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Showing papers on "Legitimacy published in 1984"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors incorporate the political objective of domain maintenance into the existing typology of the strategic objectives of environmental management, and incorporate it into the framework of domain defense and domain maintenance.
Abstract: Conceptually, business political activity may have three major objectives: (1) to gain special monetary and anticompetitive favors from government—domain management; (2) to manage environmental turbulence created by governmental threats to the legitimacy of organizational goals and purposes—domain defense; and (3) to manage similar threats to the methods by which organizations pursue their goals and purposes—domain maintenance. This paper incorporates the political objective of domain maintenance into the existing typology of the strategic objectives of environmental management.

317 citations


Book ChapterDOI
TL;DR: Personal rule is a dynamic world of political will and activity that is shaped less by institutions or impersonal social forces than by personal authorities and power; it is a world, therefore, of uncertainty, suspicion, rumor, agitation, intrigue, and sometimes fear, as well as of stratagem, diplomacy, conspiracy, dependency, reward, and threat as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Personal rule has been a compelling facet of politics at least since the time of Machiavelli. It is the image not of a ruler but of a type of rulership.' Personal rule is a dynamic world of political will and activity that is shaped less by institutions or impersonal social forces than by personal authorities and power; it is a world, therefore, of uncertainty, suspicion, rumor, agitation, intrigue, and sometimes fear, as well as of stratagem, diplomacy, conspiracy, dependency, reward, and threat. In other words, personal rule is a distinctive type of political system in which the rivalries and struggles of powerful and wilful men, rather than impersonal institutions, ideologies, public policies, or class interests, are fundamental in shaping political life. Indicators of personal regimes in sub-Saharan Africa are coups, plots, factionalism, purges, rehabilitations, clientelism, corruption, succession maneuvers, and similar activities which have been significant and recurring features of political life during the past two decades. Furthermore, there is no indication that such activities are about to decline in political importance. Whereas these features are usually seen as merely the defects of an otherwise established political orderwhether capitalist, socialist, military, civilian, or whatever-we are inclined to regard them much more as the integral elements of a distinctive political system to which we have given the term "personal rule."2 It is ironic that in the twentieth century a novel form of "presidential monarchy" has appeared in many countries of the Third World. The irony consists in the contradiction of what is perhaps the major tendency in the evolution of the modern state during the past several centuries: the transformation of political legitimacy from the authority of kings to the mandate of the people.3 What has happened in the

168 citations


Book ChapterDOI
TL;DR: The tax and spending referendums like Proposition 13 gave these alienated people an opportunity to express their frustration on a grand issue of public policy while also allowing them the opportunity to act on their disaffection by becoming "idiots" in the original Greek sense of the word as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: One of the latent functions of the great taxpayer's revolt of 1978 is that it taught and continues to teach students of public administration many lessons. California's Proposition 13, in particular, has had a sobering effect on the theory and practice of public administration. While many explanations have been offered for the passage of Proposition 13 and similar taxing and spending limits in other states and localities,' the rationale developed by Kirlin is one of most persuasive:2 During the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, the intricately complex political and administrative structure of the public sector became hopelessly beyond the reach of the average citizen through the traditional formal mechanisms of political participation-voting, parties, and interest groups. Taxing and spending referendums like Proposition 13 gave these alienated people an opportunity to express their frustration on a grand issue of public policy while also allowing them the opportunity to act on their disaffection by becoming "idiots" in the original Greek sense of the word, meaning someone indifferent to his duties as a citizen. If citizens could not understand or effect their government, then limiting it and ignoring it became a rational response. The linkage between citizens and their government has become strained over the past two decades. At a minimum, citizens function as legitimizers of government "to transform power relations into authority relations."3 In the United States, this legitimacy has eroded substantially under the strain of Vietnam, Watergate, and a host of factors like urbanization, governmental fragmentation, and rapid spatial mobility.4 While there is little indication that diffuse support for the values that underpin democratic institutions has eroded significantly, confidence in the institutions of our govern-

