Showing papers on "Politics published in 1979"

Ideology and Curriculum

Abstract: Preface to the 25th Anniversary Third Edition Preface to the Second Edition 1. On Analyzing Hegemony 2. Ideology and Cultural and Economic Reproduction 3. Economics and Control in Everyday School Life (with Nancy King) 4. Curricular History and Social Control (with Barry Franklin) 5. The Hidden Curriculum and the Nature of Conflict 6. Systems Management and the Ideology of Control 7. Commonsense Categories and the Politics of Labeling 8. Beyond Ideological Reproduction 9. Pedagogy, Patriotism, and Democracy: Ideology and Education after September 11 10. On Analyzing New Hegemonic Relations: An Interview

Dependency and development in Latin America

Abstract: The theory of imperialist capitalism, as is well known, has so far attained its most significant treatment in Lenin’s works. This is not only because Lenin attempts to explain transformations of the capitalist economies that occurrred during the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth, but is mainly because of the political and historical implications contained in his interpretations. In fact, the descriptive arguments of Lenin’s theory of imperialism were borrowed from Hobson’s analysis. Other writers had already presented evidence of the international expansion of the capitalist economies and nations. Nevertheless, Lenin, inspired by Marx’s views, was able to bring together evidence to the effect that economic expansion is meaningless if we do not take into consideration the political and historical aspects with which economic factors are intimately related. From Lenin’s perspective, imperialism is a new form of the capitalist mode of production. This new form cannot be considered a different mode of economic organization, insofar as capital accumulation based on private ownership of the means of production and exploitation of the labor force remain the basic features of the system. But its significance is that of a new stage of capitalism.

Democracy in plural societies : a comparative exploration

Abstract: While it may be difficult to achieve and maintain stable democratic governments in countries with deep religious, ideological, linguistic, cultural, or ethnic cleavages, Lijphart argues that it is not at all impossible. Through the analysis of political systems in six continents, he demonstrates that what he calls consociational democracy can be successful in severely divided or plural societies. "Here, once again, Arend Lijphart is directing our attention to matters which will surely engage much of the attention of students of comparative politics in the next decade." G. Bingham Powell, Jr., American Political Science Review "A study which can speak to such a wide audience in political science deserves a warm welcome from the profession." Government and Opposition "A copybook example of the comparative method of political analysis, as well as indispensable reading for all who have an interest in the nature and prospects of representative democracy, whether in Europe or beyond."-The Times Higher Education Supplement "This well-written work, containing a wealth of information on politics of many diverse nations, is highly recommended."-Library Journal

The Credential Society: An Historical Sociology of Education and Stratification

Abstract: Preface to the Legacy Edition Foreword, by Tressie M. Cottom Foreword, by Mitchell L. Stevens 1. The Myth of Technocracy 2. Organizational Careers 3. The Political Economy of Culture 4. The United States in Historical Time 5. The Rise of the Credential System 6. The Politics of Professions 7. The Politics of a Sinecure Society References Index

Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process Under Monopoly Capitalism

Abstract: Since the 1930s, industrial sociologists have tried to answer the question, Why do workers not work harder? Michael Burawoy spent ten months as a machine operator in a Chicago factory trying to answer different but equally important questions: Why do workers work as hard as they do? Why do workers routinely consent to their own exploitation? "Manufacturing Consent," the result of Burawoy's research, combines rich ethnographical description with an original Marxist theory of the capitalist labor process. "Manufacturing Consent" is unique among studies of this kind because Burawoy has been able to analyze his own experiences in relation to those of Donald Roy, who studied the same factory thirty years earlier. Burawoy traces the technical, political, and ideological changes in factory life to the transformations of the market relations of the plant (it is now part of a multinational corporation) and to broader movements, since World War II, in industrial relations.

