bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Woman Suffrage in Parliament: A Test for Cabinet Autocracy
Authors: Clark Evans
Published: May 2006

The woman suffrage movement in Great Britain has rendered a service for political science of which even its adherents are often unaware. It has brought to a most searching test the prevailing constitutional theory.

In these days of psycho-analysis of the individual there should be also some psycho-analysis of political institutions. Political theory, like the pious formulas with which we drape the nudity of our real desires and aspirations, is often at bottom what might be called a highly intellectualized excuse. Political theory is an afterthought: a justification or explanation of the desires and aspirations of the dominant economic and social group. The “divine right of kings” is now a hollow pretension to us. But it was as much a reality to the aristocracy, whose power is explained and excused, as are our own instinctive personal excuses. The “natural rights of man” have proven hardly more substantial,—the great excuse in which the rising commercial classes have ever covered their designs against the aristocracy. And now, at last, in the theory that “labor creates all wealth,” we find the embryo excuse for a growing threat of the working class.
Amendment of State Constitutions
Authors: Garner James Wilford
Published: May 2006

The right of the people, acting within the bounds of the law and through organs constituted in conformity with the prescriptions of the existing constitution, to alter, amend, or abolish their form of government whenever they deem it necessary to their safety and happiness is, in effect, declared by practically every American bill of rights to be not only fundamental but inalienable and indefeasible. The phraseology differs in some of them but the substance is the same in all. Without such a right the mistakes and errors of the past could not be eliminated from the body politic nor the accumulated wisdom and experience of other States utilized. Without it, the fundamental maxim that constitutions grow instead of being made would be meaningless and political development impossible. An acute thinker has well observed that no constitution can expect to be permanent unless it guarantees progress as well as order. Political conservatism is a virtue too often trampled upon by statesmen, but it has its limits, and, in its exaggerated form, becomes a source of revolution. The amending power has been aptly compared to a safety valve which ought to be so adjusted as not to discharge its peculiar function with too great facility lest it become an escape pipe for party passion and political prejudice, nor with such difficulty that the force needed to induce action will explode the machine.
French Colonial Expansion in West Africa, The Sudan, and the Sahara
Authors: Harris Norman Dwight
Published: May 2006

The conclusion of a definite treaty of diplomatic alliance between France and Morocco, in February, 1910, marks one of the last steps in a long series of moves to establish for France a vast colonial empire in the Dark Continent. Between the years 1830 and 1850, France acquired the whole of Algeria and Constantine. In 1881 she annexed Tunisia; and, in the ten years that followed, she participated with Germany, Great Britain and Italy, in the race for territory in Africa. But it is only within the past twenty years that she has successfully created a great colonial state there.

French colonial enterprise in Africa began in 1637, when Claude de Rochefort built fort St. Louis at the mouth of the Senegal river on the west coast and explored the interior for 100 miles. He was followed during the 18th and early 19th centuries by other intrepid explorers who made settlements at Millicourie on the Guinea coast and at Assinié and Grand Bassam on the Ivory Coast, and who penetrated further and further into the interior until the valiant Réné Caille, after marvelous adventures, reached Timbuktu, near the Upper Niger, in 1837. The French holdings on the Senegal were extended and consolidated into an effective base for future operations by the energetic General Faidherbe from 1854 to 1865, who added the Oulof country as far south as Cape Verde and the kingdom of Cayore, and built the harbor at Darkar. He was the first to recognize the possibilities of West Africa as a colonial center. “Our possession on the West Coast,” he wrote to the Colonial Office, “is possibly the one of all our colonies that has before it the greatest future; and it deserves the whole sympathy and attention of the Empire.”
The Relation Between the Legislative and Executive Branches of the Canadian Government
Authors: Shortt Adam
Published: May 2006

As is well known, the Canadian system of government belongs to the British type of responsible parliamentary government in which there is the most intimate connection between the legislative and executive functions, and in which also the constitution is a flexible combination of laws and usages, many of the latter more binding, and in some cases even more unalterable than the laws. However, the Canadian system of government was not always of this character, and even yet it differs in many more or less essential features from the central type. In the first place, the line of historic arrival in Canada, while presenting certain interesting though unconscious parallels with the development of the mother of parliaments, yet differs materially from the long, slow and tentative process by which the British government and its constitutional mechanism were worked out. In the second place, the colony of Canada, after its conquest from France, was first of all a definite dependency of the mother country, to which constitutional privileges were granted from time to time, and later the Dominion of Canada was a combination of several practically independent provinces and territories in varying degrees of economic and political realization. This involved a written constitution apportioning and defining the divided sovereignty assigned to the Dominion and the provinces, leaving that element of sovereignty which pertains to the mother country indefinite and debatable, a tide of imperial influence which ebbs and flows from day to day, and is subject to the high and neap tides of imperial sentiment.
The Railroad Bill and the Court of Commerce
Authors: Bryan James Wallace
Published: May 2006

