Most Soviet committees, from Politburo to local government executive committee, use procedures designed to encourage broad organizational participation in policy making. These procedures help to minimize capricious policy making and ensure the cooperation of officials responsible for implementing policy. Most importantly, the broad representation of institutional interests in collegial forums reflects the need for institutional checks and balances. The cost of committee procedures is inefficiency. Committee decision making also tends to produce policy that works well in an era of economic prosperity and international stability, but less well during periods of economic shortfall or foreign crisis.

Empirical research has demonstrated the utility of an interest group approach for the study of Soviet politics, as well as for interpreting the politics of tsarist Russia and Eastern European communist systems and the dissident movements. The flowering of group activity in Poland and Czechoslovakia at certain times and the activity of dissent movements show, however, the rudimentary character of “normal” interest groups in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. Although the Soviet system has changed since Stalin's death, it remains fundamentally authoritarian in character. The use of models, such as totalitarian, authoritarian, bureaucratic, corporatist, and pluralist, hinders rather than facilitates an understanding of Soviet politics and of the place of interest groups in that system.

The concept of the “security dilemma” is applied to alliance relations in multipolar and bipolar systems. The dilemma involves a choice between support or nonsupport of allies, and tension between fears of entrapment and abandonment. It interacts with the adversary security dilemma in which the choice is between firmness and conciliation toward the opponent. The multipolar interaction is illustrated by a survey of the 1904–1914 period, the bipolar by reference to the contemporary crisis in NATO. The alliance security dilemma is more severe, and places more constraints on allies' policies toward adversaries, in multipolar than in bipolar alliances. The weakness of the dilemma in the contemporary system is a major reason for the current persistence of conflict in NATO.

Whether political participation is positively related to economic equality is still a paradox. This paper explores the relations among political participation, economic equality, and economic development in Japan after World War II. There was little income bias in political participation in Japan during its period of rapid growth, partly because farmers who benefited inadequately from economic development participated more in politics. This rural bias in participation allowed significant redistribution of income from the urban to rural sector through the budgeting system, thus preventing the natural tendency of widening income inequality at the early stage of development. However, high rural participation did not undermine the rate of growth because it was supportive participation. Farmers overwhelmingly supported the incumbent Liberal Democratic Party, support that enhanced government's continuity and in turn nurtured growth.

Western observers remain fundamentally divided on the motives behind Soviet policy toward the West. An examination of these motives must be based on understanding elite opinion in the U.S.S.R. on East-West issues, as well as the scope of political conflict and consensus. The writings and public comments of prominent Soviet foreign policy officials over the last decade reveal a broad spectrum of views and persisting signs of political tension on issues of arms control policy, foreign trade and economic ties, and competition with the West in the Third World. Reform-minded officials have pressed for expansion of cooperation with the West as a matter of practical self-interest in the age of nuclear weapons and advanced technology. More conservative officials have resisted efforts to mute competition and have sought to preserve more insular policies. Proponents of expanded ties to the West openly pressed their case when détente flourished in the early 1970s, and many of their arguments found reflection in statements by the Soviet leadership. The arguments of conservative spokesmen have resonated anew, however, as East-West tensions have mounted since the late 1970s.

The article develops an expected-utility model of extended deterrence and tests it on 54 historical cases. Successful deterrence is associated with close economic and political ties between the defender and the state it is trying to protect, and with a local military balance in favor of the defender. Deterrence success is not systematically associated with the presence of a military alliance, with the overall strategic military balance, with possession of nuclear weapons, or with the defender's firmness or lack of it in previous crises. If deterrence fails, only alliance and the military value of the state under attack are associated with the defender's willingness to go to war.

Was the Falkland conflict either preventable or predictable? Based on the available evidence, it is apparent that the British could not have been expected to foresee the outbreak of the war. Both Argentina and Britain relied on simplistic and misleading preconceptions or strategic assumptions, leading to a war that might have been avoidable. Issues of conflict and crisis warning are illuminated in this essay, and the Falklands War is related to past instances of “warning failure” and surprise attack. The crucial importance of the strategic logic of decision makers is emphasized. In addition, the lessons of the war for the 1980s highlight the changing nature of the international systemic context and the heightened prospects for crisis and conflict both between allies and within the third world.

