Hegel and Hobbes on Institutions and Collective Actions

Abstract. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is usually, and rightly, considered the foremost representative of the organistic conception of society. It is only natural to think that his view has nothing in common with the kind of individualistic outlook that dominates our legal and political thinking, and that I myself have tried to defend. I try to show why certain insights of Hegel are potentially important even for individualistic legal and political theories. First, I explicate some of the problems he struggled with, and compare his views with those of Thomas Hobbes. Next, I try to link his views to the modern theories of institutions and of collective action. The antidemocratic ideology expressed in the main works of Hobbes and Hegel is clearly outmoded. Nevertheless, in their criticism of popular sovereignty, they posed some important questions. First, how do collectives like the People exist? Second, what do we mean by saying that collectives perform actions? It seems that, in order to perform an action, an entity ought to possess will. But what does it mean that a collective has a will?     

Social Choice in the Real World II: Cyclical Preferences and Strategic Voting in the Finnish Presidential Elections

The empirical relevance of the theoretical results of social choice theory is still unclear. The most radical thesis, put forth by William Riker, is that politics is a highly unstable process, characterized by preference cycles and strategic voting. This article - a continuation of an earlier article published in this journal - examines the Finnish presidential election in 1925, 1931, 1937 and 1982. The conclusion is that preference cycle and strategic voting have had a significant impact in the discussed cases. The relevancy of the social choice approach and its relation to historical research are discussed.     

Ethics and Public Good in a Transforming State: A Study of Estonian Civil Servants

After Estonia's systemic change and restored independence in 1991, Estonian civil servants must re-conceptualise their relationships with other spheres of society and with what they see as the 'Public Good'. They are involved in the adoption and creation of new value judgments, professional identities and views of ethical and unethical conduct. This article presents an empirical examination of these processes. Carried out from June 2005 to January 2006, it makes use of group interviews (N = 58) and a national e-mail questionnaire (N = 960) of civil servants. According to the results, the officially adopted Civil Service Code of Ethics is seldom relied upon. The idea of civil service as a vocation, preference for self-regulating measures, suspicion towards external control and avoidance of media publicity are indicative of the respondents' view of the overall role of civil service in society. The paternalist attitude inherent in this discourse is considered in this article to be in line with the specific functions of a state still completing its systemic transformation.