bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Launching of the EMS: An Analysis of Change in Foreign Economic Policy
Authors: Story Jonathan
Published: February 2007

Foreign exchange markets are subject to changing international regimes. When and why regimes change is a legitimate focus of political study. This is particularly so as shifts in foreign exchange markets modify relative prices in and between national economies. Authorities presiding over foreign exchange markets are answerable to their national policy communities and to their national electorates. They also operate within an international state system. Applying John S. Odell's framework to an analysis of the launch of the European Monetary System (EMS) in April 1978 by Chancellor Schmidt and President Giscard d'Estaing, it is argued that a market perspective alone would have failed to predict the establishment of the EMS. An analysis of the principal actors and their ideas; of the power political constellation; and of the domestic context in the Federal Republic and in France, contributes most to explaining expost the shift towards a European managed exchange rate regime. In this case, the neoclassical market perspective provided erroneous, inadequate and subsidiary explanations. The article suggests that foreign exchange policy and therefore global financial markets belong firmly in the realm of international and comparative political studies. They are too important to be left to economists alone.
From Corporatism to Dualism? Thatcherism and the Climacteric of British Trade Unions in the 1980s
Authors: Longstreth Frank H.
Published: February 2007

This article examines the impact on British trade unions of the break in relations with the government, the economic recession and labour market developments in the 1980s. The shift towards a programme of ‘labour exclusion’ is related to specific policies designed to weaken trade unions and liberalize labour markets. A close investigation of data on union organization and activity indicates that, despite evident reversals, a full-scale de-institutionalization of industrial relations is not occurring. However, the links between government policies and longer-term socioeconomic trends pose severe challenges for union revival. The article concludes with some considerations on the future prospects of union-government relations.
Comparative Green Politics: Beyond the European Context?
Authors: Hay P. R. , Haward M. G.
Published: February 2007

It is argued that there are significant differences between green electoral politics in Europe and green developments in the affluent non-European west, and that these are such that, despite the greater political formalization of the green movement in Western Europe, there is a sense in which North American and Antipodean developments are ultimately more fundamental than those that have occurred in Europe. Loosely adopting explanatory categories employed by Rudig and Lowe in a Political Studies article, we examine evidence under four sub-heads: electoral thresholds; the historical legacy of the environment movement; the different contextual roles played by the anti-nuclear movement and wilderness experience, and ecology, Marxism and the new left.
The New Right in Central Europe I: Czechoslovakia
Authors: Scruton Roger
Published: February 2007

‘The New Right’, as it has come to be known, derives from at least two major intellectual sources, free market theory and social conservatism. The question how far these are compatible is frequently raised. The aim of this two-part article is to explore the impact of ‘New Right’ thinking in East Central Europe (specifically in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary) in order to show that, in the conditions of ‘real socialism’, free market and social conservative ideas seem to arise naturally from the same root conceptions.

The first part deals with Czechoslovakia-specifically with the thought of Patocka, Have1 and Bratinka, and with the conservative wing of the Charter movement. It argues that, while many writers would specifically reject labels like ‘conservative’ or ‘right-wing’, the actual content of their thought is very close to that of the New Right in the western hemisphere. In particular, the call for a ‘depoliticization’ of society, for responsible accounting, and for a lived historical identity which will be both national and European, are indistinguishable from long-standing themes of social conservatism.
The Polish Crisis and Myrdal's Model of Circular Causation
Authors: Tarkowski Jacek
Published: February 2007

After analysing the structural nature of the Polish crisis, Myrdal's model of economic underdevelopment as due to a self-reinforcing rather than self-correcting social process is applied to Poland. Poland's cumulative backwardness is a permanent rather than a transient feature of her economic, administrative and political life and affects the mass public as well as the leaders and middle-rank officials. Many of those who seek reforms do not support the political system, while many who support the political system do not favour reform. The predicament of how to break the vicious circle of self-perpetuating backwardness poses intractable problems for the reformers.
Hegel's Plato: The Owl of Minerva and a Fading Political Tradition
Authors: Browning Gary K.
Published: February 2007

The strengths and weaknesses of Hegel's interpretation of Plato's political philosophy are shown to derive from Hegel's own philosophical premisses, namely the progressive, historical development of freedom and the dependence of political philosophy upon an actual political tradition. Hegel's historicism is seen as enabling him to recognize the Republic's reflection of traditional practice in the priority it assigns to the ideals of social harmony and community. The innovative radicalism and artistic suggestiveness of the Republic, however, are denied in Hegel's interpretation of it as a systematic reconstruction of a fading political tradition. This critical analysis of Hegel's Plato both evaluates Plato's political philosophy and assesses the explanatory power of Hegel's system.
‘A Single Truth’: Mill on Harm, Paternalism and Good Samaritanism
Authors: Laselva Samuel V.
Published: February 2007

