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A Zonal Analysis Model for Comparative Politics: A Partial Soviet Application

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

James B. Bruce  and
Robert W. Clawson
James B. Bruce
Affiliation:
Marshall University
Robert W. Clawson
Affiliation:
Kent State University
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Abstract

Improved analysis of the Soviet and communist political systems requires a greater effort to locate that enterprise in the mainstream of comparative political inquiry. Toward this end the article (1) surveys Soviet and Western political process similarities and differences and identifies consequent conceptual implications; (2) introduces a model for comparative politics built in part from political process similarities evident in both Soviet and Western systems; and (3) reports a case study involving a partial application of the zonal model using Soviet political data. The comparative model integrates micro-, intermediate-, and macro-level zones of analysis as research foci and operational variables for empirical testing and generation of theory. The case study—the politics of Soviet industrial reform, 1962–1965—examines the relationship between two analytic zones, and concludes that changes in both the process and the content of economic interest articulation were strongly associated with prior changes in Soviet policy making.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , January 1977 , pp. 177 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1977

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References

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8 See Holt, Robert and Richardson, John, “Competing Paradigms in Comparative Politics,” in Holt, and Turner, John E., eds., The Methodology of Comparative Research (New York: Free Press 1970), 21–71Google Scholar.

9 See Sartori, Giovanni, “Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 64 (December 1970), 1033–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The problem of con-ceptual stretching in applying the group concept to Soviet politics is explored in Clawson, Robert W., “The Politics of Industrial Reform in the Soviet Union: 1957–65,” Ph.D. diss. (University of California, Los Angeles 1969), chap. 8Google Scholar.

10 Most of the differences presented in Table 2 have been gleaned from Welsh (fn. 1); Aspaturian, Vernon V., “Internal Politics and Foreign Policy in the Soviet System,” in Farrell, R. Barry, ed., Approaches to Comparative and International Politics (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press 1966), 283–87Google Scholar; Alfred G. Meyer, “The Comparative Study of Communist Political Systems,” in Fleron (fn. 1), 188–98; and Kassof (fn. 7). See also Brzezinski, Zbigniew and Huntington, Samuel P., Political Power: USA/USSR (New York: Viking Press 1964)Google Scholar.

11 Hough, Jerry F., “The Soviet System: Petrification or Pluralism?” Problems of Communism (March-April 1972), 45. In an illuminating essay, Sharlet notes that “a massive job of reconceptualization stands before us if we hope systematically to study communist political systems, individually or comparatively.” “Systematic Political Science and Communist Systems,” in Fleron (fn. 1), 211.Google Scholar

12 Since these similarities are derived from comparisons of Soviet and “developed” Western systems, without attention to nonindustrialized countries, we might restrict their intended universality to industrialized systems. Even so, the list of countries included (depending on criteria employed) is sizable; upon systematic investigation, the less developed countries may eventually be shown to demonstrate such systemic similarities. Cf. Diamant, Alfred, “Is There a Non-Western Political Process? Comments on Lucian W. Pye's ‘The Non-Western Political Process,‘” Journal of Politics, IX (February 1959), 123–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 The best summaries of Easton's work on systems analysis are Easton, David, “An Approach to the Analysis of Political Systems,” World Politics, IX (April 1957), 383–400CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Categories for the Systems Analysis of Politics,” in Easton, , ed., Varieties of Political Theory (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall 1966), 143–54Google Scholar.

Here and in subsequent sections, our use of the terms “micro” and “macro” as adjectives referring to analytic levels, not units, departs slightly from the more common usage in the literature. The relativist notion of these terms is noted by Heinz Eulau who employs them both ways: see The Behavioral Persuasion in Politics (New York: Random House 1963), 123ffGoogle Scholar.

14 Almond, Gabriel and Powell, G. Bingham Jr., Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach (Boston: Little, Brown 1966)Google Scholar. The “approach” of this work, as subtitled, is principally developmental; however, it also combines significant elements of the systems approach and structural-functionalism. It is the latter emphasis that supplies the chief concepts of interest to us.

15 Mitchell, Joyce M. and Mitchell, William C., Political Analysis and Public Policy: An Introduction to Political Science (Chicago: Rand McNally 1969)Google Scholar.

