The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (227 page)

 
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Radical parties were originally identified as those in the nineteenth century in favour of extending the franchise, popular participation in politics, civil liberties, and greater social welfare at a time when none of these were the established norm. As they became so in the twentieth century, radical parties became those which sought to widen established terms of political debate, for example European
Green parties
. In some countries where the Church–State relationship is strong and generally accepted those parties representing anticlerical views may be termed radical. Some, but not all, analysts are prepared to admit a category of ‘radical right’ parties such as the Poujadists and the French and British
National Fronts
. Confusingly, a number of parties across Europe retain the title ‘Radical’ from their time of formation when they perhaps deserved it, but which have since become established parties advocating little systemic political change. ‘Radical’ means ‘pertaining to a root’, the metaphor being that radicalism is root-and-branch reform. However, the etymology also leads to a famous satirical comparison between the French Radicals and radishes (
radis
in French)—red outside and white within.
JBr 

 
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Raison d’état
(much less frequently in the English reason of state) dates from arguments in international law at the time of the formation of the modern states-system in the seventeenth century. It means that there may be reasons for acting (normally in foreign policy, less usually in domestic policy) which simply override all other considerations of a legal or moral kind.
Raison d’état
is thus a term which fits easily into the language of political realism and
realpolitik
. As those doctrines have declined in acceptability the term
raison d’état
has tended to decline in importance.
PBy 

 
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Member of legislative committee in the US congress who has the longest continuous service on that committee for each party. Traditionally the ranking member of the majority party becomes the committee chairman. See also
seniority
.

 
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The division of, or approach to, the study of politics which treats the individual actor as the basic unit of analysis and models politics on the assumption that individuals behave rationally, or explores what would be the political outcome of rational behaviour. Rational choice writers usually define rationality narrowly in terms of transitivity and consistency of choice. An individual's choice is transitive if, given that he or she prefers A to B and B to C, he or she also prefers A to C. It is consistent if the individual always makes the same choice when presented with identical options in identical circumstances. The principal subdivisions of rational choice are
public choice
and
social choice
.

 
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A change in underlying electoral forces due to changes in
party identification
. It has been common to talk of ‘realigning elections’, or pairs of elections, in US political history. The generally accepted dates for such realignments are around 1828, 1860, 1896, and 1932. Because the concept is vaguely defined, there is no agreement on whether there has been a realignment since the
New Deal
coalition was formed in 1932, although all writers agree that there has been a dealignment since 1960.

 
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