This article explores both the influence that Montesquieu's typology of regimes exerted on Hegel's thought and Hegel's ultimate rejection of Montesquieu's monarchical order, especially its cult of honor, as a plausible candidate for containing and expressing the citizen's “claims for private judgment, private willing, and private caprice.” Can Hegel provide a substitute model of a polity, neither republican nor despotic, which corrects the particularism of Montesquieu's monarchical society? Marx did not think so. His criticism of Hegel exactly parallels Hegel's criticism of Montesquieu. Hegel's dilemma may be expressed in more contemporary terms as the difficulty in reconciling the goals of “neutrality” and “communicative competence.” The latter reflects the concerns of Montesquieu's moral geography, whereas the former reflects the rather different preoccupations of the social contract tradition.

Strategic voting is thought to underlie Duverger’s Law and lead to two-party outcomes in single-member district plurality (SMDP) systems. We examine the extent of strategic voting in the world’s most populous democracy, India, where frequent exceptions to Duverger’s Law have long puzzled political scientists. Using an original voter survey from the 2017 Uttar Pradesh state election, we find extremely low rates of strategic voting. Why? We show that the vast majority of respondents believe that their preferred party is likely to win in their constituency. For most voters, their partisan preferences overwhelmingly predict their beliefs about which party will win. Their election forecasts correspond to objective electoral outcomes only with respect to parties that they like less.

James Barber's predictive theory of presidential behavior has evoked varied reactions, which have ranged from praise for its sensitization of readers to the fact that personality affects presidential performance, to criticisms for the emphasis that the theory places on personality, to questions about the validity of the theory. This article addresses itself to the criticisms and the questions.

Concerning the questions, it shows, first, that in analyzing presidents, Barber assumes the validity of “character”–the core construct of the theory. It shows, second, that Barber's earlier research on Connecticut legislators, from which “character” derives, does not empirically establish the construct.

Concerning the criticisms, the article isolates a possible origin of the psychological reductionism evident in Barber's explanations of presidential performance. The article identifies a similar reductionism in Barber's legislative research and attributes this reductionism to a fallacious extra-empirical argument.

In his ethnography of industrialized slaughter, Every Twelve Seconds, Timothy Pachirat coins a label to describe political interventions that use visibility as a catalyst for reform—the “politics of sight.” We argue that the politics of sight rests on three premises that are all mistaken or misspecified: (1) that exposing morally repugnant practices will make us see them, (2) that seeing such practices will stop us from acquiescing to them, and (3) that owning up to such practices is preferable to keeping them concealed. To develop our argument, we propose an alternative interpretation of Pachirat’s own ethnographic material informed by theories from social psychology—one that leads to a different critique of the politics of sight than the one Pachirat offers and to a different understanding of the conditions under which it can succeed. Methodologically, we seek to illustrate the value of reanalyzing interpretive research through close reading.

At present neither the prospect of home rule nor the danger from Germany nor the mighty design of imperial federation assails the public mind of England so insistently as the demand for the enfranchisement of women. Since 1905 it has come to be realized that British men and women are face to face with a change of profound importance, and that the veil of the future hides immense possibilities of good or of ill soon to come.

Allowing British women to take part in the government of the realm is a question of the last century and particularly of the years since 1867, but the antiquarian traces the elements of the problem in the feudal law of the earlier middle ages, when tenure and service rather than persons furnished the basis of organization, and when instances occur of women taking part in local affairs and holding office and jurisdiction. For the most part, however, these instances are valuable now merely as the slender basis for legal argument.

In 1934, the Soviet Union rounded out the first great cycle in its development. The fruition of the Five-Year Plan, the general collectivization of agriculture, the entry of the Soviet Union into the councils of the nations of the world—these and many other successes of the Communist régime were evidences of great achievement. Peace and order and economic progress had been attained at home; the stability of the government had been clearly demonstrated, and friends had been made abroad. The social and economic structure of the country had been completely transformed, and the Socialist community was now a going concern.

Quite generally recognized is the fact that rural local government in the United States has failed to keep pace with the improvements in governmental organization and procedure which have been made in the national, state, and municipal fields. In 1917, the county was referred to as the “dark continent” of American politics—an appellation which might have been applied with equal propriety to the rural subdivisions of counties known as towns or townships. Today, after two decades, it must be admitted that rural government still lags in its rate of progress; yet it is not the unexplored jungle of twenty years ago. In several states, comprehensive surveys have been made with a view to reorganization, and during the past few years the depression has served to stimulate local-government consciousness where previously little interest was displayed in local affairs. In increasing numbers, attempts are being made, in some instances through constitutional amendment but more often by statutory enactment, to render our local areas, organization, and functions more adequate to present-day needs. Various extra-legal developments are taking place also. It is the purpose of this article to summarize the more significant developments in the field of county and township government during the years 1935 and 1936. While not all of these developments, when measured by principles of sound public administration, can be said to be in the direction of progress, a definite trend in that direction is clearly discernible.

The student of international organization who visits the League of Nations in its home city of Geneva encounters one phenomenon associated with the organization and activity of the League which seldom receives much, if any, attention in the news of the day or in current discussions of League problems. That is the so-called Permanent Delegation to the League of Nations. As will appear, these institutions are sometimes located elsewhere than in Geneva; but most of them are located there, and it is there that their activities are most easily observable. It is proposed to describe this institution as regards its nature and its proper nomenclature, its history, its organization, its functions, and its actual and potential value for international government.

