This essay examines the balance of constraints and advantages set by the international environment, as that balance impinges upon national decisions relating to the acquisition of nuclear weaponry. The effect of the balance is to reduce constraints against such acquisition, and to increase advantages; thus, some increase in the number of nuclear-weapons states is likely. It is possible that the general and local effects on international stability which would follow from such an increase in number may not affect the stability of the central balance adversely. The effects in local nuclearized environments will vary, depending in part on the policies of outsiders, but any assumption of massive instability would be unwarranted.

The Mexican state is based on a constantly renewed bargain among several ruling groups and interests representing a broad range of ideological tendencies and social bases. Mexican political stability rests primarily not upon formal institutions, but upon the interaction of principles of political discipline (closely linked to the concept of authoritarianism) and political negotiation (associated with the concept of proto-democracy). The combination of repression and co-optation with just the “right” mix of responsiveness and compromise produces: (1) elites that are both linked to, and insulated from, their potential constituencies; (2) a pattern of political and administrative decision making called “policy incoherence”; and (3) avoidance of the crystallization of factional alliances, and their opposition to one another.

There is growing realization in the U.S.S.R. that the “contemporary scientific and technological revolution” is as much a managerial and cultural revolution as a scientific and industrial revolution. The key task is to develop not only modern technical hardware, but also an effective and distinctive software appropriate for the times. Accordingly, Soviet authorities have begun to think seriously, really for the first time, about organization and the structural requirements of progress. As organizations become more complex, the area of organizational design gains importance. Because it focuses attention on interrelationships, interdependencies, and integration, the “systems approach” has emerged as a way of coping with advancing complexity. The real significance of the U.S.S.R.'s belated awakening to the modern systems age is the discovery that the Soviet system is, in fact, not a “system.” Lacking both the power and the technique to deal with contemporary issues, Soviet leaders are busy forging new organizational weapons. Despite their increasing efforts to use modern systems terminology and technology to enhance integrative capabilities, conditions militate against any radical systems engineering.

Few students of the Soviet political scene have used coalition theory to explain Soviet behavior. However, the fact that coalitions are assumed to exist suggests that the different elements of coalition theory—coalition formation and coalition maintenance—may be useful for the study of Soviet decision making. Because the Soviet political system has evolved to the point where the elements that are vital to preserving coalitions are also an integral part of the Soviet system (e.g., fear of the alternative to the coalition, unanimity rule in decision making, the existence of a power broker, and the exclusion of contentious issues), the operation of coalition maintenance may describe the decision-making process. If that is so, the key institutional actors in the Soviet hierarchy must be minimally satisfied before major decisions can be reached. Although elite harmony and coalition stability are ensured thereby, lowest-common-denominator policies will serve to rule out fundamental changes or reform attempts that are necessary for coping with emerging problems. As emerging economic problems make it difficult to satisfy the incremental demands from elite actors and the society at large, it is quite possible that the current decision-making process, or the distribution of power it ensures, will not endure.

Research on Korean communism is clearly subsumed under a new field of inquiry known as “comparative study of communism” or “studies of comparative communism.” Developed in the wake of the Sino-Soviet conflict, the comparative study of communism claims greater conceptual and methodological potency through the use of “value-neutral” models and theories developed in the social and behavioral sciences. The author critically examines the performance of current scholarship on North Korean politics in light of the promise of the comparative study of communism. Specifically, he first identifies key normative, conceptual, and methodological problems that plague the current lines of inquiry in the field. He then probes the areas of substantive strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in our present knowledge about the North Korean political system, focusing on two issues of normative and policy importance to both domestic and foreign policy—legitimacy and chuch'e. The author suggests several alternative methods and approaches for liberating the field from its intellectual isolationism and for charting a path toward a cumulative, orderly, and systematic way of building a body of knowledge about Korean communism.

Numerous studies of role, employing diverse methodologies in a wide range of social contexts, have accumulated in the social sciences over many decades. The concept of role retains considerable appeal for some who still pursue the goal of a unified theory of behavior for the social sciences, and for many others who discern in the role perspective a major source of concepts and insights on which they may draw eclectically for all manner of social research. Since the 1950s, and especially during the current decade, political scientists have produced studies of role and of role conflict focusing on political and administrative actors caught up in the process of change in various independent African states. Because die number and diversity of these studies are likely to increase in the future, they merit description and evaluation as a group. Both objectives are pursued in this article, with particular reference to three works on politics and administration in Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania.