Steve Juanico
Professor Yan Sun
Comparative Politics 103
13 April 1999
Which of the comparative politics approaches
you have learned (political development,
political culture, and political institutions) do
you find most useful? Why?
I find it most useful to combine all three approaches when I
compare and analyze different political systems because each
method deals with different aspects of a political system. If I
ignore one level of analysis, then my study will not be as
comprehensive if I had used all three approaches. The political
development of a state helps me to understand how its past has
shaped and influenced its present political institutions, political
conditions, and the political attitudes of its people. Political
development implies that a state has evolved from its original form
toward its modern existence. Gary K. Bertsch agrees with me
because he also categorizes states "according to the way they have
attempted to meet the challenges of industrial change and
modernization."1 For each state, meeting these challenges entailed a
historical progression from simple to complex, from traditional to
modern, just like in nature where eukaryotic organisms evolved from
prokaryotic cells. We can also see that our government has grown in
complexity and size from its revolutionary beginnings. Political
culture, on the other hand, addresses the question of how a people of a
certain state feel about their political system. Do they believe it is
legitimate? Are there intense and conflicting views on how the state
should be governed? Are there deep cleavages that polarize the
different social groups in society? The study of political culture is
important because of the implication that different political cultures
produce different political systems. Lastly, political institutions (the
1Gary K. Bertsch et al., Comparing Political Systems: Power and Policy in
Three Worlds, 4th ed. (New York: McMillan & Co., 1991) 3.
presidency, parliament, political parties, etc.) help me see the location,
distribution, and interaction of power in the state. Political
institutions serve as arenas for political conflict, and they are often
the stakes and the instruments used for the attainment of power.
Bertsch again supports my contention when he writes:
The concept of a political system is more inclusive than
government and incorporates all individuals and institutions
involved in the political process. For example, in explaining
Soviet policy toward the West, one must understand the role
of its formal governmental organs and political leaders. But
that alone will not produce a complete understanding. The
student of politics must also examine the influence of other
less formal factors . . .2
I will try to prove my position by using all three approaches in
answering the question of why Britain is generally perceived to be a
state of great political continuity and stability while France is not.
Using the political development approach, one can see that Britain
was an early developer; in fact, it emerged as the first industrial
nation in the world. The British political system evolved over a
relatively long period of time. Thus, political development crises
were dealt with gradually and had enough time to resolve themselves.
Moreover, British insularity had the advantage of blocking foreign
interference that could disrupt the country's political development.
2Bertsch 19.
The crisis of identity or nation building was solved at an early date
when William the Conqueror defeated the English at Hastings in 1066.
He established a feudal order that served as the basis of loyalty for
the native cultural groups. The Norman king created a central
government, based in London, and a tradition of common law. Wales
was assimilated by force in 1301. The crowns of England and Scotland
were united when James I became the first Stuart king of England.
The Act of Union (1707) combined the English and Scottish
parliaments. The English invaded Ireland in 1170 and pacified the
whole country by 1603.
The crisis of legitimacy or state building centered on the struggle
for supremacy between the king and parliament. The origin of the
English parliament can be traced to the rise of towns and cities. The
king wanted obviously to tax the new social groups that rose along with
these urban centers—the urban middle class (merchants, traders,
artisans, etc.). Bertsch acknowledges that the "development of
parliamentary bodies in such countries as England and the Netherlands
represented the determined effort of the urban middle class to resist
arbitrary monarchical taxes."3 In England, it was the struggle of the
nobles, the church, and the urban middle class to limit the power of
King John. The result was the Magna Carta of 1215. The charter
specifically commands that
No scutage [a tax that was paid in lieu of military service] or aid
shall be imposed in our kingdom unless by common counsel of our
. . . And to obtain the common counsel of the kingdom about the
assessing of an aid . . . or of a scutage, we will cause to be
summoned the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and greater
barons, individually by our letters—and, in addition, we will
cause to be summoned generally through our sheriffs and
bailiffs all those holding of us in chief—for a fixed date,
namely, after the expiry of at least forty days, and to a fixed
place; and in all letters of such summons we will specify the
reason for such summon.4
By the fourteenth century, parliament claimed the exclusive right to
approve all royal requests for new taxes, which was viewed as a gift of
the loyal subjects to their king.
3Bertsch 32.
4"Magna Carta." Britannica Online. http://www.eb.com:80/
cgi-bin/g?DocF=pri/Q0005.html. 10 Apr. 1999.
