The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (168 page)

 
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An élite selected on the basis of ability rather than social background. In his 1958 fiction
The Rise of the Meritocracy 1870–2033
, Michael Young emphasized the need to think of those who did not achieve élite membership even on a new basis of selection, presaging the contemporary debate on the ‘under class’.
WG 

 
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The study of the methods to be used in any form of inquiry. The methods used in the study of politics include archival research; the study of previously printed materials; interview-based research; textual and contextual analysis of the arguments of past political thinkers;
comparative government
based on case studies, and quantitative research, often based on conducting one's own surveys or analysing other people's. All of these methods give rise to questions of methodology, although it is sometimes exclusively (but wrongly) associated with quantitative analysis.

 
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Most Favoured Nation
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intelligence services
.

 
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intelligence services
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iron law of oligarchy
.

 
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