‘EVERY ELECTION GENERATES ITS OWN MYTHS, MYTHS ABOUT WHAT the politicians were saying, about what the electorate thought they were saying, and about what the electorate meant by its votes.’ Butler's and Kavanagh's comment on the 1979 election applies with even more force to the outcome in 1997. For when an opposition party secures an unexpectedly large victory, there is a seemingly insatiable demand for explanations which stress the positive appeal of the winners — and a corresponding tendency to understate the significance of disenchantment with the outgoing administration. Such myths become entrenched when, as in 1979 certainly and in 1997 probably, the election does turn out to represent a political turning-point. This article therefore applies a degree of deconstruction to the 1997 election. In the afterglow of Labour's famous victory, it is as well to remember that the campaign was rather humdrum. The outcome was predictable, the lengthy campaign had little impact on Labour's lead and turnout fell significantly. Even if the election does transpire to have initiated major change, there is precious little evidence to suggest that in 1997 (any more than in 1979) a large body of electors was voting with that end in mind. What voters intend, and what elections achieve, are two different things. If there is a lesson to be drawn from the 1997 election, it seems to be rather limited and obvious. When governments are divided and directionless, the pendulum swings.

OWING TO THE GROWTH OF THE GREEN MOVEMENT IN THE 1980S MANY feel that Britain has experienced a cultural revolution on environmental issues. According to conventional wisdom, public opinion has come to reflect a deep-rooted and widespread sense of environmental awareness, with long-term consequences for British politics. Yearley suggests that there has been a significant ‘greening’ of British public opinion in recent years.’ In a series of articles reviewing attitudes towards environmental values, Young concludes that evidence for a culture shift ‘is almost beyond dispute’. Environmentalists commonly make three distinct claims, namely: there has been a growth of public concern about environmental issues; as a result public support for green policies and ideas has increased; in turn this has led to greater environmental activism, including support for the Green Party, involvement in environmental groups and green consumerism.

WE TAKE IT FOR GRANTED THAT THE SURVIVAL OF THE STATE DEPENDS on democratic consent. With the demise of Marxism and fascism, Diamond suggests that, apart from Islamic fundamentalism, democracy is the only model with ideological legitimacy. And Fukuyama asserts that ‘the democratic transitions of the past generation could not have occurred had not populations around the world finally become conscious of the fact that liberal democracy alone provides the possibility of fully rational recognition of human dignity’.

MANY INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS, FOUNDED DURING OR JUST AFTER the Second World War, are passing their fiftieth anniversaries, which have become the occasions for reviewing their past performance and looking into the future. This has already happened for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, launched at Bretton Woods in 1944; and for the United Nations (UN), inaugurated in 1945. The fiftieth anniversary of the Marshall Plan, the origin (at one remove) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), falls in the summer of 1997. The anniversary of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is not till 1998. But the end of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations and the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have already prompted some backward looks.

SIX YEARS AFTER THE ELECTIONS OF 1990 FOLLOWING THE DEFEAT OF the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) which had ruled Nicaragua since it led the popular insurrection to overthrow the corrupt and dictatorial Somoza regime in 1979, the Sandinistas experienced their second bruising encounter with electoral democracy. Daniel Ortega, who as outgoing president of the republic was defeated by Violeta Chamorro of the National Opposition Union (UNO) in 1990, was once again defeated. This time the defeat was much less of a shock. Chamorro's victory in 1990 had surprised many observers despite the fact that a number of opinion polls had predicted the result. These had been dismissed by the Sandinistas as politically suspect as they had been carried out by Costa Rican organizations. Up until the opening of the FSLN's campaign in June 1996, polls had shown Ortega as the clear underdog with a gap of up to 20 per cent between him and Arnoldo Alemán, the candidate of the rightist Liberal Alliance. However, an unexpectedly cohesive and effective FSLN campaign had narrrowed the gap and by September polls were showing the two with between 38 and 46 per cent each. But, as in 1990, the ‘don't knows’ would vote decisively against the FSLN on polling day.

FOR SOME YEARS NOW, WESTERN ACADEMICS AND POLICY-MAKERS HAVE embraced the cause of democratic reform in Central and Eastern Europe. To take but one well-known example, President Clinton in the 1994 State of the Union Address cited the absence of war among democracies as a reason for promotion of democracy around the world. Assistance to former Warsaw Pact and newly independent states has been made conditional to varying degrees on the acceptance of democratic change. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the European Union, the United States Agency for International Development and associated non-governmental organizations have unleashed armies of promoters of democracy throughout the region to: observe elections; monitor human rights; draft new constitutions and laws defending civil and political rights; train judges and police personnel; and organize and assist political parties, media and non-governmental pressure groups. In short, they have sought to transplant the fabric of civil society and democratic institutions. These armies have landed on terrain often quite foreign to them and have often displayed little sensitivity to the social, economic and political context in which they are operating. This may have contributed to results other than those intended.