In which country did the main character of "The Dean's December" observe a political system in which the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever possible?
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The Dean's December The Dean's December is a 1982 novel by the American author Saul Bellow. The first novel Bellow published after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976, it is set in Chicago and Bucharest. The book's main character, Albert Corde, a meditative academic who faces a crisis, accompanies his Romanian-born astrophysicist wife to her Communist-ruled native country, where they deal with the death of his mother-in-law. This sojourn allows Corde to observe the workings of a totalitarian regime in particular and the Eastern Bloc in general, a perspective which provides him with insight into the human condition.
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Totalitarianism Totalitarianism is a political system in which the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible. A distinctive feature of totalitarian governments is an "elaborate ideology, a set of ideas that gives meaning and direction to the whole society".
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Ancien Régime The Ancien Régime (] ; French for "old regime") was the political and social system of the Kingdom of France from the Late Middle Ages (  15th century ) until 1792, when hereditary monarchy and the feudal system of French nobility were abolished by the . The Ancien Régime was ruled by the late Valois and Bourbon dynasties. The term is occasionally used to refer to the similar feudal systems of the time elsewhere in Europe. The administrative and social structures of the Ancien Régime were the result of years of state-building, legislative acts (like the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts), internal conflicts and civil wars, but they remained a patchwork of local privilege and historic differences until the French Revolution ended the system.
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Politics of Latvia The politics of Latvia takes place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the Prime Minister is the head of government, and of a multi-party system. The President holds a primarily ceremonial role as Head of State. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and parliament, the Saeima.
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Mutual liberty Mutual liberty is an idea first coined by Alexis de Tocqueville in his 1835 work "Democracy in America". In effect, Tocqueville was referring to the general nature of American society during the 19th century. It appeared to him, at least on the surface, that every citizen in the United States had the opportunity to participate in the civic activities of the country. Another way to look at mutual liberty is by accounting for the collective free wills of every rational being in a community. Even though the notion of mutual liberty was introduced by Tocqueville, it was John Stuart Mill who greatly expanded it. Mill believed that the most proper occasion for mutual liberty was in a community governed by the consent of the governed, i.e., a republic. And according to Mill, it is only in a republic where members of all political factions can participate. It has been said that a republic is the form of government that divides people least. This statement pertains greatly to mutual liberty. Unlike positive and negative liberty, mutual liberty encompasses all citizens. It makes no distinction between political preference and social status. Mutual liberty pervades all sectors of society, from the homeless man on the street to the premier of the state. It is the process through which a general sense of morality gets exerted on the widest range of people in any given communal setting.
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Weimar Republic Weimar Republic (German: "Weimarer Republik" ] ) was an unofficial, historical designation for the German state between 1919 and 1933. The name derives from the city of Weimar, where its constitutional assembly first took place. The official name of the state was "Deutsches Reich"; it had remained unchanged since 1871. In English the country was usually known simply as Germany.
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Politics of Benin The Politics of Benin take place in the framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, wherein the President of Benin is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the legislature. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. The current political system is derived from the 1990 Constitution of Benin and the subsequent transition to democracy in 1991.
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Demoicracy Demoicracy (also demoi-cracy) is a polity of multiple distinct people ("demoi"), polity of polities. The term is derived from "demoi" (δῆμοι in original Ancient Greek, plural form of δῆμος or "demos"), meaning "peoples" and "kratos" (κράτος) meaning "power" (to govern oneself). It is apparently meant to become an alternative to democracy, understood as power of a single "demos". The term is used mainly to describe the genus of the European Union (EU) but is also gaining currency in more general theories of democracy above state level.
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French Revolution The French Revolution (French: "Révolution française" ] ) was a period of far-reaching social and political upheaval in France that lasted from 1789 until 1799, and was partially carried forward by Napoleon during the later expansion of the French Empire. The Revolution overthrew the monarchy, established a republic, experienced violent periods of political turmoil, and finally culminated in a dictatorship under Napoleon that rapidly brought many of its principles to Western Europe and beyond. Inspired by liberal and radical ideas, the Revolution profoundly altered the course of modern history, triggering the global decline of absolute monarchies while replacing them with republics and liberal democracies. Through the Revolutionary Wars, it unleashed a wave of global conflicts that extended from the Caribbean to the Middle East. Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history.
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Parliamentary system A parliamentary system is a system of democratic governance of a state where the executive branch derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the confidence of the legislative branch, typically a parliament, and is also held accountable to that parliament. In a parliamentary system, the head of state is usually a different person from the head of government. This is in contrast to a presidential system, where the head of state often is also the head of government and, most importantly, the executive branch does not derive its democratic legitimacy from the legislature.
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Royal assent Royal assent or sanction is the method by which a country's monarch (possibly through a delegated official) formally approves an act of that nation's parliament. In certain nations, such assent makes the act law (promulgation) while in other nations assent is distinct from promulgation. In the vast majority of contemporary monarchies, this act is considered to be little more than a formality; even in those nations which still permit their monarchs to withhold royal assent (such as the United Kingdom, Norway, and Liechtenstein), the monarch almost never does so, save in a dire political emergency or upon the advice of their government. While the power to withhold royal assent was once exercised often in European monarchies, it is exceedingly rare in the modern, democratic political atmosphere that has developed there since the 18th century.
