bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Science and the Philosophy of Science: A Rejoinder to Professors Goldberg and Gregor
Authors: Gunnell John G.
Published: May 2006

Since both Mr. Goldberg and Mr. Gregor have limited their responses principally to my specific criticisms of the deductive model, it would seem appropriate to emphasize once more the purpose of this criticism. The issue which I wish to raise, using the discussion of the deductive model as a vehicle, goes far beyond the model itself and even the approach to the philosophy of science which it represents. It should be apparent that there may be little chance of resolving the differences that stand between the respondents and myself regarding either the character of the philosophy of science as a discipline of inquiry or its product, but to some extent these differences can be separated from the more general problem of the relationship between social science and the philosophy of science.

I suggested that there is a significant intellectual lag or gulf between political science and contemporary work in the philosophy of science. This situation need not, in principle, be viewed as odd or even undesirable since the distance between philosophy and other fields of science is at least as great. What is unique about political science is that, although it has lost touch with philosophy, it has to a large extent derived its conception of science and its notion of the procedural rules of empirical inquiry from a restricted body of literature in the philosophy of science, i.e., traditional logical empiricism.
Judges' Role Orientations, Attitudes, and Decisions: An Interactive Model
Authors: Gibson James L.
Published: May 2006

Despite almost two decades of behavioral research, our models relating the key variables in judicial decision making are incomplete and inadequate. In particular, the impact of two widely used variables, judges' attitudes and role orientations, is poorly understood. While there appears to be a consensus that attitudes and role orientations are important predictors of behavior, no research has been successful in developing a comprehensive model capable of predicting judges' behaviors. This article's objective is the development of a single model incorporating attitudes, role orientations, and decision-making behavior. While attitudes and role orientations taken singly explain insignificant amounts of the variation in behavior, an interactive model of attitudes and role orientations is shown to be extremely useful for understanding behavior. Although this research focuses on the sentencing decisions of Iowa trial court judges, the proposed model is potentially applicable to all instances of decision making.
The Corruption of a State
Authors: Dobel J. Patrick
Published: May 2006

This article presents a theory of corruption which unifies the moral, political, economic and social causes and patterns of corruption in one theoretical framework. The theory is constructed from the scattered insights about the “corruption of the body politic,” building in particular upon the work of five theorists–Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli and Rousseau. Corruption is defined as the moral incapacity of citizens to make reasonably disinterested commitments to actions, symbols and institutions which benefit the substantive common welfare. This extensive demise of loyalty to the commonwealth comes from the interaction of human nature with systematic inequality of wealth, power and status. The corruption of the polity results in certain identifiable patterns of political conflict and competition. The central feature of these patterns is the emergence of quasi-governmental factions and an increasingly polarized class system. The politics of the factions leads to an undermining of the efficacy of the basic political structures of the society and the emergence of systematic corruption in all aspects of political life. The theory advanced in this article identifies several crucial prescriptions to stave off the tendency towards corruption. Among these are an extension of maximum substantive participation by all citizens in all aspects of political life and a stringent control over all sources of great or permanent inequality in the polity.
Political Corruption in America: A Search for Definitions and a Theory, or If Political Corruption Is in the Mainstream of American Politics Why Is It Not in the Mainstream of American Politics Research?
Authors: Peters John G. , Welch Susan
Published: May 2006

Lack of a clear definition of political corruption has limited its systematic study by analysts of American politics. This article offers a conceptual framework with which to view corruption. A corrupt act is categorized by its four components: the donor, the favor, the public official and the payoff. For each component, propositions about perceived corrupt and noncorrupt elements can be formulated and tested. The usefulness of this scheme in analyzing attitudes about corruption is demonstrated with data from state legislators. Finally, the article suggests some future research possibilities using this scheme to compare elites and public or other groupings in the political system.
The Limits of Consensual Decision
Authors: Rae Douglas W.
Published: May 2006

This essay criticizes the ideal of consensual decision as it appears in liberal political theory. A historical survey begins with Locke's view of consent, its criticism and extension by 19th century figures such as Godwin, Calhoun, and Mill, its reappearance in the guise of economic efficiency within the works of Wicksell or Buchanan and Tullock and as moral autonomy in Wolff'sDefense of Anarchy. The paper offers a structural account of political decision making in which vulnerability to the authority of others seems inescapable and in which neither unanimity nor a universal right of consent is possible. On this telling, consensual decision is logically unattainable and misdirects constitutional theory.
Generational Replacement and the Growth of Incumbent Reelection Margins in the U.S. House
Authors: Born Richard
Published: May 2006

