LIBERALISM 12 page

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 362.

PARLIAMENT

The terms parliament, assembly and legislature are often used interchangeably, but they have, to some extent, different implications. An assembly, in its simplest sense, is a collection or gathering of people, as in, for example, a school assembly. As a political term, assembly has come to be associated with representative and popular *government, an assembly being viewed as a surrogate for the

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people. For this reason the term is sometimes reserved for the lower, popularly elected chamber in a bicameral system, or for the single chamber in a unicameral system. A legislature is a law-making body; however, even when assemblies are invested with formal and possibly supreme legislative authority, they never monopolise lawmaking power and rarely in practice control the legislative process. Parliament (from the French parler, meaning ‘to speak') implies consultation and deliberation, and thus suggests that the primary role of an assembly is to act as a debating chamber in which policies and political issues can be openly discussed and scrutinised. Parliaments are generally categorised according to their capacity to influence *policy. Policy-making parliaments enjoy significant *autonomy and have an active impact upon policy. Policy-influencing parliaments can transform policy but only by reacting to executive initiatives. Executive-dominated parliaments exert marginal influence or merely ‘rubber-stamp' executive decisions.

Significance

Parliaments occupy a key position in the machinery of government. Traditionally they have been treated with special respect and status as the public, even democratic, face of government. Parliaments are respected because they are composed of lay politicians who claim to represent the people rather than trained or expert government officials. As such, parliaments provide a link between government and the people; that is, they are a channel of communication that can both support government and uphold the regime, and force government to respond to popular demands. The chief functions of a parliament are to enact legislation, act as a representative body, oversee and scrutinise the *executive, recruit and train politicians, and assist in maintaining the political system's *legitimacy.

However, parliaments are often subordinate bodies in modern political systems. Examples of policy-making assemblies are rare (the US Congress and the Italian Senate are exceptions). Most can be classified as either policy-influencing or executive-dominated parliaments. The amount of *power a parliament has is determined by a variety of state-specific factors. These include the extent of the parliament's constitutional authority, its degree of political independence from the executive (notably whether it operates within a *parliamentary or a *presidential system), the nature of the party

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system, and the parliament's level of organisational coherence (particularly the strength of its committee system).

Most commentators agree that parliaments generally lost power during the twentieth century. This decline occurred because of the executive's greater capacity to formulate policy and provide *leadership; because of the growth in the role of government and the consequent increase in the size and status of *bureaucracies; because of the emergence of disciplined *political parties; and because of the increased strength of *pressure groups, and the rise of the *mass media as an alternative forum for political debate and discussion. There is, nevertheless, also evidence of a revival in parliamentary power, through, for instance, the strengthening of specialist *committees and a trend towards professionalisation. This reflects the recognition of a link between the legitimacy and stability of a political system and the effectiveness of its parliament.

POLITICAL CULTURE

Culture, in its broadest sense, is the way of life of a people. Sociologists and anthropologists tend to distinguish between ‘culture' and ‘nature', the former encompassing that which is passed on to one generation to the next by learning, the latter referring to that which is acquired through biological inheritance. Political scientists use the term in a narrower sense to refer to a people's psychological orientation, political culture being the general ‘pattern of orientations' to political objects such as parties, *government and the *constitution, expressed in beliefs, symbols and values. Political culture differs from public opinion in that it is fashioned out of long-term values rather than simply people's reactions to specific issues and problems.

Significance

Interest amongst political scientists in the idea of political culture emerged in the 1950s and 1960s as new techniques of behavioural analysis displaced more traditional, institutional approaches to the subject. The classic work in this respect was Almond and Verba's The Civic Culture (1963) (subsequently updated as The Civic Culture Revisited (1980)), which used opinion surveys to analyse political attitudes in democracy in five countries: the USA, the UK, West

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Germany, Italy and Mexico. The civic culture model identified three general types of political culture: participant culture, subject culture and parochial culture. A ‘participant' political culture is one in which citizens pay close attention to politics and regard popular participation as both desirable and effective. A ‘subject' political culture is characterised by more passivity amongst citizens, and the recognition that they have only a very limited capacity to influence government. A ‘parochial' political culture is marked by the absence of a sense of *citizenship, with people identifying with their locality rather than the region, and having neither the desire nor the ability to participate in politics. Almond and Verba argued that the ‘civic culture' is a blend of all three in that it reconciles the participation of citizens in the political process with the vital necessity for government to govern. Although interest in political culture faded in the 1970s and 1980s with the declining influence of *behaviouralism, the debate was revitalised in the 1990s. This occurred both as a result of efforts by post-communist states to foster democratic values and expectations, and because of growing anxiety in mature democracies, such as the USA, about the apparent decline of social capital and civic engagement.

