ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how the requirements of political and social curbs against conflict and disorder limit the amount and kind of change to which any Western (or other) society can realistically aspire. Structures of social differentiation and stratification in societies largely determine the amount and nature of support that is available to persons who undertake political initiatives. Political possibilities and outcomes are limited by these structures. The ideas with which elites assess the always somewhat baffling political dilemmas and problems they confront are the other main influence on their behavior. The social order is normally more limited than society as a whole. This is because all larger societies exclude at least some of their members from the social order. Then Western societies must somehow strengthen their weak social orders, or they must reconcile themselves to permanently higher levels of political control and domestic disorder.
