enslavement by the Soviet Government of more and more European and Asiatic nations. The prospect of life in the freest and happiest community in the world of the future makes for them a few years of oppression well worth their while.
Frontiers and Mass Migrations in Eastern Central Europe
Authors: Rothfels Hans
Published: August 2009

The establishment of the Oder-Neisse line as a “provisional” frontier between Germany and Poland and the “elimination of national minorities” connected therewith are part of a settlement which not only affects basically the fate of Germany and Poland but also has some very broad implications. These implications deserve public discussion from various angles.
Cartels: Realism or Escapism?
Authors: Briefs Goetz A.
Published: August 2009

To European economists, cartels are old acquaintances. Beyond the Atlantic, they have been under discussion since Kleinwaechter, in 1883, made them the object of the first analysis. It was about the time when, in this country, monopolies and trusts were much debated. As early as Europe waxed cartel-conscious, this country became monopoly and trust-conscious. Not that American scholars were unaware of the cartels—no less than Europeans were unaware of the trusts; but it appeared to most that the sin of industry in this country was “monopolies,” whereas the enemies of cartels in Europe were equally inclined to call the cartel the sin of their economies.

In the short-lived days of the NRA cartel-like organizations were entrusted with the establishment of industrial codes for market regulation. They were not called cartels, but actually they functioned, or were supposed to function, like cartels.
Henry A. Wallace, the Liberals, and Soviet-American Relations
Authors: Hamby Alonzo L.
Published: August 2009

Several significant works on post-1945 American politics have dealt with the career of Henry A. Wallace. These studies have tended to depict Wallace as a one-dimensional character, either a fuzzy-minded idealist influenced and manipulated by Communists and fellow travelers or a wise and dedicated apostle of peace fighting a losing battle to prevent the Cold War. Both views have in common the assumption that Wallace stood for the same thing in foreign policy from the end of World War II through his Progressive Party campaign for the presidency. It is true that there were important continuities; there were also significant transformations in the content and quality of his thinking.
Nkrumah in Retrospect
Authors: Mahoney William P.
Published: August 2009

Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, who fell from power two years ago, was surely one of the more spectacular leaders of the newly emerging nations, at least in the romantic and dramatic days of their early emergence. Nkrumah had a number of advantages which he exploited to the hilt: his successful drive for independence led the parade in Black Africa; Ghana itself had a head start in development and sophistication fostered by a generous British colonial policy; and the rest of the world was anxious that Ghana and others to follow it succeed in the business of attaining genuine nationhood.
The Atomic Bomb. Political Hopes and Realities
Authors: Possony Stefan T.
Published: August 2009

To judge from the beginnings of the so-called Atomic Age, the invention of nuclear fission has had as yet greater psychological than physical effects. The atomic bomb climaxed the psychological warfare against Japan and accelerated the surrender of that country. Immediately afterwards, the bomb threw, by its mere existence, the again peaceful world into a turmoil of fear and despair. Prophets arose to proclaim the advent of a final catastrophe. They predicted the demise of mankind in an earth-shattering chain-reaction. Was it not to be expected? We are approaching the end of our millenium. Our contemporaries readily believe in journalistic clichés and scientific absurdities. The mystic of prayer and self-chastisement has been replaced by the magic of mathematical formulas and physical models.
English Politics Today. We Mean Freedom
Authors: Tawney R. H.
Published: August 2009

The part assigned to me today is a humble one. It is not that of the specialist who diagnoses and prescribes for the disease, but that of the attendant who induces the patient to practise the regimen ordered, by persuading him that, repulsive as at first sight it appears, he will find it in reality not only forțifying, but positively agreeable; that it involves the surrender of no habits or activities which a sensible man ought to wish to retain; and that, if only he will pluck up the courage to give it a trial, bc will end by being astonished that he did not take to it before. I am only too conscious of my inability to utter convincingly the reassuring noises which such a rôle requires; but, in doing business with so experienced and wary an animal as the British lion, an approach which allays his initial alarms is undoubtedly expedient, and, not less undoubtedly, the kernel of his apprehensions is to be found in the region indicated by the title of my essay.
Answer
Authors: Rothfels Hans
Published: August 2009

