The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (27 page)

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Following the practices of Napoléon Bonaparte, First Consul and subsequently Emperor of France between 1799 and 1815, and/or his nephew Louis Bonaparte (Napoléon III), Emperor of France between 1851 and 1870. The term was given its specific meanings by
Marx
(see especially his
Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
, 1852). For Marx, Bonapartism was an opportunistic and populist alliance between part of the bourgeoisie and the
lumpenproletariat
(‘proletariat in rags’), which relied on
plebiscites
, in which Bonaparte set the questions, to secure legitimacy for the regime. For Marxists, Bonapartism represents the autonomy that the state may achieve when class forces in society are precisely balanced. Historically, Bonapartism stood for strong leadership and conservative nationalism without advocating a return to the
ancien régime
.
SWh 

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(1733–99)
French engineer, naval officer, and voting theorist. In 1770 Borda first proposed what is now generally known as the Borda count. Under the Borda count, each voter ranks the candidates or options from best to worst. These numbers are added up, and the candidate who on average scores highest is declared the winner. The Borda count is often used in selecting candidates for jobs, but rarely for other voting tasks. It has a number of attractive properties, including simplicity; but it sometimes fails to choose the
Condorcet winner
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Boundary Commission
(in full Parliamentary Boundary Commission)

One of four bodies, one for each component part of the United Kingdom, which determines parliamentary boundaries every twelve to fifteen years. A separate commission determines local government boundaries. The commissions are non-partisan, in contrast to the position in the United States where drawing district boundaries is either partisan (controlled by the local governing party) or bipartisan (controlled by a body containing representatives of both parties). See also
apportionment
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Term originally referring simply to those who lived in urban areas. However, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it became increasingly identified with a particular stratum of town-dwellers, the merchants who traded for profit and who employed others to work for them, and with what were seen as this group's distinctive values, including thrift, hard-work, moral uprightness, the sanctity of the family, and respect for private property and the law. Both the profit orientation of the bourgeoisie and their values were viewed with distaste by sections of the land-owning classes and the former became objects of satire, so the term acquired pejorative connotations of money-grubbing, exploiting others, and dull conformity. As such it was seized upon by
Marx
to describe the dominant class of capitalist society which existed by exploiting the wage labour of the proletariat and which was ultimately doomed to extinction. Subsequently, ‘bourgeois’ became a term of abuse on the left for attacking its enemies, as in ‘bourgeois values’, ‘bourgeois democracy’, or ‘bourgeois social science’. Although, of course, there has been a worldwide reassertion of the basic ideological tenets associated with it in the third quarter of the twentieth century, for reasons relating to its chequered history the word itself has failed to come back into fashion.
ST 

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

An orchestrated way of showing disapproval, such as by not attending a meeting or by not purchasing a country's or company's products, so as to punish or apply pressure for change of policy, position, or behaviour. The term originated with Captain Boycott , an Irish landlord who was subjected to this treatment in 1880.
PBI 

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search