Suchergebnisse

Data from political anthropology, archeology, & history are used to develop an overview of the evolution of political organization up to the point of the emergence of the early state. While evolution is a process of gradual transformation, it is possible to distinguish several broad evolutionary states: egalitarian, rank, stratified, & state society. The evolution of political organization is influenced on the one hand by general forces, such as population growth & pressure, & on the other hand by such specific forces as surplus production, obligations caused by reciprocity, ideological convictions, & kinship type; in interplay, these cause specific types of political organization. Such factors as population pressure, war or threat of war, & conquest seem to play the most important role in the gradual emergence of the state. A necessary condition for this emergence seems to be that existing ideological convictions not be incompatible with hierarchization & centralization. Modified HA.

The welfare state is analyzed through positive economic science & positive political theory. The axiomatic theory of consistent choice, leading to the idea of Pareto optimality, provides more rigorous analysis than the theory of the firm & of industrial organization; however, the latter theory more fully merges theory with the empirical testing of hypotheses. Theories of political phenomena can profit more from theories of the latter kind than from theories of the former kind. The central point is production of falsifiable theories of hypotheses & predictions, & the avoidance of confusions of description with prescription in dealing with political life. The debate over whether a socialist economy can coordinate decisions on the use of scarce resources, & the resulting questions over the social & economic role of the state, remain unresolved on theoretical grounds. Thus, economics cannot prescribe the proper role of the state. Attention must be given to the process & meaning of law making, the intended effects of laws & their compatibility with one another. There is thus a need for scientific & parliamentary scrutiny of their implementation in a democratic state under pressure from interest groups. There is a great need for analysis of the processes going on in the crumbling welfare state, rather than propaganda; providing this analysis is part of the vocation of academic leaders. Modified HA.

Data from the 1977 national election survey of Dutch voters are used to test a hypothetico-deductive model of party preference formation, based on the supposition that voters tend to express a preference for the parties with which their views on a particular set of issues are most consistent. The parties examined are the PvdA (Labor), CDA (Christian Democratic), & VVD (Conservative-Liberal). Multiple-regression analysis allows explanation of about 40% of differences in party preference between voters on the basis of voters' stands on issues. Comparison of voters' stands & perceived party stands appears to predict expressed party preference adequately in 69% of cases. These results give support for the view that human behavior is not blindly mechanistic, but involves some minimal level of reflection. Consideration of methodological problems leads to the conclusion that relatively simple models resting on clear theoretical assumptions are preferable to more sophisticated models, which have less solid theoretical foundations & do not gain in explanatory or predictive power. 11 Tables, 1 Graph, Appendix. Modified HA.

Analyzed are social & political characteristics of Permanent Secretaries in the Netherlands during the period 1945-1979 (total N = 60). Results are interpreted in the context of some developments that have taken place at the highest levels in Dutch ministries: an increase in the number of political appointees & elected officials, the growing number of permanent undersecretaries, the growth of the major policy-making agencies within the ministries, & the increasing importance of the central staff agencies. The model Permanent Secretary is appointed between the ages of 44 & 48. He has studied law at Leiden U, & has been recruited from within the ministry. He is a Protestant, & a member of the Christian Democratic Party or, in the past, of one of the Christian parties; in party membership he is similar to the recruiting minister. No distinct trends are identified over the period considered. The Permanent Secretary & his staff adapt themselves to processes of politicization; however, this adaptation is slow & susceptible to certain kinds of backlash. 9 Tables. Modified HA.

Political science as an independent science was born in the Netherlands in 1948 when J. Barents was appointed the first Dutch political science professor. Political science departments exist now in 5 Dutch universities. About 900 political scientists got their BAs & 50 their doctorates in the Netherlands. Eighteen hundred students are currently majoring in political science. The 200 books published by Dutch political scientists since 1948 are surveyed. It is concluded that there has been a major advance in knowledge & insight & that much is still to be desired. From a political science viewpoint the Dutch map is a mostly blank area. Political science knowledge is fragmented. There is more analysis than synthesis. A policy of work accumulation is missing. Manpower & research funds are short. Government financial support of teaching & research is extremely limited compared to the natural sciences. 2 Tables. Modified AA.

The question is examined of what personal income distribution will be brought about by the institutions of a political democracy, assuming these institutions have the power to determine this. It has been assumed that an egalitarian income distribution would result. The ideas of Hans van den Doel (Democracy and Welfare Economics, Cambridge, 1979) offer an alternative model. The majority of individuals would not seek radical leveling down of incomes for several reasons: concern for economic growth & employment, & the hope of the poor to become rich. Also, if a majority sought radical leveling down, & the measures were not rigorously enforced, a Prisoner's Dilemma would result for each individual; but if they were rigorously enforced, a situation of collective intransitivity would emerge, making the decision subject to cycling. Resolution of this problem would likely leave median income voters in a strong position that they could use to benefit themselves at the expense of the poor. These findings are consistent with the finding of R. W. Jackman (Politics and Social Equality: A Comparative Analysis, New York, 1975) that political equality does not play an important role in increasing equality of material rewards. 4 Tables, 5 Figures. Modified HA.

The literature of the last decade on Marxist or materialist theories of the state is reviewed. It is concluded that a Marxist theory of the state, ie, a theory that explains the conditions & mechanisms of the formation & functioning of the state, does not exist. What is presented as a Marxist theory is actually a structural-functionalist conception of the state, formulated in Marxist terms. This conception is characterized by strong teleological & metaphysical overtones & contains many elements of so-called bourgeois theories of the state. It is demonstrated that this conception is incompatible with a theory in which the processes of formation & functioning of the state are regarded as the results of ongoing political processes & conflicts, arising from relations of dependence & power in & between societies. Modified HA.