Virtually all congressional scholars investigating the rise of incumbent safety in the U.S. House have assumed that the responsible cause, regardless of its specific nature, is one which has affected incumbents generally. The sole exception is Fiorina, who speculates that increased overall safety results from recent freshmen's greater electoral strength. The analysis performed here confirms this generational replacement hypothesis. Much greater vote gains have resulted from the freshman term of incumbency since 1966–68, while no pro-incumbent trend for veterans has surfaced.
Asymmetry in the Political System: Occasional Activists in the Republican and Democratic Parties, 1956–1964
Authors: Nexon David
Published: May 2006

By means of the Survey Research Center's national public opinion polls of the electorate during the 1956, 1960, and 1964 elections, the opinions of volunteer activists in the Republican and Democratic Parties were compared to those of rank and file members. On issues that divided rank and file Republicans from rank and file Democrats, Republican activists were found to be far more conservative than ordinary Republicans. Democratic activists, however, had about the same distribution of opinion as rank and file members of their party. Moreover, Republicans were proportionately far more active than Democrats. It was inferred from these findings that the two parties were different kinds of organizations. The Republican Party, it was argued, was a high participation party with an amateur base composed of right wing ideologues, while the Democratic Party was a low participation party with a professionalized base not dependent on ideological incentives to activism.
Political Ambitions, Volunteerism, and Electoral Accountability
Authors: Prewitt Kenneth
Published: May 2006

A generally accepted interpretation of American politics today is associated with the “theory of electoral accountability.” The salient features of this theory are well known. The thesis was initially shaped in Schumpeter's classic work on democracy, and since has been elaborated by a generation of scholars. The elaboration, especially where grounded in empirical studies, has established (1) that the public, being largely apathetic about political matters and in any case ill-informed regarding public issues, cannot provide the necessary and sufficient conditions for the maintenance of democratic procedures; (2) that a liberal political and social elite are committed to the preservation of democratic forms, at least more committed than the average citizen; therefore, (3) what maintains the democratic tradition is not extensive public participation in political policy-making, but, instead, competition among elites whose behavior is regulated by periodic review procedures. Competition among elites and review by citizens of political leaders are provided by elections. Thus elections hold political leaders accountable to non-leaders.

Writers associated with this general position have recently come under scholarly attack. The critique, directed at the first two assertions, can be reviewed briefly: although true that the public is not well-informed politically and is not actively engaged in political life, this is not to be attributed to the inherent traits of citizens so much as to the structure of political opportunities in the United States. Moreover, although true that research has detected among political leaders a greater commitment to democratic procedures than is the case for the ordinary citizen, this commitment is to procedures in which only the leaders participate.
On Civil Disobedience in Recent American Democratic Thought
Authors: Power Paul F.
Published: May 2006

Theoretical discussions of civil disobedience on ethical and political grounds received special attention in this country during the Nuremberg trials, the security and loyalty controversies of the 1950's and the pre-arms control years of nuclear power. A fourth wave of interest formed after the early civil rights protests and a fifth is appearing to consider dissent from national policies on the Vietnam War. In this paper civil disobedience is viewed from a trough between the fourth and most recent wave. The phenomenon is interpreted with selected ideas from the study of political obligation and unconventional dissent. The essay first assesses recent American analysis of civil disobedience to determine what the criteria should be to distinguish it from other forms of political action and to discover its political ethics. Secondly, there is an attempt to answer the question: Is there any appreciable service that carefully defined civil disobedience might perform in American democratic thought? The complete enterprise is provoked by a need to examine new strategies for democratic citizenship in a time when the deficiencies of American political life are becoming known to increasing numbers and varieties of people instead of remaining the preserve of enlightened elites.
The Problem of Strategic Behavior under Approval Voting
Authors: Niemi Richard G.
Published: May 2006

Approval voting is being promoted as “the election reform of the 20th century” (Brams, 1980, p. 105), and indeed if voters' preferences are dichotomous, approval voting has some remarkable qualities: it is uniquely strategy-proof, a candidate wins if and only if he is a Condorcet winner, and voters have simple strategies that are at once sincere and sophisticated. However, all of these results depend on the existence of dichotomous preferences, a contrived and empirically unlikely assumption. Here I show that these virtues of approval voting are replaced by some rather undesirable features under more plausible assumptions. More fundamentally, rather than promoting “honest” behavior, as is sometimes implied, the existence of multiple sincere strategies almost begs voters to behave strategically. I also examine sophisticated approval voting and show that in the general case it need not pick a Condorcet alternative. Ironically, there is a condition under which Condorcet winners may always be picked, but for this to occur, voters sometimes have to vote for candidates of whom they disapprove.
A New View of Political Accountability for Economic Performance
Authors: Chappell Henry W. , Keech William R.
Published: May 2006

Most political support models imply that in evaluating economic performance, voters use a standard that would provide poor predictions of the future and leave the economy vulnerable to manipulation by vote-hungry politicians. Drawing on macroeconomic theory, we develop a simple standard of evaluation which encompasses a concern not only for current economic outcomes, but also for accurately assessed future consequences of current policies. We find that political support for the president can be explained as well by models that assume that voters use this sophisticated standard as by models that assume voter naivete.

