In any work of classification, the selection of standards is, of course, of primary importance. In the budget of the League, absurd results appear at various points as a result of arranging the contents thereof now according to one type of standard (subject-matter, as “Mandates”), now according to another (kind of service, as “Liaison”). Without coördinate and mutually exclusive standards, no classification can be complete or satisfactory.

One or two of the points made above might, it is obvious, be used as indices of classification if not used as grounds of exclusion. That is, if unofficial international organizations are not excluded entirely, as they logically should be, from this study, they might form one of the two classes of international organizations, along with official organizations. Similarly, organizations may be classified as bilateral and multilateral, in accord with the foregoing discussion, as resting upon mere practice or formal convention, as intended for the observance of some principle or for the taking of some overt action, and finally as relying upon national agencies for their operation or possessing agencies of their own.

The great problem of Canadian federalism is to be found in the sectionalism which is a standing challenge to national unity. Superficial conclusions drawn from the response to national recruitment, war bond drives, and such evidences, which form the stock in trade of the professional patriot, do not stand up against the realities of political behavior. This is revealed at many levels, in the parliaments (provincial and dominion), in federal-provincial relations, and finally at the grass roots as demonstrated at the polls. Geography, history, and economic considerations are woven into this pattern.

Geographically, there are four main regions—Maritimes, St. Lawrence and Great Lakes, Prairies, West Coast. Historically and culturally, the St. Lawrence-Great Lakes region is sub-divided into the former political subdivisions of Lower and Upper Canada, now the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, respectively. In terms of economics, each area presents individual problems, and as contrasting as the wheat-growing prairies and the financial-urban eastern provinces. To the sociologist, there is the complexity of peoples as diverse in background as the French Canadian of Quebec and the Central European immigrant in the West. With these factors in mind, the voting pattern of the people may be discerned, at least in part. And the 1945 general election offers an interesting case study.

In spite of the recent loosening of the membership or affiliation requirements in Illinois and a few other states, the general tendency throughout the development of party regulation has been toward greater strictness in this respect, toward more effective protection of the party organization against the independent voter with a careless party conscience. This is indicated, in the first place, by the turn toward an official definition and administration of these membership tests. That is, the parties are no longer left free to determine their own membership rules as they please, but these rules are to an increasing extent prescribed by state law and administered by state officials. Secondly, the tests of party membership have become, on the whole, more complex and more comprehensive, and therefore more difficult to evade—the closed primary has become more and more tightly closed. Thirdly, there has been a drift from the challenge to the enrollment or registration system, and, in general, legislation or other official action which requires greater care by the voter and the candidate in the selection of his party, and which imposes greater difficulty in changing his party affiliation.

The purpose of the direct primary, in so far as its purpose can be formulated in general terms, was to realize within the party organization, and especially in the process of nomination, accepted principles of democratic control. It is a commonplace, however, that political machinery must in the long run be judged not by its theoretical democracy but by its practical results. In a study of direct nominations, then, it appears most fruitful to examine the system in its operation rather than in its theory, and, whenever possible, to compare its working with that of the system which it supplanted.

Since 1901 the Michigan legislature has passed more than thirty acts, original and amendatory, relating to the nominating machinery. From 1901 to 1905 legislation applied to selected counties, cities, and districts; from 1905 to 1909 it was both local and general but optional with the parties and with the localities; since 1909 it has been general and mandatory. On the whole it has been halting, half-hearted, opportunistic, and unscientific, and is still far from perfection. At the present time all state officials elected in the spring, including judges of the supreme court and regents of the university, all elective state administrative officers except governor and lieutenant-governor, and all township and village officers are still nominated by the old method, a method which is also retained for the selection of delegates to state and national conventions and in a modified form for the drafting of party platforms.

The present war has now reached the stage when definite plans are being announced for the control and punishment of the enemy nations when they shall have been defeated. There is a strong and apparently growing sentiment among the citizens and officials of the United Nations for prosecution of the “Axis criminals” and quarantine of Axis nations. Committees of eminent scholars, some of them presumably acting under instruction from their governments, are now drawing up plans for these trials. Many individuals, however, doubt whether it will prove feasible to carry out these proposals. Others reject the whole idea of retribution or reparation against a defeated nation or its leaders as unethical and destructive of the ends for which we say we are fighting.

We wish to be neither vindictive nor gullible. Hence the popularity of suggestions that we must be prepared to give food and medicine to the people of the Axis nations during the early postwar months. But there is widespread support also for the belief that we must be ready to administer German economic and political life for some years if we wish to be sure that war will not come again from the same quarter. This balancing of generosity against sternness means, as Walter Lippmann puts it, that “our apparently contradictory war aims can be reconciled.”

Are there appropriate limits to the application of rational choice in political decision making? Does rationalism in politics lead to absolutism? Is there a “pressing threat” to liberal democracy “posed by the irreverent conviction of the hegemony of reason”? In the June 1987 issue of this Review, Darrell Dobbs drew lesson from Homer's epic poem, the Odyssey, to argue the limits of rationalism in politics. In this Controversy, Robert Crafstein argues that Dobbs's case against rationalism is not proved. In turn, Dobbs holds to his construction of the relevance of Odysseus' nod to sacred values.

This essay makes a distinction between the roles that activists and social critics can play in democratic societies and defends the separate tasks of a non-activist social critic. Drawing on Ralph Waldo Emerson’s writings, I argue that non-activist social critics are better situated than activists to reach certain audiences, cultivate certain democratic capacities, and preserve their audience’s agency while doing so. In Emerson’s case, his concerns about his activist contemporaries led him to craft new ways of critically engaging his peers. At the same time, as Emerson’s life also illustrates, non-activist critics are limited by their roles and must forgo some of their distinctive advantages in order to do activist work. Clarifying the scope of the social critic’s role in this way helps critics to draw on the benefits of their position and avoid overstepping its constraints, thereby allowing them to more effectively promote political reform.