This essay is a comparative study in the dynamics of doctrinal conflicts. It deals with two organized international movements overtly committed to spreading and carrying out a doctrinal program of action, theological or ideological, on the basis of both the individual commitment of their respective members and their collective goals as organized bodies. Its purpose is to generalize from the experience of these organizations in handling deviations involving a unit of the movement differing or clashing either with the acknowledged center, or with another unit of the movement—in both cases over theological or ideological issues, but within the common doctrine, and accompanied by mutual doctrinal recriminations. A brief and selective analysis of the historical experience of one such movement, Catholicism, might contribute to a more sophisticated understanding of some recent developments within a contemporary international movement, Communism.

Britain and the United States have long taken an intense mutual interest in the methods by which they arrive at a defense policy and the two countries have frequently borrowed from each other's experience. In the last few years the British scene has been worthy of special attention because Britain has faced, in a peculiarly acute form, the universal military problem of limited resources and extensive commitments. Recently Conservative governments have tried to resolve this dilemma by plunging heavily for certain strategies and weapons: as a Minister of Defence told the Commons, “We have to pick the winners out of the stable.”

To set a crude financial ceiling and leave the selection of strategy and design of forces wholly to bargaining among the services is frequently regarded as an invitation to aimlessness. An obvious and tempting remedy is to compel the services to conform to a single, coherent and supposedly economical strategic doctrine. This solution carries its own risks of neglecting important aspects of the total problem and of discouraging flexible response to experience. Such a risk is especially serious in a field, such as military policy in peacetime, where there can rarely be conclusive practical tests of policy. Thus the more one searches for comprehensive strategic answers, the more important it is to enquire whether strategic ideas are debated in a market wide and open enough to offer every possible assurance of conceiving and evaluating alternatives. The recent course of British policy is of interest in this respect.

Students of congressional-executive relations have long recognized the weakness of legislative oversight of the Executive, and in few areas of public policy has this weakness been more pronounced than in national defense. A recent and significant change in this relationship was made when the 86th Congress in 1959 imposed upon a reluctant executive and military establishment a major innovation in the established processes of making defense policy. The innovation was deliberately intended to alter the balance in executive-congressional controls over some strategic decisions, and was in the form of a new requirement for legislative authorization of the principal weapons programs of the military services.

In some recent discussions of roll calls in Congress a model of interacting blocs has often been adopted and to a considerable degree verified. This model assumes the existence of several fairly cohesive blocs along with, perhaps, some unattached members. Furthermore, it is assumed that some of these blocs are fairly consistently opposed on roll calls, while others ally now with one side, now with the other. This model is attractive, not only because it accords with the usage of journalists, but also because it seems to provide a rational explanation of what sometimes appears to be the almost random confusion of Congressional voting behavior. As the evidence here presented suggests, however, this model is somewhat too neat and requires modification to account for shifting alliances over (often relatively short periods of) time. In a trial, reasoning from the assumptions of this model, we attempted to pick out those blocs and members who shifted from side to side. We were, however, unable to do so except in a few instances, largely, we believe, because the model as heretofore developed is static.

The extent of religious influence on the closely contested presidential election of 1960 has been much debated. Many have claimed that the Wisconsin primary revealed a religious split which then became one of the main issues of the campaign. This paper reports the results of an analysis of religious influence on voting in that state for several elections since the campaign of 1928, when Alfred E. Smith was the first major-party presidential candidate of the Roman Catholic faith. The thesis which will be defended is that religious influences on voting in Wisconsin, although much reduced from 1928, were still considerable enough to have been critical in an election as close as that of 1960. Several independent types of evidence from voting returns will be presented to bolster this argument.

In 1898, Mr. Justice Brewer measurably strengthened his claim to immortality by publicly inviting criticism of the Supreme Court. His words are well-worn now, for generations of professors have gratefully quoted them in journal and classroom; and during the 20th century the challenge he issued has evoked a response that may give his shade occasional second thoughts. The Supreme Court has had many problems in the years since he spoke, but a shortage of critics has not been one of them. Journalists, academicians, and politicians have, in their several ways, poured out a steady stream of reproach which from time to time has swelled into a torrent.