The War of the Roses—the conflict between the Houses of York
and Lancaster—installed the Tudor dynasty (1485-1603), and the war
had consequence of enhancing royal power. The war also weakened the
feudal system and, at the same time, provided the impetus for
industrialization. Barrington Moore, Jr., points out that
The War of the Roses (1455-1485) were for the landed
aristocracy a social rather than a natural catastrophe, a
bloodletting that severely weakened the them and enabled the
Tudor dynasty, which emerged from the struggle, to resume with
greater success the process of consolidating royal power. Under
Henry VIII, political and religious considerations may have had
the consequence of giving another push toward commercial
agriculture. . . . the main significance of Henry VIII's rule was
to damage one of the pillars of the old order, the church . . . the
Tudor peace generated a powerful stimulus to the growth of a
commercial and even capitalist outlook in the countryside.5
The break from Rome can be characterized as bitter and violent, but
it was not as intense as the one if France—one of the reasons being
that the Anglican Church retained Catholic rituals and traditions at
first. So, the religious cleavage, more or less (since it is presently the
main cause of the political turmoil in Northern Ireland), is not a
feature of British society today—a factor that contributes to the
general image of stability in its political life. As for the Tudor
stimulus to industrialization, Moore takes a passage from the work of
R. H. Tawney, a historian who has done an "unsurpassed study of the
economic life of England before the Civil War":6
5Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy:
Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. With a new Foreword
by Edward Friedman and James C. Scott (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966) 6.
6Moore 6.
. . . The Tudor discipline, with its stern prohibition of livery and
maintenance, its administrative jurisdictions and tireless
bureaucracy, had put down private warfare with a heavy hand,
and, by drawing the teeth of feudalism, had made the command of
money more important than the command of men . . . [This change]
. . . marks the transition from the medieval conception of the land
as the basis of political functions and obligations to the modern
view of it as an income-yielding investment. Landholding tends, in
short, to become commercialized.7
Bertsch, on the other hand, argues that "It is not coincidental that
industrialization got its start in a country in which absolutism never
quite took hold. The Tudor monarchs of the sixteenth century . . . had
not attempted to overturn the powers and privileges of the medieval
Houses of Parliament."8 The reason that Bertsch gives for Tudor
success in politics was that the Tudor monarchs achieved "their
political aims without confronting Parliament, preferring to wield
influence through skillful coalition building."9 Therefore, it is clear
that Britain's success as an early industrializer was due to the
conducive condition for capitalist undertakings to thrive because the
arbitrary rule of the king was held in check by the opposing power of
parliament. "Indeed in England," Moore concurs, "the fact that the
rulers' success was very limited contributed heavily to the eventual
triumph of parliamentary democracy."10 In addition, the other factor
promoted industrialization was the destruction of the peasantry
by the enclosure movement. Moore concludes that this process of
depriving the peasants the right of using the common lands "meant that
modernization could proceed in England without the huge reservoir of
conservative and reactionary forces" that might halt the advance of
progress.11 Moreover, the landed nobility did not resist the rise of
7Moore 6.
8Bertsch 35.
9Bertsch 35.
10Moore 7.
11Moore 30.
industrialization because they were economically and politically
secure, and their interests coincided with the commercial outlook of
the bourgeoisie. "Adapting early to the world of commerce and even
taking the lead in the march into the new era," Moore confirms, "the
landed aristocracy of England was not swept away by the convulsions
that accompanied the change."12
Parliament's political battle with the monarchy finally came to a
head when the Stuart kings tried to impose the kind of royal
absolutism that prevailed in France (which was divinely sanctioned).
The English Civil War and its culmination—the Glorious Revolution of
1688—finally settled the crisis of legitimacy. Parliament reigned
supreme. The Bill of Rights of 1689 prohibited the king from
suspending laws and levying taxes without the consent of parliament.
It guaranteed the rights of Englishmen to trial by jury and to petition
the government for a redress of grievances. The Act of Settlement of
1701 destroyed the divinely sanctioned absolutism of the king by
giving parliament the power to set the terms of royal succession.
"Perhaps the most important legacy of a violent past," Moore explains,
"was the strengthening of Parliament at the expense of the king. The
fact that Parliament existed meant that there was a flexible
institution which constituted an arena into which new social elements
could be drawn as their demands arose and institutional mechanism for
settling peacefully conflicts of interest among these groups."13 But
the parliament that emerged was one that became the "instrument of a
commercially minded, landed upper class,"14 where "urban commercial
interests had at least some indirect representation through the
system of rotten boroughs."15
The demand of the "new social elements" that emerged from the
state's efforts to industrialize forms the basis of the crisis of
participation. The rotten borough system—depopulated districts,
some of which had fewer than 50 voters, that retained it original
representation—represented a corrupt parliament. For example, the
thinly populated county of Cornwall had 44 seats in parliament
while city of London, which had a population of more than a 100,000,
had only 4 seats. The large industrial cities of Birmingham and
Manchester in the north, on the other hand, were not represented at
all. The stranglehold of the landed aristocracy on the borough system
prevented the creation of new boroughs. The demand of the urban
12Moore 23.
