Showing papers on "State (polity) published in 1986"

The art of political manipulation

Abstract: In twelve entertaining stories from history and current events, a noted political scientist and game theorist shows us how some of our heroes we as well as ordinary folk have manipulated their opponents in order to win political advantage. The stories come from many times and places, because manipulation of people by other people is universal: from the Roman Senate through the Constitutional Convention of 1787, to the Congress, state legislatures, and city councils of twentieth-century America. The results of manipulation are not trivial, as we see, for example, in Riker's account of Lincoln's outmaneuvering of Douglas in their debates and in his description of the parliamentary trick that defeated the Equal Rights Amendment only six years ago in the Virginia Senate. The tales can be enjoyed by anyone. For the scholar, they are held together by a concluding chapter in which Riker discusses the feature of politics that all of the manipulators exploited and sketches out the new political theory that explains why manipulation works the way it does. Preface Lincoln at Freeport Chauncey DePew and the Seventeenth Amendment The Flying Club Gouverneur Morris in the Philadelphia Convention Heresthetic in Fiction Camouflaging the Gerrymander Pliny the Younger on Parliamentary Law Trading Votes at the Constitutional Convention How to Win on a Roll Call by Not Voting Warren Magnuson and Nerve Gas Exploiting the Powell Amendment Reed and Cannon Conclusion "A useful and entertaining informal essay on political tactics that will have direct utility in the classroom."-Douglas W. Rae, Yale University William H. Riker is Wilson Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester and a former president of the American Political Science Association. He is the author of numerous books, including Theory of Political Coalitions, a classic in the field.

On the Political Construction of Tradition: Gotong Royong in Indonesia

Abstract: The idea of “mutual assistance” (gotong royong) in Indonesia has been the basis for political discourse concerning the nature of authority, the characteristics of village society, and the legitimacy of demands for labor by the state. This article traces the way in which both changing political ideologies and state-village relations have been mediated by the term gotong royong, and suggests that its multiple meanings have been central to its semantic, political, and economic roles. Local interpretations of national doctrine and reactions to state policy are examined in two cases: East Java and Gayo (Aceh). The wide variety of local strategies is perceived as depending on preexisting political traditions and power relations vis-a-vis the state.

To Run a Constitution: The Legitimacy of the Administrative State

Abstract: In 1887, the centennial year of the American Constitution, Woodrow Wilson wrote that "it is getting to be harder to run a constitution than to frame one." The context for Wilson's comment was an essay calling for sound principles of administration that would enable government officials to "run" a constitution well. Wilson and his fellow civil-service reformers had a profound influence on the development of American administrative institutions. Unfortunately, the reformers paid more attention to the exigencies of running a constitution than to the Constitution itself. They and their intellectual progeny developed a theory of administration that was at odds with the theory of the Constitution. As a result, we find ourselves living today in what we often call an "administrative state" a state seemingly bereft of legitimating principles grounded in the political thought of the framers of the Constitution. In "To Run a Constitution," John A. Rohr takes seriously two basic premises: d Tocqueville's belief that citizens are corrupted by ebeying powers they believe to be illegitimate, and the view that, despite present political sentiment, the administrative state is here to stay. The book focuses on the important question of whether the administrative state, an abiding presence in American politics, can be justified in terms of the American constitutional tradition. In addressing this question, Rohr goes beyond considerations of case law to examine the principles of the Constitution both at its founding and in its subsequent development. Reying on the normative character of political "foundings," Rohr analyzes three significant founding periods: 1) the founding of the Republic, 1787-1795; 2) the foundin of public administration, 1883-1899; and 3) the founding of the administrative state, 1933-1941. He judges the last two foundings by the first in developing his argument that the modern administrative state can be justified in terms of the kind of government the framers of the Constitution envisaged. On the eve of the bicentennial of the Constitution, Rohr's argument advances a new, normative theory of public administration that is intended to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States," in accordance with the oath of office taken by public administrators. It is critical reading for scholars in the fields of public administration, political science, and constitutional studies."

