bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Frequency and Duration of Parliaments
Authors: Randall James G. 
Published: May 2006

When the British parliament passed a vote extending the life of the existing house of commons, whose duration would otherwise have terminated in January, 1916, their action attracted little attention and aroused but slight opposition. The forces of the empire, engaged in a desperate war, must not be dissipated by an appeal to the people, with the consequent evils of electioneering. Yet to the student of politics this action has a profound interest. One of the cardinal features of the legislation of 1911 had been the quinquennial duration of parliament—a provision which, as the debates show, was essential to the whole compromise. Yet in an unforeseen crisis, the legislature by its own resolution could provide an extension of its life, and thus postpone the date of accountability to the people. No political measure could furnish so striking a test of the flexibility of the British system, its adaptibility to emergencies, and its reliance upon a practically omnipotent legislature.In this paper we shall trace the principal statutes which limit the parliamentary term and the intervals between parliamentary sessions. There are five such laws, each bearing a date full of significance in English constitutional history. The first three statutes, passed in 1641, 1664, and 1694, were triennial acts, though in different senses; the fourth statute, passed in 1716, was the familiar septennial act under which parliaments were so long regulated; the last permanent legislation on the subject was the parliament act of 1911 fixing a five-year maximum duration, and it still remains law though temporarily suspended in 1916.
The Position of the British Parliament
Authors: Pollock James K. 
Published: May 2006

The British Parliament has been passing through a period of pianissimo. Its praises should be sounded very softly, while its inadequacies and imperfections should be given wide attention. This does not imply a lack of veneration and respect for the Mother of Parliaments, but merely that a realistic approach should be made to the present-day value of this progenitor of the sturdy race of legislatures. No political institution is eternally successful, and even British institutions which have evolved so slowly, and in general so soundly, are no exceptions. The halo which surrounds Westminster is so great, however, that it almost blinds one to the imperfections which exist within those hallowed precincts. It seems almost sacrilegious, as a great British statesman recently observed, to attempt to meddle with “those great forms of procedure which have been handed down to us.” And yet when the Mother of Parliaments has so obviously deteriorated as to lose much of the respect and prestige which was formerly its possession, one seems justified in calling attention to its inadequacies.The fact is that in the last thirty years Parliament has gradually become an inefficient legislative body which does not effectively control the government, and which the people can hardly be said to control. As early as 1908, President Lowell wrote that “the House of Commons is finding more and more difficulty in passing any effective vote, except a vote of censure.” In 1931, it is doubtful whether even this can be done in a satisfactory way.
Some Contributions of Sociology to Modern Political Theory
Authors: Barnes Harry Elmer 
Published: May 2006

The fact that a sociologist has been requested to appear upon the program of the American Political Science Association is in itself far more significant than any remarks which may be made upon the subject of the relation of sociology to political theory. It is an admission that some political scientists have at last come to consider sociology of sufficient significance to students of politics to be worthy a brief survey of its contributions to modern political theory.Many of the more liberal and progressive political scientists will doubtless ask themselves if this is not erecting a man of straw, and will inquire if there was ever a time when political scientists were not willing to consider the doctrines of sociology. One or two brief reminders will doubtless allay this suspicion. It was only about twenty years ago that a leading New York daily is reputed to have characterized a distinguished American sociologist as “the fake professor of a pretended science.” About a decade ago an ex-president of this association declared in a twice published paper that sociology was essentially worthless and unscientific and that all of its data had already been dealt with more adequately by the special social sciences.
The Legislature and the Administration, I
Authors: Fairlie John A. 
Published: May 2006

Mr. W. F. Willoughby, in his Principles of Public Administration, holds that “the function of direction, supervision, and control of the administrative activities of the government resides in the legislative branch of the government.” More specifically, he states that, “in the case of our national government at least, Congress is the source of all administrative authority.” It may be suggested however, that an examination of existing systems of government shows a large amount of variation in this respect, and that three main systems may be recognized.These three main systems may be noted in private as well as in public administration. In undertakings managed directly by a single person, he at the same time is the organizer of the business and conducts its operation. This may be called an autochthonous administration. In collective groups, or societies, a distinction appears between the determination of general policies by the group or society (or by a general committee) and the actual management by the officers or agencies set up by the central group for certain purposes.
The Selection of Judges in Chicago, and the Rôle of the Local Bar Therein
Authors: Martin Edward M. 
Published: May 2006

