A Survey of the Field

Abstract

Recent studies of Soviet politics have indicated a significant shift of interest on the part of political scientists. Enthusiasm for a new focus of interest is often combined with foolish attacks upon the old. Thus in this field (as in others) there has been excessive criticism of the legal-institutional approach to the study of Soviet politics since, more often than not, ‘legal-institutional’ has been a misnomer for historical-institutional, and one could scarcely begin to understand the Soviet political system without some knowledge of the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, of its structure, and of the distribution of power within it Fortunately there have been a few signs of a growing realisation that different approaches to the study of the Soviet political system may be complementary rather than competing. Taken in addition to the best of the existing institutional analyses, many of the contemporary approaches not only draw attention to unfamiliar facets of Soviet politics but add greatly to an understanding of the Soviet system in a comparative context. If ‘traditional’ studies have tended to emphasise the sui generis aspect of Soviet Communism, many recent studies have emphasised what the Soviet political system has in common with other polities. Since an understanding both of the differences and the similarities is desirable, and since different approaches tend to draw attention to one or the other, there is much to be said against methodological exclusiveness.