Showing papers on "Legitimacy published in 1968"

The Bases of Accommodation

Abstract: A VIABLE political settlement in South Viet Nam will re flect and give some legitimacy to the balance of political, ' military and social forces produced by a decade of internal conflict and five years of large-scale warfare. A successful settle ment can also inaugurate a process of political accommodation through which the various elements of Vietnamese society may eventually be brought together into a functioning polity. Amer ican objectives and American expectations of what can be achieved at the conference table and on the battlefield should, correspondingly, be based on the realities of power and the oppor tunities for accommodation. Much of the discussion of Viet Nam in the United States, how ever, has been couched in terms of stereotypes and slogans which have little relation to the political forces and social trends in Vietnamese society. Critics of the Administration often tend to glorify the Viet Cong and the National Liberation Front and to magnify the extent of their support. They see the war as a popular uprising against a military-landlord oligarchy dependent upon foreign military support. Hence they see little need for, or basis for, accommodation: if the United States withdrew, it is held, the Saigon r?gime would quickly collapse, and a new, broadly representative government would come to power under the lead ership of the NLF but drawing support from Buddhists, workers, students and other groups. Spokesmen for the Administration, on the other hand, have in the past underrated the strength of the Viet Cong and have as cribed to the Saigon Government a popularity which had as little basis in fact as that which the critics attributed to the NLF. They have bolstered their case with statistics on kill rates, infiltration rates, chieu hoi (defection) rates, hamlet pacification categories and voting turnouts. These figures may be reasonably accurate but they are also often irrelevant to the conclusions which they are adduced to support. At times key figures in the Administra tion have made statements which at least seemed to predict the imminent collapse of the Viet Cong. The misplaced moralism of the critics has thus confronted the unwarranted optimism of the advocates.

Sources of Local Political Involvement

Abstract: Despite the legal norm of universal adult citizenship in the United States, and thus the legitimacy of participation by all strata of society, the actual level of political involvement in local communities is not high and differs greatly from group to group. Our task here is to spell out some of the conditions of group membership which contribute to local political involvement. Our broader purpose is to argue the need to re-expand the theoretical framework for analysis of political participation and thus to correct the present imbalanced focus upon participation as an individual act.Thus we shall examine some structural, rather than psychological, conditions of local political involvement. In this we shall occasionally use some measures previously reported in other studies and conventionally regarded as tapping psychological attributes of individuals; but these we shall regard as defining sets of role-expectations or as locating categories of persons placed within a certain range of normative obligations; and, more importantly, we shall systematically compare the net effect (upon local political involvement) of such variables with that of the more conventionally defined structural variables.

Soviet Elections as a Measure of Dissent: The Missing One Percent*

Abstract: A few questions are still hotly debated among students of the Soviet political system, but certainly the nature of Soviet elections is not one of them. Everyone agrees that they are more interesting as a psychological curiosity than as a political reality. They are seen by various writers as ritualized affirmations of regime legitimacy, as methods of involving the masses in supportive activity, as a means of publicly honoring model citizens, and as a crushing display of unanimity designed to isolate the potential nonconformist. Both Western and Soviet writers see Soviet elections from the positive side, from the side of the dutiful 99 percent who invariably vote for the single candidate on the ballot. In fact, Soviet and Western writers are in very close agreement on the major functions of elections in the Soviet Union, although their value judgments tend to differ along the lines one would expect. Taking one typical example from the general Western literature on the Soviet political system, we find the purposes of a Soviet election defined as “a public demonstration of the legitimacy of the regime … an invaluable educational and propaganda exercise … and perhaps most important of all, … proof that the system of control is unimpaired.” In the more detailed Western works on Soviet elections we find the same approach. Thus, Howard Swearer, in a very insightful and valuable article on Soviet local elections, states that “in the Soviet Union, the formal act of voting is comparable in purpose to such civic rituals as singing the national anthem or saluting a country's flag. It is a public display of personal reaffirmation of the Soviet way of life and the party leadership.”

Race and Education: A Search for Legitimacy

Abstract: The author asserts that the educational questions and issues being raised by many black parents, students, and teachers today are substantially different from the traditional concerns of experts. The black spokesmen are questioning the legitimacy of the educational institutions; they no longer believe that it is sufficient to try to increase the effectiveness of those institutions. This difference has caused a tension between those who have been victims of indifferent and inefficient policies and practices and those who believe it is still possible to make the existing institutions operable. Black people are calling for community control, not for integration. They are focusing as much on Afro-American culture and awareness as they are on verbal and arithmetic skills. Some black people are thinking of entirely new, comprehensive forms of education, based on substantially different normative values.

