Showing papers on "State (polity) published in 1975"

American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia

Abstract: In this study of the tragic contradiction at the heart of America, Edward Morgan looks for answers in the people and politics of Virginia - a state that was both the birthplace of the revolution and the largest slaveholding state in the country.

The citizen and the State: Essays on regulation

Abstract: ENERGY: THE POLICY ISSUES Edited and with a Foreword by Gary D. Eppen With a Preface by Harold S. Geneen Eminent scholars from a number of fields discuss the major themes of American energy policy. Among the topics covered are federal regulation of petroleum prices, the natural gas industry, and ecological abuse in energy production. Published under the auspices of The Journal of Business 1975 Cloth $9.50 September

Theses on the Theory of the State

Abstract: Although important Marxist contributions to the long neglected problem of the state have recently begun to appear, these have often failed to keep pace with the increasing dislocation and crisis of the capitalist state itself. I While Miliband's study has taken into account changes in the nature of the ruling class, the absence of a theoretical approach to the social function and organization of the state limits his work to a redirection of the notion of a 'plurality of elites' into a theory of the influence of the ruling class. At the same time, Nicos Poulantzas' notion of the state as an autonomous structure, paralleling the structure of the dominant class, is impaired by structuralist blinders to the extent that it fails to take into consideration either the historical character of the state as a changing entity, or its concrete empirical character within the social totality. In contrast to these approaches, Claus Offe, whose work has received less attention in the U.S., has consistently attempted to relate analytical categories of the structure and function of the state to historical changes in the nature of advanced capitalist society, while paying close attention to the empirical characteristics of state activity. His essays have therefore exhibited remarkable development as well as sophistication, while maintaining a close relationship to concrete political changes. In his 1972 book, Strukturprobleme des kapitalistischen Staates (Structural Problems of the Capitalist State), Offe argued, in explicit contrast to political theories that maintained that the state had produced a crisis-free stabilization and integration of advanced capitalist society, that precisely the expanded function of the state was itself the source of dysfunction and crisis. If the efforts of the state to 'repoliticize' sectors of the private economic sphere had reduced the danger of economic crises injurious to the system, they also result in a rupture between sectors of society "controlled administratively" and those dominated by the realization of value, thereby producing structural contradictions between stabilizing mechanisms and economic accumulation, ultimately leading to fiscal crises

The Religious Origins of the French Revolution: From Calvin to the Civil Constitution, 1560-1791

Abstract: Although the French Revolution is associated with efforts to dechristianize the French state and citizens, it actually had long-term religious-even Christian-origins, claims Dale Van Kley in this controversial new book. Looking back at the two and a half centuries that preceded the revolution, Van Kley explores the diverse, often warring religious strands that influenced political events up to the revolution. Van Kley draws on a wealth of primary sources to show that French royal absolutism was first a product and then a casualty of religious conflict. On the one hand, the religious civil wars of the sixteenth century between the Calvinist and Catholic internationals gave rise to Bourbon divine-right absolutism in the seventeenth century. On the other hand, Jansenist-related religious conflicts in the eighteenth century helped to "desacralize" the monarchy and along with it the French Catholic clergy, which was closely identified with Bourbon absolutism. The religious conflicts of the eighteenth century also made a more direct contribution to the revolution, for they left a legacy of protopolitical and ideological parties (such as the Patriot party, a successor to the Jansenist party), whose rhetoric affected the content of revolutionary as well as counterrevolutionary political culture. Even in its dechristianizing phase, says Van Kley, revolutionary political culture was considerably more indebted to varieties of French Catholicism than it realized.

A Theory of Public Bureaucracy: Politics, Personality, and Organization in the State Department

Abstract: Based mainly on State Department materials, but addressing generic problems of organizational politics as well, this book provides a fresh, intelligent, and lively account of bureaucratic behavior.

