Showing papers in "Pacific Affairs in 1969"

Public Protest and the Political Process in India

Abstract: THE PURPOSE OF THIS ARTICLE is to explore the role played by public protest in contemporary Indian politics. It should be clearly understood that no attempt is made to provide a characterization of the nature of the Indian political system. The object is to explore only one particular feature of Indian political life. India is the world's largest democracy. Its record in the defense of political freedom and in the translation of democratic theory into practical reality is remarkable not only among less developed nations but among the nations of the Western world as well. Public protest and even violence in the politics of a nation do indicate that all is not well with the system, but they do not serve in themselves as a basis for characterizing the nature of that system. Great Britain and the United States have both been the scenes of violence and protest in recent years; just as it would be wrong in these instances to argue from protest and violence to the extinction of democratic attributes, so too in the Indian case a discussion of public protest should not be read as an implicit denial of the vitality of its democratic processes. A descriptive characterization of a political system must rest on judgements far more complex than the discovery that protest and violence exist. Public protest in India assumes many forms. For example, there are legal and illegal forms of protest. The illegal forms come in two varieties: violent and non-violent. Satyagraha, or non-violent civil disobedience, is a nonviolent but often illegal form of protest. Violent illegal protest refers primarily to riots, although it may include assassinations and coups d'Stat. This article does not examine all these forms but focuses upon those which are most disruptive, that is, which pose the greatest threat to public order, and those which have a very explicit political purpose, that is, which seek to affect governmental policy. Attention is therefore directed primarily to the agitational activity of groups which by constituting a threat to public order seek to challenge and change the policies of government. Indians compel official attention and constrain decision-making by deliberately engaging in activities that threaten public order. Violence or the threat of violence have become important instruments in Indian politics. Group violence, like the wider category of protest, comes in many varieties. It is possible, however, to distinguish three general kinds, one of which has

The New Nationalism.

Abstract: Nationalism, the state of mind in which the individual's supreme loyalty is owed to the nation-state, remains the strongest of political emotions. As a historical phenomenon, it is always in flux, changing according to no preconceived pattern. In The New Nationalism, Louis Snyder sees various forms of nationalism, and categorizes them as a force for unity; a force for the status quo; a force for independence; a force for fraternity; a force for colonial expansion; a force for aggression; a force for economic expansion; and a force for anti-colonialism. In Snyder's opinion, nationalism should be differentiated from Theodore Roosevelt's \"New Nationalism,\" a phrase he borrowed from Herbert D. Croly's The Promise of American Life. Croly warned that giving too much power to big industry and finance would lead to the degradation of the masses, and that state and federal intervention must be pursued on all economic fronts. Roosevelt expanded upon this concept, and saw the flourishing of democratic government as a means of reviving the old pioneer sense of individualism and opportunity. Snyder, in contrast, extends the work of the two major pioneers in the study of modern nationalism, Carlton J. H. Hayes and Hans Kohn, in exploring this most powerful sentiment of modern times, and showing how it relates to the political, economic, and psychological tendencies of historical development.

Ayub Khan as President of Pakistan

Abstract: IN JUST OVER ELEVEN YEARS, during the first half of Pakistan's existence, the country was governed by four heads of state and seven prime ministers. In the second half, it was ruled by one president, Mohammad Ayub Khan. Even without Ayub Khan's sudden retirement from the presidency, ten-and-a-half years would have been an appropriate time for a preliminary judgment of his success; many leaders have forfeited power long before a decade has elapsed. The Begum Liaquat Ali Khan conjectured to Ayub five months before the October i958 coup d'etat that Pakistan would benefit from ten years of tight rule. Ayub's justification for presidential rule includes the statement that, given a president who can stand up to pressure, the system affords ten years for new institutions to take root, for education to spread farther, and for a larger middle class to come into existence. That he believed that he could stand up to pressure for as long as ten years and that resistance from established interests would be intense was clear from his words to President Mirza during the "Naguib phase" of the revolution that October: "It is not just an ordinary routine revolution; there is going to be a real, basic change in this country. This is my policy. Now do not get frightened. It is my responsibility. I have to

Singapore's One-Party System: Its Relationship to Democracy and Political Stability

Abstract: ON AUGUST 9, i965, the present Republic of Singapore attained its sovereignty as an independent state by leaving the Federation of Malaysia. It was indeed a city-state, to use Aristotle's terminology, on a small island of about 224.5 square miles with a population of less than two million. As of mid-i969, this city-state, with its bustling economy and its large middle class, has firmly established a single-party system under the People's Action party (PAP) which commands all 58 seats in the Legislative Assembly and provides the chief executive officer (prime minister) of the Republic. It is the purpose of this article to inquire into the meaning of parliamentary democracy in Singapore under the one-party system and to examine the political strategy by which the PAP has become the sole party in power. The article also considers the relationship between the one-party system and political stability in the task of nation-building in Singapore. Two major hypotheses are presented: first, the concept of "democracy" as defined by the PAP leaders reflects the developmental style of one form of government as opposed to another; second, given the political environment created by cultural, linguistic, and ideological pluralism in Singapore, the PAP leaders' concept of democracy and the form of government are formulated in order to satisfy a necessary requirement for system-maintenance, that is, political stability of both leadership and followership structures. It was made clear during the i962 parliamentary debate on the fundamental philosophy of the government of Singapore that Lee Kuan Yew, the prime minister, viewed democracy as the consent of the people, usually expressed in terms of their electoral support. Lee defined democracy as: "the principle that the people should at periodic elections elect their representatives who have then the mandate to govern for a fixed number of years in accordance with their programme and policy."1 The crux of the definition was that democracy was equated with periodic elections, thereby placing greater emphasis on majority rule than on minority rights and imply-

