Physical map

Institutional History

Political Institutions: Designed to regulate relations between

individuals as between them and the community (public life)

Organized voluntarily and permanently - an institution wants to represent and influence society.

Methodological approach

1. Functionalist approach - describes the structure of a political institution in view of the purpose to be achieved;

Example: Structural Anthropology developed by Claude Levi-Strauss in "Tristes Tropiques", 1955

(but societies mutate in history, even those "primitive").

Historicist approach

Evolutions of rules and structures with respect to material and ideological relations:

The influences deriving from the past and from other countries;

The daily routine and habits – influenced not only by technical necessites, but also by ethical (ideological, religious...) convictions.

Legal Positivism

Doctrine established at the end of the XIX century: a norm must be considered as “valid”, until a subsequent norm is posed by the lawgiver.

But even law has "ideological impurities"! It can not be considered only as an expression of "scientifically neutral" necessities!

French tradition

(influences the birth of the Italian school):

1. Maurice Hauriou (1856 - 1929) - "institutional theory"

Hauriou's institutional theory

"Social organization becomes durable when it is established: its legal form - which is the element that makes it enduring - is a system of balance of power and consent.”

“The form is the structural element of the

organization, pursues a function determined by values considered as recognized. "

Jacques Godechot

Historian, specialist in the French Revolution (1907-1989):

“Institutions are the framework within which people are struggling;

that is, they are the product of the balance achieved between the conflicting forces, translated into laws, decrees (or just costumes)."

Crisis of liberalism

Difference between Hauriou and Godechot - the awareness that institutions can move away from the values and social consensus.

Europe has experienced in the twentieth century a moment of loss of political unity, thus the institutions are looking for balance between different - even conflicting - value systems (pluralist democracy).

German tradition

1. Social History: focuses the division between state / society (government / people):

Seen from below: antipolitics, populism - the state understood as an entity that lives above and at the community's expense);

Seen from the top, "state-worship" - the state seen as impartial and superior compared to the special interests of individuals in conflict with each other.

2. Structural history

combines political science and constitutional law in a single framework - by confronting "formal" and "material" Constitution.

Tipical issues: defining legal status of political associations arising within the civil society - the major problem of "unconstitutional" or "anti-system" parties.

Theoretical formulations

Norms, institutions

Economic and social effects

relations between the economic and social forces

European tradition

2 main patterns developed during XIX and the beginning of XX century:

Pluralistic model(british parliamentary democracy)

Monistic model(german authoritarian dictatorship)

British parliamentary system

Requirements:1. Substitution of the king with the prime

minister – an accountable political leader;2. The structuring of the parties inside and

outside Parliament;3. The relationship between governments and

public opinion that allows the alternation of governments;

4. A stable Public administration unrelated to the clashes between the parties

King in Parliament

Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum, 1565:

confirms the role of parliament as the

"accepted part of the constitution, known and recognized element of the Royal

Government,"

"supreme and absolute power of the kingdom because there and not elsewhere, the

peaceful meeting between all parts of the kingdom is achieved."

A permanent institution

Thomas Smith: confirmed the illegality of any taxation

without the consent of parliament, • petitions presented by the chambers become

law if approved by the king, • House of Commons has the right of inquiry

into the abuse of royal officials, control over public finances and criminal proceedings against Ministers - impeachment.

Kings’ trial

The Parliament condemns Charles I to death

"because of the fundamental proposition by which the King of England is not a person, but an office, with the power to govern by the laws of the country and in no other way."

Royal prerogatives

Source of ideological conflict: • the royal prerogatives belong to king only.• They exclude the consent of parliament

because they are the foundation of society (regarding the basic values: matters as religion, morality and the unity of the country),

• thus a Dogma: the prerogatives can not infringe on the liberty of the subject.

King - Parties

1678-83 - birth of the two parties: Whig and Tory - on the question of royal prerogative to decide in religious matters.

Organization and party propaganda:• Tory alliance: Privy Council - Justices of the

Peace of Counties - high Anglican church;• Whig alliance: City of London - House of

Commons - Protestant nonconformists.

Parties - Public opinion

Charles Fox (New Whigs) against George III, 1780:

The king must not be influenced only by his "favorites", but also by "public opinion".

With the defeat of the George III’ American policy - officially recognized duty for a king to act according to public interest - as shown by the parties.

Formation of governments

During XVIII and XIX century, general elections are considered significant, but not directly binding.

Professional politicians get ministerial assignments if they have parliamentary support (example - Walpoles’ Grand Party - a Whig federation of MPs under his patronage).

Collective responsibility of government and leadership of the Prime Minister based on the ability to influence the majority of MPs.