13Moore 29.
14Moore 29.
15Moore 21.
middle class for political participation and the social discontent of the
lower class, which was due to the grievous abuses of early
industrialization, created a classic revolutionary situation by the
early nineteenth century. Demonstrations against parliament, that
involved fifty thousand protesters or more, were frequent occurrences
and culminated in the Peterloo massacre (the shame of the nation; in
contrast, Waterloo was the glory of the nation) of 1819 where eleven
persons were killed and thousands injured. Revolution, however, was
averted by the passage of the Great Reform Act of 1832. The Bill of
1832 destroyed the rotten borough system and granted the franchise
to the rising industrial cities and towns. Yet suffrage was limited to
males who owned or rented property worth ten pounds. Subsequent
bills lowered the property qualifications until it was abolished in
1918. The franchise was only expanded to women in 1928. The
landed nobility was politically astute enough to see that the connection
between the middle class and the masses must be severed to prevent
revolution. Moore admits that "The leadership behind the passage of
the Bill were Whig landed aristocrats with characteristic family and
clique connections among the 'money interest' in the City of London
and a good share of the manufacturing interest in the industrial
province."16 "Secure and aristocratic," Moore adds, "they were
prepared to accept reform to avoid worse dangers, i.e., a
revolutionary outbreak such as happened in France in 1830."17
Their political skill can be attributed to their tradition of sharing power
with the king that can be traced back to the signing of the Magna
Carta in 1215. Thus, Britain's gradual political development and its
ability to solve political conflicts by well timed concessions has
helped solidify the image of British stability.
France, in contrast, could not solve the crisis of legitimacy or the
question of how the state should be governed. The inability of France
to create a legitimate political framework has created the widespread
perception of French constitutional instability. The French Revolution
of 1789 failed to solved the legitimacy crisis because there was a
whole series of ideological groups that vied for supremacy (ideological
16Moore 33.
17Moore 33.
factionalization) after the fall of the Bourbon dynasty. There were
die-hard monarchists, constitutional monarchists, Girondists, Jacobins,
Herbetists, the Parisian sans-cullotes, and a slew of other groups that
represented the political spectrum from left to right. Moore believes
that "The incompleteness of the Revolution . . . meant that it would be
a long time before a full blown capitalist democracy could establish
itself in French society."18 France has experimented with the ideal
of direct democracy during the Revolution, empires and military
dictatorship (the first empire under Napoleon Bonaparte and the
second empire under Louis Napoleon), extreme republicanism (Third
and Fourth Republics), a Nazi-sponsored regime (Vichy France), and
finally a mix of authoritarianism and republicanism (Fifth Republic).
Furthermore, France had no parliamentary tradition because "the
Estates-General, the French version of Parliament, lapsed into
nonexistence during the long seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century
Bourbon reigns of Louis XIII, Louis XIV, and Louis XV."19
One of the most enduring political cleavage in France is between
believers (clericals) and the nonbelievers (anticlericals). Although
over 80 percent of the French population is Catholic, only a small
portion are active. The division between believers and nonbelievers
defines the boundary between the political right and the political left.
Clericals are conservative and favor strong executive leadership while
anticlericals are either liberal or radical (but they are not necessarily
anti religion) and favor a strong parliament. The religious cleavage
can be attributed to the role of the church in the ancien régime. The
church was one of the pillars of the old feudal order, and the
legitimacy of royal absolutism was sanctioned by the divine right of
kings. The nobility often held the reins of ecclesiastical power.
More importantly, the French peasants depended on the church for
spiritual and temporal guidance, which included political matters. The
revolutionaries and republicans, therefore, tended to view the church
as a bastion of reactionary forces. Today clericals prefer to join
interest groups and political parties that are not dominated by
anticlericals. Bertsch adds validity to my assertion when he states
18Moore 110.
19Bertsch 35.
that
In France, there has always been a very strong strain of anti-
clericalism. This is not the same as a personal philosophical
position about the existence of God. The anticlerical French
need not be atheists or agnostics, although many are. What
distinguishes the anticlerics is their opposition to any church
influence in political matters. What is sought is a complete
separation of church and state, which means, for example, the
abolition of state subsidies to religious schools.20
Bertsch also states that "voting studies show that there is a strong
relationship between anticlericalism and left-wing voting" and "that
strong adherents to the Catholic faith tend to vote right of center."21
The political ramification of this religious cleavage is that, at any
given time, roughly half the population regards the government as
illegitimate because of their deep mistrust of each other. This lack
of political consensus is a factor in promoting the general image of
French political instability.
