Since the early 1970s, a cognitive reorientation has marked Soviet research on economic problems of the Third World. This shift arises from recognizing the primacy of scientific-technological progress, accepting the need for integration with the world market, and coming to terms with wide economic differentiation among the LDCs and the flux in their societies. Many recent Soviet studies stress the value of incremental change (as against decisive breaks with the capitalist system of production and exchange), and argue that socialism can best emerge from a sufficiently advanced economic system. In consequence, the benefits of the Western presence in the LDCs are recognized, excessive state dirigisme is discouraged, the ramifications of a mixed economy are investigated, and the relevance as development model of the Soviet experience with NEP is studied.

Utilizing two editions of a Soviet textbook that was awarded a state prize and termed “the correct orientation” by a Central Committee official, the author analyzes the evolution of the Soviet view of the outside world in the first half of the 1970s. The movement away from ideological rigidity that began in the 1960s continued in the 1970s on a wide range of subjects. In addition, the analysis of the capitalist countries became intertwined with the debate on the future development of Soviet society; a number of features are said to have resulted from the imperatives of industrialization rather than the inner dynamics of capitalism, and hence are in need of adoption by the Soviet Union. The article closes with a brief survey of the issues subsequently raised in the published Soviet debates that continue on either side of the approved, centrist position.

The concept of pluralism has been a familiar one in political science since the first decade of this century, and has appeared in different theoretical frameworks. Pluralism is regarded as inherent in Western democracies, but it has also been interpreted as a transitional form leading to socialism. The Western communist parties, in adopting the concept of pluralism, have found a theoretical justification for abandoning the concepts of a leading model and one authentic party. The new doctrine that embraces pluralism advocates that the communist parties transform their societies to a more advanced, partly socialistic state, and then attempt to gain power by consensual means. The main issues of debate on the transformation are the abolition of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the guarantee of human rights, and the pluralist power structure.

Since the late 1950s, discussion of civil-military relations has taken place largely within one general conceptual framework. According to this theoretical perception, military and civilian authorities constitute two distinct groups (although they each consist of a variety of subgroups), and relations between them are inherently conflictual. What keeps the conflict within bounds is subordination of the officer corps to civilians except on matters requiring military expertise—i.e., civilian control. Shifts in civil-military relations, moreover, are a function of the degree of effectiveness of civilian control. A close examination of the experiences of the sixteen communist states indicates that these propositions lack comparative validity. It also suggests an alternative conceptualization of civil-military relations. Such relations can be thought of in terms of a continuum, with cooperation at one pole and conflict at the other. Where an individual country falls on that continuum at any time depends on a number of specific variables, of which the sharpness of the dividing line between military and civilian authorities is one. Modifications of civil-military relations can result from changes in any of these variables.

Political interpretations of Germany have shifted from their traditional concern over its instability and aggressiveness to an appreciation of West Germany's newly found stability and peacefulness. But the penchant of the Bonn Republic for stability creates new political problems in a world that experiences accelerating rates of political and economic changes.

The “Cologne School” of electoral research, which flourished during the 1960s and early 1970s, sprang from research conducted by Erwin K. Scheuch and Rudolf Wildenmann, and included studies carried on by their students. As exemplified by the ten studies reviewed here, it brought to West German political sociologists the theories and findings from American electoral research, tested some of its assumptions with West German data on voting behavior, and expanded and refined its basic notions in a comparative perspective. Especially significant were findings stressing social context as a factor influencing voting, more useful distinctions among kinds of “floating voters,” the lesser importance of party identification in the Federal Republic than in the United States, and the greater importance for West German voters of issues and ideology.

A new body of literature, including India's Political Economy by Francine Frankel, argues that the organization of the rural poor can facilitate a “democratic socialist” mode of development in India. The author dissents from this left-liberal world view. The organization of the lower classes has seldom led to a significant redistribution of economic resources in a democracy; it is not likely to do so in India. Attempts to convert lower-class interests into redistributive policies face institutionalized obstacles the ideological, organizational, electoral, governmental, and bureaucratic levels. If the lower classes gain effective political power despite these obstacles, the stability of the democratic process generally tends to be undermined. For these reasons, simultaneous optimism for India's democracy and for India's poor is not realistic.