The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (66 page)

The theory of how rational individuals (should) behave under risk and uncertainty. One branch deals with the individual against an uncertain environment (‘Nature’); the other,
game theory
, with the interactions of rational individuals who jointly produce an outcome that no one can control. Decision theory uses a set of axioms about how rational individuals behave which has been widely challenged on both empirical and theoretical grounds, but there is no agreed substitute for them.

 
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The statement agreed by the Continental Congress on 4 July 1776 proclaiming the freedom and independence of thirteen British colonies in North America and announcing the creation of the United States of America. The Declaration can be divided into four parts. It begins with a preamble revealing that the statement's primary purpose is to provide a justification for dissolving the ties binding the colonies to Britain. The second part claims that people are duty bound to throw off governments that fail to meet the requirements of that theory. Part three is a catalogue of grievances against George III prior to a concluding section asserting that the former colonies were now ‘
FREE
and
INDEPENDENT STATES
; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be, totally dissolved’.
For Americans, the Declaration of Independence, authored primarily by Thomas
Jefferson
, is second only to the US Constitution as a hallowed document symbolizing the founding of the nation. However, Congress actually announced the independence of the colonies on 2 July, two days before the Declaration of Independence was agreed. Furthermore many of the grievances listed in the Declaration are of dubious validity, but even if they are accepted they do not support the sweeping allegations of absolute despotism and tyranny ‘with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages’. George III and his ministers were insensitive, short-sighted, and incompetent, but hardly tyrants.
It was in any case inappropriate for the Declaration to direct its fire so exclusively at the person of the King, at one point even going so far as to accuse him of inciting ‘the merciless Indian savages’ against his colonial subjects. In fact, Parliament and government ministers were the principal parties to the dispute with the colonies even though they receive no direct mention in the Declaration.
The most enduring and universally significant part of the Declaration of Independence is to be found in its second paragraph: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that when any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government…. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states.’ This famous passage encapsulates several of the canons of liberal democracy including the principle of equality, natural rights, government by consent and limited government. The influence of John
Locke
on Jefferson and his colleagues has been widely noted and it is evident that the Declaration states briefly many of the themes developed at greater length in Locke's
Second Treatise of Government
.
DM 

 
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The dictionary definition is ‘an economic situation characterized by a rise in the value of money and a fall in prices, wages, and credit, usually accompanied by a rise in unemployment’ (
OED
). However, in politics it is generally used much more loosely to mean a government-imposed squeeze on credit and/or rise in interest rates leading to increased unemployment.

 
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See
Gaullism
.

 
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A person on whom an individual or group confers the capacity to act on his or their behalf. The central idea of delegation is that the person who delegates passes authority or responsibility to the person who is delegated to carry out a task or assume a role: hence a delegate may also be a representative ( see also
representation
). The relationship between the principal (who delegates) and the agent may be variously understood. For example, a delegate may be sent to a meeting only in order to report back to his or her principals, or may be sent with authority to bind his or her principals to a decision. Delegation thus involves the notions of authorization, accountability, and responsibility, but any specific act of delegation will contain particular applications of these ideas.
AR 

 
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