A resurgent conservatism rules the day in the United States not only in public affairs but also in political speculation. Frightened by the uneasy ghost of the barbarism that was embodied in German Nazism and Italian Fascism and by the spread of Russian-spawned totalitarianism, political speculation in this and other democratic countries now shrinks from the hazard inherent in a rationalistic effort to remold the world of public affairs. Inquiry turns to the adoration of our inheritance, to the discovery of neglected or undervalued virtues in the institutions as molded by our forebears, and to the wise prevision which they, in simpler crisis times, expressed in their statesmanship.

My own fundamental orientation toward government developed in the “progressive” decade before mankind's applecart was sharply tilted, if not completely upset, by the First World War. It rested upon an act of preference for a democratic, freely thinking, and freely associating society. It therefore shared something of the “divine discontent” felt by all political innovators, to whom the wisdom of the ancestors always has seemed incomplete and often inadequate to meet the demands of a constantly changing society.

Early in 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower presented to the Congress—and the country and his party—some 65 proposals for new legislation, over and above appropriations. This presentation was a massive affair. First came six weeks of well-publicized preliminaries: cabinet deliberations, congressional briefings, press conferences, and a fireside chat. Then, in three annual messages to Congress—a State of the Union Address, a Budget Message, and an Economic Report—the President set forth his bundle of proposals, elaborating certain aspects, outlining the rest. Along with these came seven supplementing special messages, each filling in details on some particular: Taft-Hartley, farm price supports, social security, health, housing, atomic energy, foreign aid, and trade. And following the messages Administration-approved bills, conveyors of the ultimate details, were introduced in Congress.

Throughout, one theme was emphasized: here was a comprehensive and coordinated inventory of the nation's current legislative needs, reflecting the President's own judgments, choices, and priorities in every major area of Federal action; in short, his “legislative program,” an entity distinctive and defined, its coverage and its omissions, both, delimiting his stand across the board. And—quite explicitly—this stand was being taken, this program volunteered, in order to give Congress an agenda, Republicans a platform, and voters a yardstick for 1954.

There is wide recognition that in the non-Western world profound social and cultural changes are taking place as traditional societies have been exposed to the ideas and the ways of the West. There is also general agreement that new political patterns and relationships are evolving in these countries. However, with respect to most non-Western countries, it remains difficult to foresee whether the consequences of social change are to be stable, viable political practices or endemic instabilities in government. In many cases, it is still an open question whether the future will bring them a liberal democratic form of politics or some type of authoritarian rule such as communism.

This state of affairs can be a challenge to the comparative method of political analysis. This is particularly so because most of the non-Western political systems have many features in common. They are generally the product of a traditional past in which the administration of government was the preserve of a select few. Many show the influence of a previous colonial rule, some even that of the same country. More important, they are often quite self-conscious about the problem of moving from a definite past to an idealized future.

If one compares the literature on American government and politics with that which concerns continental Europe, it is quite evident that the two fields of study in the last decades have proceeded on somewhat different assumptions as to the scope and methods of political science. This divergence is of relatively recent origin. Before World War I a substantial number of leading American students in this field had their training in European centers of learning, and brought back with them the rich tradition of European historical, philosophical, and legal scholarship.

With noteworthy exceptions the study of continental European political institutions still tends to be dominated by this historical, philosophical, and legal emphasis. The continuity of scholarship in the continental European area has been broken by the two world wars, by totalitarian regimes, by enemy occupation, and by the persistence of internal antagonism and cleavages. With the exception of a few years in the 1920's, the entire era since World War I has been one of catastrophe or the atmosphere of catastrophe in which scientific inquiry and the renewal of the scientific cadres could be carried on only for short periods, under the greatest handicaps, and with inadequate resources.