The Effect of Right-to-Work Laws on Unionization in the United States

Abstract: State right-to-work laws, the subject of considerable controversy in the industrial relations field, typically state that no person will be required to become a union member or, conversely, be required to abstain from union membership as a condition of obtaining or retaining employment. Little hard evidence exists on the effect of right-to-work laws. Meyers (1955) concludes that in Texas the law does not appear to have had a noticeable impact on union strength. Kuhlman (1955) finds that the Virginia law has caused little change in hiring practices, and he cites lack of enforcement as a major cause. Novit (1969), in examining Indiana as the only state to pass a right-to-work law and subsequently repeal it, argues that the law was ineffective because unions found ways to circumvent its restrictions. During the period 1957-65 when the law was in force in Indiana, there was a dramatic increase in the agency shop which allows nonunion workers but which requires all employees to pay union dues. A Fortune (1957) survey of employers and union leaders in states with right-to-work laws concluded that the laws had little effect on overall union strength. In many states the laws were not being enforced, and in some instances employers were unwilling or unable to avoid de facto union shops. For example, in Arizona it was reported that the

Regulation in America

Abstract: Professor McCraw surveys the state of the art of understanding regulatory commissions in American history, evaluating the relevant literature in history, economics, political science, and law.

Variations in Elite Perceptions of American States as Referents for Public Policy Making

Abstract: * Constructive criticisms of earlier drafts of this paper were provided by Professors Jack Walker and Richard I. Hofferbert, University of Michigan, and by Professor Stephen Zwerling, University of Connecticut. We are grateful for their comments. In addition, we are indebted to Professors William F. Lott and Stephen M. Miller, Department of Economics, University of Connecticut, for their assistance in calculating Gini ratios. The research was supported in part by the Graduate Council, Louisiana State University, and the University of Connecticut Research Foundation. The computer analysis in this study was performed on the University of Connecticut's IBM 360-65, which is supported in part by the National Science Foundation, Grant Number GJ-9. ' The first published account of the interrelationships between political party competition, socioeconomic characteristics, and state public policy outputs was Richard E. Dawson and James A. Robinson, "InterParty Competition, Economic Variables, and Welfare Policies in the American States," Journal of Politics, 25 (May, 1963), 265-289. Other studies which emphasize the role of economic variables in determining state spending include Richard I. Hofferbert, "The Relation Between Public Policy and Some Structural and Environmental Variables in the American States," American Political Science Review, 60 (March, 1966), 73-82; and Thomas R. Dye, Politics, Economics, and the Public: Policy Outcomes in the American States (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966). Publications placing greater emphasis on the impact of political variables on state spending include Ira Sharkansky, "Economic Development, Regionalism and State Political Systems," Midwest Journal of Political Science, 12 (February, 1968), 41-61; Ira Sharkansky, Spending in the American States (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1968); and Andrew T. Cowart, "Anti-Poverty Expenditures in the American States: A Comparative Analysis," Midwest Journal of Political Science, 13 (May, 1969), 219-236. For a review of these and many other related works, see John H. Fenton and Donald W. Chamberlayne, "The Literature Dealing With the Relationships Between Political Processes, Socioeconomic Conditions and Public Policies in the American States: A Bibliographical Essay," Polity, 1 (Spring, 1969), 388-404; and James W. Dyson and Douglas St. Angelo, "Persistent Methodological and Theoretical Problems in Analysis of Policy Outputs," paper presented at the results of this research generally cast doubt on the importance of political factors in the determination of state policy; social and economic indicators accounted for most of the attributable variance in the levels of public expenditures in the states. This "seemingly outrageous description of state politics"2 led to more elaborate conceptualization and increasingly sophisticated data analysis. Even with improved methodologies, however, much of the variance in state spending remains unexplained.3 Missing from the state spending studies is the contribution m ide by elected and appointed officials to the formation of public policy in those states. One effort to provide an elite and organizational behavior context for the study of state

China's Imperial Past : An Introduction to Chinese History and Culture

Abstract: Introduction Part I. The formative age, prehistory-206 BC 1. General history 2. State and society 3. Thought 34. Literature and art Part II. The Early Empire, 206 BC-AD 960: 5. General history 6. Government 7. Society and the economy 8. Thought 9. Literature and art Part III. The Later Empire, 960-1850: 10. General history 11. Government 12. Society and the economy 13. Thought 14. Literature and art Epilogue.