The new railroad bill considerably widens the domain of federal control over interstate railroad transportation, and should serve to elevate the Interstate Commerce Commission to a position of correspondingly enhanced influence. New matters have been subjected to the jurisdiction of that body, and its powers in those matters already confided to it are substantially augmented in important particulars. But interesting as are these portions of the new law in themselves, they represent in the main nothing more than extensions and elaborations of principles already firmly established in former Acts regulating interstate commerce. To the student of constitutional law they present no problem that has not been thoroughly discussed in the debates over previous bills or settled by the courts. His attention, however, is at once arrested by the court feature of the new bill, although this occupied a position of secondary importance in the debates in Congress. This newly created Court of Commerce represents a notable innovation in the judicial system of the United States. It is a tribunal unlike any other known to American law, and its establishment warns us that even the judiciary may not wholly escape the effect of the universal tendency toward specialization which is such a prominent feature of modern life.
The Political and Social Theory of Michael Bakunin
Authors: Rezneck Samuel
Published: May 2006

In the course of the nineteenth century the breach between the Russian government and the intelligentsia grew steadily wider, until it would scarcely have been credible that the relations between them had once been those of patron and client. This had been in the brighter and more hopeful days of enlightened despotism, under Catherine II, and in some measure also under Alexander I. Now, however, other men were ruling, still despotic but no longer enlightened. The consequence was that the less tractable of the intellectuals became either voluntary or compulsory exiles. Much of nineteenth-century Russian history centers about these exiles, who huddled together in colonies wherever they were tolerated: in Zurich, in Paris, and in London. They constituted the principal bond, both physical and cultural, between Russia and the western world.

By tradition and training these exiles possessed a bent for cosmopolitan living; in their mental equipment they were decidedly eclectic. Now more than ever they were exposed to the diversity of intellectual influences in which western Europe was more than commonly rich in this post-revolutionary period. Detached from their own foundations, they yielded themselves the more readily to the new currents of thought. Hegelianism, Darwinism, positivism, socialism—wave after wave of “isms” passed over them. They absorbed something of each and tried to make a blending of all.
The British Imperial Conference
Authors: Smellie K. B.
Published: May 2006

Opinions differ as to the significance of the work of the recent Imperial Conference. That it was the most successful of the conferences yet held does not mean much. For these conferences have in reality contributed little to the conditions of imperial coöperation. Meeting only once in four years, with necessarily little continuity of membership (only three members this year were present in 1923), and coming to problems with which they have had no continuity of contact, the representatives of the dominions can at best solemnly endorse general principles upon which all are agreed, at worst tender advice which in foreign affairs and in the economic sphere has often been ill considered. As Professor A. B. Keith wrote in “Imperial Unity and the Dominions,” “it may safely be predicted that if the dominion representatives are to have only such control of or intelligence of foreign politics in their relation to the Empire as they can pick up once in four years at a very much overcrowded conference, they are not likely to benefit the Empire very seriously by their advice.”
Public Administration, 1928
Authors: White Leonard D.
Published: May 2006

Steady progress in the improvement of the processes of public administration marked the year 1928, but possibly of even greater significance has been the development of research interest in administrative problems by organized bodies of public officials. The greatest hope for realization of higher standards of performance necessarily lies in the body of officials who are responsible for the conduct of public business, and their new interest in research as a means of discovery of improved methods is of great significance. Among the groups of officials who are breaking new ground in this direction are the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the International City Managers' Association, the reorganized Civil Service Assembly, and some state leagues of municipalities. The appointment of four research fellows by the New York State Tax Department is also full of interest. Specific reference to some phases of their work will be made in the following paragraphs.

