Showing papers in "Political Studies in 1980"

Is it better to be powerful or lucky?: part i*

Abstract: This paper is divided into two parts. Part I contains a critique of two existing ‘power indexes’—the Shapley-Shubik index and the Banzhaf index. Part II begins with a rigorous analysis of the relationship between luck, decisiveness and success. It is shown then that the supposed ‘paradoxes of power’ generated by the other indexes can be easily dissolved. An extended application of the method of analysis to the US Constitutional Convention of 1787 follows. Finally, the relation between decisiveness (a probability) and power (a capability) is presented, and the question posed in the title is answered. At two points, the relevance of the conceptual points made to the pluralist-elitist debate is made explicit, and support is offered for the view that each side's conclusions follow from its assumptions about the nature of power.

The Political Implications of Sectoral Cleavages and the Growth of State Employment: Part 1, the Analysis of Production Cleavages

Abstract: Class dealignment in British politics provides a context within which existing interpretations of non-class production cleavages need to be reassessed. In Part 1 of this paper, three approaches are...

On negative and positive liberty

Abstract: Berlin's account contains a powerful argument in support of the claim that freedom consists in the non-restriction of options. This is seen when we consider his treatment of freedom, the concept and its rival conceptions, his discussion of descriptive and evaluative aspects of judgements about freedom, his account of the relations between freedom, power and the real will, his argument for the dependency of judgements about freedom on social theories, and his views on the place of a negative conception of freedom in the liberal tradition. Berlin is right to reject positive conceptions of freedom which depend on a rationalist doctrine; but mistaken in his view that all forms of positive libertarianism necessarily involve such commitments.

The Political Implications of Sectoral Cleavages and the Growth of State Employment: Part 2, Cleavage Structures and Political Alignment

Abstract: Part 1 of this paper (last issue) outlined four alternative approaches to the analysis of non-class production cleavages, namely: empiricist electoral analysis, Weberian accounts, radical Weberian/...

Cohen on marx's theory of history

Abstract: G. A. COHEN’S book, Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Dilfmre, sets a new standard for Marxist philosophy. I t disproves the statement imputed to A. J . Ayer, ‘as for Marxist philosophy, it does not exist’.’ I t is not only ‘relevant’-there has been no lack of relevance in Marxism-but also lucid, imaginative and precise. The author displays a full mastery of the technical tools of conceptual analysis, a sure grasp of the Marxist corpus and a substantive sociological imagination. It is also in one important respect a most unsatisfactory book. The central thesis of the book is that the productive forces have primacy over the productive relations, in the sense that the relations are what they are because they have the function of furthering the development of the forces. The whole book leads up to this thesis, but the main argument for it is given in a very cursory and unconvincing page (p. 292-3). Behind this thesis is a more general methodological position, an attempt to vindicate functional explanation in the social sciences as sui generis, that is reducible neither to causal nor to intentional explanation. As will be argued below, the attempt does not succeed. The excellence of the book emerges in spite of and not because of the central ideas that are defended. If we disregard the defence and application of functionalism, we are left with a conceptuul analysis of’ the process of production in the tradition of the chapters of Capi/alJ on manufacture and machinery. These chapters are among the best that Marx ever wrote, and Cohen’s book is the best modern treatment of the same range of problems. As the title implies, the book is both interpretation and substantive analysis. The exegesis is throughout solid and convincing. I found only two passages that are quoted out of context so as to distort their meaning. (These are on p. 102, to Capitul I, p. 360, where Cohen misleadingly quotes a passage from the analysis of manufacture as if it were valid for advanced capitalism in general; and on p. 160 where he falls for the temptation of quoting a passage from Cupital I . p. 482 that would have been wonderful evidence for Cohen’s interpretation if i t had been asserted in the implied context.) Nor have I found many cases where relevant texts have been omitted. It is surprising that in his discussion (pp. 77, 79) of the individuation of economic forms Cohen does not refer to the passage in Cupital I, p. 180 where Marx proposes technological rather than social criteria of identity, but the oversight does not seem fateful. More controversial is his treatment of Marx and Engels as identical twins, but only in a few places (pp. 155, 187, 205) does this tend to be (slightly) misleading. Cohen seems to have been unaware of the recent publication (in the new MEGA) of the first third of the manuscript of which the T/irwrii>.s ef SurplusVriluii forms the second third. Here, for example, Cohen would

