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Four types of regimes of historic importance appeared in Europe between the two world wars: pluralist democracy, social or corporatist democracy, traditional dictatorship, and fascism. The vast body of literature that has grown up around them has rarely cast these political orders as historical alternatives to each other, however. When it has done so, it. has normally cast pluralist democracy as the alternative to fascism. Most commonly, this has taken the form of contrasts between Germany and Britain, and has been accompanied by the question, why was Germany not like Britain? Yet, pluralist democracy such as appeared in Britain was actually the least relevant alternative between the wars, for the possibility of stabilizing it where it did not already exist had been foreclosed by World War I. Where liberal parties had failed to establish responsible parliamentary institutions before the war, it would prove impossible to stabilize a pluralist democracy afterward. Henceforth, stabilization would require corporatism—in either its fascist or social democratic variant—rather than pluralism.

FOUR TYPES OF REGIMES OF HISTORIC IMPORTANCE APPEARED IN BETWEEN THE TWO WORLD WARS: PLURALIST DEMOCRACY, SOCIAL DEMOCRACY, TRADITIONAL DICTATORSHIP, AND FASCISM. THE AUTHOR ATTEMPTS TO EXPLAIN WHY PLURALIST DEMOCRACY WAS NOT POSSIBLE WHERE IT HAD NOT PREVIOUSLY BEEN ESTABLISHED, AND TO IDENTIFY THE CONDITIONS THAT LED TO SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC AND FASCIST REGIMES. IN DEVELOPING AN EXPLANATION OF THE REGIMES THAT APPEARED BETWEEN THE WARS, THE AUTHOR CHALLENGES A NUMBER OF WIDELY ACCEPTED INTERPRETATIONS OF FASCISM THAT ARE BASED ON SOCIAL STRUCTURE, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, LEADERSHIP, POLARIZATION, AND IDEOLOGICAL CONFLICT.

This article presents a theory of the size and party composition of cabinet governments in multiparty democracies. The object of the theory is to improve our understanding of the causal linkages that exist between the choices politicians perceive and the historically determined political and social structures that give meaning to these perceptions and lead politicians repeatedly to make essentially the same choices. A typology of multiparty democracies is employed to capture the decisive political and social structures that give meaning to these perceptions. The structural attributes, in conjunction with a constellation of bargaining relationships, lead to predictable government formation outcomes.

This review primarily covers quantitative studies of armament issues published during the 1970s. In addition, it surveys significant earlier works, summarizes other reviews, and recommends directions for future research. It categorizes one type of research as "Arms-Building Models" (including Richardson and bureaucratic models) that describe how nations build their military forces. It also groups another type: Lanchester "Arms-Using Models" describe how force attrition occurs in battle. The review subclassifies studies of both types according to their level of analysis (international, national, and so on). These classifications permit conclusions such as these: (a) Social and psycho-logical factors are poorly represented in existing models. (b) Bureaucratic models are often better predictors than Richardson-type models. (c) Arms-Using Models can assess military effectiveness, but they cannot provide reliable policy guidance at present. (d) Future studies of issues neglected in the past, using recently developed empirical data, show promise for rapid progress.

This work provides a sweeping historical analysis of the political development of Western Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Arguing that the evolution of most Western European nations into liberal democracies, social democracies, or fascist regimes was attributable to a discrete set of social class alliances, the author explores the origins and outcomes of the political development in the individual nations. In Britain, France, and Switzerland, countries with a unified middle class, liberal forces established political hegemony before World War I. By coopting considerable sections of the working class with reforms that weakened union movements, liberals essentially excluded the fragmented working class from the political process, remaining in power throughout the inter-war period. In countries with a strong, cohesive working class and a fractured middle class, Luebbert points out, a liberal solution was impossible. In Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Czechoslovakia, political coalitions of social democrats and the "family peasantry" emerged as a result of the First World War, leading to social democratic governments. In Italy, Spain, and Germany, on the other hand, the urban middle class united with a peasantry hostile to socialism to facilitate the rise of fascism.