The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (54 page)

A term applied to a union of states which is less binding in its character than a federation. In principle, the states in a confederation would not lose their separate identity through confederation, and would retain the right of secession. In practice, this right might be difficult to exercise, and the constituent units of a long-standing confederation might appear to be little different from those of any other federal state. Thus, although the cantons in the Swiss confederation are designated as ‘sovereign’, and enjoy considerable decision-making autonomy, the powers of the federal government have grown over time, and secession would not seem to be a practical possibility. The replacement of the term ‘confederated states’ by ‘federal state’ in descriptions of the American constitution following the Civil War reflects both the negative connotations of the term ‘confederacy’ following its appropriation in the war by the secessionist states of the South, and the growing power of the federal government.
WG 

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

see
joint committee
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
(CSCE)

The CSCE met in Helsinki in 1975, attended by the members of NATO, Warsaw Pact, and the European neutral states. The Helsinki agreement was the outcome of several years of negotiation between the two Cold War alliances and represented one of the notable achievements of
détente
, given that CSCE works by consent and lacks any system of majority voting.
The agreement covered a declaration of principles (including non-violability of boundaries, non-intervention, territorial integrity of states), and three ‘baskets’ of areas of agreement including confidence-building measures such as advance notification of military manoeuvres (basket one), economic and other co-operation (basket two), and humanitarian and human rights co-operation (basket three). While the Soviets emphasized the declaration of principles and basket two, NATO gave greater emphasis to basket three.
The end of the Cold War transformed the situation of CSCE, and the meeting in Paris in 1990 concluded the ‘Charter of Paris for a new Europe’, which normalized relations between the European states.
CSCE's membership has expanded to over fifty, and includes the states of the former Soviet Union, including the new states of Central Asia. The two main roles of CSCE are now the encouragement of liberal democracy in Eastern Europe and the development of a crisis management centre in Prague. It is thus a part of the new architecture of European security but its consensual nature prevents it from playing a central role in the development of security arrangements for Eastern Europe.
PBy 

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

The Indian National Congress, which, as the foremost political party in India, led the national movement and took over power from the British in 1947, was formed in 1885. Initially a middle-class organization representing the interests of a growing number of educated Indians who wanted to play an increasing part in the governance of their country, it later became a mass organization under the leadership of
Gandhi
and
Nehru
. Always a centre party, Congress, most influenced by Nehru , remained an ideological amalgam of nationalism, Fabian socialism, and a commitment to modernization of the country's economy. Self-reliance was another theme pursued by Nehru that led India to follow non-alignment as its foreign policy, and to pursue an economic policy based on import-substitution. The importance of the Congress to India's national movement, a strong leadership with a specific and well-articulated political agenda, and the weakness of both the left- and the right-wing parties, allowed Congress a position of unchallenged dominance until very recently. Rajni Kothari has called India a one-party dominance system, and the Indian political system the Congress-system. The first significant break with Congress rule came in 1977 when Mrs Indira Gandhi lost the national elections to the Janata Party after lifting the two-year-long Emergency which had suspended the fundamental rights of Indian citizens. The loss of moral and political legitimacy suffered by the Congress during that period allowed other parties to take their own chances of success more seriously.
SR 

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

The bicameral, national legislature of the United States. According to Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution, ‘All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives’. The Senate has a hundred members, two from each state, elected for six-year terms in two-year cycles of staggered elections under
first-past-the-post
arrangements. First-past-the-post also applies in the election of 435 members of the House of Representatives. Representatives are elected to simultaneous two-year terms with the number of seats per state determined by the size of the population, although every state is entitled to at least one member. A redistribution of House seats occurs after each decennial census ( see
apportionment
), and, within the states, the determination of congressional boundaries is the responsibility of the state legislatures.
The House and the Senate are co-equal in status, but nevertheless different institutions. All bills must pass both houses and, since the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, the members of both have been popularly elected (previously, senators were chosen by the state legislatures). The two-year term tends to tie members of the House of Representatives more closely to their constituents, whereas senators enjoy not only more independence, but also greater visibility. The larger membership of the House requires more formal organization than in the Senate, where a club-like atmosphere traditionally prevails. In financial matters, the House lays claim to superiority on the strength of Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution, which states that ‘All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives’. Meanwhile, the Senate draws on its constitutional prerogatives in treaty-making to support assumptions of primacy in foreign affairs. Its role in confirming presidential appointments (especially to the judiciary) is likewise a source of its power.
The United States Congress is often characterized as the most powerful legislature in the world. It has, undoubtedly, lost ground to the executive branch in the twentieth century, but, as many recent Presidents would confirm, it is far from being reduced to the position of impotence that has befallen many of its counterparts elsewhere. There are three related phenomena that help to account for this: the Constitution, American political parties, and congressional committees.
In drawing up the Constitution the Founding Fathers were bent on ensuring that too much power did not fall into too few hands. Accordingly they devised a complex system of checks and balances which to this day provides for ‘separated institutions sharing powers’. Modern Presidents are expected to lead in both foreign and domestic policy-making, but Congress, from which members of the executive branch are excluded, constitutes an awesome obstacle to the fulfilment of those responsibilities. The appointment of executive officials is subject to the ‘Advice and Consent of the Senate’; every bill, every demand for revenue, and every request for expenditure must be approved by a body marked by a centrifugal distribution of power and notorious for its unwillingness to act as a mere ‘rubber stamp’.
In parliamentary systems, it is possible for strong parties, equipped with significant leaders and disciplinary means, to bring order to the legislature and thereby to facilitate executive dominance. No such parties exist in the United States Congress. There are parties and party leaders, but the ability of the latter to control members is limited. Party loyalty in Congress is a most fragile commodity. The seniority system, which for a long time substituted for party as an organizing device, was seriously weakened by reforms of procedure after
Watergate
.
The weakness of party helps to explain the potency of congressional committees, the great powerhouses of the national legislature in the United States. More than a century ago Woodrow Wilson noted that ‘Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition, whilst Congress in its committee rooms is Congress at work’. This is no less true today. Debates on the floor of either chamber are rarely meaningful; the fate of legislative proposals is decided in specialist committees; it is here where the great issues are thrashed out, where the executive is called to account and where policy is made. In other systems committees are chaired by party loyalists and voting takes place along party lines, but congressional committees are institutions of a quite different order.
DM