Specialists In Politics Research Articles

The Politics of Pluralism: A Comparative Study of Lebanon and Ghana. By David R. Smock and Audrey C. Smock. (New York: Elsevier, 1975. Pp. x +369. $12.50.)

Biafra, Burundi, Bangladesh, Ulster-these and other lethal contemporary conflicts pivoting upon the communal factor in politics took both scholars and statesmen by surprise. The melting pot and unilinear integration that implicitly dominated an earlier generation of analysis are in disorderly retreat; with this interesting study of cultural pluralism in Ghana and Lebanon, the Smocks join those in hot pursuit of these failed concepts. To examine the political dynamics of cultural pluralism, the Smocks have chosen one case where cleavages are primarily ethnic (Ghana), and a second where confessional division dominates (Lebanon). The distinctiveness of their approach is threefold: (i) the focus on intercommunal relationships; (2) the stress on policy arenas of conflict, and formulas for reconciliation; and (3) the interesting use of survey data on communal solidarities. Extensive field inquiry was undertaken in both countries; the documentary foundations for the work are excellent. The three pillars of analysis underpin a book of real merit. Yet some important dimensions of cultural politics have received inadequate attention, accounting in part for some of its failures in prophesy. The Smocks conclude that specialists in Lebanese politics have overemphasized its attributes as a precarious republic, while aficionados of Ghanaian affairs have underestimated the impact of ethnicity on national life. has come closer than Ghana to achieving national accommodation (p. 317) they argue, citing the decline of religiousity, the diverse power-sharing mechanisms of the national pact, and the commitment of the political elite to the nurture of Lebanon. By contrast, none of Ghana's political structures, neither the two parliamentary democracies, the two military regimes, nor the one-party system, has institutionalized mechanisms to assure the incorporation of the major ethnic groups into the political system in a meaningful manner (p. 317). The grisly turn of events in Lebanon since completion of the manuscript do not wholly invalidate their analysis, although questions necessarily arise as to why history has strayed so far from the moderately hopeful path they saw. In fact, all the volatile elements that went critical in 1975 are identified by the Smocks. Some, however, were clearly underestimated, which does suggest some weaknesses in the approach. What unhinged Lebanon was not the interconfessional relationships alone, but the remorseless pressures of external factors, joined to some particular characteristics of the Lebanese state as an authoritative arena of politics. The potential dislocating impact of the militant, stateless nationality of Palestinians, who came to outweigh the small, weak Lebanese armed forces in arms and numbers receives insufficient stress. The ambiguities of the nation-state self-concept, in the face of competing armed and funded visions (pan-Arabism, greater Syria, secure borders for Israel) required more systematic analysis. Pluralism does not occur in a vacuum, but within a bounded arena, the state-a simple yet decisive fact. Constraints on policy choice for the consociational confessional state created, by

JFK Through Russian Eyes

Over the last few years a number of American scholars have made the casual observation, based on brief interactions with their Russian counterparts, that it is very difficult to get Soviet specialists in United States studies interested in discussing American politics. To Americans who specialize in American politics, this is invariably puzzling and disconcerting, for many of us see in the American political system a complexity that poses, no less to us than to others, a formidable array of intellectual challenges. Consequently we are on the whole eager to learn what the fresh perspectives of outsiders can offer to our common understanding of the ins and outs of American politics. With a fair frequency, we are richly rewarded by foreign observers: Tocqueville, Bryce, and Ostrogorskii are of course still read and pondered by American specialists on America. In our own day we have been enlightened by the late Denis Brogan, by Henry Fairlie, Max Freedman, M. J. C. Vile, and many others, mostly journalists, who have successfully turned their hands to explaining America to Americans, as well as to readers in their own homelands. Not all their observations have by any means been flattering, but a warts-and-all portrait is the highest compliment an inquiring visitor can pay a society that purports to be open. American politics specialists at the U.S.A. Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, such as Anatolii A. Gromyko, have not yet entered into

Radio et éducation au Cameroun; le cas de Radlo-Garoua

ABSTRACTUsing a particular case based on data gathered in Garoua in 1971, the author examine whether concrete policies follow the assertions of political leaders and specialists of international organizations on the importance of an educative role for radio in developing countries. The analysis of programming, the content of broadcasts and the situation of the personnel of Radio-Garoua point to the weakness of the means that the station has set up for the education of its public. This assertion and a brief consideration of the social system of radio in North Cameroun lead to the conclusion that the frequent use of vernacular languages on Radio-Garoua is motivated more by objectives of mobilization and of propaganda than education.

Political Ethos and the Structure of City Government

For years specialists in local politics have deplored the anecdotal quality of literature in the field and have called for theoretically-based comparative research. One of the most stimulating and ambitious attempts in this direction is Edward C. Banfield and James Q. Wilson's theory of “public-regardingness” and “private-regardingness,” which states that much of what Americans think about the political world can be subsumed under one or the other of these conflicting orientations and that the prevalence of one ethos over the other influences the style, structure, and outcome of local politics. Banfield and Wilson attribute these two ethics to different elements in the population and hypothesize that a number of political forms and policies are manifestations of each ethos. We intend to examine the associations between these hypothesized consequences and the demographic characteristics that are said to be the bases of the two ethics.

Aspects of Group Relations in a Complex Society: Mexico1

S TARTING from simple beginnings in twenties, anthropologists have grown increasingly sophisticated about relationship of nation and community. First, they studied community in its own terms, taking but little account of its larger matrix. Later, they began to describe outside factors which affected life of local group under study. Recently they have come to recognize that nations or 'systems of higher level do not consist merely of more numerous and diversified parts, and that it is therefore methodologically incorrect to treat each part as though it were an independent whole in itself (Steward 1950:107). Communities are modified and acquire new characteristics because of their functional dependence upon a new and larger (ibid: 111). The present paper is concerned with a continuation of this anthropological discussion in terms of Mexican material. The dependence of communities on a larger system has affected them in two ways. On one hand, whole communities have come to play specialized parts within larger whole. On other, special functions pertaining to whole have become tasks of special groups within communities. These groups Steward calls horizontal socio-cultural segments. I shall simply call them nation-oriented groups. They are usually found in more than one community and follow ways of life different from those of their community-oriented fellow-villagers. They are often agents of great national institutions which reach down into community, and form the bones, nerves and sinews running through total society, binding it together, and affecting it at every point (ibid: 115). Communities which form parts of a complex society can thus be viewed no longer as self-contained and integrated systems in their own right. It is more appropriate to view them as local termini of a web of group relations which extend through intermediate levels from level of community to that of nation. In community itself, these relationships may be wholly tangential to each other. Forced to understand community in terms of forces impinging on it from outside, we have also found it necessary to gain a better understanding of national-level institutions. Yet to date most anthropologists have hesitated to commit themselves to such a study, even when they have become half-convinced that such a step would be desirable. National institutions seem so complex that even a small measure of competence in their operations seems to require full-time specialization. We have therefore left their description and analysis to specialists in other disciplines. Yet specialists in law, politics, or economics have themselves discovered that anthropologists can be of almost as much use to them as they can be to anthropologist. For they have become increasingly aware that legal, political or other systems to