POLITICAL SYSTEM

the set of formal legal institutions that constitute a government or a state. This is the definition adopted by many studies of the legal or constitutional arrangements of advanced political orders. More broadly defined, however, the term comprehends actual as well as prescribed forms of political behaviour, not only the legal organization of the state but also the reality of how the state functions. Still more broadly defined, the political system is seen as a set of processes of interaction or as a subsystem of the social system interacting with other nonpolitical subsystems, such as the economic system. This points to the importance of informal sociopolitical processes and emphasizes the study of political development. Traditional legal or constitutional analysis, using the first definition, has produced a huge body of literature on governmental structures, many of the specialized terms that are a part of the traditional vocabulary of political science, and several instructive classifying schemes. Similarly, empirical analysis of political processes and the effort to identify the underlying realities of governmental forms have yielded a rich store of data and an important body of comparative theory. The third definition has inspired much scholarly work that employs new kinds of data, new terms, and some new concepts and categories of analysis. The discussion that follows draws on all three approaches to the study of political systems. Additional reading General works Perhaps the single best introduction to the subjects covered in this article is Mary Hawkesworth and Maurice Kogan (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Government and Politics, 2 vol. (1992). Other excellent general works include Karl Loewenstein, Political Power and the Governmental Process, 2nd ed. (1965); Anton Bebler and Jim Seroka (eds.), Contemporary Political Systems (1990); and Robert A. Dahl, Modern Political Analysis, 5th ed. (1991). For many subjects, Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby (eds.), Handbook of Political Science, 9 vol. (1975), is a good reference. Gabriel A. Almond and G. Bingham Powell, Jr. (eds.), Comparative Politics Today: A World View, 5th ed. (1992), is also of interest. Country-specific data can be found in J. Denis Derbyshire and Ian Derbyshire, Political Systems of the World, 2nd ed. (1996). Typologies of government The student of classical typologies of political systems will first refer to Book IV of Aristotle's Politics and then perhaps consult Book VIII of Plato's Republic together with a number of passages in The Laws. Leading modern efforts to develop types and models of political systems may be found in Gaetano Mosca, A Short History of Political Philosophy (1972; originally published in Italian, 1931); Anthony Giddens, Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971); Steven Lukes (ed.), Power (1986); and Emile Durkheim, Durkheim on Politics and the State, ed. by Anthony Giddens (1986). An excellent survey of class-based analyses may be found in Tom Bottomore (ed.), A Dictionary of Marxist Thought, 2nd ed. (1991). Contemporary efforts to develop typologies may be studied in David Easton, A Systems Analysis of Political Life (1965, reissued 1979), illuminating a pluralist perspective; and Robert R. Alford and Roger Friedland, Powers of Theory (1985), which organizes a vast social science literature into manageable categories. Other views are found in David Held (ed.), Political Theory Today (1991); and Christopher Chase-Dunn, Global Formation: Structures of the World-Economy (1989). Supranational political systems The history of the empires of the ancient world may be studied in a number of monumental works, including Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History, 12 vol. (193461); William H. McNeill, A World History, 3rd ed. (1979); J.M. Roberts, The Pelican History of the World, rev. ed. (1987); and L.S. Stavrianos, The World Since 1500: A Global History, 6th ed. (1991), particularly good at treating the many areas of the world. Among other general works, S.N. Eisenstadt, The Political Systems of Empires (1963, reprinted 1993), compares the ancient empires in terms of bureaucracy; and Karl A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power (1957, reprinted 1981), traces the origins of these political orders. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System (1974 ), provides an insightful understanding of the historical antecedents to the current array of political and economic relations. Also useful is Anthony Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence (1985).Treatments of the major empires of the ancient world include Albert T. Olmstead, History of Assyria (1923, reprinted 1975); William C. Hayes, The Scepter of Egypt, 2 vol. (195359, reissued 1990); Mortimer Wheeler, The Indus Civilization, 3rd ed. (1968); Etienne Balazs, Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy, ed. by Arthur F. Wright (1964, reissued 1972); Michael Rostovtsev, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, 2nd ed. rev., 2 vol. (1957, reprinted 1979); and Arthur E.R. Boak and William G. Sinnigen, History of Rome to 565 AD, 6th ed. (1977).Histories of modern colonial empires are found in Charles de Lannoy and Herman Vander Linden, Histoire de l'expansion coloniale des peuples europens, 3 vol. (190721), with an English trans. of vol. 3, A History of Swedish Colonial Expansion (1938); Mary Evelyn Townsend, The Rise and Fall of Germany's Colonial Empire, 18841918 (1930, reprinted 1966); C.R. Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, 16001800 (1965, reprinted 1980), and The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 14151825, 2nd ed. (1991); J.H. Parry, The Spanish Seaborne Empire (1966, reprinted 1990); The Cambridge History of the British Empire, 8 vol. in 9 (192961), with a 2nd ed. of vol. 8 (1963); Hugh Seton-Watson, The Russian Empire, 18011917 (1967, reprinted 1990); and E.J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, 18751914 (1987). A discussion of the postimperial era in Asia and Africa is provided in Rupert Emerson, From Empire to Nation (1960, reissued 1970).Gerard J. Mangone, A Short History of International Organization (1954, reprinted 1975), is a convenient reference covering the development of many contemporary supranational political institutions. The evolution of supranational institutions in Europe is discussed in Ernst B. Haas, The Uniting of Europe (1958, reissued 1968); Uwe W. Kitzinger, The Politics and Economics of European Integration, rev. and expanded ed. (1963, reprinted 1976); Murray Forsyth, Unions of States: The Theory and Practice of Confederation (1981); and William Wallace, The Transformation of Western Europe (1990). Several excellent discussions of modern supranational political institutions are available in Inis L. Claude, Swords into Ploughshares, 4th ed. (1971, reissued 1984); Stephen D. Krasner (ed.), International Regimes (1983); Harold K. Jacobson, Networks of Interdependence: International Organizations and the Global Political System, 2nd ed. (1984); Robert O. Keohane, International Institutions and State Power (1989); and Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power and Interdependence, 2nd ed. (1989). James N. Rosenau, Turbulence in World Politics (1990), depicts a bifurcation of global politics in which the traditional state-centric world is being challenged by an autonomous multicentric world. J.D.B. Miller, The World of States (1981), is a pessimistic discussion of the likelihood that an international political system could replace the national systems. International Organization (quarterly), sponsored by the World Peace Foundation, contains articles on current developments in international organization and also provides selective bibliographies.A good treatment of the League of Nations is presented in F.S. Northedge, The League of Nations: Its Life and Times, 19201946 (1986). Useful discussions of the political and constitutional organization of the British Commonwealth are found in William S. Livingston (ed.), Federalism in the Commonwealth (1963). Informative treatments of the United Nations include Louise Fawcett and Andrew Hurrell (eds.), Regionalism in World Politics: Regional Organization and International Order (1995); Max Harrelson, Fires All Around the Horizon: The U.N.'s Uphill Battle to Preserve the Peace (1989); Robert C. Hilderbrand, Dumbarton Oaks: The Origins of the United Nations and the Search for Postwar Security (1990); Adam Roberts and Benedict Kingsbury (eds.), United Nations, Divided World, 2nd ed. (1993); and Peter R. Baehr and Leon Gordenker, The United Nations in the 1990s, 2nd ed. (1994). National political systems The phenomenon of nationalism is treated in Karl W. Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication: An Inquiry Into the Foundations of Nationality, 2nd ed. (1966), dealing with the development of nationalism; Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (1983); Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, rev. and extended ed. (1991); James G. Kellas, The Politics of Nationalism and Ethnicity (1991); E.J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780, 2nd ed. (1992); and Elie Kedourie, Nationalism, 4th expanded ed. (1993). Among the many works on federal and unitary systems are Carl J. Friedrich, Trends of Federalism in Theory and Practice (1968); Herman Bakvis and William M. Chandler (eds.), Federalism and the Role of the State (1987); and Jens Bartelson, A Genealogy of Sovereignty (1995).Works on individual nation-states are numerous; some standard texts that include selected bibliographies are Charles E. Lindblom, Politics and Markets: The World's Political Economic Systems (1977); and Yves Mny, Government and Politics in Western Europe, 2nd ed. rev. by Andrew Knapp (1993). Comparative studies of different aspects of contemporary national government are also numerous. Among these are Lucian W. Pye and Sidney Verba (eds.), Political Culture and Political Development (1965); Orit Ichilov (ed.), Political Socialization, Citizenship, Education, and Democracy (1990); Gary K. Bertsch, Robert P. Clark, and David M. Wood, Comparing