depends on a specially privileged position by which those who are ideologi-
cally sound are allowed to stipulate what other people would really want if only
they realized it existed. Thus the argument is used, for example, to question
election results in modern democracies, on the grounds that the working class
would actually vote for socialist parties if they had not been ‘tampered’ with by
the media, and are suffering a lack of ‘positive’ freedom in voting because of
their deluded notions.
Neither positive nor negative liberty concepts are as simple as these
accounts, and it is unlikely that any single political thinker will hold entirely
to any one. But the distinction is an important one, identifying as it does a
long-term conflict within Anglo-European social thought, and relating to real
arguments in modern political positions.
Limited War
Limited war, an idea found in modern strategic thought, implies that the war in
question should not spread to involve thesuperpowersin an all-out nuclear
confrontation. However, within these limits there are enormous variations.
Thus both theArab–Israeli conflictsand the Argentine–British conflict in
the South Atlantic are limited wars. Similarly theGulf Waragainst Iraq would
be described as a limited war, despite the role played by the USA, the high
technology weaponry used by the UN-sponsored alliance and the number of
participating countries. In the first of these examples the entire existence of a
nation state was in question, while in the others no actual threat to continued
national independence was really posed to any of the combatant nations. The
first war to which the term was applied was theKorean War, because not only
did the USA not use nuclear weapons, but the war resulted only in the
restoration of the status quo before North Korea’s invasion. In fact the concept
is largely based on a distinction only relevant since the Second World War: the
idea that wars should not be fought to the point of extinguishing the enemy has
been the norm throughout history. Whether ‘limited war’ doctrine has any
part to play in 21st-century conflict, dominated as it may be by unequal
fighting between nation states and international terrorist groups, as in the US
intervention in Afghanistan in 2001, is unclear.
Lobby
Lobby can function either as a verb or noun in political discourse, and as the
latter has two quite distinct meanings; in all meanings the word derives from
the ‘lobbies’ in parliament or congress where politicians meet after votes to
discuss affairs. As a verb, ‘to lobby’ means to apply pressure, present arguments
or other incentives to try to make a political decision-maker favour one’s
Lobby