1. Regarding the “Mazovian call for help” the question under dispute is not whether or not the duke understood “Poland's real interests” or showed “political foresight.” It is rather the question what his actual situation was or what he thought it to be. While St. Zajaczkowski maintains that the duke was “not in despair” (Kwartalnik Historyczny, XLVIII, 4, p. 843; quoted from a German translation) and while St. Ketrzynski calls the duke “allegedly desperate” and a “benefactor” of the Teutonic Order (ibid. p. 801), it still seems to me that Professor Halecki is more correct in admitting, that the “duke himself acted in despair.” I did not intend to do him injustice by stating a difference from “other” (I did not say “the” other) Polish historians.
Communist Theory and the American Negro Question
Authors: Van Zanten John W.
Published: August 2009

Political Science has long been interested in opinion. It is supposed that expressed views are indicators of behavior or potential behavior and are therefore worthy of attention as aids in understanding the present and predicting the future. While there can be little doubt that people's feelings guide their actions, we can sometimes be deceived because manifest opinion may be merely an epiphenomenon derivative from other factors, rather than vice versa. This is a problem most evident when trying to relate the true designs of an ideological movement's leadership to its pronouncements.
Proudhon and the Problem of Community
Authors: Ritter Alan
Published: August 2009

The problem of community, as Proudhon understands it, is to reconcil individual freedom with social peace. His political theorizing can best be seen as a prolonged effort to achieve this reconciliation. Proudhon was not at all original in placing the problem of community, as thus conceived, at the top of his agenda. He was simply responding in the usual way to the challenge presented by the Revolution to all writers on politics in early nineteenth-century France.- By disrupting social order at the same time that it awakened demands for freedom, the Revolution had made an answer to the problem of community both urgent and difficult. A reconstructed French community both free and safe was clearly needed, but how could it be achieved? If pressing demands for freedom were met, a tenuous social peace would be endangered, while if peace were secured, demands for fredom would go unsatisfied. The need and the difficulty of reconciling peace and freedom under the circumstances prevailing in France led Proudhon, like so many of his contemporaries, to devote himself to finding an answer to the problem of community.
The Concept of Elections in Political Theory
Authors: Pomper Gerald
Published: August 2009

Popular elections are generally assumed to be the crucial element of democratic governments, but the significance of elections is so widely assumed that it is rarely examined. Although studies of voting behavior abound, there are relatively few theoretical or empirical investigations of the effects of voting on the total political system. To clarify our thinking, and as a preliminary to contemporary discussion, it may prove helpful to reexamine some major works of premodern European and American political thought.
Leo Strauss's Conception of Political Philosophy: A Critique
Authors: Jung Hwa Yol
Published: August 2009

The political thought of Leo Strauss commands the respect and admiration of even his critics. His critical intellectual carpentry is sharp, cutting, and often rebuking. His criticism of modernity, whether it be that of Machiavelli, Max Weber, an existentialist, or a scientific political scientist, is inspired by and deeply rooted in the Greek intellectualistic essentialism, particularly that of Aristotle, and the age-old tradition of nature and natural right as is shown in his work, Natural Right and History
Adenauer and Rhenish Separatism
Authors: Epstein Klaus
Published: August 2009

Adenauer's role during the Rhineland occupation after the First World War has been the subject of bitter controversy. His critics, whether Nazi, Communist, or Socialist, have depicted him as a “Rhenish separatist” devoid of German patriotism and willing — perhaps even eager to — collaborate with France at the expense of national unity; parallels were often drawn between his alleged eagerness to create an independent West German Republic allied to France in 1919 and 1923, and his alleged indifference to the cause of German reunification after 1949. His foes depicted him steadily in the 1950's as a Prussophobe-Rhenish provincialist who preferred alliance with the Western Powers to any unification of Germany which might require the loosening of NATO ties.
Historical Theory and Political Reform: Two Perspectives on Confederation Politics
Authors: Lienesch Michael
Published: August 2009

