ABSTRACT
This study deals with social control in advanced industrial society, especially the United States, and particularly the half-century after World War I. The United States is representative of those “Western” advanced industrial nations which have been faced with marked strain in their political institutions. These nation-states have been experiencing a decline in popular confidence and a distrust of the political process, an absence of decisive legislative majorities, and an increased inability to govern effectively, that is, to balance and to contain competing interest-group demands and resolve political conflicts.