On Liberty provides the classic defence of what has come to be known as Mill's harm principle and yet that principle is commonly believed to be at odds with Mill's equally famous discussions of paternalism and good samaritanism. Moreover, the alleged inconsistencies are often said to expose the inadequacies not only of Mill's antipaternalism and good samaritanism but his harm principle as well. This paper offers a re-interpretation of these three aspects of On Liberty. It attempts to show both the unity of Mill's thought and how the contemporary relevance of his ideas has been misunderstood.
Leo Strauss: The Ancient as Modern
Authors: Susser Bernard
Published: February 2007

Although his approach to politics and philosophy were relatively little known outside the United States, Leo Strauss was perhaps the most revered and the most controversial figure in post-war American political science. His followers today form what is arguably the most cohesive intellectual fraternity in the discipline. They constitute a highly influential opposition to the empirical–quantitative course taken by political science and political philosophy.

This study explores Strauss's ideas highlighting the unconventional mixture of substance and style that gives them an arrestingly idiosyncratic character. Substantively, Strauss belonged to the pre-modern intellectual tradition that understood Truth as accessible and knowable through philosophical contemplation. The form of his argumentation, however, his relentless critique of modernity and the moderns, is conducted with all the cognitive weaponry provided for by the modernist intellectual style.
Citizenship and Government: The Challenge for Management in the Public Domain
Authors: Ranson Stewart , Stewart John
Published: February 2007

The domains of the public and private are different. Analysis of management which obscures their distinctive characteristics will miss the significance of each domain. This paper seeks to analyse the values, institutional conditions and management tasks which are unique to the public domain. It is argued that the distinctive challenge for the public domain derives from the duality of publicness: the need to enable citizens in their plurality to express their contribution to the life of the community and out of that plurality, to enable a process of collective choice and the government of action in the public interest to take place.
The State in Environmental Management: The Ecological Dimension
Authors: Walker K. J.
Published: February 2007

A focus on ‘modern’ industrialized societies obscures both the great antiquity of the state and the powerful selective pressures that have led to the dominance of interstate competition, especially warfare. In pursuit of power, elites encouraged population growth and intensified the exploitation of the natural resource base, with progressively more severe ecological impacts. Modern technology has vastly amplified the problem. Though it makes possible sophisticated environmental management, that has been neglected for the demands of the military–industrial system. These ill-effects are reinforced by ignorance of ecology and inadequacy of traditional political thought. A major adaptive challenge faces modern states: to use their knowledge and resources for more humane, environmentally sensitive management and perhaps achieve a novel kind of steady state, or to renew emphasis on short-term competitive considerations.
The Radical Sources of the Crisis in West European Communist Parties
Authors: Waller Michael
Published: February 2007

The wave of radicalism that swept through Europe from the late 1960s did not pass the communist parties by but struck them with particular force. Evidence of this impact can be found in a study of the social composition of congress delegates, and from recent accounts of the experiences of the communist parties during the 1970s. The story of this trauma over one decade requires us to rethink the notion of Eurocommunism. What emerges from such a reconsideration is a distinction between a process of modernization on which many communist parties have embarked in the post-war period, and particularly since 1956, and a ‘new member’ factor which characterized the radical surge of the 1970s. This ‘new member’ factor brought a new style of militancy into the communist parties which challenged their traditional norms. This radicalism raised the fortunes of the communist parties during the 1970s, but it also brought about the crisis of the end of the decade. Whilst it has been responsible for the destruction of the crisis period, it has also provided the ideas and the forces for possible new strategies.
Restructuring the State in South Africa: New Strategies of Incorporation and Control
Authors: Young Thomas
Published: February 2007

Although it is now widely conceded that there have been many changes in South Africa in recent years, not least in the political sphere, the nature and significance of these changes remain hotly contested. After sketching the pre-reform system, this article presents a broad and comprehensive account of the institutional reorganization of the South African state and the official justification for it. Acknowledging that at the moment only tentative interpretations of these developments are possible, it poses questions about the adequacy of official explanations and suggests that a deeper motivation for the changes lies in a commitment to both order and reform, the outlines of which are much clearer at the local than at the national level.
The Annual Review: The Emergence of a Corporatist Institution?
Authors: Smith Martin J.
Published: February 2007

