Showing papers on "State (polity) published in 1969"

The Diffusion of Innovations among the American States

Abstract: We are now in the midst of a notable revival of interest in the politics of the American states. During the last decade many studies have been conducted of the social, political and economic determinants of state policy outcomes. Several of these writers have argued that the relative wealth of a state, its degree of industrialization, and other measures of social and economic development are more important in explaining its level of expenditures than such political factors as the form of legislative apportionment, the amount of party competition, or the degree of voter participation. It has been claimed that such factors as the level of personal income or the size of the urban population are responsible both for the degree of participation and party competition in a state, and the nature of the system's policy outputs. By making this argument these writers have called into question the concepts of representation and theories of party and group conflict which, in one form or another, are the foundations for much of American political science.There is a growing awareness, however, that levels of expenditure alone are not an adequate measure of public policy outcomes. Sharkansky has shown, for example, that levels of expenditure and levels of actual service are seldom correlated; presumably, some states are able to reach given service levels with much less expenditure than others. Besides establishing the appropriate level of expenditure for a program, policy makers must also decide about the program's relative scope, provisions for appeal from administrative orders, eligibility requirements, the composition of regulatory boards and commissions, and many other matters which have little to do with money.

The state in capitalist society

Abstract: Presenting a sustained and concrete challenge to the current political consensus, this reference identifies the radical alternative of adopting socialism as the key issue facing civilization and the crucial condition of making substantial progress. Demonstrating that capitalist control of the state was so comprehensive that partial reforms were impossible, this reference attempts to explain how society has managed to evade socialism, exploring how its claims have failed to persuade many intellectuals and the potential benefactors of an alternative order. Reviewing the influence of economic elites and the dominant class, this study also probes the state's claims to legitimacy, defines the purpose and role of governments, and analyzes the concepts of reform and repression. Depicting how the state reemerged from behind the mystifications of the political system and its behavior to become the central theme of political studies, this radical and philosophical investigation combines a political appeal with thorough, detailed scholarship. A discussion of servants of the state and the concept of imperfect competition are also included.

The Utility of Elazar's Political Culture: A Research Note

Abstract: Herein Professor Sharkansky attempts to take an impressionistic concept-Daniel Elazar's well-known theory of state political cultures-and find out empirically whether there is anything to it. He finds that, with some modifications, it is an empirically useful concept, and that it makes an "additive" contribution to our store of knowledge about state politics. It is good to learn, occasionally, that traditional observation can be validated.

Theft of the Nation: The Structure and Operations of Organized Crime in America

Abstract: Organized crime in America today is not the tough hoodlums familiar to moviegoers and TV watchers. It is more sophisticated, with many college graduates, gifted with organizational genius, all belonging to twenty-four tightly knit "families," who have corrupted legitimate business and infiltrated some of the highest levels of local, state, and federal government. Their power reaches into Congress, into the executive and judicial branches, police agencies, and labor unions, and into such business enterprises as real estate, retail stores, restaurants, hotels, linen-supply houses, and garbage-collection routes.How does organized crime operate? How dangerous is it? What are the implications for American society? How may we cope with it? In answering these questions, Cressey asserts that because organized crime provides illicit goods and services demanded by legitimate society, it has become part of legitimate society. This fascinating account reveals the parallels: the growth of specialization, "big-business practices" (pooling of capital and reinvestment of profits; fringe benefits like bail money), and government practices (negotiated settlements and peace treaties, defined territories, fair-trade agreements).For too long we have, as a society, concerned ourselves only with superficial questions about organized crime. "Theft of the Nation" focuses on to a more profound and searching level. Of course, organized crime exists. Cressey not only establishes this fact, but proceeds to explore it rigorously and with penetration. One need not agree with everything Cressey writes to conclude that no one, after the publication of "Theft of the Nation", can be knowledgeable about organized crime without having read this book.