Canada's war: The politics of the Mackenzie King government, 1939-1945

Abstract: Canada was still a young nation when the Second World War broke out. The transition from colony to autonomous state had been speeded up somewhat by the First World War; it was during the Second that the process was completed, as Canada developed from semi-autonomy to genuine nationhood. In this study, J.L. Granatstein explores the development of Canadian nationalism during its second stage. The central role was played by Mackenzie King, the political leader who ran the war effort and shaped it. Granatstein examines the way King and his government grappled with the political, financial, economic, and racial issues of the time. King was very much in charge, and if he must assume the blame for his errors, he similarly must receive some of the credit for his and the country's achievements. Not the least of these was that Canada,which had entered the war with some colonial ties to Britain intact, came out of it as a fully independent nation.

Leviathan Writ Small: Thomas Hobbes on the Family

Abstract: Though not above an occasional appeal to the “experience of fathers,” Hobbes was not a patriarchalist in his view of the family. Rather, he quite deliberately represented the family as a small Leviathan, and he used it to illustrate the principles of Hobbesian political science. In the family, as in the state, there is a mutual relationship between protection and obedience; sovereignty is undivided, based on necessity, and justified by performance; authority is absolute and derives from consent. In the state of nature, Hobbes views the family in structure and function as a small state. In commonwealth, the family sovereign relinquishes his absolute power over wife, servant, and child, but he is still entitled to obedience and honor for having raised and educated his children. The content of family education consists of the principles of Hobbesian political science, and the children thereby are properly receptive to sovereign power as they leave the family, whether for the university or for independence.Hobbes's conception of the family is derived from the patria potestas of republican Rome, and not from common law. His use of the family is fully integrated with his political theory, and it is designed to reinforce both the theory and practice of Leviathan.

Ideology and the State

Abstract: ‘The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie’. This famous remark of Marx and Engels (1958: 36) is an essential starting point for any analysis of the role of the state in industrial relations; but it is only a starting point. Marx insisted on the need to fight for democratic political institutions, but was equally insistent that political democracy could not be properly achieved without economic and social democracy. A class which held economic sway in a society could not coexist with genuine popular control of the state, for if it did not subvert democracy then it would be dispossessed. There is no simple ‘Marxist theory of the state’; but central to all that Marx and Engels wrote is the argument that the state has historically always served class interests, and necessarily so.1 The elaboration of state institutions has been closely associated with the development of antagonistic class interests, and their functions have always included the reinforcement of the system of class rule enshrined in the existing social order by suppressing acts of resistance and revolt by subordinate classes.

The Initiative: a Comparative State Analysis and Reassessment of a Western Phenomenon

Abstract: T THE beginning of the twentieth century the United States was swept by the Progressive Reform Movement. As historian Leland Baldwin describes it, "No city or state was without its would-be reformerssometimes practical idealists, sometimes disgruntled politicians or business elements seeking to overthrow the old regime, sometimes aspiring young men ready to seize any entree to power and pelf." 1 And, unlike the earlier Populist Movement which had been largely western, southern, and rural in orientation, the Progressive Reform Movement was more national in scope and to a varying extent middle-class in mentality.2 However, clearly, the Progressive Movement had its greatest influence and longest lasting impact far from the population centers of the East in the agrarian, formerly Populist sections of the interior, southern and particularly, western portions of the United States. In these areas Progressives worked hard for and achieved a host of political and social refonrs.

Studies in the colonial history of Spanish America

Abstract: 1. The Conquistadors and the Rewards of Conquest Bands of warriors in the Reconquest of Spain 2. The Spanish Empire in the Indies: from Christendom to the System of Nation States 3. The Institutions and Founding Ideas of the Spanish State in the Indies 4. Trends in Colonial History and Changes in the Founding 5. The Enlightenment, Enlightened Despotism and the Ideological Crisis in the Colonies 6. The New World in Eschatological and Utopian Writings of the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries 7. The Problem of Periodisation of Post-Columbian History.