Our analysis questions the wisdom of measures typically used to assess voter evaluation of economic performance in a variety of theoretical contexts. The results also help to explain the absence of convincing evidence that governments exploit voter ignorance in manipulating the economy.
Voter Participation and Strategic Uncertainty
Authors: Palfrey Thomas R. , Rosenthal Howard
Published: May 2006

The paradox of not voting is examined in a model where voters have uncertainty about the preferences and costs of other voters. In game-theoretic models of voter participation under complete information, equilibrium outcomes can have substantial turnout even when voting costs are relatively high. In contrast, when uncertainty about preferences and costs is present, only voters with negligible or negative net voting costs participate when the electorate is large.
Coordination versus Prisoners' Dilemma: Implications for International Cooperation and Regimes
Authors: Snidal Duncan
Published: May 2006

The study of political institutions in general and international cooperation in particular has been beneficially influenced by the Prisoners' Dilemma (PD) game model, but there is a mistaken tendency to treat PD as representing the singular problem of collective action and cooperation. By relaxing the assumptions of 2 × 2 games and developing an alternate model of the coordination game, I show how some cooperation problems have very different properties from those found in PD. The analytical results of the two games are compared across several important dimensions: number of strategies available, number of iterations of the game, numbers of players, and the distribution of power among them. The discussion is illustrated with specific problems of international cooperation, and the implications of alternative cooperation problems for the formation and performance of international regimes are explored. The basic solutions for PD and coordination have divergent ramifications for the institutionalization, stability, and adaptability of regimes and for the role of hegemony in the international system. However, the coordination model does not replace the PD model but complements and supplements it as a way to understand the diversity of political institutions. These results are widely applicable to areas of politics beyond international relations.
Attitude Attribution: A Group Basis for Political Reasoning
Authors: Brady Henry E. , Sniderman Paul M.
Published: May 2006

This article shows that citizens can estimate what politically strategic groups—liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, and blacks and whites—stand for on major issues. These attitude attributions follow from a simple calculus, a likability heuristic. This heuristic is rooted in people's likes and dislikes of political groups. Thanks to this affective calculus, many in the mass public are able to estimate who stands for what politically, notwithstanding shortfalls in information and information processing.
Farquharson and Fenno: Sophisticated Voting and Home Style
Authors: Denzau Arthur , Riker William , Shepsle Kenneth
Published: May 2006

This article is aimed at integrating two kinds of analysis of legislators' calculations of advantage. We assume that legislators operate in two arenas, in the legislative arena itself, where their calculations of advantage concern simply their effectiveness in voting (Farquharson), and in the electoral arena, where their calculations concern the rewards for their position-taking as well as their effectiveness (Fenno). Our analysis is introduced by an interpretation of voting on the Powell amendment, 1956, when some legislators apparently voted strategically and others, equally able to do so, still did not. We then develop an expected utility model of voting that accounts for such divergent choices in terms of legislators' individual beliefs about the distribution of opinions in the legislature (Farquharson) and in their constituencies (Fenno). We conclude with an analysis of the Nash equilibria of choices to vote strategically or nonstrategically.
The Abuse of Probability in Political Analysis: The Robinson Crusoe Fallacy
Authors: Tsebelis George
Published: May 2006

The decision to stay at home when you have no umbrella and rain is probable is an appropriate problem for decision theory. The decision to speed when you are in a hurry and the police might be patrolling is a game against a rational opponent. Treating the latter like a problem for decision theory is what I call the Robinson Crusoe fallacy. It is quite common and leads to incorrect conclusions. If the game has no pure strategy equilibrium, changes in the payoffs to a player affect not that player's strategy but the strategy of the opponent in equilibrium. For example, modifying the size of the penalty does not affect the frequency of crime commitment at equilibrium, but rather the frequency of law enforcement. I provide examples of this fallacy in regulation, international economic sanctions, and organization theory and argue that it stems from inappropriate use of the concept of probability.
The Nature of Utility Functions in Mass Publics
Authors: Brady Henry E. , Ansolabehere Stephen
Published: May 2006

Survey data are used to test the basic tenets of rational choice theory. We find that (1) voters' preferences are orderly but voters do not always have preferences. When the perceived difference between two candidates is below some threshold, voters are indifferent between them. (2) Most voters choose candidates whose issue positions are congruent with their own. (3) Lack of knowledge about candidates affects choice and utility through two routes—indifference and risk aversion.