Functional explanation: reply to elster

Abstract: I T H A N K Jon Elster for his generous review, and for his criticisms, not all of which I accept. I shall not respond here to every criticism with which I disagree, but I d o want to comment on what I think are misconceived objections to my chapters on functional explanation. Having done so, 1 shall offer reservations on the extent to which my ‘sometimes uncertain grasp of economic theory’ (p. 122E’) led me into error. I grant that my defence of a functionally construed historical materialism is only partly successful, but I reject the methodological criticisms Elster directs against it. I believe, moreover, that there is no viable alternative construal of the central claims of historical materialism, so that if my defence fails, historical materialism fails. Hence the cost incurred by Marxism, if I am wrong, is considerable. That is no reason for thinking that historical materialism, in the version I favour, is true, but I should like the cost of its falsehood-;f i t is false-to be acknowledged. something which, as I shall explain, Elster is reluctant to do. 1. In Marx’s theory, as 1 present i t , history is the growth of human productive power, and economic structures (sets of production relations) rise and fall according as they enable or impede that growth. Alongside a society’s economic structure there exists a superstructure, of non-production relations, notably legal and political ones. The superstructure typically consolidates and maintains the existing economic structure, and has the character it does because of the functions it fulfils. Historical materialism’s central claims are that

Political science: an import-export analysis of journals and footnotes*

Abstract: W H E T H E R we plot the geographical or the social distribution of knowledge, sainthood, or bankholdings, we should expect verification of the main tenet of Christaller’s central place theory: the plotting will order hierarchically centres of influence and the peripheries to which they are related.’ This brief survey describes such a relation by means of an importexport analysis applied to selected political science and other social science journals. To simplify the task let us assume that a discipline can be described adequately by a few of its leading journals and that analysis of the scholarly articles quoted in these leading publications (‘articles’ excludes books and other sources of information such as newspapers and government documents) will give us a picture at best accurate though incomplete, at worse distorted but not grostesquely SO.^ Let us thus define ‘political science’ by the official journals of the five oldest political science associations: the American, the Canadian, the Indian, the French and the British, and define the other social science disciplines by some of their better known journal^.^ A few problems raised by our limiting our data to journals and footnotes should be mentioned at the outset since the uses and types of footnotes as well as the dependence on journals vary markedly across disciplines, cultures and

Attitudes to public expenditure and their relationship to voting preferences

Abstract: THERE has been a great deal of interest shown in the growth of public expenditure among recent publications. This interest has mainly been concerned with investigations of the possible causes of this expansion and with predictions of future trends and their economic and political implications. It seems most likely that the total expenditure of a government is affected by a whole series of factors which interact with one another. Klein’ has argued that among the major influences are demographic changes in society (for example the growing number of retired and elderly), competitive pressures between government departments who may measure their success by their own expansion, and finally party political competition. I t is to the last of these factors that the present paper payi particular attention. While many would agree with Downs* that expenditures and taxation are a government’s principal policy tools it is not clear whether these can be used to maximize political support or that they have a major impact on voting behaviour. Observers and advocates of the political business cycle3 take the view that some of the interventions of government which modify the level of unemployment and the rate of price increases are carried out in an attempt to increase the administration’s popularity, especially among ‘floating voters’, when an election approaches. However, these changes may be a function of the preferences the politicians feel the voters have rather than a reaction to the actual views and attitudes of the electorate. This may also be true of changes in fiscal policy: few would disagree that income tax reductions are generally well received but the question of how people react to such changes in public expenditure are less clear cut; whether they are likely to affect the behaviour of the ‘floating voter’ is open to doubt. If public spending policies are in some way important to the general public there are at least two important criteria that have first to be satisfied:

The Bases of National Front Support

Abstract: The National Front (NF) is of interest both to students of British politics and to political sociologists interested in the general study of contemporary right-wing movements. This article examines the extent of public sympathy for the NF and identifies factors distinguishing NF voters from the rest of the adult population. Analysis of twenty-two national surveys shows that less than 1 per cent of the adult population aged fifteen or older are prepared to say that they intend to vote for the NF, although about 5 per cent can be assessed as potential NF voters and about another 10 per cent are sympathetic to the party. NF voting is located disproportionately among younger working-class males living in London and the West Midlands.

