bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Political Implications of the Vedel Report
Authors: Robinson Mary T. W.
Published: April 2007

THE VEDEL GROUP HAD THE DISTINCTION OF BEING THE FIRST such working party set up by the Commission of the European Communities involving the ten countries of the proposed enlarged Community. The membership of fourteen reflected the model for the new Commission, one from the smaller and two from the larger countries. The decision was taken by the Commission on 22 July 1971 to set up a working party of independent experts to advise it in its preparations for the summit the following year, in which one of the headings for discussion by the heads of governments of the ten countries would be the institutions of the Community. The Group first met in October 1971 with a mandate ‘to examine all the implications of extending the powers of the European Parliament’. It reported on 25 March 1972.

As a member of the Group I shall attempt a personal assessment of the political implications of the report. I have not consulted with any of my thirteen colleagues; I do not purport to represent their views, nor are they to be taken as sharing or endorsing in any way my personal analysis in this article.
The West German Parties and the Ostpolitik
Authors: Roberts Geoffrey K.
Published: April 2007

AFTER MORE THAN A DECADE IN WHICH DOMESTIC POLICY PROVIDED the major issues for party debate in West Germany, the determination of the Brandt government on taking office to engage itself in activities designed to ‘normalize’ relations with the Eastern Bloc has had notable effects on the West German parties. The political climate has altered; partisanship has been intensified; the Basic Law has been tested in novel circumstances; and the governing coalition and the apprentice opposition have both faced trials and tensions in terms of their party base.

The new Ostpolitik has had its effects on the political climate in terms of the first use of the constructive vote of no confidence, the erosion of the coalition majority, the pressures for a premature general election; but the short-term and longer-term effects on the West German parties are likely to be of greater significance. This article seeks to assess the significance of the Ostpolitik for the government and opposition parties. For, whatever the benefits or disadvantages which the Ostpolitik may bring to the Federal Republic in intrinsic terms, it is already clear that it has modified considerably the pre-1969 pattern of party politics.
Politics, Economics, and Political Economy
Authors: Smith Trevor
Published: April 2007

DISSATISFACTION WITH ESTABLISHED MODES OF SCHOLARSHIP IS A contemporary manifestation common to all the social sciences in varying degrees. In the terminology of Thomas Kuhn, which in its widespread adoption seems in no small measure to have contribted to the new waves of methodological consciousness, the prevailing ‘paradigms’, which were largely consolidated in the 1950s, are being explicitly and often vehemently challenged. A burgeoning critical literature is readily apparent throughout the social sciences and, for that matter, beyond.
Barrington Moore's Thesis and Swedish Political Development
Authors: Castles Francis G.
Published: April 2007

RECENT YEARS HAVE SEEN THE RECRUDESCENCE OF AN HISTORICAL dimension in comparative political studies, which is almost certainly a reflection of the increased interest in problems of political development that began to be seriously displayed from the early 1960s onwards. Among the more interesting contributions in this respect have been Lipset's, and, in particular, Rokkan's, working-out of a diachronic analysis of patterns of political cleavage and resulting party systems, the increasing focus on crises and sequences in political development, and, of course, Barrington Moore's historical analysis of the Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. All these approaches have in common an attempt to infuse the generalizing and typological approach so typical of the modern social sciences with a deeper historical appreciation of the particular contexts within which political change occurs.
The Political Ideas of the Opus Dei in Spain
Authors: Mackenzie Leslie
Published: April 2007

THE OPUS DEI WAS FOUNDED AS A RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATION IN 1928 by Father Escrivá de Balaguer in Spain. Its existence is public but its membership has always been secret. During the period of the Civil War it went briefly underground, to re-emerge in Nationalist Spain. In 1947 it was recognized as the first Secular Institute by the Pope and the centre of the organization moved to Rome. It has been most successful in Spain where it profited from the extremely favourable conditions created by Franco's government for Catholic groups. Its aim was the re-conversion of all social classes and especially intellectual and bourgeois groups to a universal Catholic spirituality. It worked towards this aim through the positioning of its members in places of power within society: preferably in university chairs, banking, business or bureaucratic positions. Each member had the duty to lead an upright Catholic life and at the same time to convert the maximum possible number of his fellows to active Catholicism (or to membership of the Opus Dei), through the example of his life. This implied not only proficiency and diligence at work, but also the traditional spiritual values such as humility, chastity, obedience, etc. Escrivá de Balaguer argued that the further Opus members could rise up the social ladder the more influence they would have on society in general and on their fellows.
On Comparison as a Practical Activity
Authors: Ridley F. F.
Published: April 2007

