When an American looks at British politics, one of his first questions is likely to be, “Where are your pressure groups?” Since the subject has hardly been studied and most works on British government largely ignore it, he may feel some surprise when he finds that, even if compared with American examples, pressure groups in Britain are numerous, massive, well-organized, and highly effective. In this article I wish in the first place simply to sketch the pattern of pressure group activity in Britain and to illustrate the influence of pressure politics on the policy of British governments in recent years. This cannot be done, however, if the analysis is confined to pressure groups alone. For their aims, methods, and effectiveness are profoundly affected by the context within which they act. We all recognize, for instance, the differences from the American pattern of pressure politics which result from the discipline of British parties and the centralized power of cabinet government.

The encounter between the human mind and the outside world is the essence of speculation. The dramatic element in the encounter has been provided by man's assertion that mind is capable of comprehending and ordering the world about him. This same “epistemological presumptuousness,” which we associate instinctively with the spectacular successes of the natural sciences, has also been implicit in the enterprise of political theory. Here, too, the claim is that the human intellect can understand all of the complex interrelationships of a political order. In some ways this claim is even more assertive than that of the natural scientist. The theorist seeks not only to analyze and explain certain phenomena, but to prescribe more satisfactory patterns.

Given the complexity of the subject matter of politics and the finite character of the human mind, it is not surprising that the ideas of political theorists lend themselves to diverse interpretations at the hands of later commentators. Disagreement in interpretation, however, can take one of two forms: it may turn on a question concerning a particular idea, meaning, or emphasis; or it may find the interpreters taking diametrically opposed positions concerning the basic tendency of a given set of political ideas.

On October 9, a week after the 1954 Term began, Justice Robert H. Jackson died, and for his place the President nominated Judge John Marshall Harlan, on November 8, 1954. Judge Harlan had been appointed in March, 1953, to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The Senate did not act on the Harlan nomination until March 16, 1955, when it was confirmed by a vote of 71–11, and the new Justice took the oath of office on March 28. Accordingly, the Court was handicapped during much of the Term by not having a full bench, and apparently the argument of important cases was delayed until the vacancy was filled. Former Justice Owen J. Roberts, who had taken his seat on appointment by President Hoover on June 2, 1930, and resigned July 31, 1945, died on May 17, 1955.

At the end of the Term, Chief Justice Warren announced that henceforth the Court will not hear oral arguments or hold open sessions on Friday, which will be reserved for the conferences of the Justices. Thus the ancient practice of holding the “recitation periods” on Saturday has, at least for the present, come to an end.

The problem of sustaining and strengthening democratic institutions is of the first magnitude. The stakes are high.

“Democracy,” whatever else may be included, implies free discussion and popular election of governors, with alternative choices available. Presumably the governors will include a representative element, normally in the form of a legislative or policy-adopting body.

The term “cultural prerequisites” is less easily defined. The sociologists have an approach that sheds light upon that for which we are searching. They speak of the mores, those modes of thought as well as behavior by which men live and institutions are sustained. The mores are those elements of a culture which are regarded as essential for survival of the society itself. As regards democracy, our question is basically, “What is its cultural and psychological underpinning?” What cultural attitudes or mores will sustain democracy? In part they must do this by assuring its success in satisfying the psychological necessities of its citizens, in part by giving it and its institutions an emotional content which will make its survival a fighting matter for those who love it.

Since 1948, there has been a marked revival of interest in the presidential primary. In all probability this has come about because of the cleavage between the bulk of the regular Republican leadership, most of whom favored Taft, and the rank and file of the Republican party, who, together with many independent voters, favored Eisenhower. Concurrently, in the Democratic party there was in 1952 a “free convention” for the first time since 1932. As a result, there was revived interest in the presidential primary, and in the system of selecting delegates to the national nominating conventions, during the preconvention campaigns of 1952. Since the untimely heart attack suffered by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1955, interest in the nominating process for the presidential candidates of the major parties is again at a high point. This article, after reviewing briefly recent developments with respect to presidential primaries, discusses in some detail the legislation enacted in 1955 by the state of Florida.

During the period of the 1952 contest, interest in the presidential primary was expressed in four ways. In the first place, Eisenhower's decisive show of strength in primary contests in New Hampshire, Minnesota, and New Jersey drew public attention to the contrast between the preference primary and the methods of delegate selection in other states. Texas is a prime example of the manipulations that characterized the worst use of the convention system.

During 1953 and 1954 two different experiments designed to determine the comparative effectiveness of personalized and impersonalized propaganda techniques were conducted in Ann Arbor. Although “scientific” in orientation, both of them were carried out in conjunction with the teaching of a political science course in public opinion. This not only provided a unique pedagogical opportunity but also made possible the execution of a particularly difficult type of research. In the report following the first year's experiment, the class procedure used and the drawbacks resulting from the use of students were discussed. Here we will present the major findings and interpretations of two years of such experimental work.

Personal contact in political campaigns in the United States today receives a prominent emphasis in the thinking and planning of party strategists. Despite technological improvements in the mass media, especially television, there is today no diminution in attention to programs for personalized appeals to “get out the vote,” unsystematic though such programs may often be. Successful political campaigners in recent years invariably relate their success in part, at least, to the volume of their handshaking, their extensive itineraries, and the intensity of personalized organizational work. In November, 1954 President Eisenhower made history with his initiation of a Republican “talkathon” by telephoning ten party workers around the nation just before election day.

The most interesting educational experiment in the world today for the student of comparative administration and business and government is the Administrative Staff College at Henley-on-Thames, England. This College is pioneering the methods which, in any industrialized nation, are needed to restore the flexibility and initiative that must always accompany free enterprise. The College also provides a new approach to leadership training in that enrollees are recruited in fixed proportions from public and private employment by a method that produces balanced management teams among the members (as the “students” are called), and the teaching procedure stresses group work and self-instruction rather than formal lectures.

This original venture, headed by Princeton-trained Noel F. Hall, was founded in 1946 and opened in 1948. Already it is being imitated in widely scattered parts of the world. Henley has turned out some 1,300 policy administrators of the average age of 39, all of whom had been tapped for higher responsibilities by their employers—who incidentally foot the bill—before going to Henley for the three months' session. Each session—there are three a year—is limited to 60 members; six of the 60 members may be drawn from overseas and the rest come from private business, the central civil service, local government, the nationalized industries, and banking.