138 citations


Book
01 Jan 1984
TL;DR: State Apparatus as mentioned in this paper is a detailed and comprehensive text, ideal for those with an interest in the history, theory, form, and function of the state, and the role of the legal apparatus within a capitalist system.
Abstract: Originally published in 1984, State Apparatus contributes to the debate on the theory of the state through posing questions regarding the state’s form, function, and apparatus. The book begins by setting out the theoretical and methodological problems and reviewing the various Conservative, Liberal and Marxist theories in light of these. It discusses state activity, using specific case studies to clearly illustrate key points, such as the development of welfare systems in North America and Western Europe. It also explores the use of language under the state, the role of the legal apparatus within a capitalist system, and the "local state". The book concludes with a discussion of democracy and the crisis of legitimacy, and the issue of justice and the state. State Apparatus is a detailed and comprehensive text, ideal for those with an interest in the history, theory, form, and function of the state.

135 citations


Journal Article
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a synoptic and critical review of various proferred candidates for a non-anthropocentric value theory for environmental ethics, and conclude that the most important philosophical task of environmental ethics is the development of a nonanthropo-centric value theory.
Abstract: OVER the last decade, environmental ethics has emerged as a new subdiscipline of moral philosophy. As with anything new in philosophy or the sciences, there has been some controversy, not only about its legitimacy, but about its very identity or definition. The question of legitimacy has been settled more or less by default: profes? sional philosophical interest in environmental philosophy seems to be growing as, certainly, work in the field proliferates. The question of identity? just what is environmental ethics??has not been so ingenuous. Environmental ethics may be understood to be but one among several new sorts of applied philosophies, the others of which also arose during the seventies. That is, it may be understood to be an application of well-established conventional philosophical categories to emergent practical environmental problems. On the other hand, it may be understood to be an exploration of alternative moral and even metaphysical principles, forced upon philosophy by the magnitude and recalcitr? ance of these problems.1 If defined in the former way, then the work of environmental ethics is that of a philosophical yeoman or underlaborer (to employ Locke's self appraisal); if defined in the latter way, it is that of a theoretician or philosophical architect (as in Descartes' self image). If interpreted as an essentially theoretical, not applied discipline, the most important philosophical task for environmental ethics is the development of a non-anthropocentric value theory.2 Indeed, as the discussion which follows will make clear, without a non-anthropocentric axiology the revolutionary aspirations of theoretical environmental ethics would be betrayed and the whole enterprise would collapse into its more work? aday, applied counterpart. The subject of this paper, accordingly, is a synoptic and critical review of various proferred candidates for a non-anthropocentric value theory for environmental ethics. Ethical hedonism and

130 citations


Book
27 Sep 1984

111 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors assess the legitimacy of the FASB in terms of the individualistic constitutional calculus, an approach that has recently evolved in the economics/political science literature.

89 citations


Book
26 Jan 1984
TL;DR: In this article, the Mann/Giddens thesis is used to assess the agrarian roots of working-class radicalism and the crisis of legitimacy in the United States.
Abstract: Preface Introduction: 1. Social inequality and class radicalism Part I. Conceptions of Class Inequality: 2. Class awareness and class identity 3. The conflict of class interests 4. Political power and class inequality 5. The national patterns Part II. Sources of Proximate Determination: 6. The power structure of the firm 7. The influence of the trade unions 8. The influence of the political party 9. The power structure of the firm, the trade unions and the parties of the Left: discussion Part III. Elements of Historical Reconstruction: 10. The revolutionary tradition 11. The agrarian roots of working-class radicalism: an assessment of the Mann/Giddens thesis 12. War and the crisis of legitimacy Conclusion Appendices Notes Bibliography Index.

75 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Max Kaase1
TL;DR: In this article, the authors ask what the likely consequences are of the "participatory revolution" on the political process in Western democracies and raise the question why established political institutions have survived so well.
Abstract: This article asks what the likely consequences are of the "participatory revolution" on the political process in Western democracies. The first wave of political mobilization provided citizens with equal voting rights and thereby laid a firm ground for the legitimacy of democratic institutions. After two "quiet" decades, the second wave of mobilization challenged those institutions, particularly the political parties. The nature of the challenge lies in the enormous social and technological changes Western democracies have undergone, as well as in the changing yardsticks citizens have come to apply to the established political institutions. This article raises the question why, in light of these developments, established political institutions have survived so well. The key to this quesion lies in the peripheral role of politics to most citizens and the lack of convincing alternative models of the political order to the democratic liberal polity.

