The object in trying to compare the relationship between trade unions and working-class political parties in these four countries was to see how far the relationship had changed in response to certain trends supposed to be common to the countries concerned. The trends were: (i) the changing role of working-class parties themselves; (ii) the decline of political representation, especially by parliamentary means, in favour of direct action; (iii) the growth of government in the social and economic sphere and increasing direct participation by trade unions in governmental decision-making. It was considered important to look at these countries together in view of their growing economic and political interdependence, in spite of fundamental differences among them which affect the roles both of political parties and of trade unions.

NO OTHER MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRY COULD MATCH THE TURBULENT post-independence history that Syria has experienced. Gaining its independence from France in April 1946, Syria moved uncertainly through the bewildering web of inter-Arab politics until the first military coup in March 1949 propelled it towards the long period of instability that was to follow. Indeed, the coup of November 1970, popularly known as the ‘Corrective Movement’, which installed the Asad regime in power constituted the twenty-first change of government in the twenty-four years of the country's independence. This persistent political turmoil, particularly during the fifties and sixties, contrasts sharply with the stability that Syria enjoyed in the first eight years of this decade.

EVERY YEAR IN EARLY JANUARY A GREAT GET-TOGETHER TAKES PLACE called the North of England Education Conference. It continues for three days and it brings together teachers, administrators, inspectors, professors, educational publishers - the lot. Usually it is addressed by the Minister of Education. Last year Mrs Shirley Williams gave the presidential speech, this year Lord James presided; he is better known to many of us as Eric James, formerly High Master of Manchester Grammar School. Looking back I notice that I had the privilege of presiding over two earlier conferences, at Scarborough as Minister in 1938 and at Morecambe as a university Member of Parliament in 1947: between these two dates a coalition government passed the famous 1944 Act.

WHAT KINDS OF RATIONALE ARE NECESSARY OR APPROPRIATE FOR explanation in comparative politics? A rationale is essential for explanation, underlying any attempt to construct a theory, since it is the only means by which one can indicate why the event to be explained should follow from the precedent events held to explain it - something which a simple succession of events in itself, no matter how regular, can supply. In this article, I shall outline an answer to this question, and then indicate a framework of investigation inside which the basic requirements of political explanation can be met, and at the same time made relevant to strategies for research. There are, I suggest, only three rationales from which explanatory statements need to be derived, and these can be combined with one another in ways which are easily enough put into practice, but which also have important implications for the kinds of explanation which it is possible to achieve. I hope to come out, therefore, with a general framework into which any valid explanation can be put, and to suggest that by putting our explanations into such a framework, we will be better able to compare them with one another, and thus to ‘cumulate’ our ability to understand political phenomena drawn from different areas. I do not pretend to overcome the well-known problems in the way of a ‘science of politics’, and will indeed argue that within the pattern of explanation which I suggest such problems are insoluble.