Political Systems: Power and Policy in Three Worlds, 4th ed. (1991); A. Douglas Kincaid and Alejandro Portes (eds.), Comparative National Development: Society and Economy in the New Global Order (1994); Dennis Austin (ed.), Liberal Democracy in Non-Western States (1995); and Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner (eds.), The Global Resurgence of Democracy, 2nd ed. (1996). Subnational political systems Tribal forms of government are examined in John A. Noon, Law and Government of the Grand River Iroquois (1949, reprinted 1971); Oladimeji Aborisade (ed.), Local Government and the Traditional Rulers in Nigeria (1985); and John Davis, Libyan Politics: Tribe and Revolution: An Account of the Zuwaya and Their Government (1987). Excellent general treatments of local and city government are found in William A. Robson, The Development of Local Government, 3rd rev. ed. (1954, reprinted 1978); Lewis Mumford, The City in History (1961); and William A. Robson and D.E. Regan (eds.), Great Cities of the World: Their Government, Politics, and Planning, 3rd ed., rev. and enlarged, 2 vol. (1972). Henri Pirenne, Medieval Cities, trans. from French (1925, reissued 1974), treats early forms of city government. Useful comparative studies of local government are found in G.M. Harris, Comparative Local Government (1949); and J.A. Chandler (ed.), Local Government in Liberal Democracies: An Introductory Survey (1993). Development of governments There is a large contemporary literature centring on the debates about modernization, dependency, regime transition, state transformation, and political development. In addition to some of the works noted above, worthy studies include Barbara Ward, The Rich Nations and the Poor Nations (1961); Dankwart A. Rustow, A World of Nations: Problems of Political Modernization (1967); Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (1991); Guillermo A. O'Donnell, Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics (1973); Charles Tilly (ed.), The Formation of National States in Western Europe (1975); Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Dependency and Development in Latin America, trans. from Spanish (1978); Peter B. Evans, Dependent Development: The Alliance of Multinational, State, and Local Capital in Brazil (1979); Nora Hamilton, The Limits of State Autonomy: Post-Revolutionary Mexico (1982); Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Dictatorships and Double Standards: Rationalism and Reason in Politics (1982); Ronald H. Chilcote and Dale L. Johnson (eds.), Theories of Development: Mode of Production or Dependency? (1983); Immanuel Wallerstein, The Politics of the World-Economy: The States, the Movements, and the Civilizations (1984); Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol (eds.), Bringing the State Back In (1985); David E. Apter, Rethinking Development: Modernization, Dependency, and Postmodern Politics (1987); Myron Weiner and Samuel P. Huntington (eds.), Understanding Political Development (1987); Joel S. Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States: State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World (1988); Axel Van den Berg, The Immanent Utopia: From Marxism on the State to the State of Marxism (1988); Robert A. Scalapino, The Politics of Development: Perspectives on Twentieth-Century Asia (1989); Alice H. Amsden, Asia's Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization (1989); Gary Gereffi and Donald L. Wyman (eds.), Manufacturing Miracles: Paths of Industrialization in Latin America and East Asia (1990); Bob Jessop, State Theory: Putting the Capitalist State in Its Place (1990); Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 9901990 (1990); Robert Wade, Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization (1990); John M. Stopford, Susan Strange, and John S. Henley, Rival States, Rival Firms: Competition for World Market Shares (1991); Ezra F. Vogel, The Four Little Dragons: The Spread of Industrialization in East Asia (1991); Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John D. Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy (1992); Barbara Stallings and Robert Kaufman (eds.), Debt and Democracy in Latin America (1992); Paul Cammack, David Pool, and William Tordoff, Third World Politics, 2nd ed. (1993); Fernando Henrique Cardoso, North-South Relations in the Present Context: A New Dependency?, in Martin Carnoy et al., The New Global Economy in the Information Age (1993), pp. 149159; James W. Morley (ed.), Driven by Growth: Political Change in the Asia-Pacific Region (1993); Gidon Gottlieb, Nation Against States: A New Approach to Ethnic Conflicts and the Decline of Sovereignty (1993); Robert H. Jackson and Alan James (eds.), States in a Changing World: A Contemporary Analysis (1993); Luiz Carlos Bresser Pereira, Jos Mara Maravall, and Adam Przeworski, Economic Reforms in New Democracies: A Social-Democratic Approach (1993); James Fallows, Looking at the Sun: The Rise of the New East Asian Economic and Political System (1994); Stephan Haggard and Robert R. Kaufman, The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions (1995); Gene M. Lyons and Michael Mastanduno (eds.), Beyond Westphalia?: State Sovereignty and International Intervention (1995); Jack F. Matlock, Jr., Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union (1995); Chalmers Johnson, Japan: Who Governs?: The Rise of the Developmental State (1995); Immanuel Wallerstein, After Liberalism (1995); Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996); Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword (1996); and Michael H. Armacost, Friends or Rivals?: The Insider's Account of U.S.