The Study Of Politics

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31143, 20 August 1966, Page 4

The Study Of Politics

The Idea of Politics. By Maurice Duverger. Methuen. 231 pp. Index. In the eighteenth century it was easy to write an introduction to the study of politics. It is still easy in the Communist world, but outside the old certainty has gone. There is no longer any generally accepted over-all theory of politics, there are Only personal approaches. Maurice Duverger, a noted French political scientist, has attempted one. As he defines it, his object is not to construct a new Western theory to oppose Marxism—rather to consider political concepts from both sides as representing relative and partial views which should be integrated into a general synthesis. “The Idea of Politics” is not that synthesis; it is an introduction. Beginning, as his great countrymen Bodin and Montesquieu did. with the effects of geography, climate and population pressures on politics, Mr Duverger works his way through the elements of conflict in society, the forms that conflict can take, and arrives at the essence <rf political thought—the integration of society, the elimination or

control of social conflict by political activity. Mr Duverger’s conclusions, which owe as much to economics as political theory, are that both East and West are moving towards a central socialist position, and that this movement may be as painful for the West as the necessary liberalisation is proving for the East. The author suggests an inevitability in the process, based on the growth of technology and the techniques of economic planning in all societies. This is not a new theory, although Mr Duverger states it very ably. Some of his findings are that Stalin strengthened capitalism by making Socialism appear identical with totalitarianism; that private ownership of the means of production is essentially contrary to the Western valuesystem: that adequate social services, the “third sector” of the economy, can only be provided by socialist methods: and finally that the superiority of Socialism over capitalism is simply the superiority of organisation over lack of organisation. Many would not agree, but Mr Duverger certainly deserves a hearing.