However, the civic-culture approach to the study of political attitudes and values has been widely criticised. In the first place Almond and Verba's ‘sleeping dogs' theory of democratic culture, which emphasises the importance of passivity and deference, has been rejected by those who argue that political participation is the very stuff of *democracy. Low electoral turn-outs, for example, may reflect widespread alienation and ingrained disadvantage, rather than political contentment. Second, a civic culture may be more a consequence of democracy than its cause. In other words, the assumption that political attitudes and values shape behaviour, and not the other way round, is unproven. Third, this approach tends to treat political culture as homogeneous; that is, as little more than a cipher for national culture or national character. In so doing, it pays little attention to political sub-cultures and tends to disguise fragmentation and social conflict. Finally, the civic-culture model has been condemned as politically conservative. Marxists in particular reject the ‘bottom-up' implications of Almond and Verba's work, and adopt instead a dominant-ideology model of political culture, which highlights the role of ideological *hegemony and draws attention to the link between unequal class power and cultural and ideological bias.

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POLITICAL PARTY

A political party is a group of people that is organised for the purpose of winning government *power, by electoral or other means. Parties are often confused with *pressure groups or *social movements. Four characteristics usually distinguish parties from other groups. First, parties aim to exercise government power by winning office (although small parties may use *elections more to gain a platform than to win power). Second, parties are organised bodies with a formal ‘card-carrying' membership. This distinguishes them from broader and more diffuse social movements. Third, parties typically adopt a broad issue focus, addressing each of the major issues of government policy (small parties, however, may have a single-issue focus, thus resembling pressure groups). Fourth, to varying degrees, parties are united by shared political preferences and a general ideological identity.

However, political parties can be classified as mass and cadre parties, as representative and integrative parties, and as constitutional and revolutionary parties. A mass party places a heavy emphasis upon broadening membership and constructing a wide electoral base, the earliest examples being European socialist parties which aimed to mobilise working-class support, such as the UK Labour Party and the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). Such parties typically place heavier stress upon recruitment and organisation than on *ideology and political conviction. Kirchheimer (1966) classified most modern parties as ‘catch-all parties', emphasising that they have dramatically reduced their ideological baggage in order to appeal to the largest number of voters. A cadre party, on the other hand, is dominated by trained and professional party members who are expected to exhibit a high level of political commitment and doctrinal discipline, as in the case of communist and fascist parties.

Neumann (1956) offered the alternative distinction between representative parties, which adopt a catch-all strategy and place pragmatism before principle, and integrative parties, which are proactive rather than reactive, and attempt to mobilise, educate and inspire the masses, instead of merely responding to their concerns. Occasionally, mass parties may exhibit mobilising or integrative tendencies, as in the case of the UK Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. Finally, parties can be classified as constitutional parties when they operate within a framework of constraints

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imposed by the existence of other parties, the rules of electoral competition and, crucially, a distinction between the party in power (the government of the day) and state institutions (the *bureaucracy, *judiciary, police and so on). Revolutionary parties, by contrast, adopt an anti-system or anti-constitutional stance, and when such parties win power they invariably become ‘ruling' or regime parties, suppressing rival parties and establishing a permanent relationship with the state machinery.

Significance

The political party is the major organising principle of modern politics. As political machines organised to win (by elections or otherwise), and wield government power, parties are virtually ubiquitous. The only parts of the world in which they do not exist are those where they are suppressed by *dictatorship or military rule. Political parties are a vital link between the *state and *civil society, carrying out major functions such as representation, the formation and recruitment of political elites, the articulation and aggregation of interests and the organisation of government. However, the role and significance of parties varies according to the party system. In one-party systems they effectively substitute themselves for the government, creating a fused party–state apparatus. In two-party systems the larger of the major parties typically wields government power, while the other major party constitutes the opposition and operates as a ‘government in waiting'. In a multiparty system the parties tend to act as brokers representing a narrower range of interests, and exert influence through the construction of more or less enduring electoral alliances or formal *coalitions.