-Japan Relations (1996). The structure of government Contemporary forms of government Two of the best introductions to the study of different forms of government are Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (1966); and Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner (eds.), Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy Revisited (1993). Also worth consulting is Patrick Dunleavy and Brendan O'Leary, Theories of the State: The Politics of Liberal Democracy (1987). A useful account of the major competing political ideologies of the past two centuries is provided in Andrew Vincent, Modern Political Ideologies (1992).Totalitarianism is addressed in Hannah Arendt, The Burden of Our Time (1951; also published as The Origins of Totalitarianism, new ed., 1973, reprinted 1986); and Ellen Frankel Paul (ed.), Totalitarianism at the Crossroads (1990). Fascism is addressed in Ernst Nolte, Three Faces of Fascism (1966; originally published in German, 1963). Communist regimes are studied in Boris Kagarlitsky, The Dialectic of Change (1990; originally published in Russian, 1982); Moshe Lewin, The Making of the Soviet System (1985); Leslie Holmes, Politics in the Communist World (1986); Robert A. Scalapino and Dalchoong Kim (eds.), Asian Communism: Continuity and Transition (1988); Irving Louis Horowitz (ed.), Cuban Communism, 7th ed. (1989); Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the Twentieth Century (1990); Stephen White et al., Communist and Postcommunist Political Systems, 3rd ed. (1990); and Peter Ferdinand, Communist Regimes in Comparative Perspective (1991). Additional references are cited in the bibliographies for Communism and Fascism.Texts on constitutional forms include Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution (1867, reissued 1993); James Bryce, The American Commonwealth, rev. ed., 2 vol. (193133); Clinton L. Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship (1948, reprinted 1979); Ivor Jennings, Parliament, 2nd ed. (1957, reprinted 1969), and Cabinet Government, 3rd ed. (1969); R.W. Carstens, The Medieval Antecedents of Constitutionalism (1992); and Douglas Greenberg et al. (eds.), Constitutionalism and Democracy (1993), an informative collection. A good general introduction to the major European forms of constitutional and totalitarian governments is available in Samuel H. Beer and Adam B. Ulam (eds.), Patterns of Government: The Major Political Systems of Europe, 3rd ed. (1973). Additional references are cited in the bibliography for constitution. Contemporary levels of government An excellent introduction to the problem of the relationship between different levels of government is offered in Carl J. Friedrich, Man and His Government (1963), especially part 5, Ranges and Levels of Government. Other books to consult on this subject are Karl W. Deutsch, The Nerves of Government: Models of Political Communication and Control (1963); Lucian W. Pye (ed.), Communications and Political Development (1963); J.A.G. Griffith, Central Departments and Local Authorities (1966); Reinhard Bendix, Nation-Building and Citizenship, new enlarged ed. (1977); Alfred Stepan, The State and Society (1978); Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan (eds.), The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes (1978); David Held, Models of Democracy (1987); Simon Duncan and Mark Goodwin, The Local State and Uneven Development: Behind the Local Government Crisis (1988); and Guido H. Stempel III (ed.), The Practice of Political Communication (1994).One of the best resources for understanding the nature of bureaucracies is Max Weber, Bureaucracy, in his Economy and Society, ed. by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, vol. 3 (1978; originally published in German, 4th rev. ed., 1956), pp. 9561005. Bureaucracies and the administrative procedures of different modern governments are treated in Joseph G. LaPalombara (ed.), Bureaucracy and Political Development, 2nd ed. (1967); and Metin Heper (ed.), The State and Public Bureaucracies: A Comparative Perspective (1987). Among the numerous excellent country-specific studies are Yung H. Park, Bureaucrats and Ministers in Contemporary Japanese Government (1986); and Jonathan N. Moyo, The Politics of Administration: Understanding Bureaucracy in Africa (1992).City and local governments are discussed in Herman Finer, English Local Government, 4th ed. rev. (1950); Brian Chapman, Introduction to French Local Government (1953, reprinted 1979); L. Gray Cowan, Local Government in