67 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The process of deprofessionalization is manifest in a variety of restrictions upon traditional prerogatives, which suggests a general weakening of the very legitimacy of the unregulated professional model of social organization.
Abstract: It is becoming increasingly evident that the conditions that fostered the growth and dominance of the professions during the early part of this century are being eroded by social change. Social, economic, and political trends are undermining claims to autonomy and monopoly by previously well-entrenched groups such as the legal profession in America. These trends include changes in the knowledge base, shifts in the composition of the profession, emerging employment patterns, consumerism, and encroachment from allied professions. The process of deprofessionalization is manifest in a variety of restrictions upon traditional prerogatives, which suggests a general weakening of the very legitimacy of the unregulated professional model of social organization.

65 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors define internal legitimacy as the recognition of a state and its government as rightful by its population, which during the modern era has increasingly meant a popular recognition democratically expressed.
Abstract: The historical development of the modern state is marked by, among other important changes, the transformation of political legitimacy from the authority of princes to the mandate of the people, from dynastic to popular legitimacy. Since states are the creatures not only of their domestic environment but also of international society, we must distinguish between internal and international legitimacy. Martin Wight defines the latter as ‘the collective judgement of international society [i.e. other states] about rightful membership of the family of nations’. According to him, the convention of international legitimation that has predominated since 1945 is based on the combined and paradoxical principles of majority rule, which rejects the legitimacy of colonialism, and territorial integrity, which nevertheless accepts territorial divisions established under colonialism. We define internal legitimacy as the recognition of a state and its government as rightful by its population, which during the modern era has increasingly meant a popular recognition democratically expressed.

Book ChapterDOI
01 Dec 1984
TL;DR: The first decade of independence was concerned primarily with the distribution of power in the post-colonial state, although the nature of the conflict was frequently obscured by the rhetoric of development.
Abstract: In the 1940s it was the racial composition of the East and Central African societies that presented the critical obstacle to African advance. Although there was in 1940 a distinction in the British mind between the ‘colonies of settlement’, Kenya, Northern and Southern Rhodesia, on the one hand, and the ‘colonies of administration’, Uganda, Tanganyika and Nyasaland, on the other, the settler presence dominated the region in such a manner as to preclude the easy adoption of the ‘West African’ solution in the face of the demand for African independence. Power was nevertheless transferred to African not European hands, and by 1964 all these territories save Southern Rhodesia were independent African states. A year later, the settler rebellion in Southern Rhodesia dispelled any remaining illusions of Britain's effective control over that territory. Independence, therefore, represented a fundamental landmark in this period, opening up new arenas for African participation and removing significant political, although not economic, constraints. The crucial effect, for the first post-colonial decade at least, was upon the internal balance of power once the colonial arbiter had withdrawn. The independence settlement conferred control of the institutions of state upon the dominant nationalist leadership, but it did not necessarily ensure its continued authority. Its legitimacy depended upon a complex internal political balance so that those who inherited the colonial mantle had both to nurture that legitimacy and to build the new state. The first decade of independence was therefore concerned primarily with the distribution of power in the post-colonial state, although the nature of the conflict was frequently obscured by the rhetoric of development.