Of the many theories of corporatism the most adequate is that which sees the relationship as a form of interest group intermediation and policy implementation. It has been argued that the Annual Review of Agriculture is one of the best examples of a corporatist institution. This paper examines the Annual Review and demonstrates that, although it has features of corporatism, the relationship between the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Farmers' Union is not corporatist. The paper then examines the policy community approach and by looking at the formation and operation of the Annual Review argues that this is a much better description of the relationship between the ministry and the union.
On Being Economical with the Truth: Some Liberal Reflections
Authors: Canovan Margaret
Published: February 2007

Although a commitment to free discussion of all issues is one of the traditional pillars of liberalism, contemporary liberals may be justified in feeling uneasy when their principle of universal human rights is publicly challenged in the name of ethnic community. For in spite of liberalism's reputation for rationalism, its principles rely upon a substantial element of myth which does not stand up well to public scrutiny. Liberals would be wise to become more conscious of this ‘mythical’ component in their outlook. This would protect them against political naivety and its consequent disillusionment. It would also help them to respond more appropriately to right-wing critics, by relying less on rationalism and more on tactics borrowed from conservatism.
How and Why Liberal and Representative Politics Emerged in India
Authors: Manor James
Published: February 2007

How did liberal, representative politics take root in India during the first phase after independence? An adequate explanation must consider certain aspects of Hindu culture and Indian social structure, the distinctive character of British rule and the formidable Indian response to it. It must also assess the role of formal political institutions, which the British had created and the Indians adapted, and relations between Indian nationalists and key indigenous elites both before and after independence. Most important was the landowning elite that dominated the socioeconomic order in rural areas, where most Indians lived. Central to this story was the organization or ‘machine’ of the Indian National Congress, which integrated the two main sources of order in India – the institutions of state and the agrarian socioeconomic order – as well as the various regions and levels within the political system.
Does the American Dairy Industry Fit the Meso-Corporatist Model?
Authors: Young Brigitte
Published: February 2007

Corporatism having become a less useful label for describing entire political systems, corporatist scholars have emphasized the importance of meso-level corporatism, using dairying as the classic example. Analysis of the American dairy industry does not support the claim that there is ‘no corporatism in the United States’ but it suggests why meso-corporatist enclaves in a macro-pluralist system are liable to be ephemeral. What sets the American dairy industry apart from its European and Canadian counterparts is that the meso-corporatist institutional arrangements were undermined by the emergence of large regional cooperatives in the 1960s and as a result present dairy policy-making has reverted once more to a pluralist paradigm.
The Primacy of the Political: Rahe and the Myth of the Polis
Authors: Springborg Patricia
Published: February 2007

Paul Rahe belongs to the long tradition of mythologizing the polis, otherwise known as ‘the classical republican tradition’, which has two signal achievements to its credit. The first is to claim for the great landed monarchies of Europe the democratic legacy of the polis as their very own. The second is to distance themselves from eastern regimes by characterizing them as ‘despotic’ and ‘other’. This tradition is seriously challenged by modern classical and Near Eastern scholarship, which shows city-republican forms to have originated in the east. Rahe's particular version is open to the additional challenge that it glorifies the male warrior polis, from which women were systematically excluded, ‘as a moral community of men united by a common way of life’, as if a community which depended on the labour of women but gave them no rights could have moral integrity.
Express Consent and Full Membership in Locke
Authors: den Hartogh G. A.
Published: February 2007

It seems mysterious why Locke required express consent as a condition of full membership of civil society. It is suggested this requirement be interpreted as a political programme. In a draft of a pamphlet of 1690 Locke criticizes the oath of allegiance required after the Glorious Revolution for not demanding the recognition of William and Mary de jure. So perhaps he does not want to exclude the greater part of the natives from citizenship; he wants to establish William's throne on a full and universal recognition of his legitimacy.
Epistemological Limits of the State: Reflections on Popper's Open Society
Authors: Shearmur Jeremy
Published: February 2007

The ethical theory of Popper's Open Society threatens, against his wishes, to lapse into a form of relativism. This consequence is avoided if a closer parallel than Popper himself allows for is drawn between his ethical theory and his epistemology. This produces a fallibilistic ethical intuitionism, in which the judgements of the individual are subject to criticism by the judgements of others. From this, however, an epistemological rationale is provided for the autonomy of the individual and moral limits are drawn to the sphere of legitimate action by the state.
State Power and Ideology in Britain: Mrs Thatcher's Privatization Programme
Authors: Wolfe Joel
Published: February 2007