West Africa (1958, reissued 1970); Marc J. Swartz (ed.), Local-Level Politics (1968); Frank Joyce (ed.), Local Government and Environmental Planning and Control (1981); Martin A. Schain, French Communism and Local Power: Urban Politics and Political Change (1985); Dele Olowu, African Local Governments as Instruments of Economic and Social Development (1988); and Malcolm Cross and Michael Keith (eds.), Racism, the City, and the State (1993). Political and sociological analyses of various local communities include H.D. Malaviya, Village Panchayats in India (1956); Robert A. Dahl, Who Governs? (1961, reissued 1989); J.J.N. Cloete, Central, Regional, and Local Government Institutions of South Africa, 3rd ed. (1992); Jrgen Rland, Urban Development in Southeast Asia: Regional Cities and Local Government (1992); and Jia Hao and Lin Zhimin (Zhimin Lin) (eds.), Changing Central-Local Relations in China (1994). Contemporary divisions of government Short introductions to the divisions of government, suitable for the beginning student, are available in Robert C. Fried, Comparative Political Institutions (1966); Roy C. Macridis, Modern Political Regimes: Patterns and Institutions (1986); and William Crotty (ed.), Political Science: Looking to the Future, 4 vol. (1991).The legislative division of government is addressed in D.W.S. Lidderdale, The Parliament of France (1951, reprinted 1979); Bertram M. Gross, The Legislative Struggle (1953, reprinted 1978); Stephen King-Hall and Richard K. Ullmann, German Parliaments (1954, reprinted 1979); and William J. Keefe and Morris S. Ogul, The American Legislative Process, 8th ed. (1993). National legislatures are discussed in Lord Campion (Gilbert F.M. Campion, Baron Campion) and D.W.S. Lidderdale, European Parliamentary Procedure (1953); Paul Einzig, The Control of the Purse (1959); and Chong Lim Kim et al., The Legislative Connection: The Politics of Representation in Kenya, Korea, and Turkey (1984), an illuminating comparative study.Additional reading on the executive branch should include Hoover Institute Studies, Series B, Elite Studies, 8 no. (195152); Clarence G. Browne and Thomas S. Cohn (eds.), The Study of Leadership (1958); Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power (1960); Valerie Bunce, Do New Leaders Make a Difference?: Executive Succession and Public Policy Under Capitalism and Socialism (1981); Edward S. Corwin, The President: Office and Powers, 17871984, 5th rev. ed. (1984); and Jean Blondel, Political Leadership (1987).Constitutions, courts, and other judicial institutions are comparatively treated in Frede Castberg, Freedom of Speech in the West: A Comparative Study of Public Law in France, the United States, and Germany (1960); K.C. Wheare, Modern Constitutions, 2nd ed. (1966, reissued 1977); Ren David and John E.C. Brierley, Major Legal Systems in the World Today: An Introduction to the Comparative Study of Law, 3rd ed. (1985; originally published in French, 8th ed., 1982); Leslie Wolf-Phillips (ed.), Constitutions of Modern States (1968); John R. Schmidhauser (ed.), Comparative Judicial Systems (1987); and Mauro Cappelletti (ed.), The Judicial Process in Comparative Perspective (1989). Further reading on courts and systems of law is available in Felix S. Cohen, Ethical Systems and Legal Ideals (1933, reprinted 1976); Jerome Frank, Courts on Trial (1949, reissued 1973); Bernard Schwartz, French Administrative Law and the Common-Law World (1954); J.W. Peltason, Federal Courts in the Political Process (1955, reissued 1965); Ren David and Henry P. De Vries, The French Legal System (1958); John R. Schmidhauser, The Supreme Court: Its Politics, Personalities, and Procedures (1960); Harold J. Berman, Justice in the U.S.S.R., rev. ed., enlarged (1963); R.M. Jackson, The Machinery of Justice in England, 7th ed. (1977); Allan Christelow, Muslim Law Courts and the French Colonial State in Algeria (1985); Walter F. Murphy and C. Herman Pritchett, Courts, Judges, and Politics, 4th ed. (1986); and Christine Sypnowich, The Concept of Socialist Law (1990). The functions of government The functions of government may be studied in many works dealing with each of the world's advanced political systems. The United States's system is examined by Ernst Freund, Administrative Powers over Persons and Property (1928, reprinted 1971); George W. Taylor, Government Regulation of Industrial Relations (1948); John H. Leek, Government and Labor in the United States (1952); Robert A. Dahl and Charles E. Lindblom, Politics, Economics, and Welfare (1953, reissued 1992); Carl Kaysen and Donald F. Turner, Antitrust Policy (1959); James E. Anderson, The Emergence of the Modern Regulatory State (1962); Dale E. Hathaway, Government and Agriculture: Public Policy in a Democratic Society (1963); Benjamin I. Page, Who Gets What from Government (1983); Martin Carnoy, The State and Political Theory (1984); Robert J. Thornton and J. Richard Aronson (eds.), Forging New Relationships Among Business, Labor, and Government (1986); and Kenneth Janda, Jeffrey M. Berry, and Jerry Goldman, The Challenge of Democracy, 4th ed. (1995).Works