This study is concerned with a problem central to comparative politics in a world of new nations pursuing stupendous goals: how, and to what extent, political power—and specifically, legal engineering—may be deliberately used in the revolutionary transformation of societies, especially those we generally call “traditional societies.” It pursues that concern through a study of the interaction between central power and local traditions in one of the peripheral areas of the Soviet land mass, Soviet Central Asia. And it is most especially concerned with the meaning and impact of large, abstract, impersonal political blueprints of great movements and figures when pursued by ordinary men in the small, concrete, and intimate worlds of human relations, on the manipulation of which the achievement of all revolutionary goals ultimately depends.

Evanston, a large suburb north of Chicago, has a population of 80,000 of which 11.5% is Negro. It borders Chicago on the south, Skokie on the west, the village of Wilmette on the north, and Lake Michigan on the east. The median family income in 1960 was $9,193 (the median for the lowest census tract was $5,605 and for the highest $17,250); yet Evanston comprises the entire income spectrum, with almost 7% of its population in families with annual incomes of $3,000 or less. Evanston is significantly above the national average in education—the median number of school years completed being 12.8 (the lowest tract averaged 9.6 and the highest was over 16). Twenty-seven per cent of Evanston's adult population are college graduates.

Any relatively stable polity must possess means for converting many, if not most, demands made on political authorities into satisfying outputs, whether material or symbolic. Failure to cope with pressing demands might lead to a severely dysfunctional loss of public support for particular officials as well as for the regime itself. On the other hand, efforts to meet demands through blatant violations of accepted rules can also cause great loss in public support.

It has been said that Japan's modernization was the most rapid and striking in Asia and that it was one of the best examples of this process in the world. Although there is considerable truth in this assertion, the modernization process was not completely successful. The defeat of Japan in World War II disclosed many aspects of social, economic, and political life that were not successfully modernized; examples are the patriarchal family system with its patrimonial inheritance patterns, the closed village community structure with a peculiar land-tenure system, the underdeveloped state of labor relations, the rule of the zaibatsu (financial combines based on family ties) in industry and commerce, and the insufficient protection of human rights under the absolutistic Tenno regime.

The revolution of April 1965, and the subsequent landing of United States military forces focused an enormous amount of worldwide attention on the Dominican Republic. The frequently chaotic revolution, which quickly became a civil war, was made still more confusing by reports which at one and the same time referred to one side as the “rebels” or “constitutionalists” and to the other as the “loyalists” or “anti-constitutionalists.” As the events of Dominican revolt, civil war, and United States intervention became disentangled, however, it became clear that the issue of “the constitution” and “constitutionalism” and the principles and forces of which these terms were symbols were perhaps even more important than any of the personalities or groups involved. Because many of the major conflicts seemed to revolve around questions of “constitutionalism,” a comparison and analysis of the constitutions of 1962 and 1963 may help unravel the perplexing tangle of factors which led to revolution and civil war.

Berkeley, California, is a compact city of 111,268 residents, housed within 9.7 square miles, with a resulting population density of 11,471 per square mile—one of the highest in northern California. It is a city of socioeconomic contrasts. The “Flats,” encompassing the western two-thirds of the city, is a low-lying area containing the city's major business and industrial areas. Here, too, live the vast majority of Berkeley's minority groups and low-income families. The “Hills,” which comprises the eastern one-third, is solidly residential, predominantly Caucasian, and generally expensive. Bisecting the Hills and stretching briefly into the Flats is the University of California, Berkeley's major landmark.

This paper explores the judgmental process involved in the determination of liability in accident cases. The law of negligence, unlike other branches of the civil law and the criminal law, lacks a body of substantive rules by which a jury may determine the legality of conduct. The acts of one person which may result in property loss or physical injury to another are extremely varied. This variety makes it all but impossible to specify, in advance, what kind of behavior constitutes adequate caution or due care in given situations. Hence, the law has devised a general procedure by which to reach a judgment on this matter for any particular case. It directs the members of the jury to consider what precautions a person should take while engaged in some potentially hazardous endeavor in order to minimize the risk of possible harm to others, and offers a model of behavior “... the supposed conduct, under similar circumstances, of a hypothetical person, the reasonable man of ordinary prudence who represents a community ideal of reasonable behavior.”

New Haven has a population of just over 150,000, and approximately 15% of its population is nonwhite (virtually all Negroes). Just under 1% of the population is native or first generation Puerto Rican. Like many other New England cities, New Haven is highly “ethnic,” and is ethnically self-conscious. Besides the Negro segment of the population, almost 17% is of Italian stock; other identifiable nationality groups include Irish, German, Russian, and Polish. Many of the central Europeans are Jewish, and approximately two-thirds of the community is Roman Catholic. Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Italians, and to a lesser extent, Jews all tend to live within identifiable geographical boundaries. New Haven politics have tended to polarize around ethnic loyalties.

For over two thousand years, the science of law has been a dull esoteric subject, with traditional logic its long suit and the syllogism its ace in the hole. The erudite tended to empathize with Socrates, who could define justice only in metaphysical terms, and to scorn the occasional iconoclasts in the Thrasymachian tradition, who would have operationalized the concept of justice on the basis of political interrelationships of power and influence. Throughout these two millennia, jurisprudence was a “science” only in the sense of “moral science,” that is to say, it was a branch of philosophy. It was concerned with prescriptive norms rather than with descriptions of human action, and therefore it dealt almost exclusively with ideals for, rather than with the realities of, the behavior of judges, lawyers, jurors, and litigants.

It is well established that educational attainment is related to career opportunities. Increasingly, society is requiring highly trained personnel for more complex jobs. A college education is becoming an essential part of the normal preparation for many occupations.

Pasadena, California, located roughly ten miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles, had a public school enrollment of slightly more than 31,000 during the 1964–65 school year. The racial distribution was 68.9% Caucasian, 21.1% Negro, and 9.9% Mexican-American and Japanese. The surrounding communities have essentially no minority group population and it is expected that migration of minority group members will continue to be concentrated in Pasadena. The residentially segregated pattern of the typical Northern city is conspicuous in Pasadena. The all-Negro neighborhood is present as is the totally white neighborhood. The intermediate areas contain various degrees of segregation.