Lasting Political Structures

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isser Woloch
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Military Conscription ◽  
Political Structures ◽  
Post War ◽  
Administrative Structures ◽  
Looking Back

This chapter uses the 1940s—the Resistance, the Liberation, the post-war moment—as a vantage point for looking back at the French Revolution’s projects of representative democracy, decentralization, and recentralization. Among other things it considers the initial re-division of the national territory, changing administrative structures, the uses of elections, the strictures against political parties, and the permutations on these matters across successive post-revolutionary regimes. A final section offers a more conventional chronological account, from 1789 onward, of one of the Revolution’s most consequential innovations: systematic military conscription.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 28-54
Author(s):  
Karen Celis
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Group Representation ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Feminist Criticism ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Gender And Politics ◽  
Account Giving

Chapter 1 makes a defense of representative democracy even as it acknowledges long-standing and contemporary feminist criticism and surveys the appeal of more fashionable non-representative alternatives. As part of this, the authors consider the failure of political parties to “do good by women.” Adopting a problem-based approach, they remake the case for women’s group representation, reviewing the 1990s politics-of-presence literature in light of criticism based on women’s ideological and intersectional differences. Instead of regarding this as undermining the possibility of women’s group representation, the authors hold that these differences should become central to its successful realization. A second observation is the tendency of gender and politics scholars to disaggregate the concept of representation. Eschewing this approach, they instead hold that political representation is better understood as indivisible: a mélange of its many, overlapping, and connected dimensions. The final section of Chapter 1 introduces the structure and component parts of the book’s argument, introducing the reader to the “affected representatives of women,” and the authors’ twin augmentations, group advocacy and account giving.

The Present Position of Representative Democracy

1932 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 629-641
Author(s):  
Harold J. Laski
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Jeremy Bentham ◽  
Present Position ◽  
Dynamic Nature ◽  
Universal Suffrage ◽  
Post War ◽  
Looking Back

The problem of representative democracy has been altered in a final way by the events of the post-war years. It is improbable that any one will again defend its superiority over alternative forms of government in the terms which would have satisfied either Jefferson or Jeremy Bentham. It is obvious that any view which places confidence in the power of universal suffrage and representative institutions, unaided and of themselves, to secure a permanently well-ordered commonwealth is seriously under-estimating the complexity of the issue. Such a view not only gravely exaggerates the power of reason over interest in society; it also misconceives the dynamic nature of the purpose which representative democracy is seeking to secure.Looking back now, at a generation's distance, upon the success of representative democracy in the nineteenth century, it is plain that this was due to the coincidence of quite special conditions.

The Geography of War and Peace

2004 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Final Section ◽  
The Political ◽  
Complex World ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Peace Movements ◽  
Resource Conflicts ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Post War ◽  
Spatial Rhetoric

Our world of increasing and varied conflicts is confusing and threatening to citizens of all countries, as they try to understand its causes and consequences. However, how and why war occurs, and peace is sustained, cannot be understood without realizing that those who make war and peace must negotiate a complex world political map of sovereign spaces, borders, networks of communication, access to nested geographic scales, and patterns of resource distribution. This book takes advantage of a diversity of geographic perspectives as it analyzes the political processes of war and their spatial expression. Contributors to the volume examine particular manifestations of war in light of nationalism, religion, gender identities, state ideology, border formation, genocide, spatial rhetoric, terrorism, and a variety of resource conflicts. The final section on the geography of peace covers peace movements, diplomacy, the expansion of NATO, and the geography of post-war reconstruction. Case studies of numerous conflicts include Israel and Palestine, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland, Bosnia-Herzogovina, West Africa, and the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Towards the Final Legitimation of the Party

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piero Ignazi
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Sole Source ◽  
The Political ◽  
Party Formation ◽  
Post War ◽  
Dominant Influence

Chapter 3 investigates the process of party formation in France, Germany, Great Britain, and Italy, and demonstrates the important role of cultural and societal premises for the development of political parties in the nineteenth century. Particular attention is paid in this context to the conditions in which the two mass parties, socialists and Christian democrats, were established. A larger set of Western European countries included in this analysis is thoroughly scrutinized. Despite discontent among traditional liberal-conservative elites, full endorsement of the political party was achieved at the beginning of the twentieth century. Particular attention is paid to the emergence of the interwar totalitarian party, especially under the guise of Italian and German fascism, when ‘the party’ attained its most dominant influence as the sole source and locus of power. The chapter concludes by suggesting hidden and unaccounted heritages of that experience in post-war politics.

