Call number: LD2668 .T4 1966 G195 / Master of Science

This study seeks to use the structural-functional model of Almond and Powell to explain the functioning of the political system of Lebowa as a self-governing territory in the Republic of South Africa. Against the background of the historical development of Lebowa and the emergence of apartheid - or separate development as it was also termed - the political process in Lebowa is described and analysed in terms of the conversion function of Almond and Powell's model. Interest articulation, interest aggregation, rule-making, ruleapplication, rule-adjudication and communication are examined as functions of the conversion process in Lebowa. It is evident that Lebowa's position within greater South Africa, the importance of traditional structures, and the existence of modern political structures, play a major role in the political system of Lebowa. / Political Sciences / M.A. (Politics)

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Modern African states need to be analyzed from a perspective which complements, corrects, or specifies dependency/world-system and structural marxist explanations of peripheral political dynamics. This dissertation offers such a perspective as it seeks to explain variations in state-society exchange among four comparably dependent modern nations of the Sahelian African region (Senegal, Mauritania, Chad, Sudan). The model accounts for the political ramifications--state's mode of rule, level and type of opposition mobilization--of each country's ethno-religious configuration. It assumes that trans-national economic (and/or geopolitical) dynamics do not necessarily weigh more heavily on the dynamics of state-society relations than local political processes.

The new Polish state which emerged after the First World War adopted a highly democratic constitution based upon that or the Third French Republic. The powers of the President and the Cabinet were indeed even weaker than those allowed by the French Constitution. Although the Senate could hold up legislation and demand that proposed laws be passed in the Sejm by an 11/20 majority, in practice political power was concentrated in the Lower House, elected by universal suffrage with proportional representation. This constitution, adopted in March 1921, worked badly from the start. One hundred and thirty years of partition had created very different political traditions among those who had lived under either Austrian, Prussian or Russian rule. In addition, the political experience of the Polish clubs in the ueichsrat, the Reichstag and the Duma had been that of sectional groups whose sole concern had been to obtain the redress of minority grievances, a training singularly unfitted for members of a national legislature such as the Sejm, a body responsible for the effective control of the country's government. Widespread poverty and ignorance encouraged politicians to indulge in demagogy, and the prevalence of corruption in public life tended more and more to be ascribed to the nature of parliamentary government, which became increasingly discredited. The long years of foreign rule, during which Polish national survival had been the pre-eminent goal in politics, obscured the new state's obligations towards her own national minorities, who made up altogether one third of her population. Moreover Poland's perilous international position, her newly won independence threatened by both Germany and Russia, lent calls for a stronger government greater force. Parliament was further discredited by the failure of the politicians to deal successfully with the exceedingly difficult economic problems which confronted the new state. Finally, the persistence in the post-war period of the now largely anachronistic conflict between the National Democrats, under Roman Dmowski and the supporters of Jozef Piłsudski, the charismatic leader of the Polish legions in the First World War and Supreme Commander in the victorious war with the Soviet Union, was a continual source of instability. Thus it was not surprising that the progressive breakdown of the parliamentary system, conflicts over the position of the Piłsudski-ites in the Army, and the recurrence of severe economic difficulties led to a coup in May 1926 which brought Piisudski to power after three days of fighting. Piłsudski had no well-defined political ideas. He was principally interested in foreign policy and Array affairs, and showed little interest in the day-to-day running of the Government. He did not, therefore, to the surprise of some of his adherents, establish a dictatorship after his coup. Instead he maintained the 1921 Constitution, introducing a number of modifications. Of these the most important were the provision that the Government's budget proposals be enacted automatically if the legislature failed to approve a budget in the specified time, and that which deprived Parliament of the right to effect its own dissolution, a right now granted to the President acting with the approval of the Cabinet. Piłsudski attempted to co-operate with Parliament through the accomodating Kazimierz Bartel, a former radical politician who was Prime Minister from May to September 1926 and again from June 1928 to April 1929 (between October 1926 and June 1926 he was Vice Premier). The system of government pursued in this period was a sort of guided democracy 1 which allowed Parliament a limited role in criticizing the activities of the Government, but reserved the formulation and implementation of policy as the exclusive province of the Cabinet. The Cabinet was only formally responsible to the Sejm, and in fact could not be forced to resign by a vote of no-confidence. Under Polish conditions there was much to be said for this semi-autocratic system. It allowed a fair degree of personal and political freedom; parties, apart from Communist organizations, were not banned, few people were arrested, and the press was relatively free. At the same time, it provided a strong Government with continuity of policy, a vital need if any consistent plan was to be pursued concerning the national minorities, economic problems or foreign policy. Yet this 'Piłsudski-ite system' was to prove scarcely more successful than the 1921 Constitution. Although Piłsudeki had come to power with the support of the parties of the Left (the Polish Socialist Party and the two radical peasant groups, the Peasant Party and the Liberation), he came into increasing conflict with then, particularly after the elections of March 1928. This conflict culminated in the formation of an alliance of six parties of the Centre and Left, the so-called Centrolew which demanded the replacement of the Piłsudski system 9 by a return to full democracy. Nevertheless, in the elections of November 1930, after arresting a large number of Opposition politicians and by using considerable administrative pressure to influence the voting, Piłsudski won a decisive victory over his opponents. The arrests, the Government's electoral victory, and the trial and conviction of the leading Opposition politicians in October 1931 saw the virtual abandonment by the Sanacja as the Government called itself, of the residual parliamentarianism which had persisted after the coup. Although the press continued to enjoy relative freedom, and most political parties were allowed to exist openly, the Government became far more autocratic, though still not authoritarian. This development became much more marked, and the clash between the liberal and authoritarian elements within the Sanacja more evident, after Piłsudski's death in May 1935 had exposed the ideological hollowness of hie 'system'. This thesis is an attempt to describe the failure of two constitutional experiments: that of the democratic constitution of March 1921, and that of the semi-autocratic system introduced after the coup of May 1926. It takes as its starting-point the elections of November 1922, the first to be held under the new constitution. The detailed narrative continues to the end of 1930, when the Government's victory in the elections and the arrest of the leading Centrolew politicians saw the culmination of the move to a more autocratic system. The problem of Poland's political evolution during this period has been relatively neglected, both in Poland and in the West. In Poland, a fair amount of work has been done on the radical political parties, both Communist and non-Communist. However, very little has been published on either the Piłsudskiites in this period, or the National Democrats, although there are signs that something may soon be done to bridge this gap. In America, a valuable book has recently been published on Piłsudski's coup, but since it concentrates its attention upon the events of the coup itself and on its military aspects, its treatment of the political background and of subsequent political developments in somewhat sketchy. Apart from this book, almost nothing of serious academic worth has been written in the West on Polish internal politics between the Wars, although a number of useful works on foreign policy have appeared. This thesis is based primarily on Government documents in tne Archiwum Akt Nowych in Warsaw, on papers dealing with the Polish Socialist Party in the Archiwum Zakładu Historii Partii. on the minutes of the debates in the Sejm and Senate, on memoirs and on contemporary newspapers.