16 Allison, Graham T., “Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 63 (September 1969), 708–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Allison, , Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little, Brown 1971), chap. 5, esp. 162–81Google Scholar. Significantly, Wolfe, Thomas W. has advocated the application of this model to the study of Soviet politics. See his “Policy-Making in the Soviet Union: A Statement with Supplementary Comments,” P-4131 (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation 1969), 1–9Google Scholar.

17 The major vulnerabilities of the systems and functional approaches, summarized in Table 3, are discussed in the following: Bill, James A. and Hardgrave, Robert L., Comparative Politics: The Quest for Theory (Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill 1973), chap. 7Google Scholar; Golembiewski, Robert T., Welsh, William A., and Crotty, William J., A Methodological Primer for Political Scientists (Chicago: Rand McNally 1969), chap. 8Google Scholar; Mayer, Lawrence C., Comparative Political Inquiry: A Methodological Survey (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press 1972), 142–36Google Scholar, and chap. 8. See also Sartori's critique of structural-functionalism (fn. 9), 1046–49. Welsh (fn. 1) examines the conceptual problems of systems analysis as they relate to inquiry on communist systems; Scarrow, Howard A. explores the difficulties of combining systems analysis with structural-functionalism in Comparative Political Analysis: An Introduction (New York: Harper and Row 1969), 62–63Google Scholar.

18 Science, understood as “a search for hidden likenesses,” is nomothetic. Frohock notes that, since science “is concerned with establishing causal relations and general laws,” the social scientist pays a price: “the sacrifice of the distinctiveness of social events.” Frohock, Fred M., The Nature of Political Inquiry (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press 1967), 141Google Scholar. The search for universal concepts, i.e., those “which have similar (if not identical) empirical referents in all political systems,” is a methodological commit- ment of comparative model builders and is clearly a prerequisite of general theory. Golembiewski and others (fn. 17), 242.

19 As James Klonoski has stated of Easton's systems analysis, “the simple fact of the matter is that this outlook has become a part of modern political science.” Quoted from a review cited in Bill and Hardgrave (fn. 17), 227. Systemically conceptualizing political activity is one of the substantive characteristics of the enterprise of comparative model building. Golembiewski and others (fn. 17), 242.

20 Our use of the term “model” follows Graham, George J., Methodological Foundations for Political Analysis (Waltham, Mass.: Xerox College Publishing Co., 1971), 112–25Google Scholar. See also Gregor's discussion of “candidate preliminary schema” in Gregor, A. James, An Introduction to Metapolitics (New York: Free Press 1971), 32–33Google Scholar.

21 See Hempel, Carl G., “The Logic of Functional Analysis,” in Gross, G., ed., Symposium in Sociological Theory (New York: Harper and Row 1969)Google Scholar; and Dowse, Robert E., “A Functionalist's Logic,” World Politics, XVIII (July 1966), 607–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Our discussion of these zones draws heavily from the efforts of earlier investigators, but principally those of Almond and Powell (fn. 14), and Almond, and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture (Boston: Little, Brown 1965)Google Scholar. We wish to make this acknowledgment, but also note that our treatment of these concepts quite often departs from Almond's; his emphasis is on political development, ours is not. Our discussion of political culture draws from Mayer (fn. 17), chap. 9, and Rosenbaum, Walter A., Political Culture (New York: Praeger 1975), chaps, 1 and 2Google Scholar. Note should be taken that our intentions here, and in Table 4, are designedly suggestive, especially in the matter of enumerating suitable empirical referents for the model's key variables, and in the empirical-normative distinction. Our empirical emphases are chiefly those of system efficiency, while our normative interests are those which seek to provide a basis for value judgments on the homo mensura principle and on the assumption that reasoned choices require empirical bases. See Meehan, Eugene J., The Foundations of Political Analysis: Empirical and Normative (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press 1971), esp. Part IIGoogle Scholar.

23 Reference to “theory” here follows Mayer: “a system of logically related, empirically testable, lawlike propositions” (fn. 17), 48.

24 See Lijphart, Arend, “Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 65 (September 1971), 690CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Lijphart states: “Comparative analysis must avoid the danger of being overwhelmed by large numbers of variables and, as a result, losing the possibility of discovering controlled relationships, and it must therefore judiciously restrict itself to the really key variables, omitting those of only marginal importance.”

