Frank Hendriks
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199572786
- eISBN:
- 9780191722370
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199572786.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics, Political Theory
Pendulum democracy refers to the model of democracy in which political power alternates between two competing political parties or protagonists. Power follows the movement of the pendulum, and the ...
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Pendulum democracy refers to the model of democracy in which political power alternates between two competing political parties or protagonists. Power follows the movement of the pendulum, and the pendulum follows the movement of the electorate every so many years. The winner of the last election ‘takes all’. The best‐known manifestation of pendulum democracy is the so‐called Westminster model, but its logic – a combination of indirect and majoritarian democracy – goes deeper and travels further, not only to the British Commonwealth and the Anglo‐American world but also to countries in Latin America and ‘Latin Europe’. In pendulum democracy, leadership is written with a capital L. Ideal‐typically, citizens operate as voter‐spectators in an ‘audience democracy’. The strengths of pendulum democracy are associated with electoral sensitivity, clarity, and decisiveness, which may however backslide into over‐commitment, oversimplification, and alternating one‐sidedness.Less
Pendulum democracy refers to the model of democracy in which political power alternates between two competing political parties or protagonists. Power follows the movement of the pendulum, and the pendulum follows the movement of the electorate every so many years. The winner of the last election ‘takes all’. The best‐known manifestation of pendulum democracy is the so‐called Westminster model, but its logic – a combination of indirect and majoritarian democracy – goes deeper and travels further, not only to the British Commonwealth and the Anglo‐American world but also to countries in Latin America and ‘Latin Europe’. In pendulum democracy, leadership is written with a capital L. Ideal‐typically, citizens operate as voter‐spectators in an ‘audience democracy’. The strengths of pendulum democracy are associated with electoral sensitivity, clarity, and decisiveness, which may however backslide into over‐commitment, oversimplification, and alternating one‐sidedness.
Jon Lawrence
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199550128
- eISBN:
- 9780191701528
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199550128.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Political History
This chapter examines the influence of war, women, and the silent majority in electoral politics. The first section discusses the significance of radio and cinema as alternatives to the press, ...
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This chapter examines the influence of war, women, and the silent majority in electoral politics. The first section discusses the significance of radio and cinema as alternatives to the press, meetings, and populism. The second section explores the heyday of election meetings with the aid of technological innovations such as amplification, instantaneous relay, and more reliable modes of transport. The third section looks at the transformation of the campaign after 1918. The fourth section deals with the anonymity of mass politics by breaking down the electorate into distinct groups. The last section discusses concerns about the character and temper of the new mass democracy in playing a decisive role in transforming the culture of public politics.Less
This chapter examines the influence of war, women, and the silent majority in electoral politics. The first section discusses the significance of radio and cinema as alternatives to the press, meetings, and populism. The second section explores the heyday of election meetings with the aid of technological innovations such as amplification, instantaneous relay, and more reliable modes of transport. The third section looks at the transformation of the campaign after 1918. The fourth section deals with the anonymity of mass politics by breaking down the electorate into distinct groups. The last section discusses concerns about the character and temper of the new mass democracy in playing a decisive role in transforming the culture of public politics.
Benjamin A. Schupmann
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198791614
- eISBN:
- 9780191833991
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198791614.003.0002
- Subject:
- Law, Constitutional and Administrative Law
Chapter 1 analyzes Schmitt’s assessment of democratic movements in Weimar and the gravity of their effects on the state and constitution. It emphasizes that the focus of Schmitt’s criticism of Weimar ...