Among recent American historians, few topics have provoked more controversy than the character of the Confederation period. On one side, scholars like Forrest McDonald have contended that the era from the end of the revolutionary war to the creation of the federal constitution was a time of economic confusion and political chaos, a “critical period” in which popular protest became violent enough to threaten civil war. On the other side, critics of this view led by Merrill Jensen have argued that the period was in fact prosperous and relatively stable, that political protests were few and mostly well behaved, and that, in short, the “critical period” was really not very critical at all. This article does not enter into this debate. Instead, it works from the premise that events are often less important than the perception of events. That is, actual conditions aside, it considers how Americans of the day perceived these conditions. In particular, it describes how they viewed their politics through the filter of their understanding of history.
The President's Inner Foreign Policy Team
Authors: Plischke Elmer
Published: August 2009

As Chief of State and head of government, the President is the epicenter of the management of American external relations and the formulation of foreign policy. Not only does he welcome the leaders of other countries who come on summit visits, receive personally the diplomatic emissaries of foreign governments accredited to the United States, and participate in many other formal diplomatic functions, but he also is responsible for executing those segments of the law that pertain to international affairs, for appointing United States diplomats and communicating with other governments, for making treaties, and for initiating and enunciating foreign policy. Addressing himself to the last of these, President Truman cryptically declared: “The President makes foreign policy.” Dean Rusk later commented that this “is not the whole story,” but “it serves very well if one wishes to deal with the matter in five words.”
NPD-NDP: Europe's New Nationalism in Germany and Austria
Authors: Fichtner Paula Sutter
Published: August 2009

Part of the Heritage bequeathed by the Habsburg Empire to the First and Second Austrian Republics was German ethnic nationalism. The movement was a response to what its adherents considered the difficulty of preserving German cultural practices and institutional patterns within a state composed of diverse nationalities. Challenged by the growth of nationalism among the other linguistic and ethnic groups of the Habsburg lands during the latter half of the nineteenth century and stimulated by the appearance of a German national state after 1871, Austro-Germanism grew in size and diversity until 1914. In its more moderate form, the persuasion went no further than stubborn resistance of German Austrians to any cultural or political concessions to non-Germans in the Empire. In the hands of the rabid Pan-Germanist Georg von Schonerer, it was a frankly subversive ideology dedicated to the detachment of the German sections of Austria from the Danubian monarchy and their fusion with imperial Germany.
The Moral Amnesia of Modernity: The Scholarship of Ernest Fortin
Authors: Tinder Glenn
Published: August 2009

Walking in Ernest Fortin's scholarly universe is a great pleasure. One breathes an atmosphere of serenity, good sense, and profound erudition. Fortin is at once highly serious yet often amusing; he is both learned and unpretentious; he is frequently skeptical but never unpleasant or destructive. The traveler in his universe encounters not only a great number of interesting discussions but also particularly brilliant pieces, such as “The Bible Made Me Do It: Christianity, Science, and the Environment,” where the author fully exposes the absurdity of the claim that Genesis 1, in which God grants humanity dominion over the rest of creation, bears responsibility for the damage done in recent times to the physical environment. In bringing together the essays and reviews that make up these volumes, Brian Benestad has performed an important service not only for the community of Christian scholars and thinkers but for all who are interested in the history of philosophy and political theory.
The Problem of Liberal Rhetoric
Authors: Zvesper John
Published: August 2009

Everyone knows that the art of political rhetoric has declined drastically in the modern world. Observers of the decline often measure and deplore it, but few pause to reflect that one of the reasons for the decline may be the acceptance of certain liberal principles which entail limits to the scope and power of political speech. Even such a clear-sighted observer of the interplay of language and politics as George Orwell argued that the simplification and purification of language went hand in hand with the liberalization of politics. Orwell was not mistaken when he coupled perverted speech with totalitarian politics. But it is dangerous to assume that excellent political speech is at home in liberal regimes, or that liberal speech can be as psychologically satisfactory as illiberal speech. Orwell recognized this point when he noticed in his review of Hitler's Mein Kampf that the liberal “hedonistic attitude to life” fails to satisfy some of the irrepressible longings of the human soul, and leaves room for the kind of appeal made by Hitler. There is an inherent weakness in liberal rhetoric which cuts it off from some of the sources of political conviction and community.
From the Incoherence of Systems Theory to a Philosophy of International Relations
Authors: Spegele Roger D.
Published: August 2009