Academic interest in research in this field has also been exceptional. During the year Dr. W. F. Willoughby prepared for the Policy Committee of the American Political Science Association a survey of the institutions carrying on studies in public administration, and during the year also the Problems and Policy Committee of the Social Science Research Council appointed a special Advisory Committee on Research in Public Administration, the chairman of which is Professor Leonard D. White, of the University of Chicago. Other committees of the Social Science Research Council also have dealt with special phases of administration, especially the Advisory Committee on Industrial Relations and the Advisory Committee on Social and Economic Research in Agriculture.
The Law of Martial Rule
Authors: Fairman Charles
Published: May 2006

It is not in the least unusual, in newspaper accounts of a strike, riot, flood, or fire, to read that the governor has proclaimed martial law and summoned the militia to the threatened zone. However exaggerated such reports may be, they are evidence of a general belief that there exists some mysterious “martial law” which, when proclaimed, augments the powers of soldiers and paves the way for heroic measures. Nor are these notions wholly fanciful. For such a proclamation may indeed be followed by an extraordinary régime in which the military authority will issue regulations for the conduct of the civil population, troops may be called upon to take life, and perhaps the individuals accused of fomenting trouble will be held without authority of a court, or in some cases may even be tried by a military tribunal. Quite likely these severe measures will receive the approval of public opinion. Yet it is surprising that a people ordinarily rather legalistic should have evinced so little disposition to inquire what rules of law, if any, govern the exercise of these military powers. To answering that unasked query the present study is addressed.
Some Problems of Canadian Federalism
Authors: Stoke Harold W.
Published: May 2006

The Civil War in the United States was a sobering object lesson to the fathers of Canadian federation. In drafting the British North America Act of 1867, they sought to forestall the development of those problems which the experience of their neighbor to the south had shown to be incidental to the federal system of government. The division of powers between central and local governments has been the rock on which most federations, sooner or later, have foundered, and Canadians sought to escape a similar fate by three different political devices.
Public Administration, 1931–32
Authors: White Leonard D.
Published: May 2006

Previous surveys of trends in public administration in this Review recorded developments in an era of prosperity and easy expansion. The present summary of the events of 1931 and 1932 discloses an abrupt and fundamental change in the underlying conditions affecting public activities, the effects of which have deeply influenced every aspect of governmental operations.

The depression places American government in an awkward dilemma. On the one hand is the tremendous shrinkage in productivity of taxes, proceeding far more rapidly than the corresponding reduction of expenditures; the resulting outcry against waste and extravagance in public expenditures and the rapid development of organized demands for retrenchment; the appearance of tax strikes in many communities, embarrassing public treasuries still more, and threatening the actual collapse of essential government services—eventually leading in some cases to a thoughtless and ill-advised attack on government itself, often by the very elements in the community who most violently deprecate “radical” criticism of our institutions. Faced with these situations, administrative expenditures have been substantially curtailed in the last two years in many directions, although few administrative services have been abandoned.
Federal Governments and International Labor Agreements
Authors: Stoke Harold W.
Published: May 2006

The International Labor Organization has become one of the most active of all the international institutions of the post-war period. According to the treaty of Versailles, international labor conferences, composed of delegates from countries which are members of the International Labor Organization, are to meet annually to consider and adopt recommendations and conventions applicable to labor problems and conditions throughout the world. The subjects for a number of possible agreements are suggested in the Versailles treaty, and include the right of association of laborers, the establishment of the eight-hour day, the adoption of the weekly rest period, the abolition of child labor, and various related matters. In drafting conventions and recommendations, the conferences are to be guided by a number of principles laid down in the Versailles treaty, and are asked to recognize that “differences of climate, habit and customs, of economic opportunity and industrial tradition, make strict uniformity in the conditions of labor difficult of immediate attainment.”

Economic difficulties alone were recognized, at first, by the makers of the treaty of Versailles as standing in the way of the attainment of “strict uniformity in the conditions of labor.” It was, however, soon brought to the attention of the Peace Conference that governments might not all prove equally competent constitutionally to deal with labor problems, and that some might prove totally lacking in legal capacity to adhere to the proposed labor conventions. This legal limitation was felt to be especially likely to arise in the case of federal governments, in many of which all matters of labor legislation are reserved to the member-states, and hence are beyond the legislative powers of the central governments. It was predicted by some that these legal difficulties would prove more stubborn obstacles to the uniform regulation of labor matters than differences in climate, habits and customs, and economic opportunity.
State Legislation on Public Utilities, 1936–38
Authors: Hormell Orren C.
Published: May 2006

A survey of the state legislation on public utilities for the period 1936-38 reveals the continuation of certain trends which were pointed out in the article published by the author in this REVIEW in June, 1936.

