The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (186 page)

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Specifically, the spread of nuclear weapons, and more generally the spread of nuclear technology and knowledge that might be put to military use. Most concern is given to horizontal proliferation: the spread of nuclear weapons to states not yet possessing them. Vertical proliferation—the increase in numbers or dispersion of nuclear weapons by nuclear weapons states—has become of less concern since the winding down of the superpower arms race. Nuclear proliferation is widely considered to be a problem because of the fear that it will increase the probability of nuclear weapons being used. Some argue that nuclear proliferation could enhance international security by spreading the paralysing effects of deterrence in regions that otherwise have a high probability of recurrent conventional war. Because of the close links between civil and military nuclear technology, many states are able to reduce the time necessary to acquire a nuclear weapon by acquiring a range of nuclear technologies for civil purposes. Several states have already achieved threshold status, in which they either have unannounced nuclear weapon capabilities, or could develop them extremely quickly if necessary.
BB 

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(1901–90)
British conservative political philosopher. In his best-known work,
Rationalism in Politics
(1947), he denounces the ‘sceptical and optimistic’ rationalist: ‘He has no sense of the cumulation of experience … the past is significant to him only as an encumbrance.… To the Rationalist, nothing is of value merely because it exists.’ Oakeshott's list of rationalist policies included ‘the
Beveridge Report
… Votes for Women, the Catering Wages Act… and the revival of Gaelic as the official
language
of Eire’. For Oakeshott, rationalism ignored ‘practical knowledge [which] exists only in use and … cannot be formulated in rules’.
Oakeshott thus vigorously reasserted Burkean conservatism. Though his view of the impossibility of writing down practical knowledge may have seemed to make his work pointless in his own terms, it was influential for several decades.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

OAS
(Organization of American States)

A body established in 1948 to further peace, security, mutual understanding, and co-operation among the states of the Western hemisphere. In the early 1960s it imposed sanctions against Cuba. Deep internal divisions have prevented effective co-operation since then. Latin American members have frequently voiced opposition to US policy.
RG 

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

OAU
(Organization of African Unity)

A body established in 1963 at Addis Ababa, with a continent-wide membership, a rotating chairman, and decision-making based on consensus. It aimed to promote unity and cohesion among the newly independent African states, to advance their economic development, and to accelerate the liberation of those still under colonial or white rule. It recognized the sovereignty of existing African states within their colonial frontiers, subscribed to a policy of non-intervention in domestic affairs and refused to countenance attempts at secession. The OAU has shown little capacity to intervene effectively in any current crisis affecting Africa.
IC 

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

The conformity of one person to the will of another by the implementation of that person's orders and instructions. Unquestioning obedience involves a willingness to implement instructions without exceptions. In despotisms and absolute governments, as well as in certain religious and military organizations, such obedience has been considered a virtue, but in liberal, individualist societies it is considered morally reprehensible and dangerous. In experiments published in
Obedience to Authority
in 1974, the psychologist Stanley Milgram claimed to show that people in modern Western societies (principally, the United States, West Germany, and Australia) were far more obedient than they ought to be according to established ethical theories. In a variety of social situations people obeyed orders, involving the apparent infliction of harm on others, which they ought to have disobeyed according to doctrines of the limits of authority inherent in prevailing ideas about rights, law, and liberty. Milgram offered his experimental evidence as an insight on acquiescence to the Third Reich,
inter alia
. He diagnosed a ‘fatal flaw’ in mankind, an excessive propensity to obey others, probably developed during the hunter-gatherer stage of human society. Others have criticized his use of data as far-fetched and excessively generalized.
LA