Women and politics: a re‐appraisal*

Abstract: This paper reviews commonly held beliefs about women, such as the view that they are less likely than men to vote, or the claim that they are more right wing in their political orientation. The views are evaluated with reference to the classic works which have enunciated them or have been used in their support, and in the light of more recent research. It is concluded that certain traditional beliefs must be discarded or drastically revised; but that it is nevertheless mistaken to view the sexes as politically identical.

Political solutions to the collective action problem

Abstract: This paper juxtaposes two important political solutions to the collective action problem in the context of a common set of core assumptions. Once the core assumptions have been discussed, the disti...

California's proposition 13 and the fiscal limitations movement in the united states*

Abstract: There have been substantial recent efforts to use public policy measures to limit public taxing and spending in the United States These fiscal limitations policies are analysed, with primary attention on the explanations for and the effects of Proposition 13, the measure enacted by California voters in June 1978 More broadly, the characteristic features of fiscal limitations measures in the United States are explicated These measures attempt to place constitutional or statutory constraints on a government's expenditure levels, on its revenue generation capabilities, or on the nature of its fiscal policy-making process The data and analysis suggest that some of the fundamental forces underlying fiscal limitations measures might emerge in many ‘First World’ political systems and that such measures, as a policy innovation, might diffuse widely

Comment: Johnston on Campaign Expenditure and the Efficacy of Advertising:

Abstract: I N a recent article,’ R. J. Johnston attempts to replicate some of the North American studies on the relationship between campaign expenditure and voting in England. He argues that a cross sectional analysis of expenditures and votes at one election is inadequate, and a true indication of the impact of spending can only be obtained by investigating changes in spending between successive elections. When this is done in the case of the two General Elections of 1974, no significant relationship between these variables appears to exist. The interesting substantive question which lies a t the heart of this paper is whether or not the local campaign has any effect on the vote, over and above the national campaign. Unfortunately Johnston is unable to test this with his specification of models and with the variables used. Instead he confirms the rather trivial observation that local expenditures do not significantly influence the local vote. One of the main difficulties in making inferences about the impact of local electioneering on voting using expenditure data is that the latter are a very poor indicator of the former. Anyone who has been directly involved in electioneering knows that expenditures incurred and expenditures declared are only weakly related, and the latter is almost completely unrelated to the campaign effort.2 This is because in Britain elections at the local level are run almost entirely on voluntary labour and the bulk of election activity does not involve financial transactions at all. Canvassing, delivering and calling on supporters on the day are the important activities in mobilizing the vote at the local level, and these do not appear in a balance sheet.3 Moreover the last thing which interests party activists is the question of recording the costs incurred in campaigning. It is true that the agent has legal responsibility for not exceeding the financial limit, and this might constrain expenditures which are receipted such as print bills, but other spending is limited only by

Marx, Engels and Dialectics:

Abstract: Two familiar ‘facts' about Marx, Engels and their views are in reality fictions. The first is that Marx and Engels speak with the same voice on all important theoretical issues; that their works su...

