State and local governments, and the political proces¬ses which animate them, have undergone a great transformation in the past quarter century. The rapid pace of urbanization in the United States; the rise of metropolitanization; the entry of the national gov¬ernment into complex and expanding partnership arrangements with state and local governments in conceiving, financing and administering social and economic programs of great variety; the identifica¬tion of new and urgent priorities involving state and local government performance; the increasing pres¬sures upon these governments to modernize, their organizational capacities to meet multiplied demands — all these and other forces have radically modified the traditional bases of state and local political processes. These developments have imposed new and major burdens upon those who study state and local government and politics in the United States. Particularly do those who teach these subjects in colleges and universities find it difficult to discover satisfactory analyses designed for the classroom, materials which will appraise the effects of wide¬spread governmental change upon the institutions and processes of politics at state and local levels. ...