The Italian city-republics

Abstract: Introduction 1 The legacy of power Economic changes The nascent commune 2 The population Status and occupation Growth of the town New categories and class feeling 3 Government Origins of the commune Institutions The podesta Other officials Administration Church and state The presuppositions of government Citizenship 4 Town and country The contado Administration of the contado Immigration from the contado Tenurial change in the countryside The liberation of the serfs The feudal nobility 5 External relations The role of Empire and Papacy The conduct of diplomacy Military organization Patriotism 6 Civic spirit and the visual arts Palaces and piazzas Walls Fountains Church-building Town-planning Painting the city 7 Internal divisions Nobles and magnates The Popolo Other private city organizations Guelfs and Ghibellines The ideal of concord 8 The failure of the republics Feudal power The triumph of the Signoria 9 The historiography of the City-Republics Notes and references Bibliography Historical Gazetteer Index

The Grain Economy of Mamluk Egypt

Abstract: Scholarly studies of the economy of Egypt in the Middle Ages, from the Fdtimid through the Mamlik periods, have stressed two seemingly contradictory themes. On the one hand, the extraordinary involvement of the state in economic affairs is manifest. At different times, and in various ways, the ruling regimes of Egypt monopolized or strictly controlled certain primary or strategic products. Wood and metals, both domestic and imported, were strictly controlled to assure the availability of military supplies. Certain export products like natron were sometimes made state monopolies. So too products of unusual commercial importance were exploited, especially by the Mamliik Sultans, to gain monetary advantages. Sugar production, often in the hands of rulers and officials, was also, on occasion, a state monopoly. At another level, the state participated in economic activity it did not monopolize. Either the governing bureaus themselves, or elite members of the regime, were responsible for irrigation and other investments essential to agricultural productivity. In the trading sphere, though state-sponsored trading expeditions are unknown, state support for trade by treaty arrangements, by military and diplomatic protection, and direct participation in the form of investments placed with merchants were characteristic activities. How much of the capital of trade was "booty" or political capital we shall never know. In other spheres, state participation gave way to state controls for the purposes of taxation. Regulation of the movements of merchants, or the distribution of goods, facilitated taxation. For religious or moral reasons state controls also extended to the supervision, regulation, or prohibition of certain illicit trades. Finally, by a complex of controls, interventions, and regulations, the most important aspect of the Egyp-

Tocqueville in America

Abstract: Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America (1835) has become a touchstone for almost any discussion of the American polity. Taking as its topic the promise and shortcomings of the democratic form of government, Tocqueville's great work is at or near the root of such political truths as the litigiousness of American society, the danger of the "tyranny of the majority," the American belief in a small government that intrudes only minimally into the daily lives of the citizenry, and Americans' love of political debate. Democracy in America is the work of a 29-year-old nobleman who, with his friend Gustave de Beaumont, traveled the breadth of Jacksonian America to inquire into the future of French society as revolutionary upheaval gave way to a representative government similar to America's. In his magisterial Tocqueville in America, George Wilson Pierson reconstructs from diaries, letters, and newspaper accounts the two Frenchmen's nine-month tour and their evolving analysis of American society. We see Tocqueville near Detroit, noting the scattered settlement patterns of the frontier and the affinity of Americans for solitude; in Boston, witnessing the jury system at work; in Philadelphia, observing the suffocating moral regimen at the new Eastern State Prison (which still stands); and in New Orleans, disturbed by the racial caste system and the lassitude of the French-speaking population.

Political Matrix and Political Representation: Prolegomenon to a New Departure from an Old Problem

Abstract: Scholars interested in theorizing about political representation in terms relevant to democratic governance in mid-twentieth century America find themselves in a quandary. We are surrounded by functioning representative institutions, or at least by institutions formally described as representative. Individuals who presumably "represent" other citizens govern some 90 thousand different political units-they sit on school and special district boards, on township and city councils, on county directorates, on state and national assemblies, and so forth. But the flourishing activity of representation has not yet been matched by a sustained effort to explain what makes the representational process tick. Despite the proliferation of representative governments over the past century, theory about representation has not moved much beyond the eighteenth-century formulation of Edmund Burke. Certainly most empirical research has been cast in the Burkean vocabulary.' But in order to think in novel ways about representative government in the twentieth-century, we may have to admit that present conceptions guiding empirical research are obsolete. This in turn means that the spell of Burke's vocabulary over scientific work on representation must be broken.2 To look afresh at representation, it is neces-

Ends and Means in Political Control: State Organization and the Punishment of Adultery, Incest, and Violation of Celibacy1

