bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Interpretation and the History of Political Theory: Apology and Epistemology
Authors: Gunnell John G.
Published: May 2006

Recent challenges to traditional approaches and purposes for studying the history of political theory have raised questions about its constitution as both a subject matter and subfield of political science. Methodological arguments advocating what is characterized as a more truly historical mode of inquiry for understanding political ideas and recovering textual meaning have become increasingly popular. The relationship of these hermeneutical claims about historicity, such as that advanced by Quentin Skinner, to the actual practice of interpretation is problematical. Such claims are more a defense of a certain norm of historical investigation than a method of interpretation, and the implications of this norm for the reconstitution of the history of political theory require careful consideration.
Black Employment in Municipal Jobs: The Impact of Black Political Power
Authors: Eisinger Peter K.
Published: May 2006

An analysis of affirmative action data regarding levels of black employment in the civil service of forty-three U.S. cities indicates that observed variations are mainly a function of the size of the black population and the presence of a black mayor. By interpreting the size of the black population as an indicator of potential bloc voting power and by making explicit the links between the mayor's office and the personnel system, we may conclude that civil service hiring represents one tangible benefit of black political po wer. Other possible hypotheses explaining variations in levels of black employment are less satisfactory, including the argument that minority employment is mainly a function of the expansion or contraction of the public sector. The research suggests that to some degree a politics of ethnicity which involves the distribution of divisible economic goods to a particular group as a consequence of that group's political power is still a possibility in American cities.
Bureaucrats and Politicians in Policymaking: The Case of Japan
Authors: Muramatsu Michio , Krauss Ellis S.
Published: May 2006

This article extends the recent empirical work on the perceptions and role of bureaucrats and politicians in policymaking. The question of the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats and the role of each in policymaking is especially important in the case of Japan, because the prevalent models of Japanese politics and policymaking are those of the “bureaucracy dominant” or of a closely interwoven “ruling triad” of bureaucracy, big business, and the governing Liberal Democratic Party.

Data are from a systematic survey of 251 higher civil servants and 101 members of the government and opposition parties in the House of Representatives, supplemented by data from other surveys and, wherever possible, compared to equivalent data from western democracies.

The results indicate that Japanese politicians and bureaucrats resemble Western European elites both in social background and in the fact that although the roles of politician and bureaucrat are converging, there are still differences in their contributions to the policymaking process. However, politicians influence policymaking more than most models of Japanese politics have posited, and even government and opposition politicians share some consensus about the most important policy issues facing Japan. A factor analysis demonstrated that higher civil servants' orientations toward their roles vary significantly with their positions in the administrative hierarchy.

The 27-year incumbency of the LDP as ruling party has been particularly important in determining the Japanese variant of the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats. We suggest that the Japanese case shows that the bureaucracy's increasing role in policymaking is universal; however, in late-modernizing political systems like Japan's, where the bureaucracy has always been a dominant actor, the growing power of politicians in postwar politics has been the most significant actor in bringing about more convergence in the two elites. Our data on this trend argue for a more complicated and pluralistic view of Japanese policymaking than that provided by either the bureaucracy-dominant or the ruling-triad model.
The Particulars of a Universal Politics: Hegel's Adaptation of Montesquieu's Typology
Authors: Mosher Michael A.
Published: May 2006

This article explores both the influence that Montesquieu's typology of regimes exerted on Hegel's thought and Hegel's ultimate rejection of Montesquieu's monarchical order, especially its cult of honor, as a plausible candidate for containing and expressing the citizen's “claims for private judgment, private willing, and private caprice.” Can Hegel provide a substitute model of a polity, neither republican nor despotic, which corrects the particularism of Montesquieu's monarchical society? Marx did not think so. His criticism of Hegel exactly parallels Hegel's criticism of Montesquieu. Hegel's dilemma may be expressed in more contemporary terms as the difficulty in reconciling the goals of “neutrality” and “communicative competence.” The latter reflects the concerns of Montesquieu's moral geography, whereas the former reflects the rather different preoccupations of the social contract tradition.
Congressional Staff Turnover and the Ties-That-Bind
Authors: Salisbury Robert H. , Shepsle Kenneth A.
Published: May 2006

