Suchergebnisse

Since the Belgian Communist Party has been constituted as an instrument of the struggle of the We, the party has always considered the parliamentary mandate an affair of the party & not of individuals or groups. The mandate belongs to the party before belonging to the individual deputy, & the party's parliamentary delegation is to promote the aspirations & the interests of the We. In the 1968 elections, the election work of the Communist Party, unlike the election work of other parties, does not reflect the linguistic & communal division of the country. The party program is a federation of the Walloon, Flemish & Brussels areas, this being considered a means for the democratization of the country & the best, if not only, way to preserve Belgium as a state. The party ran candidates in all districts, even in those where its chances were slim. It views elections not only as a means of affirming its presence but as a means of introducing a dynamic element in pol that transcends in importance a particular election. Unlike the 1965 election, in the 1968 election there were no combined lists of Communists & the other alliance. Since 1965, the 2 groups had diverged on a number of issues, & when negotiations for joint lists got under way, the communist election lists were already constituted & it was too late for a compromise. One characteristic feature of communist candidates' lists is the high proportion of workers, which reflects the We character of the party. The party is organized around the work place & the Communist deputy consults with & accounts to the worker. A. Peskin.

Definitions of democracy & oligarchy are followed by a synopsis of the org & composition of the Belgian pol'al system. The Belgian electoral system is examined on the basis of data on pol'al representatives & elections. It is seen that since WWI, within a system of electoral majority & under universal suffrage, Belgium has pursued a rigid bipartisanism, alternating between Catholics & Liberals in the Parliamentary majority, with a remarkable stability. The consequences of this course, from the point of view of democracy as practiced in Belgium, are examined. It is seen that the participation of citizens in pol'al power is limited to elections every 4 yrs, when 212 Representatives & 106 Senators plus 72 secondary & tertiary Senators are elected. The Belgian has freedom of opinion, expression, & association. He can either vote for one of the small parties, or one of the 3 big traditional parties. If he does the latter, chances are that he will, at one time or another, see his party in power again. It is concluded that the Belgian electoral system, from the point of view of democratic participation, is relatively favorable for a multiplicity of parties. However, it is an indirect democracy which is strongly limited, since the possibilities of choice are restricted by the particularities of the electorate system. In fact, since 1919, it has favored an instit'al oligarchy formed by the 3 great traditional parties: the Soc Christians, the Socialists, & the Liberals. 1 Table. M. Maxfield.

The US 1968 elections represent a departure from the traditional Amer pattern. For the first time since the Civil War, 3 presidential candidates presented themselves to the voters in all the States of the Union. This points to a malaise in Amer pot & to a feeling that the 2 big parties do not adequately represent the electorate. 3rd parties in Amer history have played the role of promoting new ideas that were eventually enacted by one of the 2 big parties. But they faced overwhelming odds & did not last more than a few yrs. A picture of the 2 big parties in America is presented: their composition, org & the soc & pol'al forces they represent. The history of Amer 3rd parties is traced from the early 19th' cent until the 1968 election. The parties at the present time, org'al changes that have taken place in recent yrs, new cleavages in Amer society & new problems & new concerns of the electorate are examined. The final section examines the electoral Coll & its effect on pol'al life in America. The fact that Amer elections have traditionally been decided by a narrow margin of votes, it is concluded, shows that the 2 parties are very similar & that they are pragmatic rather than ideological. The broad soc composition of each party maintained the unity of the republic. But the past few yrs have witnessed a fragmentation of Amer society, & movements of the right & left demand to be heard, whether within each of the 2 parties & or by the electorate itself. The G. Wallace campaign & the votes he obtained showed that the demand for change cannot be ignored by pol'al leaders. The discussions in the Democratic Party about a democratization of the decision-making process prove that a reevaluation is already under way. Radical changes in the Democratic Party will be bound to be followed by similar changes in the Republican Party. It is quite possible that in the future state- & nation-wide primaries will decide the choice of the President, thus changing & democratizing the system of presidential elections. A. Peskin.

Evolution of Parliamentary Assemblies in Contemporary Czechoslovakia.
The Parliament has been since 1948 the supreme organ of State power in Czechoslovakia. At the local level, the elected « national committees » represent the most important organs of State administration.
During the « dogmatic » period, the importance of parliamentary assemblies is less than is foreseen by the constitutional and legislative texts ; it is considerably below the authority given to leading organs of the Czechoslovak communist party. The XX-th Congress of the communist party of the Soviet Union showed however, that economic problems, particularly the progressive failure of the system of central management, played a decisive role in the ideological, political and institutional process which started in the 60-ties.
The Constitution of 1960 and the constitutional Law of October 27 th, 1968, introduced a federal system governing the Czech and Slovak republics and represented an attempt to find a constitutional model which corresponded closely to national realities without rejecting socialism. The objective of this new model is to combine parliamentary with direct democracy. Several techniques are developped with aim to bring into closer contact the administration with the administrated, the authorities with the citizen.
The most significant evolution since 1960 however, is the progessive reinforcement of the parliamentary assemblies, which seem to slowly regain that preeminence which they already enjoy from a legal standpoint.
This shift from formal to actual power is caracterised by two interdependent movements :
— growth of authority stemming from the improvement of the rules governing recrui- tement of deputies and from the extension of their legislative and political competences (a number of electoral laws, the last of which was passed in 1964, attribute more importance to elections which had been traditionnally relegated to a second place in People's democracies) ;
— growth of their efficiency due to the adoption of new rules of parliamentary work (the assembly « committees » are assisted directly by the services of experts and by the administrative State apparatus and actually try to participate in the elaboration and execution of general policy).
These trends are evolving in a very complex environment and are far from stable. The policy made after January 1968 and following the events of August of that same year, provoked in the institutional life of Czechoslovakia, phases of precipitation followed by slowdowns in some sectors. It seems however, that in spite of powerful obstacles which continue to exist, parliamentary assemblies can become, in a not distant future, the most important organs of the Czechoslovak State socialist system.