THE WARY WRITER COVERS HIMSELF IN ADVANCE AS BEST HE CAN against the most obvious lines of criticism. Let me say, therefore, that this article is not intended to break, or even blunt, a lance in the methodology debate of comparative politics, nor is it put forward as a contribution in its own right to the science of comparative politics. The intention is much simpler. I want to argue that there are practical forms of comparison which the political scientist can use when in a less than scientific mood and that useful ends can be served by such practical activity. What is offered here, then, is a series of personal reflections and no more. To prevent the appearance of scholarly intent, scholarly reference to the literature has been avoided. A plausible argument to forestall the critic, but probably sensible, is that the case for an unsophisticated approach to comparative politics should be presented in an unsophisticated way. Put another way, it may be that to be practical one should sometimes be naive.
The Insulation of the Presidency
Authors: Nicholas H. G.
Published: April 2007

IN THE CABINET ROOM of RICHARD NIXON'S WHITE HOUSE THERE hang two portraits, one of Woodrow Wilson and one of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Report has it that they are the personal selection of the present incumbent, representing those of his predecessors whom he most admires. If so, they constitute an interesting choice, an unusual combination. Woodrow Wilson, in the type-casting of history, is a typical ‘strong’ President, the innovative leader who rules as well as reigns, the convinced mandatory of the popular will. Eisenhower, by contrast, represents a unique attempt in our time to recreate the ‘weak’ or ‘strict constructionist’ President of an earlier age, a quasi-monarchical head of state who does not seek to rule and does not claim for himself a larger or more authoritative mandate than that of his legislative colleagues. Moreover Wilson, despite his repudiation by the American people, saw himself as an active leader of his party, while Eisenhower, despite his landslide victories, thought it improper (or found it distasteful) to use the presidency as an instrument of party advantage.
The Collaborative Chaos of Federal Administration
Authors: Vale Vivian
Published: April 2007

At this moment in our history, most Americans have concluded that government is not performing well. It promises much, but it does not deliver what it promises. The great danger, in my judgement, is that this momentary disillusionment with government will turn into a more profound and lasting loss of faith.
Civil Strife and the Growth of Trade Union Unity: The Case of Ireland
Authors: McCarthy Charles
Published: April 2007

A MAJOR CLAIM OF THE TRADE UNION MOVEMENT IN THIS DIFFICULT time in Northern Ireland is that they have ‘prevented the spread of riot and disturbance into the workplace’. The claim has been consistently made and with growing emphasis since the troubles began, and Norman Kennedy at last year's annual conference of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions called it the one beacon of hope, this ‘maintaining unity of the workers, Catholic and Protestant, on the shop floor’ in what he described as largely a conflict of worker against worker, of a working-class community divided along sectarian lines. This is associated with a related claim that trade union recommendations on social and political change have a special legitimacy because the leadership is close to the people who are involved in the conflict. This political role, essentially non-party, is seen to be more significant and extensive than the traditional political activity of the trade union movement.
Beyond Autonomy? The Politics of Corporations
Authors: Kavanagh Dennis
Published: April 2007

IN RECENT YEARS THERE HAS BEEN A FORMIDABLE GROWTH OF literature on the political and other implications of business corporations. Much of the writing on the corporations has been of an alarmist nature. We are usually referred to the growth of an impressive economic (and, by implication, political) power of the corporations, the lack of effective democratic control on their activities, and the consequent need to establish a more effective set of constraints. It is suggested that internally the corporations are tending to by-pass the legislatures and other representative institutions, while externally the multinationals are integrating sectors of economies across states, and employing a management which may owe primary loyalty to the corporation and not the state in which managers are based. The emergence of the multinationals therefore not only seriously challenges many of our cherished political institutions and procedures, it also confronts our patterns of thinking about the sovereign state which have been inherited from the 16th century. In that they escape from the constraints of national boundaries and representative institutions it is alleged that the corporations are rendering obsolescent our traditional concepts of both state and sovereignty. Much of this argument is neatly encapsulated in the evocative titles of such scholarly works as Beyond the Nation State and Sovereignty at Bay.
Between Sovereignty and Integration: Conclusion
Authors: Deutsch Karl
Published: April 2007

LET US ASK FIRST OF ALL A SIMPLE QUESTION – ‘WHY DOES ANYBODY want integration?’ There are usually two reasons. The first is: in order not to be killed by somebody with whom we fail to integrate. This argument for integration has been stressed by popular writers, such as Emery Reeves and others. It is a variation of the old German proverb which goes, loosely translated, ‘If thou wilt not my brother be, I'll smash thy skull most certainly.’ This notion that groups that do not integrate must destroy each other is a widespread but false belief. Luckily it is not true. The Scandinavians did not form any United States of the North, and yet they have not killed each other for a long time even though their ancestors were formidable warriors.
From Socialist Unification to Socialist Scission 1966–69: Socialist Unification and the Italian Party System
Authors: Rizzi Felice
Published: April 2007