Individual members of the U. S. Congress work with staffs ranging in size from a minimum of 18 to a maximum of well over 100. Each member has come to preside over a personnel system and, consequently, may best be understood as an enterprise manager. In this article we examine these congressional enterprises in order to gain some insight about the autonomy of individual staffers, the stability of these member-centered enterprises, and generally, the responsiveness of staffers to member objectives. While it is difficult to observe or measure responsiveness directly, some purchase on the question is gained through an investigation of the causes and consequences of staff turnover; this is the major empirical focus of the research reported here.
A Critique of “Democratic Administration” and Its Supporting Ideation
Authors: Golembiewski Robert T.
Published: May 2006

This paper analyzes Vincent Ostrom's major work, The Intellectual Crisis in American Public Administration, which he offers as providing paradigmatic direction for public administration and political science. The analysis urges caution as to that theory's status, especially from five analytic perspectives. Basically, attention is directed at the methodology or mode of inquiry associated with Ostrom's grounding of his argument in public choice theory, with special attention to the role of values. The adequacy of major assumptions of Ostrom's argument as descriptions of reality also is evaluated. Moreover, the critical lack of content in several key concepts is established. In addition, the analysis shows how opposite and simultaneous courses of action are implied by the argument. Finally, attention is directed at how Ostrom's argument can lead to unexpected consequences, even some that are opposite those effects Ostrom intends.
Power Consciousness: A Comparative Analysis
Authors: Aberbach Joel D.
Published: May 2006

This article, drawing on recent studies of class consciousness and powerlessness explained in individual versus system level terms, develops and analyzes an operational measure of “power consciousness.” Power consciousness is defined as a person's evaluation of his or her political power position and his or her explanation of the causes of any inadequacies or advantages perceived in this position. The operational measure of power consciousness arrays responses to two items on political power satisfaction (one of them open-ended) along a dimension which ranges from satisfaction, to dissatisfaction ascribed to personal failures of the respondent, to dissatisfaction explained in terms of problems with the political system. Survey data are utilized for a comparative analysis of whites' and blacks' scores on the power consciousness measure. The following topics receive detailed attention: the place of power consciousness in the matrix of power measures; its relationship to background factors, especially level of education; its relationship to indicators of political discontent; and the impact of power consciousness on levels and styles of political behavior. The analysis is followed by suggestions for the development of future work in this area.
On the Meaning of Political Support
Authors: Muller Edward N. , Jukam Thomas O.
Published: May 2006

The incumbent vs. system affect distinction is basic in the conceptualization of political support. It is based on the premise that system affect is a more important antecedent of aggressive political behavior than incumbent affect. The data reported here show that it is possible to distinguish incumbent from system affect empirically, and also theoretically important to make the incumbent-system distinction. Measures especially sensitive to incumbent affect correlate differently with ideology than does a measure especially sensitive to system affect. Byvariate correlations between measures of incumbent affect and a measure of aggressive political behavior are shown to be either spurious or indirect, due to the fact that incumbent affect is correlated with what appears to be a more powerful and direct antecedent of aggressive political behavior, namely, system affect. The theory behind the incumbent-system distinction is expressed in four propositions. In general, the data conform to it, but each prediction is qualified according to whether ideology and community context are inhibitory or facilitative.
Guns Versus Butter: A Disaggregated Analysis
Authors: Mintz Alex
Published: May 2006

Prior studies of the guns-versus-butter trade-off have focused on total military expenditures and subcomponents of welfare spending (education, health, and housing). I extend the analysis to include the major subcomponents of the defense budget. The results are consistent with Clayton's; Domke, Eichenberg, and Kelleher's; and Russett's findings of a lack of defense-welfare trade-off in the 1947–80 era but reveal very specific trade-offs during the Reagan years.
Organized Interests and Agenda Setting in the U.S. Supreme Court
Authors: Caldeira Gregory A. , Wright John R.
Published: May 2006

Participation as amicus curiae has long been an important tactic of organized interests in litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court. We analyze amicus curiae briefs filed before the decision on certiorari and assess their impact on the Court's selection of a plenary docket. We hypothesize that one or more briefs advocating or opposing certiorari increase the likelihood of its being granted. We test this hypothesis using data from theUnited States ReportsandBriefs and Records of the United States Supreme Courtfor the 1982 term. The statistical analysis demonstrates that the presence of amicus curiae briefs filed prior to the decision on certiorari significantly and positively increases the chances of the justices' binding of a case over for full treatment—even after we take into account the full array of variables other scholars have hypothesized or shown to be substantial influences on the decision to grant or deny.
Upsetting National Priorities: The Reagan Administration's Budgetary Strategy
Authors: Kamlet Mark S. , Mowery David C. , Su Tsai-Tsu
Published: May 2006

