TODAY, GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS OFTEN SEEM TO BE IN THE position of the legendary caliph Harun al Raschid, who went about in disguise among his people in order to find out what they really thought, since he could not trust his servants to tell him the truth. This story puts in a nutshell some systematic questions:

What kind of political information is circulating in society?

What are the information ‘needs’ of government and how can they be satisified?

How is information transformed or shaped in the political process, in society, in parliament, in government?

To what degree is political information dependant on the respective structure and distribution of legitimate power Herrschuftsorganisation?

What informal and organizational networks exist?

What is the impact of the mass media? How far, if at all, do our present theories on information processes explain reality?

How far is political information dependent on individual perception?

What processes of feedback exist and what influence do these feedback processes exercise on the content of information and decision-making?

IN THE CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION OF 1982 RONALD REAGAN asked the American people to ‘stay the course’, and they have just responded with a definite negative that is nonethless difficult to interpret. The results were bad for the Republicans: a 26-seat loss in the House of Representatives, creating a 99-seat Democratic majority and ending the de facto Reagan majority there; and a loss of seven state governors together with many state representatives. The Republicans held their margin of eight in the Senate.

BURKE ISSUED THE CAUTION IN 1767: ‘WHEN ANY COMMUNITY is subordinately connected with another, the great danger of the connection is the extreme pride and self-complacency of the superior which in all matters of controversy will probably decide in its own favour’. He was writing about the American colonies but his remarks are equally pertinent to relations between Britain and Ireland then and now. Given this asymmetrical relationship and a long history of mutual hostility, it may appear curious that an almost audible sigh of relief was heard in London when a coalition government, headed by Dr Garret FitzGerald, was sworn in to lead a new Dail on 14 December 1982.

AN IDENTITY CRISIS HAS FOLLOWED ON THE GRADUAL Succession of the generations in the second German state. The feeling that previous ideals have lost their meaning, and the abandonment of the hope of a unified German nation have led to discontent even amongst socialists. In addition to the numerous demands for more human rights and cultural freedom, which led in the mid-1970s to an emigration movement, harassed by the police, a movement which is still taking place, the end of the 1970s gave birth to the autonomous peace movement. This movement articulates the basic opposition of the younger generation in one theme, that of peace, and unites it with another, the search for the nation believed lost.

WRITINGS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE FREquently deal with either the discipline or the profession. There is also a tendency not to relate political science to national and international political, intellectual and educational developments. In this article political science is treated as a discipline and a profession and viewed to a more significant degree than is usually the case as the dependent variable rather than as an independent one. Although political science in the United States is being dealt with, and the emphasis is upon the post- 1945 period, it is worth remembering that the ‘content and style of political science in any country is no less international in character than it is national. At the very least differences in national styles (as well as content) are a function of international styles as the latter are mediated by national factors’. There is in the United States neither a single school of political science nor a unitary style or content.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A MAJOR ‘KABYLE QUESTION’ IN Contemporary Algerian politics was made manifest in the spectacular events of the spring of 1980. In an earlier article I suggested that the reason why most observers did not anticipate this development was because of their failure, on the one hand, to appreciate the specificity of the Kabyle case – the extent to which it departs from the sociologists' stereotype of Berber societies – and, on the other hand, to recognize the leading role played by the Kabyles in the national revolution and, in consequence, the significance of their subsequent eviction from commanding positions in the Algerian political elite. The practical substance of the Kabyle question itself was referred to only in passing and remains to be dealt with. Why is Kabyle particularism, which in itself is nothing new, now taking the form of ‘Berberism’, that is, not only opposition to the Arabization policy of the Algerian government but also the demand for official recognition of the Berber language? Why, moreover, has ‘Berberism’ become a popular force in Kabylia, capable of mobilizing, on occasion, support throughout Kabylia and from all classes of the population, when it was previously confined to an unrepresentative coterie of intellectuals and remains so confined in respect of the other Berberophone populations of Algeria and Morocco? The answer to these questions lies in the singular economic history of the Kabyle population.