The period under consideration in the present article (1936–38) witnessed a marked extension of the exercise of regulatory functions by the Federal Government, and at the same time a notable strengthening of the powers and an increase in activities of the public utilities commissions in several states.
Propaganda Activities of British Political Parties
Authors: Stoke Harold W.
Published: May 2006

The recent national election in Great Britain offers another opportunity to study the methods and practices by which British political parties carry on their campaigns. One of the most interesting of these aspects of British politics is the character of the propaganda activities in which the parties engage—activities which present some contrasts to those with which Americans are familiar. In the United States, the regularity of elections accustoms the public to recurrent outbursts of noisy, high-pressure propaganda followed after elections by a silence almost unbroken by official party utterances. The parties of the United States are compelled to manufacture their campaigns out of whatever materials are at hand, seeking to whip up public sentiment without caring very much whether it rests upon sound convictions as to public policy or upon prejudice and passion. Party activities and strategy are determined almost exclusively by one cardinal principle—the effect upon the number of votes which the party can secure.
The War Policy of South Africa
Authors: Ilsley Lucretia L.
Published: May 2006

Neutrality versus support of the British Commonwealth was the issue which confronted the Union of South Africa when Great Britain, on September 3, 1939, went to war with Germany. A glance at recent South African political history will assist the reader in understanding the significance of the political crisis which marked the Union's entry into the conflict. As the outcome of an earlier crisis at the end of 1932, when South Africa abandoned the gold standard, a Coalition Government headed by two Boer generals was formed. Genaral Hertzog, leader of the Afrikaans-speaking Nationalist party, who had been prime minister in the preceding Nationalist-Laborite Pact Government, continued in the premiership. The post of deputy prime minister in the Coalition Cabinet was taken by General Smuts, the head of the South African party (made up of both Afrikaans and Englishspeaking elements of the population), which had formed the Opposition to the Pact Government. When this Coalition of 1933 was welded into Fusion by the formation of the United party in 1934, the rô1e of the official Opposition was assumed by the extreme Nationalists under Dr. Malan. Minor parties in Parliament were the Laborites and the Dominion party, an offshoot of the South African party with strong pro-British sentiments.
The Diversion of Interstate Waters in the United States
Authors: Simsarian James
Published: May 2006

Two cases which are concerned with the diversion of the waters of interstate streams were before the United States Supreme Court in the October term of 1937. One of them, Texas v. New Mexico, will be withdrawn from the Court docket when the Rio Grande compact signed by representatives of Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas and a representative of the United States on March 18,1938, enters into effect. The other case, Nebraska v. Wyoming and Colorado, was first argued before the Supreme Court in 1935. In May, 1938, the Court granted the petition of the United States for permission to intervene. Further written briefs and oral arguments were to be considered by the Court when the fall term of 1938 opened.
Commissions of Inquiry in Germany
Authors: Marx Fritz Morstein
Published: May 2006

Inquiries are ventures into the unknown. As instrumentalities of government, officially organized investigations are a relatively recent addition to the mechanism of politics. Leaving aside regular agencies of criminal procedure such as the grand jury, one may say that the emergence of investigating committees is closely connected with the growth of representative government. Parliamentary inquiries have come to be regarded as essential implements of legislative control over the executive branch. The present brief survey of German experience undertakes to show the potentialities and limitations of a different type of officially organized investigation: the executive inquiry.
The Popular Front in France: Prelude or Interlude?
Authors: Sharp Walter R.
Published: May 2006

“Frenchman, too conservative to go communist, too anarchistic to like fascism, what are you going to do with yourself?” Thus was concluded a penetrating diagnosis of contemporary social trends in France published about a year ago. It is significant that such a survey should have come from the pen of a brilliant young journalist belonging to what may be called the post-war generation. For, whatever else recent dramatic developments in French public affairs may portend, there is no doubt that political control is passing to a new set of leaders, as well as, perhaps, to new ideologies.

France is now twenty-two years removed from the outbreak of the World War. Men born as late as 1900 are approaching middle age. Among the eighth of the population now over sixty years of age, only a handful of persons remain who can remember the Franco-Prussian War. Most of the men who were directing national policy through the World War and the peace settlement have died—Clemenceau, Poincaré, Briand, Painlevé, Barthou, Viviani, and Ribot.
The Japanese Cabinet
Authors: Colegrove Kenneth
Published: May 2006

No mention of the cabinet is made in the Japanese constitution of 1889. Nevertheless, both before and after the proclamation of the fundamental law, a large part of the national administration of Japan has been initiated, directed, and supervised in a collective method by a body of officials which resembles in external characteristics the typical European parliamentary cabinet.