Criticisms of political parties have either stemmed from an early liberal fear that parties would promote conflict and destroy the underlying unity of society, and make the politics of individual conscience impossible, or that they are inherently elitist and bureaucratic bodies. The latter view was most famously articulated by Robert Michels ([1911] 1962) in the form of the ‘iron law of oligarchy'. Some modern parties, notably Green parties, style themselves as ‘anti-party parties', in that they set out to subvert traditional party politics by rejecting parliamentary compromise and emphasising popular mobilisation. Amongst the strongest supporters of the political party has been Lenin ([1902] 1968) , who advocated

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the construction of a tightly knit revolutionary party, organised on the basis of democratic centralism, to serve as the ‘vanguard of the working class'. Nevertheless, the late twentieth century provided evidence of a so-called ‘crisis of party politics', reflected in a seemingly general decline in party membership and partisanship, and in the contrasting growth of single-issue protest groups and rise of new social movements. This has been explained on the basis that, as bureaucratised political machines, parties are unable to respond to the growing appetite for popular participation and activism; that their image as instruments of government means that they are inevitably associated with power, ambition and corruption; and that, given the growing complexity of modern societies and the decline of class and other traditional social identities, the social forces that once gave rise to parties have now weakened. Such factors are nevertheless more likely to lead to a transformation in the role of political parties and in the style of party politics, than to make them redundant.

PRESIDENT

A president is a formal head of state, a title which is held in other *states by a monarch or emperor. However, constitutional presidents differ from executive presidents. Constitutional presidents, or non-executive presidents (found in India, Israel and Germany, for example), are a feature of *parliamentary government and have responsibilities that are largely confined to ceremonial duties. In these circumstances the president is a mere figurehead, and executive power is wielded by a *prime minister and/or a *cabinet. Executive presidents wear ‘two hats', in that they combine the formal responsibilities of a head of state with the political power of a chief executive. Presidencies of this kind constitute the basis of *presidential government and conform to the principles of the *separation of powers.

Significance

US-style presidential government has spawned imitations throughout the world, mainly in Latin America and, more recently, in post-communist states such as Poland, the Czech Republic and Russia. In investing executive *power in a presidency, the architects of the

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US constitution were aware that they were, in effect, creating an ‘elective kingship'. The president was invested with an impressive range of powers, including those of head of state, chief executive, commander-in-chief of the armed forces and chief diplomat, and was granted wide-ranging powers of patronage and the right to veto legislation. However, the modern presidency, in the USA and elsewhere, has been shaped by wider political developments as well as by formal constitutional rules. The most important of these developments have been growing government intervention in economic and social life, an increasingly interdependent or globalised international order, and the rise of the *mass media, particularly television, as political institutions. Within the constraints of their political system, presidents have therefore become deliverers of national prosperity, world statesmen and national celebrities. By the 1970s this led to alarm, in the USA in particular, about the emergence of an ‘imperial presidency', a presidency capable of emancipating itself from its traditional constitutional constraints. However, subsequent setbacks for presidents such as Nixon and Carter in the USA re-emphasised the enduring truth of Neustadt's (1980) classic formulation of presidential power as the ‘power to persuade', that is, the ability to bargain, encourage and even cajole, but not dictate. Although presidents appear to be more powerful than prime ministers, this is often an illusion. Combining state and governmental *leadership in a single office perhaps so raises political expectations that it may make failure inevitable, and it should not disguise the fact that, unlike prime ministers, presidents do not wield direct legislative power.

Presidentialism has a number of clear advantages. Chief amongst these is that it makes personal leadership possible. *Politics becomes more intelligible and engaging precisely because it takes a personal form: the public associates more readily with a person than it does with a political institution, such as a cabinet or *political party. Linked to this is the capacity of a president to become a national figurehead, a symbol of the nation embodying both ceremonial and political *authority. Presidents may thus have particularly pronounced mobilising capacities, especially important in times of economic crisis and war. Finally, concentrating executive power in a single office ensures clarity and coherence, as opposed to the unsatisfactory and perhaps unprincipled compromises that are the stuff of collective cabinet government. On the other hand, presidentialism has its dangers. One of the most obvious of these is that

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personalising politics risks devaluing it. Elections, for instance, may turn into mere beauty contests and place greater emphasis upon image and personal trivia than upon ideas and policies. The other drawback of presidentialism is that it is based upon a perhaps outdated notion of leadership, in that it implies that complex and pluralistic modern societies can be represented and mobilised through a single individual. If politics is ultimately about conciliation and bargaining, this may be better facilitated through a system of collective leadership rather than personal leadership.