Abstract: Political organization appears to be among the most important factors affecting formal (legal) sanctions for nonmarital coitus The correlations between prescribed capital punishment and nonmarital coitus in one type of nation are explored cross-culturally They suggest that there is no single attitude toward sexuality per se in these societies; instead the rules governing each type of nonmarital relationship are outgrowths of different relationships between controlling political bodies and local boundary systems These processes are observable diachronically and sync/ironically; they suggest a reinterpretation of the Protestant ethic, that it is a politically stimulated value system The data also suggest that rules governing nonmarital coitus need not conform to motivational patterns

The Role of Islam in the Political Development of Malaysia

Abstract: The concept of political development has been almost as widely accepted among social scientists who study the non-Western world as economic development has been accepted among contemporary economists. This chapter examines the changing role of Islam in Malaysia and to evaluate its impact upon the modernization of the political system. Government policies are more likely to support the traditional Islamic value system than to challenge it. In the traditional Malay political system, religion helped to symbolize the unity of the state. Malays exhibited strong parochial identity with their state, symbolized more by their sultan than by their religion. While the presence of Western traders and trading posts from the beginning of the sixteenth century on made some impact on Malay society, the most significant changes came only after the extension of a colonial administration over the Malay States. Islamic religious courts were established in each state to enforce Muslim and adat law.

China's Foreign Policy in Historical Perspective

Abstract: THE American breakthrough in studies of Communist China during the last decade, despite all the difficulties of study from a distance, has given us a new capacity to ap praise Peking's shifts of current policy. At the same time, our very success in understanding short-term developments tends to foreshorten our perspective, as though Chairman Mao's new China were actually as new as he so fervently exhorts it to be. If we ask the long-term question?What is China's tradition in foreign policy??our query may provoke two counter-questions: Did the Chinese empire ever have a conscious foreign policy? Even if it did, hasn't Mao's revolution wiped out any surviving tradition? To answer these questions is easy in theory, difficult in prac tice. Theoretically, since China has had two millennia of foreign relations (the longest record of any organized state), her be havior must have shown uniformities?attitudes, customs and, in effect, policies. In fact, however, the Chinese empire had no foreign office, and the dynastic record of "foreign policy" is fragmented under topics like border control, frontier trade, punitive expeditions, tribute embassies, imperial benevolence to foreign rulers and the like, so that it has seldom been pulled to gether and studied as an intelligible whole. Again, one may theorize that Maoism is only the latest effort to meet China's problems of national order and people's liveli hood on Chinese soil: the scene, the wherewithal, even the issues are largely inherited, and the violent shrillness of Mao's attack on Chinese tradition indicates to us how difficult he has found it to break free of that tradition. But for this very reason we cannot in practice look to Maoism for a realistic definition of China's foreign policy interests and aims over the centuries. Most of the record is simply condemned and brushed aside, except as parts of it may fit into current polemics. If Peking's foreign relations have left a still potent tradition, we have to discover it ourselves.

Prisoners of War: Does the Fight Continue After the Battle?

Abstract: Just beyond the state there is a kind of limbo, a strange world this side of the hell of war, whose members are deprived of the relative security of political or social membership. Different sorts of people live there, mostly for indefinite periods of time, people who have been expelled from their state or otherwise deprived of legal rights, people whose state has been defeated in war and occupied or who have been separated somehow from its jurisdiction. Among the residents, two groups endure conditions paradigmatic for all the others: refugees, deprived of their rights by persecution; and prisoners of war, separated from their state by captivity. The two are very different, since refugees are stateless persons, radically dependent on their hosts and unable to look backward to any protecting authority, while prisoners remain citizens still and receive such protection as their states can provide. However distant and isolated they may be from their home country, their captivity is (hopefully) temporary; both captives and captors may one day be required to account for their behavior. Nevertheless, prisoners and refugees belong alike to the limbo world. They cannot expect effective help from any organized society; they do not know when, if ever, they will be “at home” again; they are compelled to reconstruct or redefine their obligations without reference, or without clearcut reference, to authoritative laws and commands.

On Activism and Activists: Maoist Conceptions of Motivation and Political Role Linking State to Society

Abstract: Few behavioural attributes rank higher in the Chinese Communist system of values than that of activism (chi-chi-hsing). In apparent continuity with the Leninist tradition, the Chinese Communists have made the activist the archetype of their new political man, and a key operational figure in their system of political control. This analysis is an exploration of the Chinese Communist use of the concept of activism as a political value, and of the role that the activist plays in Party efforts to penetrate and control Chinese society.