State-centred theory, a leading exemplar of the new institutionalism, assumes the separation of state from society and objectivity from subjectivity. This epistemological stance supports a structural analysis which holds that the state is an actor in its own right, that the state has distinctive interests, and that state capacity depends on strong institutions and weak societal opposition. Yet the case of the Thatcher governments' ideologically motivated privatization programme challenges the statists' hypotheses and epistemology. Rather, the making of British privatization policy supports the view that the way political actors form and use ideas is important in explaining state power and in defending the liberal democratic vision of mankind as the maker of history.
The State of Enslavement: The East European Substitute for the State of Nature
Authors: Rau Zbigniew
Published: February 2007

Comparing the Soviet-type political system before the emergence of independent groups and movements with the state of nature in the contractarian tradition indicates that both these conditions have common features. The situation under the Soviet-type system is reminiscent of the state of nature since it has a pre-political, analytical, as well as a normative character. However, the fact that the condition under the Soviet-type system is real and the state of nature is fictive poses a challenge to social contract orthodoxy which exclusively ascribes the pre-political and normative components to the state of nature. This interpretation renders invalid the main argument of the critics of contractarianism: that social contract theory is based upon the Active state of nature and, therefore, upon the concept of an abstract human nature. Moreover, under special circumstances, it permits us to consider social contract theory not only as normative but also as empirical
Nietzsche on Autonomy and Morality: The Challenge to Political Theory
Authors: Ansell-Pearson Keith
Published: February 2007

Nietzsche's challenge to political theory can be located in his claim that autonomy and morality are mutually exclusive. In this paper an examination of Kant's attempt to ground a notion of autonomy through constructing a metaphysic of morals is followed by a consideration of Nietzsche's understanding of autonomy in terms of a notion of supra-moral sovereign individuality. A genealogy of morals represents an attempt to historicize the key notions of moral and political theory. Nietzsche's aristocratic conception of sovereign individuality is seen in terms of the value-basis on which sovereign individuals are to construct a common ethical and political identity and enter into social relationships. Foucaultian and feminist attempts to construct an ethics and politics of difference and a recent attempt to construct a post-modern conception of agency based on a synthesis of Nietzsche's philosophy of power and Kant's ethics are examined.
US Military and Economic Intervention in an International Context of Low-Intensity Conflict
Authors: Freysinger Robert C.
Published: February 2007

Recent major shifts in US military thinking, creating a new low-intensity conflict (LIC) doctrine, have resulted already in significant changes in organization, mission definition, force structure and budgetary allocation. These changes have come about because American leadership recognizes that the process of deindustrialization has produced a vulnerable, highly integrated and interdependent global economic system. This system of economic rationalization is susceptible to anti-western disruptions because of the instability produced by rapid social change, a consequence of the competition from the newly industrialized nations. LIC capability is viewed as a necessary means for dealing with disruptions.
Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Lessons from Latin America
Authors: Grugel Jean
Published: February 2007

You yourself were only … the tremor of some taciturn lips … a comic tyrant who never knew where the reverse side of the coin was … clinging to his fear … and alien forever more to the music of liberation and the rockets of jubilation and the bells of glory that announced to the world the good news that the uncountable time of eternity had come to an end.1
Comparing Forms of Comparative Analysis
Authors: Rose Richard , Mackenzie W. J. M.
Published: February 2007

This paper compares the different ways in which comparative analysis is undertaken by political scientists today. The first section explains why concepts are a necessary attribute of comparison; it is followed by a discussion of what comparison is not, i.e. studies that emphasize the incomparability of a country, lack concepts or, as in ‘landless' theory, ignore real countries. The commonest form of comparative analysis, countries examined as parallel independent cases, is the subject of the third section. The conclusion considers implications of countries no longer being totally autonomous actors but becoming permeable or interacting due to the growth of international interdependence.
International Relations and the Methodological Turn
Authors: Little Richard
Published: February 2007

Confusion has arisen in the debate between the advocates of classical and behavioural modes of analysis because epistemological and methodological issues are conflated in the debate. A distinction between logic-in-use and reconstructed logic disentangles these issues and demonstrates that the division between the classical and behavioural approaches cannot be sustained on methodological or epistemological grounds. History and social science cannot be distinguished in terms of either epistemology or methodology but only by the kind of research questions asked. This argument is reinforced by examining the methodological and epistemological posture adopted by Waltz. It is an illusion to imagine that theoretical debates in international relations will be resolved by methodological or epistemological fiat.
Why Political Science Needs History
Authors: Kavanagh Dennis
Published: February 2007

This paper examines the changing relationship between the study of history and the study of political science. It reviews the tensions which produced a divorce between the two subjects, particularly in the United States when behavioural political science was dominant. It then examines five areas in which history has enriched the study of politics: as a source of material; as a demonstration of the links between the present and the past; as a body of knowledge to test theories; as a means of analysing political concepts and as a source of lessons. It concludes that the links between the two subjects today are strong, but that the contribution of history is more as a body of knowledge than as a set of distinctive methods.
Rational Choice and Politics
Authors: McLean Iain
Published: February 2007