Reception and Influence: A Reply to Nelson on Locke's ‘Two Treatises of Government’:

Abstract: I T I S becoming all too fashionable for historians of political thought to transpose their disagreements with one another into portentous matters of methodological moment. Jeffrey Nelson’s critique of my article ‘The Reception of Locke’s Two Treatises of Government 1690-1 70S2 appears to have been written fully in this fashion’s grip. He sets off boldly down the King’s Road of contemporary controversy claiming that my article ‘reflects a methodological bias that still cripples the history of political thought as it is practised today’ (N 101). The claim is certainly large. But if it is meant seriously, it deserves much more attention than Nelson gives it. Instead of striding purposefully down his King’s Road, he deviates off into post-1688 Grub Street and takes a wrong turning around Church Lane. The outcome of Nelson’s travels is disappointing in both its principal parts. Instead of making his point about methodology, he leaves the reader to try and piece together from odd statements the character of that troublesome methodological bias which is supposedly crippling contemporary writers of the history of political thought. Secondly, although he mentions an impressive array of post-Revolution writings, his argument is distorted by questionable assumptions about the nature of English political controversy in the late17th and early-18th centuries. My reply will follow Nelson along both his paths. First, I shall briefly consider those statements of his which seem to have something of a methodological ring about them; second, 1 shall examine his disagreements with me on the character of Two Treatises’ early reception. Nelson appears to criticize my method on two main counts. The first concerns my manner of identifying the historical questions which I chose to consider. Nelson claims that I approached the subject with too much respect for the ‘great Mr. Locke.’ Accordingly, I was misled into thinking there was something remarkable in the lack of much immediate response to Two Treatises (N 101). I suspect that Nelson believes he has detected another case of the ‘Great Texts’ syndrome but the criticism is misplaced. My concern with Locke was not directed by an interest in his greatness as a political philosopher nor with Two Treatises as a great work of philosophy. Rather, I was addressing historians of late-17th century political thought with the aim of correcting a conventional account of initial responses to Two Treatises (T 184).

Utopia defended against the liberals

Abstract: . The polarity between the Utopian form of thought and liberalism is analysed first with the unsatisfactory mediation of the idea of totalitarianism, then through a comparison of liberal empiricist epistemology with the necessarily rationalist, theoretical approach of Utopians. Incompatible world-views make utopianism anathema to liberals, whatever its content. Utopia is defended against charges of intolerance, unfreedom and coerciveness, partly through a critique of liberal concepts. The utopianism which liberals denigrate appears largely their own invention. Utopians conversely eschewed liberal democracy because, with some justification, they thought elites natural. Similarities between utopianism and radical democracy are elucidated. The apparent, surprising rapprochement between the Utopian outlook and that of pluralist democracy is analysed. Finally, the value of a Utopian approach to political theory is asserted. Even with the best intentions of making heaven on earth [utopianism] only succeds in making it a hell—that hell which man alone prepares for his fellow-men.

Political argument about representation: the case of the maori seats

Abstract: There has been little attention paid to the notions about group and minority representation held by political elites. This study examines the arguments put forward by New Zealand parliamentarians about representation. It concentrates upon partisan attitudes towards Maori representation in the New Zealand House of Representatives and in cabinets and discusses the effects of the four seats that are reserved for Maoris. It is argued that theorists of representation have not sufficiently considered the claims of minorities to legislative representation.

Abortion politics in the United States.

Abstract: I N an earlier article I discussed the continuance of the abortion issue in Britain.’ However, in the United States the opposition to legal abortion has been much more virulent and has increasingly led to violence. Many of the clinics are picketed each week, others have been invaded and protesters have chained themselves to the operating tables, and twenty-five clinics have been subjected to arson. One in New York was burned down twice and the proprietors decided not to reopen the premises. Damage at other clinics has ranged up to $250,000 and so far only one person has been arrested for any of these offences.2 The issue has also been important in Congress and in 1977 there were twenty-six roll calls on the subject in the House of Senate. This article considers the reasons for this situation.

Politicians and electoral laws: an anthropology of party competition in ireland

Abstract: At one level this paper constitutes an electoral anthropology of party competition in Ireland. Focusing on one constituency, over three decades, the analysis reveals the complex and intertwined patterns of inter-party and intra-party competition that characterize Irish electoral politics and which, now institutionalized, contribute to the conservative cast of the country's politics. At a second level the argument points to the importance of the electoral system (here Proportional Representation by the single transferable vote) in structuring the behaviours of politicians who must work within it. In this regard an electoral system affects both the quality and quantity of competition, the character of party organization, and the capacity of a political system to recruit talent.

