The Concept of Preparation: Some Questions about the Transfer of Systems of Government

Arecent commentator has suggested that the value to political science of looking at new states is that “one is forced to deal with the most basic questions of politics—the entire set of questions involved in the creation and maintenance of political societies.” Certainly this appears to be true time and again. One is forced to look at the largest questions to the smallest, both because they are vivid and apparent, and because they are also urgent. The basic problem of obligation—why we do things we do not want to do, and allow unpleasant things to be done to us by political leaders, or why we accept the authority of power—is for us either a matter of analysis or of sociological inquiry. Clearly it is more than that in a new state. There the question is a living one, sometimes for a large minority, sometimes for many small sections or groups. The state and the nation are not, as yet, one. Rousseau or Hobbes have come to life.