Speaking Truth to Power: The Art and Craft of Policy Analysis

Abstract: One of the foremost experts in public policy here attempts not only to describe what public policy is, but given societal changes in the last two decades, to account for its present status. To learn from the past in order to establish public policy as a discipline in its own right, Wildavsky traces its motifs from their beginnings in the 1960s to the 1980s. Starting from the premise that there has been growing polarization of political elites, he shows how public policy as a field has had to face increased politicization. For Wildavsky, the field of public policy needs to incorporate more awareness of the human aspects of policy making: he emphasizes the political choices to be made in a competitive environment and the social relations that sustain them. When the first specialist schools devoted solely to public policy came into existence in the 1960s, the programs of the Great Society were their main impetus. With the disillusionment and failure of the Great Society, the identity of public policy became transformed. New theoretical issues had to be addressed. In this volume, Wildavsky provides a foundation for the theory no less than the practice of policy-making. "Aaron Wildavsky" is professor of political science, University of California, Berkeley. He founded the School of Public Policy there, and is presently its Director. He was formerly Director of the Russell Sage Foundation. He was the President if the American Political Science Association for the years 1986-1987.

Economic Discontent and Political Behavior: The Role of Personal Grievances and Collective Economic Judgments in Congressional Voting

Abstract: It is widely assumed that political action is motivated most powerfully by issues that impinge immediately and tangibly upon private life. For example, this assumption pervades the aggregate research that has reported consistent relationships between general economic conditions and congressional election outcomes (e.g., Kramer, 1971). Our analysis of individual-level data, however, indicates that voting in congressional elections from 1956 to 1976 was influenced hardly at all by personal economic grievances. Those voters unhappy with changes in their financial circumstances, or those who had recently been personally affected by unemployment, showed little inclination to punish candidates of the incumbent party for their personal misfortunes. The connection between economic conditions and politics was provided, instead, by judgments of a more general, collective kind -- e.g., by judgments regarding recent trends in general business conditions, and, more powerfully, by judgments about the relative competence of the two major parties to manage national economic problems. These collective economic judgments had little to do with privately experienced economic discontents. Rather they stemmed from voters' partisan predispositions and from their appraisal of changes in national economic conditions.

Power: Its Forms, Bases, and Uses

Abstract: In one grand effort, this is an anatomy of power, a history of the ways in which it has been defined, and a study of its forms (force, manipulation, authority, and persuasion), its bases (individual and collective resources, political mobilization), and its uses. The issues that Dennis Wrong addresses range from the philosophical and ethical to the psychological and political. Much of the work is punctuated with careful examples from history. While the author illuminates his discussion with references to Weber, Marx, Freud, Plato, Dostoevsky, Orwell, Hobbes, Arendt, and Machiavelli, he keeps his arguments grounded in contemporary practical issues, such as class conflicts, multi-party politics, and parent-child relationships. In his new introduction, prepared for the 1995 edition of Power, the author reconsiders the concept of power, now locating it in the broader traditions of the social sciences rather than as a series of actions and actors within the sociological tradition. As a result. Wrong emphasizes such major distinctions as "power over" and "power to," and various conflations of power as commonly used. The new opening provides the reader with a deeper appreciation of the non-reductionist character of the book as a whole.

Public Choice III

Abstract: This book represents a considerable revision and expansion of Public Choice II (1989) Six new chapters have been added, and several chapters from the previous edition have been extensively revised The discussion of empirical work in public choice has been greatly expanded As in the previous editions, all of the major topics of public choice are covered These include: why the state exists, voting rules, federalism, the theory of clubs, two-party and multiparty electoral systems, rent seeking, bureaucracy, interest groups, dictatorship, the size of government, voter participation, and political business cycles Normative issues in public choice are also examined including a normative analysis of the simple majority rule, Bergson–Samuelson social welfare functions, the Arrow and Sen impossibility theorems, Rawls's social contract theory and the constitutional political economy of Buchanan and Tullock

Science and the sociology of knowledge

Abstract: The major contributors to the sociology of knowledge have agreed that the conclusions of science depend on social action only in a very limited sense. This view is examined critically and it is argued that scientific knowledge should be included fully within the scope of sociological analysis. The production of scientific knowledge is depicted as a process of negotiation, the outcome of which depends on participants' use of resources which are both technical and social. It is shown how cultural resources are taking over from the broader cultural milieu and incorporated into the body of certified knowledge; and how, in the wider political context, scientists' claims are conditioned and affected by their social allegiances.

