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The Communist Party in Selected Communes of Haute-Vienne
Melvin Cohen
Our world is a world of change in which very little, if anything, can be considered static or inviolable. As individuals we are daily coming into contact with situations in which we must change to meet varying environmental contingencies. However, rather than using the word "change", perhaps adaptation would be a more acceptable term. The latter is preferable in that it tends better to imply a process and interaction of forces as well as being more flexible and less absolute than "change". What follows is a study centered around the adaptation process, not on an individual basis, but as it relates to a particular political collectivity -- a political party.
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The Functions of Government in More's Utopia, Bacon's New Atlantis and Winstanley's Law of Freedom in a Platform
William Postiglione, Jr.
The study of the history of political thought is, to a great extent, the study of polemical treatises advocating particular solutions to the problems which the authors saw as critical in the period in which they lived. Obviously, man does not face the same problems he once faced, but he does face the same kind of problems. He does not always ask precisely the same questions, but he asks the same kinds of questions. Consequently, while the particular positions advocated in the past may not have relevance for the present, the general approach may.
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Franklin Roosevelt's advisory system: The institutionalization of the Executive office of the President
James C. Rowling
Since its inception in 1787, the Office of the President of the United States has had to deal with many governmental problems, burdening the President with extraordinary decisions. As the country has grown in population, in geography, and in world influence the number of problems and decisions has escalated, placing immense pressure upon the decision making procress. Today, decisions made by the President of the United States can affect the future of the entire world. Consequently, the advice and administrative assistance a president receives when he is making these decisions is crucial. Furnishing the President with this advice and assistance is one of the most influential elements in the Executive Branch of the Federal Government, the Presidential Advisory System.
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A rhetorical analysis of the address of Governor George C Wallace delivered during the third-party state convention held in Omaha, Nebraska, on March 4, 1968
Jean Elkon
When George Corley Wallace, twice governor of Alabama and militant advocate for states’ rights and segregation, collected enough signatures to put his American Independent Party on the 1968 ballot for the Presidential race, there emerged on the political scene what many people called a phenomenon, and extraordinary happening or circumstance. It appeared that for a time many observers had considered him only a faintly comical entry. But now George Wallace became a rival who threatened to jostle all political candidates. Nationwide polls certified him as a possible spoiler, and more was his “pull” that tripled his appeal outside the South. Both major parties now had to concern themselves with the new political arithmetic created by Wallace who expected to be on the ballot in nearly all fifty states. It was estimated that Wallace would probably take more votes away from Republicans than from Democrats, and in this new situation every White House aspirant was busy adding up his own special qualifications to blunt the Wallace raid. Wallace conducted a remarkable and sometimes destructive campaign which began in his own state of Alabama, continued throughout many of the southern states, and then progressed to the other sections of the United States. When the final ballot for President of the United States was over, Wallace carried five states in the Deep South: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Although he conducted a national campaign, he did not carry any of the border states or southwestern states, or any states in the North. The Wallace phenomenon was felt by the Democratic and Republican Parties, and for a time, columnist, politicians, and other political observers expressed fears of a third party deadlock of the election.
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Toward a New Dimension in the Study of Political Behavior: An Analysis of Biopolitical Theory and Quantitative Methodology as an Approach to the Study of Politics
Douglas Martin Wiig
In recent years, a number of popular books have contributed to an awareness of apparent similarities between human behavior and the behavior of other animals. Writers such as Robert Ardery, Desmond Morris and Konrad Lorenz have seemingly taken a great leap of faith when drawing their comparisons between observed non-human behavior and the behavior of Homo Sapiens. As a result of the controversy generated by such writings, few have realized or considered the true utility of a bioevolutionary approach for the social sciences. In the past few years, however, Peter Corning, James Davies, Thomas Thorson, and others have speculated on the utility of such an approach for the social sciences in general and for political science in particular.
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Public Policy: A Power Holder's Reaction to Fear
Kurt L. Jensen
Public policy, that necessary consequence of the Leviathan, is the end product of a power holder's reaction to fear. Man likes to view himself as a rational being endowed with the ability to govern his own life as he chooses. Yet, man's actions are not to be found originating within his mental consciousness in an example of spontaneous combustion. Man's actions are more properly defined as reactions. There must be an outside stimulus to motivate the human creature into taking positive or negative steps. The outside stimulus must be, either consciously or subconsciously, recognized by man as affecting him personally; and the knowledge of its doing so gives him an unpleasant sense ofinsecurity--of fear. Through inborn and experientially dictated responses which are individualistic in nature, man reacts to remove the fear and return to a state of mental tranquility. Man's acts are truly rational only in so far as they are a natural consequence of his need for security. Popular conceptions to the contrary, man does not feel secure if he is placed in a position where he is called upon to govern his own life. His very nature causes him to seek out and to allow others to stand over him. There have been those who have met man's need to be governed and have gathered to "themselves the power" to direct the composite man— the polity. It is to these holders of power that the ability to make public policy has fallen. Yet, these men cannot remove from themselves their own humanness. They, too, must have an outside stimulus to cause them to act. They, too, are motivated by fear and its reflection is found in the actions they undertake. Publlc policy, then, is a minority’s reaction to fear.
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An Analysis of the Scientific Adequacy of the Concept of Power
Morris John Ward
It has been the assertion of many brilliant and perceptive men, both within the field of Political Science and on its periphery, that the unifying concept -- the central political variable -- of this discipline is 'power'. There are other equally brilliant and perceptive men who dissent, some vigorously, others with cautious moderation. Nearly all agree, however, that 'power' is an important and even indispensable concept. Most of those who find themselves concerned with the concept take the trouble to define it; some exercise great care in the process, while others appear to assume that practically everyone who reads their work knows precisely what they are denoting by the term, without taking pains to clarify its relevance to the investigation, description and interpretation of human behavior where 'power' is presumed to play a part.
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The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Its Effect on Religious Liberty Between 1925-1954
James Patrick Keenan
This dissertation, "The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Its Effects on Religious Liberty During the 1925-1954 Period," is an attempt to exhibit and portray the boundaries of religious liberty as they were expanded, contracted, and generally altered during the period and the effect the above-named clause had on the traditional police powers of the various governmental bodies, other than Federal, during this span of approximately three decades.
Books and monographs written or edited in whole or in part by University of Nebraska Omaha faculty are collected here.
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