The Memoirs of N. Batzaria: The Young Turks and Nationalism

Abstract: The most important and undoubtedly the most fateful period in Ottoman history is the Young Turk or Union and Progress era in 1908-18. The final disintegration of the Ottoman empire, the rise of independent states in the Middle East, the intensification of conflicts over Macedonia, the full emergence of Turkish and Arab nationalisms, the start of the Muslim anti-imperialist mobilization through struggle in Libya in 1911, and other events of vital importance in the social and political history of the area occurred during the Young Turk era. It was a historical watershed which marked simultaneously the end of an imperial form of political organization in the Middle East and the beginning of a new political existence in the form of national states. The Young Turks affected profoundly the course of history among the peoples of the Middle East and the Balkans. Moreover the Young Turks were the first group in the Ottoman state to approach the social, political, and cultural transformation of their society in the spirit of modern politics. Yet the Young Turks remain the least studied and understood and the most distortedly portrayed power group in the history of the Balkans and the Middle East.' Most of the existing works on the Young Turks, consisting mainly of memoirs, were written by their authors to credit themselves with political roles and achievements which did not always correspond to reality. A very general inventory of the main works on the Young Turks may help illustrate the points raised above and place in proper perspective a new source on the Young Turk era, the work that is the chief topic of this article. The major works in Turkish on this subject,2 which served as a source of information for other studies, are by Ahmet Bedevi Kuran, Inkildp Tarihimiz ve Jn Tiirkler (1945), Inkildp Tarihimiz ve Ittihad ve Terakki (1948), and Osmanh Imparatorlugunda Inkildp Hareketleri ve Milli Miicadele (1959), the last being based

What is Violence

Abstract: In The Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels expressed the view that "the epoch of the bourgeoisie", by contrast with earlier stages in human history, had "simplified class antagonisms", with the result that "Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat" One reason for this, they suggested, was that capitalism had had the effect of stripping away the various ideological veils, religious and secular, by which exploitation and oppression had normally been both concealed and justified, and had "left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous 'cash payment'" They summed up this process of de-mystification as follows: "In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation" We do not need to assume that this represents the most central, or the most considered view on the subject expressed by Marx and/or Engels to recognise that this particular expectation as to the character of class conflict within capitalist society has not been fulfilled Capitalist exploitation is not uniquely naked and unveiled Ideology, bourgeois ideology, continues to play a quite decisive role in disguising and blurring class conflicts, and sustaining the claims to legitimacy made by the state and its agencies in capitalist society

Mexico: the Limits of State Autonomy:

Abstract: The predominant role of the state in advanced capitalist societies as well as so-called third world countries has been evident in recent contemporary Marxist literature (Miliband, 1969; Murray, 1971; O'Connor, 1973; Warren, 1972; Quijano, 1972; Ianni, 1974; Pompermayer and Smith, 1973; also the journal Kapitalistate, and the Winter 1974 issue of Politics and Society). There is considerable disagreement among these studies with respect to such questions as the social basis of the state, the distinction between class power and state power, the mechanisms of class-state interaction, and the relative autonomy of the state (particularly in post-colonial societies) and its consequent role in shaping the social formation which emerges. Rather than discussing these differences, which have been analyzed and debated elsewhere (for example, Miliband, 1969; Poulantzas, 1969, and Miliband, 1973; Wolfe,1974; Sardei-Biermann et. al., 1973; Alavi, 1972 and Girling, 1973), the following article proposes to draw upon them in an attempt to construct a generalized model of the state in advanced capitalist and dependent societies. This model will in turn serve as a basis for examining the interpretations of the state which emerged from the Mexican revolution of 1910-1917 and particularly the conceptualization of the autonomous state which appeared to guide the program of the Cardenas government (1934-1940). An examination of the state in Mexico must take into account the apparent paradox of the Mexican revolution and of Mexico's subsequent development. As stated by Roger Hanson: in no major Latin American country has the government done more for the new industrial, commercial, and agricultural elite, nor less for the lowest 25 percent of society -despite Mexico's being the only Latin American country to undergo a profound social revolution during the first half of this century (1971: 87-88). An important element of this revolution was a conceptualization of the state as an autonomous entity which would utilize its power on behalf of the downtrodden groups and classes of Mexico a conceptualization which was to some extent realized in the administration of Lazaro Cardenas during the 1930s. It is a tentative proposition of this study that the contradictions inherent in this conceptualization of the state, and in its attempted realization within the context of a dependent, incipiently capitalist system, explain at least in part the divergence of the present system from that contemplated in the ideology of the revolution and the program of the Cardenas administration.