25 Ibid., 692: “Hypothesis-generating case studies start out with a more or less vague notion of possible hypotheses, and attempt to formulate definite hypotheses to be tested subsequently among a larger number of cases. Their objective is to develop theoretical generalizations in areas where no theory exists yet.”

26 Sociologists Barney G. Glazer and Anselm L. Strauss have persuasively argued that “qualitative research—quite apart from its usefulness as a prelude to quantitative research—should be scrutinized for its usefulness in the discovery of substantive theory. By the discovery of substantive theory we mean the formulation of concepts and their interrelation into a set of hypotheses for a given substantive area. …” “Discovery of Substantive Theory: A Basic Strategy Underlying Qualitative Research,” The American Behavioral Scientist, VIII (February 1965), 5Google Scholar.

27 The problem is less one of the “fog of secrecy” and data generation than one of concept formation. In fact, there is, as Wolfe argues, “a great variety of direct and indirect information available on the activities of the Party and state bureaucracies, and upon the issues with which the Soviet leadership must deal. The problem perhaps is more often one of interpretation and analysis of this information, of finding an adequate conceptual model to explain how the system operates. …” Wolfe (fn. 16), 1.

28 See Skilling, H. Gordon, “The Party, Opposition, and Interest Groups: Fifty Years of Continuity and Change,” International Journal, XXII (Autumn 1967), 618–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Skilling, “Interest Groups and Communist Politics” (fn. 3); and the studies in Skilling and Griffiths (fn. 3). For other important works combining case studies and theoretical analysis, see Schwartz and Keech (fn. 3); Barry, Donald, “The Specialist in Soviet Policy Making: The Adoption of a Law,” Soviet Studies, XVI (October 1964), 152–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Stewart, Philip D., “Soviet Interest Groups and the Political Process: The Repeal of Production Education,” World Politics, XXII (October 1969), 29–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Lodge (fn. 3). Other contributions to the group literature include Berman, John, “The Struggle of the Soviet Jurists Against a Return to Stalinist Terror,” Slavic Review, XXII (June 1963), 314–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hazard, John, “Has the Soviet State a New Function?” Political Quarterly, XXXIV (Autumn 1963), 391–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Andolino, Louis and Baas, Lawrence, “The Soviet Jurists as an Interest Group: An Analysis of Their Role in the Formulation of the 1958 Criminal Code,” unpub. (Kent State University 1970)Google Scholar; Little, D. Richard, “The Policy Making Process in the Soviet Educational System,” Ph.D. diss. (University of California, Los Angeles 1965)Google Scholar; Clawson (fn. 9); Monks, Alfred, “Evolution of Soviet Military Thinking,” Military Review, Vol. 51 (March 1971), 78–93Google Scholar; and Juviler, Peter, “The Soviet Campaign for Law and Order,” paper presented at the Midwest Slavic Conference, Lincoln, Neb., April 1969Google Scholar.

29 Swearer, Howard R., “The Dynamics of Administrative Reform in the Soviet Union,” unpub. (University of California, Los Angeles 1963)Google Scholar. See also Avtorkhanov, Abdurakhman, The Communist Party Apparatus (Chicago: Henry Regnery 1966), 196Google Scholar.

30 Clawson (fn. 9), 105–6, and 245–61. That restrictions in relation to economic discussions were sharply reduced is also borne out in Richard Judy, “The Economists,” in Skilling and Griffiths (fn. 3), 209–51.

31 Kugukalo, I., “Ekonomicheskie rayony Ukrainskoy SSR” [The Economic Regions of the Ukrainian SSR] Voprosy ekonomikj (April 1957), 44–54Google Scholar; Koroyed, A. and Kugukalo, I., Pravda, April 4, 1957Google Scholar; Organov, N., “K voprosu ob ekonomicheskom rayonirovanii Sibirii” [A Contribution to the Problem of Dividing Siberia into Economic Regions] Voprosy ekonomiki (April 1957), 36–43Google Scholar; A. Omarovskiy, “O nekotorykh voprosakh organizatsii upravleniya i planirovaniya v promyshlennosti SSSR” [On Several Problems Related to the Organization of Administration and Planning in the Industry of the USSR] ibid., 64–74; V. Vasyutin, “O kompleksnom razvitii ekonomicheskikh rayonov” [On the Ail-Around Development of Economic Regions] ibid., 55–63; and A. Osorgin, “Utochnit granitsy ekonomicheskikh administrativnykh rayonov” [Making the Borders of the Economic Administrative Regions More Accurate] ibid., 148–49.