A FEW YEARS AGO, GALL1 AND PRANDI WROTE THAT THE UNIFICATION of the socialists represented a phase of rationalization of the Italian political system. Not only did the re-unification of the PSI (Socialist Party of Italy) and the PSDI (Social Democratic Party of Italy) lead to a simplification of the party subsystem (by reducing its excessive numbers), thus rendering the choice between alternatives easier for the electorate. But at last a single voice seemed to emerge which could undertake the task of opposing the twenty years of Christian Democrat predominance, which had been responsible for so many aspects of political ‘immobilism’. Moreover it was possible to discern a strategic design in the socialist plans — an optimistic design perhaps, but entailing possible innovations. The formation of a strong Socialist Party might have led to the overcoming of one of the principal - if not the greatest - defects of the Italian party system: the absence of a mechanism of rewards and punishments.
The Effect of the Enlargement of the EEC on the Institutional Evolution of the Community
Authors: Noel Emile
Published: April 2007

SIX MONTHS AGO THE EFFECT OF THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE Community after one year seemed to be a purely academic subject. But soon afterwards, a chain of events and of setbacks led to the state of weariness and of profound uncertainty in which the Community finds itself today.

To restrict oneself, in these circumstances, to a purely institutional balance-sheet would be an empty exercise. How convincing or even useful is it to say that, in general, the institutions functioned almost normally in 1973 when through lack of political will or spontaneity they neither obtained the wished-for results nor supplied the answers expected by European public opinion? When there is no agreement on a minimum of common orientations or on the background of a common strategy, the institutional content of the Community loses its meaning. Not seldom national constitutions, when deprived of popular support, have seemed to be at the mercy of the slightest upheaval. The same thing could happen to a European constitution.
The Unknown Apollo of Biskra: The Social Base of Algerian Puritanism
Authors: Gellner Ernest
Published: April 2007

MODERN ALGERIA BEARS VARIOUS STIGMATA OF RADICALISM. ITS struggle for national liberation was one of exceptional severity, involving untold and incalculable suffering and sacrifices. Only Vietnam can surpass it; no other ex-colonial country can equal it. After independence, the commanding heights of the economy, and even a very significant part of the rural sector, passed into one form or another of socialist ownership, including the important experiments inauto-gestion(workers' self-administration), in both industrial and agricultural enterprises. In foreign policy, the hostility of its government to what it holds to be remaining forms of colonialism has been serious and sustained. Internally, the regime is relatively egalitarian and rather puritanical and earnest, by any standards. The Algerians look to their own efforts for the betterment of their condition. All these traits - a heroic struggle for liberation, followed by a good deal of socialism and a general earnest radicalism, ought to have made Algeria a place of pilgrimage for the international Left. It is well known that the promised land must besomewhere. Algeria had as good a claim as Russia, China, Yugoslavia, Cuba, Vietnam, to be at least considered for such a role. In fact, Algeria found in Frantz Fanon the thinker or poet of this vision. Though not a native of Algeria, he identified with the Algerian national cause and died whilst serving it, and became its internationally renowned theoretician.
The Shrinking World of Bagehot
Authors: Ionescu Ghiţa
Published: April 2007

IN SPITE OF ALL THAT HAS HAPPENED, WITHIN BRITAIN AND WITHOUT, since Bagehot's death in 1877, the British political world still speaks, writes and teaches in Bagehot's terms, Some reassessments of his ideas did of course take place, the most searching of which probably arose as a result of the advent of socialism. Its impact on the politics of Britain, and of the world, needed to be considered. Nevertheless, though we might have grasped what changes had taken place, and though we might have seen how Bagehot's vision needed to be adjurtedg to these new realities, yet, on the whole it seemed that these changes did not affect the essential aspects of that vision. We were still bounded by the classic British parliamentary system for which Bagehot is the best interpreter.
Presidentialism and the Parties in the French Fifth Republic
Authors: Vincent Wright
Published: April 2007

PARTY POLITICS UNDER THE FIFZH REPUBLIC HAVE BEEN COMPLEX AND confused. New parties such as the Independent Republicans and the Centre Démocrate have appeared, and old ones such as the MRP and the CNIP-two of the great pivotal parties of the Fourth Republic - have disappeared as national forces. The Gaullists have grown, the communists have stagnated, the radicals have declined, and the socialists have experienced dramatically changing fortunes. The observer will be bewildered by the appearance and disappearance of party coalitions, by the political dissensions within the parties, by the bitter squabbles between parties which are in nominal alliance, and by the Quixotic waverings of certain party leaders - veritable weathercocks susceptible to the slightest political draught.
Radicalism in the Argentine Catholic Church
Authors: Deiner John T.
Published: April 2007