Independent Development of Israeli Law

Abstract: It is not always easy to decide when we must turn to English law. And once it has been determined that reference to English law is appropriate, there is the further question of the substance and application of principles drawn from English law. In such case, English law forms part of the local law, and need not be ascertained as required by the rules of private international law in respect of foreign law.This makes the local law directly dependent upon English case-law, which itself is constantly being renewed and developed. Such dependence may seem to impair the independence of the Israeli legal system. The question could not, of course, be raised during the Mandatory period at a time when there existed a possibility of appeal from the Mandatory Supreme Court to the Privy Council in Westminster. But after the establishment of the State Cheshin J. said: It is unthinkable that a sovereign nation with its own laws and its own legal system would continue to be subject to the authority of a foreign nation's legal system and to changes in rulings which are likely to be introduced in her courts, only because in the past, when there was a strong tie between the two nations, the former drew from the legal system of the latter.

The Systemic Power

Abstract: World events in recent years increasingly reveal that some of the concepts designed to explain international affairs are no longer operational. The East-West conflictual relationship defined in ideological terms (on both sides) could hardly help us understand President de Gaulle's shoutings against 'American-Soviet hegemony' and the harsh Sino-Soviet polemics; nor could one explain in such terms the joint Soviet-American nuclear treaties or the official Chinese statement at the U.N. that the People's Republic of China belongs to the Third World. The other predominant school the power theorists were startled last winter when a number of backward kingdoms and sheikdoms, surviving from another age, carried out an oil embargo that shook some of the rich and powerful metropoles to their very foundations. And how can one account, in terms of bipolar or pentagonal world models, for the estimation that in the next decade the oil exporting countries will accumulate over half a trillion dollars, which would actually mean control over the bulk of the liquid capital available in the whole world? Indeed, we must think anew and formulate new concepts that would allow us to understand the meaning of these unprecedented phenomena and to see where they take us. It is the assumption of this study that in a shrinking world, with its national units more and more interdependent and caught in a dense network of mutual relations, multiple interaction and crosscutting coalitions, a new type of power is emerging, utterly different from the existing structural one embodied in the nation-state: the systemic power. To start with, let us keep in mind that in international politics there is no center of authority and power, like the state in internal politics, and that this vacuum has been filled throughout history by various formulae of centralization of power supposed to perform, in the international arena, the ordermaintaining and integration functions of the state inside society. While in the old times vacuum generated hegemonal powers (Pax Romana, Pax Britannica) or balance-ofpower schemes (Concert of Europe), after World War II most analysts used the bipolar model with the two superpowers, the US and USSR, then the triangular model (including China in the big game), and more recently the pentagonal model (adding Western Europe and Japan). What is the meaning of this latest diplomatic balance in which one center of power, Japan, though a global eceonomic power, has no significant military force, and another, Western Europe, is a loose union of nine states with a certain degree of economic integration in the EEC and a military force that is neither independent nor sufficiently strong to counter the superpowers in the global strategic game? Apparently, the changes that have taken place in world politics have affected not only the relationship of forces between the major actors, but the dynamics of power itself, in the sense that the relative weight of the military component of power has been reduced in favor of the economic, technological and politico-diplomatic components that have grown accordingly. This is not to say that force will be eliminated from the attributes of power; in spite of its setbacks

Reliance on Formal Written Law, and Freedom and Social Control in the United States and the People's Republic of China