Ministerial solidarity

• The conquest of power is seen as a result of a joint effort made by politicians with common opinions;

• during the exercise of power, the prime minister has the power to impose a common policy to ministers;

• the resignation is meant as a joint act of the Council against the king or the parliament.

MPs - voters

1774 - Edmund Burke, Speech to the electors of Bristol:

virtual representation - the Member is not bound to the will of the voters in his district, but pursues the common good and is accountable for his opinions only to Providence.

Last royal government in United Kingdom

December 1834 - April 1835: last case of a government (Tories, led by Robert Peel) imposed by William IV against the will of the majority. Peel resigns after 100 days frustrated for not being able to pass laws against the Whig majority.

1835 - Queen Victoria offers to Peel to form a minority government, but he refuses.

Reforming political parties

The 1832 Reform Act gives right to vote to the middle class. Number of voters increases about 60%, rising to 650 000. Political parties organize themselves as centralized national structures and promote the voter registration in each district .

Parliamentarism

Since the 1832 electoral reform:All parties agree on the principle that decisions

taken in parliament are binding on everyone, without regard for other social factors.

The local press brings the political debate in the provinces, thus national unity is built around the Parliament, intended as national symbol.

Public opinion

Public following the work of Parliament (since 1783 journalists can publish parliamentary debates) was born as:

Public interest associations - for electoral reform (for a fairer representation -

Birmingham Political Union - National Political Union),- for universal suffrage and more frequent elections

(Chartism),- for the abolition of slavery.

Private interest

Associations of private interest: - industry associations and lobbies for friendly

legislation (from medioeval guilds to the Federation of British Industries, 1916),

- first Chamber of commerce established in Jersey in 1768 (Association of the Chambers of Commerce established in 1860),

- workers' trade unions, etc. divided by sector (since 1815).

Permanent civil service

1855: First parliamentary committee on the efficiency of the civil service, due to the chaotic conduct of the Crimean War (first "technological War" and the first to be followed by the press).

The aim of the reform: to divide the technical officials from the political. Since 1870, recruitment by competitive examinations, no longer by political patronage (family ties, clients,

party, local basis).

Universal and secret suffrage

1. 1867 Second Reform Act: doubling the number of voters (from 1.5 to 3 million) and more equitable redistribution between the city (underrepresented) and country.

2. 1872 Ballot Act: Inclusion of employees compels the adoption of the secret ballot.

3. 1884 Third Reform Act: the right to vote obtained in 1867 in the city is extended to the counties. 60% of males has the right to vote.

Female suffrage

Fourth Reform Act 1918: male universal suffrage and partial female suffrage (women over 30 with minimum property qualifications – employed in factories during WWI);

Fifth Reform Act 1928: women's universal suffrage.

Mass democracy

Effects on party system:The results of the election no longer depend on

corruption, but on political campaigns, causing more and more bureaucratic centralization within parties and major electoral expenses.

Class struggle in Parliament

Effects of the universal suffrage: on one side, the dominance of the richest

classes in the House of Commons, because of high costs of electoral campaigns;

on the other side, greater social pressure on the upper classes, due to higher expectations of the lower classes fueled by election promises.

Chancellor Governement

Main factors in German constitutional history

1. The absolutist tradition;

2. Corporate and feudal social organization;

3. The failed revolution of 1848;

4. Centrality of the king in political life;

5. The Chancellery (1867) as a solution for an efficient antiparliamentary (unaccountable) government.

Prussia: monarchical principle

1845 - Friedrich Julius Stahl, Monarchical Principle :

"For the monarchical principle, the king should

remain de facto the core of the constitution, the positive power in the state, the leadership of progress."

Primacy of executive power

Stahl:“The security for the monarchy lies not only in

constitution but also in the way of government. If this is not strong, energetic, the power will go in fact to the Parliament, though this may be in conflict with the constitution.”

Critics of the english model

Stahl: incompatibility between king and Parliament, as the parliamentary principle involves the inexorable affirmation of republicanism, as in England, where:

"A fiction, a king can do no wrong sounds like a profoundly monarchical principle, but he can not do anything. Not only the monarch should have no power, he should not have any desire, no belief in political matters. "

England seen by German liberals

Carl Rotteck in Constitution, 1836, is critical to the Parliamentary supremacy because:

"the Parliament in London has totally alienated from the true idea of representing the people and became a second government, in which the country's interests are sacrificed to the interests of parliamentarians" .

Parliamentary model seen by Hegel

Hegel, On the Reform Bill, 1831:The parliamentary system is the cause of

the gap between principles being proclamed and the reality (the widespread poverty in British and Irish society), and the core of this vice can not be eliminated with the enlargement of the right to vote.