The rational-choice approach brings scientific deductive methods to bear on politics. Appropriate methods are derived from physics, when actors interact probabilistically but non-rationally, and from game theory when they interact rationally. Collective action problems occur in the provision of public goods. As policies are themselves public goods, this leads to the game-theoretic analysis of voting, bureaucracy and lobbies. It is inconsistent to believe that economic actors are basically self-interested but that political actors are not. Rather, one should treat people as equally (not necessarily wholly) self-interested in each sphere. The paradoxes of social choice are then shown to have important implications for political science.
Feminism and Political Analysis
Authors: Randall Vicky
Published: February 2007

Though not a united body of thought, feminism insists on the importance of women and the need to combat their oppression. This agenda has underlain feminists' attempts to identify an appropriate research method and their criticisms of traditional social science methodology. In some cases it has led to the repudiation of ‘male’ science and epistemology altogether. Feminist political scientists to date have shown less interest in methodological issues. Instead they have concentrated on questioning their discipline's understanding of the nature, behavioural forms and location of politics. While not amounting to a ‘revolution’, taken together these feminist criticisms do expose both the frequent scientistic pretensions and the conceptual narrowness of traditional political science.
Theory and Methods in British Public Administration: The View from Political Science
Authors: Rhodes R. A. W.
Published: February 2007

This paper explores the contemporary history of that area of intellectual inquiry known as Public Administration. It focuses on developments in the 1980s and on the contribution of political science. It argues that the subject is diverse and characterized by competing theoretical frameworks. It evaluates organization theory, state theory, rational choice, public management and their associated methods. It concludes that Public Administration has reacted defensively to developments in the 1980s and that the distinctive contribution from political science lies in multi-theoretic research, methodological pluralism, setting one's own agenda, the avoidance of trivial organizations and the defence of public bureaucracies.
The 1989 Revolutions and the Idea of Europe
Authors: Kumar Krishan
Published: February 2007

‘Central Europe’, as an entity historically and culturally different from ‘Eastern Europe’, was a rallying cry and focus of opposition for many intellectuals in East Central Europe during the 1980s. In the 1989 revolutions it seemed to have found its time, the moment when it could seek to realize itself in practice. What are the claims for Central Europe? What do they tell us about the aspirations of the post-communist states in the region? What idea of Europe do they presuppose and how valid is it? The future shape of Europe will depend – at least in part – on such conceptions of its past character and present alignments.
Constitutional and Distributional Conflict in British Medical Politics: The Case of General Practice, 1911–1991
Authors: Day Patricia , Klein Rudolf
Published: February 2007

This paper explores the theoretical confusion in explanations of health policies. It does so by distinguishing between the politics of constitutional conflict and the politics of distributional conflict, and analysing their development over time. The first type is epitomized by the collisions between the state and the medical profession in 1911, 1945 and 1989 on the issue of general practice. The second is characterized by a corporatist-style, institutionalized relationship between the state and the profession between and subsequent to these events. Conclusions are drawn about the limitations of corporatist and other theories and about the methodology of policy analysis.
Working for Benefits: Rational Choice and the Rise of Work—Welfare Programmes
Authors: King Desmond S. , Ward Hugh
Published: February 2007

This paper develops a rational-choice explanation for the adoption of deterrent work–welfare programmes by recent governments in Britain and the US. Such programmes require the recipients of welfare or unemployment benefits to participate in a training programme or work activity in exchange for receiving their benefits and reflect a New Right (in contrast to a social democratic) conception of social citizenship. Governments design such policies to generate a partial separating equilibrium under which some claimants identified by the state as undeserving are discouraged from seeking benefits. These programmes are intended to overcome problems of free-riding and false claiming viewed, by the New Right, as inherent in state-administered benefit systems.
Rational Choice and the Victorian Voter
Authors: McLean Iain
Published: February 2007

Recent work on the relationship between politicians and voters in Victorian Britain is surveyed, with particular attention to the administrations of Peel and Gladstone. It is shown that rational-choice interpretations of behaviour may be more powerful than traditional Namierite or structuralist approaches. But mainstream rational choice alone is too thin to explain why Peel repealed the Corn Laws or why Gladstone tried to give Home Rule to Ireland.
Disorder in the ‘Frustration’ Parliaments of Thatcherite Britain
Authors: Judge David
Published: February 2007

