Search results

THE AUTHOR ADDRESSES THE PRESENT CRISIS OF HISTORIC MARXISM BY DRAWING ON THE RESOURCES OF HISTORICAL MATERIALISM ITSELF. HE CHARTS THE HISTORY OF CAPITALISM AND ANTI-CAPITALISM AGAINST THE UNDERLYING THESES IN "THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO." HE ARGUES THAT MARXISM ORIGINALLY EXPECTED SOCIAL MISERY AND SOCIAL POWER TO COINCIDE IN THE PROLETARIAT. IT ALSO ANTICIPATED A NATURAL HARMONY BETWEEN THE GROWING POWER OF LABOR AND THE GOAL OF CONSTRUCTING A SOCIALIST SOCIETY ON THE RUINS OF CAPITALISM. HE TRACES THE DIVERGENCE FROM THESE CLASSICAL ASSUMPTIONS, ESPECIALLY THE GROWING DIVIDE BETWEEN THE TRADE UNIONISM AND GRADUALISM OF THE WORKING CLASS IN SCANDINAVIA AND THE ANGLO-SAXON WORLD, ON ONE HAND, AND THE CONSOLIDATION OF A LENINIST "HISTORICAL MARXISM" CLAIMING LEGITIMACY FROM THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH, ON THE OTHER. IN AN IRONIC TWIST, COMMUNISM RATHER THAN LATE CAPITALISM FIRST GAVE BIRTH TO ITS GRAVE DIGGER--AN INCREASINGLY CULTURED AND ASSERTIVE PROLETARIAT. THE PRESENT PERIOD IS BRINGING TO AN END THE SCHISM BETWEEN COMPETING CONCEPTIONS OF THE PROLETARIAT AS AN INCREASINGLY HETEROGENEOUS WORKING CLASS FACES COMPARABLE PROBLEMS IN BOTH MAJOR ZONES.

WHILE MOST SCHOLARS AND POLICY ANALYSTS HAVE LONG FOCUSED ON GUERRILLA WARFARE AS THE PREDOMINANT MODEL OF REVOLUTION, IT HAS ACTUALLY BEEN REVOLUTIONS WITHOUT GUERRILLAS THAT HAVE TOPPLED REGIMES THROUGHOUT THE WORLD IN THE PAST DECADE. THE 1989 POPULAR UPRISINGS IN EASTERN EUROPE THAT MARKED THE END OF MORE THAN 40 YEARS OF COMMUNIST RULE WERE ONLY THE LATEST MANIFESTATION OF A TREND THAT HAD SEEN GOVERNMENTS FALL FROM IRAN TO THE PHILIPPINES. AMONG THE KEY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TRADITIONAL INSURGENCIES AND THE GROWING PHENOMENON OF REVOLUTIONS WITHOUT GUERRILLAS IN THE SUDDEN AND EXPLOSIVE NATURE OF THE LATTER. WHEREAS IT MAY TAKE AN INSURGENCY YEARS, OR EVEN DECADES, TO REACH A POINT OF 'CRISIS', THEREBY ALLOWING SUFFICIENT TIME TO DESIGN POLICY, SUPPLY WEAPONS, OR CREATE STRATEGIES, IN THIS NEW SITUATION GOVERNMENTS CAN BE TOPPLED IN A MATTER OF WEEKS AND COUNTRIES CAN BECOME PARALYZED OVERNIGHT. POPULAR UPRISINGS ALSO TEND TO BE LESS IDEOLOGICAL AND USUALLY LESS VIOLENT THAN GUERRILLA CAMPAIGNS. THIS ARTICLE, WHICH IS A POLICY-ORIENTED STUDY, OUTLINES THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THIS PHENOMENON AND DISCUSSES ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR US INTERESTS IN THE 1990S.