Coalition Politics in North India

Abstract: The years 1964 and 1967 stand as two crucial landmarks in the democratic development of India's political systems both at the center and in the several states. In the three years since Nehru's death in May, 1964, Indian politics entered fully into a major test of legitimacy. Since 1964, the national leadership of the Indian National Congress has three times demonstrated its ability to handle smoothly the first stage of India's process of legitimizing democratic political authority—that of transferring power from a charismatic leader to his successors within the dominant party. After the 1967 General Elections, Indian politics moved to a second stage to confront the problems of transferring power from the previously dominant Congress to diverse parties and party coalitions in more than half the Indian states.The purpose of this paper is to examine the implications for party development in India of the ways in which power has been transferred from the Congress to multi-group coalitions in the three north Indian states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab. Specifically, I am concerned with the structural characteristics of the developing party systems in the three states; with the roles played in the systems by parties, factions, and individuals; and with the impact of the ways in which the systems function upon government formation and stability. I will argue that north Indian political parties operate in systems in which inter-party ideological divisions are less decisive in the formation and breakup of governments than intra-party divisions.

Neutrality, Legitimacy, and the Supreme Court: Some Intersections Between Law and Political Science

Abstract: The work of Professor Martin Shapiro is distinguished by lucidity, an analytical turn of mind, formidable sophistication, and a thoroughly readable style. A political scientist by training, Shapiro is very much at home with the tools and techniques of the lawyer. His flair for case analysis is much in evidence in Law and Politics in the Supreme Court In the chapters on tax and labor policy, for example, his view of the Court as a political agency furthering its interests through interaction with other agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service and the National Labor Relations Board is developed through close readings of decisions2 and comparisons among groups of cases.' Indeed, Shapiro's analysis of the reapportionment controversy demonstrates a regard for lawyers' sensibilities seemingly above and beyond the call of duty-considerably more than half the chapter is devoted to a closely reasoned parsing of the \"political question\" cases.\" Shapiro's regard for \"lawyer's law,\" however, is only apparently excessive. His focus on the interaction among governmental agencies inevitably involves consideration of cases in which the Court paces the boundaries of its own jurisdiction. And as Professor Bickel's work in The Least Dangerous Branch' testifies, this judicial mapping of spheres of competence is preeminently \"lawyer's law,\" with compass directions provided in the arcane terminology of \"case and controversy,\" \"standing,\" and \"ripeness.\" Yet it is precisely here that Shapiro breaks decisively with conventional legal approaches. Shapiro denominates his view \"political jurisprudence.\"' Postulating 0 A.B. 1955, LL.B. 1962, Ph.D. 2962, Yale University. Associate Professor of Law, Yale University. Anything of value in this Article owes much to three men associated with the Stanford Law School: Jared G. Carter, formerly assistant professor of law, who first suggested many of these ideas to me; Professor William F. Baxter, who helped me to refine them in the course of long and, at least on his side, gracious conversations; and Dean Bayless A. Manning, who first afforded me the opportunity of offering the seminar in which they were developed. I. M. SHAPmo, LAw AND PoLiTics IN Tim SuPR.asa CouRT: NEw APPROACHES To POLITICAL JURISPRtDENCE (1964). 2. See, e.g., id. at o7-o9. 3. See, e.g., id. at 113-24. 4. Id. at 175-216. 5. A. BICKEL, ThE LEAsT DANoastous BRANCH: THE Su xMEm COURT AT Tit BAR oF POLITICS (2962). 6. M. SuAs'mo, supra note I, at 15;.

The Northeastern Thai Village: A Non-Participatory Democracy

Abstract: Research activities in Thailand have produced a number of excellent studies of village life and rural attitudes towards various problems. But no study as yet has taken for its primary task the investigation of what might be called the political sphere of village life. Accurate descriptions of institutionalized political positions in and around the village exist; examinations of village problem-solving have greatly contributed to understanding the decision-making structure within a village. But still an attempt to organize the significant dimensions of politics in a rural village in order to ascertain just what politics and power mean in the context of village life might be useful in making us more sensitive to some important realities of Northeast Thailand. Accordingly, this paper will focus only on politics as perceived within four northeastern villages. It is of course recognized that a more expert appreciation of politics requires sensitivity to wider patterns of social behavior, for the political sphere is bound to the general socioeconomic matrix as one atom is linked to the molecule. The approach of this paper will be to discuss four primary assumptions about political behavior which villagers apply in their political activities as the method of highlighting the political realm of village culture. Such assumptions function like lenses or filters between the social environment and the individual's behavior. A villager's assumptions enable him to see clearly what is relevant about politics in the village and allow him to ignore other considerations. By controlling his reactions to political phenomena, these assumptions are crucial to his political behavior. One can roughly summarize the net effect of these assumptions in the following way: a villager conceives the legitimate role: of government to be very limited, but at the same time he believes it should function entirely without his assistance, participation or involvement. The four assumptions thus follow: (1) government, whether national or local, is restricted to a set of duties; (2) popular involvement with government should be minimal; (3) government, particularly village government, must concern itself with the "public interest" to retain legitimacy; and finally, (4) when confronted with a powerful person, the villager should obey to the extent demanded. An understanding of these four beliefs will be sharpened by familiarity