Political Parties and Political Development in South Korea

Abstract: A REVIEW OF RECENT studies on South Korean politics indicates that there have been really no systematic attempts either to study political parties empirically or to view them analytically in the context of political development. For example, one is struck with the inadequate attention given to the vital question of why political parties in South Korea have been so ineffective in the process of political and social change. This article attempts to fill some of these gaps. It is generally agreed that the origin of political parties is closely bound up with the general process of modernization and that the degree of development of a party system can serve as a useful institutional index of a level of political development.1 To be sure, there exists a wide variety of assumptions about the meaning of political development, and the attempt to devise a unified and objective conception of development is not an easy task. Despite increasing acceptance of the term "political development," or "political modernization," in recent years, its currency is still not universal even among scholars, and its meaning is not always made precise by those who accept the word.2 But there is nothing to be gained at this point by attempting a systematic definition of the term "political development." For the moment it is probably most useful to isolate some selected problems of political development, such as the "crisis of participation."3 For it is precisely in this area that political parties can play a crucial role by linking the individual citizen to the government. Thus the emergence of a political party, whether in democratic or totalitarian systems, clearly implies that the masses must be taken into consideration by the ruling group. What is im-

Traditional Chinese plays

Abstract: The world of traditional Chinese drama can be at once fascinating and bewildering to the uninitiated Western observer. Attuned to his own dramatic conventions, he is hard put to apprehend the delicate fusion of poetry, music, and subtle gesture which is the essence of Chinese theatre. Because of these difficulties, the task of translating traditional Chinese drama must go far beyond the conventional literary treatment and evoke the entire world of stagecraft and directing. "Longing for Worldly Pleasures (Ssu Fan") is a lyric monologue in which a young Buddhist laments the waning of her youth in the seclusion of the convent. The brief piece involves a complexity of mood which makes it an actor s tour de force, undertaken only by the most highly skilled performers."Fifteen Strings of Cash (Shih Wu Kuan)," a much longer play, is a comic murder mystery satirizing bureaucratic ineptitude in the administration of justice. The comic lead role of Lou the Rat is a virtuoso part which illustrates the intricate mimetic art of the traditional comic actor and was the play s main appeal to Chinese audiences."

Electoral Politics in West Bengal: The Growth of the United Front

Abstract: IT TEST BENGAL is one of two states in the Indian Union where India's Communist parties have gained a predominant share of the decisionmaking power of the ministries. From March 2, i967, when the Congress party of West Bengal failed for the first time since Independence to gain a majority in the state Legislative Assembly, until November 2i, i967, when the Governor of the state appointed a successor ministry, West Bengal was governed by a coalition of fourteen parties, including both the Communist party of India (CPI) and the Communist party of India-Marxist (CPM). Again, after a period of President's Rule in i968, the same coalition of parties was returned in the elections of February i969, this time with a much larger number of seats in the Legislative Assembly and a much larger role for the two Communist parties. The growth of communism in West Bengal is only one aspect of the complicated political situation obtaining in this small, truncated state. Politicization of Bengalis into modern forms of organization began almost from the inception of British rule in India, and was quickly accentuated in this century by the first partition of the Province of Bengal in I905 and the shifting of the capital of British India from the Bengali-speaking city of Calcutta to the traditional center of imperial power in New Delhi in i9i2. In response to these two events Bengal's political leadership launched a number of political movements, some directed against the British, some directed against the Gandhians in the Indian National Congress, almost all seeking to reclaim the dominant position in India's political life that Bengal had attained in the late nineteenth century. Political activity reached a peak of intensity in the early i94os, when Calcutta and its surrounding areas were being occupied by more than 200,000 Allied troops, the Muslim League was agitating for partition, and the Congress and Marxist-left parties were engaged in a Quit India movement that drew heavily on the terrorist tradition of Bengali political life. No sooner had this peak of political activity been reached than Bengal witnessed in rapid succession a major famine in I943, the second partition of the province in I947, and large-scale communal riots that began in August i946 and culminated in the influx of more than five million refugees during the following twenty years. In the midst of the great economic hardship that resulted

A Study of the Iglesia Ni Cristo: A Politico-Religious Sect in the Philippines

Abstract: ONE OF THE MOST CONSPICUOUS developments in post-independence Philippine society is the expansion of a politico-religious sect called the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC or Church of Christ).Its extraordinary growth is well exemplified by the increasing number of large and elaborate INC church buildings throughout the country, and it now openly participates in politics and poses a threat to the Roman Catholic church, which is predominant in the archipelago. This paper is an attempt to analyze the establishment and maintenance of this anti-Catholic politico-religious sect as a social organization in the Philippine social setting. It follows the sociological model of Arthur Stinchcombe and analyzes the relationship between the environment and social organizations.2 The paper is intended to examine the internal compliance system of the INC which is responsible for the survival and expansion of the sect. Finally, it is an attempt to analyze the political participation of the INC in terms of its adaptive function and in terms of its organizational effectiveness as an open social system.