Although presidential succession in Mexico is shrouded in mystery, this article suggests an indirect method of understanding the politics surrounding that process. The fundamental framework of presidential politics has changed in the 1970s from populist redistribution to oil patronage. Such a change has involved the collapse of traditional, party-led populism at the end of the Echeverria presidency and the reorientation of the Mexican economy during President Lopez Portillo's “Alliance for Production,” made possible largely by the oil boom. The conservative tone of Lopez Portillo's administration, combined with the relative strengthening of the state via increased public spending, has shaped policy choices for the new president, Miguel de la Madrid. The conjuncture of the collapse of populism and the rise and fall of the oil-boom economy results in a state whose political flexibility is limited by the weakness of “new populist” politics, while oil patronage is reduced by fiscal constraints and external payments crises.

This interview-based study analyzes the attitudes and negotiating behavior of 80 individuals, principally from less developed countries (LDCs), who were participants in international economic negotiations in 1976. Some of the more important findings are: (1) negotiators' views are more diverse than analyses of roll-call votes would indicate; (2) the positions that countries take appear to be firmly grounded in national political processes and in pragmatic conceptions of their national interests; (3) negotiators from LDCs with higher per capita GNP are more likely than those from LDCs with lower per capita GNP to perceive the negotiations as being polarized, to regard social issues as important elements of development strategies, and to take advantage of regional cooperation in negotiating; they are less likely to have negative views toward transnational corporations.

The adaptation of the United States to its declining role as a superpower is examined through an inquiry into the belief systems of the society's leaders. Three sets of mutually exclusive domestic policy belief systems are identified, along with three sets of mutually exclusive foreign policy belief systems. The degree to which they are linked to each other is explored, and the connections are found to be tenuous—suggesting that the cleavages at work in American society are more enduring and less subject to change than may be readily apparent. The last section of the paper uses more recent data from a sample of American leaders to examine the degree to which foreign policy belief systems are susceptible to change over time, allowing for an analysis of the extent to which the hostage crisis in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan affected pre-existing belief systems. The overall finding is that the impact was negligible, and that foreign policy belief systems are largely resistant to change.

The role in public policy of organizations—broadly defined to include bureaucratic and corporatist, as well as autonomous, organized interests—merits attention as a form of political participation characteristic of a wide variety of societies. Various forms of corporatism have emerged in recent years to play an increasingly important role in most West European societies. In Japan and the United States, organized interests are still mediated primarily by the political parties, but in these countries also there is an increasing reliance on organizational participation. Organized interests play an important role in contemporary authoritarian states, and provide a common denominator for comparisons with other political systems. Special cases of organizational participation that have received considerable attention include the role of the military as a form of bureaucratic politics in many countries, and the decision-making function of organizations in the international system. A better understanding of organizational participation as the most appropriate basis for the comparative study of contemporary political systems calls for further research along several lines: for example, the direct influence of organized interests on governments; the interaction of corporatist and autonomous organizations with bureaucracies; comparisons of organizational participation in societies with differing institutional heritages; and the role of organizations in the international system.

A review of the recent literature reveals that during the 1970s there were three major positions in the North-South debate over the New International Economic Order (NIEO). Each represented a relatively coherent perspective on and strategy for reforming the international economy. The Structuralist position, advocating the NIEO, captured the allegiance of much of the South (the developing countries). The Functionalist position, supported by most of the governments of Northern capitalist societies, rejected the NIEO and sought to promote stable and dependable change through the specialized international agencies, such as the IMF, in which the North has considerable influence. A third position, with nongovernmental adherents from both North and South, urged Neofunctionalist reform directed toward global human rights, both civil and economic. Each of these perspectives represented a significant aspect of the actual condition of the international order, but none had the capacity to carry out its strategy. The result has been stalemate both in the negotiations for a NIEO and in the debate over the direction future international change should take.

Why is the analysis of Third World foreign policies still labeled the underdeveloped study of underdeveloped countries? Do we know how social cleavages, structures of post-colonial states, and types of dependency influence international behavior and patterns of decision making? Do the barriers to the take-off reside in data problems, lack of sophistication among Third World specialists, or in the state of foreign policy theory itself? Three problems have to be solved if this subfield is to advance conceptually and to provide us with cumulative knowledge about Third World countries: (1) the “what” of foreign policy; (2) the “why” of foreign policy; and (3) the “how” of foreign policy. Despite individual limitations, the authors reviewed here have collectively applied relevant concepts and unearthed needed data. These advances put us on the runway ready for a speedy take-off in the 1980s.