n just five years, much to the aston-
ishment of professional Sovietolo-
gists, the Soviet Union has gone
from being the world's most men-
acing superpower to a weak ag-
glomeration of states uncertain of its very future. Why were most Moscow-- watchers so ill-prepared for this dramatic transformation? The fault lies partly in what may be called their "Copernican" view of the Soviet Union, a view which has dominated the field since the 1960s. Ac- cording to Copernican Sovietology, al...
Mickey Kaus, in The New Republic (May 7, 1990), 1220 19th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036,
More and more Democrats these days seem to be resuming an old war cry: Soak the rich! Soak the rich!
Kaus, an editor of the New Republic, says that the chant sends shivers down his spine. Not because he is a Republican, not (presumably) because he is rich, but be- cause a revival of the politics of redistribu- tion, which he calls Money Liberalism, "would condemn the Democrats to a futile and often i...
Tom W. Smith, in Public Opinion Quarterly (Spring 1990), Univ. Of Polling of Chicago Press, 5801 S. Ellis, Chicago, 111. 60637.
The origins of American political opinion polls are generally traced to 1936, when Alf Landon faced Franklin Roosevelt in one of the most lopsided "contests" in American history. Three pollsters (George Gallup, Elmo Roper, and Archibald Crossley) rose to the not-very-difficult task of predicting the winner. In fact, says Smith, a University of Chicago polling...
early October of 1824, the Star and North Carolina Gazette had collected poll results from 155 different meetings. Surprisingly, Smith says, the straw polls rather accurately foretold local results.
The ultimate irony is that popular opin- ion finally counted for little in 1824. Jack- son, the hero of New Orleans, won a plu- rality of the popular vote but fell short of a majority in the Electoral College. The elec- tion was decided the House of Repre- sentatives, which chose John Quincy Ad- ams...
early October of 1824, the Star and North Carolina Gazette had collected poll results from 155 different meetings. Surprisingly, Smith says, the straw polls rather accurately foretold local results.
The ultimate irony is that popular opin- ion finally counted for little in 1824. Jack- son, the hero of New Orleans, won a plu- rality of the popular vote but fell short of a majority in the Electoral College. The elec- tion was decided the House of Repre- sentatives, which chose John Quincy Ad- ams...
contrast, provided a framework in which unilateral Soviet ac- tions-even unilateral concessions- might make sense." Such concessions came quickly, beginning with Gorbachev's December 1988 announcement of troop cutbacks in Europe.
That is only one sign of the astonishing "minimalism" that Sestanovich sees sweeping Soviet foreign-policy thinking. Thus, Andrei Kozyrev, a top Foreign Minis- try official, wrote recently: "Our country has no interests justifying the use of mili- tary...
de-
mocratization. A natural
substitute for democracy
was nationalism, "that won-
drous 'political good' which
is never scarce and which
bestows psychic equality on
rich and poor, on masters
and servants alike." Fur-A U.S. cartoonist found the reunification of Germany a laughing
thermore, historical cir- matter. Few Europeans take the prospective marriage so lightly.
cumstances encouraged ex- treme nationalism.~he Second Reich (187 1-1 919) was a latecomer to the Great Powers an...
? "The Competitive Advantage of Nations" Michael E. Porter, in Harvard BusinessReview (March-April 1990), Boston, Mass.
"In a world of increasingly global compe- tition, nations have become more, not less important."
That's right, insists Porter, a professor at the Harvard Business School, more impor-tant. Prevailing wisdom in corporate America tends toward the opposite con- clusion: Moving factories to countries with the lowest wages and interest rates, as well as strategic m...
Stephen R. G. Jones, in American Sociological Management Matter? Review (~pril1990), 1722 N st. N.w., Washington, D.C. 20036.
Almost any undergraduate who has taken an introductory social science course dur- ing the last 50 years has heard of the fam- ous Hawthorne Effect: The very knowl- edge that researchers are studying them causes people to change the way they be- have.
That is just one of the more curious find- ings that came out of the landmark study of worker productivity in Western El...
IODICALS
To the Victors Goes the Sleep
Darkness reigns in the executive suites of major Japanese corporations after 6 P.M., while subordinates' lights burn late into the night. Just the opposite is true in U.S. cor-porations, three Japanese researchers were astonished to discover. Their findings are summarized Wallace H.Oftutt, Jr., in Across the Board (April 1990).
Do Japanese CEOs work harder than Ameri- can CEOs? You might expect them to, based on the enormous success of Japanese cor-porations an...