Freedom in the World: Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Abstract: The Comparative Survey of Freedom is an institutional effort by Freedom House to monitor the progress and decline of political rights and civil lib-erties in 191 nations and 59 related territories. These year-end reviews of freedom began in 1955, when they were called the Balance Sheet of Free-dom and, still later, the Annual Sur-vey of the Progress of Freedom. This program was expanded in the early 1970s, and has appeared in Freedom Review since 1973. It has also been issued in a more developed context as a yearbook since 1978. Since 1989, the Survey project has been a year-long effort produced by regional experts, consultants and hu-man rights specialists. The Survey derives its information from a wide range of sources. Most valued of these are the many human rights activists, journalists, editors and political fig-ures around the world who keep us informed of the human rights situa-tion in their countries. Throughout the year. Freedom House personnel regularly conduct fact-finding missions to gain more in-depth knowledge of the vast political transformations affecting our world. During these week-to-month-long in-vestigations, we make every effort to meet a cross-section of political par-ties and associations, human rights monitors, religious figures, represen-tatives of both the private sector and trade union movement, academics and journalists. During the past year. Free-dom House staff traveled to numerous countries throughout most of the world's geographical and political re-gions. The Survey project team also consults a vast array of published source materials, ranging from the reports of other human rights organi-zations to often rare, regional news-papers and magazines. This year's Survey team includes: Adrian Karatnycky, Martin Edwin Anderson, Kristen Guida, Marshall Freeman Harris, Thomas R. Lansner, Arch Puddington, Leonard R. Sussman, and George Zarycky. The general edi-tor of Freedom in the World is Roger Kaplan; the managing editor is Tara Kelly. This year's research coordinator was Charles Graybow.

Personal politics: The roots of women's liberation in the civil rights movement and the new left

Abstract: 1. Prologue : cracks in the mold --2. Southern White women in a southern Black movement -- 3. Going south -- 4. Black power-catalyst for feminism -- 5. A reassertion of the personal -- 6. Let the people decide -- 7. The failure of success-women in the movement -- 8. The dam breaks -- 9. Personal politics

Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies

Abstract: "Political Action" is an innovative study of conventional and unconventional political behaviour in five developed nations. How and why do people engage in the various forms of political action and protest? What differences do age, education, and degree of deprivation make? An unusual example of cross-national collaboration that is a treasure-trove of data, a source of provocative explanations, and an exemplar of sophisticated research strategies. 'The whole of this book will be read only by specialists; it is an important book all the same. Drawing on survey data from Britain, Holland, West Germany, the United States and Austria, the authors seek to explain the waves of political protest that swept through the advanced industrial democracies in the late 1960's' - "The Economist", February 23, 1980.

Women in Western Political Thought

Abstract: Introduction to the 2013 Edition ix Acknowledgements xix Introduction 3 PART I. PLATO 1. Plato and the Greek Tradition of Misogyny 15 2. Philosopher Queens and Private Wives 28 3. Female Nature and Social Structure 51 PART II. ARISTOTLE 4. Woman's Place and Nature in a Functionalist World 73 PART III. ROUSSEAU 5. Rosseau and the Modern Patriarchal Tradition 99 6. The Natural Woman and Her Role 106 7. Equality and Freedom - for Men 140 8. The Fate of Rosseau's Heroines 167 PART IV. MILL 9. John Stuart Mill, Liberal Feminist 197 PART V. FUNCTIONALISM, FEMINISM AND THE FAMILY 10. Women and Functionalism, Past and Present 233 11. Persons, Women, and the Law 247 12. Conclusions 274 Appendix to Chapter 2 305 Afterword to the 1992 edition 309 Notes 341 Bibliography 387 Index 399

The New authoritarianism in Latin America

Abstract: While one of the most important attempts to explain the rise of authoritarian regimes and their relationship to problems of economic development has been the "bureaucratic-authoritarian model," there has been growing dissatisfaction with various elements of this model In light of this dissatisfaction, a group of leading economists, political scientists, and sociologists was brought together to assess the adequacy; of the model and suggest directions for its reformulation This volume is the product of their discussions over a period of three years and represents an important advance in the critique and refinement of ideas about political development Part One provides an overview of the issues of social science analysis raised by the recent emergence of authoritarianism in Latin America and contains chapters by David Collier and Fernando Henrique Cardoso The chapters in Part Two address the problem of explaining the rise of bureaucratic authoritarianism and are written by Albert Hirschman, Jose Serra, Robert Kaufman, and Julio Coder In Part Three Guillermo O'Donnell, James Kurth, and David Collier discuss the likely future patterns of change in bureaucratic authoritarianism, opportunities for extending the analysis to Europe, and priorities for future research The book includes a glossary and an extensive bibliography

The political order of a free people

Abstract: Incisive, straightforward, and eloquent, this third and concluding volume of F. A. Hayek's comprehensive assessment of the basic political principles which order and sustain free societies contains the clearest and most uncompromising exposition of the political philosophy of one of the world's foremost economists.

Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s

Abstract: In the mid 1930s, North America's Great Plains faced one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in world history. Donald Worster's classic chronicle of the devastating years between 1929 and 1939 tells the story of the Dust Bowl in ecological as well as human terms. Now, twenty-five years after his book helped to define the new field of environmental history, Worster shares his more recent thoughts on the subject of the land and how humans interact with it. In a new afterword, he links the Dust Bowl to current political, economic and ecological issues-including the American livestock industry's exploitation of the Great Plains, and the on-going problem of desertification, which has now become a global phenomenon. He reflects on the state of the plains today and the threat of a new dustbowl. He outlines some solutions that have been proposed, such as "the Buffalo Commons," where deer, antelope, bison and elk would once more roam freely, and suggests that we may yet witness a Great Plains where native flora and fauna flourish while applied ecologists show farmers how to raise food on land modeled after the natural prairies that once existed.

National Parks: The American Experience

Abstract: Praise for the second, revised edition: "Runte's book is must reading for all those who share his love for and commitment to the national park ideal...Certain to be a standard work for years to come. The many black-and-white photographs are a welcome inclusion to this thoughtful, intelligent history." - "Bloomsbury Review". "While Runte makes valiant attempts at objectivity, his passion for parks shines through this interesting treatise. The passion, plus the scholarly analysis, make it a valuable book for all concerned with federal lands and especially the foresters and other resource managers who manage and legislate our national parks." - "Journal of Forestry". "Remains the best book on national parks. Breaking away from the traditional political history of the National Park Service, Runte generates new understanding of the changing perceptions of environmentalism." - "New Mexico Historical Review". "Essential reading for the student who has an interest in conserving natural ecosystems." - "Journal of Applied Ecology". "An excellent record of our history, our follies, confusions, political constraints, and our very few successes in environmental planning." - "Science Books and Films". This third edition includes a new essay on recent environmental issues and concerns, especially as they center on Yellowstone National Park. Alfred Runte, a Seattle-based environmental historian, is the author of "Yosemite: The Embattled Wilderness" (Nebraska 1990).

Political parties in Western democracies

Abstract: Presents a brilliant, persuasive case that American political parties, so often dismissed as immature or ineffective compared with their European counterparts, are in fact old and durable political organizations, seriving well the needs of a pluralistic society What chiefly distinguishes this work is the inclusion of considerable material on American partics in a comparative context to the analysis of British, Scandinavian, European, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand political parties

Organizational Politics: Tactics and Characteristics of Its Actors

Abstract: Eighty-seven practicing managers, including thirty chief executive officers, identify the tactics used by political actors and the personal characteristics seen as most effective in organizational politics.

On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966-1978

Abstract: At issue are the politics of language; the uses of scholarship; and the topics of racism, history, and motherhood among others called forth by Rich as "part of the effort to define a female consciousness which is political, aesthetic, and erotic, and which refuses to be included or contained in the culture of passivity."

Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 3: The Political Order of a Free People

Abstract: Friedrich August von Hayek, a winner of the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize for Economic Science1 and a Professor Emeritus of the University of Chicago, concludes with this book a three-volume treatise entitled Law, Legislation and Liberty. This particular volume, The Political Order of a Free People,2 is an opaque, obscure, and occasionally contradictory work; it is an uncompromising rejection of the political structure of every modern democratic society. In his two previous volumes,3 Hayek argued that theorists and policymakers, by regulating the economic order to bring about social justice, create grave threats to individual liberty. With this volume, he directs our attention beyond the activities of the policymakers to the political structure of the systems in which they operate. Hayek considers the organization of modern democracies destructive not only of individual liberty, but of democracy itself, and acccordingly presents his alternative Political Order of a Free People. Before examining the path of Hayek's analysis, it may be helpful to point out the ideological basis of his criticisms. Hayek has established himself as an unyielding advocate of the free-market economy; he appears to distrust government in an almost passionate manner. He seems to tolerate virtually no governmental restrictions on the economic freedom of individuals, and thus deplores any and all attempts to redistribute wealth or income by legislation.

