ON 22 JUNE 1986, THE PARTIDO SOCIALISTA OBRERO ESPAÑOL (PSOE) achieved a remarkable triumph in the Spanish general elections. Hard on the heels of his success in the highly controversial and close-run referendum on Spain's NATO membership, the Prime Minister, Felipe González, managed to consolidate the PSOE's hold on political power by winning an absolute majority in both the Cortes and the Senate. At the age of 44, with his ability to confound the sceptics seemingly still intact, González appeared to be the most firmly ensconced head of government in Western Europe. Moreover, to underline the magnitude of his achievement, the Socialist leader had reached this position against the prevailing trend of a resurgent Right evident in much of the rest of Europe. Whereas the PSOE's counterparts in Britain, Germany, France and Portugal had suffered a series of demoralizing electoral defeats throughout the 1980s, the Spanish Socialists, with overwhelming successes in 1982 and 1986, seemed set fair to remain in power until the next century.

AS SOON AS ONE ELECTION IS OVER PREPARATIONS BEGIN FOR the next. Governments shape their programmes with an eye to what will retain and enhance their popularity, while their opponents seek to discredit them and parade their own more superior wares. Although' at times parties become enmeshed in internal wrangles that damage their standing, and even proclaim their attachment to policies which alienate potential support, as the day of the election draws near they concentrate their attention on winning. Internal disputes are set aside, unpopular policies dropped and attractive ones highlighted.

An election was not needed until June 1988, five years after the first meeting of the current Parliament, but during 1986 the signs were that the government was clearing the way for an election in 1987 if the auspices were favourable. The Queen's Speech of 1986 was light in its legislative proposals, and controversial and complicated measures that would have bogged down parliamentary proceedings, such as the privatization of water or compelling local authorities to put a range of their functions out to competitive tender, were postponed. During the spring of 1987 the government increased the production of decisions to court the voters.

ITALIAN NATIONAL ELECTIONS WERE HELD ON 14-15 JUNE 1987. They were unexpected as was the resignation of the Prime Minister. It is not easy to explain why Bettino Craxi had to resign as Prime Minister of Italy in March 1987. This is why it will be helpful to review the achievements, crises and unrealised goals of the final years of his government.

Craxi's electoral platform in June 1983 was essentially one of institutional reform and economic recovery. He believed that only in this way would it be possible to create the conditions for the ‘governability’ of Italy and overcome the chronic political instability.

ON 11 JULY 1987 THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY (ALP) WAS returned, with an increased majority, to an unprecedented third term in federal government. The election result was doubly remarkable. First, the ALP has traditionally been unable to gain more than two terms in office. Schisms and factional conflict have generally ruined Labor's chances of a third period in office, as in 1949, when Ben Chifley failed to gain a third term, and in 1975, when the same fate befell Gough Whitlam, following a constitutional crisis. Secondly, the party retained office during a period of economic crisis unprecedented in Australia's modern history, a crisis which might have been expected to sweep the opposition Liberal–National coalition to power.

THE PORTUGUESE PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS OF 19 JULY 1987 initiated a profound change in the Portuguese party system and in the system of government. From 1974 onwards, Portugal had moved peacefully towards a democratic political system, enshrined in the 1976 Constitution. This evolution lasted about eight years and culminated in the revision of the Constitution in 1982. From 1982 onwards the present political regime has been a democratic one, coexisting with a capitalist economic regime attenuated by state monopoly in key sectors and by public companies which were nationalized between 1974 and 1976. It is also since 1982 that the system of government has been semi-presidential. There is pure representativeness as referendums do not exist at national level and have never been regulated at local level. But the government is semi-presidential in the sense that, owing to French influence, it attempts to balance Parliament with the election of the President of the Republic by direct and universal suffrage.

A FEW YEARS AGO, THE PRESENCE OF A CENTRAL AMERICAN Head of State here was an unknown event. It was also uncommon to make any reference to the countries of Central America in the area of international politics.

The Central American countries have been characterized during their century and a half of independence by their relative isolation, and by a slow process of development which forced upon us the stereotyped label of 'banana republics'. In the meantime nations emerged in our region, sometimes with problems, some with more vigour than others, but all with their traditions, their demands, their contradictions and their truths.

COSTA RICA SHAKES TWO HUNDRED MILES OF underpopulated border with Nicaragua. It has only the most limited capacity to regulate the flow of either weapons into, or refugees out of, the adjacent territory. The absence of a professional army is noteworthy (although it should not be overstated — there are some well armed, but unprofessionally led, defence forces, and the police are quite militarized). What requires emphasis is less the scarcity of soldiers than the abundance of lawyers, and the power of their profession. Last year, for example, tension built up between Managua and San José, because it was revealed that an airstrip in northern Costa Rica had been used to resupply the 'contras' in violation of Costa Rica's proclaimed policy of neutrality. The Sandinistas interpreted this as yet another proof of Costa Rican duplicity and of San José's subordination to the will of the paymasters in Washington. Nicaraguans (of all ideological persuasions) find it almost impossible to accept the Costa Rican version of this episode, which points out that the government has no power to interfere with the use of private property unless a prima facie case exists of illegal activity.

Jon Elster has made the story of Ulysses and the Sirens a central motif in his philosophical odyssey. In Elster's philosophy a paradigm of imperfectly rational behaviour is to bind yourself against the mast, as a precaution against the predictable weakness of your will which would otherwise leave you ensnared by the sirens. The use of literary analogies is frequent in Elster's work, whether he is Explaining Technical Change or Making Sense of Marx. Consequently it is not inappropriate to describe Elster's own intellectual wanderings as an odyssey. Unlike Joyce's Ulysses there is no trace in Elster of a predilection for scatological subjects, nor any danger of unreadability. But there is a similar technical and stylistic range, and a comparable breadth in intellectual debts, acquired from journeying through Western culture with several languages. Elster, like Joyce, is also crowned with the ability to make an artistic whole out of apparently disparate materials.