Give the general idea of the text

11. Read the following joke and retell it:

A REPUBLICAN AND A DEMOCRAT It is easy to go to Washington now. You can go there by plane from any large city of the USA. There are also fast trains and, of course, you can go by car. But in the old days people had to travel several days to get from New York to Washington. People went then by coaches driven by horses or went on horseback. They stopped at inns to have a rest or to eat there and sleep.

They tell a story about a new congressman who stopped at an inn one night and asked for a place to stay. The inn­keeper wanted to know whether he was a Democrat or a Republican.

— Why do you ask? — said the congressman.

— Well, — said the innkeeper, — I always want to
please my guests and I have learned that a Republican likes

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Political science

to have good food and a comfortable bed while a Democrat is more interested in the care and feeding of his horse.

— Well, it so happens, — said the congressman, — that
I am a Republican, but my horse is a Democrat.

12. Read the article and do the tasks that follow it:

POLITICIANS TAKE PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS Some years ago the President decided to conduct psy­chological tests on his representatives and entrusted the Personnel Committee of the government with the task of implementing these tests. This work was carried out by a group which included psychologists, sociologists, systems experts and programmers.

Here follows a list of demands made of a representative of the President:

— to represent the interests of various groups of the
population, X

— to be able to forecast the changes,

— to have a respectable appearance and, the knowledge
of etiquette,

— to be able to clearly express the thoughts,

— self-reliance,

— to be able to forecast the business and personal
qualities of partners,

— aptitude for training.

Senior people were given the Luchaire test. Do you understand it? First, you take your seat in front of the computer. Eight colours appear on the computer screen, which have to be arranged in a pleasing sequence, then four colours in unpleasant way. Then the procedure repeats. The computer «ponders» for a few seconds and then pro­duces your psychological characteristics on 3 pages with intimate details that even one's best friend could not come up with.

The colour test of Luchaire is only one of many psycho-diagnostic procedures, including the 16-factor questionnaire

_____ Учебное пособие для философов и политологов

of Cattell and the California psychological questionnaire together with «management grating» and «postal box», group discussion and medical examination.

Finally, the representatives of the President gave in. Fifty-four people were tested, each using a code-name which could be decoded only by an order of the supreme commission. The conclusions of psychologists were couched in the form of a recommendation. The results of the medical examina­tions were given personally to the «patient» and he was granted the right to decide whether he is able to continue work at this key post or not.

On the whole, the appraisal of the President's repre­sentatives was good: heightened responsibility, purposeful-ness, persistence. Those being tested were divided into three categories: 19 people in the «high» sub-group — those who received at least one high mark and the rest — not lower than the average; 19 people were in the «middle» sub-group, i.e., all average marks or high and low simul­taneously, and 16 were in the «lower» category, those who received at least one low mark and the others not higher than average.

As a result, three representatives resigned. One of them said, «Your technology may be used as a repressive system».

The appearance of psychologists in the presidential team is a common occurrence in advanced countries

13. Answer the following questions:

1.What was the aim of psychological testing?

2. What specialists carried it out?

3. What are the main demands for the President's
representative?

4. What demands do you consider to be of primary im­
portance? Give your arguments.

5. What kind of test were the senior people given?

6. Do you know the procedure of testing in accordance
with the Luchaire test?

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Political science

7. What questionnaires supplemented the Luchaire test?

8. How many people were tested?

9. What form were the conclusions made in?

10. What three categories were obtained as a result of
this testing?

11. How many representatives resigned?

12. Is such testing characteristic for the administration
in advanced countries?

14. Agree or disagree with the following:

1.Implementation of such tests is a necessary measure.

2. Such kind of testing humiliates human dignity.

3. Self-reliance is the basic quality for the political leader.

4. High IQ scores are a criterion for a politician to take
an office.

5. The Luchair test may give a subjective picture.

6. It is recommended sometimes to apply a lie-detector
to find out the real intentions of the competitor for an
office.

7. The Cattell and California psychological questionnaires
are a useful technique in conducting such a testing.

8. The management grating is of significance as well.

9. A special programme for selecting politicians for the
government administration should be created.

10. Information on the health and psychological condi­
tion of the future political leaders should be known to the
public.

11. Definite criteria for a hypothetical candidate into
the government should be elaborated.

Enumerate the basic qualities pertaining to the po­ litical leader. Some of them such as heightened responsi­ bility, purposefulness, persistence have already been iden­ tified in the article. Prolong the list, please.

Review the article.

Учебное пособие для философов и политологов

Political science

Part

17. Read and translate the article:

WINSTON

«Denounced in turn as charlatan, braggart, turncoat and warmonger, he was many times defeated at the polls, swept from high office, made the scapegoat of others' fail­ures. But if Churchill was sometimes wrong, on the great issues of his times he was most often right. History will forgive his faults; it can never forget the indomitable spirit that swept a people to greatness.»

The name summons up a host of images: the valiant leader of wartime Britain, whose bulldog countenance mir­rored his nation's courage. The great orator, whose ringing words armored the Allies with the confidence to overcome Hitler's armies. The happy warrior, whose V-for-victory sign, homburg hat and ever-present cigar - even when seen amid the bombed-out rubble of Britain's House of Com­mons - evoked pride and defiance.