Most voters have highly structured utility functions, but the thresholds and risk aversion in these functions place relatively unknown candidates at a disadvantage in presidential primaries and other electoral situations. Moreover, the importance of knowledge in these functions suggests that social choice theorists must take seriously the classic concerns of public opinion research—the operation of the media and the dynamics of information in elections.
Economic Growth and Intergenerational Change in Japan
Authors: Ike Nobutaka
Published: May 2006

This article seeks to apply the hypotheses and findings presented by Ronald Inglehart in his “The Silent Revolution in Europe: Intergenerational Change in Post-Industrial Societies,” to the Japanese scene. Inglehart argued that affluence had produced changes in value priorities in Western Europe: the older generation has acquisitive values, while the younger age groups have postbourgeois values. An analysis of Japanese data collected by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics in four national surveys in 1953, 1958, 1963, and 1968 suggests that value changes in Japan produced by rapid economic growth may be somewhat different. Three types of change were found, namely intergenerational, life-cycle, and adult. Compared to its elders, the younger generation is less acquisitive, more democratic, and somewhat more inclined to value freedom. The most important value change, however, appears to be intergenerational change from collectivity orientation toward individuation. It is suggested that individuation has led to a tendency toward privatization and less concern for the electoral process on the part of youth. Whether or not this is a temporary phenomenon is not clear.
Schema Theory: An Information Processing Model of Perception and Cognition
Authors: Axelrod Robert
Published: May 2006

The world is complex, and yet people are able to make some sense out of it. This paper offers an information-processing model to describe this aspect of perception and cognition. The model assumes that a person receives information which is less than perfect in terms of its completeness, its accuracy, and its reliability. The model provides a dynamic description of how a person evaluates this kind of information about a case, how he selects one of his pre-existing patterns (called schemata) with which to interpret the case, and how he uses the interpretation to modify and extend his beliefs about the case. It also describes how this process allows the person to make the internal adjustments which will serve as feedback for the interpretation of future information. A wide variety of evidence from experimental and social psychology is cited to support the decisions which went into constructing the separate parts of the schema theory, and further evidence is cited supporting the theory's system-level predictions. Since the schema theory allows for (but does not assume) the optimization of its parameters, it is also used as a framework for a normative analysis of the selection of schemata. Finally, a few illustrations from international relations and especially foreign-policy formation show that this model of how people make sense out of a complex world can be directly relevant to the study of important political processes.
Vulnerabilities and Responsibilities: An Ethical Defense of the Welfare State
Authors: Goodin Robert E.
Published: May 2006

We all acknowledge strong special responsibilities towards families, friends, clients, and compatriots. The moral basis of these responsibilities is traditionally analyzed in terms of self-assumed obligations. That analysis substantially restricts their scope, because we voluntarily commit ourselves to only a limited range of people. In this article I argue that it is the beneficiary's vulnerability rather than any voluntary commitment as such on the part of the benefactor that generates these special responsibilities. This analysis provides an argument for broader notions of responsibility, because there are many more agents vulnerable to us (individually or collectively) than to whom we have made commitments, in any sense. The welfare state is one particularly apt way of discharging at least some of these further responsibilities. Unlike more individualized responses, the welfare state can satisfy the criteria of a morally acceptable dependency relationship.
From Confusion to Confusion: Issues and the American Voter (1956–1972)
Authors: Margolis Michael
Published: May 2006

The authors of the American Voter concluded that the distribution of opinions on current issues was not very important for explaining the vote of the large bulk of the American electorate. Recent studies purporting to demonstrate the increasing prevalence of issue voting in the 1960s and early 1970s fail to present evidence to satisfy the criteria for issue voting upon which the conclusions of the American Voter were based. Worse yet, the evidence of these newer studies fails to satisfy even the studies' own alternative criteria for issue voting. The apparent “increases” in issue voting prove to be largely artifacts of the measures employed or misinterpretations of the evidence adduced. When it comes to translating his issue preferences into voting choices, the average voter remains as confused as ever
Bureaucratic Response to Citizen-Initiated Contacts: Environmental Enforcement in Detroit
Authors: Jones Bryan D. , Greenberg Saadia R. , Kaufman Clifford , Drew Joseph
Published: May 2006