ON 11 MAY 1974 FATHER MUGICA, A LEADING SPOKESMAN OF THE Movement of Priests for the Third World (MPTW) and a pro- Peronist, was machine-gunned to death as he left his church in a working-class neighbourhood after celebrating mass. Once again the Catholic Church in Argentina called for peace and understanding as the proper path for Argentines, and the MPTW issued a long statement condemning the use of violence. Nevertheless, the common pleas by the two factions of the Church in Argentina have had little visible effect in stopping the violence through which Argentina is now suffering. In order to understand how the political and doctrinal differences from within the Church in Argentina have influenced in the past and will continue to influence the political developments in Argentina it is first necessary to look at the background of the problem.
Will Democracy Kill Democracy? Decision‐Making by Majorities and by Committees
Authors: Sartori Giovanni
Published: April 2007

INDIVIDUAL DECISIONS ARE TAKEN BY EACH INDIVIDUAL FOR HIMSELF (regardless of whether he is inner- or other-directed). Group decisions imply that decisions are taken by a ‘concrete’ group, i.e. a face-to-face interacting number of individuals which may thus be said to share (partake) such decisions. Collective decisions are hardly amenable to a precise definition; but they are generally understood to mean decisions taken by the ‘many’. We then havecollectivized decisions. Collective and collectivized decisions may be said to share the property of not being, in any meaningful sense, individual decisions. Even so, collectivized decisions are very different from all the others. Individual, group, and collective decisions all make reference to an actor, to who makes the decision. Collectivized decisions are, instead, decisions that apply to, and are enforced upon, a collectivity regardless of whether they are taken by the one, the few, or the many. The defining criterion no longer iswhomakes the decision, but itsscope: whoever does the decidingdecides or all.
The Israeli Coalition System
Authors: Paltiel K. Z.
Published: April 2007

ANALYSTS OF THE ISRAELI POLITICAL SYSTEM HAVE COMMONLY attributed the stability of the polity to factors closely associated with the role played by the various Israeli parties in the state's economic and social life, and/or to the existence of a dominant, institutionalized state-building party. The consociational approach ought to help to clarify those factors which have maintained the stability of the coalition system which has governed the state of Israel since its establishment in 1948 and whose roots may be traced back as far as 1933 and even earlier.

The consociational model and the theory of elite accommodation have been elaborated in an effort to explain the maintenance of continuing political stability in what at first glance would appear to be societies deeply divided along social, economic, ethnic, religious and ideological lines. Political stability in fragmented societies from this standpoint rests on the overarching commitment of the political elites to the preservation and maintenance of the system and their readiness to cooperate to this end.
Science and Modern Politics
Authors: Philippart André
Published: April 2007

FOR CONVENIENCE, I HAVE CHOSEN THE CONCEPT ‘SCIENCE’, ALTHOUGH the phrase ‘science policy’ would have expressed more clearly the relationship between scientific activity and its political causes and effects. The term ‘science’ is generally taken as free of any axiological or ontological value. The ‘liberal’ tradition assigns it an objective and neutral character, a point of view defended for instance by Karl Popper and Michael Polanyi whose search for truth and scientific work is situated above the political or ideological planes. Marxist ideology, however, places science on the level of beliefs, thus perpetuating 19th century ‘scientism’ and the vast positivist movement which, in a teleological way, bases the hope of a solution to all human problems on the development of science. ‘Objective Science’, ‘Scientism’, ‘Scientific Socialism’ are brand labels. But in all political systems, the combination of ideologies and of the resources created through scientific research confers a symbolic value upon science: that of the final means by which humanity will be saved or which will trigger off the ultimate catastrophe.
From the Revolution to Liberalization
Authors: Gellner Ernest
Published: April 2007

J-P. SARTRE HAS WRITTEN AT LENGTH ON THE QUESTION OF HOW THE myth of the French revolution is possible. The intelligibility, let alone the truth, of his answer need not detain us unduly. But the question is a good one. The past two centuries or so have indeed been the age of myth of the Revolution. As in philosophical logic, the definite article has distinctive and powerful implications and gives rise to very interesting problems. In this case, they are not merely logical, but also, and above all, moral, epistemic and political. The definite article seems to imply existence; and it also seems to imply uniqueness. Even more disturbingly, it seems to suggest, in this case, moral rightness and political authority. The Revolution is necessary, unique and inevitable, legitimate and authoritative. But to claim these traits, it must also be identifiable; and it can only be identified, hailed and revered, if it carries some manifest stigmata. But what are they? Can they not be counterfeited? Are there not peddlers of fake stigmata, or, worse still, of false theories concerning what constitutes the stigmata?
The Liberalism of Karl Popper
Authors: Gray John N.
Published: April 2007

