This article represents an attempt to describe Soviet society, and JL particularly the Soviet political system, in terms of a typology of society based on modes of coordinating social activity. It is felt that this approach may be of value in pointing up both some of the similarities and some of the differences between Communist and non-Communist industrialized societies.

“As an orchestra conductor sees to it that all the instruments sound harmonious and in proportion, so in social and political life does the Party direct the efforts of all people toward the achievement of a single goal.

The nature of modern society, the quality of the modern social, civil, and moral order, has been in the forefront of sociological thought and inquiry since the very beginning of sociology. This interest has been greatly reinforced by the growing preoccupation with the extension of the processes of modernization beyond their initial place of origin in Western Europe and the United States to Eastern Europe and later to Asian and African countries. The continuous processes of modernization in these societies have greatly added to the store of knowledge about the nature and variety of modern society, and they also have enabled us to reformulate many of the most crucial problems in this area.

Many primitive peoples have political systems which are very much like the international political system. If the characterization of world politics as mere “anarchy” is an exaggeration, surely anarchy moderated or inhibited by a balance of power is a fairly accurate description of the rivalry between sovereign nation-states. The Nuer, a primitive African people, have been described as living in an “ordered anarchy” which depends on a “balanced opposition of political segments.” It is commonplace to describe the international system as lacking a government, so that “might makes right.” “In Nuerland legislative, judicial and executive functions are not invested in any persons or councils”; hence, throughout the society, “the club and the spear are the sanctions of rights.”

Concern over natural resources not only persists in the contemporary world but may be intensifying. World war, cold war, the race in space, and the almost universal push toward economic development have individually and collectively, constructively and destructively, renewed public and private interest in natural resource requirements and availabilities. Planners in various countries, capitalist or socialist, require fairly comprehensive resource information before they can hope to succeed in preparing lines of economic policy. Answers have to be found for a wide range of questions. Is the domestic resource base sufficient to meet present and anticipated claims on it? If not, can technology be relied upon to produce substitutes or more economical processes? Failing or supplementing this, are foreign supplies realistic alternatives? And finally, how accurate are estimates of resource capabilities and needs?

Case-Studies of the policy-making process constitute one of the more important methods of political science analysis. Beginning with Schattschneider, Herring, and others in the 1930's, case-studies have been conducted on a great variety of decisions. They have varied in subject-matter and format, in scope and rigor, but they form a distinguishable body of literature which continues to grow year by year. The most recent addition, a book-length study by Raymond Bauer and his associates, stands with Robert A. Dahl's prize-winning Who Governs? (New Haven 1961) as the best yet to appear. With its publication a new level of sophistication has been reached. The standards of research its authors have set will indeed be difficult to uphold in the future. American Business and Public Policy is an analysis of political relationships within the context of a single, well-defined issue—foreign trade. It is an analysis of business attitudes, strategies, communications and, through these, business relationships in politics. The analysis makes use of the best behavioral research techniques without losing sight of the rich context of policies, traditions, and institutions. Thus, it does not, in Dahl's words, exchange relevance for rigor; rather it is standing proof that the two—relevance and rigor—are not mutually exclusive goals.