The Logic of J. S. Mill on Freedom

Abstract: Mill's aim in Chapter 2 of Book 6 of the System of Logic, to reconcile human freedom with universal causality whilst at the same time answering the challenge of Owenite ‘social fatalism’, pushes him into attempting an ambitious reconstruction of the traditional Compatibilist conception of freedom as absence of constraint. An examination of the convolutions through which the argument goes before culminating in the conclusion that genuine freedom is the same as complete virtue reveals over half-a-dozen distinct varieties of freedom and a remarkably chaotic mixture of insight and confusion, much of which bears directly upon an understanding of the kind of freedom Mill was out to protect in On Liberty.

The measurement of central control

Abstract: A N U M B E R of studies of the output of local authorities have attempted to measure how far it is useful to think of local authorities as political systems in themselves and how far they are more accurately described as a hierarchical level in a wider political system. One of the questions some such studies2 pose is that of establishing how far central government can influence the expenditure decisions of local authorities. In order to do this one must first arrive at an understanding of precisely what form of influence the centre wishes to exert over local authorities. In this note two measures of central control are examined in the light of Scottish evidence. Boaden’s study3 cites the wide variation in per capita expenditure in five services in English and Welsh County Boroughs as evidence that ‘central control is less apparent in policy outcomes than might have been supposed’. Although he adds that ‘the centre might welcome diversity’, variations in expenditure levels and the fact that these levels are determined by considerations relating to the ncwis, riispposition and resources of the local authority are taken to indicate that empirical evidence does not support the ‘agent’4 model of the role of British local authorities. I t is, however, quite possible that the centre not only welcomes diversity, but also actively supports it. For example, Glasgow District has recently been under pressure from central government to commit substantial funds towards the Glasgow Eastern Areas Renewal Scheme. I f it conformed to these pressures, then per capita expenditure (or any other ‘output’ measure) on housing in Glasgow would deviate more from the national average than it does at present. The local authority can still be an ‘agent’ while increasing its divergence from some form of average level of output. Furthermore, if central government itself perceives the ‘needs’ of the locality, statistical analysis would still give the impression that local authorities respond to local needs. Ashford’s measure is somewhat more complex. He postulates that shifts in local priorities are reflected in changes in the diversity of the local authority

Locke and the bourgeois state

Abstract: Locke's Second Treatise is presented as an attempt to provide a theorisation and justification of an essentially bourgeois state. His theory of property right is presented and certain presuppositions displayed. It is argued that the concept of class, which is absent from Locke's explicit text, nevertheless provides the key to its interpretation. Locke's failure to provide an adequate theory of political obligation is discussed in the light of this.

Rationalizing the Machinery of Government: The Conservatives, 1970–1974:

Abstract: The White Paper The Reorganization of Central Government (Cmnd 4506) not merely announced extensive changes in the organizational structure of Whitehall, it did so in unusually ambitious and philosophically explicit terms. This paper traces the origins of the policies announced in the white paper, identifies the main groups and individuals involved, and shows how some elements were more successfully implemented than others. The concluding analysis seeks to penetrate behind the functional-rationalist vocabulary of Cmnd 4506 and identify an underlying set of choice criteria and decision procedures which permit a fuller explanation of the events of 1970—4.