THE AUTHOR ENDEAVORS TO EXPLAIN THE NATURE OF THE ORGANIC TIE THAT BINDS MAKONDE ART TO THE GROUP'S COLLECTIVE POLITICAL ASPIRATIONS. OVER THE YEARS, CHANGES IN THE STYLE AND FORM OF SCULPTURE PRODUCED BY THE MAKONDE HAVE MIRRORED THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CHANGES THEY HAVE EXPERIENCED. THEIR TRADITIONAL CARVINGS WERE RESTRICTED TO THE MAPIKO MASKS USED IN INITIATION CEREMONIES. BUT AFTER WORLD WAR II AND WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF PORTUGUESE COLONIALISM, NEW CARVINGS BEGAN TO APPEAR IN WHITE WOOD, AS THE MAKONDE PEASANTS BEGAN TO DEVOTE PART OF THEIR TIME TO SCULPTING IN RESPONSE TO EMERGENT DEMAND FROM THE COLONISTS. THE INTRICATE, INTERTWINED FIGURES CARVED IN BLACK WOOD, WHICH ARE MOST COMMONLY ASSOCIATED WITH THE MAKONDE, ARE A MORE MODERN CREATION. THESE NEW DESIGNS AND NEW MOTIFS BEGAN TO APPEAR IN THE LATE 1950'S. INTERESTINGLY, THEIR FORM VARIED DEPENDING ON WHETHER THEY WERE PRODUCED BY MAKONDE IN TANZANIA OR MOZAMBIQUE. THE FORMER WERE MORE DIRECTLY A RESPONSE TO MARKET FORCES, WHILE THE ART OF THE MAKONDE IN MOZAMBIQUE WAS INTEGRALLY CONNECTED WITH THE FRELIMO STRUGGLE AGAINST PORTUGUESE OPPRESSION.

The author of this report has long been interested in the process of developing software. Commonly referred to as "software engineering", the definition and standardization of the process has been a subject of concern throughout the software industry. As early as 1972, Frederick P. Brooks likened large system programming efforts to the La Brea Tar Pits; the muck, mire and tar of software development delays and cost overruns eventually defeating even the most skillful and experienced developers. [1] This report is intended to provide another stepping stone through the tar. The author was fortunate to be provided the opportunity to develop two similar software projects, in like hardware environments, using different development approaches. The first project was developed using an Evolutionary Development approach, the later system utilized the current government standard, DOD-STD-2167A. This report outlines the lessons learned in applying these development approaches. This report does not intend to criticize either the Evolutionary Development or DOD-STD-2167A approaches to developing software. Rather this analysis seeks to identify factors and issues which software developers should consider in implementing either of these approaches. ; Master of Science

The author examines the controversial question of the part played by the French Revolution in the awakening of French peasants to modern politics; Eugen Weber and others have questioned the role of the Revolution and set this awakening much later under the Third Republic. In Melvin Edelstein's view, on the contrary, the peasants' political participation was far from négligeable and he bases his view on an analysis of the degree of peasant participation in local and national elections mainly between 1789 and 1793. The research done up to now on nearly twenty departments indicate that these percentages were often higher than was previously asserted, and especially that these results refute two generally accepted ideas: the backwardness of the South and the West considered to be "under-developed" compared to a more politically aware north-eastern France and the idea that the superiority of the degree of urban participation compared to that of rural areas: more generally, it was the opposite which took place. The First Empire plebescite votes confirm that a real apprenticeship concerning national questions went on during the French Revolution.

Michel Foucault's major terms & concepts from his later works are defined -- eg, sexuality, genealogy, power, knowledge, & subject -- & ways in which his works coincide with feminist issues are explored. Critics, both feminist & nonfeminist, have claimed that Foucault is incoherent & nihilistic, & provides no grounds for evaluating & comparing practices & regimes. The bases for these claims are refuted. Foucault argues that power & the position of women cannot be encapsulated within centralized theories, such as Marxism & liberalism, but women must continue using the construct of "women" in political struggle & not abandon it as a fiction or location in discourse. Foucault's lesson is that negotiation for the "right," ie, for the problems of actual people, continues to be necessary, although the "right," as defined by patriarchal capitalism, must be eliminated. Foucault values freedom & dignity, but not on humanistic grounds: he offers freedom through anonymity, or through resistance to the power-knowledge system by evasion. His aim is not to eliminate power, but to trace individuals in power relations & thereby open up the power system & make it flexible. 28 References. M. Pflum