There was a marked increase in disorder in the British House of Commons during Mrs Thatcher's tenure of office. In a legislature traditionally renowned for its ‘temper of moderation and fair play’ and its usual good behaviour, there was growing concern at the extent of disorderly behaviour. This concern prompted a Procedure Committee investigation into the conduct of MPs in the chamber and led some commentators to argue that the level of disorder constituted a threat to representative democracy in Britain. This article examines the increased scale of unruliness and the main variables used to explain this increase.
No Time like the Present? Postmodernism and Political Theory
Authors: Rengger N. J.
Published: February 2007

Postmodernism is one of those words that has a tendency to reduce sensible people to a mad scramble for the nearest and deadliest instrument of destruction that they can find. Partly, of course, this is the result of trying to find something that links a wildly heterogeneous set of practices and assumptions together. Many people have become increasingly unhappy with this.1 Richard Rorty, for example, has ‘given up on the attempt to find something common to Michael Graves's buildings, Pynchon's and Rushdie's novels, Ashberry's poems, various sorts of popular music, and the writings of Heidegger and Derrida’.2 Others, however (for example Jameson3), while admitting the problems, still believe it is a useful concept. That there are family resemblences between much work called ‘postmodern’ I would not want to deny. However, I am not concerned to offer an exhaustive categorization of all forms of postmodernism here. Rather, I shall simply offer an interpretation and critique of postmodern political theory.
Looking after Number One? Politicians' Rewards and the Economics of Politics
Authors: Hood Christopher
Published: February 2007

The nature and level of rewards to politicians is an important issue in public management. It receives little theoretical attention in academic political science today, although it offers the basis of a Popperian ‘crucial experiment’ for testing the explanatory claims of the rent-seeking rational choice model of politics. This paper discusses the extent to which the core rent-seeking model can explain observed patterns of political rewards. It considers the core model against two modified models (each with two variants), using data from Australia and the UK and a limited number of observations drawn from other countries. The core-rent-seeking rational choice model appears to have poor explanatory power. A familiar overdetermination problem arises in testing the explanatory claims of modified models. Some disaggregation may be needed to refine the approach.
Do Candidates Matter? Constituency-specific Vote Changes for Incumbent MPs, 1983–1987
Authors: Wood David M. , Norton Philip
Published: February 2007

The assumption that candidates make a difference to electoral outcomes in British general elections is tested through a comparison of the 1983 and 1987 general elections. Incumbent's Constituency-specific Vote Change (ICVC) between the June 1983 and June 1987 British general elections is measured by subtracting the average regional vote change for the incumbent's party from the constituency vote change registered by the incumbent. Regression analysis finds ICVC to be most significantly influenced in both the Labour and Conservative parties by the incumbent's length of tenure, displayed especially in the higher ICVC registered by first-term incumbents than by more senior incumbents. Variables indicating the security or insecurity of the seat in electoral terms are significantly related to ICVC in the Conservative but not in the Labour case. The findings for Labour indicate ICVC to be greater where electoral security is greater. This finding might be explained by successful Conservative party concentration on constituencies in which Labour incumbents appear to be vulnerable.
The Corporatist Ideal-Type and Political Exchange
Authors: Bull Martin J.
Published: February 2007

The fundamental reason for corporatism's persistence in political science debates is its failure to respond to the demands of political theory and present a convincing ideal-type to capture the relationship between interest groups and the state. Corporatist writers have misused ideal-types and the most refined example to date of the corporatist ideal-type (Cawson's) is structurally flawed. There are more profound problems than this, however, in the construction of a corporatist ideal-type because of the nature of the dynamics at the heart of the corporatist process: political exchange.

Every change of paradigm begins with a new exaggeration.1
Liberalism and Communitarianism: A Misconceived Debate
Authors: Caney Simon
Published: February 2007

This article considers the criticisms made of liberal political thought by communitarians in the 1980s. It aims to clarify the communitarian critique and evaluate the force of communitarian criticisms of liberalism. It argues that communitarians advance three different types of claim: descriptive claims which stress that people are social beings; normative claims which celebrate the value of community and solidarity, and a meta-ethical claim emphasizing that political principles should mirror ‘shared understandings’. This article argues that the descriptive and normative claims espoused by communitarians are judged to be plausible but are accepted by liberals, and that the meta-ethical thesis is untenable and liberals are right to eschew it.
Civil Disobedience as Persuasion: Dworkin and Greenham Common
Authors: Barker Rodney
Published: February 2007

Protests against nuclear weapons which involve conflict with the law have been criticized as ‘blackmail’ or obstruction by Ronald Dworkin and hence not as an acceptable form of civil disobedience. This is to misunderstand both their nature and that of civil disobedience. Such protests are an example of a particular kind of persuasive civil disobedience which cannot be disallowed without disallowing civil disobedience itself.
Rethinking Women's Political Participation and Protest: Chile 1970–1990
Authors: Waylen Georgina
Published: February 2007