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jan 1984
TL;DR: This paper argued that if the work is read as essentially a heroic epic, in which the pattern of events is the key to their significance and meaning, then the author is recounting a revealing story.
Abstract: Around the turn of the millenium, Dudo of St.-Quentin, an ecclesiastic in the service of the Norman "Duke", was commissioned to write an account of the Viking invasion by the Duke's grandfather Rollo, who captured Rouen in the late ninth or early tenth century. That account has long been puzzle and an irritant to historians, for it has been shown to be factually unreliable where it can be checked against other sources. The irritation is all the greater because of the potential importance of the work, which is the only source we have about events in the tenth century within the area that was becoming Normandy. This paper argues that if the work is read as essentially a heroic epic, in which the pattern of events is the key to their significance and meaning, then the author is recounting a revealing story. Read as a work of art, Dudo's book concerns legitimacy: the God-bestowed legitimacy of the Rouen lineage of Viking chieftains now and forever -- and the legitimacy of those who have accepted the leadership of that lineage. These "acceptors" of Rouen, the pattern implies, are new invaders, of the mid-tenth century, who sealed their alliance with the earlier, and seriously threatened, group by a great marriage (followed by a series of marriages) that added the imperatives of kinship to the advantages of collective coordinated action. Dudo's "facts" about Rollo, the first, God-chosen leader, are, in this reading, mere embellishments to his eulogy of his own patrons' success in creating a proto-state, capable of providing safety and stability in the lands so recently conquered. Such a reading shifts the establishment of "Normandy" from the late ninth to the late tenth century, and introduces a principle of state-formation that can be tested in the more easily understood sources of the eleventh century,

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Miskito kings of eastern Nicaragua and Honduras have been described as British puppets whose authority depended solely on their role as middlemen as discussed by the authors, but they also may have been leaders of real stature in their own society, whose legitimacy was based on different cultural conceptions of leadership than those held by the British.
Abstract: The Miskito kings of eastern Nicaragua and Honduras have been described as British puppets whose authority depended solely on their role as middlemen. This paper suggests that the kings also may have been leaders of real stature in their own society, whose legitimacy was based on different cultural conceptions of leadership than those held by the British. [political anthropology, kingship, middlemen, Miskito Indians, Central American ethnology]

Book
01 Jan 1984
TL;DR: The only source for citations to North American scholarship on Eastern and Central Europe, the Balkans, the Baltic States, and the former Soviet Union is the Bibliographical Reference as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: This bibliography is the only source for citations to North American scholarship on Eastern and Central Europe, the Balkans, the Baltic States, and the former Soviet Union.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, an alternative view of the relationship between power and authority is proposed, where authority may be power plus legitimacy, or power plus consent, and authority can be seen as a passive agent of power.
Abstract: This paper suggests an alternative to the received view of the relationship between power and authority. It regards authorities as the passive agents of powers. Thus to possess authority is to possess less than to possess power in its own right. Contrast this with the received view where to possess authority is to possess more than to possess power: authority may be power plus legitimacy, or power plus consent.The paper goes on to consider some of the implications of this alternative view, and shows how it allows an analogy between possessing authority in relation to actions and being an authority in relation to knowledge and culture.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the conscious attempts of Soviet political elites from the early sixties onwards to change their strategy of gaining compliance by reducing reliance on coercion and strengthening political legitimacy.
Abstract: and within societies over time. One way of gaining compliance is for political elites to establish the legitimacy of the political system, of their position within it, and of the commands that are issued. Political power can be said to be legitimate when, in the words of Sternberger,' it is exercised both with a consciousness on the part of the elite that it has a right to govern and with some recognition by the ruled of that right. Both this consciousness of the right to govern and its acknowledgement by the ruled is derived from some source of authorization which may change over time. This paper will focus on the conscious attempts of Soviet political elites from the early sixties onwards to change their strategy of gaining compliance by reducing reliance on coercion and strengthening political legitimacy. It will draw attention to their efforts to develop a new source of authorization and to employ a new legitimation procedure. In developing the theoretical argument the Weberian typology of legitimate rule2 will be employed, and this approach to the topic will be contrasted with that adopted by T. H. Rigby in two recent publications.3 Unlike most recent work in this area this article will go beyond mere theoretical hypothesizing and combine its analysis with empirical data on the new Soviet approach to the problem of legitimacy. In particular, it will focus on one new important legitimation procedure - the introduction of a system of socialist ritual. This system of ritual, which has been created in the Soviet Union during recent decades, embodies the norms and values of Soviet official ideology. The rituals range from the mass political ritual of the October celebrations, through rituals of initiation into various social and political collectives (such as the Young Pioneers, the army, the working class) to such individual rites de passage as the Festive Registration of the Newborn