Soviet regional leaders were modestly successful in their attempts to add local projects to the agenda of forthcoming five-year economic plans at Party Congresses during the Brezhnev era. The volume of local demands expressed in Congress speeches steadily increased from the 24th to the 26th Congresses, as did the frequency of speaker participation in petitioning for investment. This seems to reflect the gradual legitimation of regional consultation in long-range planning and the sharpening politics of stringency of the latter Brezhnev era. While the vast majority of requests were purely provincial in scope, broader regional interests were articulated to an increasing extent at the 25th and 26th Congresses. Requests respecting agriculture were the most frequent, followed by energy and fuels, water resources, and transportation.

Extensive secularization is frequently held to be a necessary condition for political modernity. The author argues that the relationship between religion and the modern state is considerably more complex than this general proposition suggests. It is necessary to specify particular ideological models of the modern state, since these differ significantly from one another; and it is necessary to specify particular religions in their contemporary manifestations, since these also differ in important ways. A detailed analysis of this type suggests that there is no general incompatibility between the main religions of the third world and widely shared, nonideological features of political modernity. Specific religions are shown to be incompatible with some specific forms of the modern state, while presenting no significant obstacle to other models of political modernity.

The U.S. Catholic bishops' pastoral letter on war and peace argues that nuclear deterrence is conditionally morally acceptable. Their concluding message is therefore not an exhortation to nuclear pacifism. The author argues, first, that the bishops' conditional moral acceptance of deterrence does not follow from their premises and the evidence presented to them; second, that this justification of deterrence, even if consistently arrived at, does not sanction current U.S. deterrence policy; third, that the conditions the bishops place on deterrence are incompatible with the type of deterrence they attempt to justify; and fourth, that there is no serious attempt currently being made to meet these conditions. The moral obligation that follows for those who take the bishops' principles seriously is nuclear conscientious objection.

Since World War II, a number of advances have been made in theories of revolution and political change. One approach not yet utilized is moral development theory, which adds a normative dimension to existing structural and psychological concepts. In this paper, moral development variables are related to the positive and negative rights that modern men seek within the dominance structures in which they live. Dominance patterns may become perverted due to social change and the amoral behavior of dominant individuals. Political movements characterized by demands for positive or negative rights arise as a reaction to these perversions. Whether change is restorative, accommodative, or transformative depends upon the subsequent patterns of interaction among individuals who are amoral, allegiant, or morally mature.

Although it is commonly argued that there is a connection between tariff levels and business conditions, this hypothesis has not been subjected to systematic empirical analysis or given any theoretical basis. The author presents two complementary theories of the movement of tariff levels in response to changing business conditions. Both explain tariff changes in terms of the changing political demands of business firms, and both rely on the business cycle to drive these changing demands. One theory is a conventional argument about changing opportunities for entry and exit; the other treats firms as satisficers. The theories yield similar predictions. Preliminary empirical analysis, while consistent with both, does not differentiate between them.

While the Soviet system has demonstrated an unusual degree of immunity to the worldwide upsurge of ethnic self-assertion, rising national consciousness among both Russian and non-Russian populations poses a growing, although not necessarily unmanageable, problem for the Soviet leadership. Several issues bearing directly on the resources, power, and status of different nationalities lie at the heart of current debates: the nature and future of the federal system; the pace and pattern of economic development; access to positions of political power; demographic policy; and cultural and linguistic status. Over the long term, the political mobilization of ethnicity is likely to be constrained by both intrinsic and systemic factors, encouraging national elites to focus on strategies and goals that will enhance their power within the system rather than challenging it directly.

