Külpolitika - A Magyar Külügyi Intézet elméleti-politikai folyóirata - 1989 (16. évfolyam)
1989 / 1. szám - A tanulmányok orosz és angol nyelvű tartalmi kivonata
Péter Hcndi: Presiden-tial Election in the United States — 1988. One of the serious lessons of the elections is the following: the candidates and the media should deal much more with the questions of national importance to be solved, which will face the new president. I agree with some of tire analyses made before the election, accord- ting to which one of the major defects of the 1988 presidential campaign was that it failed to clear up the issue of personal character and competence during the primary campaign process, thus keeping it on the agenda all along, until the last days before the election. In my view a great advantage of the American election system could be that during the long primary and nomination period it could be made clear whether the personality and competence of the candidates to be nominated on the conventions qualify them for this high position. If this can be made accepted, then, during the final spurt of the campaign "the candidates and the whole nation with them could discuss the really important. — political, economic or, if the Americans are interested in it, moral — problems or the various strategies proposed as ways of solving them. In my eyes „election” means that there is a difference in the following: first, in what are considered by the candidates as politically important questions calling out for a solution and actions. Second, in the programs they propose as ways of solving them. Third, what means are they willing or not willing to use in the course' of the implementation of their programs. If it is impossible to choose concerning all these (because either the system does not permit a choice or there is no major difference between the themes and programs of the candidates), only then should the question of choosing between the personal qualities, characteristics and competence of the candidates come up. It is suggested by the recent presidential election that, for the time being, those public matters that require solution in the United States and the methods of their solution are similar for the two parties. This is one of the reasons why a common memorandum of -two former presidents with different party affiliations, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, could be accomplished now, which is a unique initiative in the history of the United States. The document, which was compiled before the election with the cooperation of a staff of experts, classifies the most important tasks proposed for the next president (irrespectively of his party affiliation) in eight major fields. Although these eight priorities have not been published yet, thus we do not know either them (undoubtedly the reduction of the deficit must be the first priority in the field of economy) or the suggested methods, there is one thing we know: they regard the interest of the nation and not that of the one or the other party as the most important. And this interest requires a concentration of forces and a common activity of the parties and among the concurrant institutions of the authority. The Republican president and the Congress with an increased Democratic majority must face the challenges together. Endre AczélThe Thatcherism in its „third phase” In this final piece of his series of articles the author outlines the foundations of „consolidated Thatcherism”, that is: the rout of the opposition, the trasfor- mation of British economy, the reversal of the country’s decline. He says that the Labour Party has been unable — and by all indications still is — to give new answers to old challenges; and it is increasingly hard not to accept that the combined British parliamentary opposition has no vision to offer on Britain’s future. It was Thatcherism that has broken the mould in British policies, stopped the seemingly unstoppable decline and imprisoned the vast majority of the people with ist right-wing „revolutionary” populism and brazen instigation for excessive individualism. As for the econofifiy. Thatcherist policies, the rigid monetarism have produced real achievements: productivity has grown sharply, unemployment went down by a big margin inflation was X.
