Leadership Claims Research Articles

The Kazakness of sedentarization: Promoting progress as tradition in response to the land problem

There is little doubt that the Russian colonization of the Kazak steppe had a tremendous impact on the Kazak society during the 19th century. Russian administrators replaced the traditional leaders of the community while muzhik settlements restricted grazing lands and disrupted the nomadic economy. The very survival of the Kazak people seemed in question by the early 20th century. The most immediate threat to Kazak society was the land question, which became the principle issue of debate among those who claimed the mantle of Kazak leadership. Those engaged in this discussion were forced to struggle with the very notion of what it meant to be Kazak. Participating in this discourse was a new elite, the Kazak intelligentsia, who came to advocate the radical position that the Kazak community should change from a nomadic society to a sedentary one. They defended this position by articulating that the true nature of Kazak society was based on progress, with sedentarization being the next step in that progress. Their goal was to save their remaining pasture from further Russian settlement. To do so the Kazak intelligentsia had to posit themselves as the true leaders of the Kazak community while declaring the traditional leaders of the Kazaks, who advocated nomadism, to be the enemies of the Kazak nation. The Kazak intelligentsia based their claim of leadership on the concept of a Kazak nation. A nation that they argued was once great but since had fallen into decline because of the greed of the few—the khans, sultans, ulema and now the aqsaquls and biis. The intelligentsia’s view of these traditional leaders was that they had kept the nation divided and backward in order to serve their own whims. In order to return the Kazaks to their rightful place as a leading nation, the Kazak intelligentsia advocated modernizing Kazak society through education and sedentarization. They believed modernization would not only aid the Kazaks economically, but more importantly it was essential for the preservation of their homeland—the fundamental component of a nation. Paradoxically, this new modern elite posited themselves as leaders of the Kazak community, while at the

The subjective cognitive and affective map of extreme right voters: using open-ended questions in exit polls

This article looks to build a motivation profile for extreme right voters of the Vlaams Blok in the 1995 general election. Voters' subjective motivations are studied using an open-ended question from the Belgian–Flemish public broadcaster (VRT) exit-poll. After a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of using open as opposed to closed questions, the different motives are classified on a functional basis according to existing theoretical voting behaviour models. HICLAS, a hierarchical classes analysis method for binary objects (parties) by features (motives) data, is used to create a subjective cognitive and affective map of the extreme right Vlaams Blok (VB) voters. The research strategy reveals the existence of motives to support the VB that have previously been mentioned only rarely (if at all). The results also lead us to re-evaluate the relative importance of the different motivations for vote choice (e.g. Flemish nationalism and communitarian issues, crime and law and order, political scandals, …). Furthermore, the results make it clear that traditional social groups do not see the VB as the party representing their interests. The reasons why voters support the VB are to a large extent different from the reasons that the VB leadership claims that they support it; the VB vote is not solely a question of economic self-interest or fear (of crime and migrants). This has important consequences for solutions designed to “manage” these issues, given the rejections of party politics and the anti-political attitude of the extreme right voter.

Politische Ökologie und Arbeiterbewegung

Green and Red, ecological and working class movements are compared in terms of their leading ideas and fundamental political attitudes. While both types of movements share a certain number of problems and the ensuing risks, the green movement has some advantages, in part because it comes historically later: it does not rely on an idea of history as progress, it does not believe in the decisive social role of (centralized) power and politically organized leadership claims. In its realism, it is held to be even more profoundly materialist than the working class movement.

Communication between doctors and psychologists.

Changing roles of the psychologist over the past 30 years or so have been rapid and fundamental. This has led to difficulties when psychologist and doctor do not see the former's role in the same way. Psychologists achieve clinical independence for their work rather sooner than doctors do, and if this is not understood there can be difficulties in communication. If the doctor and psychologist employ different theoretical models of illness, this may affect the ease with which agreed therapeutic strategies are reached. The respective roles played by the doctor and the psychologist may be consonant, in that both are research, or both are clinically, oriented. When this is not the case, difficulties may occur. It is suggested that job descriptions should be agreed before appointments are made. Unresolved tensions concerning clinical responsibility may cause communication difficulties. It is suggested that the claims of functional leadership over status leadership be examined.

