to have delayed implementation of the Commissioners’ recommendations,
fearing that redistribution would aid the Conservatives and harm Labour.
In the USA since 1962 the courts have played an increasingly important role
in ensuring that congressional, state and local districts are of equal or nearly
equal size, although the standards for estimating this ‘equality’ have varied
considerably (see alsojudicial review,equal protection). The move towards
a strict interpretation of the ‘one man one vote’ injunction of the constitution
also reflected an appreciation of the fact that, under the existing pre-1962
practice, urban areas were under-represented by comparison with rural ones
and that hence many urban-based minorities (especially blacks and Hispanics)
might be unfairly treated in the legislature. However, despite the decisive
moves of the Supreme Court, it would be a mistake to see the gerrymandered
district as having disappeared from American political life. Each reapportion-
ment exercise is permeated by partisan manoeuvring, and the simple elimina-
tion of numerical inequalities between constituencies has not prevented the
construction (often with the aid of very sophisticated computer techniques) of
constituency units designed to favour one party over another. Gerrymandering
is particularly a problem for countries using the simple plurality (or ‘first past
the post’) electoral systems, both because constituency boundaries matter
much more, and because this electoral system involves so much distortion in
the ‘votes-to-seats’ equation anyway. Drawing electoral boundaries, and more
generally, designing the nature of a geographically based representative system
remains a crucial mechanism for constitutional design. Few other topics have
been as controversial, for example, in the development of the post-1989
democracies in Eastern Europe.
Glasnost
To further his attempts, as leader of the Soviet Union from 1985, to reform,
liberalize and modernize his country, MikhailGorbachevintroduced two key
policies, glasnost andperestroika. Glasnost was the more immediately, and
probably the most, vital of the two. Actually intended to mean something
more like the English word ‘publicity’, glasnost came to mean an opening of
discussion, a freeing of all the constraints on expression, whether in journalism,
literature or the arts, thatStalinand his heirs had imposed on the Soviet
Union. Above all it involved freedom of the press, freedom to criticize and
freedom of forms of activity, like religious worship, which had for so long been
denied. Glasnost was not immediately and smoothly implemented, and the
further away a community was from Moscow the less likely the authorities
were to heed the reforms. Nevertheless, it very rapidly took effect and indeed
various laws were repealed to ensure its survival. The initiation of glasnost was
quite intentional, because Gorbachev thought that he could use the glare of
Glasnost