The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (96 page)

 
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Attempt to obstruct parliamentary proceedings by prolonging debate. Common in the US Senate, where the right of free discussion is highly respected. A minority of senators may attempt to delay and obstruct a measure by speaking on irrelevant subjects, and introducing dilatory motions. Legislatures have attempted to prevent filibusters by introducing procedures to curtail debates, such as closure,
closed rules
, and
guillotine
motions.

 
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(1588–1653)
English political thinker who defended the patriarchal thesis against doctrines based on consent. His main work,
Patriarcha
, was circulated in manuscript among his acquaintances during his lifetime, but only published in 1680 after his death as a defence of Tory support for Charles II in the Exclusion Crisis. Filmer is most famous for the fact that
Locke
attacked his ideas directly in the First Treatise of Government, and provided an alternative position in the Second Treatise, both published in 1689, immediately after the Glorious Revolution. Filmer argued that all legitimate government is ultimately based on God's gift to Adam of absolute sovereignty and private property over the whole world, and their transmission by primogeniture. Fatherhood and political rule are in principle the same, but the relationship is of analogy, not of homology. In effect, however, because knowledge of the true heirs had been lost after the division of the world between the sons of Noah, Filmer was obliged to admit that any government that continued in power had to be accepted as legitimate whatever its origin. The patriarchal theory was bypassed in favour of a general assertion of divine authorization. Although he took the same view of the nature of sovereignty as
Hobbes
and
Bodin
, he rejected completely Hobbes' derivation of it from the supposed original freedom of individuals by means of the
social contract
. Filmer's strongest argument was that in recognizing the continuation of legitimate rule over later generations without further consent, and in allowing private property established by fathers to be passed on to their sons, such theorists had in effect admitted his patriarchal theory.
CS 

 
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(1915–93)
Influential member of the first generation of British political scientists, educated at Oxford. After a first post at Balliol College, he became Professor of Government at the University of Keele, and then Professor of Government at the University of Manchester, finally returning to All Souls' College, Oxford at the end of his career. Like many political scientists of his generation, Finer developed eclectic interests, writing on political thought, public administration, local government, civil-military relations, and comparative government. One of his best known books remains
Anonymous Empire
(1958), which was a widely read pioneering account of pressure group activity in Britain. His concluding call in the book for ‘Light! More Light!’ became a rallying call for successive generations of political scientists working on British pressure groups.
WG 

 
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A rationale for the existence of a firm. Economists were slow to recognize that the existence of firms required explanation. The theory first developed by Ronald Coase in 1937 to account for these blisters of hierarchy on the skin of the market rested on the concept of transaction costs. Any market transaction between autonomous individuals required time and negotiation and therefore had a cost. Wherever and to whatever extent the firm, a fundamentally political entity, was able to co-ordinate production and exchange at less cost than the market, competition would allow it to prevail. As the public good of information became increasingly important in complex modern economies the advantage of firm over market increased in many sectors, leading to growth in the average size of firms. Information, once created, may very easily disperse across a large population without any diminution of its utility to each additional consumer. Because it is so easy to come by, unless protected, no individual has an incentive to declare and part with its true value. But if all refuse to pay, the incentive to create information disappears. The firm overcomes this problem by using authority to help ensure a return to those who acquire title to information, whether it be the location of a good, a technique for refining it, or an innovative and effective administrative system for bringing it to market.
CJ 

 
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