Review article the pre‐industrial state*

Abstract: T H E state is back. After thirty years of withering away in the face of 'government', 'social policy' and 'society', the state now apparently dominates social science again. The word is on everyone's lips, especially the lips of radicals. It is a pleasurable word: it gives off an almost physical sensation of power, of hardness and of grim realism; an antidote to the soggy and sagging condition of contemporary social science. Though it has inspired much work that is merely trendy, it has also lived up to its promise. State theory is exciting, and the books under review here contribute to that in n o small way. This review article has a theme: that historical and contemporary states can only be properly understood through an integration of two traditions of analysis which, unfortunately, have been generally kept apart : the militaristic and the economistic schools of state theory. The latter is fashionable once again through the growth of Marxism, but the former lies mostly forgotten in this age of the almost invisible nuclear umbrella. However, anthropologists and archeologists concerned with early states can be excused from this criticism. Their work is undoubtedly the strongest area of current state theory and The Eurly State reflects this. The principle theories of the state have traditionally carried a strong line on its origins. We may distinguish three such theories. The oldest, which we may term 'contractual' or 'functional', argued-from Locke to Talcott Parsons and Elman Service-that states embody rational social co-operation. Thus, states were originally instituted in a social contract benefitting all principal interest-groups. By contrast Marx and Engels-and all principal Marxists since, save Kautsky-argued that states reproduce exploitative class relations, and thus were instituted by the first expropriating classes of history. Finally, 'militarist' theoriesdominant a t the turn of the century through the writings of Spencer, Gumplowicz and Oppenheimer, I and sporadically resurrected since by writers like Thurnwald and Carneiro-argued that states before the industrial revolution were formed by conquest and military organization. Thus the state had originated in conquest-and Oppenheimer restricted this origin to a particular type of conquest, of sedentary argiculturalists by pastoral nomads. All three types of theory usually argue their positions with great force, not to say dogmatism (though some of the modern contributors occasionally hedge their bets). There are three very puzzling aspects of this. Firstly, it is not clear why theorists whose main purpose is to make some point about the state in the modern world find it necessary to support it with a lightning raid into the primeval swamps of history. Why should Marxism, for example, care anything about the origins of states in justifying a

Presidential pocket—veto power: a constitutional anachronism?

Abstract: T H E Presidency of Richard Nixon is significant not only in the way it endedthe resignation of the President-but also for the many political and constitutional confrontations with Congress which put a severe strain on executivelegislative relations. In the face of continued assertions and abuses of authority by the President, Congress was forced to resurrect sections of the US Constitution long thought to be moribund relating to Presidential impeachment. Other confrontations led to a series of judicial decisions as to the constitutionality of claims to executive privilege and impoundment powers made by the executive. This note supplements the research on impoundment reported by Vivian Vale,' by analysing a little-noticed but no less significant conflict over the use of the pocket-veto power by President Nixon. I t was important because of the potentially serious implications for congressional authority with respect to legislation had the Nixon interpretation of the pocket-veto power gone unchallenged. Like the impoundment issue i t demonstrates the importance of a minimal level of interbranch comity in a separation of powers system with a written constitution. Unlike the impoundment issue, no immediate statutory clarification was made. This case-study also illustrates the potential for anachronisms to exist in written constitutions, and the increased role played by the courts in adjudicating executive-legislative disputes in the United States. One characteristic of the post-Hoover presidencies has been that Presidents have come to be far more active in considering legislative enactments with a view to exercising the veto power. Such action is constitutional, and i t is often successful, since it is necessary for two-thirds of the House and Senate to override the President's veto. President Nixon, unlike his predecessors, used the veto power against appropriations bills, with the specific aim of reducing federal spending. During his years in office President Johnson vetoed thirteen bills, and none of these vetoes was primarily to reduce federal spending. During his first five years in office President Nixon vetoed 38 bills, many of them appropriations bills. In only five instances during the Nixon administration were vetoes overridden, and in most of the others Congress was forced to reduce authorization and appropriation levels in order to obtain presidential approval.' This, together with his impoundment actions and his zealous

