Tracing the nine formal social science disciplines - political science, sociology, economics, history, anthropology, philosophy, geography, psychology, and linguistics - through their cycles of growth, specialization, fragmentation and hybridization, Dogan and Pahre reject the notion of catch-all "interdisciplinary" research. They set out to demon

This book focuses on the selection process of cabinet ministers in a variety of democratic political systems. It discusses the variety of recruitment patterns in some of parliament-centered systems, federal system, centralized system, one-party-dominant system and majoritarian system.

This book is an outcome of the international conference held in July 1985 at Berlin. It discusses the issues related to the legitimacy of the political regime. The book also discusses crises of legitimacy in democracy focusing on the current crisis of the welfare state.