78 SOCIAL SCIENTIST sufficient condition, to turn historical materialism into a reductionist 'grand theory' as against the 'middle-range' theories which explain nothing. Since Max Weber's studies on power, although many analytical devices have been introduced to stratify power, we always have to revert to the simpler Marxist view whenever we want to know where the real power in society lies. This would suggest that the 'improvements' in our conceptual, framework are not matched by their explanatory capacity. The superstructural approach to politics can, therefore, be summed up as 'Descriptive Metaphysics'. To return to Kothari's next step. Once the institutional structure has been irrevocably seperated from the individual and set above him, the political elite is called in to bridge the gap between absolute power (a strong centre) and the individual's rights. In the context of a theory, which sees the possibility of human freedom only in terms of rationalising the existing power structure, the model for political development rests on the equation between tradition and modernisation, an equation which creates a 'volatile situation'. To control this volatile situation an institutional structure is deliberately set up to give the system legitimacy and stability; The implications of such a system are to be drawn on the basis of the nature of the political system within which one is operating, and the political system towards which one is working. The author sees only two options : highly centralised and elitist or pluralistic and participant, the former being termed 'totalitarian' and the latter 'open'. Here the basis of Kothari's conceptualisation must be questioned. What one is tempted to ask Kothari is : can a society be an open society when production is tied to the accumulation of capital from surplus value and the enjoyment of benefits and privileges by a few depends on exploiting others ? Can the author claim to be scientific as long as he is unable to see that such is the basis of contemporary capitalist society ? Contrary to this pluralistic view is the Marxist concept of an open society which is to be brought about through an appreciation of the actual conditions of our material existence and the necessary conditions for changing them. Kothari's methodological approach, called the 'comparative perspective', is really the rationalist-positivist creed, which claims to be 'neutral' and objective* Such an approach can only describe how a system operates, and then the how is taken to represent the why. This neutrality makes explanation impossible. Here the political system is seen as a 'relational whole' (a conglomeration of motivated individual units), which is interpreted in pseudo-ethical terms as the 'common good'. From this conceptual basis, empirical generalisations are derived at different levels of analysis, to formulate a new set of universals with which to function. Kothari is quick to notice the 'phenomenological dilemmas' which can turn empirical generalisations into analytical issues, resulting in a problem of explanation. For this reason Kothari chooses the functional school of comparative analysis, which concerns itself only with operative efficiency, and is there"