The controversy which has arisen on the occasion of Ambassador Kennan's and my recent publications differs from the great historical debates on American foreign policy in two significant respects. It raises an issue more fundamental to the understanding of American foreign policy and of all politics than those with which the previous “great debates” were concerned, and it deals with the issue largely in terms which are not conducive to understanding.

The great debates of the past, such as the one over intervention vs. neutrality in 1793, expansion vs. the status quo before the Mexican and after the Spanish-American War, international cooperation vs. isolation in the 'twenties, intervention vs. abstention in the late 'thirties—all evolved around clear-cut issues of foreign policy. In 1793 you were in favor of going to war on the side of France or of remaining neutral. In the 1840's you approved of the annexation of Texas or you did not. At the turn of the century you supported overseas expansion or you were against it.

In a liberal society such as prevailed in America during the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian eras, where the aristocracies, peasantries, and proletariats of Europe are missing, where virtually everyone, including the nascent industrial worker, has the mentality of an independent entrepreneur, two national impulses are bound to make themselves felt: the impulse toward democracy and the impulse toward capitalism. The mass of the people, in other words, are bound to be capitalistic, and capitalism, with its spirit disseminated widely, is bound to be democratic. This is one of the basic insights Tocqueville had about the actual behavior of the American people. The irony of early American history, however, is that these impulses, instead of supplementing each other, seemed to fight a tremendous political battle. The capitalist Whiggery of Hamilton was frightened of democracy, and the democratic tradition of Jackson, which was therefore able to destroy it, formulated a philosophy which seemed to deny its faith in capitalism. The result was a massive confusion in political thought, comparable to the one that we find in the constitutional era, and a set of victories and defeats which the Americans who experienced them scarcely understood. One is reminded of two boxers, swinging wildly, knocking each other down with accidental punches.

Looked at from one point of view, it is strange that Federalism and neo-Federalism should have been shattered so badly in the liberal setting of American politics.

The five papers which follow were prepared during the summer of 1951 by the Social Science Research Council's Interuniversity Summer Seminar on Political Behavior. The seminar, which met at the University of Chicago, was attended by seven persons, who accept joint responsibility for the papers: Samuel J. Eldersveld, University of Michigan; Alexander Heard, University of North Carolina; Samuel P. Huntington, Harvard University; Morris Janowitz, University of Michigan; Avery Leiserson, Vanderbilt University; Dayton D. McKean, University of Colorado; and David B. Truman, Columbia University. Ralph M. Goldman met with the seminar as an associate, and later Elizabeth Wirth Marvick assisted in preparing some of the materials.

The papers, one product of the seminar's work, were written to define and illustrate what the participants feel to be a significant contemporary development in political research. The first paper, “The Implications of Research in Political Behavior,” outlines some of the requirements, characteristics, and implications of political behavior research. It is followed by plans for three research projects, “Party and Administrative Responsibility: Council-Manager Government,” “Political Participation in a Metropolitan District: A Study of Group Influence on Political Activity,” and “The Roles of Congressional Leaders: National Party vs. Constituency,” drawn up in accordance with these specifications.

A major concern of political theorists has been the definition of the proper role of legislators in relation to their constituencies. Yet relatively little analysis has been made of the uniformities of behavior that actually prevail in these relations. Such uniformities, if they could be found, would bear directly on the theory of the party system, on speculation about the nature of representative government, and on the feasibility of proposals for a reordering of party practices.

It has been shown that the tendencies of Congressmen to vote with their party or to cross party lines are associated with the similarity or dissimilarity between party policy and presumed interest of constituency. One aim of this study is to test the applicability of this proposition to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, by examination of the relation between roll-call votes and constituency characteristics. The evidence indicates that a similar relation exists in this body, and has been present consistently throughout the last two decades.

In the development of democracy in the modern world, increasing attention has been paid to the idea of representation. With the growth of large electorates which resulted from the extension of the franchise, it has been a necessary and logical process for thinkers and constitution-makers to devise methods by which the will of the electors can be formulated and translated into public policy. Since the voters are too numerous to gather in the market place, some means must be found to represent their opinions in the control and administration of the state. In the words of John Stuart Mill, “the meaning of representative government is, that the whole people, or some numerous portion of them, exercise through deputies periodically elected by themselves the ultimate controlling power, which, in every constitution, must reside somewhere.”

But specifically whom should the deputy represent—individuals, areas, groups, parties, or himself? Must he be popularly elected and, if so, how, and by whom? These and other vital questions have occupied the attention of scholars and statesmen for more than a hundred years. How to organize a system of good democratic representation is today a very live question in several countries, and a really critical question in one or two of them.

To any observer the French party system is bewildering. On the one hand, he sees that ten parliamentary groups are officially established in the National Assembly (not including the Overseas Independents); and, at the same time, he notes that only five of them are really organized throughout the country, and so entitled to be considered “parties” in the true sense of the word: the RPF, the Radicals, the MRP, the Socialists, and the Communists. On the other hand, he observes that the ablest French specialists in electoral sociology—particularly André Siegfried and his disciple, François Goguel—consider that, behind the apparent profusion of political groups, two basic divisions are always found, the continuing opposition of which has supplied for more than a century the essential dynamics of French politics. These two divisions are, of course, the Right and the Left, traditionally called “Order” and “Movement.” Nevertheless, the brief history of the Fourth Republic reveals an attempt to break down these two blocs, and to build a “Third Force” from smaller units. Under various names, such a Third Force has governed France from March, 1947, to March, 1952; and if our hypothetical observer will look back and analyze the political life of the Third Republic, he will find the same tendency there, not so marked and not so strong, but always present.

The problem of guarding the constitution is fundamental in any political system. If the term “constitution” is given a very broad definition, such dictatorial devices as powerful secret police and special tribunals for the safety of the state may be regarded as means for the protection of the “constitution” of a totalitarian regime. However, western democracy does not rely upon repressive means for safeguarding the constitution, except in times of crisis when use is made of martial law, the state of siege, and constitutional dictatorship. For normal times, western democracy has developed constitutional means of protection that essentially resemble ordinary legal and political processes, such as the amending process, special deliberative bodies, and judicial review.

This study is concerned with judicial review as a means of guarding against legislative encroachments on the constitution. The acceptance of judicial review in national constitutional systems will be traced historically, with emphasis upon twentieth-century developments. Some attention will be given to the historical background of judicial review and to its theory and practice under various modern constitutions, but no systematic treatment of these subjects is attempted.

World War II left Europe economically bankrupt, politically paralyzed, and spiritually sick. In contrast, we find today—thanks to the leaven of the Marshall Plan and other U. S. assistance, and the self-help and mutual-help measures of Western European countries—a vastly improved Continent of Europe.

First, economic collapse has been avoided. The mills, plants, and shops in most countries are humming as they never did before. The current output of industry in Western Europe is roughly forty per cent larger than in 1938, and sixty per cent above that of 1947. Agriculture has likewise shown encouraging improvement. The volume of intra-European trade which had come to a virtual standstill in 1947 has sharply increased until it is now over one-third higher than that of the pre-war era. The dollar deficit in Europe has been substantially reduced from a peak of $7 billion and, except for the special requirements of the post-Korean rearmament program, it would probably have been brought into manageable proportions by 1951.

Political problems, domestic or international, always involve us in psychological and philosophical issues; but they tend to develop whatever psychology or philosophy they need for their own purposes rather than to borrow from the formidable and not always luminous stock pile of professional literature in these subjects. This tendency to be one's own philosopher is entirely justified, for the simple reason that philosophy is always arising from experience, showing an inductive as well as a deductive side—and that the political experience of mankind is prolific in comment on the nature of man and of the world man lives in. Thomas Hobbes, for example, is a political writer whose contributions to psychology have not yet been fully appreciated.

At the same time, there are recent advances in both psychology and philosophy of which political science ought to enjoy the consequences. If any light is thrown on the nature of the human individual, that light is directly pertinent to political science. Enquiries into the nature of human association are similarly relevant.

This is an attempt to sketch in very rough form what seem to me some of the central concepts and problems of organization theory. In the first section I have tried to define the field of organization theory and to indicate with some care what justification there is for regarding it as a distinct area of theory, related to, but by no means identical with, the theory of small groups and the theory of social institutions. The comments in the second section on subject-matter areas simply spell out the implications, many of them perhaps obvious, of the central argument of the first section.

This paper is concerned with all kinds of organizations, and not simply with those that fall within the area of public administration. This definition of the scope of organization theory reflects my own conviction that there are a great many things that can be said about organizations in general, without specification of the particular kind of organization under consideration. Moreover, even if we were interested solely in governmental organizations, I believe that a great deal can be learned from the comparison of their characteristics with those of other kinds of organizations, and from attempts to explain the similarities and differences that are found. Neither of these statements denies the existence of numerous and important phenomena that are peculiar to governmental organizations or the need for theory in public administration to deal with these phenomena.

The contested status of the science of politics has compelled its supporters to pursue their endeavor in an atmosphere of continual apology. The contemporary exponents of scientific aspirations in the realm of political phenomena remain on the defensive as they are confronted with the tenacious persistence of two focal problems: (1) Does the study of politics reveal the potentiality of a science, in view of the immense diversity of human behavior, which appears to be unpredictable and beyond control for the purpose of observation? (2) What would constitute the criteria of a science of politics, provided that the possibility of establishing such a discipline is conceded? In its essential features, this dual issue represents the current manifestation of a controversy which emerged in Utilitarian thought. The parties to the dispute were James Mill, Thomas Babington Macaulay (the only participant who cannot be identified with Utilitarianism), and John Stuart Mill. The respective arguments of the contestants were presented in James Mill's Essay on Government (1828), in Macaulay's article, Mill's Essay on Government (1829), and John Stuart Mill's A System of Logic (1843). Although these works have suffered no neglect in the history of political theory, the controversy which they reveal in their combined context has not commanded as much attention as its pertinence to contemporary problems merits.