The title inscribed at the head of this paper was adopted, to speak frankly, because it had become somewhat familiar by usage, official and unofficial, and because, superficially at least, it seems to describe the institution under discussion. A little analysis, however, will reveal both its shortcomings and the difficulty of labelling, in familiar language, the phenomenon in question. Both the nature and the consequent nomenclature of the institution must be studied by reference to the formal legal status given to it by the official agencies creating and maintaining it, and also by reference to its own activities and essential character as observed in operation; the former test will be applied first and the second reverted to later.

The first territory to be returned to Japan by the United States since the 1945 surrender is a group of the Ryukyu Islands. This fact focuses attention on this strategically important archipelago extending from southernmost Japan to Formosa, although the Ryukyus have been at least on the periphery of Western attention for two centuries. The chief compulsions for American popular interest in the islands have been the Battle of Okinawa of World War II and, more recently, the best selling novel and Broadway hit, The Teahouse of the August Moon.

This transitory and popular interest will undoubtedly give way to wider international attention in the next few years as the Japanese become more articulate in their criticism of the questionable grounds on which these islands were stripped from Japan Proper at the end of the war. Of further significance to political science is the fact that Okinawa, major island of the group, is (excepting only the Bonins) the last area of the world to remain under complete American military government control. The character of this nearly ten-year rule by the United States and its impact on a million people who have continually demanded “reversion” to Japan must inevitably be the subject of study of those interested in the confluence of cultures under conditions of sustained military government.

Modern constitutional democracy entails a particular kind of political self-understanding that uniquely centers on a constitution. While many recent studies have focused on how constitutional text shapes this self-understanding, little attention has been paid to the implications of different views of constitutional authority. This is a critical consideration, however, because constitutional authority has always been intrinsically fragile within constitutional democracy, and never more so than at present. In this article, I explore the potential of constitutional science to generate a conception of constitutional authority and collective identity. I focus on David Hume's effort to use constitutional science to shape opinion about liberty and the nature of the political community. This analysis also provides a basis for reflecting on the problematic relation of democracy to constitutionalism and on the peculiar problem of constitutional opinion in constitutional democracy.

The more intensively one tries to study the interesting phenomena of direct legislation the more humble does he become. To look closely, for example, at the two hundred and ninety-one constitutional and legislative measures which the people of thirty-two States voted upon in 1914 is to be impressed with the number and significance of the things about that remarkable election which one cannot possibly know. How superficial at best must be our insight into that complex of social, political, economic and human forces which lay back of the presentation of those measures and the popular decision upon them. It is in full realization of the peril which lies in the way of sweeping classifications and glib generalizations that the conclusions drawn in the course of this brief discussion of the recent experience with the initiative and referendum petition are offered with considerable hesitancy.

This study shows that a simple, empirically derived rule accounts well for the outcome of multi-ballot, majority-rule conventions in the period 1848-1948 and that the same rule would have enabled one to predict correctly the outcome of all contested presidential nominations since 1952 before any candidate had achieved majority support in the Associated Press'polls of delegates. The rule's success suggests two conclusions about the behavior of delegates: (1) that their guesses about outcomes are based on objective cues, similarly interpreted, and (2) that the trend in voting for candidates, in addition to the level of support they attract, is an important element of such cues. The study's findings also suggest that delegates in recent years do not contrast sharply with their predecessors in their predilection for bandwagon voting.

The new German Constitution, the Basic Law for the German Federal Republic of May 23, 1949, provides in Article 92 that the highest judicial power shall be vested in a Federal Constitutional Court. Although the Bonn Basic Law thus created a new institution, it is an institution with a precedent in the former Weımar Constitution of 1919. In accordance with the latter, the Constitutional Tribunal (Staatsgerichtshof) had jurisdiction over constitutional controversies within any Land which had no tribunal of its own for the adjustment of such controversies, as well as over controversies, other than civil law matters, among the various Laender or between the Reich and one of the Laender. And the Supreme Court (Reichsgericht), as the highest authority, could establish finally whether disputed Land statutes were compatible with the federal Constitution.

The Basic Law, however, grants the new Federal Constitutional Court considerably wider jurisdiction than that accorded either to the Constitutional Tribunal or to the Supreme Court under the Weimar Constitution. The Federal Constitutional Court must, above all, arbitrate both disputes which may arise among the constitutional organs of the Republic, the so-called “federal constitutional” cases, and the so-called “conflicting rules” (Normenkollisionen) cases—the latter designating disputes involving the compatibility of the written federal law or Land law with the Basic Law, as well as the compatibility of the Land law with the federal law.

Historically the character of civil-military relations in the United States has been dominated by the concept of civilian control of the military. This has largely been a response to the fear of praetorianism. As recently as 1949, for example, the first Hoover Commission asserted that one of the major reasons for strengthening the “means of exercising civilian control” over the defense establishment was to “safeguard our democratic traditions against militarism.” This same warning was raised in the report of the Rockefeller Committee on defense organization in 1953. While the overriding purpose of the committee's recommendations was to provide “the Nation with maximum security at minimum cost,” the report made it clear that this had to be achieved “without danger to our free institutions, based on the fundamental principle of civilian control of the Military Establishment.” Finally, during the debate on the reorganization proposals of 1958, senators and congressmen used the theme of a “Prussianized” military staff to attempt to slow down the trend towards centralization in the military establishment.

Despite this imposing support, the concept of civilian control of the military has little significance for contemporary problems of national security in the United States. In the first place, military leaders are divided among themselves, although their differences cannot be reduced to a crass contrast between dichomatic doctrines. Air Force leaders who are gravely concerned over the need to maintain a decisive nuclear retaliatory force are by now acknowledging the need to develop a limited war capability.