Not all German historians have yet lost the tendency to view their history until the nineteenth century as a mere prologue to national unification and to regard only the Holy Roman Empire and its institutions as worthy of interest. It is therefore not surprising that to historians outside Germany the German principalities have often appeared as shadows flitting across the scene of imperial affairs. In particular, it is not sufficiently realized that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the German princes were confronting challenges similar to those met by the monarchs of western Europe, though on a smaller scale. The desire of the princes to unify their territories and to strengthen their control over them, as well as growing financial problems and an increasing burden of judicial and administrative tasks, all demanded more purposeful policies, modern methods of government, and organized institutions. These developments were remarkably similar in the major principalities, although they occurred earlier in some than in others. The Palatinate in the later fifteenth century was in many ways representative of other principalities, even though the Estates were not sufficiently developed to be an effective curb on the rulers, as they were elsewhere. The sources for the history of the Palatinate in this period have been scattered rather than lost, but there have been only a few studies of individual problems, and no survey of all aspects of its government. Although the Wittelsbachs in the Palatinate, together with the counts of Württemberg, were the first ruling house to put an end to the baneful partitions which afflicted nearly every dynasty in the Empire, the attempts of the electors palatine from the time of the Golden Bull until the sixteenth century to prevent partitions have been neglected by historians. The Golden Bull confirmed the exclusive right of the Rhenish Wittelsbachs to the electoral dignity, which was to descend by primogeniture and to be linked irrevocably with their principality, which was also to be inherited by primogeniture. These provisions were incorporated in several family treatises of the electors during the next fifty years, which also established a nucleus of inalienable lands as an irreducible core for the principality. The demands of the younger sons of King Rupert (the Elector Rupert III) and the recognised necessity of providing for them caused the principle of primogeniture to be broken at the first serious test, and a fourfold partition ensued in 1410. For the next century, however, the rulers of the electoral line sought with varying intensity of purpose - and despite the additional difficulties of minorities and regencies - to prevent further partition. This was the chief objective of the Arrogation of 1451-2, by which Frederick I (1449-76) became elector and sole ruler of the Palatinate in place of his minor nephew and ward, Philip, with specific reference to the Golden Bull and the family treatises of the fourteenth century. Similarly, Philip (1476-1508) on his succession recalled the grant of lands which Frederick had made to his own son. These two electors and their predecessors had also tried to reunite the lands partitioned in 1410; Frederick I conquered some of the territories of the counts palatine of Hosbach and Neumarkt in 1499. Younger sons of the electors were increasingly provided for during the fifteenth century by the acquisition of fat benefices and sees, instead of by grants of lands and revenues of the principality. Further family compacts of the sixteenth century averted new dangers of partition, so that a tradition of the invisibility of the Palatinate developed; as a result, even on the extinction of the main line, first one and then another cadet line succeeded to the entire inheritance in 1559 and 1685. The unity thus preserved was an indispensable basis for the territorial expansion which approximately doubled the revenues of the Palatinate between 1410 and 1500. Not only was the rule of expansion of the fourteenth century thus maintained, but many of the methods of expansion adopted in the previous century were continued and developed. The electors secured the inheritance of several leading noble families whose line came to an end, on occasion using champerty to achieve their aim, and purchased numerous lands of the higher nobility, who had fallen into debt as a result of the 'agrarian crisis'. Other territories were acquired in exchange for the electors' protection, as escheated fiefs, or by means of the administrative pressure exercised by the local officials of the Palatinate and the statements of customary rights which they obtained from the inhabitants of disputed areas. The growth of the territories was not haphazard, since the electors pursued a more determined policy of expansion in some directions than in others. They were especially anxious to remove enclaves, to control the strategic points and major highways within their lands, and to buttress their position on the frontiers with the see of Mains, in the vicinity of the imperial city of Weissenburg, and in Alsace and the Ortensu, of which they held the imperial protectorates. By intervening in the legal disputes and family affairs of the nobles in these areas, they obtained fractional shares and military advantages in many strategic castles. The expansion of the first half of the century had been mainly by means of purchase, but Frederick I made his greatest gains by conquests from the sees of Mains and Speyer, the count palatine of Zweibrücken, the margrave of Baden and other rulers. [Please consult the thesis file for the continuation of the abstract.]