When citizens contact local government agencies, they generally attempt to influence service delivery decisions made by these bureaucracies. This paper examines the nature of citizen contacts, and the results of such contacts, with respect to the enforcement of environmental ordinances in Detroit, Michigan. We first examine the mechanisms responsible for the generation of citizen contacts. Assuming relations among citizen awareness, service need, and social well-being, we derive a downward-opening parabola as appropriate for describing the relationship between social well-being and propensity to contact a service agency. Using data on citizen contacts from City of Detroit agencies merged with census data, we find the expected relationship in evidence. We find that the Environmental Enforcement Division generally responds to citizen contacts, but the quality of the response varies with social characteristics of neighborhoods.
The Sino-Soviet Border Dispute: Background, Development, and the March 1969 Clashes
Authors: Robinson Thomas W.
Published: May 2006

Sino-Soviet border fighting in early 1969 had many causes. The two Damansky Island incidents, moreover, were quite different in level of conflict and outcome. Only an investigation of the details of the incidents, together with a composite analysis of domestic, foreign policy, and international political variables suffices to determine what actually happened and why. Fitting the pieces together reveals that the Chinese caused the March 2 incident, while the Russians initiated fighting on March-14. The first incident involved only local forces; the second included regular army forces of several thousand and heavy equipment.

The history of the border conflict since 1954 is traced and found to have entered a critical stage in 1966, with the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution and increased Soviet military readiness. The 1964 border negotiations aborted because the Chinese wished no agreement then; but no insurmountable obstacles stand in the way of a definitive border agreement. A combination of local excesses, regional power struggle, and national-level policy changes motivated the Chinese to initiate action on March 2. The Soviets caused the March 14 incident primarily for revenge and as the opening move in forcing the Chinese into new border talks.
House Careerists: Changing Patterns of Longevity and Attrition
Authors: Bullock Charles S.
Published: May 2006

During the last 60 years, the proportion of careerists (congressmen elected ten or more times) has risen from 2.8 per cent to 20.0 per cent. The greatest increase occurred in the mid-1950s. The proportion of Southern Democrats numbered among the careerists has consistently been disproportionately large, with the number of Northern Democrats increasing, while Republican careerists have become relatively fewer. Fluctuations in the number of senior congressmen is not strongly influenced by national electoral patterns.

The most frequent cause of careerists' leaving the House has been retirement. During the last decade the incidence of defeats in primaries and general elections has increased; the greater susceptibility of careerists to rejection by the electorate coincides with reapportionment and the involvement of new groups in the electorate interested in new issues.
Scaling Models for Legislative Roll-Call Analysis
Authors: Weisberg Herbert F.
Published: May 2006

Guttman scaling is the usual procedure for scaling legislative roll-call votes. This paper calls attention to an alternative scaling model—the proximity model. Under this model, legislators approve a consecutive set of items on the scale, without the cumulation required by the Guttman scale. Circumstances under which proximity voting is likely are discussed. Congressional voting on the Compromise of 1850 is analyzed in detail to illustrate the proximity model and to emphasize the possibility of obtaining faulty inferences if one uses the Guttman scale model when it is incorrect. Guttman scaling has been successful for contemporary Congresses, but the proximity model is seen to underlie some issues in the early 1970s. Proximity scaling is not limited to the legislative realm; it can be used in survey analysis and in attitudinal research more generally.
Pluralism and Social Choice
Authors: Miller Nicholas R.
Published: May 2006

Pluralist political theory identifies certain patterns of political preferences as promoting the “stability” of democratic political systems and others as threatening to such stability. Social choice theory likewise identifies certain patterns of political preferences as leading to “stability” in social choice under majority rule and related collective decision rules, and other patterns as leading to “unstable” social choice. But the preference patterns identified by pluralist theory as promoting stability are essentially those identified by social choice theory as entailing instability. Thus the notions of stability and the implicit normative criteria associated with the two theories are very close to being logically incompatible. This incompatibility suggests that the social choice ideal of collective rationality may not be one that we should endorse. Indeed, the generic instability of the pluralist political process and its consequent collective irrationality may contribute to the stability of pluralist political systems.
Elections, Coalitions, and Legislative Outcomes
Authors: Austen-Smith David , Banks Jeffrey
Published: May 2006

Predictions of electoral behavior in a multiparty setting should be a function of the voters' beliefs about how parties will perform following an election. Similarly, party behavior in a legislature should be a function of electoral promises and rewards. We develop a multistage game-theoretic model of three-party competition under proportional representation. The final policy outcome of the game is generated by a noncooperative bargaining game between the parties in the elected legislature. This game is essentially defined by the vote shares each party receives in the general election, and the parties' electoral policy positions. At the electoral stage parties and voters are strategic in that they take account of the legislative implications of any electoral outcome. We solve for equilibrium electoral positions by the parties and final policy outcomes.
French Interest Group Politics: Pluralist or Neocorporatist?
Authors: Wilson Frank L.
Published: May 2006