This cabinet has never enjoyed the unrivaled direction of administration as found in many parliamentary systems. First of all, the Emperor combines in himself all the rights of sovereignty and exercises these rights through various organs including not only the cabinet, but also the army and navy and the Imperial Household. The cabinet does not have a monopoly upon advice given to the Emperor. The right to advise is shared with the Genro (Elder Statesman), the officers of the Imperial Household, the Privy Council, and the advisers of the “supreme command,” including the chiefs of staff of the army and navy, the Board of Marshals and Fleet Admirals, and the Supreme War Council. The Privy Council is the special guardian of the constitution, consulted by the Emperor upon the propriety and wisdom of projects of law, ordinances, and treaties drafted or negotiated by the cabinet, and its advice may, and often does, run counter to that of the cabinet.
Fayolism as the Necessary Complement of Taylorism
Authors: Pearson Norman M.
Published: May 2006

World War II has called forth greater organizational and administrative efforts than ever before on the part of the armed forces, private industry, and government. The sheer size of the new organizations that were formed to fight battles, manufacture matériel, and administer government programs has intensified the problems of top management and executive control, as well as the technical problems of military operations, supply, and industrial production. Great dynamic changes in society always afford occasion for reappraising basic philosophies, and these significant changes in the scope and scale of our great enterprises are no exception. The field of management is perhaps less spectacular, less open to popular discussion than are the issues of foreign policy and of government participation in the national economy. But effective management of our enterprise is of fundamental importance to a successful conclusion of the war and subsequent maintenance of peace. The demands of the war on the home front have stimulated much re-thinking of the theories of government and business administration. This article is concerned with the relation between the basic theories of two of the greatest contributors to the field of management—Frederick Taylor and Henri Fayol.

We all know what the task of organizing for war has been during the past four years. Arms production of undreamed of magnitude had to be developed in a matter of months. To produce the vast number of planes, tanks, and ships, new enterprises sprang up over night and existing ones expanded to many times their original size. Similarly, the federal government, in addition to creating tremendous staffs in the War and Navy Departments, had to develop quickly “administrative leviathans” to control prices and ration goods, allocate industrial production, and direct the production and distribution of foods. War-time control had to be exercised to an unprecedented degree, frequently for hitherto unregulated matters, in connection with oil, censorship, transportation, manpower, and the like. Besides a need for more technical personnel in industrial production, there developed a need for people able to organize and direct large new enterprises.
Hobbes and Hobbism
Authors: Lamprecht Sterling P.
Published: May 2006

Fearful of a committee appointed by the House of Commons to investigate the current tendencies towards atheism and profaneness, Hobbes in 1666 burned some of his private papers. The Great Plague and the Great Fire of London had just occurred. While many Englishmen were prone to blame the fire on those whom they considered the “treacherous Catholics,” they tended to regard the plague as obviously an act of God. The House of Commons shared this widespread attitude and, desirous of ridding the country of the causes of the divine displeasure, named several persons whose wickedness might be the occasion of the display of God's wrath against the English people. The House included Hobbes in the list and specifically mentioned his Leviathan. Moreover, some bishops of the Church of England, at about the same time, suggested that it might be well to burn Hobbes as a heretic. Nothing came of the parliamentary investigation; indeed, the investigation seems not to have been begun. And no fires were lighted except that in which Hobbes saw fit, as has been said, to burn some of his private papers.

It is interesting to conjecture, however, what the name of Hobbes would mean in the history of ideas if his works had happened all to perish in 1666 and we, then, had to judge him through the literature which his works provoked. The word provoked may here be used advisedly. For an amazing number of hostile writings against Hobbes were printed during his life-time and immediately after his death.
The Present Status of Municipal Housing and Slum Clearance in the United States
Authors: Longan Elizabeth
Published: May 2006

Housing has at last come into its own. Not housing for its own sake, but housing as a means of “increasing employment quickly,” was the avowed purpose of the housing provisions of the three acts under which the national government's low-rental housing program has to date been carried forward.
The Manager Plan and the Metropolitan Community
Authors: Vieg John Albert
Published: May 2006

The labels that happen to become attached to things are of little consequence; the substance is what counts. Good government does not consist in getting any certain caption placed upon a municipal organization; it consists in the introduction into its daily functioning of practices and processes that guarantee responsiveness to public needs. Four main types of governmental structure have figured in the history of American cities: strong council, strong mayor, commission, and council-manager. Each of these has several features peculiar to itself, yet there are a number of principles and provisions, which, if not common to all four types, are at least not incompatible with any of them and are capable, as experience has shown, of being adopted or employed in connection with all.
County and Township Government in 1942
Authors: Snider Clyde F.
Published: May 2006