32 This summary draws primarily from Clawson (fn. 9), and Judy (fn. 30).

33 The most important proponents of the Liberman proposals after November 1962 were published in the prominent national press organs. See Trapeznikov, V. A., Prai'da, August 17, 1964Google Scholar, and Liberman, E. G., Pravda, September 20, 1964Google Scholar. There was an extended discussion of the Trapeznikov article, and a number of letters from economists such as Smakhov, B., backing the proposals with a few reservations, in Pravda, Febru-ary 17, 1965Google Scholar. Also advocating additional enterprise autonomy was an article by Fedorenko, N., Pravda, January 17, 1965Google Scholar, and an editorial in Economicheskaya gazeta, February 24, 1965. Also see Birman, A. M. and Belkin, V. D., Pravda, October 14, 1964Google Scholar, and Iliyshin, S. and Rutenburg, A., “Za bolee effektivnye formy khozyaystvovaniya” [For a More Effective Form of Management] Planovoe khozyaystvo (January 1965), 51–59Google Scholar.

34 This group's views of mathematical economics after 1962 were partially represented by the following: Lifshits, A. I., Primenenie matematiki i elektronnykh vychislitelnykh mashin v ekonomike [The Application of Mathematics and Electronic Computers in Economics] (Novosibirsk: Ekonizdat SO AN-SSSR 1963)Google Scholar; Lure, A. L., O matematicheskikh metodakh reshemya zadach po optimum pri planirovanii sotsialisticheskogo khozyaystva [On Mathematical Methods for Making Optimal Decisions in Planning a Socialist Economy] (Moscow: “Nauka” 1964)Google Scholar; and Berg, A. I. and Chernyak, Yu. I., Informatsia i upravlenie [Information and Administration] (Moscow: “Ekonomika” 1966)Google Scholar. There were many articles in which the basic request for the introduction of these techniques was repeated. Among the best-known are: Glushkov, V. M., Dorodnitsyn, A. A., and Fedorenko, N., Izvestia, September 6, 1964Google Scholar; Lifshits, S., “Primenenie matematiki i eletronnoy vychislitelnoy tekhniki v ekonomike” [The Application of Mathematics and Electronic Computing Techniques in Economics.] Voprosy ekonomiki (May 1964), 157–58Google Scholar; Glushkov, V. M. and Fedorenko, N., “Problemy shirokogo vnedreniya vychislitelnoy tekhniki v narodnoe khozyaystvo” [Problems Related to the Widespread Adoption of Computing Techniques in the National Economy] Voprosy ekonomiki (July 1964), 87–92Google Scholar. There was an extensive debate in Literaturnaya gazeta between May and August 1964, in which the basic requests were again repeated. And most of the participants in this group gave presentations at a Conference on the Application of Mathematics to Economics sponsored by the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences and published under the main title of “Ekonomisti i matematiki za ‘Kruglym stolom’” [Economists and Mathematicians at the ‘Round Table’] Voprosy ekonomiki (September 1964), 63–110.

35 See Vaag, L. A. and Zakharov, S., “Platnost proizvodstvennikh fondov i pribyl predpriyatiya” [Production Fund Charges and Enterprise Profit] Voprosy ekonomiki (April 1963), 88–100Google Scholar, and Vaag's pamphlets, Sovershenstvovat ekonomicheskie metody upravleniya khozyaystva [Toward Improvement of the Economical Method of Administration of the Economy] (Moscow: Ekonomika 1965)Google Scholar, and Plata za proizvodstvennye fondy i effectivnost ikh ispolzovaniya [The Charge to the Production Fund and the Effectiveness of Its Employment] (Moscow: Ekonomika 1966).Google Scholar This group included several prominent economists working permanently with state line operations. Also see Nemchinov, V., Pnmenenie matematiki v ekonomicheskikh issledovamyakh [The Application of Mathematics in Economic Research] (Moscow: Sotsikgiz 1959)Google Scholar; Obshchie voprosy razvitiya proizvoditelnykh sil [General Questions on the Growth of Productive Forces] (Moscow: Izdatelstvo akademii nauk SSSR 1960)Google Scholar; Ekonomiko-Matematicheskie metody i modeli [Econo-Mathematical Methods and Models] (Moscow: Sotsikgin 1962)Google Scholar; and O dalneyshem sovershenstvo-planirovaniya i upravleniya narodnym khozyaystvom [Toward the Long-Term Perfection of Planning and Administration of the Economy] (Moscow: Ekonizdat 1963).Google Scholar Also see numerous articles by the aging Nemchinov during 1964 in such varied organs as Kommunist, Voprosy ekonomiki, and Literaturnaya gazeta.

