Political
In the trade union and radical political movements, a "paper organization" is a group ostensibly in existence for a specific purpose, but which remains a phantom. For example, a single individual might claim to represent a non-existing local unit of a national organization in attempt to gain admission as a delegate and thus help "pack" a national convention in favor of a particular faction. Such a phantom unit would be called a "paper organization." Alternatively, the term can be used with regards to a single-interest group with an impressive name but no greater existence than a letterhead and a mailing address, and no concrete existence in fact. Some so-called Communist front groups were an example of this latter form of "paper organization."
Read more about this topic: Paper Organization
Famous quotes containing the word political:
“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament to permit it to remain anywhere, as it has heretofore done, almost everywhere.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“In a town-meeting, the great secret of political science was uncovered, and the problem solved, how to give every individual his fair weight in the government, without any disorder from numbers. In a town-meeting, the roots of society were reached. Here the rich gave counsel, but the poor also; and moreover, the just and the unjust.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)