This paper attempts to explain how, in Southeast Asia, the strong patron-client bonds which joined peasants to local elites tended to break down during the colonial period—particularly in directly-ruled low-land areas. By examining the effects of social differentiation, the commercialization of subsistence agriculture, and the growth of colonial administration on day-to-day class relations in the countryside, it is possible to show how a relationship the peasant once viewed as collaborative and legitimate came increasingly to be seen as one of simple, if unequal, bargaining or of outright exploitation.

Patron-client relationships are seen as a pattern of exchange of goods and services in which the balance of exchange is related to the legitimacy of the relationship. In particular, physical security and subsistence insurance are minimal services the peasant anticipates in exchange for his deference. In the pre-colonial period the greater availability of alternative social mechanisms such as the kindred and village, the existence of unclaimed land, and the absence of strong outside backing of local powerholders served to provide minimal guarantees for clients, with the social and demographic impact of colonialism strengthened, the bargaining power of elites and moved the balances of reciprocity to their advantage the protective power and coverage of deference relations eroded. The result was a loss of legitimacy by agrarian elites.

The growth of the Indian National Congress traditionally has been discussed in terms of the spread of nationalism as a sentiment. The development of the Congress movement in Punjab, however, suggests it may owe less to nationalism than to specific changes within the provincial political systems. Communal politics denied to the Congress much Hindu support in Punjab until the late 1930's. It was not until efforts to organize a Hindu communal party ceased and one faction within the Congress sought Hindu communal support that a large proportion of the Punjabi Hindu community joined the Congress movement.

Contrary to accepted scholarly opinion, Ssu-Ma Kuang was not a leading spokesman for monarchical absolutism during the Sung dynasty. He conceived of “non-action” as a practical technique of government in which the various strata of the administration had their own unique areas of competence. The emperor, in his view, had only limited powers of decision-making. The outline of Ssu-Ma's theory of the proper relationship between bureaucracy and monarchy is that the bureaucracy is the official interpreter of the classical tradition, which was the criterion for the legitimacy of imperial decisions, and that the bureaucracy was to have wide-ranging discretionary power and delegated authority. The emperor was to rule through “non-action” by turning over authority to qualified subordinates.

Between 1900 and 1908 the Chinese revolutionary leader, Sun Yat-sen, tried to obtain assistance from the French government for his movement to overturn the Manchu dynasty, and at one point he contacted a French army officer who gave the impression that such aid might be forthcoming. This connection between Sun Yat-sen and France, revealed in Sun's memoirs, has intrigued and puzzled historians who have been uncertain as to the policy behind this curious contact. However, French archival records reveal that the promise of assistance to Sun was ephemeral as the French government decided that its political and economic interests in Asia dictated against any support for an Asian revolutionary leader. Under pressure from the Imperial Chinese government French officials banished Sun Yat-sen from Indochina in 1908, thereby demonstrating a basic hostility toward revolutionary movements in Asia.

Richard A. Solomon's book, Mao's Revolution and the Chinese Political Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), suffers especially from a faulty approach to the political culture of traditional China. Neglecting documentary sources, Solomon fails to understand the role of legitimated protest in traditional China, and this failure in turn limits his understanding of how values have changed in China under Mao. His book, however, contains much interesting factual material about Chinese attitudes toward authority and about politics in the CPR.

Richard Solomon's book Mao's Revolution and the Chinese Political Culture is a pioneering effort to interpret the Chinese Communist revolution and its revolutionary social policy by using the emergent methodology of “political culture.” Although it poses several valuable questions, the author's command of the traditional Chinese civilization is inadequate to inform his judgment. Information about literacy in traditional China is mis-used, and the extent and content of education is misunderstood. Various cultural features, e.g. the Chinese counterpart to the West's Oedipal myth, are introduced but their import is erroneously explained. Family values are mistakenly interpreted in relation to the Confucian Great Tradition. The inadequacy of Solomon's handling of such cultural information casts doubts on the validity of the entire book.

A critical review of four recent works which examine the role of the United States in Southeast Asia; its policies, goals and interrelationships with the several successor states of French Indochina: Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam.