It is by now conventional wisdom among political scientists that political parties are not the noxious weeds they were once thought to be. Undeniably, parties have hastened the development of democracy in the West and continue to serve vital functions in modern states. Most political scientists would agree too that the emergence of regular party competition is only possible among those peoples who have acquired a measure of political sophistication. A country with nourishing parties is a country that has matured to the point of being able to tolerate dissent, and a country with inchoate or languishing parties is a country that must be consigned to the ranks of the “underdeveloped” or the perverse. Party development, then, is often regarded as a measure of political development, and both of these as indexes to modernization or democratization.

Not all politics is of one kind. To be sure, all politics centers on the state, the most comprehensive order of human existence. Practically as well as theoretically, however, one must distinguish between (1) the politics of justice, and (2) the politics of existence. In some political science departments these two are called “government” and “international relations.” Nor are these the only kinds of politics. One can further distinguish (3) the politics of foundation and (4) the politics of revolution, both of which, however, can be set aside in the present context.

From the beginning, the Catholic Worker movement, founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in 1933, has challenged the cherished beliefs of American citizens, many of whom have been more than willing to accommodate religious faith and social concerns to the economic imperatives of American capitalist society. Whether criticizing child labor, the exploitation of blacks, and anti-Semitism during the thirties or protesting the treatment of migrant workers, the Vietnamese War, and the nuclear arms race in the sixties and seventies, the Catholic Worker has consistently adopted controversial positions on contemporary social issues and has challenged Americans to think through the implications ofpublic policy.

Vast and rapidly moving social, political and economic changes characterize our times. Almost all current academic political discussion is under the influence of this massive fact. To deal with the rapidity and complexity of these changes new techniques of summarizing, condensing, tabulating, organizing and distributing information have been developed. Corresponding habits of rapid reading and machinelike memorization, reading with a minimum of reflective thought, often seem to be appropriate for imbibing much of this material.

Since 1969 nearly eighteen hundred people have died in the troubles in Northern Ireland. Personal injuries, bombings, rioting and intimidation have also left deep scars on community life. In this context some may argue that there is little point in discussing constitutional proposals, for there can be no settlement until the “politics of the vendetta” and the “policies of the latent atrocity” have worked themselves out. We should, however, not neglect the long-term constitutional possibilities which may minimize the creation of new violence, if not stop the vicious circle of violent reactions to violent provocations. It is the purpose of this paper to examine the arguments for and against some of the proposals which ave recently been put forward. Before these arguments are considered it is necessary to consider briefly the development of the present constitutional situation in Northern Ireland.