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Originally published in 1975, this book advocates a certain approach to the study of government: the focus should be institutional, the method comparative and the level practical. The book divides into 2 sections on political science and public administration but the themes are common, as is much of the subject matter.

This book deals with the role and place of the general will in modern and contemporary political thought. This project is carried out at the crossroads of the history of ideas and political philosophy. It extensively develops historical and philosophical themes, showing modifications to the idea of the general will in the writings of thinkers who sometimes represent very distant epochs. The author tracks down the birth and the development of the idea of the general will in ancient, medieval

PROFESSOR LAZARSFELD ONCE REFERRED TO SOCIOLOGY AS BEING IN A sense a residuary legatee, the surviving part of a very general study, out of which specializations have successively been shaped.The same might be said of political science. In the West the first deliberate and reflective studies of political life were made in Greece at the end of the th century BC, and in the succeeding century. The histories of Herodotus and Thucydides, some of the pamphlets attributed to Xenophon, above all the normative and empirical studies of Plato and Aristotle were among the direct ancestors of contemporary political science. Parallel examples are to be found in the intellectual history of China, India and Islam. It seems that at certain stages in the development of great societies questions of legitimacy, power and leadership assume supreme importance; and intense intellectual effort, using the best analytical tools available, is devoted to the study of man as brought to a focus in the study of politics.