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the four cases of "exclusionary" bureaucratic-authoritarianism still in power-Brazil since 1964, Chile and Uruguay since 1973, and Argentina (in its most recent version) since 1976.
Abstract: A now considerable literature has emerged on the regime type which O'Donnell labeled "bureaucratic-authoritarian ,9 both in terms of its origins and the policies which typify its development.' While discussion of the end of all such regimes is premature, individual cases today appear to be subject to great challenges. The purpose of the present essay is to offer a coherent explanation as to when individual bureaucratic-authoritarian governments will be most vulnerable to collapse. To narrow the focus some, analysis will concentrate only on the four cases of "exclusionary" bureaucratic-authoritarianism still in power-Brazil since 1964, Chile and Uruguay since 1973, and Argentina (in its most recent version) since 1976.2 Three particular aspects of the problem will be singled out for special attention: (1) the bases of legitimacy in bureaucratic-authoritarian regimes; (2) the likelihood of regime institutionalization; and (3) the possibilities for the emergence of opposition, culminating in the creation of an alternative regime in power. What follows falls into two main sections plus a brief conclusion. The first is a synthesis of much of the existing writing as it relates to the three major concepts chosen for examination. As will be made clear, the new military regimes have sought to replace democratic governments with authoritarian rule supposedly legitimated by a restored sense of political and social order and by a renewal of economic growth. Successful economic "development," in turn, is expected to create the necessary popular support among a minority for the restructuring of the political system, eventually allowing for reduced levels of repression as the new regime gains hegemonic control. The opposition that will emerge will be highly restricted and will in no sense challenge the regime. The second section compares the realities of the present with the new authoritarian wishes. What is stressed is the effects of serious economic problems in undermining the military's self-defined base of legitimacy and, with this change, in weakening its willingness to use repression to control dissension. Where military commitment to long-term praetorian rule is less than total and/or a plausible, not highly threatening civilian alternative exists, the effects of economic crisis have been to encourage an at least temporary military exit. Even where those in charge are determined to retain power at all costs, the increasingly catastrophic state of the economy is producing major divisions among the officers and less consistent



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The origins of this dilemma and of the adversarial relationship between business and government lie in the unusual institutional makeup of American society as mentioned in this paper, and the historical background casts modern proposals for deregulation, reprivatization, and other shifts of authority from the public to the private spheres in a different light, and suggests a series of pillars helpful to achieving legitimacy in the mixed economy of the 1980s.
Abstract: The relationship between the public and private spheres has raised questions of legitimacy in America. The origins of this dilemma and of the adversarial relationship between business and government lie in the unusual institutional makeup of American society. Because big business came earlier in America than did big government, it progressed faster here than in other countries, but at the same time was assumed to be less legitimate. This historical background casts modern proposals for deregulation, reprivatization, and other shifts of authority from the public to the private spheres in a different light, and suggests a series of pillars helpful to achieving legitimacy in the mixed economy of the 1980s.

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jan 1984-Geoforum
TL;DR: In this article, the Sizewell B Inquiry into the first pressurised water reactor in the U.K. is examined with reference to its constitutional role, history, contemporary style and emerging problems of legitimacy.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the regulatory process, economic analysis closely resembles scientific analysis in a number of ways as discussed by the authors, with both types of analysis can be manipulated, in obvious as well as subtle ways, to support a particular position, although both are also subject to professional norms and procedures that can help detect the worst abuses.
Abstract: In the regulatory process, economic analysis closely resembles scientific analysis in a number of ways. Not only has its general use by the federal government increased, but interest groups are using it extensively to gain legitimacy and political support. Both types of analysis can be manipulated, in obvious as well as subtle ways, to support a particular position, although both are also subject to professional norms and procedures that can help detect the worst abuses. Both scientific and economic analyses have been at the center of substantial controversies, with those who fear the antidemocratic rule of technocrats often stridently opposing those who argue that "objective" evidence can improve regulation or who believe that formal analysis, in general, will enhance their cause. However, unlike most science, cost-benefit analysis-the type of economic analysis discussed here-is normative, rather than descriptive. In extreme form, it provides a criterion for decisions about public projects and regulations which would supplant all other criteria, whether scientific, moral, legal, or political. Furthermore, cost-benefit analysis is unavoidably tied to market-oriented conceptions of valuing costs and benefits, conceptions that many citizens find repugnant. Given the unavoidably normative and ideological content of cost-benefit analysis, the hope that technical