Communal Self-Government and the King of the State of Arrapha1

Abstract: The cuneiform archives from the region of Arrapha throw light on the political and economic history of this country for the period of approximately one and a half century. The state in question had no particularly important stimulus for development. It was a small autonomous state adhering to a policy of non-interference in the fights for hegemony. The socio-economic structure of this state seems to have been able to function without radical changes, such as very often were unavoidable for the preservation of the existence of the fighting great powers. Nevertheless Arrapha too was plunged into war and had to struggle for existence when the armies of two neighbouring countries clashed on its territory 2). Thus, on the whole we can regard the socio-economic structure of Arrapha as a typical one for the period, and in no way out of the ordinary, although whenever a state of war emerges, this makes a certain difference for our analysis of the political pattern in question.

The purchase society: adaptation to economic frontiers*

Abstract: A sociocultural category, termed the Purchase Society, is proposed as a framework within which to analyze adaptations by simpler societies living on the economic frontiers of both agrarian and industrializing states. Unlike peasantry, purchase societies maintain their political autonomy and are not enmeshed in the political controls characteristic of agrarian states. Consequently, their involvement with a wider society is characterized not by coercive demands for payment of various rents to the state, but solely by engagement in trade or wage labor to obtain items of foreign manufacture which have become cultural necessities. In order to participate successfully in this wider economic network, internal socio-political and economic structures may adapt in any number of ways so as to facilitate the formation of outside economic ties.

Aspects of Political Ideas and Institutions in Ancient India

Abstract: It discusses different views on the origin and nature of the state in ancient India along with stages and processes of state formation. It also examines the relevance of caste and kin-based collectivises to the construction of polity developments of political organisation in relation to their changing social and economic background and how religion and rituals were brought in the service of the ruling class.

The creation of the Presidency, 1775-1789 : a study in constitutional history

Abstract: General Political Tendencies, 1776-1787 State Executive Power, 1776-1787 National Executive Power, 1776-1787 The Presidency in the Federal Convention The Presidency in the Federal Convention: Later Phases The Removal Debate Conclusions Index.

Democracy and Social Mobilization in Lebanese Politics

Abstract: Scholars and policy-makers frequently assume that the new states must develop stability before they can hope to operate the complex and delicate institutions of liberal democracy. But in the case of the Lebanese Republic this relationship is reversed: democratic institutions have brought about and maintained stability in an unfavorable political environment. The Lebanese case suggests that formal institutions, although neglected in behavioral political science, deserve renewed attention as causal agents in the process of political modernization.1 At the same time, it raises the question of whether such institutions can supply enough systematic flexibility to meet the social mobilization demands of a rapidly changing society. Lebanon's fragmented body politic-its traditional pluralism-has necessitated a political system based upon the balance of power, in the absence of positive legitimacy for the institutions of the state. In turn, the balance of power has required institutions that promote democratic values. Without the democratic institutions the balance of power would cease to be stable, and without stability the state would cease to exist. Lebanon's representative institutions are an essential condition of its stability, not a lucky byproduct. This relationship, of course, has not gone unnoticed by Lebanon's politicians. In his inaugural address of September 23, 1964, President Charles Helou said: "I believe that the democratic system is an intrinsic necessity for our country.... It assures a balance between powers and makes possible a fruitful meeting among the Lebanese spiritual families. Thus their energies are activated within the democratic foundations, and their needs are met within a framework of brotherly cooperation. Rule is consultative, and the consultative system in Lebanon is one of the conditions of cooperative and stable life."2 This situation, however, is no cause for unrestrained optimism on the part of advocates of moderate democracy. First, the Lebanese system is democratic only in a limited sense. Second, modernization creates a dilemma for this balance-of-power system because it burdens a weak governmental

Myths of Hemispheric, Continental, Regional, and State Unity

Abstract: One of the more enduring and consequential myths of human relations is the assumption that groups who dwell on a single land mass share certain common interests and traits because of that territorial contiguity, even though the groups in question may be separated by great distances.1 An illustration of this phenomenon is offered by the phrase popularly ascribed to United States relations with Latin America in the post-1933 period, "the Good Neighbor Policy." By the term "neighbor," U.S. leaders were obviously implying the existence of a special relationship based upon a concept of relative proximity. Among the neighbors were the so-called "ABC" states of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. Beyond the pale of the neighborhood were such states as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Liberia, and the U.S.S.R. Yet, in navigable distances, each of these states was closer to the United States than was any of the "ABC" group.2 Con-