Two logical problems appear to have impeded the development of an integrative understanding of international and foreign policy phenomena. The first has to do with the potential for foreign policy substitutability: through time and across space, similar factors could plausibly be expected to trigger different foreign policy acts. The second concerns the potential existence of “sometimes true,” domain-specific laws. It is the logical opposite of the substitution problem, suggesting that different processes could plausibly be expected to lead to similar results. Neither problem appears to be well understood in the current literature; if anything, both are ignored. Nevertheless, they are potentially important. Together, they suggest that scholars who are interested in developing a cumulative base of integrative knowledge about foreign policy and international relations phenomena need to rethink both their focus on middle-range theory and their application of the standard approaches. We recommend reconsideration of some of the “grand” theoretical approaches found in the “traditional” literature. A new synthesis of tradition and science and of grand, middle, and narrow approaches appears to be needed. Finally, in contrast to the arguments of proponents of a systems-level approach, we argue that the most fruitful avenues for theorizing and research are at the microlevel in which the focus is on decision making, expected utility calculations, and foreign policy interaction processes.

The author presents a conceptualization of different forms of misperception and the theoretical linkages by which they may lead to war under certain conditions. The forms of misperception most directly relevant to war include misperceptions of the capabilities and intentions of both adversaries and third states. The theoretical linkages to war, which vary across these different forms, include the intervening variables of military overconfidence, unsuccessful strategies of coercive diplomacy or appeasement, conflict spirals and arms races, preemptive strikes, or the failure to prepare for war or to attempt to deter the adversary. Particular attention is given to conceptual and methodological problems involved in the identification of misperceptions and in the assessment of their causal impact on war.

The paper presents a critical review of two major approaches to the analysis of agrarian societies in light of evidence taken from the scholarly literature on Africa. The first approach posits the existence of “natural” societies; the second, of “peasant” societies. The existence of such “precapitalist” societies is often invoked to account for patterns of change in contemporary rural societies. The author argues that these approaches are overly culturally and economically determined, and that they undervalue the importance of the state. Many of the so-called precapitalist features of these societies are themselves found to be products of the societies' encounter with agents of capitalism. Moreover, many result from the efforts of states to secure domination and control over rural populations.

The study of political leadership has undergone a shift of focus in recent years. Since the late 1960s, political scientists have been increasingly interested in the question of exactly how the persons identified as leaders influence the political process. Two recent studies are critically examined: Paige's, based on a systems or macrolevel approach, concerns itself mainly with leadership as a phenomenon within the context of a political system which acts upon it and upon which it impinges; Burns's, based on a sociopsychological or microlevel approach, emphasizes the interaction between leaders and followers as an engagement of persons with diverse predispositions and motivations. The authors focus on different aspects of the same general set of phenomena, but they share a common goal. Both seek a vehicle on which to move toward a general theory that explains how leadership acts as a causative phenomenon in a polity. The clarification of their differences and complimentariness offers new opportunities for further research, theoretical or descriptive.

In his book The War Trap Bruce Bueno de Mesquita claims to offer a deductive theory of international conflict based on the assumption that foreign policy makers attempt to maximize their expected utility. The theory is subjected to a systematic empirical test that seems to provide impressive confirmation. The first part of this article examines Bueno de Mesquita's theory and argues that it cannot be derived from his assumptions. The second part examines the operational version of the theory, which was the one actually tested, and argues that it can be more plausibly interpreted as a version of a different theory—one that Bueno de Mesquita claims to have discredited. The essay concludes by discussing the significance of this book with regard to the question of whether theories of individual rational choice can explain foreign policy decisions.

The conventional wisdom of the sixties and early seventies held that, except in the very long run, rapid development and human rights are competing concerns. Needs satisfaction, income equality, and civil and political rights were regularly held to be luxury goods. An examination of the development experiences of Brazil and South Korea, however, shows much of this conventional wisdom to have been mistaken. Rapid growth and development can be achieved without sacrificing social and economic equity. Furthermore, theoretical considerations suggest that even civil and political rights are more compatible with sustained rapid development than is frequently recognized.

This review article interprets Michael Walzer's Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality as a radical argument for community. It demonstrates the continuity between this volume, in which the particular community and its own moral understanding is the foundation of justice, and Walzer's study of international relations in terms of universal human rights m Just and Unjust Wars. It questions the appropriateness of Walzer's conception of community, of membership, and of shared moral understanding for heterogeneous and differentiated modern societies, and in particular for the United States. It defends liberalism, with its indirect market relations and legal formalism, against Walzer's communitarian challenge, with its substantive agreement among members about the meaning, value, and distribution of goods.