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Restoration literature Restoration literature is the English literature written during the historical period commonly referred to as the English Restoration (1660–1689), which corresponds to the last years of the direct Stuart reign in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. In general, the term is used to denote roughly homogeneous styles of literature that center on a celebration of or reaction to the restored court of Charles II. It is a literature that includes extremes, for it encompasses both "Paradise Lost" and the Earl of Rochester's "Sodom", the high-spirited sexual comedy of "The Country Wife" and the moral wisdom of "The Pilgrim's Progress". It saw Locke's "Treatises of Government", the founding of the Royal Society, the experiments and holy meditations of Robert Boyle, the hysterical attacks on theaters from Jeremy Collier, and the pioneering of literary criticism from John Dryden and John Dennis. The period witnessed news become a commodity, the essay develop into a periodical art form, and the beginnings of textual criticism.
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Politics (essay) "Politics" is an essay written by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is part of his "Essays: Second Series", published in 1844. A premier philosopher, poet and leader of American transcendentalism, he used this essay to belie his feelings on government, specifically American government. His impact on New England thought and his views on pragmatism influenced the likes of Henry David Thoreau, Orestes Brownson, and Frederich Nietzsche, among others.
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Politics of Andorra The politics of Andorra take place in a framework of a parliamentary constitutional diarchy, and a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government, with the Head of Government of Andorra as chief executive. Legislative power is vested in both the government and parliament. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
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State of nature The state of nature is a concept used in moral and political philosophy, religion, social contract theories and international law to denote the hypothetical conditions of what the lives of people might have been like before societies came into existence. Philosophers of the state of nature theory deduce that there must have been a time before organized societies existed, and this presumption thus raises questions such as: "What was life like before civil society?"; "How did government first emerge from such a starting position?," and; "What are the hypothetical reasons for entering a state of society by establishing a nation-state?".
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Edwardian era The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history covers the brief reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910, and is sometimes extended in both directions to capture long-term trends from the 1890s to the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victorian era. The new king Edward VII was already the leader of a fashionable elite that set a style influenced by the art and fashions of continental Europe. Samuel Hynes described the Edwardian era as a "leisurely time when women wore picture hats and did not vote, when the rich were not ashamed to live conspicuously, and the sun really never set on the British flag'".
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Politics of Iran The politics of Iran take place in a framework of a theocracy in a format of syncretic politics that is guided by a repressive, non-secular Islamic ideology. The December 1979 constitution, and its 1989 amendment, define the political, economic, and social order of the Islamic Republic of Iran, declaring that Shia Islam of the Twelver school of thought is Iran's official religion.
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Paris C. Dunning Paris Chipman Dunning (March 15, 1806 – May 9, 1884) was a Democratic state representative, state senator, senate president pro tempore, the tenth Lieutenant Governor, and the ninth Governor of the U.S. state of Indiana from December 26, 1848 to December 5, 1849. He is the only person to hold to every elected seat in the state government under the 1816 constitution. His brief term as governor was marked by the calling of a state constitutional convention and overshadowed by the national anti-slavery debate, where Dunning urged state leaders to issue and forward resolutions to Congress expressing opposition to the expansion of slavery. As a delegate to the subsequent convention, he successfully advocated legislative and educational reform. As the American Civil War broke out, he left the Democratic party and declared for the Union, personally raising many companies of soldiers for the war effort. He returned to the state senate during the war, and then resumed his law practice after his term ended. He remained popular in the state, and declined several nominations to run for office after retiring from politics.
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Timocracy A timocracy ("timē", "price, worth" and -κρατία "-kratia", "rule") is a state where only property owners may participate in government. The more extreme forms of timocracy, where power derives entirely from wealth with no regard for social or civic responsibility, may shift in their form and become a plutocracy where the wealthy and powerful use their power to increase their wealth.
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Politics of Dominica The politics of Dominica takes place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the Prime Minister of Dominica is the head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the House of Assembly. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
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Prince-bishop A prince-bishop is a bishop who is also the civil ruler of some secular principality and sovereignty. Thus the principality or prince-bishopric ruled politically by a prince-bishop could wholly or largely overlap with his diocesan jurisdiction, since some parts of his diocese, even the city of his residence, could be exempt from his civil rule, obtaining the status of free imperial city. If the episcopal see is an archbishopric, the correct term is prince-archbishop; the equivalent in the regular (monastic) clergy is prince-abbot. A prince-bishop is usually considered an elected monarch.
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President of Chile The President of the Republic of Chile (Spanish: "Presidente de la República de Chile" ) is the head of state and the head of government of the Republic of Chile. The President is responsible for both government and state administration. Although its role and significance has changed over the history of Chile, as well as its position and relations with other actors in the national political organization, it is one of the most prominent political figures. It is also considered as one of the institutions that make up the "Historic Constitution of Chile", and is essential to the country's political stability.