Specialists in the study of Soviet foreign policy increasingly feel torn between the positivist culture of political science departments and the holistic traditions of the Soviet area-studies programs. In fact, these approaches are largely complementary. Examples taken from literature on Soviet security policy and on the domestic sources of Soviet expansionism show how positivist theories and methods can be used to clarify holist (or traditionalist) arguments, to sharpen debates, to suggest more telling tests, and to invigorate the field's research agenda.
Soviet Naval Policy: Objectives and Constraints. Edited and compiled by Michael MccGwire, Ken Booth, and John McDonnell. Published for the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies, Department of Political Science, Dalhousie University. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1975. xxvi, 663 pp. $32.50.