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Chapter 1 analyzes Schmitt’s assessment of democratic movements in Weimar and the gravity of their effects on the state and constitution. It emphasizes that the focus of Schmitt’s criticism of Weimar was mass democracy rather than liberalism. Schmitt warned that the combination of mass democracy, the interpenetration of state and society, and the emergence of total movements opposed to liberal democracy, namely the Nazis and the Communists, were destabilizing the Weimar state and constitution. Weimar, Schmitt argued, had been designed according to nineteenth century principles of legitimacy and understandings of the people. Under the pressure of mass democracy, the state was buckling and cannibalizing itself and its constitution. Despite this, Schmitt argued, Weimar jurists’ theoretical commitments left them largely unable to recognize the scope of what was occurring. Schmitt’s criticism of Weimar democracy was intended to raise awareness of how parliamentary democracy could be turned against the state and constitution.Less
Chapter 1 analyzes Schmitt’s assessment of democratic movements in Weimar and the gravity of their effects on the state and constitution. It emphasizes that the focus of Schmitt’s criticism of Weimar was mass democracy rather than liberalism. Schmitt warned that the combination of mass democracy, the interpenetration of state and society, and the emergence of total movements opposed to liberal democracy, namely the Nazis and the Communists, were destabilizing the Weimar state and constitution. Weimar, Schmitt argued, had been designed according to nineteenth century principles of legitimacy and understandings of the people. Under the pressure of mass democracy, the state was buckling and cannibalizing itself and its constitution. Despite this, Schmitt argued, Weimar jurists’ theoretical commitments left them largely unable to recognize the scope of what was occurring. Schmitt’s criticism of Weimar democracy was intended to raise awareness of how parliamentary democracy could be turned against the state and constitution.
Andrew Taylor
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719097249
- eISBN:
- 9781781708361
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719097249.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, UK Politics
Baldwin is a central figure in the emergence of modern Conservative and British politics. Despite denying being an orator, Baldwin’s public utterances are often cited as critical in developing and ...
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Baldwin is a central figure in the emergence of modern Conservative and British politics. Despite denying being an orator, Baldwin’s public utterances are often cited as critical in developing and articulating a ‘tone’ appropriate to the new post-1918 mass democracy and responsible in part for transforming the Conservatives into a mass party. Baldwin was acutely conscious of the power of words and saw oratory as vital in both educating the new democracy and his own party. He therefore took great care to develop a ‘rhetorical strategy’, whose central rhetorical device was the sophisticated use of commonplaces (topoi, knowledge or sentiments shared by an audience as part of a community) to structure his appeal and fix it in the mind of the new electorate through the innovative exploitation of the new technologies of mass communication. This chapter focuses on Baldwin’s rhetoric in the 1920s, a time when the Conservative Party was coming to terms with the post-1918 electorate and the nature of the ‘new’ democracy which, Baldwin argued, required a ‘new’ conservatism.Less
Baldwin is a central figure in the emergence of modern Conservative and British politics. Despite denying being an orator, Baldwin’s public utterances are often cited as critical in developing and articulating a ‘tone’ appropriate to the new post-1918 mass democracy and responsible in part for transforming the Conservatives into a mass party. Baldwin was acutely conscious of the power of words and saw oratory as vital in both educating the new democracy and his own party. He therefore took great care to develop a ‘rhetorical strategy’, whose central rhetorical device was the sophisticated use of commonplaces (topoi, knowledge or sentiments shared by an audience as part of a community) to structure his appeal and fix it in the mind of the new electorate through the innovative exploitation of the new technologies of mass communication. This chapter focuses on Baldwin’s rhetoric in the 1920s, a time when the Conservative Party was coming to terms with the post-1918 electorate and the nature of the ‘new’ democracy which, Baldwin argued, required a ‘new’ conservatism.
Leslie Butler
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807830840
- eISBN:
- 9781469606125
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807877579_butler
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This intellectual history of American liberalism during the second half of the nineteenth century examines a group of nationally prominent and internationally oriented writers who sustained an ...