The political economy of Cuban dependence on the Soviet Union

The history of Cuban-Soviet relations is one of transition from independence to integration within a Soviet dominated sphere of influence. In the early 1970s the Soviet Union emerged as the dominant political force in Cuba. By 1973 the Cuban economy had been securely subordinated to the Soviet economy. Also, in the domain of ideology Cuba had come to support the Soviet line on revolutionary strategy and “socialist” diplomacy, and had abandoned the “Cuban road”. Important contradictions continued to disrupt the unity between Cuba and the USSR at a political level until 1972. With the consolidation of a strong PSP faction within the PCC and state administration, together with Soviet trained technocrats, the Soviet ruling circles had gained influence over the Cuban State. Contradictions persisted with Castro's faction which, together with the group around his brother Raul, controlled the armed forces. Cuba's relations with the Soviet Union evolved in the direction of “asymmetric interdependence,” of dependence, for the following reasons: 1) the ratio of foreign to domestic economic transactions was high; 2) foreign economic transactions were distributed among a small group of countries, the Soviet bloc, which were under the political and economic hegemony of the USSR; 3) the ratio of Soviet to Cuban domestic sources for capital, technology, and factories was high; 4) foreign trade in terms of markets and sources for imports were highly concentrated in the direction of the USSR, although it has become more diversified since 1973; 5) there were limited options for Cuba to diversify so as to replace the USSR with other patrons or to dispense with the particular eonomic, military, and political resources controlled by the Soviet Union; 6) the economy of Cuba became reliant on the fluctuations of demand in the Soviet bloc and not on the growth of domestic demand, because of the centrality of sugar monoproduction; 7) within the ruling party, government administration, and management of enterprises a stratum allied with and responsive to the Soviet ruling circles was formed; 8) with the coordination of economic planning the development of the Cuban economy was very closely conditioned by and complementary to that of the Soviet Union; and 9) there developed great deficits in the balance of payments because of the rigidities in exports, the terms of trade, and massive imports from the USSR. Dependence on the USSR was also related to the smallness and isolation of Cuba and her proximity to a hostile superpower, the US. As well, China's inability to compete with the USSR in providing economic and military inputs reduced Cuba's capacity to replace the Soviet Union. The US economic embargo also presented Havana with limited options. Cuba was trapped in a situation of bipolar balance in which one superpower was implacably hostile and the other exercised an increasingly inevitable magnetic attraction. Cuba could not replace or dispense with the Soviet Union. Unlike the US, the Soviet Union's influence was not based on the direct ownership of Cuba's productive resources, on equity interest in enterprises. This was an important reason for Cuba's greater relative autonomy from the USSR than from the US. On many occasions Havana and Moscow coalesced, at times differences arose. The USSR enjoyed a varying capacity to enforce policy changes on the Cuban government. If one general evaluation of the relationship could be made it would be this: in the trade-offs between Havana and Moscow, the Cubans were able to attain their objectives on many occasions by utilizing Soviet aid; the price they paid was to compromise their independence and damage the possibility of a transition to a communist mode of production. Growing dependence on the USSR led Cuba to adopt a bureaucratic and authoritarian political and economic structure. Divisions between mental and manual labor, between party and masses were widened. “Commandism” triumphed over the “mass-line”. Collectivism is confined to formal public ownership of property. In marxism, a basic distinction is made between two modes of production: the capitalist and the communist. “Socialism” refers to the period of transition from the former to the latter. Although the Cuban leadership claims to be pursuing the goal of communism, the road they have taken will not lead them there, but to the type of repressive society we find in the USSR. Cuban economic dependence has enabled the USSR to insert its own particular form of “socialism” in Cuba.

The United States Steel Consolidation: The Creation of Market Control

THE history of the U.S. iron and steel industry has long been a source of disquiet to both those who place their faith in the market's power to eliminate non-competitive situations in the long run as well as those who place their trust in antitrust laws. This study attempts to put in perspective the nature of the restructuring of the industry, following the formation of the United States Steel Corporation in 1901, which permitted the industry to capture long term monopoly rents in the face of competitive forces and the Sherman Act. We present evidence that the U.S. Steel merger did, in fact, create a non-competitive market structure as well as indicate the industrial organization that the restructuring achieved. A brief sketch of the industry prior to the 1901 consolidation might be useful in appreciating the structural changes that merger brought about. By 1890, the United States had overtaken the United Kingdom as the world's largest producer of iron and steel.' The iron industry at that time was quite fragmented with steel production somewhat less so, in part because of the existence of patent rights on the Bessemer process and improvements on it. The Carnegie Steel Company, dominant in technical know-how and organizational efficiency as well as sharing claims of volume leadership, produced 15 to 20 per cent of U.S. steel ingots in 1898 as the industry entered its merger flurry. Due to purchases of major coke interests in the early 1880's (in particular the H. C. Frick Coke Company) and of iron ore holdings on the Mesabi range in the mid-1890's through the Oliver Iron Mining Company, the Carnegie firm was well integrated backwards. The ore was delivered to furnaces in Pittsburgh largely over a Carnegie owned transportation system. Vertical integration preceded the 1901 consolidation.

Ethnic Politics and the Persistence of Ethnic Identification

A question that has puzzled students of ethnic politics can be stated as follows: in the face of increasing assimilation why do ethnics continue to vote as ethnics with about the same frequency as in earlier decades? On the basis of his New Haven study, Robert Dahl observes that “… in spite of growing assimilation, ethnic factors continued to make themselves felt with astonishing tenacity.” Nevertheless, he asserts, “the strength of ethnic ties as a factor in local politics surely must recede.” Dahl sets up a “three-stage” model to describe how political assimilation will follow a more general social assimilation. However, one of his co-researchers, Raymond Wolfinger, demonstrates in a recent article in this Review that ethnic voting patterns persist into the second and third generations, and that “at least in New Haven, all the social changes of the 1940's and 1950's do not seem to have reduced the political importance of national origins.” The same observation can be made of religious-ethnic identities, for as Wolfinger notes, citing data from the Elmira study, social mobility in no way diminishes the religious factor as a determinant of voting behavior; in fact, in the case of upper and middle class Catholics and Protestants, religion seems to assume a heightened importance as a voting determinant. Wolfinger marshals evidence to support the arresting proposition that, melting pot or not, ethnic voting may be with us for a long time to come, a finding which craves explanation.Part of the reason for the persistence of ethnic voting may rest in the political system itself. Rather than being a purely dependent variable, the political system, i.e., party, precinct workers, candidates, elections, patronage, etc., continues to rely upon ethnic strategies such as those extended to accommodate the claims of newly-arrived ethnic middle-class leadership; as a mediator and mobilizer of minority symbols and interests, the political system must be taken into account.