Journal Article
TL;DR: The AAPL Committee on Ethics warmly welcomes Alan A. Stone, who has raised "serious questions about the basic legitimacy of forensic psychiatry", which was the lead article in this Bulletin.
Abstract: Into this long-running dispute as to whether psychiatrists should testify as experts in forensic matters, the AAPL Committee on Ethics warmly welcomes our esteemed colleague, Alan A. Stone. He has raised "serious questions about the basic legitimacy of forensic psychiatry.,,2 At the initial presentation of his paper (the lead article in this Bulletin), he touched a "sensitive nerve" as evidenced by the vehemence, and indeed, the anger in some of the questions and responses that ensued. To some in the audience, mostly practicing forensic psychiatrists, his talk apparently seemed like a nightmare, frightening in its unrelenting criticism. On the other hand, to many of us who had been pondering the issues Stone was raising, there was no doubt that for the time being, this was the statement of many of the fundamental ethical conflicts that inhere in the practice of forensic psychiatry. It was the awareness of such ethical conflicts that led the founders of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (AAPL) to create a Committee on Ethics in the original bylaws of the Academy in 1969. As Stone noted, Pollack and Rappeport, the first and third presidents of the Academy, had long pointed to serious ethical concerns. 3 Throughout the history of forensic psychiatry, it was well understood that functioning in the adversarial system of the legal process creates inescapable professional tensions and conflicts. To cite one example, Guttmacher and Weihofen in their classic 1952 textbook, Psychiatry and the Law, discuss the use of the "impartial expert" as a means of avoiding some of these tensions and conflicts. 4 Seven years later, but still a decade before the establishment of the Academy, Diamond in his seminal article, "The Fallacy of the Impartial Expert,"~ demurred, implying it is virtually impossible not to intrude one's personal values into a professional opinion:


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A marriage of convenience between civil and military bureaucrats, similar to that existing in Pakistan before its collapse in 1971, evolved in Bangladesh after the November 7 coup as mentioned in this paper, from which General Ziaur Rahman (Zia) emerged as the de facto military ruler.
Abstract: The year 1975 saw dramatic changes in the political environment of Bangladesh In January, through a "constitutional coup," a presidential system of government replaced the parliamentary form In June, all political parties were banned and were asked to join the newly formed national party, Bangladesh Krishak Shramik Awami League In August, a bloody military coup took place in which President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his whole family, except two daughters, were killed On November 3, there was another abortive countercoup and, on November 7, there was a "sepoy mutiny" in which Dacca's strong man, General Ziaur Rahman, consolidated his power in Bangladesh The fall of Mujib in August and the "sepoy mutiny" of November 7, from which General Ziaur Rahman (Zia) emerged as the de facto military ruler, profoundly altered the state system in Bangladesh A "new state" emerged, which seemed to follow a pattern that had been set in preliberation Bangladesh; a marriage of convenience between civil and military bureaucrats, similar to that existing in Pakistan before its collapse in 1971, evolved in Bangladesh after the November 7 coup In a postcolonial society like Bangladesh, it would seem that after an army take-over of the state apparatus, the military bureaucracy forms an alliance with the civil bureaucracy in order to consolidate power at both the national and local levels The civil and military bureaucrats share one commonality, that is, they maintain a corporate administrative group identity Perhaps it is this administrative elite identity that leads the bureaucracy to build an "administrative state" In the administrative state, the civil-military bureaucracy adopts, on the one hand, various measures for its increasing dominance in the state apparatus, and seeks, on the other, legitimacy for the regime through various means Despite the attempts toward obtaining legitimacy, the state may subsequently

