Problem Of Factions Research Articles

No Extended Sphere: The Batavian Understanding of the American Constitution and the Problem of Faction

In 1795 the old Republic of the Seven United Provinces collapsed, and Dutch revolutionaries founded a new, “Batavian” Republic. This essay reexamines the Batavian appreciation of the example of the American Revolution by focusing on one specific political phenomenon that troubled both the American and the Batavian minds: the problem of faction in republican states. I will show how the Batavians were introduced to the now famous Madisonian theory of faction by the Dutch federalist Gerhard Dumbar, a supporter of the American Constitution who wrote a Dutch anthology of the Federalist Papers. Subsequently, I will trace the Batavian understanding of factionalism as it was displayed in the parliamentary debates of the Dutch National Assembly and in the political weekly De Democraten. In the last section, I will turn to the Dutch revolutionary events of the year 1798 and their relevance for the Batavian answer to the problem of faction, which will lead me to conclude that the American alternative to an understanding of faction was ultimately rejected by all sides in the Dutch revolutionary debate.

Stakeholders and conflict systems mapping on why the founding charter compact becomes the mainstay of corporate governance

n this paper we put forward an alternative approach to dealing with the Charter of any organization, that essential document which ought to be regarded as the mainstay of governance. In the first place, we show that an organization carries out its tasks by becoming a responsive mechanism to fulfill stakeholders’ demands. In the second place, organizations behave like conflict-systems within which political issues are of the essence when coping with power, influence, control and authority; on these grounds, we give heed to agenda building and the problem of factions. We argue that such two-tiered structure stands for the preconditions of any Charter. Lastly, we set up the Charter as a compact of regulatory and discretionary governance, comprised not only by the articles and certificate of incorporation, but also internal bylaws of the organization, the Statute of Governance, the Code of Good Practices, and provisions for upgrading, overhauling, and even changing the architecture of governance in its entirety.

Stakeholders, Transactional Environments and Conflict Systems (Mapping on Why the Founding Charter Compact Becomes the Mainstay of Corporate Governance)

In this paper we put forward an alternative approach to dealing with the Charter of any organization, that essential document which ought to be regarded as the mainstay of governance. In the first place, we show that an organization carries out its tasks by becoming a responsive mechanism to fulfill stakeholders' demands as well as costly restraints stemming from transactional environments. In the second place, organizations behave like conflict-systems within which political issues are of the essence when coping with power, influence, control and authority; on these grounds, we give heed to agenda building and the problem of factions. We argue that such three-tiered structure stands for the preconditions of any Charter. Lastly, we set up the Charter as a compact of regulatory and discretionary governance, comprised not only by the articles and certificate of incorporation, but also internal bylaws of the organization, the Statute of Governance, the Code of Good Practices, and provisions for upgrading, overhauling, and even changing the architecture of governance in its entirety.

Aristotle's Three Cities and the Problem of Faction

Aristotle describes the polis as a self-sufficient compound. Its regime, he says, is responsible for shaping the whole character of the city's people. But rarely is the city unified in its parts, and the formative power of the regime is not always this extensive. There are in fact three kinds of cities depicted in the Politics. They differ by the degree of partnership tying city members together. Accordingly, the problem of faction and its cure differs for each: for some cities, where the regime is unitary, the cure is consent; for others, with mixed regimes, it is participation; but for the ideal city it is homogeneity.

Dissidence et orthodoxie dans l'interprétation de la politique constitutionnelle des États-Unis

Contradictions in currently dominant academic views on the Constitutional founding of the United States induce us to reexamine the deliberate reasoning informing its institutions, and thus to rediscover the problematic tension which exists between constitutional and democratie government. Madison's well-known argument at the Constitutional Convention on the problem of factions has been insufficiently related to what The Federalist calls the motives of passion and interest, which must be considered both in the elaboration of institutions and in respect to the fourfold aim of the Constitutional design : a popular government that is nevertheless attentive to the requirements of minority rights, political stability, and governmental competence. The solution to these competing aims of the common good led to the willful transformation of an agrarian society to a commercial republic in a vast federal territory. In examining this solution by the American founders to the problem of constitutional statescraft, one may see the symbiotic relation between the task of multiplying factions and the Constitution 's provisions for commercial growth combined with the separation of powers and federalism. Under decentralized political institutions and a commercial political economy, the multiplication of occasions for rival ambitions and interests attenuates their effects by diminishing their scope, in a way permitting that political moderation which is the condition for giving place, under the requisite degree of national consensus, for deliberate reasoning in the highest levels of government. This solution to the problem of constitutional rule requires, therefore, policies which promote equality of individual opportunity ; but it also requires opposition to policies leading to equality of result. Whether or no.t this solution be the best possible, contemporary studies which abstract from these considerations of prudence risk distorting thereby the perception of American political and social questions.

Interest Groups in American Public Law

The bicentennial of the Constitution is approaching in a time of considerable dissatisfaction with the American scheme of governance. The dissatisfaction takes various forms, but many of the concerns have a common root in the problems produced by the existence of interest groups, or factions, and their influence over the political process. The scheme is challenged on the grounds that it allows powerful private organizations to block necessary government action;1 that the lawmaking process has been transformed into a series of accommodations among competing elites;2 and that the rise of a large bureaucracy exercising broad discretionary power has undermined original constitutional goals by circumventing the safeguards of separation of powers and electoral accountability.3 The problem of faction has been a central concern of constitutional law and theory since the time of the American Revolution. Madison made control of factions the centerpiece of his defense of the proposed Constitution. His antifederalist opponents objected on the ground that his solution was a false one, addressing only a symptom of the underlying problem. This de-

Unions in politics: A madisonian faction in our federal system

Madison’s writings inThe Federalist serve as a reminder that our constitutional system was structured to alleviate the problem of factions. One need only return to his general prescription to be reminded that the effects of factionalism can be controlled by maintaining a republican government of limited powers in a strong federal system. Therefore, in solving the problems of factional union activities in contemporary politics, the pursuit of quick fixes is probably less profitable than giving attention to restoring the structural soundness of our constitutional system.

Factions and Opinion Groups in European Mass Parties: Some Evidence from a Study of Italian Socialist Activists

There was time when American students of political parties could operate with the simple assumption that, in contrast to our own, European parties were cohesive, homogeneous, and disciplined. With the exception of few deviant, old-fashioned parties of notables, the assumption ran, the European mass party had effectively solved the problem of internal dissidence and could turn to the challenge of external competition with a punctilious ideological and principled rigidity.'l In contrast to parties in the United States, the problem of factions seemed to have been solved in Europe (1) because of the more streamlined and hierarchical organization of European mass parties, (2) because of their apparently higher degree of programmatic homogeneity, and (3) because of the greater institutional centralization of European political systems. The monolithic view of the European mass party outlined above ignores many of the historical cleavages within these parties, especially during the period between the two world wars.2 And, in recent years, this perspective seems particularly inappropriate as factions have not only flourished, but have buttressed themselves with the very tools of organization and propaganda that the mass parties once developed to insure