The possible contributions of sociobiology & ethology to the political sciences are critically examined. E. O. Wilson's Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard U Press, Belknap Press, 1975) is reviewed & the key concepts of his theory are presented. The group "Science for the People" criticizes Wilson's work as racist & supportive of the status quo; their complaints are rejected as biased & unjust. The last three IPSA congresses in Munich (1970), Montreal (1973), & Edinburgh (1976) show that attempts to relate biology & political sciences exist, though they are still rare. The sessions on "Biology & Politics" in the Montreal congress are presented as an example. Here, the emphasis is on the methodological contributions of ethology to political sciences. The concept of "social systems" is seen as a major contribution to the social sciences. It demands a stronger shift toward interdisciplinary works between political & biological sciences. W. Zimmerman.

An extensive review is given of the book Graven naar Macht ([Digging for Power] Amsterdam: Van Gennep, 1975) by H. M. Helmers et al & with the collaboration of Jac. M. Anthonisse. The word Graven in the title not only means 'unearthing', but also refers to the research technique used: the analysis of graphs. The power in question is that allegedly possessed by the directors of big corporations, who spin a web of interlocking directorates within industry & finance & with government (particularly the Dept of Education & Sciences, of Economic Affairs, & the Social & Economic Council of the Netherlands). Although the authors are political scientists, they go beyond their competence by passing judgment on the contributions of economics, which they judge to be poor or entirely lacking. They argue that economics has lost sight of the phenomenon of power because it has become so mature in a technical sense, & abstract. Hence, the authors feel obliged to probe for the kernel of Dutch economy with a new method of analysis. It is argued that the authors missed the essentials of economic theorizing in general, that they were unaware even of those areas of economics that deal explicitly with at least part of the problem they want to tackle (especially the theory of allocation & of markets, managerial & behavioral theories of the firm, & the field of industrial organization) & that they failed to discover the core of Dutch economy, whether judged by the standards of their own approach or by comparison with the insights of economic theory. The gathering & presentation of the data & the presentation of graph theory are praised. The rest of the book is said to be a failure; the authors do not live up to their intentions. Modified HA.

The framework of public administration in many developing countries was, to a large extent, set by the colonial powers: direct or indirect rule, centralization of administrative power benefiting only a small elite, & the abuse of power at the lower levels of government affect the administrative apparatus to this day. Other problems are the psychological insecurity of many administrators, the intertwining of politics & administration, the inability of the administrators to cope with problems of economic planning & performance, & the general shortage of skilled personnel, especially in the field of management. The science of public administration presents various approaches to the study of administration in developing countries, including: (1)`ideographic' analysis (largely descriptive, & directed at the solution of practical problems), & (2) typologies & classifications (`crude' models or sophisticated ideal types, like M. Weber's 'bureaucracy'). F. W. Riggs's bipolar ideal type of 'agraria' & 'industria' deserve particular attention; when used in the context of an ecological approach (eg, Riggs, F. W., Administration in Developing Countries-The Theory of Prismatic Society, Boston: Little, Brown, 1964) it forms a very useful approach to the study of public administration in developing countries. Ideographic analysis suffers from a lack of scientific rigor, but its attention to history & culture & its practical orientation constitute definite advantages. Yet, there are considerable problems in justifying `comparative ideographic' development assistance in the field of public administration. Weber's ideal type offers another useful starting point for the study of development administration, but only if one uses the bureaucratic ideal type in a more inductive way than Weber did, & if one takes great care to avoid simplistic notions about a `modern' bureaucracy. Riggs's ecological approach & Weber's ideal type of `the bureaucracy' as reformulated by F. Heady (Public Administration: A Comparative Perspective, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1966), seem to be the most solid bases for a further development of the study of development administration. Modified HA.

J. Galtung's redefinition of the concept of peace is a classic example of an attempt to reorient a discipline by coining a new term; but it should not be the pleasant connotation of the term 'positive peace', but its usefulness in studying factual violence, which should be decisive in determining the merits of the new definition. Three objections to Galtung's definition are raised: (1) It is quite ineffective to criticize the 'minimal' definition of violence, which is meant to refer to observable phenomena, by counterproposing a theoretical construct. Galtung's definition of violence, which, apart from 'direct' violence, includes also 'structural' violence, needs prior operationalization before it can be used in empirical research. (2) Although Galtung's use of the term 'structural violence' suggests otherwise, any indication of the social units to which the 'actual' & 'potential realizations' in his definition of violence refer, is lacking. Most of Galtung's examples are at the individual level. Social interdependencies (eg, those resulting from the DofL) necessitate the introduction of properties of the SE order in Galtung's terminology & require that he make explicit how 'the best attainable realizations' (as the most likely interpretation of 'potential realizations') can be incorporated in his thinking. (3) In drawing a distinction between 'personal violence' & 'structural violence', Galtung mistakes a distinction between theoretical alternatives in the study of violence (ie, the Clausewitzian approach vs the causal-empirical approach) for a distinction between kinds of violent relationships. In emphasizing that the causes of war should also be searched for in periods of peace, Q. Wright has shown that 'positive peace' cannot be considered as an alternative for 'negative peace'. Nevertheless, Galtung's use of the term has induced serious disagreement among peace researchers about the most desirable research strategy in their discipline. 'Critical' peace researchers (Galtung not included) tend to rely on ideological testimony instead of empirical proof for the causes of violence. Research into those causes, including the relationship between social injustice & violence, is regarded a more fruitful approach. 6 Tables. Modified HA.