The recent growth of minority nationalist movements poses the conceptual question of the validity of social science theories dealing with national integration, and the practical question of assessing the options open to governments faced with nationalistic agitations and demands for secession. Older theories predicting the decline of ethnic and cultural conflicts have been challenged by the theory of internal colonialism and by a group of theories stressing the durability of ethnic loyalties. The theory of internal colonialism is analyzed and found to be unhelpful. The durability of ethnic loyalties is accepted; four propositions are advanced to explain the growth of minority nationalist movements. It is suggested that this is a rational development in view of recent changes in the international order. Canadian and British experience indicates that it is difficult for governments to prevent demands for secession from arising. However, the growth of interdependence has reduced the significance of secession; this view is supported by a brief analysis of relations between the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic.

Decision makers in international crises seek to reconcile two values: on the one hand, avoiding the loss of prestige and credibility that capitulation would entail and, on the other, avoiding war. These values conflict with each other, in the sense that any policy designed to further one of them will jeopardize the other. Cognitive theory suggests that in ambiguous circumstances a decision maker will suppress uncomfortable value conflicts, conceptualizing his dilemma in such a way that the values appear to be consonant. President Kennedy's process of decision and rationalization in the Cuban missile crisis fits this pattern. He contended that compromise would allay the risk of war in the short run only at the cost of increasing it in the long run. Thus, he saw his policy of no compromise as furthering both the goal of maintaining U.S. prestige and credibility and the goal of avoiding war.

Contemporary Soviet doctrine on international relations emphasizes changes in the relationships of both domestic and world political structures; all the processes of restructuring are said to be “organically” interconnected. An extensive reconceptualization of domestic processes of social change has provided ideological legitimation for elites in the highly bureaucratized Soviet system. Meanwhile, according to Soviet spokesmen, the world correlation of forces has shifted decisively in favor of the U.S.S.R. Because of this change in the world balance, the Soviets claim the power to set the rules in international relations. The new Brezhnev Doctrine projects the U.S.S.R. as the center of the world, largely determining the direction and pace of political change. The Soviet leaders view detente in terms of rational acceptance by the “imperialist camp” of unavoidable processes of restructuring favorable to the “socialist camp.”

Qualitative analysis of China's behavior in five situations of international conflict suggests several important similarities in the structure and sequence of Peking's actions. These similarities imply the existence of a relatively stable and coherent strategy of conflict management, and provide a basis for inferring the nature of this strategy. As a result of China's strategic vulnerability, this strategy places a major emphasis on engaging in confrontations with stronger adversaries only under carefully controlled conditions, and on manipulating the “incidental” aspects of these confrontations (e.g., time, place, target, and scale of confrontation) to Peking's advantage. Peking's relative success in applying this strategy is assessed in terms of the “coercive diplomacy” model discussed by Alexander George et al. This assessment identifies areas of strength and weakness in the Chinese approach to conflict management.

When detente emerged as the focal point of American foreign policy in the early 1970's, the issue of whether or not communist political systems were becoming more like Western democracies over time (i.e., “converging”) was raised. This paper assesses political scientists' efforts to analyze such a hypotheses, particularly the implication that socioeconomic changes called “development” and “modernization” co-vary with fundamental political change. After identifying three components of the convergence hypothesis—pluralism, nationalism, and legitimacy—the author examines published research for empirical evidence regarding these phenomena. He stresses the similarities and differences of political change among communist states. Convergence theory is found to be inadequate in most respects for understanding the relationships between socioeconomic and political changes, although various political trends (such as pluralization) are evident.

Renzo De Felice's most recent publications, Mussolini il duce and Fascism: An Informal Introduction to Its Theory and Practice, have caused considerable consternation among both the lay and academic public. De Felice has suggested that generic fascism, and particularly Italian Fascism, may have displayed some progressive and revolutionary features. He goes on to suggest that Italian Fascism shared some affinities with the traditional “left.” Most of these contentions are well supported in the specialized literature; while they may cause some political discomfort, they should generate little intellectual resistance. The discussion concerning sensitive political issues has caused scholars to neglect some important methodological theses which De Felice is prepared to defend. The most critical issue turns on the role and legitimacy of generalizing over an ill-defined generic fascism. De Felice has attempted to restrict the characterization “fascist” to one or two strictly European regimes. The article concludes that there are no methodological grounds for such a restriction.

Robert W. Tucker's The Inequality of Nations is a critical work on Third-World egalitarianism and those in the First and Third World who urge greater equality among states. Inequality, maintains Tucker, is built into the system of states; new sensibilities that question inequality are thus unwarranted and historically groundless. This essay subjects Tucker's views and the broader neoconservative consensus on global egalitarianism to a critical assessment.

In recent years there has been quite a growth in the corpus of research on legislatures, so that today studies of the legislature are extant for about two dozen countries. Studies of Third-World representative assemblies have demonstrated a remarkable degree of “linkage” between legislators and constituents. Alongside research on European and Asian legislatures, these inquiries make possible a better understanding of the contributions of legislative institutions to political integration. More generally, the accumulating literature on legislatures permits the construction of functional typologies which are more empirically adequate than earlier ones.