Much of women's political activity cannot be accommodated within traditional political science so new ways of analysing it are needed. In order to create a new framework, using case study material from Chile, some of the concepts employed by socialist feminists, particularly the patriarchal bargain and strategic and practical gender interests, are explored. These shed light on why women mobilize, both for conservative and for more ‘progressive’ causes. However, this framework alone cannot provide answers about the form and representation of these activities. An attempt is made to use the insights of post-modernism to do this. The conclusion is that it is possible to unite the most helpful aspects of the two perspectives.
MPs and the Peripheral Predicament in Canada and Britain
Authors: Cody Howard
Published: February 2007

A periphery is dependent, with little control over its fate and possessing minimal resources for the defence of its distinctiveness against outside pressures.1
The Enabling Model of Rights
Authors: Jacobs Lesley
Published: February 2007

The belief that state welfare programmes are justified because they enable many people to do what they could not otherwise have done is attractive. This article examines the claim that this belief flows logically from a particular account of what it means to have a right to do something. This enabling model of rights holds that rights can be violated in two ways: by interfering with people doing something they have a right to do and depriving the right-holders of the resources actually needed to do what they have a right to do. Having certain rights to do things can justify state action designed to provide people with the resources that enable them to do what they could not otherwise have done. However attractive this model of rights might be, it is unable to accommodate the possibility that an individual can have the right to do something which is the morally wrong thing to do.
The Political Science of Democratic Transition in Eastern Europe
Authors: McSweeney Dean , Tempest Clive
Published: February 2007

Political science is presented with an unprecedented case of democratic transition in Eastern Europe with a set of societies that are said to have been atomized by party state organs and without the other formal preconditions for transition to liberal democracy. The article surveys current writings and theories on transition to see whether they fit the East European cases. The stress in the literature on the primacy of endogenous factors, the role of entrepreneurial capitalism and the leading role of elites in facilitating a transition to democracy is of little value in the Eastern European context where exogenous factors, the absence of capitalism and the role of the masses were crucial in the downfall of communism. The prospects for the survival of democracy are discussed in the light of the way the new regimes were inaugurated.
National Labour Organizations and European Integration: British Trade Unions and ‘1992’
Authors: Rosamond Ben
Published: February 2007

The conversion of British trade unions to positive attitudes towards the European Community was a significant feature of British politics in the late 1980s. This article explains the origins of this policy shift and questions the received wisdom that short term opportunism was the primary motivating factor. The British trade union response to ‘1992’ was far from uniform and distinct factions can be identified within a policy coalition. The reasons for the durability and cohesiveness of this coalition are discussed along with the general shifts in thinking on the British Left and the developments in European integration which explain the general change of attitudes.
Harm Principle, Offence Principle, and the Skokie Affair
Authors: Cohen-Almagor Raphael
Published: February 2007

The primary aims are to formulate principles conducive to safeguarding fundamental civil rights and to employ the theory to analyse the Skokie affair. The focus is on the ethical question of the constraints on speech. I advance two arguments relating to the ‘Harm Principle’ and the ‘Offence Principle’. Under the ‘Harm Principle’, restrictions on liberty may be prescribed when there are sheer threats of immediate violence against some individuals or groups. Under the ‘Offence Principle’, expressions which intend to inflict psychological offence are morally on a par with physical harm and thus there are grounds for abridging them. Moving from theory to practice, in the light of the formulated principles, the ruling of the Illinois Supreme Court which permitted the Nazis to hold a demonstration in Skokie is argued to be flawed.
Against Legitimacy
Authors: O'Kane Rosemary H. T.
Published: February 2007

Beetham has recently made an impressive contribution to the understanding of Legitimacy which he holds to be central to both political and social theory. As a social science concept, capable of playing a significant part in the explanation of the workings and breakdowns of political systems, however, legitimacy so defined proves difficult, sometimes impossible, to apply and runs the serious danger of misleading explanation. The case against legitimacy is argued through a combination of theoretical and empirical considerations and in place of legitimacy a case is made for the experience of government behaviour and the capacity for collective action as the more fruitful foci of social theory.
The Permanent Crisis of a Divided Mankind: ‘Contemporary Crisis of the Nation State’ in Historical Perspective
Authors: Hont Istvan
Published: February 2007

It is said that the people are sovereign; but over whom? – over themselves, apparently. The people are thus subject. There is surely something equivocal if not erroneous here, for the people which command are not the people which obey. It is enough, then, to put the general proposition, ‘The people are sovereign’, to feel that it needs an exegesis…. The people, it will be said, exercise their sovereignty by means of their representatives. This begins to make sense. The people are the sovereign which cannot exercise sovereignty…

(Joseph De Maistre, Study on Sovereignty)

Someone was speaking to Sieyès of the scorn that his detractors continually affect for what they call ‘grand theories’. ‘Theories’, he said, ‘are the practice of centuries; all their practices are the theory of the passing moment!