DESPITE ITS WIDE INFLUENCE, THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF KARL POPPER has received, until recently, remarkably little systematic attention from academic political theorists. Hailed by Isaiah Berlin as the most formidable of Marxism's living critics and reviled by Marxists as a prominent luminary of that White Emigration whose pernicious influence is mainly responsible for the ideological rejuvenation of a moribund reactionary culture, canonized as a prophet of freedom and enterprise and lumped together with such despised conservatives as Oakeshott, Namier and Butterfield as one of those who want only ‘to keep that dear old T-model on the road by dint of a little piecemeal engineering’, Popper incontestably has been a storm centre of several major ideological controversies. Equally, Popper's dissident reinterpretations of the thought of Plato and Hegel, like his defence of value-freedom and methodological individualism in the social sciences, have generated massive and subtly ramified literatures, while the form of critical rationalism which has been developed by some of his disciples has been seen, both by its proponents and by its enemies, as the foremost contribution to the contemporary struggle against irrationalism.
Humanitarian Policy and Pragmatism: Some Case Studies of the Red Cross
Authors: Freymond Jacques
Published: April 2007

EVERY HUMANITARIAN ACTION TAKES PLACE WITHIN A POLITICAL context. This means that all humanitarian organizations, such as those which operate under the sign of the Red Cross, must devise a humanitarian policy which will be valid in the long term, based on a thorough analysis of the political context, the characteristic features of an epoch, the structures of political societies, the interaction of profound forces and the world political system. This humanitarian policy in its turn entails the development of a humanitarian strategy which is distinct from the tactical moves imposed by the diversity of situations and crises. Neglect of this work of reflection results in contradiction and confusion and, worse still, humanitarian activity can be degraded into a tool of politics.
Spain in Europe
Authors: Medina Manuel
Published: April 2007

SPAIN IS A EUROPEAN COUNTRY, AT LEAST FROM A GEOGRAPHICAL point of view. Culturally and historically it is part of Western Europe. During most of the 19th century and the first third of the 20th century it enjoyed constitutional government in one form or another. The liberal revolution of 1820 was the first outbreak of rebellion against the legitimist order imposed by the Holy Alliance in continental Europe. Men, institutions and parties of the Spanish Republic of 1931–36 were of European stature.
The Common Market and the Growing Strength of Labour’s Left Wing
Authors: Bilski Raphaella
Published: April 2007

FROM 1967 UNTIL THE REFERENDUM, THE DEBATE ON THE COMMON Market in Britain produced a vast amount of literature devoted to the economic, political and social ramifications of joining. The main economic issues debated were the cost of entry and its effect on Britain's balance of payments, prices and the standard of living. The other problems centred around the tax system, including VAT, the flow of capital, unemployment, technological development, the value of the pound, the Community's agricultural policy, its regional policy, the volume of exports and labour mobility. In the social field the main concern was the standard of the social services, especially the National Health Service. In the political field debate centred around the undemocratic and bureaucratic nature of the EEC decision-making system; Britain's sovereignty, especially as regards the ability of Parliament to pursue independent economic, social and foreign policies; the connections between Britain and the Cornmon wealth, EFTA, the USA, Eastern Europe and developing countries. In addition the Treaty of Rome itself and the ideological, social and political nature of the Communities were debated.
Sedes: an Example of Opposition in a Conservative Authoritarian State
Authors: Blume Norman
Published: April 2007

MANY COMMENTATORS HAVE DESCRIBED AND ANALYSED POLITICAL opositions in both democratic and authoritarian political systems. Scholars like Dahl, Lipset and Rokkan, Ionescu and Madariaga and Linz have advanced abroad taxonomies of oppositions. All seem to suffer from the difficulty in application to the specific political situation. Whether it be Dahl's categories of hegemony, polyarchy , near hegemony and near polyarchy ; Lipset and Rokkan's cleavages between church and state, landed estate and entrepreneur, employers and workers, and central and regional; or Ionescu and Madariaga's models which are based on the reasons an opposition is banned in a particular system, all have proved inadequate in describing the Portuguese opposition under Marcello Caetano. Even Linz's models of semi-opposition, alegal, and illegal opposition have failed to describe an opposition which is a combination of a semi-opposition and an alegal oposition. The object of this paper is to add information to the body of literature on oppositions within authoritarian systems and to provide a qualification to the Linz models, the semi-oppositionalegal opposition.
Creeping but Uneasy Authoritarianism: India, 1975–6
Authors: Morris‐Jones W. H.
Published: April 2007

WHEN WESTERNERS FIND INDIANS BAFFLING AND EXASPERATING Indians have an explanation: it is because they bring an ‘either-or’ a proach to people who like to operate in terms of ‘both-and’, they see contraries and inconsistencies where Indians are aware only of complexity and compatibility. Without entering into a discussion of this as a general view, it is tempting to say that it could furnish an explanation of the curiously mixed and paradoxical character of the authoritarian regime which has been emer ing over the past eighteen months from that country's so-called ‘Emergency’. Tempting but less than convincing, for several reasons: the forms of authoritarianism in the world are already amply varied; it remains to be seen how far Mrs Gandhi's mixture is viable; above all, it is a mixture which looks and feels pretty strange to many Indians too.
Before and after the Italian National Elections of 1976
Authors: Pasquino Gianfranco
Published: April 2007