on Great Britain include Allan M. Cartter, The Redistribution of Income in Postwar Britain (1955, reissued 1973); Harry Eckstein, The English Health Service (1958, reissued 1964); Patrick Abercrombie, Town and Country Planning, 3rd ed., rev. (1959); Harold E. Raynes, Social Security in Britain, 2nd ed. (1960, reprinted 1976); Max Beloff, New Dimensions in Foreign Policy (1961); and William Alexander, Education in England: The National SystemHow It Works, 2nd ed. (1964). On France there are Warren C. Baum, The French Economy and the State (1958); Wallace C. Peterson, The Welfare State in France (1960); John Hackett and Anne-Marie Hackett, Economic Planning in France (1963); John S. Harlow, French Economic Planning (1966); Douglas E. Ashford, Policy and Politics in France (1982); and Michael Loriaux, France After Hegemony (1991). Peter A. Hall, Governing the Economy: The Politics of State Intervention in Britain and France (1986), compares the two.Other works dealing with the functions of various governments include John H. Goldthorpe (ed.), Order and Conflict in Contemporary Capitalism (1984); Sharon L. Wolchik and Alfred G. Meyer (eds.), Women, State, and Party in Eastern Europe (1985); Peter Gourevitch, Politics in Hard Times: Comparative Responses to International Economic Crises (1986); Jung-en Woo (Meredith Woo-Cumings), Race to the Swift: State and Finance in Korean Industrialization (1991); and Magnus Blomstrm and Patricio Meller (eds.), Diverging Paths: Comparing a Century of Scandinavian and Latin American Economic Development (1991). Development and change in political systems In addition to the literature on the development of governments cited above, further readings on the politics of change include Clifford Geertz (ed.), Old Societies and New States (1963); Manfred Halpern, The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa (1963); Robert E. Ward and Dankwart A. Rustow (eds.), Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey (1964); Robert N. Bellah (ed.), Religion and Progress in Modern Asia (1965); Aristide R. Zolberg, Creating Political Order: The Party-States of West Africa (1966, reprinted 1985); Eric R. Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (1969); Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions (1979); Ruth Berins Collier, Regimes in Tropical Africa: Changing Forms of Supremacy, 19451975 (1982); Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead (eds.), Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy (1986); Daniel Chirot, Social Change in the Modern Era (1986); Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (1987); Larry Diamond, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset (eds.), Democracy in Developing Countries, vol. 2, Africa (1988); Alfred Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone (1988); Hak-kyu Sohn, Authoritarianism and Opposition in South Korea (1989); Hernando de Soto, The Other Path: The Invisible Revolution in the Third World (1989; orig. published in Spanish, 1986); Alfred Stepan (ed.), Democratizing Brazil: Problems of Transition and Consolidation (1989); Abraham F. Lowenthal (ed.), Exporting Democracy: The United States and Latin America (1991); Tim McDaniel, Autocracy, Modernization, and Revolution in Russia and Iran (1991); Sabrina P. Ramet, Social Currents in Eastern Europe (1991); Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America (1991); Ruth Berins Collier and David Collier, Shaping the Political Arena: Critical Junctures, the Labor Movement, and Regime Dynamics in Latin America (1991); Stephan Haggard and Steven B. Webb (eds.), Voting for Reform: Democracy, Political Liberalization, and Economic Adjustment (1994); Andrew MacIntyre (ed.), Business and Government in Industrialising Asia (1994); D. Michael Shafer, Winners and Losers: How Sectors Shape the Developmental Prospects of States (1994); Robert Boyer and Daniel Drache (eds.), States Against Markets: The Limits of Globalization (1996); Kenichi Ohmae, The End of the Nation State: The Rise of Regional Economies (1995); and Robert J. Barro, Getting It Right: Markets and Choices in a Free Society (1996). D. Alan Heslop The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica Development and change in political systems The student of political systems grapples with a subject matter that is today in constant flux. He must deal not only with the major processes of growth, decay, and breakdown but also with a ceaseless ferment of adaptation and adjustment. The magnitude and variety of the changes that occurred in the world's political systems between the second and eighth decades of the 20th century suggest the dimensions of the problem. Great empires disintegrated; nation-states emerged, flourished briefly, and then vanished; world wars twice transformed the international system; new ideologies swept the world and shook established groups from power; all but a few nations experienced at least one revolution and many nations two or more; domestic politics in every system were contorted by social strife and economic crisis; and everywhere the nature of political