When The Berlin Wall Came Down, on 10 November 1989, and communist regimes crumbled first in Central Europe, then in the Balkans, finally in the Soviet Union, we all hoped that a new era of peace and prosperity would begin. We knew it would be hard and painful for working democracies and effective market economies to be established in the former Warsaw Pact countries. But we believed that this could be achieved: and that we in the West could provide not only material help, but also the valuable example of the successful economic system practised by the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This system had finally triumphed over the rival, centrally-planned approach. Moreover, it was not just in Central and Eastern Europe that the open market economic system was prevailing, but all over the world. China was transforming its economy, with conspicuous success. The little dragons of East Asia were reaching economic standards close to those of OECD and their neighbours in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) were following in their wake. In Latin America new, open economic and trade policies were being brought in, notably in Mexico. The world-wide prospects had never looked better.

Resistance To The Poll Tax Has Been Described As ‘The greatest popular rejection of unjust law since Chartist time’. During the period 1990 – 91, for example, summonses for nonpayment in England and Wales were taken out agaha nearly a quarter of those registered for the charge, whilst in Scotland approximately 38 per cent of the registered population were pursued by legal means. Somewhat surprisingly in the light of the large numbers of people involved and the undoubted role which the unpopularity of the tax played in Mrs Thatcher's removal from the premiership, the campaign has reccived little attention from political scientists and none, as far as I know, from legal or political philosophers.

The Coincidence In Time of The Commemoration of the First World War and the end of the negotiations of the Uruguay round of the GATT Treaty has not only a clear symbolic but also a chastening meaning. Above all, even above its economic significance, it has a political meaning already familiar to the readers of this journal, but which now can and must be fully explained as we look at the 550 pages of text signed by the 117 members of the new World Trade Organization (WTO).

Now, of course, before we take it for granted that everything has been finalized we should realize that, on the one hand, the treaty must be ratified (like the Maastricht Treaty) and that there may be some doubts about President Clinton's power to persuade the irate Hollywood celluloid-makers and about Premier Ministre Balladur's ability to influence unconvinced French farmers that the treaty was such a great French success, not to speak of the reservations of many developing countries.

Health Care Has Been Called ‘The World's Most successful industry’. That success is long-standing. In every nation for which we have reliable long-term evidence the proportion of Gross National Product devoted to health care is much higher than was the cast a generation ago. The state has been central to that expansion. In all advanced industrial nations it regulates health care industries; in many it pays most of the cost of care; and in some it directly employs those who do the caring. In the 1980s, however, most countries tried to slow down the growth of health care spending, or even to cut it absolutely. The ‘health care state’ is as a consequence being reshaped across the advanced capitalist world: its power structures are changing; the conditions under which it funds and delivers services are being altered; and its relations with the ‘consumers’ of care are being transformed.

Conditions In The Market For Votes Have Changed throughout Europe in recent years. Markets which for much of the post-war period were characterized chiefly by voter loyalty to governing parties and plausible challengers to them, have latterly been subject to significant elements of uncertainty and fragmentation. Not only have votes been switched with increasing rapidity, they have also been cast increasingly for parties which lie outside hitherto established frameworks of electoral politics. Perceived governing incompetence has dearly been a major factor in this transformation, but broader social change has also played a part. The consequence is that European electoral markets present increasingly open terrain for party political competition. Not for many years have possibilities for market entrance been as good.

After a Period of Stability of More Than Five Years, the European Monetary System (EMS) was forced into a series of realignments of the participating currencies' central rates in the months after September 1992. Following renewed turmoil on the currency markets in July 1993, on 2 August 1993 the ministers and central bank governors of the Community decided ‘to widen temporarily the obligatory marginal intervention thresholds of the participants in the exchange rate mechanism of the European Monetary System to ± 15 per cent around the bilateral central rates’. Although this measure was repeatedly emphasized as being ‘of limited duration’, as was the determination of some ministers to reach Monetary Union, these events have been designated as the ‘death’ of the EMS or its ‘breakdown’, and the Bank of International Settlements in its latest Annual Report called it ‘the most significant and far-reaching currency market crisis since the breakdown of the Bretton-Woods-system’.

It is no Accident That Almost Every Major British political leader in the post-war period has been troubled by the question of consistency. As Harold Macmillan recognized when he identified his greatest fear as ‘events’, politicians are liable to be driven off their chosen courses when they least expect problems. Macmillan seems to have been referring to events outside his control, and in the increasingly interdependent world since 1945 the number of these events has greatly increased. Technological advances bring crises in far off places promptly into the cabinet room; instant responses from Downing Street are now possible, and the media expects them. If this were not enough, cabinet ministers are faced with the potential events which might be brought into existence by their policy decisions. Ministers can scarcely plan several moves ahead when their next action might cause a major upheaval, yet such foresight is demanded by commentators, supporters and opponents. In an atmosphere of economic difficulty the margin of error becomes tighter; initiatives are more likely to fail, and the cost of persevering with dubious policies becomes greater. Nowadays, if a politician wishes to hold to a unwavering line on every important issue his career is likely to be spectacular — and short. Perhaps only a highly-skilled follower of Machiavelli could escape from this predicament, by gaining a reputation for consistency without deserving it.