Suchergebnisse

The "Economic and Social History of the World War," sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and edited by Professor J. T. Shotwell, of Columbia University, is planned to contain several volumes which will be of interest to students of foreign and comparative government. A. B. Keith's War Government of the British Dominions has already appeared and was reviewed in this journal last November. Among other volumes having a direct political bearing may be mentioned: W. G. S. Adams, The War Government of Great Britain; E. M. H. Lloyd, The Mechanism of Certain State Controls [in Great Britain]; G. D. H. Cole, The British Labor Unions; A. Shadwell, Liquor Control in War Time; R. Picard, Syndicalism in France during the War; M. Hauser, Problems of Regionalism [in France]; A. Bernard, Economic and Social History of French Northern Africa; M. Delahache, Alsace-Lorraine; A. Girault, Economic and Social History of the French Colonies; J. Redlich, War Government in Austria-Hungary; Count A. Apponyi, The Effects of the War upon Government Administration and Public Opinion in Hungary; and H. Pirenne, Belgium and the World War. Numerous monographs remain to be arranged for, notably on Germany, Russia, and the Balkan states.

The original plan of this paper included a general survey and critique of the leading tendencies in the study of politics during the last thirty or forty years. It was intended to compare the methods and results of the various types of political thought—to pass in review the historical school, the juridical school, the students of comparative government, the philosophers as such, the attitude of the economist, the contributions made by the geographer and the ethnologist, the work of the statisticians, and finally to deal with the psychological, the sociological, the biological interpretations of the political process.It would have been an interesting and perhaps a useful task to compare the scope and method of such thinkers as Jellinek, Gierke, Duguit, Dicey and Pound; the philosophies of Sorel and Dewey, of Ritchie and Russell, of Nietzsche and Tolstoi; to review the methods of Durkheim and Simmel, of Ward and Giddings and Small; of Cooley and Ross; and to discuss the developments seen in the writings of Wallas and Cole.It would have been useful possibly to extend the analysis to the outstanding features of the environment in which these ideas have flourished, and to their numerous and intimate relations and interrelations.

Study of the governmental and party leaders of Italy may contribute to our understanding of the Fascist state, whether we are concerned with public law, comparative government, or comparative politics. The application of the rules of law by any public law agency is affected by the characteristics of those who constitute the agency. Agencies of comparable legal authority exercise their discretion differently when they are differently related to the social context in which they operate. Whatever affects the relative strength of the groups with which an agency is affiliated affects the relative strength of the agency. Hence it is important to ascertain the class, skill, personality, and attitude characteristics of officials in relation to the composition of the community as a whole.

To appreciate the political theories and institutions of Asia in the proper historical perspective, it is necessary to remember that, in spite of Switzerland, universal suffrage and the initiative and referendum are essentially young phenomena in Eur-America; and that republicanism cannot be pronounced to be a historic trait of the occidental mind.On the other hand, it is apparent that the liberal political movements in Young Asia have, if at all, only very remote blood-relationship with the theories and institutions developed in its past history. The Japanese constitutional monarchy, the ideals of the Young Turk, the Chinese republic, as well as the nationalist activities in Egypt, Persia and India, are chiefly based on the modern Eur-American achievements. These sources can be briefly mentioned as: (1) the English parliament, (2) the American federation, (3) the "ideas of 1789," (4) the idealism of Fichte and Schiller, (5) the socialism of Karl Marx and Louis Blanc, (6) the political mysticism of Joseph Mazzini, and, last but not least, (7) the philosophy and methodology of John Stuart Mill.Within these limitations it should be possible to define the rightful place of the Asians in a scientific study of comparative politics.

At the present time, there is an extensive literature dealing with the structure and functions of the eighteen German state governments. For most of the states, one finds collections of laws and regulations, commentaries and manuals, state hand-books, statistical year-books, legal and administrative journals, together with other more or less fugitive publications. But among all this material, there are almost no comparative studies in state law, politics, and administration.It may be worth while to suggest briefly a number of helps for the comparative study of German state government. Of the treatises on public law, the only one which deals exclusively with the states is Julius Hatschek's Ausserpreussisches Landesstaatsrecht (Berlin, 1926). This volume discusses and compares the governments of all the German states except Prussia and Waldeck. The constitutions of ten of the more important states are printed as appendices, but the usefulness of the book is lessened by the complete omission of an index. Otto Meissner's Das Staatsrecht des Reichs und seiner Länder (2nd ed., Berlin, 1923) devotes considerable space to the states and is provided with a good index. It is now, however, somewhat out of date. Walter Jellinek's Verfassung und Verwaltung des Reichs und der Länder (Leipzig, 1925) is of little value for the purpose now under consideration, as it contains only thirteen pages on the states. Fritz Stier-Somlo's Deutsches Reichs-und Landesstaatsrecht (Vol. I, Berlin, 1924) is, of course, recognized as a standard work, but thus far only one volume has appeared. The second volume, dealing with the states, is not yet forthcoming.