life was changed by novel forms of political activity, new means of mass communication, the enlargement of popular participation in politics, the rise of new political issues, the extension of the scope of governmental activity, the threat of nuclear war, and innumerable other social, economic, and technical developments. Causes of stability and instability Although it is possible to identify a number of factors that obviously have a great deal to do with contemporary development and change in the world's political systemsindustrialization, population growth, the revolution of rising expectations in the less developed countries, and international tensionsthere is no agreed theory to explain the causes of political change. Some social scientists have followed Aristotle's view that political instability is generally the result of a situation in which the distribution of wealth fails to correspond with the distribution of political power and have echoed his conclusion that the most stable type of political system is one based on a large middle class. Others have adopted Marxist theories of economic determinism that view all political change as the result of changes in the mode of production. Still others have focussed on governing elites and their composition and have seen in the alienation of the elite from the mass the prime cause of revolutions and other forms of violent political change. In the discussion that follows, a distinction is drawn between unstable and stable political systems, and an attempt is made to suggest ways of understanding the processes of political development and change. The functions of government In all modern states, governmental functions have greatly expanded with the emergence of government as an active force in guiding social and economic development. In Socialist countries, government has a vast range of responsibilities for many types of economic behaviour. Even in the United States, where there remains a much greater attachment than in most societies to the idea that government should be only an umpire adjudicating the rules by which other forces in society compete, such governmental activities as the Tennessee Valley Authority or the use of credit controls to prevent economic fluctuations are now accepted with relatively little question. Government has thus become the major or even the dominant organizing power in all contemporary societies. The historical stages by which governments have come to exercise their contemporary functions make an interesting study in themselves. The scope of government in the ancient polis involved the comprehensive regulation of the ends of human existence. As Aristotle expressed it, what was not commanded by government was forbidden. The extent of the functions of government in the ancient world was challenged by Christianity and its insistence on a division of those things that belong separately to Caesar and to God. When the feudal world succeeded the Roman Empire, however, the enforcement of the sanctions of religion became one of the first objects of political authority. The tendencies that began in the 18th century separated church from state and state from society, and the modern concept of government came into being. The American colonies' Declaration of Independence expresses the classic modern understanding of those ends that governmental functions exist to secure. The first aim of government is to secure the right to life; this comprehends the safety of fellow citizens as regards one another and the self-preservation of the nation as regards foreign powers. Life exists for the exercise of liberty, in terms of both natural and civil rights, and these, along with other specific functions of government, provide those conditions upon which men may pursue happiness, an end that is finally entirely private and beyond the competence of government. With the advent of the Marxist conception of the state, the ends of human existence once again became the objects of comprehensive government regulation. Marxism sees the state as a product of class warfare that will pass out of existence in the future age of perfect freedom. Aristotle believed human perfection to be possible only within political society; Marx believed that the perfection of man would follow upon the abolition of political society. Before the final disposal of the state, however, many Marxists believe that forceful use of governmental power is justified in order to hasten mankind's progress toward the last stage of history. The tasks Self-preservation The first right of men and nations is self-preservation. The task of maintaining the nation, however, is more complex than the individual's duty of self-preservation, for the nation must seek to command the attachment of a community of citizens as well as to preserve itself from external violence. As Thomas Hobbes insisted, civil war constitutes the greatest threat to governments, for it represents the dissolution of the sovereign power. In modern terms, civil war signifies that the government has lost one of the basic attributes of political authority: its monopoly of