Hobbesian moral and political theory

Abstract: In recent years serious attempts have been made to systematize and develop the moral and political themes of great philosophers of the past. Kant, Locke, Marx, and the classical utilitarians all have their current defenders and arc taken seriously as expositors of sound moral and political views. It is the aim of this book to introduce Hobbes into this select group by presenting a plausible moral and political theory inspired by Leviathan. Using the techniques of analytic philosophy and elementary game theory, the author develops a Hobbesian argument that justifies the liberal State and reconciles the rights and interests of rational individuals with their obligations.Hobbes's case against anarchy, based on his notorious claim that life outside the political State would be a "war of all against all," is analyzed in detail, while his endorsement of the absolutist State is traced to certain false hypotheses about political sociology. With these eliminated, Hobbes's principles support a liberal redistributive (or "satisfactory") State and a limited right of revolution. Turning to normative issues, the book explains Hobbes's account of morality based on enlightened self-interest and shows how the Hobbesian version of social contract theory justifies the political obligations of citizens of satisfactory States.

Empire by Invitation? The United States and Western Europe, 1945-1952

Abstract: The article attempts to substantiate two related arguments. First, that the American expansion was really more striking than the Soviet one in the first years after the Second World War. While America's influence could be strongly felt in most corners of the world, the Soviet Union counted for little outside its border areas, however vast these border areas. The article looks briefly at the increased American role in Asia and Africa, but the emphasis is on the dramatic change in the American-Western European relationship. Second, if this American expansion created what we could call an American empire, this was to a large extent an empire by invitation. Unlike the Soviet Union, which frequently had to rely on force to further its interests, the United States possessed an arsenal of diverse instruments. In fact, the United States was often invited to play a more active role. The article goes into some detail on the nature of Western Europe's economic and military invitations to Washington. The author's tentative finding is that this invitational attitude of most Western European governments was often shared by public opinion in the countries concerned. The article also argues that this state of American empire only lasted approximately 30 years. In the 1970s, the US lead over other powers had declined both militarily and, particularly important, economically. The American-European relationship had to be redefined. Many European governments still invited the United States to play an active role, but these invitations were much more ambiguous now than in the first two decades after the world war. Finally, the author hypothesizes that the American decline was in part caused by the expenses involved in maintaining the American empire.

Underdevelopment is a State of Mind: The Latin American Case.

Abstract: An examination of Latin America's rocky development as a cultural, rather than colonial byproduct. In a new introduction Harrison explores the political and economic shifts that have occurred over the past 15 years.

The German Conception of History: The National Tradition of Historical Thought from Herder to the Present

Abstract: This is the first comprehensive critical examination in any language of the German national tradition of historiography. It analyzes the basic theoretical assumptions of the German historians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and relates these assumptions to political thought and action. The German national tradition of historiography had its beginnings in the reaction against the Enlightenment and the French Revolution of 1789. This historiography rejected the rationalistic theory of natural law as universally valid and held that all human values must be understood within the context of the historical flux. But it maintained at the same time the Lutheran doctrine that existing political institutions had a rational basis in the will of God, though only a few of these historians were unqualified conservatives. Most argued for liberal institutions within the authoritarian state, but considered that constitutional liberties had to be subordinated to foreign policy a subordination that was to have tragic results. Mr. Iggers first defines Historismus or historicism and analyzes its origins. Then he traces the transformation of German historical thought from Herder s cosmopolitan culture-oriented nationalism to exclusive state-centered nationalism of the War of Liberation and of national unification. He considers the development of historicism in the writings of such thinkers as von Humboldt, Ranke, Dilthey, Max Weber, Troeltsch, and Meinecke; and he discusses the radicalization and ultimate disintegration of the historicist position, showing how its inadequacies contributed to the political debacle of the Weimar Republic and the rise of National Socialism. No one who wants to fully understand the political development of national Germany can neglect this study. "

The Contagion of Political Conflict in Africa and the World

Abstract: In this article we seek to specify and measure the paths by which domestic political conflict can diffuse across state boundaries. By focusing on data for Africa and the world from 1962 to 1966 and...

