Samuel Finer
Professor Samuel Edward Finer (1915–1993) was a political scientist and historian who was instrumental in advancing political studies as an academic subject in the United Kingdom, pioneering the study of UK political institutions. His most notable work is The History of Government from the Earliest Times – a three-volume comparative analysis of all significant government systems.
Finer was also active in right wing politics, being an early member of the Council of the intelligence connected Institute for the Study of Conflict in 1970. (Richard Cockett, Thinking the Unthinkable, p. 224)
Life
Born 22 September 1915, Finer was the third son of poor Romanian Jewish parents who had emigrated to the United Kingdom, and who ran a greengrocer's stall at Chapel Street market, Islington. One of his brothers, Herman, was also a distinguished political scientist. Although Herman emigrated to the USA, his achievement was, according to Finer, an early source of inspiration.[1]
Finer went to Holloway School, where he won a scholarship to Trinity College, Oxford. He obtained a double first in modern history and modern Greats. After this, he began researching Sir Edwin Chadwick, a Benthamite civil servant. During World War II he served in the Royal Signals, where he attained the rank of captain. From 1946 to 1950, he taught politics at Balliol College, Oxford, acquiring an impressive reputation as a teacher and lecturer. From 1950 to 1966 he served as Professor of Political Institutions at the new University College of North Staffordshire (now Keele University). In 1966 he became head of the Department of Government at the University of Manchester, successfully contributing to the revival of its reputation. In 1974, he was made Gladstone Professor of Government and Administration at the University of Oxford. He retired from this post in 1982, but continued writing – see History of Government below.
He has been described as a charismatic lecturer and a very effective administrator. He believed that the academic study of politics required a firm grounding in history, and was sceptical of attempts to convert the subject into a science based on such deterministic frameworks as Marxism and behavioralism.
He was chairman of the Political Studies Association of the UK from 1965 to 1969 and was a vice-president of the International Political Science Association.
Sammy Finer was a passionate liberal democrat and supporter of the causes of electoral reform and Zionism. He was twice married and had two sons. He died on 9 June 1993, aged 77, leaving a widow, Catherine.
Masterwork
Finer's magnum opus, The History of Government from the Earliest Times, is a comparative analysis of all significant civilised government systems, past and present. Polities covered include the Sumerian city states, the kingdom of Ancient Egypt, the Assyrian Empire, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the Persian Empire, the Classical Greek city republics, the republic and empire of Rome, the Chinese Empire under the Han, the Tang, the Ming and the Qing, the Byzantine Empire, the Arab Caliphate, Mamluk Egypt, the European feudal kingdoms (including the emergence of representative assemblies), the Italian Mediaeval/Renaissance city republics (e.g. Florence and Venice), Tokugawa Japan, the Ottoman Empire, the Mughal Empire, and the modern state as it emerged in Europe, including themes of absolute versus parliamentary monarchy, the transplantation of European state models overseas, the Age of Enlightenment, the American and French revolutions, the constitutionalisation of the European monarchies, and industrialisation.
The conceptual prologue includes a classification of government systems in terms of combinations of four elements: Palace (monarchy), Forum (democracy), Church (organised religion) and Nobility. Government is not analysed in isolation but explained in the context of economics, technology, agriculture, geography, religion, law, warfare, etc. – giving a complete picture of how a state works as a mechanism, explained in language designed to be highly accessible to a sufficiently determined general reader.
History of Government was many years in the making. It is approximately 1,700 pages long. The herculean programme of research, consultation and writing consumed Finer's retirement years 1982-93. Slowed down by heart disease including a serious heart attack in 1987, he was only able to complete 34 out of the projected 36 chapters, but the result is nevertheless a 'block-buster'. (The missing two chapters would have been on the exportation of the modern state model outside the 'West', and on the variations on the theme of modern totalitarianism.) Finer had hoped that it would be a single volume, but it was found to be impossible to reduce the material to less than the three volumes in which it was finally published. The preface to the work gives an idea of what efforts went into the project, and how it was rescued and published after the author's death.
Works
- A Primer of Public Administration, 1950 (ISBN 0-8371-9492-X, 1977)
- The Life and Times of Sir Edwin Chadwick, 1952 (ISBN 0-416-17350-0, 1970) – the outcome of Finer's postgraduate research
- Local Government in England and Wales (joint author), 1953 (ISBN 0-19-889159-8)
- Anonymous Empire: A Study of the Lobby in Great Britain, 1958 – a ground-breaking study of political lobbying in the UK
- Private Industry and Political Power, 1958
- Backbench Opinion in the House of Commons, 1955-59, 1961
- The Man on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics, 1962 (ISBN 0-86187-967-8, 1988) – short but very original
- Vilfredo Pareto: Sociological Writings (selector), 1966 – the writings of an Italian sociologist
- Comparative Government: An Introduction to the Study of Politics, 1970 (ISBN 0-14-021170-5, 1974) – a successful textbook
- Adversary Politics and Electoral Reform (editor), 1975 (ISBN 0-9504469-0-4)
- Five Constitutions: Contrasts and Comparisons (editor), 1979 (ISBN 0-14-022203-0)
- The Changing British Party System, 1945-1979, 1980 (ISBN 0-8447-3368-7)
- Parties and Interest Groups (audio cassette, joint author), 1982 (ISBN 1-86013-297-9)
- Electoral System (audio cassette, joint author), 1982 (ISBN 1-86013-296-0)
- Comparing Constitutions (editor), 1995 (ISBN 0-19-876344-1)
- The History of Government from the Earliest Times, 1997 (ISBN 0-19-822904-6 three-volume set, hardback) – Finer's retirement project and magnum opus, unfinished and published posthumously
References
- ^ University of Manchester, The John Rylands University Library, SGML document on Finer papers with biographical details
