Political Worldview Research Articles

Clausewitz's Political and Ethical World View

This article challenges the accepted view that Clausewitz did not deal with the ethical status of war. It attempts to show that his views on this matter are well documented in his works; that they were part and parcel of a comprehensive outlook regarding the nature of both international relations and the state; and that this outlook reflected the emerging world view in the Germany of national awakening.

The Weather for Tomorrow: Young Playwrights Speak

The young playwrights who will share their concerns and hopes with you have thus far not established a foothold in all Soviet theaters. Perhaps in the bottom of their souls they envy or feel anger against playwrights from the older generation, whose plays are currently deflning the theater repertoire in our country. It seems as if young writers today are having a difficult time finding a common language with the country's older playwrights (Viktor Rozov, Alexandr Shtein, Afanasy Salinsky) and with the middle generation (Alexandr Gelman, Mikhail Shatrov, Mikhail Roshchin, Edvard Radzinsky, or Grigory Gorin) as well as with those who are still considered young, the 'new wave' playwrights, although many of these already have fully-grown children (Liudmila Petrushevskaya, Alexandr Galin, Viktor Slavkin, Semyon Zlotnikov, and others).Those who are beginning writers do not share the social temperament and political worldview of people like Gelman and Shatrov. Young writers are for the most part developing the traditions of their immediate predecessors, the 'new wave' p1aywrights. They are explicitly engaged in an artistic study of the 'private man.' But their plays contain the pulsebeat of a tense social existence, something present in the profound psychological searchings of their protagonists. The young playwrights have not, in my opinion, written their best works yet. But they are already speaking in a language of their own, a language of late 1980s writers, writers who are the future.

Routines and the making of oppositional news

This participant observation study takes a critical look at the idea of “news routines.” By looking at a politically oppositional news room, it is possible to sort through the elements of production to discover just which ones make this radio station's news “oppositional.” Some scholars say that news routines, like the need to show balance or to report events instead of long‐term trends, make it difficult to say anything deeply critical of the status quo. This news room, a “deviant case,” uses the same routines as “mainstream” reporters, but the resulting news is politically very different. What makes the difference are the station's organizational factors, the relation of the station to its audience, the social and political positions of those in control of the station, and the reporters’ social positions and political world views.

The Relationship of Self-Esteem and Attributional Style to Young Peoples' Worries

Abstract In this study, we developed a simple measure of worriedness for use with teenage and adult samples. Existing measures of anxiety have been primarily concerned with clinical diagnosis, and little research has been conducted into the relationship between general levels of worriedness and specific worries about external/natural and sociopolitical events. We showed that levels of worry are related to levels of self-esteem and to the individual's attributional style. We also showed, however, that concerns and worries about certain external events are related to political world views, as Cotgrove (1982) predicted, and they had implications for levels of political activity among the 13- to 18-year-old British teenagers that we sampled.

The rights of robots: Technology, culture and law in the 21st century

The development of robots and their emerging rights will have significant impact on judicial and criminal systems and on the philosophical and political worldviews of our social institutions. This article places the definition of rights and of what is ‘alive’ in a historical and cultural context, and reviews the developments in and prospects for artificial intelligence (AI). It argues that such advances will change our perceptions to such a degree that robots may have legal rights. It examines how such rights might emerge, and which legal issues may be involved.

Most Unholy Alliance: Conservative Attitudes to Christianity in East and West

It is now nearly a decade since Edward Norman’s controversial Reith lectures, subsequently published as Christianity and World Order, helped to generate a great deal of debate about the appropriate sphere of Christian moral concern.Dr Norman’s view is clear:...the teachings of the Saviour clearly describe a personal rather than a social morality.Any attempt to outline a Christian social morality—to ‘involve the Church in politics’—means compromising the proper concern of Christians with what is transcendent. It entails sanctifying whatever prevailing political world-view is current at the time. Among Western nations, Norman argues, this means supporting what he calls a ‘Human Rights Ideology’. The Human Rights movement ‘has elevated Western liberalism to the apparent authority of eternal truth’. As a consequence, ‘... the Churches now see Human Rights as the essence of the Christian message’. Christians in politics are engaged, then, in a process of absolutising a relative (Human Rights), identifying the essence of Christianity, which must be changeless, with a prevailing political ideology which represents only the view of a liberal twentieth century establishment in the West. In doing so, they obscure the truly changeless essence of Christianity, which lies in eternal values, values which by definition cannot be political.Criticisms of Norman’s thesis have been numerous, and the arguments on both sides are now well-rehearsed. Any attempt to outline a Christian personal morality, no less than a Christian social morality, involves the apparent compromise of associating with current secular ideologies, it has been pointed out.