We use simulations based on a multiequation model of federal budgetary outcomes to assess the Reagan administrations impact on the federal budget during fiscal years 1982–86. Reagan's aggregate budget priorities represent a significant departure from the priorities of prior postwar administrations. The bulk of this shift in priorities had occurred by fiscal 1984. Defense spending and uncontrollable domestic spending were higher, and spending on domestic controllable programs lower under Reagan than they would otherwise have been. The distinctiveness of Reagan's budgetary priorities can be attributed to his tax cuts and—far from a strategy of “starving the budget by reducing revenues”—to a failure to allow fiscal pressures to restrain spending. The model projects that without tax cuts Reagan's predecessors would have spent no less on defense than Reagan. Cutting taxes increased the deficit by about $400 billion cumulatively during fiscal years 1982–86 and reduced expenditures by roughly $30 billion.
Elite Ideology and Risk Perception in Nuclear Energy Policy
Authors: Rothman Stanley , Lichter S. Robert
Published: May 2006

Changing U.S. attitudes toward new technologies are examined, as are explanations of such changes. We hypothesize that increased concern with the risks of new technologies by certain elite groups is partly a surrogate for underlying ideological criticisms of U.S. society. The question of risk is examined within the framework of the debate over nuclear energy. Studies of various leadership groups are used to demonstrate the ideological component of risk assessment. Studies of scientists' and journalists' attitudes, media coverage of nuclear energy, and public perception of scientists' views suggest both that journalists' ideologies influence their coverage of nuclear energy and that media coverage of the issue is partly responsible for public misperceptions of the views of scientists. We conclude with a discussion of the historical development of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s and the relation of this movement to the public's declining support for nuclear energy.
Political Institutions and Voter Turnout in the Industrial Democracies
Authors: Jackman Robert W.
Published: May 2006

Differences in voter turnout among industrial democracies are a function of political institutions and electoral law. Specifically, the presence of nationally competitive electoral districts provides incentives for parties and candidates to mobilize voters everywhere, thereby increasing turnout. Disproportionality in the translation of votes into legislative seats provides a disincentive to voting, which lowers turnout. Multipartyism assigns elections a less decisive role in government formation, depressing turnout. By generating more decisive governments, unicameralism provides a clearer link between elections and legislation, increasing turnout. Finally, mandatory voting laws produce a disincentive to not vote. Empirical analyses of average voter-turnout levels in the 1970s and 1960s across 19 democracies are consistent with these expectations, although Switzerland and the United States appear to be outliers. The results have major implications for the way we interpret national differences in voter-turnout rates.
Inequality and Insurgency
Authors: Muller Edward N. , Seligson Mitchell A.
Published: May 2006

Maldistribution of land in agrarian societies is commonly thought to be an important precondition of mass political violence and revolution. Others argue that because of the difficulty of mobilizing rural populations for political protest, land maldistribution is irrelevant except as part of an inegalitarian distribution of income nationwide. These rival inequality hypotheses have significant implications with respect to the kinds of reforms likely to reduce the potential for insurgency in a society. They are tested using the most comprehensive cross-national compilation of data currently available on land inequality, landlessness, and income inequality. Support is found for the argument that attributes the greater causal import to income inequality. Moreover, the effect of income inequality on political violence is found to hold in the context of a causal model that takes into account the repressiveness of the regime, governmental acts of coercion, intensity of separatism, and level of economic development.
American Federalism, Welfare Policy, and Residential Choices
Authors: Peterson Paul E. , Rom Mark
Published: May 2006

The relationship between welfare benefit levels and the residential choices of the poor raises two issues for federalism in the United States. Do state benefit levels affect the residential choices of the poor? Do residential choices of the poor affect the level at which a state sets its benefit levels? Empirical studies have seldom studied the interconnection between these two issues. This research estimates simultaneously the mutual effects of welfare benefits and poverty rates while controlling for other economic and political variables. When benefit levels become high, the size of the poverty population increases. Conversely, when poverty rates become high, benefit levels are cut. The findings are consistent with the claim that state-determined benefit levels distort policy and residential choices.
Issue Evolution, Population Replacement, and Normal Partisan Change
Authors: Carmines Edward G. , Stimson James A.
Published: May 2006

