This paper explores the importance of patterns of urbanization and migration in Colombia for the design of appropriate policies for regional, urban, and intermediate-city development. An opening section reviews the growth of the nineteen major municipios over the period 1918 through 1964, the date of the most recent available census. When these cities are ranked by size from largest to smallest, one observes a high degree of stability of rankings over the fifty-year period considered. This stability supports the hypothesis that an articulated hierarchy and system of cities has developed. That development in turn owes much to the flow of migrants into these cities. Largely as a result of the intensive migration into the four largest cities, their share of the total population of the 19 urban municipios rose from 46 percent in 1918 to 62 percent by 1964.

This paper presents data on the social and political opinions of junior college students in Belize (British Honduras) prior to independence. The data are intended to give a preliminary indication of current patterns of conflict and consensus which can be used as a bench mark against which future development in Belizean political culture can be measured. The organization of the data has been based on theoretical considerations of political development and socialization in transitional societies.

A major influence on political attitudes and partisanship is the impact of social identity. In the United States, a self-identification as a Republican or a Democrat usually carries connotations of a wider range of social characteristics. In fact, people often adopt the partisan identification most appropriate to their social situation. Once acquired, partisan attitudes tend to influence other political attitudes as people react to issues and events in a way that tends to support and justify their party choices (Dawson and Prewitt, 1969).

In the growing body of literature on the Cuban Revolution, the subject of Soviet attitudes and policy toward Cuba has been neglected. While this neglect holds true for the entire period since 1956, it is particularly evident in the period between Castro's landing in Cuba in December 1956 and the signing of the Soviet-Cuban economic agreements of February 1960.

The few works which touch upon this period describe the Soviet Union as having no interest in Cuba during Castro's struggle against Batista and as merely reacting to Cuban events and initiatives thereafter. In contrast to this view, the present paper will argue that the Soviet Union was actively concerned with Cuban affairs from 1956 to 1960. It was, at least partially, in response to Soviet policy that Castro began the negotiations with the Soviet Union that resulted in the economic agreements of February 1960.

There has been little systematic research of any kind on political leadership in Latin America (Welsh, 1970). This omission is regrettable because a study of political leadership indicates what types of men govern the political system, which institutions are most important in the recruitment process, and what careers are demanded of those leaders. In the Mexican political system, where local and national leadership is dependent upon the same organizations for power, studies of local politicians indicate what qualities characterize national elites.

The only monograph which is devoted in detail to a study of the backgrounds, origins, and recruitment of political leaders of a single Latin American country is the work of José Luis de Imáz (1970) on Argentina. However, even Imáz's (1970: 13) work makes only passing references to provincial governors, and his conclusions are based on the surprisingly small sample of eighteen governors from three states.

The psychological development of most human beings leads to the emergence of feelings of “belongingness” vis-à-vis certain social groupings. I shall denote such feelings by the term “loyalties.” With the emergence of the state, and increasingly on into the contemporary era, an attempt has been made by these maximal-sized, territorial-based political units, to develop a state-focused civic sense within their respective societies. According to Geertz (1963: 156), the civic sense involves “a definite concept of the public as a separate and distinct body and an attendant notion of a genuine public interest, which though not necessarily superior to, is independent of and at times even in conflict with both private and other sorts of collective interest.” However, within the confines of already existing states may be smaller territorial units who view themselves as political communities with their own publics.