Although France is not among those countries most frequently cited as examples of the trend toward corporatism, some observers have seen evidence of corporatist patterns of interest group-government contacts. Others assert that French groups have a distinctive protest form of action, and still others see France as a preserve of traditional pluralism. Interviews with 99 French interest group leaders in 1979 suggest that the pluralist model most accurately describes the actions reported by these leaders. Although the group leaders described some corporatist activities, such as participation in statutory commissions, and indicated a willingness to engage in protest, the most common actions were those more consistent with pluralism: personal contacts with government officials and lobbying. These activities were also the forms judged to be most effective in influencing policy, although the overall impression was of a political system in which organized interests had relatively limited impact.
A Theory of Neighborhood Problem Solving: Political Action vs. Residential Mobility
Authors: Orbell John M. , Uno Toru
Published: May 2006

People have three ways of responding to neighborhood problems: leaving (exit), political action (voice), and doing nothing (passivity). The model assumes: 1. Voice is more likely to ameliorate neighborhood problems than exit or passivity; exit, in fact, can make things worse, 2. Rational behavior on the part of residents, coupled with constraints that limit options: status, race, the responsiveness of government and the nature of the problems. Survey data on one city are combined with census data differentiating neighborhood types. Voice is characteristic of suburban areas among high and low status whites; exit is characteristic of white urban areas. Among ghetto blacks—whose exit options are severely constrained—voice is most characteristic. Problems faced by blacks and whites living in the city are similar, while their adaptations are different.
The Swing Ratio and Game Theory
Authors: Sankoff David , Mellos Koula
Published: May 2006

We propose a simple game-theory model of single-member plurality electoral systems, two parties with unequal resources being the players. Strategies consist of allocations of resources among the n contests, and a party's payoff is the number of contests to which it has assigned more resources than the other party. Mixed strategies exist which are asymptotically optimal as n increases. Identifying a party's proportion of total resources with its total vote proportion, we predict that the swing ratio, or marginal seat proportion per vote proportion, is 2. This compares to empirical findings which range between 2 and 4, and to the hitherto unexplained cube law, which predicts 3. We suggest that the strategic problem modeled by this game accounts for the major part of the swing ratio effect. Factors which vary from system to system, such as proportion of hard-core support attached to parties, may amplify this effect.
Institutionalization of Voting Patterns, or is Mobilization the Source of Decay?
Authors: Przeworski Adam
Published: May 2006

The effect of electoral mobilization upon the decay of political institutions is examined with reference to the stability of aggregate voting patterns in Western Europe. Historical time series are studied empirically to test predictions derived from a formal model. The conclusion is that demobilization of groups, rather than mobilization of new voters, threatens the stability of electoral institutions. It is argued that electoral mobilization is a process through which political institutions preserve stability of social relations.
Some Problems in Alfred Schutz's Phenomenological Methodology
Authors: Peritore N. Patrick
Published: May 2006

Alfred Schutz created a systematic methodology for the social sciences by integrating sociological concepts derived from Max Weber with the philosophical foundation provided by Edmund Husserl's phenomenology. However, much of the rigor of Schutz's analysis of social life is vitiated by his failure to come to grips with the philosophical problem of “other minds.” Analysis and critique of Schutz's “general thesis of the alter ego” reveal the sterility of either pragmatic or dogmatic use of philosophic concepts in social science conceptualization, and the failure of his methodological system demonstrates the serious epistemological consequences of doing social scientific work without rigorous and radical philosophical foundation.
Structural Dependence of the State on Capital
Authors: Przeworski Adam , Wallerstein Michael
Published: May 2006

A central claim of both Marxist and neoclassical political theory is that under capitalism all governments must respect and protect the essential claims of those who own the productive wealth of society. This is the theory of “structural dependence of the state on capital.” Using a formal model, the internal logic and the robustness of the theory is examined. We conclude that in a static sense the theory is false: virtually any distribution of consumption between wage earners and owners of capital is compatible with continual private investment once an appropriate set of taxes and transfers is in place. Yet the state may be structurally dependent in a dynamic sense. Policies that, once in place, redistribute income without reducing investment do reduce investment during the period in which they are anticipated but not yet implemented.
Max Weber's Liberalism for a Nietzschean World
Authors: Warren Mark
Published: May 2006