The story of American political thought has been told in many different ways. Three genres stand out. The first is written within the larger framework of intellectual history and takes the form of anthology and narrative summary. Among its most prominent features are an eclecticism of sources (from Roger Williams to Walt Whitman to Erich Fromm) and a heavy emphasis on the period from the first New England settlements through the victory of Jeffersonian democracy. A second form is constitutionalist. Charting the major struggles over legal and institutional relationships through time, this perspective gives prominence to landmark court decisions and articulations of major constitutional issues by party and political leaders. As articulated in the late nineteenth century, it examines the major forms of constitutionalist thinking that lie behind these constitutional and institutional struggles. The third genre, I label populist-progressive. Here, the story of American political thought is Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Southwestern Political Science Association annual meeting, March 23–26, 1988, Houston, Texas, and at the American Politics Group meeting in Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University, January 4–6, 1988.

There is increasing evidence in Ghana, as well as in other African countries, to suggest that the relationship between rural production and nation-state politics is more complex than has been realised. In the late 1970s, it appeared to some analysts that global market fluctuations, continuous rural extraction and exploitation by the state, disdain for traditional institutions, and 'urban bias' had so ravaged Ghanaian rural producers that they were continuing to distance themselves from the state and its vaunted political economy. This peasant behaviour, although symptomatic of deep economic and other socio-cultural problems, was viewed as creating a basis for political instability within which riots, coups, and social disorder occurred with great frequency.1 Political scientists generally downplayed these complex socio-cultural factors, and argued that it was lack of political integration which failed to correct the fragmentation and incoherence within the newly independent states, and which made political stability and national development impossible. Here seemed to be another example of the 'chicken and egg' phenomenon, in which politics and economic stability were so inextricably interwoven that it was not feasible to have one without the other.

Third-World governments have frequently professed the virtues of trade diversification, and they have voiced a number of legitimate concerns about what can happen if this is not achieved. First, the greater the geographical concentration of their export trade, the more vulnerable are they to fluctuations arising from changes in the level of imports, devaluations, or other developments in their principal markets.1 When, for instance, exports were directed predominantly towards the relatively slow-growing European Economic Community in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the exporting countries might have been better off if their outlets had been more diversified. Second, various pressures may be exerted to induce smaller countries to purchase most of their needed imports from the larger trading partner that has bought most of their exports.2 Those with geographically concentrated exports are particularly vulnerable in tariff disputes, or what J. A. Conybeare has termed 'trade wars'.3 Finally, countries which are particularly dependent on individual export markets are vulnerable to 'linkage' pressures – attempts by their powerful partners to utilise economic leverage to force concessions on non-trade issues, often political in nature.4

By the 1950s, two contrasting strategies of white leadership were emerging in the South: "massive resistance" and "moderation." Both were equally committed in principle to a defense of segregation, but they employed different tactics: The former trumpeted "defiance," the later counseled "delay." The strategists of-"massive resistance," who for a decade largely dominated politics in Alabama and Mississippi, were convinced that any concession, even a tactical one, would be a dangerous break in the dike of segregation. They believed that defiance could deter the federal government from enforcing the university desegregation decisions and Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954; 1955). On the other hand, the strategists of "moderation," who gained political ascendancy in South Carolina, maneuvered within the law, first to postpone implementation of Brown, and then to determine the minimum amount of desegregation that blacks would accept, which would not at the same time inflame white racists. In effect, they used skillful tactics of delay to "moderate" both white racism and black aspirations. Ultimately, they were more successful in achieving their objectives than the resisters, because they avoided sweeping federal interventions.