PRESSURE GROUP

A pressure group or interest group (the terms are often but not always used interchangeably) is an organised association which aims to influence the policies or actions of *government. Pressure groups differ from *political parties in that they seek to exert influence from outside, rather than to win or exercise government *power. Further, pressure groups typically have a narrow issue focus, in that they are usually concerned with a specific cause or the interests of a particular group, and seldom have the broader programmic or ideological features that are generally associated with political parties. Pressure groups are distinguished from *social movements both by their greater degree of formal organisation and by their methods of operation. Pressure groups that operate at the international level (particularly in relation to development and environmental issues) have increasingly been accorded formal recognition as non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Nevertheless, not all pressure groups have members in the formal sense; hence the preference of some commentators for the looser term ‘organised interests'.

Pressure groups appear in a variety of shapes and sizes. The two most common classifications of pressure groups are between sectional and promotional groups, and between ‘insider' and ‘outsider' groups. Sectional groups (sometimes called protective, functional or interest groups) exist to advance or protect the (usually material) interests of their members. The ‘sectional' character of such groups derives from the fact that they represent a section of society: workers, employers, consumers, an ethnic or religious group, and so on. In the USA, sectional groups are often classified as ‘private interest groups', to stress that their principal concern is the betterment and

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well-being of their members, not of society in general. Promotional groups (sometimes termed cause or attitude groups) are set up to advance shared values, ideals and principles. In the USA, promotional groups are dubbed ‘public interest groups', to emphasise that they promote collective, rather than selective benefits; they aim to help groups other than their own members. Nevertheless, many pressure groups straddle the sectional/promotional divide, in that they both represent their members' interests and are concerned with ideals and broader causes. Trade unions, for instance, often address the issue of social *justice as well as matters such as wages, conditions and job security.

Alternatively, pressure groups can be classified on the basis of their relationship to government. Insider groups enjoy privileged and usually institutionalised access to government through routine consultation and representation on government bodies. Such groups either tend to represent key economic interests or to possess specialist knowledge and information necessary to government in the process of *policy formulation. Outsider groups, on the other hand, are either not consulted by government or consulted only irregularly, and not usually at a senior level. Lacking formal access to government, these groups are forced to ‘go public' in the hope of exercising indirect influence on the policy process via media and public campaigns.

Significance

Pressure groups are found only in liberal-democratic political systems, in which the *rights of political association and freedom of expression are respected. However, the role pressure groups play and the importance they exert varies considerably. Amongst the factors that enhance group influence are a *political culture that recognises them as legitimate actors and encourages membership and participation, a fragmented and decentralised institutional structure that gives groups various points of access to the policy process, a party system that facilitates links between major parties and organised interests, and an interventionist style of public policy that requires that the government consults and cooperates with key interests, often through the emergence of *corporatism.

The most positive perspective on group politics is offered by pluralist theories. These not only see organised groups as the fundamental building blocks of the political process, but also portray them as

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a vital guarantee of liberty and *democracy. Arguments in favour of pressure groups include the idea that they strengthen *representation by articulating interests and advancing views ignored by political parties; that they promote debate and discussion and thus create a more informed electorate; that they broaden the scope of political participation; that they check government *power and maintain a vigorous and healthy *civil society; and that they promote political stability by providing a channel of communication between government and the people. A more critical view of pressure groups is advanced by corporatist, *New Right and Marxist theorists. Corporatism highlights the privileged position that certain groups enjoy in relation to government and portrays pressure groups as hierarchically ordered and dominated by leaders who are not directly accountable to members. The New Right draws attention to the threat that groups pose in terms of over-government and economic inefficiency. Marxists argue that group politics systematically advantages business and financial interests that control the crucial employment and investment decisions in a capitalist society, and that the *state is biased in favour of such interests through its role in upholding the capitalist system which they dominate.