Party and Democracy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piero Ignazi
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Organizational Development ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
The State ◽  
Societal Change ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Mass Public ◽  
Post War ◽  
Totalitarian Regimes

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.

Dystopian Science Fiction and the Return of the Gothic

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sherryl Vint
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Victorian Culture ◽  
Gothic Fiction ◽  
Post War ◽  
British Culture

This chapter explores the connections between dystopian science fiction and gothic fiction. It links science fiction to a tradition of European utopian and surrealist writing, situating the genre equally within discourses of science and the gothic. This perspective, the chapter argues, was perhaps more possible from the vantage point of 1973 than it would have been for earlier critics: the scientific romance tradition was rooted in a Victorian culture that believed in empire, technology, and progress, even if it was not always convinced by their contemporary instantiations. The dramatic shifts in British culture during the Blitz and in the immediate post-war period looked back on such optimism with a rather jaundiced eye: British global hegemony was distinctly at an end. It is little wonder, then, that the speculative fictions of this period turned toward darker tones of dystopia and the gothic.

‘A Party for Owners or a Party for Earners?’ How far did the British Conservative Party Really Change After 1945?

1987 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 49-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Ramsden
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
New Economic Policy ◽  
Characteristic Mode ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Electoral Defeat ◽  
Post War ◽  
Looking Back

THE period spent in opposition between 1945 and 1951 has generally been thought of as a key to the understanding of the activities of the post-war British Conservative Party. Autobiographies of the Party leaders of the time began to appear at the end of the Fifties, already looking back to a period in which the Conservatives had decisively changed their approach. So for example, Lord Woolton's Memoirs reviewed not only a term as Party Chairman which had been a highlight of his own crowded career, but also his sharing in a major act of transformation, a transformation that had led on to Conservative success since 1951: ‘the change was revolutionary’. Other key figures in the organisation reached similar conclusions as their own accounts appeared: David Maxwell-Fyfe argued that the new Party rules which he had drawn up had not only decisively widened the political base of British Conservatism, but that events since had confirmed the importance of the change. R. A. Butler's account of The Art of the Possible argued in 1971 that ‘the overwhelming electoral defeat of 1945 shook the Conservative Party out of its lethargy and impelled it to re-think its philosophy and re-form its ranks with a thoroughness unmatched for a century’. The effect was to bring both the policies of the Party and ‘their characteristic mode of expression’, as he puts it, ‘up to date’. As recently as 1978, Reginald Maudling—a key figure behind the scenes in 1945–51 as a speechwriter from Eden and Churchill and as the organising secretary of the committee which produced the Industrial Charter of 1947—reached much the same view: ‘We were at that time developing a new economic policy for the Conservative Party … It marked a substantially different approach for post-war Conservative philosophy.

The Exceptionality of Jordan and its Democracy in King Hussein’s Last Speech From the Throne

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Ahmad El-Sharif
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sociocultural Context ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Critical Metaphor Analysis ◽  
Political Structures

