UTP » Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Who Wants What? The Political Process

Chapter Summary Self-Study Questions Something to Consider Key Terms Case Studies Resources

CHAPTER SUMMARY

In any regime, the state has a role in providing stability and managing growth; in a democracy, it is expected that various segments of the larger public will deliver to the state their ideas about how that stability should be shaped and what kind of growth is ideal. The process by which such inputs are delivered is known more generally as the political process; in a democracy, this process also moves (and removes) individuals from civil society into (from) positions of authority. The expectation that politicians will succeed or fail based on the policies they promise to implement or their record of achievements is part of democratic ideology.

The ideas that may be considered for political action depend on at least two variables: one that is sociological and one that is cultural.

The sociological dimension is the structure of cleavages within the society. The first half of the chapter outlines various possible cleavages and examples of their interaction within particular societies. A brief case study examines the changing nature of the cleavage structure in Quebec before and after the so-called Quiet Revolution of the 1960s and the rise and continued presence of a strong sovereigntist movement within that state.

The cultural dimension consists of the various ideologies that have evolved since the rise of liberalism—the ideology of the marketplace—in the seventeenth century. These systematic sets of ideas have focused on the economic management role (or not) of the state, and on measures that decrease or increase various personal freedoms and rights. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the range of ideas embraced by mainstream ideologies is much narrower today than at any previous point.

SELF-STUDY QUESTIONS

Multiple Choice

(Answer key below)

1. Liberal constitutionalism is composed of which of the following?

a. Limited government
b. Democracy
c. Both
d. Neither

2. Which of the following ideologies focuses on inequality?

a. Marxism
b. Feminism
c. Both
d. Neither

3. When do cleavages become a basis for political mobilization?

a. When they are successfully accommodated within a regime
b. When they are unsuccessfully accommodated within a regime
c. Both
d. Neither

4. Ideologies do which of the following?

a. Offer a program for political transformation
b. Form a bridge between philosophy and action
c. Protect a valued way of life from change
d. All of the above

5. Which of the following describes a policy of co-opting the existing leadership of a group?

a. Giving the Man his due
b. Rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s
c. Alliance brokering
d. Elite accommodation

6. Which of the following does NOT help to form and shape societal cleavages?

a. Social divisions based on a central characteristic
b. The absence of an organization giving difference institutional expression
c. Collective identification around the difference informing the potential cleavage
d. None of the above

7. Which term describes innate characteristics that emerge as perceived political differences?

a. Descriptive
b. Inherent
c. Ascriptive
d. All of the above

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Short Answer

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SOMETHING TO CONSIDER

1. Is the political process more successful at delivering ideas from civil society, representatives committed to carrying out certain policy goals, or inspirational political leaders?

2. In a modern democracy, two expectations compete: that those who are responsible for public policy will be elected by the public at large, and that those who have an ongoing role in the delivery of policy will be apolitical (politically sensitive) professionals. Discuss.

KEY TERMS

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CASE STUDIES

1. Selected quotations:

MARX ON IDEOLOGY
[BQ]The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, consequently also controls the means of mental production, so that the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are on the whole subject to it.
. . . .
If now in considering the course of history we detach the ideas of the ruling class from the ruling class itself and attribute to them an independent existence . . . without bothering ourselves about the conditions of production and the producers of these ideas, if we thus ignore the individuals and the world conditions which are the source of the ideas, then we can say, for instance, that during the time the aristocracy was dominant, the concepts honour, loyalty, etc., were dominant, during the dominance of the bourgeoisie the concepts freedom, equality, etc. The ruling class itself on the whole imagines this to be so. . . . For each new class which puts itself in the place of one ruling before it is compelled, merely in order to carry through its aim, to present its interest as the common interest of all the members of society, that is, expressed in ideal form: it has to give its ideas the form of universality, and present them as the only rational, universally valid ones.
—The German Ideology, MECW, 1976: V, 59–60. [/BQ]

EDMUND BURKE ON ARISTOCRACY
[BQ]Nothing is more certain than that our manners, our civilization, and all the good things which are connected with manners and with civilization have, in this European world of ours, depended for ages upon two principles . . . I mean the spirit of a gentleman and the spirit of religion. The nobility and the clergy, the one by profession, the other by patronage, kept learning in existence, even in the midst of arms and confusions, and whilst governments were rather in their causes than formed. Learning paid back what it received to nobility and to priesthood, and paid it with usury, by enlarging their ideas and by furnishing their minds.
—Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790.[/BQ]

JOHN DEWEY ON EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY
[BQ] In short, each one is equally an individual and entitled to equal opportunity of development of his own capacities, be they large or small in range. Moreover, each has needs of his own, as significant to him as those of others are to them. The very fact of natural and psychological inequality is all the more reason for establishment by law of equality of opportunity, since otherwise the former becomes a means of oppression of the less gifted.
—“Democracy and Educational Administration,” 1937.[/BQ]

2. Working Class Internationalism

A number of organizations have been formed over the decades to promote working-class internationalism:

• International Working Men’s Association: Founded in 1864, and including Karl Marx among its members, the so-called First International grew until it split into socialist and anarchist wings during the 1870s and eventually disbanded in 1876.

• The Second (Socialist) International: Founded in 1881 by Belgian and German social democrats, the so-called Second International was an association of socialist and social democratic parties in Western Europe; it eventually foundered on its inability to achieve a consensus position in opposition to World War I (1914–1918). It was reconstituted as the Socialist International in 1951 at the Frankfurt Congress and today constitutes more than 160 socialist, social democratic, and labour parties and organizations worldwide.

• The Communist International: Founded in 1919 by V. I. Lenin in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution, the so-called Third International was an association of Communist parties worldwide, also known as the Comintern. Loyal to (if not controlled by) Moscow, the association sought to ensure the triumph of communism over socialism by working for worldwide revolution. The necessity of alliance with liberal democratic governments against fascism in World War II (1939–1945) caused the Soviet government to formally dissolve the Comintern in 1943.

• The Trotskyist International: While in exile, Leon Trotsky (former comrade-in-arms of Lenin and Stalin) attempted to found a Fourth International. Trotsky was assassinated by a Stalinist agent in 1940, but the Fourth International was reconstituted after World War II, before experiencing a number of schisms that limited its effectiveness. It currently publishes the World Socialist Web Site.

3. Leninism

As the author of the Bolshevik Revolution that ultimately led to the creation of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), Lenin rejected the incrementalism of socialism, arguing that workers in a capitalist society would never attain the revolutionary consciousness necessary to promote and carry through radical change. The revolution of the working class required the dynamic leadership of a committed core of revolutionaries, intellectuals grounded in Marxist theory and engaged in agitation and propaganda. Lenin called this a vanguard, acting and deciding on behalf of the working class (the proletariat). The vanguard party is rigorously organized, selective about membership, and supposedly run on the principle of democratic centralism. When Russia experienced a liberal revolution in 1917, the vanguard party of Bolsheviks under Lenin and Trotsky eventually seized power.

RESOURCES

Chapter References

Gallagher, Michael, Michael Laver, and Peter Mair. Representative Government in Modern Europe. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995. Electronic copy of Table of Contents and Preface of the fifth edition

Lane, Jan-Erik, and Svante O. Ersson. Politics and Society in Western Europe. London: Sage, 1991.

Owram, Doug. “Reluctant Hinterland,” The Canadian Political Tradition. 2nd ed. Ed. R.S. Blair and J.T. McLeod. Scarborough: Nelson Canada, 1993. 153–168.

United Nations. Our Common Future. Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. 1987. Web. Electronic copy

Wiles, Peter. Populism. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1969.