Suchergebnisse

A discussion of the "art of politics" requires no justification at a time when the potentials of publicity and propaganda have made it abundantly clear that successful government is not identical with application of the results of a Gallup poll. It is for this very reason that we have also become distrustful of the ars politica which has been more and more identified with the modern arts of persuasion. Although the engineers of political publicity assure us that with the right technique the ruler can get anything "across," we turn rather to those who assert that good government is not an art but an active prudence, directed by such steady instruments of control as popular representation. However, even the most perfect technology of government is not a substitute for the art of governing. Guizot, no friend of absolutism, has pointed out one of the most astonishing manifestations of this "art": the ability of the ancien régime to maintain between people and ruler an intimate understanding without parliaments in the modern sense.