Despite the high seriousness and obviously increasing importance of international politics in our time, something recognizable as a philosophy of the subject, in the view of some scholars, has not yet succeeded in emerging from the demise of “banal” positivism. This lamentable and barely explicable state of affairs has led several philosophically inclined scholars to urge the search for a philosophy of international relations. The form, scope and content of the proposed philosophy have received less attention; the philosophers in question have been content to limit their philosophical inquiry to a species of historical-philosophical archaeology consisting of, for example, the uncovering of Kant's conception of philosophical reason as it relates to international relations or, the recovery of “the just war for classical theory” or, the discovery tout court of a conception of “justice” for international relations. Without putting such indispensable efforts at risk or preempting the results of such scholarship, I see two obstacles to their success. First, there has been little or no comparable effort directed toward indicating, except in highly schematic form, what any such philosophy might consist in and, secondly, it is still unclear what relationship there could be between any such proposed philosophy and alternative conceptions of international relations such as empirical systems theory.
Liberalism and Parental Control of Education
Authors: Ruderman Richard S. , Godwin R. Kenneth
Published: August 2009

Liberalism has always had a powerful concern with the education of its citizens. But who should exercise final authority over the education—parents or the state? The answer rests, in large part, on our understanding of the character of the self-rule or autonomy to be taught. For as “autonomy” comes to mean unpredetermined “choice,” it becomes ever more difficult to justify parental control of education. In fact, parental control, supported by the earliest liberals, is now thought to produce “ethical servility.” Liberal theorists—such as John Dewey, Amy Gutmann, and Eamonn Callan—break with thinkers like Locke and Mill in allowing the state to override parental preferences in the name of greater equality, preparation for autonomy, and democratic deliberation. We argue that taking educational authority away from parents and giving it to the state is anilliberalpolicy, meaning one that fails to abide by Locke's central distinction of political and parental power. This failure will lead both to greater ethical servility and to fewer reasonable alternatives from which autonomous individuals can choose.
The Religious Transformation of Politics and the Political Transformation of Religion
Authors: Thompson Kenneth W.
Published: August 2009

This article deals with the introduction of strongly fundamental views into the theory and practice of politics. It also concerns the transformation of religion from a concern with religious faith to the creation of political religions. Thus forces have been at work in the past two decades seeking to make a religion of politics and transforming religion into a holy political crusade in the form of a particular version of partisan politics.
Fraternity and Citizenship: Two Ethics of Mutuality in Christian Thomasius
Authors: Barnard Frederick M.
Published: August 2009

Political jurist, philosopher, and publicist, Christian Thomasius (1655–1728), in seeking to set apart the ordering principle of political society from that of the religious community, in effect put forth two distinct ethics of mutuality, an “intrinsic” ethic of inherent purpose and an “extrinsic” ethic of instrumentality, the former characterized by disinterested love, in need of no further justification, the latter characterized by prudential reciprocity, in demand of a rational grounding. Unity in the former is viewed as consensual and necessary, whereas it is seen as plural and contingent in the latter, thus designating politics as the domain of instrumentality, plurality, and contingency. Similarly, citizenship is sharply contrasted with the idea of fraternity. Its defining quality is identified withdecorum, which, though it entails elements of moral and legal accountability, is held to be neither strictly moral nor strictly legal. Its effective operation is, however, posited on the possibility of an unfalsified consciousness. In exploring the category ofdecorumas an ethic of mutuality, reference is made to contemporary discussions on liberal and communitarian theory and on the conditions of rational debate in politics.