Scholars associated with theories of “nation-building” have tended either to ignore the question of ethnic diversity or to treat the matter of ethnic identity superficially as merely one of a number of minor impediments to effective state-integration. To the degree that ethnic identity is given recognition, it is apt to be as a somewhat unimportant and ephemeral nuisance that will unquestionably give way to a common identity uniting all inhabitants of the state, regardless of ethnic heritage, as modern communication and transportation networks link the state's various parts more closely. Both tendencies are at sharp variance with the facts, and have contributed to the undue optimism that has characterized so much of the literature on “nation-building.”

Most of the writing on foreign policy in the less developed countries stresses either the importance of idiosyncratic sources of policy or the identification of a number of relatively long-term factors which influence the formation of policy. These studies are helpful in many ways, but in one important respect they are unsatisfying. They do not give us a clear picture of how foreign policy relates to the political and economic problems that constitute the essence of being a less developed country.

On March 30, 1971, as the Twenty-fourth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union opened, the prediction was widely voiced in the West that no surprises were in the offing. Basing their judgments on the aura of “business as usual” which had emanated from the Soviet leadership in the months prior to the Congress, Western specialists predicted a dull gathering, keynoted by signs of stability and ostensible unity—a far cry from the lively Congresses, full of unanticipated developments, over which Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev had presided.

With the end of the Fourth French Republic and the apparently effective performance of the Fifth Republic, France no longer provides an obvious touchstone for studies of “unstable” democracies. Perhaps as a result of the search for another such example, there has been an increase in American scholarly interest in Italy. Recent research—when combined with the studies of LaPalombara, Barnes, and Zariski, and with the studies conducted by Italian political scientists—provides a fund of organized and readily available information which may be used to test both general hypotheses and specific ones about Italian politics.

Few scholars have utilized contemporary social science theory in designing research on Communist countries. And fewer still have in systematically incorporated data from Communist countries into the existing body of social science theory. That is, middle-range theories such as organization, development, and socialization theory have not significantly shaped Western research on Communist systems. And surprisingly few one-, two-, and multivariable generalizations from the existing social science literature have been confirmed, rejected, or refined—even tentatively—with data from Communist countries.