Minorities and the free press in Hungary after 1867

SUMMARY

The study analyses the status and the standard of freedom of the press in Hungary in the first decade of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Special attention is paid to libel cases against nationality papers attacking the government in Pest. The author's main purpose is to discuss the limits on the freedom of the press drawn by criminal law, and in addition, to examine the accusations against the oppositional papers and the court practices involved. As a result, the study emphasizes that the picture of ‘the press under a state of siege’ could hardly be verified from the criminal procedures examined. The author does not, however, paint an idealized picture of the freedom of the press. The government in Pest was biased against the nationality papers. Yet even so, in the first ten years of Dualism juries adjusted the official criminal law policy by acquittals of authors and editors. The prosecuting magistracy therefore accepted the independence of the jury and the unreliability of the lay judges, and often withstood the demands of government departments. The members of the government of Hungary accepted the practice instituted by the prosecuting magistracy and ‘instead of strict laws and even more strict courts’ they gave up trying to rule the press by means of the criminal law. The first half of the 1870s thus became a period of a free press, indicating to what extent the parliamentary system and its government in Dualism could ‘practise liberalism without risking its own existence’.     

Disarmament,with special reference to Asia

On February 20 M. V. dc Korostovetz read a paper on Soviet Russia and her Southern Neighbours. The subject was divided into four parts: (a) The general trend of Russia's foreign policy, which, whether Imperial or Bolshevik, has differed in method rather than aim; (b) the States from Turkey to China, lying to the south of the Soviet block, with special attention to Chinese Turkestan; (c) the Ukrainian attitude to Communism; and (d) an outline of the new canals planned to make the Volga the chief waterway of Russia at the expense of the Don, and, with the refortification of the Straits, to turn the Black Sea into a mare clausum.     

Hague Case Law — Latest Developments

Netherlands International Law Review -     

Revisionism and Its Variants: Understanding State Reactions to Foreign Policy Failure

States respond to failure in different ways. In light of the phenomenon of revisionist states, it is particularly important to understand why some revisionist states revert to status quo pursuits in the face of policy failure, while others pursue revisionism even in the face of external developments that we might expect would push them toward moderation. Domestic structure, domestic politics, and elite ideology each contribute to an explanation of how revisionist states respond to policy failure, but none of these variables alone tells the full story. As is illustrated through case studies of Iranian, Israeli, and Iraqi foreign policy in the 1980s, domestic structure plays the launching role in the analysis of how a revisionist state will behave. Regime type structures the incentives facing leaders and determines whether domestic politics or elite ideology is determinative in predicting a revisionist state's reactions to failure.     

The catch‐all party thesis and the Austrian social democrats

This article examines Kirchheimer's catch‐all party thesis systematically, using the example of the Austrian Socialist Party (SPÖ). First, five central elements of the Kirchheimer catch‐all party are identified and possibilities for empirical research are explored. Then the empirical evidence on these five dimensions is analysed. As Kirchheimer has expected, the SPÖ's ‘ideological baggage’ has been drastically reduced, its top leadership groups and its electoral leader in particular have been further strengthened, the working‐class clientele has been de‐emphasised, and the party's function in the political system has been substantially reduced. Concerning the SPÖ's link to interest groups, however, Kirchheimer's thesis is only valid when looking at the most recent period. In view of the cumulative effect of the changes in the direction of a catch‐all party the SPÖ of the 1990s can definitely be classified as a catch‐all party.