Weber's commentators often accuse him of lacking a coherent political philosophy because his pluralist-elite theory of democracy seems indifferent to liberal-democratic values. I argue, however, that the core of Weber's political philosophy is a politicized neo-Kantian liberalism, one that produces an ethically significant and positive concept of politics. The problem is rather that Weber's pessimism about institutionalizing positive politics in bureaucratized societies left the ethical core of his political philosophy inexplicit. This introduced a conflict into his thought between his ethical commitments and his assessments of political possibilities. The conflict is compelling because it reflects the contemporary gap between the promise and performance of liberal democracies. At the same time, formulating Weber's problems in these terms helps identify democratic solutions that remain obscure in his assessment of conflicts between bureaucratization and democracy.
Interest Group Politics and Economic Growth in the U.S. States
Authors: Gray Virginia , Lowery David
Published: May 2006

Mancur Olson's model of economic growth has attracted great attention as a theoretical account of how interest groups influence the rate of economic growth over time. Moreover, the model appears to have received strong empirical support in Olson's tests employing U.S. state data. However, the specification of the Olson construct in these tests is insufficiently attentive to the complex causal chain implicit in Olson's argument, inadequately accounts for precisely how interest groups matter, and employs a static research design that obfuscates the cause-and-effect relationships posited by the model. We review these issues and develop a more complete specification of the Olson model. The respecified model is then tested using U.S. state data for the period of the late 1970s and early 1980s using new measures of interest-group influence.
The Core and the Stability of Group Choice in Spatial Voting Games
Authors: Schofield Norman , Grofman Bernard , Feld Scott L.
Published: May 2006

The core of a voting game is the set of undominated outcomes, that is, those that once in place cannot be overturned. For spatial voting games, a core is structurally stable if it remains in existence even if there are small perturbations in the location of voter ideal points. While for simple majority rule a core will exist in games with more than one dimension only under extremely restrictive symmetry conditions, we show that, for certain supramajorities, a core must exist. We also provide conditions under which it is possible to construct a structurally stable core. If there are only a few dimensions, our results demonstrate the stability properties of such frequently used rules as two-thirds and three-fourths. We further explore the implications of our results for the nature of political stability by looking at outcomes in experimental spatial voting games and at Belgian cabinet formation in the late 1970s.
Principals, Bureaucrats, and Responsiveness in Clean Air Enforcements
Authors: Wood B. Dan
Published: May 2006

A principal-agent perspective has been employed in recent studies to rediscover the importance of democratic hierarchies in shaping public bureaucratic outputs. I test the robustness of the hierarchy model for explaining outputs from an agency that has often been cast in the image of bureaucratic independence, the Environmental Protection Agency. Examining the effect of the Reagan presidency on EPA outputs for clean air, Box-Tiao models are constructed to explain shifts in the vigor of air pollution enforcements between 1977 and 1985. The analysis shows that the influence of elected institutions is limited when an agency has substantial bureaucratic resources and a zeal for their use. Moreover, under these conditions, bureaucracy can even move outputs in directions completely opposite from what a model of hierarchy would predict. The implication is that for some agencies it is necessary to give greater consideration to the agent in explaining implementation outcomes through time.
Do U.S. Senators Moderate Strategically?
Authors: Bernstein Robert A. , Wright Gerald C. , Berkman Michael B.
Published: May 2006

Do U.S. senators adjust their policy positions or voting behavior—engage in “strategic moderation”—in their quest for reelection? In the June 1986 issue of this Review, Gerald Wright and Michael Berkman sought to demonstrate that Senate incumbents moderate their ideological positions as elections near. This endeavor was part of their larger effort to show the importance of policy issues in the selection of members of Congress. Robert Bernstein takes the view that the claims about strategic moderation rest on methodological flaws. But Wright and Berkman argue that most investigators agree on the general direction of senatorial candidate behavior. The controversy turns on conception and interpretation of analytical results.
A Dynamic Model of Presidential Nomination Campaigns
Authors: Aldrich John H.
Published: May 2006

Recent campaigns have demonstrated the importance of dynamic elements in affecting the selection of presidential nominees. This paper develops a mathematical model to analyze these dynamics. The heart of the model is the assumed relationship between the ability to acquire resources and success in primaries and caucuses. The expenditure of resources leads to greater electoral success, while greater electoral success (in particular, exceeding expectations in a primary or caucus) leads to greater resource-gathering capabilities. A difference equation model of these relationships is proposed. I prove that any campaign of this form is necessarily unstable, which implies that most candidates will be “winnowed out” necessarily, while only a very few, but at least one candidate, will necessarily “have momentum.” This result is true whether there are two or many contenders. However, I also argue that the larger the number of candidates, the stronger the dynamic forces, and thus the more rapid the “winnowing out” process.
From Tragedy to Hierarchy and Back Again: Women in Greek Political Thought
Authors: Saxonhouse Arlene W.
Published: May 2006