THE ITALIAN ELECTIONS OF 20 JUNE 1976 HAVE BEEN COMPARED TO those of 18 April 1948. Nearly thirty years ago, the Italian electorate, under heavy international pressures, gave 48.5 per cent of the votes and an absolute majority of seats to the DC (Christian Democrats) desisively defeating the Socialist-Communist Popular Front which polled only 31.0 per cent of the votes as compared to their combined percentage of 39.7 per cent only two years earlier (though, in the meantime, the Social Democrats had split from the Socialists and carried with them 7 per cent of the electorate).
Long Term Trends in Mass Support for European Unification
Authors: Inglehart Ronald
Published: April 2007

BENEATH THE ACTIVISM OF THE 1960s AND THE SEEMING QUIESCENCE of the 1970s a silent revolution has been occurring which is changing the infrastructure of Western politics in two ways: first, the values of Western publics have been shifting from an almost exclusive emphasis on material and physical security toward greater concern with intangible aspects of life; and secondly, there has been an increase in the political skills of Western publics that enables them to play a more active role in making important political decisions. Both processes tend to broaden the political horizons of these people and have important implications for supranational political integration.
Tripartism: Reality or Myth?
Authors: Marsh David , Grant Wyn
Published: April 2007

IT IS INCREASINGLY COMMON TO FIND ANALYSES OF BRITAIN AS A corporate state, or more circumspectly as developing a tripartite system of economic and industrial policy-making. Unfortunately, such work is often marked by a lack of definitional rigour and an inadequate consideration of relevant empirical material. In view of these limitations in the literature our article has two aims. Initially it examines the relationship between corporatism and tripartism, showing that in many ways tripartism can be viewed as a variation on one strand of corporatist thought, and what is more that it is the strand which appears most relevant to discussions of Britain. Subsequently, against this background, we examine empirical evidence to establish how far Britain can be described as having a tripartite system of economic and industrial policy-making.
The Community Energy Policy: Conclusions
Authors: Pinder John
Published: April 2007

Group IV, Energy Policy, under the chairmanship of Mr John Pinder, agreed with the parallel conclusions of the reports of Mr de Bauw and Professor Guy de Carmoy on the causes and developments which led to the oil-crisis of 1973. Thc discussion concentrated therefore on the general, past and present, problems faced by a European Energy Policy.
Governing from the Centre: the 1977 French Local Elections
Authors: Hayward Jack , Wright Vincent
Published: April 2007

FRANCE IS A COUNTRY IN WHICH PAST POLITICAL BATTLES ARE IN the forefront of the minds of those who are engaged in contemporary conflicts. The March 1977 elections in the 36,383 communes of metropolitan France could evoke memories of 1877 and 1947. The thirtieth anniversary of the Gaullist landslide of 1947 was directly concerned with local elections as such, while 1877 recalled the defeat of President MacMahon's attempt to impose his choice of government a century ago, which finally settled the struggle between Left and Right over the regime of the Third Republic. Anticipation that the regime established by General de Gaulle would be put to the searching test of a clash between the President and a Left-wing Assembly majority converted in some people's minds the March 1977 local clections into a prologue to this decisive national confrontation.
The European Alternatives International Commodity Policy: EEC Policies and Options
Authors: Goodwin Geoffrey L. , Mayall James B.
Published: April 2007

HOW IS THE EEC TO REACT TO THE UNCTAD DEMAND FOR AN INTEGRATED commodity programme? In this paper we attempt to sketch the background to this question and to identify some of the major options available to the Community. At the outset, however, one point deserves emphasis: over the past fifty years there have been many attempts to manage international commodity trade. Their success or failure has invariably depended more on political than purely technical considerations. Where national security or alliance needs ‘demanded’ coordination, as with the combined Raw Materials Board during the Second World War, any technical difficulties were overcome; on the other hand the inter-war rubber, wheat and coffee agreements were unable to withstand the onslaught of the depression, the retreat to economic nationalism, and the readiness of many members to put short-term domestic considerations before long-term international commitments. In the current debate the political context has, of course, changed, but the relevance of these political considerations has not.
The Turkish Party System in Transition
Authors: Sayari Sabri
Published: April 2007

CONTINUITY RATHER THAN CHANGE WAS CHARACTERISTIC OF THE Turkish party system during its formative years in the late 1940s and the 1950s. Now, however, party competition in Turkey appears to be approaching a new phase of development. While some political analysts have described the emerging trends in the 1970s with reference to a ‘critical realignment’ in mass electoral behaviour, others have characterized the party system as going through a period of ‘flux and transition’. Indeed, the recent course of electoral politics in Turkey displays some significant changes. First, with the termination of the Justice Party's UP) dominant position in party competition, there has been a transition from a predominant party system to one of moderate pluralism in which the likelihood of coalition government has significantly increased. Secondly, the trend toward greater fragmentation in the party system which partially accounted for the JP's loss of dominance in 1973, appears to have been reversed in the 1977 parliamentary election as the two major parties made substantial gains at the expense of the minor parties. Thirdly, these changes have been accompanied by the increase of ideological polarization in the party system and the intensification of ideological cleavages among the party elites.
Pluralism, Corporatism and the Role of the State
Authors: Cawson Alan
Published: April 2007