The Treatment of Counterfactuals: Reply to Brian Barry

Abstract: B R I A N B A R R Y ' s review of my Logic and Sociciry ( L S ) and Ulyssc~s und the Sirtws ( U S ) offers both a general overview of the books and a specific criticism of my treatment of counterfactuals. The criticism is my occasion for writing this reply, but let me also record an objection to his general comments. On his reading, ' I t would be best to think of the books as made up of a lot of units, usually of three or four pages but going up to a dozen or so, grouped into chapters or studies according t o the formal question on which they bear'. To justify this view he refers to Ch. 2 of LS and Ch. 111 of US. that do in fact have a rather loose structure. True, he adds that 'in other places. there is more connection', but nevertheless the reason for singling out these two chapters for mention must be that he thought them to be typical if extreme examples of the books as a whole. I submit that this is a strongly biased sample, and that the other chapters of both books are much more coherently organized around one or two central theses. No doubt the case studies may confuse the reader and make him lose sight of the main track. but I resist the implication that there is no main track to lose sight of, or that the side tracks are what make the journey worth while. But of course an author may be wrong in seeing a forest where others only see trees. In his objection to my treatment of counterfactuals Barry relies on a no-nonsense ordinary language approach, reminding us of the useful and innocent uses to which counterfactuals can be put and making gently fun of the epistemological qualms that some have felt in this connection. I agree that there are such innocent uses, but they only give part of the story. Consider the paradigmatic counterfactual statement.

Presidential power, press secretaries and communication*

Abstract: This article explores the relationship between an American President's public communication and his power and illustrates it by considering his relations with his Press Secretary. Communication is central to the concept of power and to the functioning of the presidency, but the relationship has attracted insufficient attention in the literature. The article argues that a President's control over how he is publicly understood is weak. Communication being central to power, lack of control implies a ‘weak’ view of the power of the President. The ability of both President and Secretary to make the President understood is jeopardised by aspects of the Secretary's personality and performance and by the nature of the presidency and the style of the incumbent. The respective access of press corps and Secretary to the President, and the quality of the relations between President and Secretary, are critical in particular cases.

Pocock's harrington

Abstract: ion and systematization much above that attained by actual authors. At worst. he appears to conflate linguistic possibility, logical implication and historical causation, which taken literally looks something like an Hegelian materialist logic hovering over the thought of individuals-no doubt with extreme cunning. At best, Pocock produces a mixure of history and political theory which combines what was actually thought with his own schematized framework of inference and internal relations. The excesses of this approach in Thc, M ~ / ~ . / ~ i ~ / ~ ~ c , l l i ~ / ~ J Moriicn/ do not much infect his treatment of Harrington. Pocock occasionally speaks (even in the Introduction to Politicvrl Works) as if republican vocabulary itself were not just a means but an active agent.” Also, there is a strong suggestion of linguistic determinism in his discussion of I4 See for instance the Introduction to Oceana. Poliric,tr/ Works. pp. 157-60. z o ‘Verbalking a Political Act: Towards a Politics of Speech’, Poli/ic,cr/ T/7cw:r, I ( 1973). 2 7 4 5 . ?‘See lor instance Po/iric.u/ Works. introduction, p. 21. He speaks of ’the republic’ having a set of ‘implications’ which are slowly ‘becoming explicit’. The suggestion is that ‘republican vocabulary’ somehow implies or precipitates the realization of republicanism. Argued by K . Toth. ‘The Case of James Harrington’. pp. 326-39. 464 REVIEW A R T I C L E S the 'implications' of language.28 (This problem cannot be dealt with here.) It is nonetheless important to note that despite his excessively defensive posture towards Marxism (and C . B. Macpherson in particular) there is nothing in his chosen emphasis on the language of political thought that renders his treatment incompatible with giving due weight to aspects of social and political reality other than language. Despite too his occasional tendency to speak as if language were autonomous, there is n o reason why the focus on language should involve reification or be a study in epiphenomena; indeed, the notion of authority bearing paradigms seems to require the opposite. Pocock's treatment of Harrington generally demonstrates this. Pocock's detailed presentation of Harrington illuminates the value of viewing an author in relation both to intellectual traditions and to the ideas and events of his time. It demonstrates importantly that these operations are practically, as well as theoretically. compatible. There are minor quibbles that can be made about his expository narrative, such as his use of Italian terms even when they are supposed to have been anglicized, and other looseness in usage which occasionally exceeds that of H a r r i n g t ~ n . ~ ~ On the other hand, there is more of value and interest than I have been able to mention. I have concentrated on the internal tensions in Harrington which Pocock overlooks because they serve to somewhat modify his interpretation and point up the least adequate aspect of his approach. It is, however, only modification that I wish to make to both. A greater attention to the internal coherence of texts, as well as treating them as repositories of 'language' within the context of traditions, might enhance Pocock's genuinely illuminating approach. 1 hope to have shown that this serves in the main to endorse his views of Harrington as primarily a civic humanist. Any depiction of Harrington as a modern social realist, bourgeois or proto-Marxian, is mistaken. However, civic humanism in Harrington does meet and confront a post-Baconian intellectual world and a post-feudal social world which Pocock gives less than its due weight. What makes Harrington so worthy of attention is that he is neither exclusively an 'antiquarian' nor a 'modern'-he is Janus-faced: he provides a post-feudal political philosophy which looks back for classical inspiration, but with the confidence of a new understanding and mastery of history which obviates the necessity to return again. There is no doubt that Harrington is an important pivotal figure in the history of political thought, and deserves more scholarly attention than he has generally been afforded. ( I cannot help that this is a reviewer's cliche.) Pocock has provided not only the most comprehensive view of Harrington but an accessible text with which any future interpreter must reckon. The most directly methodological writings relevant here are 'Languages and their Implications: The Transformation of the Study of Political Thought' and 'On the NonRevolutionary Character of Paradigms', Politics Language and Time. Essays 1 and 8. For the accusation of determinism in Pocock, treated together with Q. Skinner and J . Dunn (not altogether convincingly), see C. D. Tarlton, 'Historicity, Meaning and Revisionism in the Study of Political Thought', History and Theory, 12 (1973). 307-28, p. 313. For discussion of his antior unMarxist posture, see the 'Communication' with R. Ashcroft in Political Theory, Vols. 3 and 4 z9 As J . P. Kenyon notes in his review of Political Works (Times Literary Supplemetit, 2 June 1978. p. 613). both virtue (virtu) and fortune (fortuna) are used in English and Italian with insufficent attention to whether the technical (Machiavellian) meaning is intended or the Anglicized concept. At one point Pocock bewilderingly speaks of 'virtues' as conterminous with 'powers', 'qualities' and 'modes of action' in the space of one page (Political Works. Introduction, p. 16). (1975-6).