For many years, the organized Bar has sought to guide the process of judicial selection. Its greatest activity has been in metropolitan communities where the choice is nominally by vote of the people. Such participation by a quasi-public group in a democratic procedure raises several pertinent questions. For example, what effect will it probably have on methods of selection now in force? Is such activity likely to become an accepted feature of our political life? Is such participation to be regarded as in the public interest? Is it a specific corrective that the body politic has developed to counterbalance too much democracy in judicial selection?To shed some light on these and related questions, the writer (as a graduate student at the University of Chicago) made a study of judicial selection in Chicago from 1870 to 1933, particular attention being given to the rôle of the Chicago Bar Association in the process.
Recent Developments in Political Geography, II
Authors: Hartshorne Richard 
Published: May 2006

With the field of political geography defined on the lines indicated in the preceding instalment of this article, its content may be outlined in terms of the study of a single state area. Naturally, such studies of different states may lead to the comparative study of state areas, just as regional studies may lead to a comparative science of regions. The outline which follows represents perhaps a minimum, including only those topics which I think are unquestionably to be included.I.Descriptive analysis of the stateA.Description or analysis of the state as a whole1.Size2.Form and shape3.Location in relation to other state areas4.BoundariesB.Analysis of the internal structure of the area1.Natural landscape areas, or provinces2.Cultural landscape areas, or provinces3.Areal distribution of significant population groups4.Location of the administrative center (capital)5.Geographic relations of the different areas thus analyzed, to each other and to the capital
William of Occam and the Higher Law, II
Authors: Shepard Max A. 
Published: May 2006

It is in connection with Occam's elaborate theory of property that we can most readily grasp the importance of his theory of higher law, particularly as embodied in the jus gentium. We must, therefore, investigate this subject in considerable detail.In Occam's view, God is originally the source of all property. But, as in the case of law and government, this is true only in the most general and indirect sense. Most property rights arise from human law and only mediately from God, although in a few special cases such rights follow directly from special divine ordination or from lex divina. Occam cites a passage from St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theol. II, II, Qu. 44, Art. 2) stating that separate possessions are not according to natural law but are founded upon human or positive law, and are added to natural law through the exercise of human reason. In the primal condition of mankind, or in the state of innocence in the Garden of Eden, all property was common and none was discrete or private. Before Eve came, Adam had only a de facto right of user and no greater right of private property than a sole remaining monk would have in the property of a monastery.
Statisticians and Political Scientists
Authors: Gosnell Harold F. 
Published: May 2006

In his classic book, Human Nature in Politics, published in 1908, Graham Wallas said: “We must aim at finding as many relevant and measurable facts about human nature as possible, and we must attempt to make all of them serviceable in political reasoning.” While the point of view which Wallas expressed at that time has by no means been universally accepted, and is today challenged by men like Charles A. Beard, certain steps have been taken toward its recognition.Wallas was particularly impressed by the successful use of quantitative methods made by the economists, and well he might be. To mention a single case, the work of F. Y. Edgeworth, in the measurement of utility, the algebraical or diagrammatic determination of economic equilibriums, and the application of the theory of probability to sampling and in the measurement of economic value or index numbers, showed the trend of the times in economics. The twentieth century has marked an acceleration of this trend. Political scientists have not only lagged far behind the economists in the use of statistics, but they have shown important resistance in some sections to following in this general direction. What is the explanation of this situation?
Parliamentary Government in Japan
Authors: Colegrove Kenneth 
Published: May 2006

The past year of Japanese politics has witnessed several developments in parliamentary government, prominent among which are the contest between the privy council and the cabinet, the question of the reform of the Peers, and the reorganization and growth of parties on the eve of the first general election under the manhood suffrage law.During the greater part of this time, the Wakatsuki ministry was in office. The strong leader of the Kenseikai, Viscount Kato, who had been called to form a coalition cabinet after the fall of the super-party cabinet of Kiyoura, died in January, 1926. The succeeding premior, Reijiro Wakatsuki, was a man of less prestige. Even before Kate's death, the alliance of all parties in the House of Representatives was dissolved and the Seiyukai and the Jitsugyo Doshikai, or Business-man's party, assumed the rôle of opposition parties.
Parliamentary Control of External Relations in the British Dominions
Authors: Dewey A. Gordon 
Published: May 2006

