Suchergebnisse

FEW EXTENDED ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPT OF POLITICAL STABILITY HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED, MUCH OF THE LITERATURE CONCENTRATING ON AN ANALYSIS OF ITS CAUSES. THIS ARTICLE DISCUSSES THE MAIN APPROACHES TO STABILITY AND EXAMINES TWO RECENT CONCEPTUALIZATIONS BY AKE AND BY SANDERS. IT IS ARGUED THAT BOTH ARE UNSATISFACTORY, AND AN ALTERNATIVE DEFINITION IS DEVELOPED, STARTING FROM FIRST PRINCIPLES. THE PROBLEMS OF IDENTITY AND CHANGE ARE EXAMINED, AND WHAT COUNTS AS THE SURVIVAL OF A POLITICAL OBJECT IS SPECIFIED. A STABLE POLITICAL OBJECT IN DEFINED AS ONE THAT POSSESSES THE CAPACITY TO PREVENT ITS OWN FORCED NON-SURVIVAL. IT IS ARGUED THAT STABILITY CANNOT BE QUANTIFIED AND THAT THERE ARE THUS NO DEGREES OF STABILITY.

THE ARGUMENT OF THE PAPER IS THAT POLITICAL SCIENCE WOULD BENEFIT FROM CLARIFICATION OF THE CONCEPT' CIRSIS, AND THAT THIS CLARIFICATION SHOULD BE RELATED TO NEIGHBOURING CONCEPTS SUCH AS 'STABILLITY" AND 'BREAKDOWN. IT IS SUGGESTED THAT THE STABILITY OF A POLITICAL REGIME IS DEMONSTRATED BY ITS ABILITY TO AVOID TRANSFORMATION AS WELL AS BREAKDOWN AT TIMES OF CRISIS WHEN THE CONTINUITY OF THE REGIME'S IDENTIFYING CHARACTERISTICS IS THREATENED.

It is argued that PO surveys, in order to contribute to the understanding of the causes of instability & civil conflict, including revolution, must probe ever deeper into the causes of individual actions & beliefs. They need new & deeper hyp's to do the res required in unstable times. One potentially fruitful area in this regard is the study of value consensus & dissensus. A 52-page interview schedule was prepared to ascertain the pol'al values on which various categories of people agree & disagree, & the possible is of responses on the value items. One of the major hyp'ed discriminators was SES: poor people should have cliff values from rich people. A total/sum of 121 usable interviews were taken in the US & a total/sum of 153 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. R's of middle & physically deprived SES were eliminated, producing a final sample of 85 cases in the US, of which 42 were of low & 43 of high SES, & 116 cases in Brazil, of which 68 were of low & 48 of high SES. Data obtained indicate that the poor & rich R's do not differ as to their conception of equal justice for poor & rich. Both poor & rich in both countries were more likely to say murder is mitigated by poverty than not, but Brazilians are more likely to say this than US R's. Ratio's of disapproval of stealing food by a poor & hungry person were 3 to 2 among poor Amer's; 4 to 1 among rich Amer's; 5 to 2 among poor Brazilians; & 6 to 5 among rich Brazilians. Re equality, 56% of poor Brazilians, & 79% of poor Amer's considered themselves equal to anybody else; 72% of rich Amer's & 79% of rich Brazilians considered themselves as equal. It is concluded that on some matters SES distinguishes diff categories of opinion & on some others it does not. Some of the consensus appears to relate to stability & some does not. The proximity of the survey to the Brazilian coup of 1964 (within half a yr after) may have influenced the results. Data also show that the poor in the US lack the intense hostility to the rich that poor R's in Brazil indicated. Brazilians generally seem to lack the degree of involvement & trust in the pol'al process that showed up in the US interviews. Consensus & dissensus are influenced by complex factors which must be studied in greater detail. 2 Tables. M. Maxfield.

Excerpts from his book entitled, "Southeast Asia."