National entanglements in international governmental organizations

Abstract: There has been a growing propensity among states to associate together in international governmental organizations, or IGOs, for a variety of purposes. Why do states join IGOs, and what are the consequences for states of membership in IGOs? In this analysis, an explanation is sought, drawing on the theory of functionalism espoused by David Mitrany and others, taking into account the number of years a state has had sovereignty, level of technology, extent of party competition, and overall power. For Third World states, membership in IGOs is associated with enhanced economic performance. An increasing number of IGOs in the system appears to lessen the states' mean proneness to war. Functionalist predictions are upheld. But functionalism needs to be supplemented both for comprehensive explanations and as a prescription for the future. Already there are so many IGOs that it is difficult for states to control them, which could make them progressively irrelevant or even jeopardize their existence.

Sovereignty and Underdevelopment: Juridical Statehood in the African Crisis

Abstract: When we speak of ‘the state’ in Tropical Africa today, we are apt to create an illusion. Ordinarily the term denotes an independent political structure of sufficient authority and power to govern a defined territory and its population: empirical statehood. This is the prevailing notion of the state in modern political, legal, and social theory1, and it is a fairly close approximation to historical fact in many parts of the world – not only in Europe and North America, where modern states first developed and are deeply rooted, but also in some countries of South America, the Middle East, and Asia, where they have more recently emerged. The state is an inescapable reality. The military credibility of Argentina during the Falklands war, when it was by no means certain that Britain would prevail against its air force, is an indication of the reality of the state in some parts of the Third World today.

Government Violence and Repression: An Agenda for Research

Abstract: A form of terrorism that is receiving increased attention is human rights abuses on the part of individual states. This study, written by specialists from several countries, attempts to define the parameters of state terrorism, analyze its causes, and identify the types of data and methods needed for policy-relevant research. It focuses on state use of acts of terror to intimidate, pacify, coerce, or destroy whole populations, groups, or classes of citizens. The problems encountered in the study of state terrorism, particularly in the areas of definition and measurement and in the difficulty of obtaining complete and reliable data, are first discussed. The political origins of state violence and the mechanisms that sustain it are traced in a theoretical analysis, and the relation of national security ideology to the imposition of terrorist measures is explored. The forms of state terrorism and repression encountered in the Third World are considered next. Other topics covered include genocide, terrorism and counterterrorism in the context of democratic society, and the international terrorist impact of superpower politics. Finally, the prospects of bringing state terrorism under the control of international law are assessed.

Durkheim on Politics and the State

Abstract: Preface. Introduction: Anthony Giddens. 1. The Concept of the State. 2. Democracy and Political Representation. 3. The Concept and Nature of Socialism. 4. Socialism and Marxism: Critical Commentaries. 5. Political Obligation, Moral Duty and Punishment. 6. The State, Education and Equality. 7. Patriotism and Militarism. Notes. Index.

reflections on a meeting: structure, language, and the polity in a small-scale society

Abstract: Observation shows us, first, that every polis (or state) is a species of association, and, secondly, that all associations are instituted for the purpose of attaining some good-for all men do all their acts with a view to achieving something which is, in their view, a good. We may therefore hold that all associations aim at some good; and we may also hold that the particular association which is the most sovereign of all, and includes all the rest, will pursue this aim most, and thus be directed to the most sovereign of all goods. This most sovereign and inclusive association is the polis, as it is called, or the political association [Aristotle 1967:1252a].

