Reviews

Ference Feher, Agnes Heller and Gyorgy Markus, Dictatorship Over Needs, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983, xiii+312 pp. £22.50.

Pierre Kende and Zdenek Strmiska, (Eds.) Egalités et inégalités en Europe de l’ Est, Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, Paris, 1984.

Lewis H. Siegelbaum, The Politics of Industrial Mobilisation in Russia, 1914–17: A Study of the War‐Industries Committees, London, Macmillan (in association with St. Antony's College, Oxford), 1983, xix + 312 pp. £25.00

William J. Conyngham, The Modernization of Soviet Industrial Management, Cambridge University Press, 1982, pp. 332 + ix. £19–50.

Caroline Humphrey, Karl Marx Collective: Economy, society and religion in a Siberian collective farm. Cambridge, Melbourne, Sydney: Cambridge University Press, 1983. xviii + 522 pp. £30–00 (£10–95 paperback).

Victor Zaslavsky and Robert J. Brym, Soviet Jewish Emigration and Soviet Nationality Policy, London, Macmillan, 1984, vii + 185 pp. £20.00.

James E. Mace, Communism and the Dilemmas of National Liberation: National Communism in Soviet Ukraine 1918–1933, Harvard University Press for the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S., Cambridge, Mass. 1983. xiv + 334 pp. $21.50.

Kalman Rupp, Entrepreneurs in Red, State University of New York Press, Albany, N.Y., 1983. 260 + xvii pp. £37.60 (hardback) £14.25 (paperback).

Cole Blasier, The Giant's Rival: the USSR and Latin America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1983, xvi + 213 pp. $7.95 (paperback).     

When a Policy's Time Has Come: Cases of Rapid Policy Diffusion 1983-1984

Most students of policy diffusion have noted that new policieshave tended to be adopted by most American states in ever shortertime spans in the twentieth century. Historically, rapid policydiffusion has usually occurred only when the federal governmenthas served as a central propagating agency, especially whenit has used the incentive of grant funds. In the past decade,however, a number of policies have diffused rapidly (i.e., thirtyor more states adopting in one to five years, with little orno central propagation). During 1983–1984, two such policieswere laws mandating child passenger restraints and lemon-aidlaws. Two broad agenda items, education reform and driving whileintoxicated, also received much attention in 1984. A varietyof specific policies were enacted in a majority of the states.It would appear that some problems become so widespread todaythat proffered solutions are readily snapped up by state governmentsas though the policies were ones whose "time has come." Therapidity of their diffusion seems limited primarily by their"fragility," that is, the degree of perceived organized resistanceto their adoption.