Much recent research in the decision-making of the United States Supreme Court has been characterized by a pronounced emphasis upon the invocation of socio-psychological theory and statistical methods of data processing in lieu of exclusive reliance upon the legal-historical theory and methods typical of most research in this field of study. Symbolic of this development is the increasing tendency of political scientists to consider constitutional law as an aspect of political behavior as well as a branch of law, and correspondingly, to study the subject matter as judicial behavior. Naturally, this recent work has evinced a preoccupation with unidimensional analysis, since it is less complicated to work with one variable than with many, and the experience so gained no doubt is a prerequisite to multivariate study. Nevertheless, students who remain committed to the more traditional workways in constitutional law are quite right in insisting, as they do, that most Supreme Court cases raise what at least appear prima facie to be many issues for decision, and that their more subjective and impressionistic mode of analysis retains the great virtue of not oversimplifying the rich complexity of many Supreme Court cases to the extent that inescapably seems to be required by the newer theories and methods. Clearly, further advances in the behavioral study of Supreme Court decision-making depend upon the development of multidimensional models of Court action, which will make possible the observation and measurement of interrelationships among the significant major variables that in combination provide the basis for an adequate explanation of the manifest differences in the voting and opinion behavior of the justices.

Analysis of the dynamic properties of two or more interrelated systems is a recurrent problem in social science theory. A particular problem frequently arises (although it often goes unrecognized) in assessing the validity of an analysis of a system, some variables of which are causally related to other variables, which latter, in turn, are either not explicitly taken into account or are assumed constant. Examples are easy to find: economists may study the behavior of a single country's economy with only secondary regard for the rest of the world; studies of group behavior may pay only secondary attention to the other roles played by the group members in other contexts; two more examples are worked out below and others may be found in the works about to be cited. Indeed, in a larger sense, the division of social science itself (or of natural science, for that matter) into separate disciplines is an example, for the variables taken as given by one discipline are the very subject matter of another and vice versa. In all these examples, the very real problem is present that if variables taken as given are causally affected by the variables of the system being analyzed, or if variables assumed not to affect that system actually do affect it, the results of the analysis may have little relevance for the study of real problems.

It would not, I think, be entirely misleading to suggest that doctrines of laissez faire and attacks upon reasoned state intervention in political and social life have tended to emanate from two extremes in social philosophy—ultra individualism and an extreme organicism. In the first case, and we may take Locke as an example, society is made up of a heap of individuals who came together to form the state for the limited purpose of the protection of property. Man is not seen as a part of a larger whole, influenced by the structure of that whole, but as an isolated individual; thus any state interference beyond the protection of property is viewed as a restriction of individual liberty. On the other hand are thinkers who regard society as such a complicated and delicate organism that they can only—and governments should only—sit back and gasp at the complexity of it all. Any attempt to improve one aspect will affect the balance of the whole in ways impossible to predict. It is difficult to point to a pure instance of this opinion, but this is the impression left with the reader after perusing such works as Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Bradley's Ethical Studies and the works of some more modern conservatives. All that governments can be expected to do is to prevent the worst collisions and any attempt to pursue a positive policy is doomed to failure.

Editorial policy reflects in part an ideal, in part a code of operating practice. It is the editor's business to maintain some gap, but not too large a gap, between the two—to keep the ideal always some distance ahead of the practice, and to keep the practice from lagging too far behind. And it is inherent in the notion of policy that both ideal and practice embody a degree of rational consistency in statement and application that rules out mere personal caprice.

A part-time book review editor is a sort of conscripted volunteer, and his problems resemble those of the amateur in any organized enterprise. He undergoes an educational experience in the course of which everyone hopes his mistakes will do as little harm as possible. He learns the things he can do something about and those he had better let alone, those things that have to be put in writing—when—and those things that shouldn't. Perhaps the best example of the first category is his decision to go to work; he is well advised to pick an editor-in-chief whose judgment and standards he respects implicitly, and whose idea of supervision is to create circumstances under which the book review editor can do his job better. The second category consists largely of resisting the temptation to rewrite reviews. Apart from grammatical corrections, clarifying phraseology, and deletions based upon considerations of space, the book review editor should content himself with firm, polite reminders to reviewers, whose drafts he finds unsatisfactory, of the purpose of the review within the word limitation specified in the original invitation. This brings us to the two strategic principles upon which the B.R.E. in most cases can secure acceptance of his responsible judgment: (1) space allocation, translated into reasonable word limitations, and (2) time pressure, expressed in lead times to meet editorial deadlines. The same principles also operate to guide the B.R.E. in his correspondence; if he cannot speak his mind in one page there is apt to be something wrong with his thinking, and an administrative decision that cannot be satisfactorily stated in a public letter should probably be reconsidered.