36 Morton, Henry W., “The Structure of Decision-Making in the USSR: A Comparative Introduction,” in Juviler, Peter H. and Morton, Henry W., eds., Soviet Policy Maying: Studies of Communism in Transition (New York: Praeger 1967), 12.Google Scholar

37 Campbell, R. W., “Marx, Kantorovich, and Novozhilov,” Slavic Review, XX (October 1961), 402–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dobb, M., “The Revival of Theoretical Discussion Among Soviet Economists,” Science and Society, XXIV (Summer 1960), 274–92Google Scholar; Rush, Myron, The Rise of Khrushchev (Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press 1958), 88–94Google Scholar; and Hollander, Gayle Durham, Soviet Political Indoctrination (New York: Praeger 1972), 47–51, 86–87.Google Scholar

38 Andolino and Baas (fn. 28); Aspaturian (fn. 10). Varying sensitivities of the leadership to different policy sectors very likely have implications for the degree of specialists' influence as well; i.e., influence is inversely related to policy sensitivity. Kelly's, Donald R. study supports this hypothesis, utilizing data from the 1958 educational reforms and the economic reforms of the preceding year. See “Interest Groups in the USSR: The Impact of Political Sensitivity on Group Influence,” Journal of Politics, XXXIV (August 1972), 860–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 See in particular the works cited in fns. 33, 34, and 35.

40 It is evident from statements by the leadership (referred to by Judy), that they recognized the industrial administrative problems of the Soviet economy as “economic” problems, but not entirely. Khrushchev in particular was prone to consider administrative problem solving as essentially getting the “right man in the right place.” With his replacement by two more conservative administrators, efficiency by shake-up tended to lose some of its attraction, and more purely economic solutions were at least formally more popular than under Khrushchev. See Kosygin, , Pravda, September 28, 1965. This could easily be overstressed, however. See Judy (fn. 30), 218–32.Google Scholar

For an idea of the extremely broad range of input, see the classics: Kantorovich, L. V., Ekonomicheskii raschyot nailuchshego ispolzovamya resursov [Economical Calculation of the Best Utilization of Resources] (Moscow: Izdatelstvo AN-SSSR 1959)Google Scholar; the conference reported under the title of “Matematicheskie metody v ekonomiki” [Mathematical Methods in Economics] Voprosy ekonomiki (August 1960), 100; Berg, A., Pravda, October 24, 1962Google Scholar; Gatovskiy, L. M., “Sotsialisticheskiy printsip materialnoy zainteresovannosti i ispolzovanie tovarnodenezhnykh otnosheniy” [Socialist Principles of Material Interest and the Employment of Commodity-Money Relations] Kommunist, XXXV (January 1959), 69–78Google Scholar; E. G. Liberman, “Ob ekonomicheskikh ruchagakh vypolneniy plana promyshlennostyu” [Concerning Economic Levers of Industrial Plan Fulfillment] Ibid., 88–97; Nemchinov, V., “Stoimost i tsena pri sotsializme” [Cost and Price under Socialism] Voprosy ekonomikj (December 1960), 85–103Google Scholar; Liberman, E. G., “Planirovanie proizvodstva i normativy dlitelnogo deystviya” [The Planning of Production and Standards of Long-Term Operations] Voprosy ekonomiki (August 1962), 104–12Google Scholar; and the most famous Liberman piece in Pravda, September 9, 1962. Other participants include M. Fedorovich (anti-Liberman); V. Nemchinov (cautiously skeptical of Liberman and the mathematicians); numerous letters to the editors from technicians and practitioners, and a series of essays critical of things in general but not picking up Liberman or any other particular strain. Through November 1962 the battle moved back and forth: V. Chernyavsky (pro-Liberman), and K. Plotnikov and A. Zverov (against): a debate in the Dolovoi Klub ringing in all sides and published in hnomicheskaya gazeta. In late November, Birman and Belkin attempted to wed the Liberman proposals to Berg's revival of Kantorovich's ideas of price and value. Following a symposium in Voprosy ekonomiki in December 1962, the first round ended. There was also an extremely broad range of commentary on organizational themes in the early 1960's. See Clawson (fn. 9), 257–61.