Administration and a Changing World Environment

Abstract: E ARLY ONE EVENING LAST SUMMER, at a sidewalk cafe in Athens, I sat sipping Turkish coffee with a Greek senior civil servant. He told me of the demands made upon him by the new military oligarchy, demands which were in his view impossible of execution, retrogressive in purpose, irresponsible, and illegitimate. "But what can I do?" he lamented. To refuse to obey was to court personal disaster. To obey would be to violate his conception of public duty. What obligation did he have, in good conscience, to serve a regime which had seized power by unconstitutional means? How could I reply? What guidance do our principles of public administration give to a man caught in such a trap? Later I heard that one of the civil servants whom I met and learned to respect in Athens had become a refugee in Paris. Others have retreated into a shell of surface conformity but internal resistance. But yet another civil servant, a degree holder in public administration from a leading American university, has decided to cast his lot unequivocally with the regime. For him the military rulers wear halos. Despite temporary difficulties, they promise a clean sweep of corruption and incompetence, they herald a new day of vigorous government and efficient administration. This young man and others like him seek help from American experts in public administration. But could we, if we would, give assistance that would seriously confront Greek governmental malaise? ) The purpose of this essay is to call attention to the extraordinarily difficult dilemmas in which thinking public officials, both military and civilian, find themselves today. The author argues that our changing world environment compels us to raise questions about governmental legitimacy but that we are handicapped in doing so by some fundamental conceptual ambiguities. Among those he describes are: the term "public administration" itself, the relation between a bureaucracy and its political context, the concept and organization of legitimacy, the American tradition of constitutionalism, responsiveness and responsibility in government, bureaucratic power and performance, and the revolutionary principle. The essay was originally prepared for and delivered at the ASPA Conference at Boston, Mass., on March 29, 1968.

Attitudes Toward the Legitimacy of Management Efforts to Influence Employees

Abstract: Responses of sixty regular Air Force personnel to the Schein-Ott legitimacy questionnaire are compared with earlier responses of labor leaders, university students, and company executives. Rank-ord...

Transfer of Legitimacy in the Chinese Communist Party: Origins of the Maoist Myth*

Abstract: In January 1935 the harassed, decimated main forces of the Chinese Communist movement paused in the course of their epic Long March from Kiangsi to rest and regroup at Tsunyi in the hills of northern Kweichow. During their brief occupation of this remote, provincial town the top political and military leaders present held a conference which has come to be regarded as the major turning point in the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). At the time, however, no such significance was attached to the stop-over in Tsunyi and, indeed, the very fact that an important political meeting was convened there was not revealed for some years after.

Russian Liberals and the Bolshevik Coup

Abstract: By the fall of 1917, the only political activists in Russia supporting the ideals of non-socialist liberalism were the Constitutional Democrats. Though Kadets2 wanted radical reforms in social and economic relations, they distinguished themselves as liberals by maintaining a thoroughgoing commitment to the concept of "political legitimacy." No regime was "valid," they believed, unless it ruled in accordance with established legal norms, while the best wav to set standards was by limited popular representation.3 On this basis, the Kadets resisted the czarist autocracy. And when the February Revolution set up the Provisional Government, they welcomed the new regime as an instrument for preparing a Constituent Assembly. Power was to be held in abeyance until constitutional authority could control its use.4 Like liberals elsewhere, most Kadets also felt themselves morally bound to use only legal tactics. "Legitimate" authority could not be obtained through clandestine methods.5 Throughout 1917, Kadets grew

Religion and Public School Education: A Plan for the Future

Abstract: The dedication in a book by Sidney Hook has the following quote from Whitehead, "Education which is not modern shares the fate of all organic things that are kept too long."1 There is an emerging consensus that public education which neglects the study of religion is beginning to smell. The state of Florida is gradually beginning to evidence its dissatisfaction with the present situation. In 1964 former State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Thomas D. Bailey, and Attorney General James W. Kynes issued a statement, "Bible Reading and Prayer in Florida Public Schools," recognizing the legitimacy and feasi bility of teaching about religion in public schools. Partially as a result of this statement in the summer of 1965 the State De partment of Education through its State Courses of Study Committee secured the appointment of a State Committee on Study about Religion in the Public Schools. This twelve-member committee, composed of educators, state religious leaders, and scholars in religion, has held five fruitful meetings since its inception more than two years ago. Before going into the deliberations and proposals formulated by this committee, we need to set the stage. A vital framework for viewing the work of this committee is a better understanding of why education cannot be fully modern if study about religion is excluded.