During the first war year, it was to be expected that popular interest in rural local government would be subordinated, in large measure, to problems more directly connected with the national war effort. Nevertheless, vigorous prosecution of the war program has required coöperation on the part of government at all levels; and the impact of that program has been felt in various ways, both directly and indirectly, by local governmental units. Indeed, in surveying county and township government in 1942 one is inevitably impressed by the extent to which developments of the year were either the product of, or at least intensified by, wartime conditions. As in previous reviews, events will be summarized under the following headings: (1) areas; (2) organization and personnel; (3) functions; (4) finance; (5) home rule and optional charters; and (6) intergovernmental relations.
Congress and the Army: Appropriations
Authors: Huzar Elias
Published: May 2006

Both House and Senate have established separate legislative and appropriations committees and operate under rules designed to exclude legislation from money bills and to deny funds for purposes which Congress has not previously approved. The authorizations generally carry a maximum limitation which allows legislative committees to exercise continuing control and gives Congress some protection against its liberality, although in the two decades between the wars military authorizations ran considerably ahead of appropriations. The appropriations committees influence policy by determining which among authorized programs are to be supported and to what extent, as well as by incorporating “legislation” in Army supply bills, supposedly only when matters are urgent. They usually consult the military affairs and other committees affected, which may offer no criticism or may complain that their jurisdictions and the will of the house concerned have been disregarded. The objection is not merely one of formalities or competition for prestige, but has solid basis in the belief that legislative committees can give more thorough consideration to the implications of new policies than can appropriations committees. Within authorizations, authority over military appropriations is diffused, but control is pretty much by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the War Department. Its precedence over the Senate committee results, inter alia, from its initiation and more detailed examination of money measures and the latter's self-confinement largely to the rôle of an appellate agency. And the full committee, divided for purposes of expertise and expedition, usually reviews its recommendations only sketchily and hastily.
I. National Security in American Public Affairs
Authors: Millett John D.
Published: May 2006

Traditionally, American public interest in national defense has been sporadic, alternating between short periods of intense concern and longer periods of general indifference. Except for World War II, the only sustained military effort since 1789 was provoked by internal strife. American manpower ended the stalemate of World War I, but our participation was neither lengthy nor economically intensive.

We often forget that one of the first purposes motivating the Founding Fathers was to “provide for the common defense.” Six of the eighteen clauses in Section 8 of Article I of the Constitution, defining the legislative authority of the new federal government, deal with military matters. It was no accident that in the early issues of the Federalist John Jay and Alexander Hamilton should have dwelt at length upon the defense requirements of the American states. Properly, Hamilton was concerned also to demonstrate that under the proposed constitution the military would be subject to the civilian authority.
Government Corporations; a Focus of Policy and Administration, I
Authors: Dimock Marshall E.
Published: May 2006

The government corporation has become a familiar device of public administration all over the world; and yet in some countries, and especially in the United States, uncertainty as to its distinctive purpose and underlying principles seems to grow, rather than to diminish, as the public corporation becomes older and more extensively used. Lack of interest and research cannot be blamed, because in recent years the degree of concentration in this area has probably been relatively as great as in any other sphere of political science. The basic explanation is that administrative formulas and management principles are rarely, if ever, capable of immunization against group pressures and public policy controls, which bend administration to their own designs, sometimes in conformity with what the impartial experts consider sound principle and practice, but just as often in knowing disregard of such considerations and in a determined effort to support their own interests and economic viewpoints.
The New Political Parties of Germany
Authors: Neumann Robert G.
Published: May 2006

Recent reports on political events in Germany have frequently given the impression that the political parties organized there during the last few months are mass movements, based on the solid support of considerable numbers of citizens. Such a concept would, however, hardly fit the present picture. The lost war and its aftermath have left the German people stunned and discouraged. The presence of great armies of occupation and the obvious impotency of all native officials do not encourage political activities. Moreover, the German people have just passed through a period of twelve years during which every human endeavor—even of the most personal nature—was fraught with alleged or real political implications. A natural reaction set in, and even the word “politics,” once hallowed by generations of German intellectuals, is frequently met with revulsion. Only a few Germans understand that political life need not necessarily conform to the Nazi pattern. The vast majority, as far as can be ascertained, still see in “politics” only blatant, showy demonstrations, incessant harangues, and the complete negation of privacy. The memory of the Weimar Republic is dim, and where it exists an often exaggerated picture is retained of the multitude of parties and the squabbles in the Reichstag, but no memory of the fine and hopeful features of the ill-fated Republic. In this respect, the spirit of Goebbels is still very much alive. But, above all, the tremendous destruction, the insufficient diet, and the never-ending and never quite successful search for the most primitive means of existence leave the people exhausted and in the main without other interests. This state of apathy is furthered, too, by the well-known readiness, if not desire, of many Germans to submit to authority. Particularly when the occupation of their country was still new, most observers found the conviction among all classes of the population that the future of Germany was entirely an Allied matter and that the exclusion of Germans from all important decisions was a foregone conclusion. Few believed that political initiative by the Germans themselves would in any way ease the situation, and many considered that such action would end only in further confusion and consequently in a harder life for all. Since the unconditional surrender, this feeling of apathy has subsided only slowly and to but a slight extent. The majority of people went to the recent communal elections without much interest and in a spirit of obedience, rather than with the idea that they were performing an act of self-government.
Toward International Collaboration in Political Science: A Report on the UNESCO Project, “Methods in Political Science”
Authors: Ebenstein William
Published: May 2006