THERE HAS RECENTLY BEEN A SPATE OF WRITING ON THE CONCEPT OF corporatism as part of the interpretation of contemporary British politics, and a series of articles by J. T. Winkler has provided a comprehensive and detailed frameword for the analysis of certain features of political practice. One of the purposes of this writing is to rescue the term ‘corporatism’ from its Italian and fascist connotations to permit a dispassionate examination of the central features of corporatist thought and practice.
The Requirements for Explanation in Comparative Politics: Resources, Rules and Personality
Authors: Clapham Christopher
Published: April 2007

WHAT KINDS OF RATIONALE ARE NECESSARY OR APPROPRIATE FOR explanation in comparative politics? A rationale is essential for explanation, underlying any attempt to construct a theory, since it is the only means by which one can indicate why the event to be explained should follow from the precedent events held to explain it - something which a simple succession of events in itself, no matter how regular, can supply. In this article, I shall outline an answer to this question, and then indicate a framework of investigation inside which the basic requirements of political explanation can be met, and at the same time made relevant to strategies for research. There are, I suggest, only three rationales from which explanatory statements need to be derived, and these can be combined with one another in ways which are easily enough put into practice, but which also have important implications for the kinds of explanation which it is possible to achieve. I hope to come out, therefore, with a general framework into which any valid explanation can be put, and to suggest that by putting our explanations into such a framework, we will be better able to compare them with one another, and thus to ‘cumulate’ our ability to understand political phenomena drawn from different areas. I do not pretend to overcome the well-known problems in the way of a ‘science of politics’, and will indeed argue that within the pattern of explanation which I suggest such problems are insoluble.
On World Models and Political Science
Authors: Deutsch Karl W.
Published: April 2007

WE HAVE ENTERED UPON A NEW STAGE IN POLITICAL SCIENCE as well as in the study of world affairs, the stage of large-scale computer-based world models. These models became practicable because of three changes. First, thanks to the United Nations and many national governments, many more better quality statistical data have now become available. Secondly, because of the techniques of sampling and of interviewing, we now can have survey data from very many countries and groups of people. These survey data cover many different aspects of people's views and attitudes, or of their experiences, or of their reports of what they thought they did. We can then compare the number of people who say they have written a letter with the number of letters the post office says they sent or got; thus we can, as it were, cross-examine the statistical data critically. Thirdly, we now have large computers which can store, recall, tabulate and analyze large amounts of data, if somebody works out a suitable programme for them. The computers can then tirelessly and patiently do work in minutes which individuals could not have achieved in a lifetime. Thanks to these advances in the last twenty or thirty years–the greater availability of statistics, survey and sampling techniques, and computers–we now have world models.
On Liberalization
Authors: Aron Raymond
Published: April 2007

‘THE CLAIM WHICH IS BEING MADE IS THAT THE LIBERALIZATION is now becoming a generic and indeed a crucial phenomenon, as the Revolution had been; that, for good and in the main obvious reasons, it is replacing the earlier myth as a central political preoccupation or category; and that its basic assumptions are not merely more pertinent to our time, but probably also rather sounder by any criterion and at all times’. So wrote Ernest Gelher in a recent article destined in my view to initiate a vast debate.
The European Parliament: The Challenge of Political Responsibility
Authors: Wallace Helen
Published: April 2007

MUCH OF THE DEBATE ON THE FUTURE OF THE EUROPEAN Parliament has focused on two questions: how far it will or can develop along the lines familiar from national parliamentary experience; and whether it will be able to insert itself effectively into the decision-making processes of the European Communities (EC). The evolution of the Parliament is well summarized in the paper by Hans Nord and John Taylor, as are the constitutional powers and political levereage the might contribute to an enhanced role in the future. A wealth of other studies recently published further amplify the constraints on the Parliament and the opportunities available to it for the gradual extension of its functions. Their conclusions range from the view that Parliament is so heavily circumscribed as to have little scope for effectiveness to the belief that Parliament will gradually enlarge its area of influence, until in practice it has gained a significant political role. Some commentators regard constitutional change, with a formal extension of parliamentary powers, as a necessary condition of an enhanced role, while others anticipate that constitutional change is more likely to take place only to recognise de iure an actual increase in the political authority of the Parliament.
Communication in the European Elections: The Case of British Broadcasting
Authors: Blumler Jay G.
Published: April 2007