41 Tatu (fn. 2), 283–88; Schwartz, Harry, The Soviet Economy Since Stalin (Philadelphia: Lippincott 1965), 121–88Google Scholar; Azrael, Jeremy A., “The Legislative Process in the USSR,” in Frank, Elke, ed., Lawmakers in a Changing World (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall 1966)Google Scholar; and Tatu, Michel, “Soviet Reforms: The Debate Goes On,” in Little, D. Richard, ed., Liberalization in the USSR: Facade or Reality? (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath 1968), 53–61.Google Scholar

42 See Judy (fn. 30), 218–23. Criticism of sycophancy in the “economists” favored by Stalin was a particularly common theme during the Khrushchev years.

43 Khrushchev, Pravda, November 20, 1962.

44 The initial, and abbreviated, version of these changes is found in Kosygin, Alexei, Pravda, September 28, 1965.Google Scholar

45 Morton (fn. 36), 6–12.

46 Morton, drawing on Dahl and Lindblom, describes hierarchical as a situation where “leaders substantially decide when, in what conditions, and with whom, consultation takes place.” Drawing from Rose, he describes a bargaining system as one where “the cooperation of several groups, each with different sources of strength and differing needs, [is] required for the attainment of an object of government policy.” A condition where “no group—outside of the Party—has the right to organize, to elect independent leadership, to communicate freely with its followers, or to appeal, if necessary, to the public at large for support” is compartmentalized. The term autonomousrefers to a condition where “subsystems function with little direct governmental control.” Ibid., 9–10.

47 Parry, Albert, The New Class Divided (New York: Macmillan 1966)Google Scholar; Levine, Herbert S., “Economics,” in Fischer, George, ed., Science and Ideology in Soviet Society (New York: Atherton Press 1967), 107–38.Google Scholar For the pre-1962 period, see Khrushchev, Pravda, February 15, 1956, and other Twentieth Party Congress documents, Pravda, February 15–28, 1956. Also see Nove, Alec, The Soviet Economy (New York: Praeger 1961), 68.Google Scholar For the later period, see Clawson (fn. 9), 216, 303–07; such prereform documents as the Central Committee postanovlenie of July 17, 1960, in Pravda and Izvestiaof that date; and Schwartz and Keech (fn. 3).

48 Khrushchev, , Pravda, November 20, 1960.Google Scholar Also see Gilison, Jerome, British and Soviet Politics (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press 1972), 165–72Google Scholar; Strayer, Joseph R., “Problems of Dictatorship: The Russian Experience,” Foreign Affairs, XLIV (January 1966), 264–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Clawson (fn. 9), 373–92.

49 Conferences and symposia on the question of how best to reform the Soviet economy were organized and sponsored by local, regional, and national clubs, institutes, and state administrative agencies. These were regularly reported, often verbatim, in the pages of Voprosy ekononnki, Ekonomicheskaya gazeta, and even the general national press, under the same headings and in the same formats used to chronicle the hundreds of relatively meaningless “conferences” which had gone before. But the conventional style did not conceal the fact that what was being discussed had new substance. See examples listed in fns. 34 and 40.

With reference to specialists appearing before the Central Committee, see fn. 29, and Lowenthal, Richard, “The Revolution Withers Away,” Problems of Communism, XIV (January-February 1965), 10–22.Google Scholar Khrushchev's habit of “embarrassing” the Central Committee by inviting economists and other outside experts to explain policy alternatives to the members may have been one of the accusations presented in Suslov's indictment of Khrushchev in October of 1964. See Karl W. Ryavec, “Khrushchev,” in Edward Feit and others, Government by Men: Personality and Politics in Comparative Perspective (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, forthcoming).

