Fw: spectrum of ideologies

QUESTION:

>,,>snip
>> What criteria did Kurt Sontheimer apply? Instead of
>>looking along a straight line there is a map of some kind.
>>
>>William Kirk.
>>
>

ANSWER:
>
>Willie and friends,
>
>the book I am referring to is
>
>Kurt Sontheimer
>Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik
>Munich, Germany: Nymphenburger Verlag 1962, 1968
>
>(meaning: anti-democratic thought in the Weimar Republik)
>
>Sontheimer is (or was) a professor at Munich University and has written
>numerous books on German, also British, politics.
>
>The method he used for this analysis was based on party documents,
including
>party programs and other party literature, parliamentary voting records and
>historical literature about what the parties did or did not do. He compared
>the many parties which existed at the time. At least, this is how I
remember
>the book.
>
>Which criteria did Sontheimer use? As I recall this, he had criteria like:
>(a) is the party pro-systemic or anti-systemic as per their party platform
>and public agitation?
>(b) how does the party define democracy?
>(c) who is identified as the enemy of the party (if any)
>(d) does the party have a militia?
>(e) what does the party vote for or against in parliament?
>(f)  what are the broad values of philosophies propagated and defended by
>the party (if any)
>(g) other ....
>
>The "horseshoe" idea was based on this comparison of parties.
 There were about 40 parties I believe. Even though
>the militant parties were fighting each other and had diametrically opposed
>worldviews and theories, they had a various things in common -- e.g.,
criticizing
>liberal democracy as a bourgeois charade, being anti-systemic (i.e., aiming
>to destroy the system), maintaining militias, having a highly polarized
>worldview (friend-enemy image), and others.
>


So long,
>
>Gert
>