This annual ceremony of our non-partisan Association is being held at a time when most political scientists are preoccupied with the events of a fateful national election. To avoid any implications of partisanship, it seems best on this occasion to eschew politics in the conventional sense and to concentrate on institutional analysis not applicable to the current conflict. This discussion will therefore deal with the Supreme Court and with the Court primarily as an institution, rather than with problems of changing personnel or the political implications of particular decisions. It will assume that institutions are important in terms of their intrinsic nature and that the kind of institution to be used for a particular governmental task depends largely on the kind of task to be performed, with room for exceptions in exceptional circumstances. So it is that the Court will be presented not in isolation but as a part of the judicial system at whose apex it stands, and will be discussed in terms of the assumptions which lie back of and dictate its rituals, routines and procedures, and which have a great deal to do with determining its efficacy for the tasks allocated to it.

Because analysis of hallowed institutions and ritualized performance is often incorrectly identified with the expression of hostility or disrespect, with only deference permitted on the part of him who would leave the ritual or the institution with the stature it had when he approached it, let me emphasize that the purpose here is not to attack or to disparage but to analyze and to encourage further analysis, with creative ends in view.

This research report analyzes the evolution of the bond between a charismatic leader and his mass following. Its empirical focus is the case of Juan Peron and the Peronist movement in Argentina. After discussing stages in the evolution of charisma, we review our earlier findings showing that by 1965 there was clear separation between those Peronists devoted to the movement and those Peronists devoted to the man. We note distinctive features in the social and attitudinal profiles of each and then turn to our principal concern, the recruitment of new blood into each Peronist camp. Personalist youth turn out to be much like their older counterparts, but organizationalist youth demonstrate social and attitudinal features that set them dramatically apart from the personalists and apart from the older organizationalists as well. We discuss the implications of this ever widening rift.