Suchergebnisse

Two Italian writers, Gaetano Mosca and Antonio Gramsci, have been very influential in twentieth-century political thought, the first cast as a thoroughgoing conservative, the second as the model of a humanistic Marxist. The author of this provocative book, the first systematic study of the connection between the two men, maintains that they are closer to each other than is commonly supposed-that they in fact belong to the same political tradition of democratic elitism. Maurice A. Finocchiaro argues that Gramsci's political theory is a constructive critique of Mosca's and that the key common element is the attempt to combine democracy and elitism in a theoretical system that defines them not as opposite but as compatible and interdependent. Finocchiaro finds that a critical examination of the major works of the two men demonstrates their shared belief in the viability of democratic elitism and undermines the importance of the distinction between right and left.

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. The New Age -- 2. Backgrounds -- 3. The Making of an Activist -- 4. Traditionalists, Anarchists, and Radicals -- 5. The Counterculture: Left Meets Right -- 6. The Woman Question -- 7. Paradise Lost -- 8. Picking up the Pieces: The 1970s -- 9. Adult Lives -- Conclusion -- Appendix A: Archives and Primary Sources -- Appendix B: Names and Dates of Interviews -- Appendix C: The Sharon Statement -- Notes -- Index

THE AUTHOR ASSESSES THE CONTRIBUTION MADE TO POLITICAL SCIENCE SCHOLARSHIP BY "LEFT-RIGHT POLITICAL SCALES: SOME EXPERT JUDGMENTS," WRITTEN BY FRANCIS CASTLES AND PETER MAIR. IN THEIR ESSAY, CASTLES AND MAIR PROVIDED THE EMPIRICAL FOUNDATION FOR CROSS-NATIONAL LEFT-RIGHT POLITICAL SCALES.

Abstract Although left‐right scales are an inherent feature of much cross‐national research, they have necessarily been created on a somewhat ad hoc basis, since the empirical foundation for valid cross‐national scales rarely exists. This paper seeks to provide such a foundation by using judgements of party ideological position which are both explicit and non‐idiosyncratic across a wide range of countries. These judgements derive from a so‐called 'expert' survey of leading political scientists in Western Europe, the USA, and elsewhere. It is our hope that the scales which we derive in this way may prove useful in a wide variety of contexts of comparative research.