Abstract: The use of formal written law is highly developed in the United States (U.S.). Agents of the state publish innumerable substantive rules as to how people shall and shall not act, and procedural rules as to how agents of the state shall react to transgressions of the substantive rules. This rule-making, and the tradition that the rules generally can be expected to be followed both by citizens and by agents of the state, form the basis of an American strategy of social control. In the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.), agents of the state have promulgated few substantive rules, and it has been established that agents of the state are not found to follow the relatively few written rules as to how they are to respond to citizens' acts.l In the latter society today, it is rare to find someone 'punished according to law'. In the U.S., such punishment is frequently declared to have been given. Four hundred thousand Americans have been specially trained (as attorneys) to apply the written law to particular cases, while today in the P.R.C. there are no lawyers to speak of. In the U.S., the practical absence of utilized formal written law is generally seen as a fearsome prospect.2 On the one hand, the prospect is that of a breakdown of social order, of rampant social conflict, of anarchy. On the other hand, the prospect is that of totalitarian state restriction of citizens' actions, of unfettered social control. Obviously, the prospect is paradoxical. Conversely, reliance on a formal written law is seen to restrict both each citizen's freedom to act uncontrolled by the demands of others and others' freedom to control each citizen's freedom of action. This view is also paradoxical. Each notion implies that citizens' freedom from control by agents of the state co-varies directly with state agents' control of citizens' freedom of action. The paradoxes are eliminated only by making logically tenable the possi-

Precolonial African Diplomacy: The Example of Asante

Abstract: In Africa during the precolonial period several groups of states maintained relationships with one another in time of peace at an official level and on a more or less regular basis. Sometimes the member states of these groups had once belonged to the same empire, as was the case in parts of the Upper Niger, in Senegambia, and in the interlacustrine region of East Africa. Sometimes their relationship was based on rivalry at a distance, as with Dahomey and Asante; sometimes on conquest, as with Dahomey and Oyo; and sometimes on common ancestry and traditions, as with the Yoruba and Fante states, or the kingdoms of the Mossi-Dagomba complex, or the Luba-Lunda states. But however their mutual relationships originated, official contact between these states seems to have been maintained by methods and procedures which historians of the non-African world describe as diplomatic. According to one well-known definition, diplomacy is "the conduct of business between states by peaceful means."1 If so, then precolonial Africa was no stranger to diplomacy or the diplomatic arts. In Africa before the imperial period, moreover, the subject matter of international relations-what was discussed and decided-seems to have been much the same as in other areas of the world. Treaties were negotiated, frontiers (of trade and authority more often than of territory) were delimited, past disputes were settled, and potential crises argued away. The means employed to achieve these results included the sending of embassies, both ad hoc and semipermanent,2 present giving and receiving, and the use of regular courier services. The principle was widely accepted that the representatives of one state or

The United States and the Third World: A Basis for Accommodation

Abstract: THE United States has passed in the last decade from the United Nation's most influential state into a position of accelerating isolation as it confronts a very large proportion of the member states over a long agenda of contemporary issues. This is a truly novel development, one which threatens to poison international relations at a time that shrieks with the need for uniquely broad essays in interna tional cooperation. Three issues shape what may be called the North-South confronta tion. One is the question of how global income and wealth and deci sion-making authority with respect to international economic prob lems should be distributed. A second issue is the attitude of the United States toward the two white-supremacist regimes in Southern Africa. And the third is the U.S. role in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Although each issue represents a distinct axis of confrontation, they are linked by a single world view, a kind of ideology, which imparts to them an in tense emotional coherence. That ideology is not, as suggested recently by Ambassador Moynihan, "socialist," unless one follows Durkheim in defining socialism not as a political program but rather as "a cry of pain." It does indeed incorporate certain themes which recur in British socialist thought, just as it patches in a number of convention ally liberal ideals such as self-determination. But socialist and liberal fragments are reshaped by a special historical experience to produce in practice a distinct amalgam which can most usefully be described as the developing states in fact describe it: "anticolonialism."