At least since Aristotle, theorists have believed that political dis-content and its consequents—protest, instability, violence, revolution—depend not only on the absolute level of economic well-being, but also on the distribution of wealth. Contemporary political analysts have tried to test this ancient assumption using modern statistical methods. Their results are distressingly confusing. One cross-national investigation finds the commonsensical positive linear relation: the more the inequality, the greater the instability. A second study purports to show the opposite relation in the important case of South Vietnam: the greater the inequality, the less the support for revolution. And a third analysis, also of South Vietnam, detects no relation at all between inequality and rebellion.

In a period of search for politico-military détente between the major nuclear powers, one cannot avoid the question of whether the theories and categories for the analysis of international relations, especially those involving the role of military force, are appropriate and clarifying. Although they strive to make use of timeless categories, social scientists, especially when analyzing international relations, must take into consideration the changing historical context. In this paper I will attempt to reassess the well-known issue of the limits of military intervention in international relations by advanced industrial societies. I will seek to extend and formulate the ideas which, in The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait, were vaguely expressed in the notion of a constabulary.

The Soviet-American strategic arms limitation discussions and agreements have been widely welcomed not only as important steps toward tighter arms control but as a symbol of die entire process of East-West détente. For die first time since 1945, the two superpowers have shown themselves willing to put agreed limitations on their central strategic armaments. The SALT I talks imposed rough numerical ceilings on deployment. One of die major difficulties in the attempt to extend these limitations in SALT II is die formulation of qualitative restraints. Each side is under pressure to create improved weapons systems. Each is concerned lest the odier should achieve a breakthrough which would render its own systems ineffectual. Each needs to hedge against the possibility that the other might design around any particular set of arms control arrangements. In this paper I will examine die desire for innovation and die difficulties of control, and suggest a general framework within which the question of limitations might be further examined. In the first part, I will discuss the meaning of innovation and the ways in which it is organized and promoted. In die second, the reasons are examined why the two great powers seek advantages over each other in the area of R & D. Finally, I will look at some of the difficulties of achieving restraint by agreement and under verifiable conditions.

As a political component of the contemporary world, the Catholic il Church plays an important if ambivalent role in international affairs. On February 25, 1971, in Moscow, Archbishop Agostino Casaroli, head of the Vatican's bureau of Public Affairs, affixed die signature of die Holy See to the ratification of die International Treaty Limiting die Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. That same day, in London and Washington, die respective Apostolic Delegates to England and the United States signed identical documents. The participation of papal representatives in this international agreement raises a number of queries in the political order, not the least of which is the fundamental problem regarding die nature of the papacy as a sovereignty. No other religious institution in the modern world functions as bodi a church and a political organization that exchanges diplomatic representatives and claims total recognition as an independent member of die community of nations.

Political science “area studies,” or what the American Political Science Association calls “foreign and comparative government and politics” in order to insure that they not be confused with the biggest area study of them all, United States government and politics, have always posed difficulties for the Emily Posts of the discipline. Not a year goes by without a guardian of die methodological flame writing an article bemoaning the “ameoretical” quality of area studies or issuing a warning mat “The immersion in local materials may cast the researcher adrift far from any theoretical shore.”

What is the effect of the process of modernization on political stability? That is the question I want to explore theoretically. I will suggest that there are no plausible reasons for the expectation that the process of modernization is destabilizing, and also that there is no problem of political instability in transitional societies or anywhere else. Let us begin by examining some of the arguments used to support the thesis that modernization causes political instability.

No theory of world politics yet created is able to guide us into a new age, but scholars and statesmen persist in conceiving global designs that claim our attention. Many writers are tempted by a formidable problem: What is the “real” shape—or alternatively the preferred shape—of the world to come? The fruits they offer are varied in taste but often so appealing in appearance that students of international relations cannot refuse to try them.

The books that are the subject of this review share three important characteristics.

1. They deal exclusively, or at least predominantly, with the political experiences of some smaller European countries which have traditionally been terra incognita on the map of comparative politics. Most writing in the field of comparative politics has centered eidier on the larger developed countries or on the developing states in die Third World. The Scandinavian and Benelux countries, Austria, and Switzerland have eidier been neglected or treated as isolated phenomena, mainly of folkloristic interest. As a category, they have been written off (widi die exception of Austria) as “the sober parliamentary democracies,” or as examples (listed with a note of surprise) of “working multi-party systems.”