Suchergebnisse

The history of the conceptualization & application of the notions of culture, political/civic culture, & social capital in politology, & comparative political science in particular, is traced, discussing: (1) treatments of the relationship between civic culture & democracy in classical works of sociology & political science (eg, Montesquieu, Guizot, Herder, or Tocqueville), (2) the pioneering study in Gabriel A. Almond & Sidney Verba's Civic Culture (Princeton: Princeton U Press, 1963), (3) neglect of the notion of civic culture in the 1970s & 1980s, (4) civic culture as a dependent & independent variable, (5) J. Coleman's (1988) definition of social capital, (6) Robert D. Putnam's definition of social capital & its use in La tradizione civica nelle regioni italiane ([The Civic Tradition in Italian Regions] Milan: Mondadori, 1993) & Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), (7) the effectiveness of the concept of social capital as a descriptive-explanatory tool in comparative political science, & (8) the continued controversy & debate on this notion in contemporary politology. References. Z. Dubiel

The centrality of local government to self-government & constitutionalism are investigated. Analysis of contemporary works on constitutionalism is conducted, prompting the contention that local government is at the center of constitutionalism. It is subsequently asserted that the origins of constitutionalism in North American & Western European nations can be traced back to the medieval period in Europe. Historical evidence is subsequently provided to bolster this assertion; specifically, it is maintained that Venice has successfully maintained a self-constituted republic & that the principle of ius propria (self-organization) was present in most medieval Western European nations. Factors that prompted communities to adopt constitutional forms of government during the medieval period are then identified; for example, it is stated that land-holding barons permitted the establishment of self-governing republics in order to consolidate political & economic authority. Nevertheless, micro- & macro-constitutional circumstances that contributed to the breakdown of medieval self-governing communities are stated, eg, the formation of transnational Christian organizations & the transformation of feudal militia into extremely powerful armies. Recommendations for future research are also offered. 79 References. J. W. Parker