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argues that the familiar charges against single-issue politics are false and suggests that the charges conceal fundamental political debates about the appropriate role of citizens in representative government, and that the issues around which people organize are multiple, not single, and therefore it is unlikely that their advancement will ruin the careers of otherwise acceptable politicians.
Abstract: First the popular press took up the theme and more recently the academic press has echoed it: the rise of single-issue politics threatens the American political system. It is said that citizen groups organizing in ever greater numbers to push single issues ruin the careers of otherwise fine politicians who disagree with them on one emotional issue, paralyze the traditional process of governmental compromise, and ignore the common good in their selfish insistence on getting their own way. These charges are directed at organizations on both ends of the political spectrum -not only by people who claim to stand in some politically neutral spot but also at times by the very groups that take public stands for and against issues. Having a passionate conviction about abortion, disarmament, homosexuality, guns, feminism, tax laws, or the environment is increasingly described as a political problem itself. This article questions that position. It argues that the familiar charges against single-issue politics are false. In addition, it suggests that the charges conceal fundamental political debates about the appropriate role of citizens in representative government. First, the issues around which people organize are multiple, not single, and therefore it is unlikely that their advancement will ruin the careers of otherwise acceptable politicians. Behind the charge of narrowness lies an enduring political question about the very legitimacy of citizens organizing over issues, instead of over the distribution of power. Second, contrary to surface appearances, compromise is a constant feature of issue politics, taking place both among members of issue groups, and at all levels of governmental decisionmaking. The latent question concerns who makes those compromises and who should make them. Third, issue groups possess a deep concern for the public good and, far from being selfish, they hold to a view of public decision-making

Journal Article
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that there is no adequate traditional justification for contracts of adhesion, and they locate their legitimacy in the nature of modern bureaucracy, and demonstrate how this mode of legitimation sets limits for government intervention.
Abstract: Under the political theory of the liberal state, there is no adequate traditional justification for contracts of adhesion. Professor Macneil seeks to locate their legitimacy in the nature of modern bureaucracy. He demonstrates how this mode of legitimation sets limits for government intervention. In his conclusion, Professor Macneil emphasizes the significance of his analysis for a fuller understanding of the validity and the complex operation of contracts of adhesion.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Despite a series of setbacks and subsequent revisions of targets, priorities, and programmatic strategies, China's Four Modernizations program has so far retained acceptance as the foundation upon which China's current development policies are being constructed as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Despite a series of setbacks and subsequent revisions of targets, priorities, and programmatic strategies, China's Four Modernizations program has so far retained acceptance as the foundation upon which China's current development policies are being constructed. Yet, a number of recent studies make it clear that-within the bounds of agreement on the general need to modernize-elite consensus on a number of more specific though equally critical issues remains incomplete, unstable, and subject to periodic shifts. Matters ranging from the specific policy goals to be pursued and programs to be implemented to the relative priority of the four broad dimensions themselves continue to generate considerable dissension among China's elite; indeed, there remains at least residual opposition (among the unreconstructed Maoists) to the very legitimacy of the Four Modernizations as a programmatic blueprint for China's future. In a sense, then, it may be more accurate to say that the basic themes of modernizing agriculture, industry, science and technology, and the military continue to structure the game within which conflict over policy priorities, ideological legitimacy and, ultimately, political power itself is played out. However, while the nature and implications of intra-elite conflict has been explored considerably, relatively less attention has been

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors of a book on political legitimisation in communist states, representing by no means the full range of scholarly views on the social and political systems of these countries, can variously characterize the political legitimation of the USSR today as dominated by "goal-rational", "traditional" or "paternalistic" legitimation, or as a combination of "heteronomous-teleological" and "autonomous-consensual" modes of legitimation.
Abstract: Perhaps we political scientists and sociologists should have left ‘legitimacy’ to the constitutional and international lawyers. Such a view is certainly suggested by the present cacophany of our definitions, taxonomies and applications of the term. When the contributors to a book on political legitimation in communist states, representing by no means the full range of scholarly views on the social and political systems of these countries, can variously characterize the political legitimation of the USSR today as dominated by ‘goal-rational’, ‘traditional’ or ‘paternalistic’ legitimation, or as a combination of ‘heteronomous-teleological’ and ‘autonomous-consensual’ or of ‘overt’ and ‘covert’ modes of legitimation, we evidently have a long way to go before our shared understandings of political legitmation could be adequate for the comparative study of political systems or for analysing political change.