Introduction to comparative Govt

It is now a generation since Herman Finer wrote his Theory and Practice of
Modern Government and since Carl Friedrich wrote Constitutional Government and
Democracy: both were classics of the time of the Second World War and
immediate postwar period. They concentrated, and they could not do other-
wise, on the study of the governments of what were to become the Western
and Eastern worlds, which constituted at the time almost the 'only' parts of
the contemporary world. This was already wider than the scope of previous
studies, of which Bryce's Modern Democracies is perhaps the finest. Before 1914,
liberal democratic government was slowly becoming the rule: the world
seemed to lean towards democracy through constitutional advance and the
gradual opening up of societies. But the hope ended when the First World
War started the 'era of tyrannies' and a dichotomy, almost of a manichaean
type, led to reflections on the frailty of constitutional rule and to an examina-
tion of the conditions and prospects of party dictatorships. With the 1950s,
the dichotomy had in turn to be abandoned: the whole world became the
scene and with over fifty new nations, liberal and dictatorial rule began to be
combined in half-way experiments. 'Development' seemed overwhelming
and governments appeared conditioned, not by how they should be
run,
but
by what they could achieve.
The relative character of liberal and dictatorial government became a
leitmotiv and both older models seemed unsatisfactory; but, for a time, no
new theory replaced these old models. 'Hyperfactualism' grew, while dis-
content characterized the study of government; only at the periphery, and
mainly in relation to parties, did theory continue to progress. At last this
discontent led to new models, perhaps grandiose and overambitious, but able
to take into account both new and old countries. Now that over a decade has
elapsed since Easton's Political System and Almond's first formulation of a
structural-functional approach, it becomes once more possible to consider
comparative government generally, but this time on a world-wide basis, and
to place liberal constitutionalism and dictatorial rule within this broad
context. It is to this object that this text is devoted; but it is an Introduction,
as the gap between the 'grand theory' provided by the new approach and the
necessary middle-range developments is still only partly filled and such a
relatively short book cannot do more than consider very generally most
middle-range problems.