The New Deal and the States

Abstract: WHILE a rough consensus may be developing concerning the aims and philosophy of the New Deal, only controversy surrounds the question of its effect on the states One group speaks of the "new federalism" of Franklin D Roosevelt-a potentially cooperative relationship enriched by matching grants and mutual advantage Conservatives, however, have talked of a Leviathan state "We are all beginning to look to Uncle Sam to be Santa Claus," one Democratic governor complained in 1935 "I think the toughest problem that we as Governors have is to stay away from it if we can " And liberals, reflecting a third view, have maintained that the New Deal failed to pull the states out of an entrenched and miasmatic conservatism "Since I930," a critic has remarked, "state government has dismally failed to meet responsibilities and obligations in every field The federal government has not encroached on state government State government has defaulted"1 Although scholars are only beginning to test these viewpoints, a wealth of evidence exists with which to attempt a synthesis Two questions especially need more study To what extent did state politics and services change from I933 to I945? To what extent were these changes or lack of changes the result of the New Deal? In many ways state government appeared to change dramatically in the 1930's States seemed willing to spend more for positive purposes, disbursing some $2,000,000,00000 in I927 and between $2,800,000,00000 and $3,400,ooo,ooooo annually from I932 through I934 When economic conditions improved after I935, the rise in state spending was considerable-to $4,600,ooo,ooooo in 1938 and to $5,200,000,00000 in 1940 State legislators, perhaps, were at last recognizing the need to provide costly services2 Much of

On the Politics of Nationalism and Social Change in Ghana

Abstract: There has been a high level of debate over critical features of politics in Ghana during the Nkrumah period, for example, on the role of ethnicity, the mass party, authoritarian rule, and strategies of economic development. This review of studies of Ghanaian politics focuses on the treatment devoted to only a few areas of political inquiry: (1) the nature of the socio-economic, political, and territorial framework within which political action occurred; (2) the kinds of political structures which developed in Ghana, with primary attention to parties and the party—state relationship but also to certain state structures—for example, the civil service and national assembly; and (3) the types of political demands which were made upon the system, how they entered the system, the capability of the system in terms of these demands, and the degrees of legitimacy and institutionalisation of political roles, structures, or processes involved.

The Geography of Federal Grants-in-Aid to States

Abstract: 1 There have been a number of recent books and articles on federalism and on the political and economic programs of the government: W. Anderson: The Nation and States, Rivals or Partners? (Minneapolis, 1955); J. F. Due: Government Finance (Homewood, Illinois, 1959); M. Grodzins: American Political Parties and the American System, Western Polit. Quart., Vol. 13, 1960, pp. 974-988; T. R. Dye: Politics, Economics, and the Public: Policy Outcomes in the American States (Chicago, 1966); D. J. Elazar: American Federalism: A View From the States (New York, 1966); W. Heller: New Dimensions of Political Economy (Cambridge, Mass., 1966); and S. J. Mushkin and R. F. Adams: Emerging Patterns of Federalism, Natl. Tax Jour., Vol. 19, 1966, pp. 225-247. schemes.2 Most of this was for highways, agriculture, public welfare, national guard, and education programs (Table I). Grants to states have been increasing about 4 per cent per year since 1960; in fact, from 1956 to 1965 there was an increase of 198 per cent. Also the amount of aid per capita has changed markedly in recent years. In 1927 the aid was $2 per person, in 1948 only $9, and in 1965 it was $79 per capita. In FY 1965 the total per capita grants received by the states exhibited a wide range, from a high of $269 per capita in North Dakota to only $42 in New Jersey (Fig. 1). In theory the major reason for the federal government supporting state programs is to place all states on somewhat of an equal level with regard to certain federal objectives.3 But this "equal treatment for equals" concept

Why Government Cannot Solve the Urban Problem.

Abstract: I sHALL argue, first, that all of the serious problems of the cities are largely insoluble now and will be for the foreseeable future and, second, that insofar as it is open to government (federal, state, and local) to affect the situation, it tends to behave perversely-that is, not to do the things that would make it better, but instead to do those that will make it worse. These two arguments prepare the way for the question with which I shall be mainly concerned: What is there about our politics that accounts for this perversity?