Der Geist des „Roten Wien“ ins 21. Jahrhundert gerettet: Karl Popper Reconsidered by Malachi Haim Hacohen

Ohne Zusammenfassung Der nachstehende Text ist eine überarbeitere Fassung der Laudatio für Malachi Haim Hacohen anl?sslich der überreichung des Victor-Adler-Staatspreises in Wien am 25. April 2003. Hacohen erhielt diesen Preis für sein Werk „Karl Popper — the Formative Years, 1902–1945. Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna“, Cambridge: University Press 2000.     

The Structuring of Political Cleavages in Post-Communist Societies: the Case of the Czech Republic and Slovakia

Although sharing institutions for over seventy years, and transition pathways from communism, the two successor states of the former Czechoslovakia have faced distinct challenges in state-building and divergent economic fortunes. The aim of this paper is to investigate the extent to which these differing social economic problems have influenced the ideological bases of party politics and mass electoral behaviour in the two societies. Using data from national samples of the population of each country conducted in the spring of 1994, our analysis points to the existence of distinct issue cleavages dominating party competition in the two states: in the Czech Republic, partisanship relates mainly to issues of distribution and attitudes towards the West; in Slovakia, by contrast, these issues are only secondarily important in shaping voters' choice of party, while the main focus concerns the ethnic rights of Hungarians. The distinctive nature of the issue bases to politics in the two countries suggests one reason for the greater degree of political conflict evident in Slovak politics since the split and, more generally, provides evidence of the role of social conditions in shaping new political systems.     

Is the Higher Public Service a Profession?

Professionalisation in the public services is regarded as essential but the concept is ambiguous and organisationally weak. Moreover, if not jeopardised by managerialism, public service professionalisation today faces some major barriers or limitations. Nonetheless, the public service may be able to maintain greater professional status with increased emphasis on job security, occupational closure and horizontal organisation. The prospects for such conditions may now seem remote, but with this criteria in mind Australia will neglect the professionalism of its public service very much to its cost.     

On the Nature of Tolerance: Dichotomous or Continuous?*

The purpose of this article is to reconsider the claim made recently by Mondak and Sanders that political tolerance ought to be thought to be a dichotomous rather than continuous variable. Using data from both Russia and the United States, I demonstrate that those Mondak and Sanders regard as uniquely tolerant are most likely no more than people who were given insufficient opportunity to express their intolerance. Even if such a phenomenon of “absolute tolerance” exists (all ideas expressed in all ways are to be tolerated), it is sufficiently rare that few practical implications are indicated for those doing empirical work on political tolerance and intolerance. * I appreciate the valuable comments of Jeffcry Mondak on an earlier version of this paper.