Almost all the recent work on the British Labor party has been concerned with analysis of the party's electoral performance or possibilities, interpretation and reinterpretation of party policy, or discussion of the ideological forces currently at work in the party. These studies have contributed greatly to our understanding of the policy of the party. But there have been only one or two recent works on the organization and composition of the Labor party, and hardly any on the organizational and policy-making importance of the affiliated trade unions which make up its electoral and financial strength. This is understandable in view of the fact that the trade union elements, unlike those in the party's political wing, have not generally provided the policy controversy upon which both publicists and academicians feed. But the strength and stability which the trade unions provide for the party are probably of more long-term importance than are the topical conflicts of the “political side.”

It is the purpose of this article to discuss the organization and functions of the British Labor party in terms of the formal and informal interrelations of the political and industrial elements, mainly during the years 1945–1953. Policy and policy conflicts are subordinated here to an institutional and statistical analysis of these interrelations.

Last September 29th, with over forty million voters eligible, Indonesia initiated its first parliamentary election since independence. Although the election of the 260-member, unicameral Parliament concluded November 29th, December 15th sees the voters again casting their ballots—this time for a 520-member constituent assembly charged with drafting Indonesia's first permanent constitution.

The struggle to carry out elections has been a difficult and protracted one. It has required a decade of strenuous effort characterized by armed struggle, domestic insecurity, shortages of trained personnel and equipment, problems of communication between the nation's hundreds of islands scattered over 3,000 miles from east to west, an overwhelmingly illiterate electorate and, recently at least, reluctance on the part of certain influential groups to hasten matters.

Whatever may be the outcome, the intent to hold elections has been present ever since the Indonesian Republic proclaimed its independence from the Netherlands on August 17, 1945. In a decree issued on November 3, 1945, for example, the Government of the Indonesian Republic avowed its intent to execute “the elections for members of the peoples' representative bodies in the month of January, 1946.” The decree in question was issued for the unique purpose of urging the formation of political parties.

The appointment of John M. Harlan of New York to the Supreme Court bench came not only as something of a surprise, but as a rather timely and significant one. It is not merely that he is the first justice who is a direct descendant of a previous member of the Court, but that in a fitting sense his appointment may be regarded as a long-overdue tribute to the services his grandfather rendered to the Court and to the nation, and to the causes which the elder Harlan so ably represented.

Of all the more prominent justices in Supreme Court history, John Marshall Harlan of Kentucky has been, for no obvious reason, the most neglected. The recently published biography of Justice William Johnson has restored to his place in history the only other justice who perhaps could compete with Harlan in the lack of attention paid a significant career.

Well-established “facts,” scholars know, are sometimes overtoppled by research. The “Piltdown man” is a recent case in point. So is the “Jukes family,” whose value to hereditists has collapsed under scientific scrutiny. Of considerably smaller magnitude is a case, just discovered, relating to the putative election of state legislators in single-member districts.

“Popular election from single-member districts is the prevailing method by which individual legislators are chosen,” a Committee of the American Political Science Association reports. Every other authority concurs. Multi-member elections, all agree, are atypical.

“With few exceptions,” Ogg and Ray informed students, “senators and members of lower houses are chosen in small, single-member districts.” Among other writers of the older texts, John Mathews cited “the prevalent system of … single-member districts.” Charles Beard asserted that “the rule of one member to each district is generally applied.” The same assertion was made by the Willoughbys, Lindsay Rogers, James Garner, and others. “For the purpose of choosing their own legislatures,” Willoughby and Rogers noted, “the states are divided into senatorial and representative districts from each of which one senator or one representative is elected.”

The student of American politics has displayed an increasing interest in the states as units of analysis. Since the states share a common institutional framework and cultural base, and at the same time differ in respect to economy, politics, and social structure, they provide excellent material for comparative studies. The political scientist has at hand a group of political units in which some of the most elusive variables are held constant. In the comparative study of American state politics, then, there is the promise that hypotheses about politics in general may be formulated and tested.

The first stage of analysis is classification. Since competition between political parties for public office is a basic concept in the study of American politics, the nature and degree of party competition provide important criteria for a classification of the states. It is the purpose of this paper to point up the difficulties involved in formulating a classification of the states according to their party systems and to suggest possible categories of party competition which such a classification might include.