Conservatism: Dream and Reality

Abstract: The essential concerns of conservatism are the same as those that motivated Nisbet's first and most influential book. The Quest for Community. In fact, Conservatism unites virtually all of Nisbet's work. In it, Nisbet deals with the political causes of the manifold forms of alienation that underwrite the human quest for community. The sovereign political state is more than a legal relationship of a superstructure of power, it is inseparable from its successive penetrations of man's economic, religious, kinship and local allegiances, and its revolutionary dislocations of established centers of power. Nisbet holds that although political philosophers are often conceived in terms of their views of the individual and the state, a more useful approach adds the factor of social groups or communities mediating between the individual and the state. Such groups comprise "society" the protection of which is the "sole object" of the conservative tradition, according to Nisbet. This conservative ideology arose in the West as a reaction to the French Revolution and its perceived impact upon traditional society. Edmund Burke was the first spokesman of the new ideology. In this book, Nisbet argues that modern conservatism throughout the West can be seen as a widening of Burke's indictment not only of the French Revolution, but of the larger revolution we have come to call modernity. From Edmund Burke and his contemporaries such as Bonald, de Maistre, Haller, and Savigny, down to T.S. Eliot, Christopher Dawson, Michael Oakeshott, Irving Babbit, Paul Elmer More, and Russell Kirk, the essential themes of political conservatism remained the same. They are centered upon history, tradition, property, authority, liberty and religion, and attack equally the political collectivism and radical individualism that have the same irrational outcomes. Nisbet makes the point that, at present, conservatism is also in a crisis, one created in large measure by mixing in the political arena economic liberalism and welfare state socialism - a lethal mix for conservative politics.

Reexamining the “obsolescing bargain”: a study of Canada's National Energy Program

Abstract: Rarely has an issue in the field of international political economy aroused more controversy than the role of the state in economic development. Much of the debate centers on theories of dependency which portray the state as a captive of the “universal standards” of international markets, constrained by its position in the international capitalist economy. In response to this provocative stance, there has been a recent renaissance of theories which see the state as a prominent force in the contemporary world economy. Numerous authors from a wide ideological spectrum have endorsed this argument. In their view, the state is not a helpless puppet subject to the whims of international capital and a comprador bourgeoisie. On the contrary, it is a key economic player capable of using international capital to forward its own interests.

Decolonization, the colonial state, and chieftaincy in the gold coast

Abstract: THE PURPOSE of this article is to suggest a reinterpretation of the relationship between the colonial state and chieftaincy in the Gold Coast, looking in particular at the interaction between land law, class formation and the structure of indirect rule. The need for such a reinterpretation is prompted by the implausibility (in my view) of much of the very large standard literature on the subject, when viewed from the perspective of the decolonization period of the 1950s. During the 1950s, the colonial chieftaincy in the British African colonies was abandoned by colonial governments, together with the structure of administration known as 'indirect rule'. The change was ostensibly part of a programme of devolution of power to a new elite of 'educated' Africans, either elected to local or central government bodies, or recruited into an Africanized administration. By the end of the decadc beginning with the Gold Coast in 1957 local self-government by these new groups formed the basis for a new policy of granting sovereign independence to all of the colonial territories, large or small. The demise of the chieftaincy has, therefore, been seen as inextricably linked to this process of decolonization, not simply because it preceded decolonization chronologically, but because it was an integral part of the reforms which determined the political form of independence-the socalled 'Westminster model'. With historical hindsight it has been easy to accept the inevitability of progress, to see the chieftaincy as a doomed institution which made sense in the context of high colonialism, but had to go when colonialism itself, for whatever reason, came to an end. Such assumptions, however, continue to beg a number of questions. First, why was it that the policy which the British had always maintained was at the heart of their colonial trusteeship encouraging the development of the African 'along his own lines', including forms of selfgovernment why was this policy changed so radically after the Second

The Power of the States in U.S. Presidential Elections

Abstract: The Electoral College is a uniquely American political institution, yet its impact on both the power of the American states and the relative power of citizens living in different states is not well understood. Game theorists have broached the state power problem exclusively in terms of the size of each of the states. Empirical investigators have been less systematic, basing their analyses solely on which states have been close in a single election. In this paper we present a model of state power which combines the idea of the pivotal player from game theory with an empirical model of state voting. In doing so we provide a theoretically derived and empirically meaningful assessment of state power in presidential elections. We then trace the implications of the power of the states for the relative power of individual voters, finding large disparities between voters from different states.