The British parliamentary system presumes a working government majority, or else an appeal to the electorate, with the inevitable confusion of issues involved therein. Hence, in studying the conduct of foreign relations throughout the British Commonwealth, little profit is to be gained from analysis of anomalous instances where governments and parliaments are found to have been at variance on external policies. Whatever familiarity with the “checks and balances” tradition may incline us to assume, such cases are no adequate criterion of democratization of control. On the contrary, this is to be found in the degree to which parliaments not merely are called upon to ratify governmental acts and policies, but are taken into the confidence of governments and consulted before decisions are conclusively formulated. In the second place, “external relations” should, in the case of the Dominions, include relations with other members of the Commonwealth, especially the mother country. These still comprise the bulk of their external contacts; and from the standpoint of the problem now under discussion, no actual difference in kind exists between them and truly foreign affairs. Moreover, it is upon the procedural foundation of the one that the principles governing the conduct of the other have been based.As it happens, the issue of parliamentary control has been agitated most zealously in connection with representation at the Imperial Conference, the supreme council of the British League of Nations.
The British Dominions and Neutrality
Authors: Clokie H. McD. 
Published: May 2006

Under the ordinary circumstances of peaceful relations with other states, the peculiar position of the Dominions in the British Commonwealth of Nations may be of little importance. Except to those insistent on the point of national pride, it makes little difference whether foreign Powers have or have not recognized the independent and sovereign character of the Dominions so long as they understand that the responsible governments with which they are dealing are the several ministries in the Dominions. Both external and internal autonomy has undoubtedly been attained by the Dominions in all normal peace-time affairs, and this situation has been recognized by other states. It matters little whether other states take seriously the symbolism of the Crown and the unity of the kingship or whether they regard these as among the odd aberrations of British illogicality. In war-time, however, a very different position is presented when one considers the status of the individual members of the Commonwealth.The sovereign rights of war and neutrality are not necessarily two aspects of the same power. The war power is capable of unilateral exercise; a state of war is brought into existence by the action of one state, and the legal consequences of belligerency follow automatically and indeed may be claimed by political associations or communities which are not recognized as sovereign states.
The Future of the American States
Authors: Graves W. Brooke 
Published: May 2006

In any consideration of the future of the states, it is desirable at the outset to recall the circumstances of their development and of their entry into the Union. When the present Constitution was framed and adopted, the states were more than a century and a half old. At that time, and for many years thereafter, it was the states to which the people gave their primary allegiance. Under the Articles of Confederation, the strength of the states was so great that the central government was unable to function; when the Constitution was framed, the people were still greatly concerned about “states' rights.” This priority of the states in the federal system continued through the nineteenth century, down to the period of the Civil War; in the closing decades of that century, state government sank into the depths in an orgy of graft and corruption and inefficiency, which resulted in a wave of state constitutional restrictions, particularly upon legislative powers.At this time, when the prestige and efficiency of the state governments were at their lowest ebb, there began to appear ringing indictments of the whole state system. Most conspicuous of these were the well known writings of Professors John W. Burgess, of Columbia University, and Simon N. Patten, of the University of Pennsylvania.
Dissent on the Supreme Court, 1943–44
Authors: Pritchett C. Herman 
Published: May 2006

During the 1943–44 term of the Supreme Court, public attention was attracted to that body on several occasions by verbal exchanges in decisions of the Court which seemed unusually sharp and personal. On January 3, 1944, Justices Black and Murphy admonished Justice Frankfurter that “for judges to rest their interpretation of statutes on nothing but their own conceptions of ‘morals’ and ‘ethics’ is, to say the least, dangerous business.” In another opinion on the same day, the same two judges referred to “what is patently a wholly gratuitous assertion as to constitutional law in the dissent of Mr. Justice Frankfurter.” In the Magnolia Petroleum Co. case, Justice Jackson observed that the minority judges were apparently willing to enforce the full faith and credit clause “only if the outcome pleases….” Justice Murphy told the Court on one occasion that it was “rewriting” a criminal statute, Justice Jackson called the decision bringing insurance under the Sherman Act a “reckless” one, and Justice Roberts several times waxed sarcastic about the disregarding or over-ruling of precedents. “This tendency,” he said, “indicates an intolerance for what those who have composed this court in the past have conscientiously and deliberately concluded, and involves an assumption that knowledge and wisdom reside in us which was denied to our predecessors.” It is not surprising that the newspapers translated these disagreements into personal terms and began to write about the “feud that was smoldering behind the Grecian columns of the white marble court building.”There are many reasons for not taking such accounts too seriously. Thomas Reed Powell has wisely warned “laymen … not to draw too broad conclusions from any reportorial propensity to play up judicial disagreements as contests like those in war or sports.” Disagreement is no new thing on the Court. The faultless phrasing of the Holmes dissents may have raised to a higher plane, but did not conceal, differences as sharp as any evident during the past term.
The Rôle of Political Science
Authors: Anderson William 
Published: May 2006

