medieval serf. The latter comparison arises simply because some Japanese firms
tend to provide homes and social lives for their workers, and because Japanese
society is characterized by an unusually sharp sense ofstatusdeference; it
would be a mistake to regard the similarity as more than a coincidence. There
are almost certainly no genuine feudal systems in the contemporary world; not
only has the idea of legal ownership of property completely changed, but also
the organization of a modern state cannot survive purely on the basis of
personal loyalties and obligations.
Fifth Republic
The Fifth Republic is the present political system of France. It came into being
in 1958, when mutinies by the French Army in Algeria proved too much for
the weak government of theFourth Republicand forced the president, Rene ́
Coty, to invite General Charlesde Gaulleto take office as prime minister. De
Gaulle made it a condition of his acceptance that he be empowered to write a
new constitution and submit it to the public in a referendum. He was elected
president in December, taking office in January 1959. De Gaulle’s analysis was
that the troubles of theThird Republic, as well as the Fourth, had stemmed
from strong and undisciplined National Assemblies with a cumbersome multi-
party system, and the constitution he designed was close to the one he had
advocated for the immediate post-war Fourth Republic, with very strong
presidential powers (seepresidential government) and a much weakened
legislature. This was approved by an overwhelming majority of the electorate.
There is no doubt that the Fifth Republic has been the most successful
French regime since Napoleonic times, although there are still fierce argu-
ments about the extent to which this is the result of constitutional engineering,
the General’s charismatic authority, the popularity ofGaullism(his party
dominated government coalitions from 1958–81) or a coincidental upsurge of
economic prosperity. (From the mid-1950s France enjoyed almost
continual economic prosperity for some 30 years, known, indeed, to the
French as the ‘Trente Glorieuse’.) Politics in the Fifth Republic have certainly
been more stable than in preceding regimes, and the peaceful transfer of power
to the socialists in 1981 is in certain respects unique in French history. Even
more important as a test was France’s experience ofcohabitationfrom 1986–
88 when there was a socialist president but a conservative majority in the
legislature and a Gaullist prime minister and government. So easily did this go
that subsequent periods of cohabitation—France had another, with a con-
servative President and socialist prime minister at the beginning of the 21st
century—go almost unremarked. Although such divisions of political power
are common in systems with elected presidents, and very regular in the USA, it
had been feared that even the strong Fifth Republic might founder under the
Fifth Republic