British attitudes toward their political system reflect, on the other
hand, what Bertsch terms as an "allegiant" political culture wherein
the people "have positive attitudes toward their political institutions
and political elites . . . [they believe] . . . that their system of
government is one that works, at least most of the time, and that
people who specialize in the work of government are capable of
making it work."22 Citing Almond and Verba's seminal five-nation
survey in 1959, Bertsch shows that 43 percent of British respondents
said that they were proud of their country's political institutions.23
Compared with only 7 percent for West Germany and 3 percent for
Italy, Bertsch concludes that "allegiance to the political system was
higher at that time in . . . Great Britain than in West Germany or
Italy."24 While recent surveys suggest that
20Bertsch 79.
21Bertsch 79-80.
22Bertsch 91.
23Bertsch 92.
24Bertsch 92.
strong support for the British two-party system . . . [has]
. . . dropped off significantly . . . it is not certain that the same
can be said of the diffuse support [deeper sense of political
allegiance to political institutions, which is not merely based on a
positive assessment of political performance] that had
accumulated in Great Britain over centuries of gradual political
development . . . despite the waning of British power in the world
and the country's dismal economic record in recent decades.25
Bertsch cites surveys that show "that the British still support the
institution of monarchy in overwhelming numbers . . . [and] . . . the
continued support in Great Britain for the system of law and for the
obligation of the citizen to obey the law [in a 1979 survey, British
respondents said that they were 'willing to give approval to police
using force against illegal demonstrations'26]" to substantiate his
claim of diffuse British support for its political system.27 Hence,
British political culture is also a factor in promoting the general
perception of Britain's political stability.
Bertsch, on the other hand, describes the political culture of France
as "alienated" wherein the people "lack confidence in their
governmental system and in their political elites. . . . they may very
well be searching for substantial changes in the structures of the
system that will make it work better."28 The French people,
according to Bertsch, are
ambivalent toward authority, whether it be found in their more
immediate small-group experiences or as they view the authority
of their political leaders and the state. There is a strong
distaste for the manifestations of authority that are
experienced at too close range. The French reputedly have an
abhorrence of face-to-face contact with those who hold
authority over them. They prefer that authority remain
impersonal and distant and that they be expected to adhere to
formal rules that apply equally to all in the same situation as
25Bertsch 94-95.
26Bertsch 95.
27Bertsch 95.
28Bertsch 91.
allow them a maximum of freedom to assert their own
individuality within the framework established by these rules.
If authority becomes too immediate and oppressive, the French
may well rebel against the rules they consider arbitrary or
unjust. . . . The other side of this ambivalence is a need for
order and a fear of chaos that will be reasserted when rebellion
against authority threatens to get out of hand.29
Bertsch concludes that "Their ambivalence would mean oscillation
between periods of intense antagonism and periods in which the desire
for order and predictability would return."30 The tendency of
French leftist groups toward endless bickering and splintering into
innumerable offshoots," Bertsch adds, "would be an expression of the
reputed disdain for long term stability in relations with peers as well
as those in authority."31 I believe that French "ambivalence" toward
authority is a manifestation of their inability to solve the crisis of
legitimacy in their political development. French political culture,
therefore, upholds the general image of French political instability.
Finally, using the political institution approach, one political
institution that promotes the general perception of French political
instability and British stability is the party system. Bertsch declares
that France has a "relatively fragmented" party system while Britain
has a "relatively aggregated" one.32 Fragmentation is measured by
"the number of parties in a system and the strengths of those
parties. The fewer the number, the less the fragmentation; and the
more even the strengths of the parties, the greater the
fragmentation."33 According to other political scientists,
"Fragmentation . . . makes the cohesion of government more tenuous,
thus adversely affecting the productivity and ultimately the
stability of government."34 One of the reasons why Britain has an
"aggregated" party system is because of the "single-member district
29Bertsch 96.
30Bertsch 102.
31Bertsch 102.
32Bertsch 135.
33Bertsch 127.
34Bertsch 127.
plurality electoral system."35 Thus in Britain coalitions of political
parties are the exceptions "because one party . . . always had a
majority of seats at parliament."36 This facet of the British party
system, in turn, positively affects "the productivity and . . . stability
of the government." France, before the creation of the Fifth
Republic, used "proportional representation," and this system
encouraged "the proliferation of parties," that often brought
gridlock in governmental affairs.37 It was changed in 1958 to a
"single-member district basis," but it was not the same type that was
used in Britain; therefore, it gave incentive for "weaker parties to
remain in existence. . . . It does not weed out the weaker parties, as
does the single-member plurality system."38 One can thus see that
the political institution approach can help explain why Britain is
perceived to be stable while France is not.
35Bertsch 131.
36Bertsch 128.
37Bertsch 132.
38Bertsch 132-134.
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