Students of American political behavior have usually turned to “critical election” realignment theories to explain the dynamics of long-term change in the party system. These theories are problematic on both theoretical and empirical grounds. A theory that can account for change within the context of a stable electoral system is required. We propose a theory of issue evolution that explains normal partisan change, and illustrate the theory by examining the impact of racial issues on party identification. The theory looks to the evolution of new issues as the stimulus of partisan change and to the continuous replacement of the electorate as the mechanism through which such change is effected. In a comparison of three theoretical models of issue evolution, we conclude that racial desegregation has provoked a subtle but permanent change in the recruitment of new members of political parties.
Life Span Civic Development and Voting Participation
Authors: Strate John M. , Parrish Charles J. , Elder Charles D. , Ford Coit
Published: May 2006

Although a variety of age-related processes are known to affect rates of political participation over the adult life span, little is known about their interrelationships and relative impact. We set out a theory of life span civic development that focuses on how age-related changes in community attachment, strength of partisanship, church attendance, government responsiveness, family income, and civic competence impinge on voting participation. To test the theory, we estimated the coefficients of a structural equation model using data from nine National Election Studies combined into a large, cross-sectional time series data set. The model specifies the age-related processes and also controls for the effects of a large number of other variables. Overall, about one-half of the age-related increases in voting participation were attributable to these processes.
How are Foreign Policy Attitudes Structured? A Hierarchical Model
Authors: Hurwitz Jon , Peffley Mark
Published: May 2006

It has long been assumed that foreign-policy attitudes of the mass public are random, disorganized, and unconstrained if they exist at all. Further, foreign-policy thinking has not been found to be structured along standard ideological (liberal-conservative) lines, partisan lines, or class lines. We attempt to move the discussion from a question of whether foreign-policy attitudes are structured to a question of how they are structured. We propose and estimate (using a LISREL model) a hierarchically organized foreign-policy belief structure in which specific policy preferences are derived from postures (broad, abstract beliefs regarding appropriate general governmental strategies). These postures, in turn, are assumed to be constrained by a set of core values about the international community.
Political Cleavages and Changing Exposure to Trade
Authors: Rogowski Ronald
Published: May 2006

Combining the classical theorem of Stolper and Samuelson with a model of politics derived from Becker leads to the conclusion that exogenous changes in the risks or costs of countries' external trade will stimulate domestic conflict between owners of locally scarce and locally abundant factors. A traditional three-factor model then predicts quite specific coalitions and cleavages among owners of land, labor, and capital, depending only on the given country's level of economic development and its land-labor ratio. A preliminary survey of historical periods of expanding and contracting trade, and of such specific cases as the German “marriage of iron and rye,” U.S. and Latin American populism, and Asian socialism, suggests the accuracy of this hypothesis. While the importance of such other factors as cultural divisions and political inheritance cannot be denied, the role of exogenous changes in the risks and costs of trade deserves further investigation.
Tocqueville's Constitutionalism
Authors: Kraynak Robert P.
Published: May 2006

For the ancient philosophers, constitutionalismmeant classifying regimes and constructing regimes to form virtuous citizens. In the modern world it generally means checks and balances, institutional mechanisms limiting the power of government and protecting private rights. InDemocracy in AmericaTocqueville attempts to combine both views in his interpretation of the U.S. constitutional system. He employs the regime analysis of ancient constitutionalism to understand the new phenomenon of popular sovereignty and its potential for despotic control over the minds and characters of citizens. At the same time, he shows how the constitutional devices found in the United States—such as federalism, judicial review, and the separation of powers—can be adapted to inculcate a kind of moral virtue by teaching citizens to exercise liberty with moral responsibility and to govern themselves. The result is a constitutional theory that weaves ancient and modern principles into an original and coherent whole.
Nuclear Myths and Political Realities
Authors: Waltz Kenneth N.
Published: May 2006