(Pierre Louis Roederer)1
The National Causes of State Construction in France, Russia and China
Authors: O'Kane Rosemary H. T.
Published: February 2007

General lessons about state construction are drawn from concentration on the ‘Terror’ years of three post-revolutionary regimes: the Jacobin in France, 1793–4; the Bolshevik in Russia, 1918–21; and the Chinese, 1950–3. These three cases are chosen in order to develop a direct challenge to Skocpol's claims about state building in States and Social Revolutions. The findings show that early state building is not, primarily, a rational, centralizing, mobilizing, response to war and foreign war in particular. It is civil war which is of greater importance to an understanding of the development of revolutionary states and it is only after civil war is over that permanent state construction can begin. Comparison for differences, as well as similarity, at this crucial point at the end of civil war shows that, along with the importance of practical domestic policies as a basis for support, the essential foundation for the post-revolutionary state is central control over the revolutionary forces of internal coercion.
The Politics of Economic Adjustment: Explaining the Transformation of Industry-State Relationships in Australia
Authors: Bell Stephen
Published: February 2007

Recent theories of the state (pluralism, statism, Marxism and corporatism) are evaluated in terms of their capacity to explain an historic transformation in industry-state relationships in Australia over the last two decades. The explanatory tasks focus on explaining the shift from high protectionism to free trade for manufacturing industry, coupled with an increase in positive industry assistance measures. The paper argues that a suitably tailored Marxist account avoids most of the limitations of the other theories examined. Yet it is stressed that Marxism's strength lies not in explaining policy details but in providing a broad macro-structural theory of the state in capitalist societies. Marxism's explanatory ‘superstructure’, needs to be filled in at the meso-level by other explanatory elements so that the contours and dynamics of policy making below the macro-structural level can be more fully explained. Concepts such as accumulation strategy, political coalitions and policy networks are suggested for this purpose.
Unpopular Leaders: The British Case
Authors: Butler Anthony
Published: February 2007

Liberal capitalist democracies are experiencing unprecedented public discontent with their elected leaders. Attempts to explain this phenomenon have assumed that citizens' appraisal of politicians' performance is unproblematic. In complex modern states, however, intelligible politics requires intellectual and institutional frameworks for systematically relating government actions to social outcomes. In early post-war Britain, overlapping notions of Keynesian, socialist, and welfare states fortuitously made possible economical public interpretation of politics. While susceptible to partial modification, this post-war conception of state agency is no longer tenable. A new interpretative framework is a precondition for accountable and popular leadership.
Politics, Epistemology and Method: Karl Popper's Conception of Human Nature
Authors: Stokes Geoff
Published: February 2007

Karl Popper's advocacy of freedom and toleration, his belief in the power of ideas, and the possibility of democratic social reform, place him in the more optimistic strand of liberal thought. Yet his awareness of the human needs for regularity and tradition bolster a largely conservative and pessimistic conception of human nature. Epistemologies have a central role in Popper's political programme and theory of history because they influence either the release or suppression of key human capacities. Elucidating Popper's conception of human nature shows the origins of Popper's understanding of dogmatism and violence and indicates the underlying rationale for critical rationalism. But it also explains why Popper prefers revolutions in thought among élites to those in politics among the masses. To the extent that Popper's conception of human nature is problematic, so the political theory and epistemology may also be misconceived.
The Refugee Crises: A Study of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees
Authors: Cunliffe Alex
Published: February 2007

Recent events in international relations have raised the prospect of the United Nations organization attempting to provide a much more positive role in world affairs. This is also true for the constituent parts of the United Nations, in particular the United Nations High Commission for Refugees whose responsibilities have grown in recent years as the world's refugee population has multiplied and changed in character. The paper analyses the general development of the UNHCR from its establishment in 1951 and assesses its contemporary role as an actor in a post-Cold War environment. The claims of both critics and supporters of the UNHCR are considered on the light of the contemporary, political and financial pressures facing the organization. The paper also considers the character of UNHCR policy and durable solutions to the problem of a rising refugee population. The general analysis is illustrated by the changing role of the UNHCR in dealing with the arrival of the Vietnamese Boat People into Hong Kong from 1979.