UNESCO has frequently been criticized for not having devoted enough of its efforts and resources to the social sciences. To some extent, such criticism may appear justified (and not to social scientists alone), and it provides little comfort to know that UNESCO is, in this respect, by no means unique, but reflects orthodox patterns and attitudes in relation to the social sciences. However, its work In this field is hampered ab initio by two serious obstacles which do not prevail to the same degree in other scientific disciplines. In the first place, there is the lack of international associations of social scientists. UNESCO is not a university or research center which aims primarily at the advancement of the frontiers of human knowledge, but is, rather, a clearing house whose main purpose is to make available already existing knowledge for socially and internationally useful purposes. UNESCO can, and does, perform a significant function by planning projects which cannot be carried out by a single country, but depend on the working together of scientists from many parts of the world; such projects, desirable as they may be, cannot be easily realized in those areas of learning, however, in which, as in the social sciences, no—or no effective—international professional organizations exist. Much of the actual research and writing in an internationally planned enterprise has to be “farmed out” to individual institutions and persons in various countries, and the absence of representative international social science associations has constituted a serious obstacle to the implementation of UNESCO programs.
Constitutional Law in 1945-46: The Constitutional Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the October Term, 1945
Authors: Cushman Robert E.
Published: May 2006

Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone died on April 22. He was appointed Associate Justice by President Coolidge in 1925, and was elevated to the Chief Justiceship by President Roosevelt upon the retirement of Chief Justice Hughes in 1941. On June 7, President Truman nominated Fred M. Vinson, then Secretary of the Treasury, to be Chief Justice of the United States, and the Senate confirmed the nomination on June 20. Mr. Justice James C. McReynolds, who retired from the Court in 1941, died on August 24, 1945. Mr. Justice Jackson, who in May, 1945, had been appointed chief American prosecutor at the trial of Axis war criminals at Nuremberg, did not return to the Court during the 1945 term. On June 10, Mr. Justice Jackson, in Nuremberg, released to the press a statement sharply criticizing Mr. Justice Black for his failure to disqualify himself in Jewell Ridge Coal Corp. v. Local No. 6167, U.M.W. This case, which awarded coal miners “portal-to-portal” pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act, was decided by a five-to-four vote, and Mr. Justice Black's former law partner was attorney for the union. The statement, unprecedented in judicial history, made public record of a personal antagonism between the two justices, and elicited nation-wide press comment. Mr. Justice Black made no reply, and there have been no later repercussions of the incident.

A court of eight justices decided twenty-three cases in which three justices dissented, and twenty-one cases in which two dissented. The Court overruled one earlier decision. This brings the list of overruled cases since 1937 to twenty-seven.
The First Session of the Eightieth Congress
Authors: Riddick Floyd M.
Published: May 2006

The Eightieth Congress convened under unusual circumstances. The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 having just become law, the House and Senate were subjected to the most complete reorganization of recent times. This was due to two things.

First, both parties in each house had to assign de novo every one of their members to the newly established committees. Normally, all members reëlected to Congress are returned to their same committee assignments. Thus the committees on committees are not concerned with giving them committee appointments; some transfers from one committee to a more important one are granted upon request to reëlected members, and promotions are allowed by moving up reëlected members to fill any vacancies on their committees created by defeats or resignations from Congress. This time, the number of committee assignments was curtailed under the law along with a sharp reduction in the number of standing committees. In the House, standing committees were reduced from 48 to 19; in the Senate, from 33 to 15. The shake-up called for a reëxamination of all candidates for every committee berth.

