A Long Contested Question Political Patterns is nothing less than
an attempt to analyse and explain the fundamental struc- ture of contemporary world politics. The authors first discuss the leading liberal-democracies as exemplified by the US, the UK, France and Sweden, and go on to dissect the ideology and State systems of the Communist world, con- cluding with a perspicacious chapter on the nature of the cold war. As they point out in their preface, to use the classification 'democracy' is not enough; there are many countries in the world today where government in a very re- stricted sense is by the people. The addition of the word 'liberal' makes all the difference, for as we know, or should know, 'government must really depend on the consent of the governed, and in all its facets.' And in fact, freedom of speech and the rule of law, in Britain at any rate, antedate the coming of democracy.
Thus in the four countries mentioned above there is on the whole government by consent. This is yet again different from the idealistic definition of democracy in Lincoln's Gettysburg address; in practice it means that in liberal- democracies 'there is a point beyond which governments cannot go without antagonising the people and their representatives.' But in each country, of course, democratic practices vary considerably., In the United States there is no class structure on the European pattern, re- gionalism is very strong, and political parties are competing coalitions of sectional interests rather than custodians of ideology. In France, also an extremely heterogeneous society, but one not governed by a federal constitution, there has been no general consensus on the form of government since 1789, the exact opposite of an homogeneous society such as Sweden, which is sometimes known by its inhabitants as 'Organi- sation Sweden.'
No one will disagree with the statement here that Britain, politically at least, is an homo- geneous society. Yet class feeling is immensely strong, and this makes us, compared with the United States, an elitist form of democracy, where there is no strong bourgeoisie as a self- conscious class but where the 'tone' of, society is set by a ruling group.
The second preoccupation of this important, immensely erudite ideological vade-mecum lies in the varying problems raised by the cold war. The arms race has brought us to the verge of total catastrophe, yet the cold war at the same time 'to a very real extent is a contest for the hearts and minds of men.' Of the immense complexity of the struggle there can be no doubt, especially since the emergence of the 'uncommitted' bloc; yet here we have two simple quotations which give the essence of modern totalitarianism. The first is Khrushchev on the possibility of 'different roads to Socialism':
Every country should go its own way to socialism, but we cannot permit this to be used to break up the solidarity of the peace camp, and certainly not under the pretext of respecting peculiarities or extending democracy.
The second is Novy Mir's editorial letter reject- ing Dr. Zhivago:
As people whose standpoint is diametrically opposite yours, we, naturally, believe that the publication of your novel . . . is out of the question.
Yet if the Communists, while canvassing the triumphs of the 'world socialist system,' find it necessary to shoot East Berliners who wish to leave for the West, in a completely different way the whole idea of government by consent is vitiated if the Americans, for example, fail to solve the segregation problem. If democracy is to survive, intelligent reforms are necessary, but more than political or economic manipula- tion of our system is needed. What we must develop above all, and this is what one feels after reading this splendid book, is both an understanding of what is best in our political tradition and a sure sense of historical perspec- tive. Liberal-democracy after all is an extremely precarious growth which has existed for only a very short time in a relatively small part of the world; there is no law of history to say that it will inevitably survive, Mr. Crozier's lively and informative guide to the 'new' countries and their leaders touches on many points raised in Political Patterns. His chief interest is in the tension between the claim of the emergent countries to independence and the nature of that independence in terms of Real- politik; it was Machiavelli who wrote that the true test of independence is a country's ability to defend itself when attacked. By this standard there are only two independent countries in the world today, and Mr. Crozier writes very well as he shows how and why the freedom of the States of the tiers monde is qualified in all sorts of wlys, not least by the varying quality of political leadership. While Nigeria and Cam- bodia, for example, have a high degree of sophis- tication in the conduct of their affairs, other emergent countries, of which Indonesia is a good example, are nothing more than hoodlum empires misruled by psychopaths. The obvious solution to the various stresses described here is an economic one, more foreign aid from the industrialised West so that the underdeveloped countries themselves may evolve some form of interdependence. But here again it would be a grave mistake to think that the problems of the ex-colonial world can be solved by economic means alone. The lesson to be drawn from both these books under review is that there can be no clear answer at present to that disquieting conundrum posed by the Founding Fathers of 1787, 'the long contested question whether men can govern themselves.'
DAVID REES
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