A note on orwellism

Abstract: F E W writers on politics can have left behind a legacy more equivocal than Orwell’s. Considering how relatively brief his career as a writer was and how relatively little he actually wrote, the variety of opinions as to what he stood for presents a paradox of almost Churchillian dimensions. I propose to examine two lines of criticism of Orwell which purport to explain the ambiguities of his legacy. I want to argue that these criticisms are inappropriate and to suggest two more relevant problems with Orwellism. The first, and more sophisticated, line of criticism argues that Orwell’s socialism was never more than a rather vague moralistic anti-egalitarianism (not the same thing at all as egalitarianism!) which lacked intellectual force and analytical depth. The second criticism has it that Orwell shifted his ground basically, abandoning the optimistic socialism of The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) and Homage to Catalonia (1938) for the basically anti-socialist, romantic (some would say) individualism of Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). In brief Orwell was shallow and inconsistent; no wonder, then, that opinions concerning his political beliefs differ. The more damning of the two lines of criticism, though it is frequently tempered with faint praise, is that Orwell was, in political terms, a superficial writer with no natural bent for ideology or for socio-economic analysis. Raymond Williams, for example, claims that Orwell did not understand capitalism fully, ‘as an economic and political system’. Others have gone further, claiming that Orwell had no capacity for philosophical analysis either.2 I want to suggest simply that Orwell abjured philosophy and ideology only in the sense that a mystic abjures theology and dogma (and if I may say so, this is an analogy particularly appropriate for Orwell). Orwell saw the essential task as being to establish socialism as a moral code. Essential because modern man, in refuting the ‘myths’ of established religion, had left himself peculiarly vulnerable. He had, so to speak, sawn away the branch on which he was seated. ‘But unfortunately there had been a little mistake. The thing at the bottom was not a bed of roses but a cesspool full of barbed wire.’j But what was to replace the moral values of established religion? ‘The Kingdom of Heaven has somehow got to be brought on to the surface of the earth. We have got to be the children of God, even though the