Two pervasive beliefs have given nuclear weapons a bad name: that nuclear deterrence is highly problematic, and that a breakdown in deterrence would mean Armageddon. Both beliefs are misguided and suggest that nearly half a century after Hiroshima, scholars and policy makers have yet to grasp the full strategic implications of nuclear weaponry. I contrast the logic of conventional and nuclear weaponry to show how nuclear weapons are in fact a tremendous force for peace and afford nations that possess them the possibility of security at reasonable cost.
Coalitions and Cabinet Government
Authors: Laver Michael , Shepsle Kenneth A.
Published: May 2006

The formal study of coalitions is active in Europe, whereas the formal study of political institutions preoccupies American scholars. We seek to integrate aspects of these two bodies of research. For nearly thirty years models of coalition government have focused more on coalition than on government. Thus, these theories are essentially extensions of the theory of voting in legislatures. Unlike passing a bill or “dividing a dollar,” however, forming a government is not the end of politics but the beginning. During the formation process, rational actors must entertain expectations of subsequent government behavior. We provide a model of rational expectations with an emphasis on the credibility of the policy promises of prospective government partners as determined by the allocation of portfolios in the new government. Portfolio allocation becomes the mechanism by which prospective coalitions make credible promises and so inform the expectations of rational agents in the coalition formation process.
The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and their
Critics
Authors: Mitchell Timothy
Published: May 2006

The state has always been difficult to define. Its boundary with
society appears elusive, porous, and mobile. I argue that this elusiveness should not
be overcome by sharper definitions, but explored as a clue to the state's nature.
Analysis of the literature shows that neither rejecting the state in favor of such
concepts as the political system, nor “bringing it back in,” has dealt with this
boundary problem. The former approach founders on it, the latter avoids it by a
narrow idealism that construes the state-society distinction as an external relation
between subjective and objective entities. A third approach, presented here, can
account for both the salience of the state and its elusiveness. Reanalyzing evidence
presented by recent theorists, state-society boundaries are shown to be distinctions
erected internally, as an aspect of more complex power relations. Their appearance
can be historically traced to technical innovations of the modern social order,
whereby methods of organization and control internal to the social processes they
govern create the effect of a state structure external to those
processes.
Cooperative Regulatory Enforcement and the Politics of Administrative Effectiveness
Authors: Scholz John T.
Published: May 2006

Even when political interests control bureaucraticoutputs, the control of policyoutcomesis complicated by trade-offs between controllable versus effective implementation strategies. I use a nested game framework to explain why a cooperative strategy can increase enforcement effectiveness in the narrow administrative game and why principal-agent control problems and collective action problems associated with the strategy lead policy beneficiaries toopposethe effective strategy in the broader political games. Analyses of state-level Occupational Safety and Health Administration enforcement provide evidence that cooperation does enhance the impact of enforcement in reducing workplace injury rates but that policy beneficiaries oppose and sabotage cooperation. The interactions between administrative effectiveness and interest group politics in this and other implementation situations require that both be analyzed simultaneously, and the nested game framework can provide a systematic approach to such analyses.
Macropartisanship: An Empirical Reassessment
Authors: Abramson Paul R. , Ostrom Charles W.
Published: May 2006

To evaluate the comparability of the Gallup and Michigan Survey Research Center measures for studying levels of partisanship among the U.S. electorate we compare the overtime distribution of partisanship and the correlates of partisanship using the results of Gallup surveys, the National Election Studies, and the General Social Surveys. Compared with the Gallup results, both the other two surveys reveal less short-term variation and also less total variation. Compared with the Gallup results, the National Election Studies partisanship results are less related to short-term electoral outcomes and do not appear to be strongly driven by short-term economic and political evaluations. Our analyses suggest that scholars should be cautious about using Gallup results to revise conclusions based upon analyses that employ the Michigan Survey Research Center party identification measure.
The Party in Uniform: Toward a Theory of Civil-Military Relations in Communist Political Systems
Authors: Perlmutter Amos , LeoGrande William M.
Published: May 2006