Secondly, party control of the two houses had shifted from the Democrats to the Republicans, and in the face of a Democratic Administration. President Truman acknowledged this latter situation in his State of the Union message when he said: “… The Congress and the President, during the next two years, must work together. It is not unusual in our history that the majority of the Congress represents a party in opposition to the President's party. I am the twentieth President of the United States who, at some time during his term of office, has found his own party to be in the minority in one or both Houses of the Congress. … On some domestic issues,” he continued, “we may, and probably shall, disagree. That in itself is not to be feared.”
Administrative Procedures and Political Control of the Bureaucracy
Authors: Balla Steven J.
Published: May 2006

Positive theorists have argued that administrative procedures enhance political control of the bureaucracy, in part by predisposing agencies toward policy choices preferred by legislators' favored constituents. Although this “deck-stacking” argument has been both influential and controversial, few scholars have subjected it to empirical examination. This article assesses the operation of a prominent administrative procedure—the notice and comment process—in the context of Medicare physician payment reform, a fundamental restructuring of the way in which the Medicare program pays for physician services. I find, contrary to the deck-stacking thesis, that the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) was more responsive to physicians expecting reductions in fees than to the intended beneficiaries of the new payment system. Although these results do not necessarily imply that Congress exerted little influence over HCFA decision making, they suggest that certain administrative procedures do not operate as instruments of political control.
Aristotle on the Conditions for and Limits of the Common Good
Authors: Smith Thomas W.
Published: May 2006

Contemporary debates over liberal political theory should encourage renewed investigation of the common good, and it is appropriate to begin by interrogating Aristotle's account. Aristotle argues that injustice stands in the way of the common good. Injustice is motivated by both overgrasping for scarce external goods, such as money, honor, and power, and by excessive desires. Aristotle argues that the common good requires a reorientation away from external goods to satisfying activities that do not diminish in the sharing. He sketches an analogical account of familial and political relationships that leads us to wonder what the political conditions are for the common good. Reflecting on these conditions not only points to the strict limits of the common good but also speaks to both sides in debates over liberal theory.
Machiavelli's Imagination of Excellent Men: An Appraisal of the Lives of Cosimo de' Medici and Castruccio Castracani
Authors: Macfarland Joseph C.
Published: May 2006

For the education of princes Machiavelli recommends the true lives of “excellent men” rather than the “imagination” of how one should live, yet, the lives Machiavelli wrote tell a different story. While his relatively accurate life of Cosimo de' Medici offers lessons in deceit and faithlessness, it is a life to be admired rather than imitated. By contrast, theLife of Castruccio Castracaniis worthy of imitation, as it teaches the use of force as well as fraud, but it is mostly the product of an imagination enriched by ancient histories. Machiavelli taught the “effectual truth” by sketching the imaginary life of a modern prince because contemporaries would not imitate an ancient one. Moreover, the failure of even the imaginary Castruccio to master fortune indicates that the man of deeds needs the author's ability to imagine a particular life as an education for others.
Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics
Authors: Pierson Paul
Published: May 2006

It is increasingly common for social scientists to describe political processes as “path dependent.” The concept, however, is often employed without careful elaboration. This article conceptualizes path dependence as a social process grounded in a dynamic of “increasing returns.” Reviewing recent literature in economics and suggesting extensions to the world of politics, the article demonstrates that increasing returns processes are likely to be prevalent, and that good analytical foundations exist for exploring their causes and consequences. The investigation of increasing returns can provide a more rigorous framework for developing some of the key claims of recent scholarship in historical institutionalism: Specific patterns of timing and sequence matter; a wide range of social outcomes may be possible; large consequences may result from relatively small or contingent events; particular courses of action, once introduced, can be almost impossible to reverse; and consequently, political development is punctuated by critical moments or junctures that shape the basic contours of social life.
Xenophon's Philosophic Odyssey: On theAnabasisand Plato'sRepublic
Authors: Howland Jacob
Published: May 2006

Xenophon'sAnabasis, a military adventure interwoven with a story of philosophical self-discovery, is a companion piece to Plato'sRepublic. TheAnabasistakes up in deed the two great political problems treated in speech in theRepublic, namely, how a just community can come into being and how philosophy and political power may be brought to coincide. In addressing the first of these problems, Xenophon makes explicit a lesson about the limits of politics that is implicit in theRepublic. He speaks to the second problem by clarifying the essential role of philosophicalerôsin his emergence, at the moment of crisis, as the founder and leader of a well-ordered community. Xenophon‘s self-presentation in theAnabasis, which makes clear his debt to Socrates, illuminates the nature of philosophical courage as well as the saving integrity of the philosophical soul.
What Is Cushing Syndrome?
Authors: Voelker Rebecca
Published: March 2024

This JAMA Patient Page describes Cushing syndrome and its signs, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment.