The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (22 page)

Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Since the foundation of the EEC (now the
European Union
) the three countries have frequently acted as a bloc.

 
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(1748–1832)
Economist, political and legal philosopher, and social reformer. Born in Houndsditch in London, the son of a prosperous attorney and entrepreneur, baptized in Aldgate, sent to Westminster school at the age of seven and then to Queen's College, Oxford at the age of twelve, Jeremy Bentham took his Bachelor's degree four years later in 1763 at the age of sixteen. To further his legal education, he attended the Court of Kings Bench in the student's seat secured by his ambitious father. The law, however, was not his sole concern, despite a lifelong commitment to legal reform, and to penal reform in particular. And, although he was admitted to the Bar, he did not actually practise law. Instead, he became an eclectic, studying the experimental sciences of chemistry and physics as well as the classics, ranging widely from Cicero to Homer. He also read widely in European philosophy, particularly perhaps in
Hume
,
Montesquieu
, Joseph Priestley , Hartley , and
Beccaria
, adopting as a consequence a familiar and orthodox empiricism. In 1768, during the course of this reading, he came across the expression ‘the greatest good of the greatest number’ in Priestley's
Essay on Government
. This discovery led to a kind of inner ecstasy. From this point, Bentham became the leading and tireless English advocate of
utilitarianism
. It was part of Bentham's utilitarianism that each person was to count as one and no more than one, a form of radical egalitarianism which made him unpopular with many contemporaries, a radicalism both confirmed and developed by his association with James
Mill
which began in 1808. And, although Bentham did not write or campaign publicly for universal suffrage until 1817, after this point he was firmly committed to representative democracy, open government, and annual parliaments, even though he never wavered in his critique of French revolutionary radicalism and its classic doctrines of imprescriptible natural rights and of a revocable
social contract
. In the hands of the French, these doctrines were not only politically dangerous, but also philosophically nonsensical. As a liberal constitutional thinker, Bentham can also be plausibly interpreted as a precursor of those who defend the modern welfare state. In his view, the ends of legislation quite properly included subsistence, security, abundance, and equality, and, at different times and in different places, Bentham can also be found advocating sickness benefit, free education, and minimum wages. Perhaps the final word, however, should be left to John Stuart
Mill
, a radical who was specifically educated to fully develop the legacy of Bentham. In his view, Bentham was the great questioner of established and customary procedures. With his restless and questioning mind, he had been primarily responsible for breaking ‘the yoke of authority’ and for making it necessary for each person to have reasons for his opinions and not merely impulses derived from tradition, habit, or authority. In fact, before Bentham and his utilitarianism, no one had really dared to question the habits of the British constitution and the idiosyncrasies of the English legal system. Bentham's own massive enthusiasm was the instigation of much beneficial practical reform. Without him, and despite his obsessive concerns with the model prison the Panopticon, the cause of liberal-reformism would have been so much weaker and would certainly have rested upon far less substantial intellectual concerns.
JH 

 
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(1870–1957)
American political scientist; founder of
pluralism
. Bentley argued that every interest would form its interest group and that the interplay of these interest groups was definitive of democracy: ‘when the groups are adequately stated, everything is stated. When I say everything, I mean everything’, he wrote in
The Process of Government
(1908). Bentley's approach was refreshingly empirical and pragmatic for its time, but it is no longer accepted that to every potential group there corresponds an actual group. Some ‘groups’ never come into existence, for various reasons; therefore Bentley's normative justification of interest-group lobbying cannot be sustained.

 
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The Berlin Wall was erected in September 1961 to prevent the outflow of skilled manpower from the German Democratic Republic and other Soviet bloc countries into the Western controlled sectors of the city and thence into the West as a whole. It came to symbolize the
Cold War
and the rigid division of Europe into two armed camps. Its removal in November 1989 had precisely the opposite implications, culminating in the unification of Germany and the end of the Cold War.
DC 

 
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(1850–1932)
Leading member of the German Social Democratic Party before 1914. Initiated the debate on
revisionism
. His
The Premises of Socialism and the Tasks of Social Democracy
(1899—sometimes known as
Evolutionary Socialism
) argued that socialism was already being realized and there was no need for revolution.
GS 

 
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