The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (242 page)

SEA
See
Single European Act
.

 
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SEATO
(Southeast Asia Treaty Organization)

Outcome of treaty signed in 1954 by Australia, Britain, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, and the United States, with the aim of discouraging communist expansion in south-east Asia.
Disagreement among members over the conduct of the Vietnam War meant a limited role for SEATO, which failed to contain communist insurgency in Vietnam or Cambodia. SEATO was formally disbanded in 1977.

 
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The withdrawal of a group from the authority of a state. Disaffected members of a political community have a number of strategies available to them. They can seek amelioration of their grievances by working through the existing political system; they may strive to change the forms of the state, pressing for greater decentralization, arguing the case perhaps for a federal distribution of power. Seriously disaffected groups might despair of achieving their aims by such moderate means and feel obliged to resort to extremist strategies. They might counsel emigration, or work for a revolutionary overthrow of the state. Secession offers a further strategy for the profoundly disaffected. If successful the group removes itself, and control of its territory and resources, from the authority of an existing state. This was the objective of the eleven states that sought to leave the United States and thereby precipitated the Civil War. In the past, Black Muslims in America included secessionist proposals in their programme. Currently numbers of Québecois are drawn to the idea of seceding from Canada.
DM 

 
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Class of voting procedures in which all the candidates for a single-member seat first fight a
plurality
election. If any candidate wins more than half of the votes, he or she is elected. Otherwise, a second ballot is held, barred (by rule or convention) to all candidates except those who came first and second in the first ballot. The winner of this round is elected. Second-ballot procedures have been the norm in France since 1789, although in that year they were first criticized by
Condorcet
for their perverse properties. Their operation in France has supposedly illustrated the maxim ‘Vote with your heart in the first ballot and with your head in the second’.

 
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Legislatures have second chambers under
bicameral
systems of government. The second chamber usually has a more limited role in the legislative process, but there are important exceptions such as the US
Senate
.
WG 

 
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See
international socialism
.

 
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