Hegel on popular vote

On the Reform Bill:

"The main thing in an election reduces to find voters, bring them to the polls and induce them to vote for their masters, especially with the means of corruption."

William Hogarth, Canvassing for votes, 1754

Possibility to choose

Hegel:“Clearly the feeling is that the individual vote is

- among the many thousands needed to elect someone - without any real weight. And this - so irrelevant - influence is limited only to people, and is even infinitely more irrelevant for the fact that it does not refer to the matter, which is, indeed, expressly excluded.”

Realpolitik

August Ludwig von Rochau, 1853:The world of politics is "dominated by the law of

the strongest in the same way as the world of physics is dominated by the law of gravity."

"The law is highly dependent and limited by the extent of power that is available."

"In the face of poverty is wealth, as the intelligence is waged by ignorance, prejudice and - in particular - stupidity ."

The “people” for Rochau

"Each party finds the true people there where it can find means for its purposes. The militaristic absolutism calles the army the "elite" of the people, the patriarchal regime tends to define the class of backward rural provinces the traditionalist core of people, the bureaucracy sees the real people in the petit bourgeois of the city, the liberals grant the role of the real people only to wealthy and educated middle class, and democracy tends to exclude from the people all those who are not associated to the proletarians".

Selfgovernment

Rochau:"Self-government, wanted by opponents of

monarchical rule, requires a constant effort and a persistent spiritual will, which are alien to the masses".

So: "such a theory can not stand the test of reality in the future, as it has not passed the test in the past."

German Bonapartism

Constantin Frantz, Our Constitution, 1851:“The introduction of the constitution must lead

to the fall of the throne, because this will end up identifying with corruption and demagogy of the Parliament, which will produce the dissolution of the national spirit and social anarchy.”

Parliamentarism as deceit

Frantz:“By the time a deputy is elected, he sits in front

of voters as a god and those are not entitled to protest. The whole representative system is nothing but a big mystification.”

The Chef

Constantin Frantz, Louis Napoleon, 1852:“According to the parliamentary system, the

people elect to be represented, but here it elects to be governed. There, the so-called executive power is subject to Parliament, here is superior and dominant. There, the state's power rests on the Parliament, here is based on the Chef.”

Leader - people

Frantz:“The mendacious parliamentary system is

declaiming to the people sweet words on self-government and then establishing the rule of Parliament. Here they say to the people the truth: that it is unable to govern itself and must therefore elect a leader, to which it must obey.”

Lothar Bucher

Freedom of Thought

Lothar Bucher, Parliamentarism as it really is, 1855:

“The concept of parliamentarism should merge two elements: the party government and Selfgovernment.

The German liberals believe that the British parliamentary system is not enclosed in the Palace of Parliament, but rather means an organized, guaranteed and general freedom of opinion and action."

“But by which institutions is organized and guaranteed the freedom of opinion and action?”

Is there a source of constant conflict between organized party interestsandunorganized social interests

Public Opinion

Bucher:“The exchange of opinions among individuals,

usually immediate, is now delegated, led by the newspapers. These changes affect the evolution of the representative system: thousands of citizens devote themselves to a single journal and will, thoughts and comments disappear..."

Bucher:“Every morning, the "opinion" is served ready as it were a muffin. By reading, one gets used only to absorb. The race to gain does not leave a spare minute to reflect on what we have read.”

The Press

Bucher about the monopolistic position of “The Times”:

"it is clear what power has a newspaper, by virtue of what will decide to publish and what will decide to fail to mention, and generally by virtue of spreading ideas and ways of seeing that it generates among the readers."

Indirect censorship

Bucher:"The Parliament is an enemy of the press that

gives voice to the classes and interests that are not represented in it... The crime of "incitement to hatred and hostility" was born in England. Against a dangerous political movement, but in particular of a social nature, there is a whole arsenal of indirect means against the press. "

Cult of the leader

Bucher:“The faith in public opinion springs from the

needs of the public authorities, the voluntary submission which the mass of men always tend.

A leader who has gained the confidence of the masses – perhaps in somewhat undeserving ways - can lead them to acts of obedience and renunciation, of sacrifice, to which the state apparatus with all its worldly and spiritual power, is not capable to impose".

Guiding principles for the imperial constitution

Bucher and Bismarck (1866): The new constitution should take into account

the actual distribution of:

organized power in the state (military) and unorganized socio-economic power in the

society (nobility, industry, finance).

Legislative/executive power

The principles of separation of power: serve for masking implicit claims to sovereignty (as in the case of the British Parliament), or are a sign of an unforgivably impolitic attitude. The bourgeoisie, in any case, does not deserve even a segment of political power.