Formality and Informality in Communicative Events

Abstract: This paper examines the analytical utility of the concept of “formality” in social-cultural anthropology, particularly the ethnography of communication. A survey of literature indicates that “formality” actually incorporates several distinct descriptive dimensions that do not necessarily correlate. Separating these dimensions facilitates the comparison of social occasions, viewed in terms of their communicational structure. The occasions compared here are political meetings among Wolof (Senegal), Mursi (Ethiopia), and Ilongots (Philippines). It is suggested that formality in communicative events can serve not only the force of tradition or the coercive power of a political establishment, but also creativity and change. [formality, political meetings, ethnography of communication, sociolinguistics, situational analysis]

Politics and the bureaucracy: Policymaking in the fourth branch of government

Abstract: Intended as a core text for the course on the Bureaucracy taught in departments of political science, as well as a supplement for courses in Public Policy or Introduction in Public Administration.

The rational peasant

Abstract: I have made assumptions about individual behavior diverging from those of the moral economists. These assumptions have drawn attention to different features of villages and patron-client ties and have led to questions about the quality of welfare and insurance embedded in both villages and vertical patron-client ties. This, in turn, has demonstrated that there is more potential value to markets, relative to the actual performance level of these other institutions. Commercialization of agriculture and the development of strong central authorities are not wholly deleterious to peasant society. This is not because capitalism and/or colonialism are necessarily more benevolent than moral economists assume, but because traditional institutions are harsher and work less well than is often believed. Depending on the specific conditions, commercialization can be good or bad for peasants. In many cases the shift to narrow contractual ties with landlords increases both peasant security and his opportunity to benefit from markets. In Latin America, “the patron held life-or-death judicial authority over his dependent serfs, and the murder of peasants or the violation of their wives and daughters was not uncommon.” Paige, , p. 167. As long ago as the fifth century, a monk described the transformation that overcame freemen who became part of estates: “all these people who settled on the big estates underwent a strange transformation as if they had drunk of Circe's cup, for the rich began to treat as their own property these strangers.” Hilton, , quoting J. LeGeof, p. 58. Single-stranded relationships may be far more secure for the peasant because there may be less coercion, an absence of monopolies, competition among landlords, and less need for submission of self. The development of an independent trading class can give small peasants easy low-risk access to international markets and a way of escaping the domination of large lords who use coercion to control the economy despite inefficient practices. Independent small traders like the Chinese in Vietnam, for example, are opposed not by peasants, but by large landowners. In particular, erosion of the “traditional” terms of exchange between landlord and tenant is not the only way for peasants to turn against large lords. It is not the case that if the patron guarantees the traditional subsistence level, peasants will cede him continuous legitimacy; peasants can and do fight for autonomy when better alternatives exist in the market. There are often better opportunities for peasants in markets than under lords, and markets can reduce the bargaining power of the lords. See, for example, Blum, “The Rise of Serfdom in Eastern Europe,” p. 816; Breman, , p. 75; Hilton, , p. 214. Indeed, it was not uncommon in Europe for men to buy their way out of clientage for the security and freedom of markets. Rodney Hilton, “Peasant Society, Peasant Movements and Feudalism in Medieval Europe.” in Henry Landsberger, (Barnes and Noble, 1973), pp. 67-94, 81; Blum, et al., , p. 23. One need only note the land rush in the new areas of Cochinchina after the French made it habitable to see that markets can be an enormous opportunity for the poor. Throughout the world, peasants have fought for access to markets when they were secure enough to want to raise their economic level and “redefine” cultural standards! In medieval England, when peasant conditions were comparatively secure. The essential quarrel between the peasantry and the aristocracy was about access to the market. It was not that the peasants were worried about the impact of the market in a disintegrating sense upon their community; what they wanted was to be able to put their produce on the market and to have a freer market in land which would enable them to take advantage of the benefits of the market. Hilton. “Medieval Peasants - Any Lesson?,” p. 217. The rise of strong central states and the growth of a market economy, then, even in the guise of colonialism and capitalism cannot always be directly equated with a decline in peasant welfare due to the destruction of traditional villages and/or elite bonds. In the short-run, local village elites with the skills to ally with outside powers may reap the most benefits from new institutional arrangements, but, in the long-run, new elites emerge which ally with the peasantry against both feudalism and colonialism. As Weisser notes for Spain, “anarchism sought to sweep away the remnants of that old system by joining with those elements in the outside world that had begun a similar attack.” , p. 117. Indirectly, peasants clearly benefit from the growth of law and order and the resulting stability, as well as the vast improvements in communications. The numerous and onerous taxes of the colonial period - as applied by village elites - increased stratification in the majority of countries, but the colonial infrastructure also led to wider systems of trade, credit, and communications that helped keep peasants alive during local famines. As Day has noted of Java, local crop failures were so serious in precolonial times before there was a developed communications and trade network “because it was impossible to supply a deficit in one part of the country by drawing on the surplus which might exist in another.” Day. , p. 25. Colonialism is ugly, but the quality of the minimum subsistence floor improved in most countries. Geertz, , p. 80; Tom Kessinger, (University of California Press, 1974), p. 87; Charles Robequain, (Oxford University Press, 1941), p. 328. By stressing the common investment logic of intra-village patron-client and market relations I have attempted to show that given the actual performance levels of patrons and villages, neither decline nor decay of peasant institutions is necessary for peasants to enter markets. Further, peasant support for revolutions and protests may represent not decline and decay, but political competence.