force and its control over the use of violence. In a fundamental sense, political authority may be preserved from the threat of civil war only when there exists in the political community an agreement on the basic principles of the regime. Such a consensus is the result, among other things, of a shared ideology that gives fellow citizens a sense of communal belonging and recognizes interlocking values, interests, and beliefs. Ideology, in this sense, may be the product of many different forces. Sometimes it is associated with ancient customs, sometimes with religion, sometimes with severe dislocations or the sort of common need that has led to the formation of many nation-states, and sometimes with the fear of a common enemy. The ideological commitment that people call patriotism is typically the product of several of these forces. Governments neglect at their peril the task of strengthening the ideological attachment of their citizens to the regime. In this sense, civic education should be counted among the essential functions of the state, for it is primarily through systems of education that citizens learn their duties. Indeed, as a number of sociological studies have shown, the process of political socialization that transforms people into citizens begins in kindergarten and grade school. Even more than this, education is the instrument by which governments further the cohesion of their societies and build the fundamental kinds of consensus that support their authority. It is not surprising, therefore, that national systems of education are often linked to central elements of the regimes. In France public education was traditionally mixed with the teachings of the Roman Catholic church; in Great Britain a private system of education supported the class divisions of society; and in the United States a primarily secular form of public education traditionally used constitutional documents as the starting point of children's training in patriotism. The preservation of the authority of the state also requires a governmental organization capable of imposing its jurisdiction on every part of the national territory. This involves the maintenance of means of communication, the use of administrative systems, and the employment of police forces capable of controlling domestic violence. The police function, like education, is often a key to the character of a regime. In Nazi Germany, Hitler's Brownshirts took over the operation of local and regional police systems and often supervised the administration of law in the streets. In the Soviet Union the security police acted to check any deviation from the policy of the party or state. In the United States the police powers are left in the hands of the 50 states and the local agencies of government. With the exception of certain offenses created by the McCarran Act and some parallel statutes, political crimes as such are unknown. In addition, there are state militias that act, under the control of the governors of the various states, in moments of local emergency, such as riots or natural catastrophes. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the only equivalent of a national police force, is an agency established to carry out specific assignments dealing with a limited but important class of crimes. Since there is no comprehensive federal criminal code, there is not, strictly speaking, a federal police. Governments must preserve themselves against external as well as domestic threats. For this purpose they maintain armed forces and carry on intelligence activities. They also try to prevent the entry of aliens who may be spies or saboteurs, imprison or expel the agents of foreign powers, and embargo the export of materials that may aid a potential enemy. The ultimate means of preserving the state against external threats, of course, is war. In war, governments usually enlarge the scope of their domestic authority; they may raise conscript forces, imprison conscientious objectors, subject aliens to internment, sentence traitors to death, impose extraordinary controls on the economy, censor the press, compel settlement of labour disputes, impose internal-travel limitations, withhold passports, and provide for summary forms of arrest. Many forces generate clashes between nations, including economic rivalry and disputes over trade, the desire to dominate strategic land or sea areas, religious or ideological conflict, and imperialistic ambition. All national governments develop organizations and policies to meet these and other situations. They have foreign ministries for the conduct of diplomatic relations with other states, for representing them in international organizations, and for negotiating treaties. Some governments conduct programs such as foreign aid, cultural exchange, and other activities designed to win goodwill abroad. In the 20th century, relationships among governments have been affected by a developing awareness that world peace and prosperity depend on multinational and international cooperation. The League of Nations and the United Nations, together with their associated agencies, ha