50 The earlier publicity surrounding the publication of “millions” of letters to the editor during the debate over the 1957 decentralization scheme displays this mentality in its classical form (fn. 9), 105–08. That the “mass” participation of economists in 1957 got mixed up with Khrushchev's encouraging the articulation of authentic policy alternatives may simply have been coincidence. That the subsequent involvement of the experts was not accompanied by the participation of “millions” is open to various interpretations. Suffice it to say that Khrushchev's statements during the early 1960's, exhorting economists to participate in increased articulation, seem to have been asking them to do so en masse; it appears to have been typical of Khrushchev's style. See Khrushchev (fn. 43).

51 Skilling discusses the general phenomenon of client-patron relations in the Soviet context: “Interest Groups and Communist Politics: An Introduction” in Skilling and Griffiths (fn. 3), 41–42.

52 To argue that Khrushchev was “image-conscious” on key policy questions defies adequate documentation, yet inferentially it is not without support. In fact, the relative openness of Khrushchev's style (including in particular his sensitivity to important specialist constituencies), especially when contrasted with that of his successor, remains one of the distinctive features of the Khrushchev years. Sidney Ploss notes, “Khrushchev tried to create a real public opinion, slightly lifting the cloak of secrecy around Politburo operations of the past and present. Both practitioners and theorists openly urged solutions to national dilemmas, going all the way to the Liberman proposals for steeply upgrading the role of profits in Soviet industry.” “New Politics in Russia?” Survey, XIX (Autumn 1973), 28.Google Scholar Also see Barghoorn (fn. 4), 219–29; Skilling, “Group Conflict in Soviet Politics: Some Conclusions,” in Skilling and Griffiths (fn. 3), 403.

In the first years following Khrushchev's departure from power, it became common for Soviet policy to be announced in a manner that implicitly compared Khrushchev's adventurism unfavorably with the “business-like” and “rational” leadership provided by Kosygin. See Leonhard, Wolfgang, “Politics and Ideology in the Post-Khrushchev Era,” in Dallin, Alexander and Larson, Thomas B., eds., Soviet Politics Since Khrushchev (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall 1968), 54–55.Google ScholarLeonhard, cites Pravda, October 17, 1964Google Scholar and November 1, 1964, as well as Parttwaya zhizn, Nos. 20 and 21 (1964)Google Scholar, and Kommunist, No. 15 (1964).Google Scholar

53 See Lodge (fn. 3), 11–30.

54 This hypothesis certainly invites contrasts between the policy-making styles of Khrushchev and Brezhnev: if indeed the leadership was experimenting with the process of greater specialist involvement—and the events described do suggest this—what, then, were the political results? The question is not answerable without further systematic study, but preliminary attention to the major economic debates of the 1970's (e.g., SOFE, the role of the production associations, and the perennial issue of consumer goods) suggests that the leadership now is relatively less impressed with the utility of vigorous specialist involvement of the 1962–1965 type; economists no longer seem to enjoy the same policy participation as they did during the reforms under discussion here. See Ploss (fn. 52); Dornberg, John, Brezhnev: The Masfa of Power (New York: Basic Books 1974) 191–95Google Scholar and 202–04; Barghoorn (fn. 4), 226–27; and Hammer, Darrell P., USSR: The Politics of Oligarchy (Hinsdale, I11.: Dryden Press 1974), 319–20.Google Scholar A theoretical discussion of the relationship between economic specialists and political elites is provided in Azrael, Jeremy R., Managerial Power and Soviet Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chap. 7.

55 Triska, Jan F. and Finley, David D., Soviet Foreign Policy (New York: Macmillan 1968), 69–74.Google Scholar See also Kelly's, Donald R. discussion of “rationalization of decision-making” in “Toward a Model of Soviet Decision Making: A Research Note,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 68 (June 1974), 701CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Brzezinski and Huntington (fn. 10), 202 ff.

56 Sidney Ploss (fn. 52), dates Brezhnev's more rigid style from April 1968, when the Party Central Committee met to “ratify the lessons” of the Dubcek experiment in Czechoslovakia.

57 In particular, a tendency to view Soviet politics as formalistic and static, to exaggerate group cohesion and impact, and to restrict attention unduly to occupational groupings. See Triska's, Jan F. review of Skilling and Griffiths (fn. 3), “A New Approach to Soviet Politics,” Problems of Communism, XX (July-August 1971), 77–80Google Scholar, and the chapter by Griffiths in the volume reviewed. Also see Langsam, David E. and Paul, David W., “Soviet Politics and the Group Approach: A Conceptual Note,” Slavic Review, XXXI (March 1972) 136–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar