The problem of stability in politics can be viewed from various angles. One possible approach is to regard a number of power units at different points of time and note if any change in their relationship has occurred. This raises the question about measuring political power; and some scholars will doubt the advisability of asking such a question. Hedley Bull argues that political science is in danger of being “distorted and impoverished by a fetish for measurement.” He favors a return to the classical tradition, and some of his arguments are certainly persuasive.

Can two or more self-differentiating culture-groups coexist within a single political structure? The question may well seem clearly settled by the overwhelming factual evidence of contemporary international politics, for it is indeed a truism that political and ethnic borders seldom coincide. Thus, the very existence of a host of multinational states, including such a time-tested example as the Soviet Union, would appear to document an affirmative answer. On the other hand, a recent spate of political unrest within such geographically diverse and historically unrelated states as, inter aliay Canada, Guyana, India, Uganda, Belgium, the Sudan, Burma, Yugoslavia, Cyprus, Rwanda, the United Kingdom, and Iraq, focuses attention on the common root cause of intrastate yet international conflict and again brings into question the assumptions of the multinational state.

In a world in which popular democracy sometimes seems on the defensive, the rise of the Justice party has a significance that goes beyond the borders of Turkey. That nation's continuing social and political revolution, obscured as it has been in the eyes of most foreigners by the cruel impasse of Cyprus and the revival of Greek-Turkish antagonisms in the eastern end of the Mediterranean, is worth trying to understand. Not only does multiparty rivalry exist, but political power in this important American ally is held by the Near East's only genuine grass-roots political party. This party has its roots deep in the country's social structure and is currently headed by an energetic and intelligent young leader of relatively humble origins.

The remarkable change in the United States attitude toward family planning was symbolized last October by President Johnson's acceptance of the Margaret Sanger Award for his “vigorous and farsighted leadership in bringing the United States Government to enunciate and implement an affirmative, effective population policy at home and abroad.” Less than a decade before, when the very mention of Margaret Sanger's name in official circles was considered risque, President Eisenhower had made it clear that family planning was not the business of the U.S. government. Few could have predicted that in 1966 the President of the United States would say, “It is essential that all families have access to information and services that will allow freedom to choose the number and spacing of their children within the dictates of individual conscience.”

Military intervention in politics is extremely common. Outside the North Atlantic area, the armed forces are more likely than not to be among the most important power contenders in any political system, and military regimes are at least as widespread as either totalitarian or democratic ones. It is surprising, therefore, that until recently this phenomenon has attracted little attention from students of politics. Though there has been some speculation about the causes of military intervention, our actual knowledge of the subject is meager indeed.

There has been a revolution in comparative politics. But as with X all revolutions, it is difficult to date its beginning, hard to chart its course, and now, when the revolution has become established, difficult to say what has been accomplished. The publication of Political Oppositions in Western Democracies, edited by Robert A. Dahl, provides a good occasion to reconsider the revolution and to review some of the problems that have emerged. It is a good occasion because the book is both a splendid comparative work and one that illustrates some of the dilemmas of comparative research.

There is disagreement among analysts about political development in Africa. Debate over the meaning of political development is not confined to those concerned with Africa, of course. Once the question, What does political development mean? is reformulated as, What do we mean by political development? there is no dearth of people willing to provide definitions and to free us from value-laden concepts.1 The lack of consensus on definitions is neither more nor less profound among those who study African politics than among those who concentrate their inquiry elsewhere, and the major ingredients of dispute are present in both groups in approximately the same mixture.

Vincent Rock's A Strategy of Interdependence is a pioneering effort to consider the positive connotations of peace. Considering that a large proportion of “peace research” still takes the form of empirical, inventory-type work on the level of “subsystems” analysis carried out with highly sophisticated and successful computational and allied methods, Rock's work, which is based on a macroconceptual framework, deserves the thorough and careful consideration of political scientists.