Industrial relations and European state traditions

Abstract: In some western European countries trade unions and employers' organizations share responsibility with government for maintaining order and efficiency in the labour market as a matter of course. in others such a role is seen as an unacceptable interference with either the free market or the prerogatives of the state, or both. How can we explain these differences? How enduring are they? Do they matter? In the 1970s there seemed to be a growing popularity for the first approach, leading to the explosion of interest in neo-corporatism; did all that evaporate during the ostensibly neo-liberal 1980s? Colin Crouch tries to answer these questions with reference to fifteen western European nations. Using a combination of rational choice theory and historical analysis he traces the development of industrial relations systems in these countries from the 1870s to the present. He ends by seeking explanations for differences further back in time, showing that longer-term historical explanations of contemporary institutions are more necessary than most exercises in policy analysis prefer to accept. 'an outstanding example of the fusion of theoretical economic analysis with historical perspective. Recommended at all levels' Choice 'It is difficult to do justice to this oustanding book in a short review or at a single reading. Colin Crouch's ambitious comparative survey of states and industrial relations provides both an abstract framework for comparative study . . . and a framework for comparing the level and form of corporatism in industrial relations.' Political Studies

Hegel and Modern Society

Abstract: This rich study explores the elements of Hegel's social and political thought that are most relevant to our society today. Combating the prevailing post-World War II stereotype of Hegel as a proto-fascist, Charles Taylor argues that Hegel aimed not to deny the rights of individuality but to synthesise them with the intrinsic good of community membership. Hegel's goal of a society of free individuals whose social activity is expressive of who they are seems an even more distant goal now, and Taylor's discussion has renewed relevance for our increasingly globalised and industrialised society. This classic work is presented in a fresh series livery for the twenty-first century with a specially commissioned new preface written by Frederick Neuhouser.

How the Soviet Union is governed

Abstract: This is a new and thorough revision of a recognized classic whose first edition was hailed as the most authoritative account in English of the governing of the Soviet Union. Now, with historical material rearranged in chronological order, and with seven new chapters covering most of the last fifteen years, this edition brings the Soviet Union fully into the light of modern history and political science. The purposes of Fainsod's earlier editions were threefold: to explain the techniques used by the Bolsheviks and Stalin to gain control of the Russian political system; to describe the methods they employed to maintain command; and to speculate upon the likelihood oftheir continued control in the future. This new edition increases very substantially the attention paid to another aspect of the political process-how policy is formed, how the Soviet Union is governed. Whenever possible, Mr. Hough attempts to analyze the alignments and interrelationships between Soviet policy institutions. Moreover, he constantly moves beyond a description of these institutions to probe the way they work. Two chapters are devoted to the questions of individual political participation. Other chapters examine the internal organization of institutions and explore the ways in which the backgrounds of their officials influence their policy positions and alliances. The picture that emerges is an unprecedented account of the distribution of power in the Soviet Union.