The wave of electoral volatility which swept across most of the West European polities in the late 1960s and 1970s has led many scholars to suggest that the European party systems are now experiencing a major transformation. Given such an emphasis in the contemporary literature, this article attempts to identify some of the key problems in defining what is meant by party system change. Four such problems are identified. First, that of distinguishing party change, on the one hand, and party system change, on the other. Second, the problem of treating measures of electoral volatility as indicators of cleavage decline, and the extent to which evidence of electoral change can be seen as a valid challenge to the Lipset-Rokkan `freezing' hypothesis. Third, the problem of determining the level of electoral volatility which actually `matters' in discussions of party system change. Fourth, the problem of the electoral bias itself, which often leads researchers to neglect other, non-electoral, dimensions of change which, in turn, may well prove to have been both more fundamental and more enduring.

This paper assesses the degree and pattern of monetary policy activism in the United States, Canada, West Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan during the recent period in which managed‐floating exchange rates prevailed. Floating exchange rates enhance the potency of a discretionary monetary policy. Yet central banks in these countries shifted toward less discretionary monetary targeting during the late 1970s in response to rising inflationary pressures and expectations. But whether such targeting actually reduced policy activism is unclear since targets were expressed in wide ranges and often were missed. Following 1981, at least three of these countries–the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom–reverted to an avowedly more discretionary pattern of response to changes in real demand pressures, interest rates, and exchange rates. Since mid‐1986, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan–and, to a lesser extent, Canada–have intervened heavily in the foreign exchange market and so have greatly increased their official dollar holdings. Moreover, through August 1987, the effects of this intervention on these countries' domestic money supplies apparently have been sterilized only partially.

After Many years of exhortations, it is now widely claimed that African governments are beginning to implement the reforms needed to fundamentally alter their economies.1 Zimbabwe, after achieving independence 15 years later than most of the continent, has been singled out as a country that immdiately recognised the lessons of African economic failures and therefore adopted more rational policies.2 However, efforts to rationalise the public sector have often proceeded much slower than other reforms designed to reverse 'the trend of chronic economic decline', notably by reducing over-valued currencies, increasing agricultural prices, and lowering real urban wages.3 Even Zimbabwe, despite its record of relatively good economic management, has not been able to adopt a package of policies which would resolve the severe problems of its parastatals, namely those companies/corporations/other organisations owned by the state that operate outside the formal governmental apparatus. In Zimbabwe specifically and in Africa generally, the political imperatives of leaders have often prevented the adoption, let alone the implementation of comprehensive public-sector reforms.

The wave of radicalism that swept through Europe from the late 1960s did not pass the communist parties by but struck them with particular force. Evidence of this impact can be found in a study of the social composition of congress delegates, and from recent accounts of the experiences of the communist parties during the 1970s. The story of this trauma over one decade requires us to rethink the notion of Eurocommunism. What emerges from such a reconsideration is a distinction between a process of modernization on which many communist parties have embarked in the post-war period, and particularly since 1956, and a 'new member' factor which characterized the radical surge of the 1970s. This 'new member' factor brought a new style of militancy into the communist parties which challenged their traditional norms. This radicalism raised the fortunes of the communist parties during the 1970s, but it also brought about the crisis of the end of the decade. Whilst it has been responsible for the destruction of the crisis period, it has also provided the ideas and the forces for possible new strategies.

In the 1920s and 1930s intellectuals and writers led the attacks on the tyranny of the Chinese family and the power of patrilineal authority. Their essays and fictional works, particularly such novels as Ba Jin's Family (Jia), were avidly read by a younger, radicalized and iconoclastic generation. By the late 1940s and after Liberation in 1949, however, mainland leftist and communist writers had retreated from attacks on the family, emphasizing instead its centrality in social life. Two major reasons may account for this. The Chinese Communist Party, needing the peasantry's support in its climb to and final assumption of power, chose the road of reforming obvious abuses rather than assaulting family and patriarchal institutions. The second reason served to reinforce the Party's concern. After decades of turmoil, conquest and war, writers envisaged peace as order and as a return to familiar ways of life. In their short stories and novels, socialist transformation, therefore, consisted not of the disruption of family life and patrilineal authority, but of the reconstitution of the family, now stripped of its abusive features.