This is the man of legend, the Churchill of the 1940s. But behind the plaster statue there is a real person to discover — the Churchill of the 1930s. For before he rallied millions around the globe to his cause, Winston Churchill fought a lonely war of his own. For 10 years — while Adolf Hitler rose to power built his great war ma­chine, ruthlessly expanded Germany's reach and made secret pacts with fellow dictators - Churchill was a lone voice, warning anyone who would listen of the dangers ahead.

Few did. Churchill was exiled from the mainstream of his party. He was branded a warmonger by peace-loving Britons, still scarred by the carnage of World War I. He was burdened with a crushing load of personal debts. He was troubled over the state of his marriage. He was scorned as an out-of-touch relic of a vanished Victorian age.

Churchill did not change; instead, events paved the way for his return to power - and the Allies' final triumph over Hitler. And this, perhaps, was his finest hour.

Taking Hitler's Measure. In the 1930s Winston Churchill was the only voice sounding the alarm against Hitler. His fellow Conservatives shunned him, and he was not offered a position in the government.

But Churchill was a man of action. Not content to sit on the sidelines as a spectator, he became England's foremost expert on the details of Hitler's plans. He assembled a per­sonal network of intelligence agents, men who defied Britain's government and risked their careers to. provide secret information detailing Germany's resurgence: details on troops, production figures for arms factories, even advance copies of Hitler's speeches.

One of Churchill's most valuable contacts was Ralph Wilgram, the head of the central department of Britain's Foreign Office. Wilgram had a personal reason for fearing Nazism: his four-year-old son suffered from a mental dis­order and would be treated as damaged goods under Hit­ler's master-race schemes.

At the Foreign Office, Wilgram and his team produced reports tracking the growing might of Hitler's armies, only to find - to their astonishment - that the informa­tion was ignored by government ministers. For years Wil­gram's team secretly passed these documents to Churchill and the great communicator used them, to expose Hitler's plans.

Thanks to his secret espionage network, when Churchill finally assumed power - at the moment of Britain's great­est peril - he was the master of every detail of Hitler's war machine.

Living by the, pen. Churchill once proclaimed, «Human beings are divided into three categories: those who are billed to death, those who are worried to death and those who are bored to death.»

There was never a question of Churchill's being bored: his extreme energy drove him to become an accomplished amateur painter, a steady stonemason, and a bon vivant

Учебное пособие для философов и политологов

Political science

Part I

who loved matching wits on politics and history over dinner with a brilliant coterie of guests. But in the 1930s, the man who appeared to live the life of a grand English lord was, in reality, billed and worried to distraction.

Even as Churchill was consumed with sounding the alarm on Hitler, he had more immediate problems on the home front - including paying the bills and putting food on the table.

In exile from Britain's ruling circles, Churchill spent most of the 1930s at Chartwell, the historic estate in Kent he had bought in 1922. Here he felt imbued with the spirit of Britain's past. He wrote his great works of history in his study, the oldest part of Chartwell.

Though few knew it, he supported himself entirely on his earnings as a working journalist during the 1930s. An industrious freelancer, he completed 11 books and wrote more than 400 newspaper and magazine articles between 1931 and 1939 - while writing and delivering more than 350 major addresses in the House of Commons. Even so, Churchill the writer was hard-pressed to pay the bills run up by Churchill the country gentleman.

Returning to the Helm. As Churchill remained out of power, thundering warnings that were ignored by the government, Adolf Hitler's troops were on the march. In 1936 Hitler's soldiers occupied the Rhineland; in March 1938, they moved into Austria. The British, desperate to stay out of war, met Nazi aggression with an official policy of appeasement. In September 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met with Hitler in Munich, and in exchange for a promise of peace, ceded control of Czechoslo­vakia to Germany.

Increasingly, attention turned to the man who for years had warned Britons they must prepare for war. Political cartoons depicted an angry Britannia pleading with Cham­berlain to bring Churchill into the government: «Bring him back — it's your last chance.»

Ironically it was Winston's great foe - Adolf Hitler -who hastened Churchill's return to power. When the Fuhr­er invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, plunging Britain into war with Germany, Chamberlain summoned Churchill and asked him to serve as First Lord of the Admiralty - the office he had held with such distinction decades before.

As Churchill walked to the Admiralty building where he would take command, he and a friend found it had already been swathed in barbed wire to defend it from German attack. «What's that for?» the friend gasped. «That's to keep me out,» jested Churchill. But his days in exile were over: his return to lead the Royal Navy had already been flashed to every British ship at sea: «Win­ston is back!»

And back Churchill was, after a decade of exile. Eight months later he would become Prime Minister, and lead Britain and the Allies to victory. But as his close friend Brendan Bracken said of Churchill's 10 years in the wilder­ness: «I believe that his long, lonely struggle will prove to be the best chapter in his crowded life.»

(from «TIME», 2002)

18. Give Russian equivalents for:

A warmonger; to be defeated at the polls; to be swept from high office; great issues of one's time; to forgive one's fault; a host of images; to evoke pride and defiance; to fight a lonely war; peace-loving; to pave the way; a return to power; secret espionage network; to match wits on poli­tics; a policy of appeasement.