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This intellectual history of American liberalism during the second half of the nineteenth century examines a group of nationally prominent and internationally oriented writers who sustained an American tradition of self-consciously progressive and cosmopolitan reform. The author addresses how these men established a critical perspective on American racism, materialism, and jingoism in the decades between the 1850s and the 1890s while she recaptures their insistence on the ability of ordinary citizens to work toward their limitless potential as intelligent and moral human beings. At the core of the study are the writers George William Curtis, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, James Russell Lowell, and Charles Eliot Norton, a quartet of friends who would together define the humane liberalism of America's late Victorian middle class. In creative engagement with such British intellectuals as John Stuart Mill, Thomas Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, Leslie Stephen, John Ruskin, James Bryce, and Goldwin Smith, these “critical Americans” articulated political ideals and cultural standards to suit the burgeoning mass democracy the Civil War had created. This transatlantic framework informed their notions of educative citizenship, print-based democratic politics, critically informed cultural dissemination, and a temperate, deliberative foreign policy. The author argues that a careful reexamination of these strands of late nineteenth-century liberalism can help enrich a revitalized liberal tradition at the outset of the twenty-first century.Less
This intellectual history of American liberalism during the second half of the nineteenth century examines a group of nationally prominent and internationally oriented writers who sustained an American tradition of self-consciously progressive and cosmopolitan reform. The author addresses how these men established a critical perspective on American racism, materialism, and jingoism in the decades between the 1850s and the 1890s while she recaptures their insistence on the ability of ordinary citizens to work toward their limitless potential as intelligent and moral human beings. At the core of the study are the writers George William Curtis, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, James Russell Lowell, and Charles Eliot Norton, a quartet of friends who would together define the humane liberalism of America's late Victorian middle class. In creative engagement with such British intellectuals as John Stuart Mill, Thomas Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, Leslie Stephen, John Ruskin, James Bryce, and Goldwin Smith, these “critical Americans” articulated political ideals and cultural standards to suit the burgeoning mass democracy the Civil War had created. This transatlantic framework informed their notions of educative citizenship, print-based democratic politics, critically informed cultural dissemination, and a temperate, deliberative foreign policy. The author argues that a careful reexamination of these strands of late nineteenth-century liberalism can help enrich a revitalized liberal tradition at the outset of the twenty-first century.
John Habakkuk
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198203988
- eISBN:
- 9780191676062
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198203988.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
Until the later 19th century the great landlords and the gentry were the central element in the social and political life of the country, and even as late as 1940, in the supreme crisis of English ...
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Until the later 19th century the great landlords and the gentry were the central element in the social and political life of the country, and even as late as 1940, in the supreme crisis of English history, the choice of leader lay between a grandson of the 11th Earl of Devon and a grandson of the 7th Duke of Marlborough. This book examines the social and legal foundations of this class — the estate and the family — from the late 17th century, when it freed itself from many of the constraints of royal power, to the present century when it became submerged by mass democracy. It sets out to answer the question why, in the first industrial nation, the landed élite so long retained its role. This book is an examination of the structure of the landed family, its estate, and its relations with other social groups.Less
Until the later 19th century the great landlords and the gentry were the central element in the social and political life of the country, and even as late as 1940, in the supreme crisis of English history, the choice of leader lay between a grandson of the 11th Earl of Devon and a grandson of the 7th Duke of Marlborough. This book examines the social and legal foundations of this class — the estate and the family — from the late 17th century, when it freed itself from many of the constraints of royal power, to the present century when it became submerged by mass democracy. It sets out to answer the question why, in the first industrial nation, the landed élite so long retained its role. This book is an examination of the structure of the landed family, its estate, and its relations with other social groups.
Alessandro Brogi
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807834732
- eISBN:
- 9781469602950
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807877746_brogi.8
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter discusses America's “permanent revolution,” which envisioned a land of ultimate emancipation for every individual and “for all human spirit” on Earth. The “permanent revolution” had a ...
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This chapter discusses America's “permanent revolution,” which envisioned a land of ultimate emancipation for every individual and “for all human spirit” on Earth. The “permanent revolution” had a compelling premise in another revolution, that of “rising expectations.” This was how U.S. economic advisor Harlan Cleveland described the quantitative and qualitative effects of modernization, mass consumption, and mass democracy that the United States had experienced since the end of World War I, and was now supposed to transmit to Europe. The message stressed the universal logic of the connection between prosperity, democracy, and, in general, a sense of self-fulfillment. Europe's postwar hardship required emphasis on the “quantitative” aspects first.Less
This chapter discusses America's “permanent revolution,” which envisioned a land of ultimate emancipation for every individual and “for all human spirit” on Earth. The “permanent revolution” had a compelling premise in another revolution, that of “rising expectations.” This was how U.S. economic advisor Harlan Cleveland described the quantitative and qualitative effects of modernization, mass consumption, and mass democracy that the United States had experienced since the end of World War I, and was now supposed to transmit to Europe. The message stressed the universal logic of the connection between prosperity, democracy, and, in general, a sense of self-fulfillment. Europe's postwar hardship required emphasis on the “quantitative” aspects first.
