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This chapter describes how political power is distributed in Sripuram. It focuses on its relation to social stratification. Their relations to group structures such as panchayats, parties, and local elites are dealt with. The analysis of the role of parties in village politics assumes particular importance in the context of Panchayati Raj. The study of political parties leads to the examination of ideologies. Political power is usually viewed as being based on economic dominance, social status, numerical support, or “personal” qualities of leadership. The agraharam does not possess a very strong or unified leadership. The Brahmins shifted their support to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham (D.M.K.) from Congress party. The creation of new political opportunities and new bases of power has provided congenial conditions for the development of elaborate networks of patronage.

This paper was originally published in the Kentucky Law Journal in 1964, and it is the first of two that elaborate a relatively general approach to judicial politics, which emphasizes the underlying social logics not only of law and courts but also of politics and government. It gives an account of the then new movement of political jurisprudence, which is described as essentially an extension of certain elements of sociological jurisprudence and judicial realism, combined with the substantive knowledge and methodology of political science. The foundation of the movement is the sociological jurist’s premise that the law must be understood not as an independent organism, but as an integral part of the social system; it is, in one sense, an attempt to advance the earlier movement of sociological jurisprudence by greater specialization. The new movement seeks to overcome the earlier one by concentrating on the specifically political aspects of the law’s interaction with society and describing the concrete impact of legal arrangements on the distribution of power and rewards among the various elements of a given society. Rather than presenting a general analysis of a purportedly complete new philosophical system, the paper attempts to describe it by means of a survey that suggests a general tone and approach as well as indicating some differences, conflicts, and weaknesses.

Since the constitutional reform of 1929, Austria comes under the rubric of semi‐presidentialism as defined in this volume: alongside the chancellor (prime minister), who is fully responsible to parliament, there is a directly elected president, who appoints the government and can dismiss it, although in practical terms the president has very little accountability. Nevertheless, Austria is generally considered as a parliamentary system by leading comparativists, and indeed it is parliamentary elections rather than presidential elections that decide the distribution of power. This chapter concentrates on the post‐war period, although the interwar years are also important for understanding the gap between the large constitutional powers and limited role that presidents have actually played. It draws on the literature on the Austrian presidency, original archival work, and interviews with political actors. The different sections of the chapter are: The Historical Legacy of Introducing Semi‐Presidentialism; Constitutional Powers and Their Practical Relevance; The Presidency and Party Politics; and Conclusion.

This chapter summarizes several approaches to categorizing social orders and political settlements on the basis of elemental political and institutional characteristics. A political settlement is a mutual understanding, held among parties with power, that they will primarily rely on politics rather than violence to resolve disputes. Discussion opens with a one-dimensional mapping of social orders, based on institutional strength and access—ranging from a chaos order through three types of limited-access orders to an open-access order. Societies can move in either direction. Next, a two-dimensional approach shows four combinations of institutional strength and competitive or dominant political settlements. A third approach offers three typologies. The first relates political settlements to institutional strength. The second denotes alternative distributions of power between included and excluded groups, and such distributions within included groups. The third addresses business power and capabilities.

This chapter argues that we need to go beyond the post-Cold War debate about US primacy. The more relevant immediate issue for international order is the potential of any US hegemony. The conclusion summarizes the book's three main contributions. The first is to IR theory generally, in posing questions about how international order is maintained in a sole great-power world. The second is towards a revision of English School theory, by its adaptation to include hegemony as one possible institution of international society in conditions of primacy. Finally, it challenges simplistic notions about the future distribution of power, as if this can be projected from material power indices alone. Much critically depends also on the extent of the followership that individual states are able to engender.

In the theoretical chapter, different from the principal-agent literature which focuses on why principals delegate and how they seek to control the agent, this book analyzes delegation from the angle of power distribution among the involved actors, the Council, the Commission and the Parliament. The authors base their argument on institutionalist power-based bargaining theory and argue that all actors seek to establish a mode of decision-making that maximizes their institutional power. And if – dissatisfied with a formal distribution of competence distribution – they will seek to alter them through a re-bargaining of these during the application of the rules. The focus rests in particular on the rising power of the Parliament. The chapter shows how the Parliament has changed the parameters of the contest for power, thereby transforming the governance of comitology over the years.