Custom has decreed that the president of this Association, as almost his final act before leaving his briefly-held office, shall deliver an address to those of his colleagues who are hardy enough to assemble to hear him. In this address he endeavors to give something of his best thought concerning some political question. Thereby he generally contrives, also, to convey to his fellow-members something of a feeling of corporate unity and a sense of professional direction.As my thoughts have turned recently toward the consideration of political science as a whole, as a unified discipline, and as a factor in the government of man, I thought I would discuss with you the question of the rôle of political science in the conduct and preservation of what we now call democratic government.Standing before you a year ago, President Frederic Austin Ogg spoke thoughtfully and with eloquence of American democracy after the war. He directed his remarks in part to the gloomy predictions of various speculative writers who prophesy the end in our age of democracy and constitutional government. With masterly competence, he showed that the modern trend toward strong executive leadership is not at all the same as a drift into dictatorship. In the United States this trend primarily means that the executive office is being developed to fulfil its true function in a democracy that intends to become stronger, more active, and more efficient.
Distribution of Powers between an International Government and the Governments of National States
Authors: Brecht Arnold 
Published: May 2006

Universal feeling seems to converge upon the postulate that after this war an International Government shall be formed to control war and peace of the world, and that the United States shall take full share in it. This dual demand is considered a fundamental platform on which all men of good-will can meet. There is a far-spread tendency, however, to postpone inquiries into its exact meaning and implications. This vagueness may have merits for winning popular support. It has none in preparing for final action. It may even defeat the movement's purpose, because little may come from the longing for International Government, unless details are well prepared in advance. Or, built with a marble façade on shaky foundations, International Government may lead to disaster rather than avert it.None of the United Nations—at least none of the “Big Four”—has thus far given up its sovereignty. For this very reason, no insurmountable difficulty may lie in the way of continuing their alliance to some good purpose after the war, and gradually extending it to other nations. That is still a far cry, however, from the establishment of an International Government which, distinct from the governments of its constituent members, should have the power to take consequential steps independently. If we stake our hopes on this latter type, we must answer the question of how shall the powers be divided between the International Government and the governments of the national states? In passing through the immense flood of discussions on International Government, it is amazing to see how scant are the contributions to this question.
Towards a Democratic Theory
Authors: Finer Herman 
Published: May 2006

The principal, indeed the desperate, task of democracy is to maintain itself; its second, to improve and refine itself. It is well to conceive our problem in practical terms, as it tends to sharpen and limit the inquiry; and, in a sense, part of the answer, at least, lies in the terms in which the question is posed. The problem is not an exercise in theory, but is urgently practical. So is the answer. But as all political science teaches, though it may come in institutional and psychological devices, in the background, promising and perhaps mocking, there is also the metaphysical element. And the last is inescapable. For this question needs solution: What Marxism is to Soviet Communism, and what Racialism is to the Nazi State, is X to Democracy. What is X?For we cannot assume that uncultivated men and women, unshaped by their institutions that already exist, or without a doctrine, can operate the democratic form of government. If that were so, nobody would have thought of education. If the instinctive response of mankind to its social problems were democracy, or ineluctably something else, the political scientist could happily surrender his Ph.D. and close his college doors.
Party Government and the Swedish Riksdag
Authors: Spencer Richard C. 
Published: May 2006

I. The General Character of PartiesSwedish experience highlights the simple logic of political science that popular electoral democracy calls for a clear line of undivided responsibility reaching from the policy-initiating executive branch of government through a thoroughly representative and deliberative legislature to the great body of voters. Contrariwise, Swedish experience seems to refute certain notions about the “parliamentary-majority” basis for judging of “strong government” in a democracy as these expressions often have been interpreted from the experience of Britain, France, and the United States. From both the positive and negative points of view, Swedish institutions merit examination, especially since they have successfully endured severe tests. The Swedish political system came through the prewar depression years with an enviable record, and, despite enormous international pressures and the accompanying domestic anxieties, it is surviving the war years with a consistent policy of its own, without sacrificing free and regular elections. Sweden provides, therefore, an excellent laboratory for testing principles of democracy, of representation, and of party government.