The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (257 page)

 
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A British feminist magazine, founded in 1972, and produced collectively by women. A magazine that not only published articles on different issues, but encouraged women to write. Through the themes and the portrayal of certain images of women in the articles, the oppressive stereotypes of women in the society were challenged. The content of the magazine tried to draw on women's experiences.
STh 

 
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Ancient city-state in southern Greece. No state had ever a constitution quite like Sparta's. It has been said that it codified the customs of warrior tribes and its author is thought to have been one Lycurgus about whom little, if anything, is known for certain.
By the eighth century BC Lacedaemon, as it was then known, which had grown out of a collection of villages, had established itself as a strong state in the western Peloponnese. It was at the height of its power during the Persian War (500–449). It defeated Athens in the Peloponnesian War (431–404) ( see also
Thucydides
), and became the most powerful Greek state. However, it was defeated by Thebes at Leuctra (371), submitted to Philip IIof Macedon, and went into decline in the third century.
The constitution of Sparta was sociomilitary. It was ruled by a dual hereditary monarchy, and an oligarchy consisting of magistrates (
ephors
), a council of twenty-eight elders (
gerousia
) (all over 60 and appointed for life), and a supreme consultative assembly of all those over 30, with power only to ratify war. The rest of the population were either
perioikoi
with some independence or
helots
(serfs).
Economically Sparta was remarkable for equality of possessions and the absence of monied wealth. These two principles were designed to achieve ‘good order’ (
eunomia
). All citizens were required to do military service, and children were trained (
agoge
) for war from the age of 7. In later times they were taught to be indifferent to pain and death. It is arguable that this model had some influence in English public schools in the nineteenth century and was instrumental in the training of Empire builders.
CB 

 
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Internationalist, revolutionary group within the German SDP which adopted the name of the leader of a slave revolt in ancient Rome (and, later, Hollywood). Expelled from the SDP in 1917, it joined the Independent German Socialist Party (USPD). As the Spartacus League it left the USPD and in early 1919 formed the German Communist Party (KPD). Implicated in the January 1919 uprising against the SPD government during which its leaders,
Luxemburg
and Karl Liebknecht , were assassinated.
GS 

 
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The division of
social choice
theory which attempts to predict how politicians seeking to be elected will interact with voters attempting to vote for their favourite set of policies. The idea derives from the work of economists who tried to explain why shops are located together in the middle of town rather than being spaced equidistantly. By analogy, Anthony Downs argued (in
An Economic Theory of Democracy
, 1957) that politicians seeking (re-)election would position themselves on the set of policies favoured by the median voter ( See also
Black
). Spatial theory assumes that voters can measure the distance between themselves and the candidates in multidimensional policy space, and vote either for the candidate nearest them or, tactically, for a more remote candidate with a higher chance of winning.
Like other subdivisions of social choice, spatial theory is usually set out in arcane mathematical language accessible only to other spatial theorists. Thus its strengths and weaknesses are opaque to everybody else. It is inappropriate for use either:

(1)  where voters do not regard issues as salient, so have no real perception of issue space nor of their position in it; or
(2)  where issue space is so inherently multidimensional that majority rule is cyclical ( see
social choice
) and there is no stable equilibrium point for politicians to seek.

But it can be a powerful tool for analysing the manoeuvres of sophisticated voters in one-dimensional arenas, such as Congressional committees. There, the basic insight that people who want to win elections will converge on the policy of the median voter remains robust. The sorry fate of those who conspicuously depart from the median (Barry Goldwater in 1964; George McGovern in 1972; Michael Foot in 1983; arguably, Margaret Thatcher in 1990) also tends to suggest that the basic idea behind the theory of spatial competition is sound.

 
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