The Impact of Psychological Images on International Bargaining: The Case of Mexican Natural Gas

This is a study of the effect of political world views on policy makers' abilities to recognize and respond to change in other governments'foreign policies. The major argument holds that if people are to manage a complex environment they are compelled to organize and simplify that environment psychologically. Understanding these cognitive processes makes it possible to gain insights into patterns of decision making and adaptation to political change. The first part of the paper develops a framework depicting the political world view that results from the need to organize and simplify the environment. Based upon findings in psychological and political research, it is argued that several patterns of behavior should result from particular elements of the political world view. The second part of the paper uses United States negotiations with Mexico regarding the importation of natural gas to the United States as a case study to demonstrate the utility of the framework.

Political Education Should Play a Dominant Role

It is very important to offer politics courses in secondary school. Whether in wartime or during the period of socialist construction, our party offered politics courses in secondary school, a program which has played a gigantic role. Why do we say that it is an important subject? Because the politics course addresses itself to the problem of people's political orientation, world view, and goal of endeavor. At the same time, it provides the younger generation with the necessary weapons in their pursuit of studies and work. It is a major course that plays a dominant role in one's life. Our young people today have not experienced the hardships of old society; in addition, they are victims of the poison of Lin Biao and the Gang of Four. Therefore, we must pay full attention to conducting political education among them. Offering a successful politics course will have special importance for them.

Nationalism through localism: some observations on the West Bank political elite

Since the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948 and more particularly since the 1967 war, the Palestinian community on the West Bank has undergone social and political changes: incorporation in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Israeli occupation, and increased PLO influence in internal politics. However, these changes were not paralleled by changes of similar intensity in the power structure or the political behavior of the West Bank elite. Under both Jordanian and Israeli rule, the West Bank elite continued to draw its power from its traditional local base and its behavior continued to be more moderate than its declared position. Radical leadership, in the sense of advancing political interests through violent means never became widespread. Jordan and Israel are frequently assumed to be responsible for stemming the tide of radical activity and maintaining the power and position of the West Bank political elite. According to this view, the activity or passivity of the West Bank leadership is perceived as being mainly the outcome of Jordanian and Israeli policies.' In my opinion, this does not attribute sufficient importance to the political conditions which made these policies acceptable, or at least tolerable, from the viewpoint of the Palestinian West Bank elite. My purpose is to shed light on these conditions and to analyze their role in shaping the elite's ability to adopt non-radical patterns of activity. This paper stems from a larger research project which focused on interviews with West Bank political figures. I approach the West Bank political elite as a local power element which was faced with the challenge of adapting both its political world view and its practical behavior to the demands of non-local Arab elements (later on also Israel, which had strong influence on West Bank politics). These other elements were the Palestinian organizations, Jordan, and the more radical Arab regimes such as the Egypt of Nasir, Iraq of Qasim and Syria under the Ba'th. The political demands which these three political elements made of the West Bank elite on social nd political issues were partially conflicting, although sometimes omplementary. If the West Bank elite were to have coped with these multiple demands by adopting a one-sided position, it would have

Education in Germany

THE main features of education in Germany as remoulded under the Nazi regime are presented in a bulletin (“Education in Germany”. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1939) prepared for the United States Office of Education by Dr. Alina Lindegren, specialist in west European education, who visited Germany in 1935 and 1936 and completed her investigation of the subject a year ago. Among the most pregnant changes have been those in the education of teachers. Long before the Nazi party came into power its leaders resolved on a rapid unification of the teaching staffs and on eliminating teachers antagonistic to its views. The resultant limitation and precise definition of objectives must have been important factors in the production of a vigorous and efficient system. For teaching in elementary schools, candidates must enter two-year training colleges in which the curriculum includes three main fields: political world-view (weltanshauliche) education, scientific study and practical work. Entrance conditions include ability to sing and to play the violin, piano or organ and to instruct in gymnastics and sports. Women must in addition qualify in needlework and home economics. Aspirants to secondary school teaching posts must spend a year in one of these training colleges so as to mix with candidates for elementary school-teaching and so help to unify the profession. The declared purpose of the secondary school is to give preliminary training to especially gifted young people fit to qualify themselves eventually for authoritative positions in the political, cultural and economic life of the nation, and “the constant basis of selection shall be physical fitness, fitness as to character, mental fitness or ability, and national fitness”. Conditions of study in the universities, which are subject to close control by the Reich Government, are elucidated by a comparison with the corresponding conditions in the United States.