PRIME MINISTER

A prime minister (sometimes referred to as a chancellor, as in Germany, a minister-president, as in the Netherlands, or called by a local title such as the Irish Taoiseach) is a head of government whose *power derives from his or her *leadership of the majority party, or coalition of parties, in the *parliament or assembly. Prime ministers are formal chief executives or heads of government, but their position differs from that of a *president in a number of respects. First, prime ministers work within *parliamentary systems of government, or semi-presidential ones, and therefore govern in and through the parliament and are not encumbered by a constitutional *separation of powers. Second, prime ministers usually operate within a formal system of cabinet government, meaning that, in theory at least, executive authority is shared collectively within the *cabinet. Third, prime ministers are invested with more modest constitutional powers than presidents, and are therefore typically more reliant upon the exercise of informal powers, especially those linked to their role as party leaders. Fourth, because

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prime ministers are parliamentary officers they are not heads of state, the latter post generally being held by a non-executive president or a constitutional monarch.

Significance

As the job of prime minister can only have a loose constitutional description, there is some truth in the old adage that the post is what its holder chooses to make of it, or, more accurately, is able to make of it. In practice, prime-ministerial power is based upon the use made of two sets of relationships. The first set are with the cabinet, individual ministers and the government departments; the second with his or her party and, through it, the parliament and the public. The support of the cabinet is particularly crucial to prime ministers who operate within a system of collective cabinet government. In these cases their power is a reflection of the degree to which, by patronage, cabinet management and the control of the machinery of government, they can ensure that ministers serve ‘under' them. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the cornerstone of prime-ministerial power lies in his or her position as party leader. Indeed, the modern premiership is largely a product of the emergence of disciplined political parties. Not only is the post of prime minister allocated on the basis of party leadership, but it also provides its holder with a means of controlling the parliament and a base from which the image of national leader can be constructed. The degree of party unity, the parliamentary strength of the prime minister's party (in particular, whether it rules alone or is a member of a *coalition), and the *authority vested in the parliament or at least its first chamber, are therefore the key determinants of prime-ministerial power.

Most commentators agree that prime ministers have steadily become more significant political actors. This results in part from the tendency of the broadcast media in particular to focus upon personalities, meaning that prime ministers become a kind of ‘brand image' of their parties. The growth of international summitry and foreign visits has also provided prime ministers with opportunities to cultivate their statesmanship, and given them scope to portray themselves as national leaders. In some cases this has led to the allegation that prime ministers have effectively emancipated themselves from cabinet constraints and established a form of prime-ministerial

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government. Prime-ministerial government has two key features. First, by controlling the parliament as well as the bureaucratic machine, the prime minister is the central link between the legislative and executive branches of government. Second, executive power is concentrated in the prime minister's hands through the effective subordination of the cabinet and departmental ministers.

Such developments have led to the phenomenon of ‘creeping presidentialism', in that prime ministers, under media and other pressures, have increasingly distanced themselves from their parties, cabinets and governments by cultivating a personal appeal based upon their ability to articulate their own political and ideological vision. Nevertheless, although prime ministers who command cohesive parliamentary majorities and are supported by unified cabinets wield greater power than many a president, their power is always fragile because it can be exercised only in favourable political circumstances. Ultimately, prime ministers are vehicles through which parties win and retain power; prime ministers who fail in these tasks, or become unmindful of the role, rarely survive long.

RACE/ETHNICITY

Race refers to physical or genetic differences amongst humankind that supposedly distinguish one group of people from another on biological grounds such as skin and hair colour, physique and facial features. A race is thus a group of people who share a common ancestry and ‘one blood'. The term is, however, controversial both scientifically and politically. Scientific evidence suggests that there is no such thing as ‘race' in the sense of a species-type difference between peoples. Politically, racial categorisation is commonly based upon cultural stereotypes, and is simplistic at best and pernicious at worst. The term ethnicity is therefore sometimes preferred.

Ethnicity is the sentiment of loyalty towards a distinctive population, cultural group or territorial area. The term is complex because it has both cultural and racial overtones. The members of ethnic groups are often seen, correctly or incorrectly, to have descended from common ancestors, and the groups are thus thought of as extended kinship groups. More commonly, ethnicity is understood as a form of cultural identity, albeit one that operates at a deep and emotional level. An ‘ethnic' culture encompasses values, traditions and practices but, crucially, also gives a people a common identity