The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (191 page)

See
judicial activism
.

 
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The right of a court, usually a minor or trial court, to hear a case at its inception.

 
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(1903–50)
Pseudonym of the English novelist, Eric Blair . Most of his novels, memoirs, and essays had a political content and contained sharply expressed prejudices against imperialism, capitalism, middle-class narrow-mindedness, and euphemistic and inelegant English.
Burmese Days
(1934) describes Orwell's experiences as an imperial policeman,
The Road to Wigan Pier
(1937) is an extended essay on socialism stimulated by a visit to Lancashire during the depression, and
Homage to Catalonia
(1938) is based on Orwell's experiences during the first year of the Spanish Civil War.
However, Orwell's writings would be of little interest to the scholar of politics
per se
, if it were not for the passionate antitotalitarian ideas which he began to develop in the late 1930s. Orwell put together his experience of the duplicity of orthodox communists (described in
Homage to Catalonia
) with the theory of power developed in Bertrand
Russell's
Power: A New Social Analysis
(1938). A minor product of this combination was the satirical novel
Animal Farm
(1945) which portrays the communist revolution as a take-over of a farm by its animals. Its major product was
Nineteen Eighty-Four
(1949), which developed Russell's thesis of the limitless power of the modern state into a nightmare of the future. Orwell takes many of Russell's arguments almost verbatim and puts them into the mouth of O'Brien, a secret policeman. The state cannot be resisted; it can control thought. It can make its citizens believe that ‘2 + 2 = 5’, that ‘Freedom is Slavery’ and that ‘War is Peace’. Not only dissent and individual autonomy are eradicated, but also the capacity for clear thought in a Britain which has lost even its name.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
was not an accurate prophecy. The vision, and the theory of power which inspired it, can be said to be dated, the product of a period which combined a vast, often newly urbanized, working class with the technological potential for a state monopoly of the means of communication. However, it remains one of the most powerful anti-utopian visions ever constructed and has functioned, to some degree, as a self-denying prophecy.
LA 

 
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‘Eastern policy’ as applied to the Federal Republic of Germany's efforts to normalize relations with the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic, Poland, and other communist bloc countries from 1966 onwards. Most importantly, the coexistence of two separate and independent German states was acknowledged in a Basic Treaty between the FRG and the GDR in 1972.
KT 

 
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(1854–1919)
Russian political scientist, famous for
Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties
, published in 1902 in two volumes, one dealing with Britain and one with the United States. Ostrogorski claimed with masses of documentation that parties were under the control of unrepresentative enthusiasts—in this criticism of representative democracy he was a precursor of
Schumpeter
. Ostrogorski's picture of the baneful power of the Liberal caucus in British politics was much exaggerated but has been extremely influential.

 
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(1771–1858)
British social reformer whose ideas contributed to the development of the nineteenth-century tradition of
socialism
. Owen was essentially a communitarian socialist, advocating co-operative experiments on the scale of between 2,000 and 3,000 people, and he himself put his ideas into practice at the New Lanark community in Scotland (founded in 1800) and later in America at New Harmony, Indiana (from 1824 to 1829). The clearest exposition of the ideas which underpinned his approach to social reform is to be found in
A New View of Society
(1812–13), and in particular the theory is put forward that human character and behaviour are always shaped by the social environment. Accordingly, it was Owen's lifelong belief that the amelioration of social conditions and intelligent organization of the labour process were the necessary means for the creation of greater equality, justice, and human happiness. Like
Fourier
and
Marx
, Owen recognized the problem of the mechanization of the labour process under industrialism as a potentially enslaving force, and his own solution was to advocate the communal ownership and control of the means of production. This vision of small-scale
communism
was also linked to pioneering ideas on the possibility of replacing money as a medium of exchange by the free distribution of essential goods and services according to need. Throughout his life Owen emphasized the process of gradual, peaceful reform as the only realistic way to improve society. In his later years he began to embrace religious fundamentalism as a source of inspiration for the creation of ‘a new moral world’, and he began to speak and write of the future socialist order as a new millennium signalling the Second Coming of Christ. This inspirational gospel served as a basis for the emergence of Owenism as an influential social movement in Britain in the 1830s, and Owenite ideas also had an impact on the emergence and development of early trade unionism.
KT