This article is an effort to establish a comparative theoretical framework for the study of civil-military relations in communist political systems. Although the literature on civil-military relations in polyarchic and praetorian polities is theoretically as well as empirically rich, theories of civil-military relations in the field of comparative communism are still at the preliminary stage of development. It is argued that civil-military relations, like all the fundamental dynamics of communist political systems, derive from the structural relationship between a hegemonic Leninist party and the other institutions of the polity. Although the party directs and supervises all other institutions, its political supremacy is necessarily limited by the division of labor among various institutions. The relative autonomy of the military and its relations with the party vary from one country to another and can be described as coalitional, symbiotic, or fused. These relations are dynamic, changing over time in each country in response to contextual circumstances. The role of the military in politics is complex and variegated: on ideological issues, there is usually little conflict between party and army; on issues of “normal politics,” the military acts as a functionally specific elite engaged in bargaining to defend its perceived institutional interests; and in crisis politics, the military is a political resource that various party factions seek to enlist against their opponents.
A Note on the Meaning of ‘Constitution’
Authors: Maddox Graham
Published: May 2006

Professor Sartori's 1962 article on constitutionalism in the American Political Science Review was influential in the acceptance of a narrow view of the constitution. Sartori argued that constitution meant specifically limitation on government and underplayed the role of the state in establishing a political order. This article argues that there are good historical reasons for keeping a balanced view of a constitutionalism that maintains a tension between strong government, to create a secure and stable order, and limitation on government power. It therefore attempts to reaffirm McIlwain's more traditional view of the constitution as a combination of gubernaculum and jurisdictio, power and its control.
Hobbes's Behemoth and the Argument for Absolutism
Authors: Kraynak Robert P.
Published: May 2006

Hobbes's history of the English Civil War, The Behemoth, has been neglected by contemporary scholars, yet it provides the clearest statement of the problem that Hobbes's political science is designed to solve. In Behemoth, Hobbes shows that societies such as seventeenth century England inevitably degenerate into civil war because they are founded on authoritative opinion. The claim that there is a single, authoritative definition of Tightness or truth which is not an arbitrary human choice is an illusion of “intellectual vainglory,” a feeling of pride in the superiority of one's opinions which causes persecution and civil strife. By presenting Hobbes's historical and psychological analysis of this problem, I illuminate his argument for absolutism and show that Hobbes is not a precursor of totalitarianism but a founder of liberalism.
“Stability” and “Competition” in Budgetary Theory
Authors: Gist John R.
Published: May 2006

This article argues that the differences in the findings of the incrementalist budgetary theory of Davis, Dempster, and Wildavsky and the “competition” theory of Natchez and Bupp have been wrongly attributed to the different units of analysis—program or organization—used in these studies. “Competition” as measured by Natchez and Bupp and incremental change as defined by Davis, Dempster, and Wildavsky can both be found among either programs or organizations. The differences in the findings of these theorists depend instead on the particular theoretical construction of budgetary behavior and the budget measures chosen. The same data will support either theory of budgeting if one adopts the theoretical constructs and budget measures peculiar to each theory. Thus the theories are not really in competition with each other.
Monotonicity in Electoral Systems
Authors: Austen-Smith David , Banks Jeffrey
Published: May 2006

Much of the literature concerning the relative merits of alternative electoral rules is centered around the extent to which particular rules select “representative” legislatures. And an important concern in evaluating the “representativeness” of an electoral rule is whether or not the rule responds positively to changes in individuals' preferences, that is, whether or not the rule is monotonic. By explicitly considering electoral rules in the context of a complete electoral system—voting, selection of legislature, and legislative choice of policy—we argue that monotonicity in electoral systems is a nonissue: depending on the behavioral model governing individual decision making, either everything is monotonic or nothing is monotonic.
Specifying a Model of State Policy Innovation
Authors: Frant Howard , Berry Frances Stokes , Berry William D.
Published: May 2006

How should policy innovations undertaken by states be modeled? Frances Stokes Berry and William D. Berry presented an event history analysis of the determinants of lottery adoptions by state governments in the June 1990 issue of this Review. Howard Front argues that the way Berry and Berry tested for interaction among variables is invalid on the grounds that what they take to be empirical results are only artifacts of the model specification. In response, the Berrys elaborate their original model and add alternative specifications.
Plato's Paradox? Guardians and Philosopher-Kings
Authors: Duncan Christopher M. , Steinberger Peter J.
Published: May 2006

For centuries scholars have engaged in interpreting the meaning of Plato's Republic. In this exchange, Peter Steinberger and Christopher Duncan debate the role of guardians and philosopher-kings in the ancient city. This controversy is ignited by Steinberger's essay on Platonic rulers in the December 1989 issue of this Review.
Black Representation and Educational Policy: Are They Related?
Authors: Meier Kenneth J. , England Robert E.
Published: May 2006

