<italic>Political Parties in Michigan, 1837–1860: an Historical Study of Political Issues and Parties in Michigan from the Admission of the State to the Civil War</italic>. By <sc>Floyd Benjamin Streeter</sc>. [Michigan Historical Publications, University Series, IV.] (Lansing: Michigan Historical Commission. 1918. Pp. xxxiii, 401. $1.00.)

The book integrates philosophical, historical, and empirical analyses in order to highlight the profound roots of the limited legitimation of parties in contemporary society. Political parties’ long attempts to gain legitimacy are analysed from a philosophical–historical perspective pinpointing crucial passages in their theoretical and empirical acceptance. The book illustrates the process through which parties first emerged and then achieved full legitimacy in the early twentieth century. It shows how, paradoxically, their role became absolute in the totalitarian regimes of the interwar period when the party became hyper-powerful. In the post-war period, parties shifted from a golden age of positive reception and organizational development towards a more difficult relationship with society as it moved into post-industrialism. Parties were unable to master societal change and favoured the state to recover resources they were no longer able to extract from their constituencies. Parties have become richer and more powerful, but they have ‘paid’ for their pervasive presence in society and the state with a declining legitimacy. The party today is caught in a dramatic contradiction. It has become a sort of Leviathan with clay feet: very powerful thanks to the resources it gets from the state and to its control of societal and state spheres due to an extension of clientelistic and patronage practices; but very weak in terms of legitimacy and confidence in the eyes of the mass public. However, it is argued that there is still no alternative to the party, and some hypotheses to enhance party democracy are advanced.

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The Concept of the Political

10.1093/oso/9780198791614.003.0003 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Benjamin A. Schupmann

Keyword(s):

Civil War ◽

The State ◽

The Political ◽

Mass Movements ◽

The Status ◽

The Relationship

Chapter 2 reinterprets Schmitt’s concept of the political. Schmitt argued that Weimar developments, especially the rise of mass movements politically opposed to the state and constitution, demonstrated that the state did not have any sort of monopoly over the political, contradicting the arguments made by predominant Weimar state theorists, such as Jellinek and Meinecke. Not only was the political independent of the state, Schmitt argued, but it could even be turned against it. Schmitt believed that his contemporaries’ failure to recognize the nature of the political prevented them from adequately responding to the politicization of society, inadvertently risking civil war. This chapter reanalyzes Schmitt’s political from this perspective. Without ignoring enmity, it argues that Schmitt also defines the political in terms of friendship and, importantly, “status par excellence” (the status that relativizes other statuses). It also examines the relationship between the political and Schmitt’s concept of representation.

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Pleistocene Mammals from Pampean Region (Argentina). Biostratigraphic, Biogeographic, and Environmental Implications

Quaternary ◽

10.3390/quat4020015 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 4 (2) ◽

pp. 15

Author(s):

José Luis Prado ◽

María Teresa Alberdi ◽

Jonathan Bellinzoni

Keyword(s):

South America ◽

The State ◽

Historical Study ◽

South American ◽

Environmental Implications ◽

Sedimentary Sequences ◽

Pampean Region ◽

Mammalian Faunas ◽

Pleistocene Mammals ◽

Fossil Records

The Pampean Region contains sedimentary sequences with abundant mammal fossil records, which constitute the chronological outline of the Plio–Pleistocene of South America. These classic localities have been used for more than a century to correlate with other South American regions. Throughout this time, a series of misinterpretations have appeared. To understand the stratigraphic significance of these localities and the geochronological situation of each unit referring to the Pleistocene, a critical historical study of the antecedents was carried out, evaluating the state of each unit. The biostratigraphic studies of the Pampean Region’s mammalian faunas improved the understanding of biogeographic changes taking into account the environmental fluctuations of the Pleistocene.

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The All-Buryat Congress for the Spiritual Rebirth and Consolidation of the Nation: Siberian politics in the final year of the USSR

Journal of Eurasian Studies ◽

10.1177/1879366520902863 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 62-71

Author(s):

Melissa Chakars

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Political Parties ◽

The Political ◽

Socialist Republic ◽

Soviet Socialist Republic ◽

Political Issues ◽

People's Party ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

Russian State ◽

General Goals

This article examines the All-Buryat Congress for the Spiritual Rebirth and Consolidation of the Nation that was held in the Buryat Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in February 1991. The congress met to discuss the future of the Buryats, a Mongolian people who live in southeastern Siberia, and to decide on what actions should be taken for the revival, development, and maintenance of their culture. Widespread elections were carried out in the Buryat lands in advance of the congress and voters selected 592 delegates. Delegates also came from other parts of the Soviet Union, as well as from Mongolia and China. Government administrators, Communist Party officials, members of new political parties like the Buryat-Mongolian People’s Party, and non-affiliated individuals shared their ideas and political agendas. Although the congress came to some agreement on the general goals of promoting Buryat traditions, language, religions, and culture, there were disagreements about several of the political and territorial questions. For example, although some delegates hoped for the creation of a larger Buryat territory that would encompass all of Siberia’s Buryats within a future Russian state, others disagreed revealing the tension between the desire to promote ethnic identity and the practical need to consider economic and political issues.

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