Plebiscitary trust

Article 17 of the imperial constitution: “the Chancellor is responsible for all the acts of the Empire”.

- Leading to an overall interpretation of the governmental conduct and not to an examinee of single acts.

- Public control turns in a confirmation of the prevalent opinion regarding qualities of the man who leads a supposed "national interest" - which should not be judged by the law, but by the opportunity (Realpolitik).

Industrialization

Energetic national governments as an emergency solution (“Emergency knows no law”) to guide social transformations

connected to the process of industrialization:

Urbanization - need of new social infrastructure

Accumulation of capitals - neglect of traditional hierarchies

Society/Community

An attempt to theoryze social dysfunctions caused by the rapid industrial revolution and

new social relations and values (individualism, materialism):

Society: an “aggregate and mechanical product” in which we see the overall picture

of the "bourgeois society" or "society of exchange": “for the poor, the sweet native

soil of our homeland is nothing but the paving of the sidewalk” (Ferdinand Tönnies, 1887)

Community

Community: the place of “real and organic life”; an exclusive place prohibited to foreigners

"as a place of mother tongue, and thus of deep, instinctive understanding betwee members, in which harmony and common will are governed by rules of natural law”.

Carl Friedrich von Gerber (1823-1891)

Popular state

Carl Friedrich von Gerber, General lines of the German public law, 1865:

"popular State" is the way to the realization of the general interest of the people. Only within the State "the nation stands united to the legal consciousness and builds his own will", which then expresses the will to power of the state.

Organic State

Gerber:The state is committed to permanent planning

and organizing of the life of popular community. The community, in turn, recognizes the state's legal competence, as its superior ability to realize the "general interest".

The state is a living organism – its vigor is demonstrated by governmental “will”, that is, by the act of governing.

The will of the people

Gerber:The will of the state coincides with the will of

the people. But, it is intended only as a general will, that is, as "objective basis", opposed to the concrete participation of the individual in decision-making. The will of the individual is deemed as "subjective" and relegated to the private law.

The people

Gerber:"people" does not mean only the actually

present and acting citizenship - which willingness would be empirically testable - but "the whole” - past, present and future generations of germans - spiritually united in the historical community, of which the currently living generation expresses only the present moment."

Individual/state

Gerber:The single subject participates as a tiny particle

of the new body to the "life" of the community, renouncing in return to the right to reclaim his self-will against the state.

"By placing his right to rule, the state requires that the citizen should submit to its legitimate orders in any forms (laws, administrative acts...) and demonstrate obedience ".

Otto von Gierke (1841-1921)

National community

Otto von Gierke, The nature of human unions, 1902:

The "nature" requires "the ethical sense derived from the idea of a concrete community" and that necessarily involves a "supreme value of the Whole."

The status of the "individual" citizen and his freedom are derived from his status of community member, subject to the will of higher-level "unit, the indivisible Community-person».

Nation state

Gierke:The legal form for the community, a place of

"real and organic life" in which the single parts are united in a whole.

“From the religious point of view, the commandment to love our neighbor is completed in the commandment to love God above all things. [...] To the community on earth that means: love the whole more than yourself!”

The leader

Gierke:“Wherever we find life, we'll note its

representative - or "exponent", or literally "bearer" or "holder" (Träger), which has its own character. We note some eminent individuals involved in a creative way and, through their more personal action, which comes only from them, transform society. But this result occurs only when the community cooperates at least so receptive, embracing the gift of the individual. "

Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-1864)

“The sin of the golden calf”

ADAV

General German Workers' Association (ADAV) formed in 1863 by Ferdinand Lassalle;

the ultimate goal was the establishment of a people's state (Volksstaat), that is a rigidly centralized socialist national state dominated by dictatorship of the conviction

- to be understood as a free submission to dictatorial power of a leader voted for the good of the people.

Article 4 of 1867 ADAV program

“The association considers a sad mistake if someone thinks he can be useful to the interests of the working class acting on his own. The association has recognized that only by submitting to the whole each can operate successfully from his place.

The association must therefore consider anyone who does not recognize the idea of the organization, as well as anyone who fails to comply with the principles, as an enemy of the working class.”

Dictatorship of the conviction

“Freedom and authority are united in our Association, which offers a miniature model of what will be the future shape of our society!

This discipline is not based on any other ground except on clear understanding that only by the dictatorship of the conviction, not by personal opinion and grumbling, you can put into action the great violent work of transformation of society! We let the proliferation of individual chatter to the bourgeois.”

Summary of political dogmas

The national community wants the realization of values of justice;

The national governments' will is the reflection of peoples' will;

The governments' political unity is the reflection of national unity;

The leaders' quality can emerge only if every member of the nation obeys his

commands with blind faith.