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This volume examines the various types, structures, and functions of government around the world, as well as the evolution of political systems and the factors contributing to their rise and fall.

Governance is a complex process, often divided among various structures and institutions. Local, regional, national, and even supranational entities each have their own formal and informal institutions that comprise a political system. Readers will use this comprehensive volume to examine the various types, structures, and functions of government around the world, as well as the evolution of political systems and the factors contributing to their rise and fall

The destruction of the space shuttleChallengerwas a tremendous blow to American space policy. To what extent was this loss the result of organizational factors at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration? To discuss this question analytically, we need a theory of organizational reliability and agency behavior. Martin Landau's work on redundancy and administrative performance provides a good starting point for such an effort. Expanding on Landau's work, I formulate a more comprehensive theory of organizational reliability that incorporates both type I and type II errors. These principles are then applied in a study of NASA and its administrative behavior before and after theChallengeraccident.

Do large numbers of people possess the ability to relate to political events in a systematic way? Is this ability shown in the formation of relatively coherent systems of beliefs about politics? To deal with these questions, a model is developed & tested of the cognitive process by which individuals form & organize beliefs about politics. The model explains the formation of political belief systems & successfully predicts their structure. It also provides an integrative focus for the literature on political rationality & "issue voting," & on the relationship between political attitude & political behavior. 4 Tables. HA.

Employs a political opportunity structure framework to investigate how political factors contribute to the organizational development of new social movements, drawing on documentary data & structured interviews with movement representatives from France, Federal Republic of Germany, the Netherlands, & Switzerland. Movements in these states are typologized by ecology, peace, solidarity, gay, & autonomous categories. It is found that the internal structuration of a given movement largely depends on internal organizational dynamics, & important differences exist between the organizational development of different movements that are independent of the political context. However, different types of movements are found to garner different amounts of resources, align with different sources of external support, & undergo different kinds of transformations over time. Political context, therefore, significantly impacts resource levels, external structuration, & transformation of goals & action repertoires in a systematic manner. 7 Tables, 7 Figures. D. M. Smith

THIS ARTICLE DEVELOPS AND TESTS A MODEL OF THE COGNITIVE PROCESS BY WHICH INDIVIDUALS FORM AND ORGANIZE BELIEFS ABOUT POLITICS. THE MODEL CONSISTS OF THREE BASIC ELEMENTS: POLI TICAL ATTITUDES, INSTRUMENTAL BELIEFS, AND PERSONAL VALUES. THE MODEL IS FOUND TO EXPLAIN THE FORMATION OF BELIEF SYSTEMS AND TO SUCCESSFULLY PREDICT THEIR STRUCTURE.