THE POLITICAL GAINS EXPECTED FROM HOLDING DIRECT ELECtions to the European Parliament were bound to depend on the nature and extent of mass communication. Information flows released during the campaign in the various Community countries, and how they were received by electoral audiences, would determine, for example, whether: European awareness would spread beyond the confines of cosmopolitan élites into the ranks of mass publics; the legitimacy of the Euro ean Parliament would be strengthened by enhancing its visibility, intelligibility and relevance in the eyes of European citizens; and whether the seeds of a European-level body of public opinion would begin to sprout and flourish. As Emdio Colombo once put it, ‘The elections to the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage provide an opportunity of bringing the debate on Europe into the public forum and of enlisting the active support of the man in the street for the construction of Europe.’
Popular Access to the Decision‐making Process in Switzerland: The Role of Direct Democracy
Authors: Mowlam Marjorie
Published: April 2007

CENTRAL TO THE STUDY OF DEMOCRATIC POLITICS IS THE IDEA of popular control over the activities of elites. More specifically, how can the preferences of citizens be aggregated into a political choice for a government policy or government personnel? Popular control, the effects of citizen participation in political life, is the basis of a major value orientation in the discipline: the notion of participant democracy. The degree of citizen participation becomes the key to the nature of democracry in a society : the more participation, the more democratic the political life of a country becomes. Political participation may take a variety of forms, e.g., running for office, holding office,voting, soliciting votes, and campaigning for, or contributing funds to, I the party of one's choice. However, voting is the most emphasized aspect of citizen participation, since it is the only form of active participation many engage in. The limitations placed on voting as a mechanism for popular control over political choices are well documented. Voters do not choose when to vote, nor the agenda. They have minimal input into the selection of candidates and the choice of issues which divide the parties at elections. Public participation in the selection and resolution of important policy issues between elections is severely restricted.
On Political Scandals and Corruption
Authors: Moodie Graeme C.
Published: April 2007

SCANDAL AND CORRUPTION ARE CUSTOMARILY THOUGHT OF in much the same ways as pigs and whistles; they go together. Strangely, however, academic studies of corruption seem to pay little attention to scandal. It is strange if only because in societies like this corruption tends to be obscure, a condition in which its participants wish it to remain, and it is to the occasional scandal that we are indebted for what knowledge is generally accessible. This is particularly true in Britain where the major scandals have usually been followed (sometimes illuminated) by official inquiries; certainly that has been the practice in this century from the Marconi shares scandal in 1913 to the Poulson scandal sixty years later which spawned both a committee and a Royal Commission. A closer look at the incidence of political scandal, this article will suggest, is an additional tool for the study of corruption and perhaps particularly so for comparative studies. A more fundamental (and more widely canvassed) problem, however, is so to define corruption as to facilitate reliable comparisons across temporal and cultural boundaries. We will first discuss that problem.
The Passing of Development Studies ‐ Over the Shoulder With a Backward Glance
Authors: Apter D. E.
Published: April 2007

FOR A POLITICAL SCIENTIST THE LAST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS represented a unique historical period. There were opportunities for research in new fields requiring new techniques. Indeed, the sense of newness combined subject, technique and moral direction in a singular synthesis. Words like nationalism, growth, independence, freedom, not to speak of the staged figures who personified them, Ghandi and Nehru, Nkrumah and Zik, Touré and Keita, Sukarno and particularly Mao and Castro, gave a peopled tension to what constituted not only new frontiers of independence but also moral events as new nations and new political forms made their appearance.
A Voyage of the Mind, 1930–1980
Authors: Deutsch Karl W.
Published: April 2007

POLITICS WAS A CONCERN OF MINE SINCE I WAS SIX YEARS OLD. It did not start in the library. It began a decade before 1930 in the campaign meetings of my mother who was one of the first women Members of Parliament in the Czechoslovak Republic, for the Social Democratic Party in a Sudeten German workingclass constituency. By 1930 I was 18 years old and an active member of the youth organization of that party. In that year I saw Nazi parades in Berlin, prior to the Nazis’ first big success in the German elections of that year. Soon there were Nazi meetings – later thinly disguised as Henlein party meetings – in the Sudetenland and in Prague where I became a student at the German University and where my family and I belonged to the German minority. Problems of the labour movement, depression, unemployment, nationalism and Fascism were real events unrolling before my eyes.
Political Science: An Idiosyncratic Retrospect of a Putative Discipline
Authors: Finer S. E.
Published: April 2007

THAT THIS ESSAY SHOULD HAVE TURNED OUT TO BE AS MUCH a matter of introspection as of retrospection should not, after all, have surprised me. As Pascal said, ‘la dernière chose qu'on trouve en faisant un ouvrage est de savoir qu'il faut mettre la première’. If the study of politics has changed over the last half century, why then, so have I. ‘You cannot step into the same river twice’. This is my apologia for starting off, not with my subject matter, but with myself!