seau believed that the supreme political value,liberty, could only be assured
when each man only had to obey those laws he himself created and accepted. It
was his theory that, if a society could be organized so that it was ruled by the
general will, by this collective view of what was best for all, then in a
fundamental way everyone would be free, because no one could oppose such
a decision, and would therefore only be bound to do what he believed in.
Hence would follow totalfreedom, but without anarchy or licence.
Clearly much depends in such a theory on the design of the society and the
state, in order that the general will, if indeed it exists, can emerge. Much of
Rousseau’s profounder social theory is addressed to the question of how to get
such an organization. The first vital part was a commitment to small-scale
societies with full political participation in all decisions by every citizen. While
not particularly accurate historically, Rousseau’s admiration for the classic
Greek city state, and for some small and apparently participatory contemporary
societies, such as Geneva, led him to believe that it was possible under such
conditions for sectional interests and political self-seeking to be banished, and
for the motivation to decide only in the public interest to be victorious, thus
achieving the rule by general will. He was aware that much would be needed
sociologically before this could happen, advocating, for example, a high degree
of economic equality, a great emphasis on collective activities and a ban on
parties or cliques. Although few today are quite happy either with the slightly
metaphysical undertones of the general will, or the feasibility of organizing
small face-to-face societies with total political participation, his ideas are still
the motivation for much of the interest inparticipatory democracyor
direct democracy. The general will as a doctrine relates to similar concerns
that have become, if anything, more rather than less popular recently, such as
thecommon goodand thepublic interest, which remain both matters of
common political parlance, and topics of fierce academic debate in political
theory. The crucial analytic power of the concept remains valid: it forces us to
consider to what extent any political disagreement stems only from arbitrary,
and probably inegalitarian, distinctions between citizens, rather than from
deep-seated and genuine value differences.
Geopolitics
The term geopolitics was coined at the end of the 19th century by a Swedish
geographer, popularized by a British geographer, Halford Mackinder, early in
the 20th century, and became notorious during the 1930s when it was used by
Nazi strategists in Germany. Not surprisingly it fell out of use for some time
after the Second World War, but returned with a rather different meaning in
the 1980s and subsequently remained in use. Originally it was an essentially
deterministic concept, suggesting that the developments of international
Geopolitics