Suchergebnisse

The changes in Egyptian political life since Mubarak's ascension to power have been dramatic. Following Sadat's hesitant steps toward pluralism, the Mubarak government permitted the certification of a variety of opposition parties. The article examines various opposition movements and parties. The radicalization of the Islamist trend is discussed. (DÜI-Sen)

Explores how political opposition in the US is expressed & encouraged, including impeachment, federalism, & extraconstitutional institutional complexes (eg, political parties, interest groups, & the media). Is is argued that the wide array of highly effective & peaceful legitimate avenues for opposition render the US political system unique in the world. Changing patterns of political opposition in the last 30 years are also discussed. 2 Tables. W. Mills

SURELY IN THE MANUFACTURE OF VARIETIES OF PEACEABLE AND legitimate political opposition the American political system leads the world, and from a comparative perspective the United States is therefore extremely atypical. This essay will review briefly some of the more familiar ways in which political opposition in the United States is expressed and encouraged, will consider some of the consequences for a political system so rich in opportunities for opposition, and in conclusion will discuss changes in patterns of opposition over the last 30 years.

ALTHOUGH THE CLASSICAL WORK ONPOLITICAL OPPOSITION IN Western Democracies, edited by Robert Dahl, was published decades ago, in 1966, the analysis of the characteristics of opposition, in democracies or elsewhere, has advanced rather less than other aspects of comparative politics. The word 'opposition' is used daily to account for a variety of developments; but its many meanings have not been systematically related to the differences among the political systems of the world. A number of comparative studies did appear after the 1966 seminal work, admittedly, including one by Dahl himself in 1973, as well as those by Ionescu and Madariaga in 1968, by Schapiro in 1972, by Tokes in 1979, by Kolinsky in 1988 and by Rodan in 1996; these volumes explore aspects of the concept which could not have been even referred to in the original study, since that study was confined to Western democracies and to the part played by political parties in the context of opposition. Yet the problem has still not been tackled truly comprehensively, as, with the exception of the 1973 Dahl volume, the works on the subject are comparative only in the sense that they deal with more than one country; but their scope remains limited to a region or to a particular type of political system. Meanwhile, many country analyses examine the nature of political opposition in each particular case, but the information which they provide has to be brought within a common framework before we can hope to obtain a general picture of the characteristics of opposition across the world.