The Late King Hussein’s last Speech from the Throne in 1997 was given amidst public outcry over the outcomes of the parliamentary elections which resulted the triumph tribal figures with regional affiliations after the boycott of most political parties. This brought to public debate the questions of maintain the long-established balance between the several socio-political structures in the political life in Jordan. While the speech can be perceived as a reflection of King Hussein’s vision about ‘Jordanian democracy’, it can also be interpreted as an elaborate scheme to construct the conventional understanding of the exceptionality of Jordan and its socio-political institutions; including democracy. This article discusses the representation of ‘Jordanian democracy’, the state, and the socio-political structures in Jordan as reflected in the Late King’s last speech from the throne (1997). The analytical framework follows a critical metaphor analysis perspective in which all instances of metaphors used to epitomise these issues are primarily acknowledged from there sociocultural context. Herein, the article focuses on revealing the aspect of metaphorical language by which the Late King Hussein legitimizes and, hence, constructs, the prevailing ideology pf the ‘exceptionality’ of Jordan.

scholarly journals “CONVENTIONAL WISDOM” AND THE POLITICS OF SHINTO IN POSTWAR JAPAN

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-82
Author(s):  
John Breen
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Final Section ◽  
The State ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Postwar Japan ◽  
Politics And Religion ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Post War ◽  
Shed Light

In January 2010, the Supreme Court delivered a historic verdict of unconstitutionality in a case involving Sorachibuto, a Shinto shrine in Sunagawa city, Hokkaido. All of the national newspapers featured the case on their front pages. As the case makes abundantly clear, issues of politics and religion, politics and Shinto, are alive and well in 21st century Japan. In this essay, I seek to shed light on the fraught relationship between politics and Shinto from three perspectives. I first analyze the Sorachibuto case, and explain what is at stake, and why it has attracted the attention it has. I then contextualize it, addressing the key state-Shinto legal disputes in the post war period: from the 1970s through to the first decade of the 21st century. Here my main focus falls on the state, and its efforts to cultivate Shinto. In the final section, I shift that focus to the Shinto establishment, and explore its efforts to reestablish with a succession of post LDP administrations the sort of intimacy, which Shinto enjoyed with the state in the early 20th century.

scholarly journals Polityka oświatowa władz w procesie instalowania nowego ładu społecznego (1944–1948)

2019 ◽  
pp. 33-50
Author(s):  
Edyta Kahl
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Educational System ◽  
The Political ◽  
School Structure ◽  
World War ◽  
Massive Scale ◽  
Post War ◽  
Administrative Structures ◽  
Teachers Training ◽  
Social Debate

The problems discussed in the article concern the educational policy in Poland in the first years after World War II (1944-1948). The article presents the educational concepts and postulates of different political fractions and teachers’ circles, which already before the end of the War had formulated their own educational programmes. The discussions about the shape of the post-war educational system, particularly the organization of schools, the school structure, the ideological foundations, the syllabus, school handbooks and teachers’ training, were carried out, among others, between the representatives of the National Democrats, Christian-national groups, political parties, teachers’ organizations and school administration. Their attitudes to many problems varied considerably, and thus, the situation required social debate and confrontation of opinions. The quality of those discussions, the style in which the educational problems were solved as well as the direction of the structural and ideological transformations in the post-war educational system, were significantly influenced by the geopolitical post-war conditions and a strong position of the Left, consolidated by the Soviets, in the policy of the Polish state. In the expansive struggle for the political leadership in Poland, the Left used different forms of pressure and terror in order to eliminate the opposition. To achieve social legitimization for its pseudo-democratic activities, the Left undertook attempts to encourage other groups to co-operate. Particularly, the communists tried to attract cultural elites, including teachers, who they wanted to use to start the process of rebuilding social consciousness according to the rules of the ideology of Marxism and Leninism. These monopolistic ambitions, in the first years after World War II, were reflected in the destruction of the underground state and the development of administrative structures of the totalitarian system. As far as the educational system is concerned, the policy of the Left was manifested in more and more apparent actions taken to subordinate school to the communists’ interests, thus including education into the process of the transformation of the political system. All those activities, were part of the phenomenon of structural Sovietization, formed the foundations for the ideological offensive, planned by the communists and conducted on a massive scale after the formation, in 1948, of the monopolistic Stalinian party - PZPR (Polish United Workers’ Party).

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document