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New Horizons for Comparative Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Dankwart A. Rustow
Dankwart A. Rustow
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Extract

The rapid drive of formerly colonial and dependent countries toward independent nationhood has gone hand in hand, over the last decade, with a thorough reorientation in the discipline of comparative politics. In Southeast Asia, on the Indian subcontinent, in the Near East—everywhere, the Western powers have surrendered their former positions of imperial domination. Even in Africa, once the dark continent of colonialism, fully half the population now has emerged to self-government. In all, a score of new nations has joined the roll of sovereign states, and their global importance is attested daily by far-flung programs of economic assistance, by the gradual shift of the cold-war front from Europe to Asia and Africa, and by the recent redistribution of voting power in the United Nations.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , July 1957 , pp. 530 - 549
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1957

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References

1 See, e.g., Fainsod, Merle, How Russia Is Ruled, Cambridge, Mass., 1953Google Scholar, and Moore, Barrington, Terror and Progress—USSR, Cambridge, Mass., 1954.Google Scholar

2 Lucian W. Pye, reporting on his interviews with surrendered guerrilla Communists in Malaya, writes: “The introductory remark that the interview was being conducted in the interest of social science by one attached to an American university, and that it was in no way an intelligence operation, seemed so unlikely and even fantastic to the SEP's [Surrendered Enemy Personnel] that it had to be eliminated for the sake of achieving frankness.” Guerrilla Communism in Malaya, Princeton, N.J., 1956, p. 123n.

3 See Kahin, George McT., Pauker, Guy J., and Pye, Lucian W., “Comparative Politics of Non-Western Countries,” American Political Science Review, XLIX (1955), pp. 1022–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Nasser, Gamal Abdul, Egypt's Liberation: The Philosophy of the Revolution, Washington, D.C., 1955, p. 41.Google Scholar

5 For a fuller elaboration of the concepts of amalgamation and ambivalence in this context, see Rustow, Dankwart A., Politics and Westernization in the Near East, Center of International Studies, Princeton, N.J., 1956, pp. 6 and 10ff.Google Scholar

6 Emerson, Rupert, “Paradoxes of Asian Nationalism,” Far Eastern Quarterly, XIII (1954), p. 133.Google Scholar

7 Cf. Rustow, Dankwart A., “Politics and Islam in Turkey, 1920–1955,” in Frye, Richard N., ed., Islam and the West, The Hague, 1957, p. 74.Google Scholar

8 For some Near Eastern illustration, see Rustow, , Politics and Westernization, pp. 12ff.Google Scholar Similarly, Paul M. A. Linebarger et al. describe the Japanese, as “always somewhat gullible in seeking the Western fashion in politics and economics” (Far Eastern Governments and Politics, New York, 1954, p. 363n.).Google Scholar

9 Cf. Toynbee, Arnold J., The World and the West, New York, 1953, p. 15.Google Scholar

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11 For the former term, see e.g. Furnivall, J. S., Colonial Policy and Practice, 2nd ed., New York, 1956Google Scholar, passim; for the latter, Coon, Carleton S., Caravan: The Story of the Middle East, New York, 1951, p. 27.Google Scholar

12 Meyer Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard observe an analogous effect of colonial rule on the tribal structure of African society. The power of strong chieftains generally was reduced, whereas among the smaller tribes, where no established chieftaincy existed earlier, such positions were fostered. See their African Political Systems, London, 1940, pp. 15f.

13 Three members of the Committee on Comparative Politics of the Social Science Research Council have contributed to a penetrating and suggestive discussion of the Western cultural impact and its political implications which coincides at many points with the above analysis; see Kahin et al., op.cit. For a similar position, cf. Almond, Gabriel A., “Comparative Political Systems,” Journal of Politics, XVIII (1956), pp. 402f.Google Scholar

For particular non-Western regions, see e.g. George Lenczowski, “Political Institutions,” in Anshen, Ruth Nanda, ed., Mid-East: World Center, New York, 1956, pp. 118–72Google Scholar; G. E. von Grunebaum, “Problems of Muslim Nationalism,” in Frye, ed., op.cit. (note 7); Emerson, Rupert, Representative Government in Southeast Asia, Cambridge, Mass., 1955CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mills, Lennox A., The New World of Southeast Asia, Minneapolis, 1949, pp. 288–342CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thayer, Philip W., ed., Nationalism and Progress in Free Asia, Baltimore, 1956, pp. 37–168Google Scholar; and Coleman, James S., “The Problem of Political Integration in Emergent Africa,” Western Political Quarterly, VIII (1955), pp. 44–57.Google Scholar

14 Grunebaum, Von, in Frye, ed., op.cit., p. 26.Google Scholar See also his earlier essays in “Studies in Islamic Cultural History,” American Anthropologist, Memoir No. 76 (1954), pp. 1–19; and “Islam,” Ibid., Memoir No. 81 (1955), especially chs. 7, 11, and 12.