The earliest attempts at a theoretical understanding of politics occur in the city-states of ancient Greece. Women had no place in the politics of those cities. However, the Greek tragedians and philosophers raised questions about the fundamental assumptions underlying political life by introducing women into their writings. Thus, women appear in some Greek tragedies as a counter to the male sense of political efficacy—the sense that men can create through speech and ignore the facts of physical creation entailed in the process of reproduction. A discussion of two tragedies,The Seven Against Thebesand theAntigone, suggests how the failure of male political leaders to acknowledge the demands of the physical and that which is different brings on tragedy. The Socratic response in theRepublicis to overcome tragedy by making the male and the female the same. Aristotle attempts to incorporate sexual difference in the theoretical framework of hierarchy. Finally, there is a brief consideration of the role of the pre-Socratic philosophers in setting the agenda for the Greeks' confrontation with the problems of incorporating difference into the political community.
Foucault's Challenge to Critical Theory
Authors: White Stephen K.
Published: May 2006

Power, subjectivity, otherness, and modernity are concepts that contemporary political theorists increasingly find to be closely interwoven. In search of an adequate comprehension of the interrelationships among these concepts, I examine the work of Michel Foucault and Jürgen Habermas. I argue that Foucault, although he is provocatively insightful on a number of key points, ultimately provides a less satisfactory account than Habermas. The core problem is Foucault's inability to conceptualize juridical subjectivity, something which is necessary if he is going to connect his notion of aesthetic subjectivity with his endorsement of new social movements.
Rational Choice and Rebellious Collective Action
Authors: Muller Edward N. , Opp Karl-Dieter
Published: May 2006

A basic problem for a rational choice theory of rebellious collective action is to explain why average citizens would participate in such behavior, since they have nothing to gain (they will receive benefits of successful rebellion, in terms of public goods, regardless of whether they take part or not), but much to lose (rebellious behavior may be quite costly). According to the conventional private interest or “by-product” theory, the incentive to participate must come from the expectation of receiving selective benefits; but since average citizens in a general case cannot expect substantial private material rewards, the relevant selective benefits must be psychological in nature. In contrast to the model of private interest theory, a public goods model is proposed, stipulating that the value of rebellion in terms of public goods can be a relevant incentive for participation. Using data from surveys conducted in New York City and Hamburg, West Germany, we investigate the relationship between participation in rebellious political behavior and measures of the incentives of public goods and private interest. The results do not support predictions of the private interest model in regard to nonmaterial selective incentives. Hypotheses of the public goods model are supported.
A Partisan Schema for Political Information Processing
Authors: Lodge Milton , Hamill Ruth
Published: May 2006

Based on their interest in politics and knowledge of political leaders, individuals are classified into three levels of partisan sophistication: (1) those scoring high in interest and knowledge (partisan schematics), (2) a middle group, and (3) those scoring low (partisan aschematics). In this experimental study, and consistent with findings from cognitive and social psychology, partisan schematics prove better able than partisan aschematics to classify campaign statements as either Republican or Democratic and to recall the policy stands taken by a fictitious congressman. Aschematics, at the other extreme, perform at no better than chance levels in either the recognition or recall of the congressman's policy statements. There are, however, liabilities to sophistication as well: Schematics demonstrate a “consistency bias” in recalling significantly more policy statements that are consistent with the congressman's party identification than are inconsistent with it. This “restructuring” of memory is especially pronounced among sophisticates, and reflects a serious bias in the processing of political information.
Schematic Assessments of Presidential Candidates
Authors: Miller Arthur H. , Wattenberg Martin P. , Malanchuk Oksana
Published: May 2006

This article applies theories of social cognition in an investigation of the dimensions of the assessments of candidates employed by voters in the United States. An empirical description of the public's cognitive representations of presidential candidates, derived from responses to open-ended questions in the American National Election Studies from 1952 to 1984, reveals that perceptions of candidates are generally focused on “personality” characteristics rather than on issue concerns or partisan group connections. Contrary to the implications of past research, higher education is found to be correlated with a greater likelihood of using personality categories rather than with making issue statements. While previous models have interpreted voting on the basis of candidate personality as indicative of superficial and idiosyncratic assessments, the data examined here indicate that they predominately reflect performance-relevant criteria such as competence, integrity, and reliability. In addition, both panel and aggregate time series data suggest that the categories that voters have used in the past influence how they will perceive future candidates, implying the application of schematic judgments. The reinterpretation presented here argues that these judgments reflect a rich cognitive representation of the candidates from which instrumental inferences are made.