ABSTRACT
The interaction between political theory and area studies has taken the form of model fitting—crude, clumsy, and, sometimes sanguine at the outset, increasingly deft and experimental as time went on and experience accumulated. Studies of communism in Eastern Europe and communist China generally eschewed the use of the term “totalitarianism.” The diffusion of system-functional concepts into continental European Soviet studies is reflected in the work of Georg Brunner who relies heavily on the American literature for his concepts and categories. In fact the political culture bibliography in the last decade has more entries from communism studies than from other areas. Quite early in communism studies different versions of modernization and development theory were applied in efforts to explain and predict the course of political change. The bureaucratic model has been frequently used in studies of Soviet foreign policy.