15 Kahin, et al., op.cit., p. 1025.Google Scholar

16 See, e.g., Apter, David E., The Gold Coast in Transition, Princeton, N.J., 1955Google Scholar; Colombe, Marcel, L'Evolution de l'Egypte, Paris, 1951Google Scholar; Landau, Jacob M., Parliaments and Parties in Egypt, Tel Aviv, 1953Google Scholar; Hurewitz, J. C., The Struggle for Palestine, New York, 1950Google Scholar; Khadduri, Majid, Independent Iraq, London, 1951Google Scholar; Longrigg, Stephen Hemsley, Iraq, 1900–1950, London, 1953Google Scholar; Lenczowski, George, Russia and the West in Iran, Ithaca, N.Y., 1949Google Scholar; George Kahin, McTurnan, Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia, Ithaca, N.Y., 1952Google Scholar; and Scalapino, Robert A., Democracy and the Party Movement in Prewar Japan, Berkeley, Calif., 1953.Google Scholar

17 See, e.g., Fisher, Sydney N., ed., Social Forces in the Middle East, Ithaca, N.Y., 1955Google Scholar; Bonné, Alfred, State and Economics in the Middle East, 2nd ed., London, 1955Google Scholar; Lenczowski, George, The Middle East in World Affairs, 2nd ed., Ithaca, N.Y., 1956Google Scholar; Macmahon Ball, W., Nationalism and Communism in East Asia, Melbourne, 1952Google Scholar; Furnivall, op.cit.; and the literature cited in note 13.

18 Cf. Macridis, Roy C., The Study of Comparative Government, New York, 1955, pp. 9ff.Google Scholar

19 It should be remembered that Latin America includes some areas such as Puerto Rico and the British West Indies which, like much of Asia and Africa, are in the process of transition from colonialism to independence. On Puerto Rico, cf. Wells, Henry, “Ideology and Leadership in Puerto Rican Politics,” American Political Science Review, XLIX (1955), pp. 22–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For the independent countries of Latin America, see e.g. Christensen, Asher N., ed., The Evolution of Latin American Government, New York, 1951Google Scholar; and Jorrin, Miguel, Governments of Latin America, New York, 1953.Google Scholar

20 Macridis, , op.cit., pp. 11ff.Google Scholar Herman Finer, erupting into rhyme in the preface to his most recent work, declares:

Political science without history has no roots;

History without political science has no fruits.

(Governments of Greater European Powers, New York, 1956, p. ix.) Barker's, Ernest essay on The Development of Public Services in Western Europe, 1660–1930 (London, 1944)Google Scholar and Brinton's, CraneAnatomy of Revolution (New York, 1938)CrossRefGoogle Scholar are outstanding examples of political comparison across the centuries—though both are limited to countries in the West. Such works as Finer's, HermanTheory and Practice of Modern Government (rev. ed., New York, 1949)Google Scholar, Friedrich's, Carl J.Constitutional Government and Democracy (rev. ed., Boston, 1950)Google Scholar, and MacIver's, R. M.Web of Government (New York, 1947)Google Scholar distinguish themselves from most other general treatments of the subject not only by their systematic (rather than country-by-country) organization, but also by their richer historical and philosophical perspective.

21 See, e.g., Webster, Donald E., The Turkey of AtatürK, Philadelphia, 1939Google Scholar; Fortes and Evans-Pritchard, op.cit.; Schrieke, Bertram J. O., Indonesian Sociological Studies, 1, The Hague, 1955Google Scholar; Berger, Morroe, Bureaucracy and Society in Modern Egypt, Princeton, N.J., 1957.Google Scholar

22 See, e.g., Kuznets, Simon, Moore, Wilbert E., and Spengler, Joseph J., eds, Economic Growth: Brazil, India, Japan, Durham, N.C., 1955Google Scholar; and a forthcoming study, The State and Economic Growth, ed. by Hugh G. J. Aitken. Both volumes incorporate a series of papers originally prepared for conferences sponsored by the Social Science Research Council's Committee on Economic Growth.

23 Challener, Richard D. and Lee, Maurice Jr “History and the Social Sciences: The Problem of Communications,” American Historical Review, LXI (1956), p. 337.Google Scholar

24 See, e.g., Morris, Bertram, “The Substance of the Social Contract,” in Konvitz, Milton R. and Murphy, Arthur E., eds., Essays in Political Theory Presented to George H. Sabine, Ithaca, N.Y., 1948, pp. 113–29.Google Scholar

25 See Plato, Nomoi, passim; and Rousseau, Contrat Social, Book ii, ch. 7.