That there was a continuity between medieval political thought and the body of systematic theory that surrounded the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution is by now a commonplace. But when we speak of the medieval contribution to the American political tradition, it is important to avoid the implication that what medieval thought contributed was identical with what American thought received. Between the close of the fifteenth century and the latter part of the eighteenth lie some two and a half centuries of crowded thought and experience, which more or less profoundly changed the meaning of concepts continuously in use. The more we learn of medieval theory, the clearer it becomes that it must be interpreted in its own terms rather than in terms of its derivatives. And the American political tradition, of course, cannot be fully understood in terms of its historic roots. Perhaps the chief service which the history of ideas can offer to political theory lies in providing material for the sharpening of concepts through a comparative analysis. For the full understanding of the meaning of an idea, one needs to know not only what it is, but also, I suggest, what it is not. Thus there may be value in an attempt to define the medieval meaning of some concepts that were a significant part of the medieval contribution: in particular, sovereignty, natural law and natural rights, and consent.

The purpose of this research note was to determine whether Philippine politics could be characterized as fitting a “machine politics model” (James Scott, “Corruption, Machine Politics, and Political Development, APSR, 63 [December, 1969], 1142–1158). A province was selected which matched the criteria cited in Scott's model, and provincial political leaders and subleaders were asked to evaluate important considerations they used in deciding whom to support for public office.

Scott proposed that in electoral political systems, support moves from a dependence on deference to a dependence on particularistic rewards, and finally to dependence on ideology. Part of the study tested the three-phase model using factor analysis on ten variables generally thought to be crucial in Philippine politics. The factor analysis revealed six factors, three which matched Scott's three phases plus: the chance of winning, the use of threats, and party loyalty. Although Scott's three-phase model was rejected as inadequate, at the descriptive level the general attributes of machine politics (particularly as Philippine politics has moved from a reliance on deference and personal loyalty to a dependence on material reward) could be used to characterize Philippine politics.

Numerous attempts have been made since World War II to reform U.S. government structure and procedures for managing foreign affairs, but success has been distinctly limited. In evaluating the procedures, proposals, accomplishments, and failures of the most recent State Department reform program, this review suggests some reasons why rationalization of foreign affairs organization has been so difficult to achieve. Unless fundamental questions of the Department of State's appropriate relationship to the rest of government are confronted directly, it is impossible to deal effectively with internal organization, operations, and staffing. Yet because of a restricted mandate, Diplomacy for the 70's did not address itself to these prior questions. And for a number of reasons, including a misplaced belief in the efficacy of management reforms as contrasted with political initiatives, lack of aggressive senior level support, ineffective followup, and budgetary restrictions, it fared no better than previous reform programs, even taken on its own limited terms. Unless such basic problems are dealt with, future reform attempts are likely to be no more successful.

The work of the court last term is chiefly notable for its amplification of certain important results of the preceding term. Thus, the final objection to the validity of the Eighteenth Amendment was refuted; the last great question touching the meaning of the word “income” in the Sixteenth Amendment was answered; the emergency powers of government in war time were brought into contact with more usual sources of public authority—this in the rent law cases; and some minor phases of the problem of freedom of speech and press were disposed of. However, in two cases, both of much interest to the political scientist, somewhat novel questions of national power were raised; and in neither was a certainly final solution offered. Questions of state power were again of decidedly subordinate significance and interest.

In the summary of foreign constitutional developments, published in this Review for August, 1910, some attention was paid to the movements in Hungary and in Prussia for an extension of the suffrage. With respect to these movements it is sufficient now to say that nothing has yet been accomplished. In Prussia there seems to be no immediate prospect of reform; and the Prussian government, relying as it does for support in the Landtag upon the conservative parties which would suffer through an electoral reform, has declined to bring forward any further proposal for the liberalizing of the suffrage. In Hungary the Khuen-Héderváry ministry won the election of June, 1910, largely upon the program of electoral reform, but no project has yet been presented, and the delay is explained on the ground that it is necessary to await the results of the new census which was begun early in 1911. Although no announcements have been made it now seems that Count Andrássy's plan of plural voting will be abandoned, and that the “Magyar character of the Hungarian state” will be preserved by a scheme of apportioning members of the house of representatives in such a way as to give the Magyars a greater power than their numbers would justify.