This chapter addresses agenda setting and preparatory measures of specific acts as well as planning procedures. This subject matter covers an area of EU law which, in the light of the distribution of powers between the institutions, can be a prelude to both administrative measures of various kinds and legislative rule-making. In setting agenda and taking preparatory steps for other measures, whether its own or those of the legislative organs, the European Commission acts in its capacity as a political administration — indeed European executive — par excellence. The Commission's activity in this capacity is made very clear. The consideration given to the administrative determination of the course of future action and the agenda setting and the readying of future measures also raises important and interesting questions with regard to the distinction between binding and non-binding acts.

This chapter focuses on feminist jurisprudence and the two things one should expect from it. The first is that the law has to recognize real injuries to real women, concrete ways in which women are turned into second-class citizens, acts that hurt women, and the lexicon through which women's bodies are colonized for sexual exploitation. The law has to, in some way, be about something real that is helping to keep women under, to keep women accessible for sexual exploitation or sexual abuse. The second thing that it must do is exactly what law does not want to do: the law has to undermine or sabotage male dominance. In political terms, it should make a difference in the distribution of power between men and women, in addition to redressing real grievances.

In Slovakia, the main lines of conflict that determine coalition formation have changed over time. Iinitially the conflicts were based on national-ethnic issues, later this was followed by disagreement over the direction of reforms and the European integration process. Eventually they have settled around socioeconomic policies with alternating right and left governments in power. Only three coalition cabinets have served the full parliamentary terms, and all of them have both enjoyed a majority support in Parliament and included a dominant large party. In contrast, coalitions without a major leading party, and where the power structure has been more evenly distributed, have been more likely to terminate due to inter-party conflicts before the end of the full constitutionally mandated term. The coalitions of the second type coalitions have also been pursuing more of consensual style of politics. They have been based on social-economic policy agreement between the parties but differed considerably in terms of the GAL-TAN dimension. While socioeconomic policies appear is a strong driving force in coalition bargaining, the second (GAL-TAN) dimension tends to matters more when it comes to the survival of the coalition. In terms of coalition governance, six out twelve cabinets represented the Prime Minister Dominated model. The cabinets with a leading party (HZDS, SDKÚ-DS, and SMER-DS) did not have as many internal conflicts as the cabinets with a relatively even power distribution. The latter type of cabinets relied instead on their ability to negotiate and compromise in the name of consensus and so they represent a Coalition Compromise Model.

This chapter identifies several factors that typically influence governance strategies. The first two are aspects of nature: geography and climate. For example, geography determines the vulnerability of a state to attack by other states as well as the manner in which that state must be defended. The expanse and contours of land and water also influences the capacity of a state to assert control within its borders, and it shapes decisions about centralization or decentralization of governmental authority. Similarly, the ability of states to stoke economic growth or exercise influence abroad hinges on their endowment of natural resources. Climate also affects prospects for economic growth as well as patterns of disease and susceptibility to extreme weather events. A second factor is the profile of the population within the territory controlled by the state. A third factor is the structure of the economy. A fourth factor is the inventory of available technologies, including physical technologies such as those used to capture, distribute, and convert energy. A final factor is the distribution of power within the society of states.

This chapter treats issues somewhat similar to those between the branches of the federal government, but here involving the powers of the federal government and states. Here, a basic difference exists between the central government and states. With respect to federal actions, the fact that representatives of Congress are themselves elected from within states does provide some protection of state interests. The chapter explains why this is not a solid basis for complete judicial noninvolvement, but that it is a ground for more deference to federal exercises of power. The chapter explores a number of particular categories of respective powers of the federal and state governments. A central theme of the chapter is that the vast changes in national and international society clearly justify a shift from the original sense of how the powers of government were distributed.