The national question and radical politics in Nigeria

Abstract: In his introduction to Billy Dudley's posthumous book (1982:8), A.D. Yahaya stated that: The political future of the country as one indivisible nation is resolved with the end of the civil war ... It is therefore not conceivable for the present generation of Nigerians who were so much part of the struggle for the survival of the federation to resuscitate the unity of the country as a political issue. The major political issue today is, therefore, not the unity of the country. It would seem, however, that events in Nigeria since 1983, such as the No Nation! No Destiny!broadcast of the FRCN Kaduna; the acrimonious and chauvinistic campaigns associated with the 1983 elections; the incessant disputes over the question of Federal Character; and the debacle over Nigeria's affiliation to the Organisation of Islamic Countries, tend to suggest that the unity of the country cannot be taken for granted. The Civil War did not resolve the National Question in Nigeria. What is true is that the Nigerian state was able t...

The Mexican Revolution, 1910–1920

Abstract: Three theoretical assumptions in liberal sociology long ruled historical study of the Mexican Revolution: mass action is consensual, intentional, and redistributive; collective violence measures structural transformation; and nationalism aggregates interests in a limited division of labour. In plain words, movement of ‘the people’ is movement by ‘the people’ for ‘the people’; the bloodier the struggle, the deeper the difference between ways of life before and after the struggle; and familiarity breeds solidarity. The most influential scholars of the subject also made two radical suppositions about Mexico in particular. First, the most significant fact in the country in 1910 was the struggle between the upper and lower classes. Second, the conflict was about to explode. And on these premises respectable research and analysis framed a pro-revolutionary story of the rise of the downtrodden: the Revolution began over a political issue, the succession to Porfirio Diaz, but masses of people in all regions quickly involved themselves in a struggle beyond politics for sweeping economic and social reforms. Enormous material destruction throughout the country, the ruination of business, and total defiance of the United States were necessary for the popular struggle to triumph, as it did. And through the struggle the champions of ‘the people’ became the revolutionary leaders. Economic and social conditions improved in accordance with revolutionary policies, so that the new society took shape within a framework of official revolutionary institutions. The struggle ended in 1917, the year of the revolutionary constitution. The new revolutionary state enjoyed as much legitimacy and strength as its spokesmen said it did.

Liberalism Divided: A Study in British Political Thought, 1914-1939

Abstract: Liberalism Divided is the first detailed study of British liberal thought in the interwar years. The author reassesses progressive liberalism in light of the partial reaction against the state provoked by World War I. The division of liberal thought into two streams--left-liberalism and centrist-liberalism--is explored, and the changing political theories of major new liberals such as L.T. Hobhouse and J.A. Hobson are contrasted with centrist-liberal ideas.

The Role of the Ulama in the Politics of an Islamic State: the Case of Saudi Arabia

Abstract: Islam's influence on political values and, as a result on the political behavior of the Muslim state, has traditionally been analyzed in terms of two general categories. These categories were the purely religious and the purely temporal, which in turn identified the interests of theological beliefs and transcendentally fixed ethical duties on the one hand and the interests of ruling dynasties, military and financial affairs on the other. The influence pattern, however, is more complex than the one suggested by the traditional approach.

The political economy of civil rule and the economic crisis in Nigeria (1979–84)

Abstract: This paper examines the dynamic interaction of economic policy and state action with political, social and market forces during the civilian regime of President Shagari (Oct 1979 — Jan 1984). It investigates why democratic politics, or more accurately, the rule of politicians, had disastrous economic consequences. The National Party of Nigeria, which gained power as a party of national patronage, was weak and largely devoid of policies. Political competition and economic debate were constituted around the distribution of state patronage and federal state relations. The public economy and processes of policy formulation were fully exposed to the distributive demands of state patronage and electoral politics. Throughout the period, trends that were identifiable in the economic expansion of the 1970s intensified, including the loss of financial control and discipline in the public economy, the privatisation of public funds and the expansion of state employment. In Nigeria, as elsewhere, political and social ...