The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (65 page)

Latinized version of the name of Nicholas of
Cusa
.

 
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A customs union, unlike a
free trade area
, requires its members to adopt a common external tariff of customs duties. The objective, seldom in fact achieved, is to enable goods (but not labour or capital) to move freely throughout the union.
CJ 

 
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Any situation in which a voting procedure, choosing among multiple options, would choose A over B, B over C, …,
i
over
j
, and
j
over A. The best-known example is the cycle in simple majority rule, discovered by
Condorcet
in 1785, but any majority rule short of unanimity may generate a cycle. Even if A beats B only if at least all the voters except one prefer A to B, there may still be a cycle. When a cycle exists, the will of the people is undetermined. Whatever is chosen, a majority of the people would rather have had something else.

 
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(1265–1321)
Italian poet and philosopher, born in Florence. Very little is known for certain about his life. From 1295 he took an active part in local politics, which led to his exile. Having wandered for a time, spending part of it in Verona, he finally settled in Ravenna, where he died.
On the death of Beatrice Portinari with whom he was secretly in love, he turned to philosophy (
c.
1290) of the Thomist variety. He differs from Thomas
Aquinas
on one crucial point: he does not concede even indirect power to the papacy. Secular and ecclesiastical authorities are separate and independent; neither has a right to interfere in the other's affairs. This may come oddly from a Guelph, the papal party, as distinct from the imperial party, the Ghibellines. But Dante regarded peace as paramount in any civilized social system and this he believed could only be achieved by a ‘universal monarchy’ along the lines of the Roman Empire, which he regarded as ordained by divine providence. This theory is developed in
De Monarchia
, written probably around the time of the visit of the Emperor Henry VII to Italy (1310–13). His theory has its origin in St Augustine's
City of God
. According to Dante a universal monarch could create a
humana civilitas
which would unify all peoples of all faiths, which the papacy could not do. This in itself could insure peace. But added to that is the fact that ‘The monarch has nought that he can desire, for his jurisdiction is bounded by the ocean alone, which is not the case with other princes, since their principalities are bounded by others’. He would also be an ideal court of appeal since he has nothing to gain, ‘whence it follows that the monarch may be the purest subject of justice among mortals’.
De Monarchia
was publicly burnt in Bologna under John XII and remained on the index of prohibited books until the nineteenth century. Was this simply because of its content or was it possibly because in another book Dante put Boniface VIII in hell?
CB 

 
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The body of scientific ideas deriving from Charles Darwin (1809–82); in particular, his theory of the evolution of all animal and plant species through natural selection. Darwinism may usefully be considered both as a general doctrine about man and nature and also as a specific theory of biological evolution. As the former, it is firmly in the camp of materialism and physicalism suggesting, as it does, a single universal law governing all animate phenomena. Just as late Victorians tended to believe in one fundamental law of association for all mental activity, so Darwinism suggested one natural law of development for all forms of life. Not surprisingly perhaps, Darwin himself took immense pleasure in the idea that man and other animals were ‘netted together’. Indeed, many Darwinists held that there was no longer an objective basis for elevating one species above another. Needless to say, Darwinism is also fatal for all arguments from design and special creation. As a specific biological theory, Darwinism shifted the biologist's concern from a concentration on specific types, each with its own fixed form and essence, to a concentration on populations whose boundaries were neither fixed nor predetermined. As a result of unremitting selection pressure, some organisms would be rejected, either by death or by sterility, favouring those organisms better adapted to their niche or environment. In this way, populations evolved by natural selection of favourable, heritable variants. Herbert Spencer's phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ is often accepted as a synonym for natural selection, ‘survival of the fitter’ would in fact be more appropriate. See also
social Darwinism
.
JH 

 
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