THIS ARTICLE IS A TEXTUAL EXAMINATION OF ALMOND'S CONCEPT OF the ‘political system’, as adumbrated in his Politics of the Developing Areas and developed in his latest book, Comparative Politics. It is concerned only with this concept; others, such as his notion of ‘political development’ have been left aside.

There is at least one contribution which Almond has made to which I wish to pay full tribute: that is, his checklist of ‘functions’ which, it is alleged, all governed societies carry out, and by reference to which they can be compared. Almond's ‘functions’ are not logically necessary ones; they are simply a convenient checklist which he has derived from the data. This does not make them any the less useful. I would agree with Professor W. J. M. Mackenzie's estimate, ‘In fact Almond attempted the right thing in possibly the wrong way – but no one has yet improved on his analysis of the elements of the polity’.

A MOOD OF DISILLUSIONMENT APPEARS TO BE SWEEPING THE FIELD of comparative politics and political development. This comes after almost two decades of rather impressive accomplishment, both from a qualitative and quantitative point of view. From small beginnings in the first years after the second world war, there is now a quite impressive literature in this field. Each area of the world has something like a ‘five-foot shelf’ of monographic studies of political processes, patterns and developmental tendencies. Some of these shelves are smaller than others. The Latin American shelf, for example, has lagged in growth but is in process of rapid improvement. The Middle Eastern shelf leaves much to be desired, but even here there are signs of stirring and of potential productivity. In addition to these ‘area shelves’ which show increasing signs of cumulativeness, of drawing on each other for perspective and for hypotheses, there is a ‘super shelf’ of comparative and theoretical studies which draws upon the area shelves and which contributes frameworks, approaches and hypotheses for monographic studies.

PLATO'S ACCOUNT OF THE PLACE OF LAW IN THE POLITICAL ORDER IS in two phases, One is found in the Republic. The Republic is utopian; it describes the ideal state. In this state law has no place; ideal rulers do not need to be bound by law in order to do justice, and governmental relationships need not be defined by law if they are by nature ideal. But later, in the Statesman and the Laws, Plato moves from the utopian and ideal to describing the best state practically obtainable – the second-best state, which because of the necessities of the human condition falls short of the ideal, the Utopia. Here law is readmitted, indeed is given high place; the second-best state, which is the best of earthly states, is in fact to be held together by the golden cord of the law.

THE POLITICAL TRIAL IS FREQUENTLY RESORTED TO BY REGIMES seeking to establish or reaffirm their legitimacy. Almost by definition the opposition is the target of such trials for it has questioned or challenged the incumbent regime's right to rule. The trial, when successfully engineered, reveals the opposition as not simply misguided, but as subversive, treasonous, and, in the case of the monarchies, sacrilegious. The condemnation of all or part of the opposition for sins towards God and country emphasizes the objective validity and immutability of the regime's tenets, the components of its charter myth.

Such trials have several functions, but three stand out among them. First, one may consider the propagandistic, mass communication function. The trial itself becomes the scene for the definition, re-affirmation, and manipulation of the regime's symbols and credos. Official doctrine is hammered home to the society as a whole, under highly dramatic circumstances inherent in the trial process. The unfolding of the drama often evokes far greater public interest and concern than the routine propaganda efforts of the controlled mass media.

WHILE THE LITERATURE ON LEGISLATORS’ ATTITUDES HAS BECOME impressive in the course of the last decade, the study of legislative behaviour lags markedly behind. Even S. C. Patterson's Legislative Behaviour remains primarily concerned with the examination of legislator's attitudes. One of the clearest examples of this trend is exemplified by roll-call analysis: studies of roll-calls have principally attempted to elucidate the ideology or specific attitudinal characteristics of members of legislatures; they have not been concerned with the outcomes of these roll-calls as such, inasmuch as they might have constituted an indication of the extent to which legislatures could and did affect the ‘rule-making’ process in a national community.

AUSTRALIA ADMINISTERS THE GREATER PART OF THE NUMEROUS mountainous, volcanic, jungle-clad tropical islands to its north, collectively called New Guinea. Indonesia administers the lesser part west of the 141st meridian. There are about two and a quarter million people in the ‘Australian’ part, of whom only 35,000 are not indigenous Papuans or Melanesians. One-third of the population live in Papua, the more southerly section, which has been an Australian Territory since 1906; two-thirds in ‘New Guinea’, administered by Australia as a mandate since 1921, and a Trust Territory since 1946, when unified control of the two Territories under a single Administrator was confirmed by the Trusteeship agreement. The Australian administration has engaged in an active programme of economic and political development only since the end of the war with Japan (a good part of which was waged in the Territory).