This study examines the impact of black school board members on educational policies that affect black students. Using data from 82 of the largest urban school districts in the United States, several measures of second-generation educational discrimination are analyzed. Black membership on the school board is associated with more equitable educational policies; this relationship remains in some cases even with controls for black political and economic resources. The implications of these findings for the study of representation are then discussed.
Black and Hispanic Socioeconomic and Political Competition
Authors: McClain Paula D. , Karnig Albert K.
Published: May 2006

Many U.S. cities are becoming significantly multiminority. How does the significant presence of one minority group affect the other minority group? This research explores the question of socioeconomic and political competition between blacks and Hispanics in U.S. urban centers. Based on data from the 49 U.S. cities of over 25,000 population with at least 10 percent black and 10 percent Hispanic in 1980, findings indicate that while there is little evidence of general black and Hispanic socioeconomic and political competition, Hispanics appear to prosper less well socioeconomically and politically in cities with black majorities or pluralities.
Communication, Ideology, and Democratic Theory
Authors: Bohman James F.
Published: May 2006

Using Habermas' theory of communicative action and his remarks on the legitimacy of the state under modern social conditions as a starting point, I combine normative democratic theory with the critique of ideology. I first outline four necessary-but-not-sufficient conditions of communication for democratic decision making: such agreements must (1) be formally and procedurally correct, (2) be cognitively adequate, (3) concern issues on which consensus or compromise can be reached, and (4) be free of ideology. The first three conditions form the core of a normative democratic theory, one that is not purely procedural, as many have argued it is. I then discuss the fourth condition and establish the relation between ideology and democracy. Taken together, these conditions not only provide an answer to troubling questions for democratic theory but also delineate the extent to which politics is rational and political claims are “truthlike.”
Victims of Circumstances: Women in Pursuit of Political Office
Authors: Bledsoe Timothy , Herring Mary
Published: May 2006

Women have long faced special barriers in their efforts to gain election to political office. We show that the hurdles women encounter go beyond the often-described familial responsibilities and occupational disadvantages to include perceptual and political barriers unique to women. Using a two-wave, five-year panel of people serving on city councils, we find women likely to pursue higher office only under particular conditions—conditions that seem to matter little to men. Additionally, the success of women in pursuing higher office is more closely tied to the circumstances in which they find themselves than is the success of men. We suggest that the motivational circumstances of women and men in pursuing a political career are more complex than previously assumed. It is not just that men and women differ in their career attitudes and perceptions but that these attitudes and perceptions have different meaning for the two sexes.
The Decline of Electoral Participation in America
Authors: Abramson Paul R. , Aldrich John H.
Published: May 2006

Since 1960 turnout has declined in presidential elections, and since 1966 it has declined in off-year congressional elections. These declines occurred despite several major trends that could have increased electoral participation. An analysis of the eight SRC-CPS presidential election surveys conducted between 1952 and 1980 and of the six SRC-CPS congressional election surveys conducted between 1958 and 1978 suggests that these declines may result largely from the combined impact of two attitudinal trends: the weakening of party identification and declining beliefs about government responsiveness, that is, lowered feelings of “external” political efficacy. Between two-thirds and seven-tenths of the decline in presidential turnout between 1960 and 1980 appears to result from the combined impact of these trends. Data limitations hinder our efforts to study the decline of congressional turnout, but approximately two-fifths to one-half of the decline between 1966 and 1978 appears to result from the combined impact of these attitudinal trends.
Political Attitudes during an Election Year: A Report on the 1980 NES Panel Study
Authors: Markus Gregory B.
Published: May 2006

This article is based on data from the 1980 National Election Study surveys. It reports findings concerning the rates at which voters become familiar with presidential candidates and their policy positions, trends in public opinion during the 1980 presidential campaign, and the dynamics of individual attitudes that underlie those trends. The impact of political attitudes on the individual vote decision is assessed within the context of a simultaneous equation model. In addition, the net effects of attitudinal distributions on the election outcome are estimated. The analysis yields support for the retrospective voting model and provides no evidence for the contention that Reagan's victory was the result of his policy or ideological positions.
On the Conceptualization and Measurement of Political Tolerance
Authors: Gibson James L. , Bingham Richard D.
Published: May 2006

Research on political tolerance has made substantial progress in recent years by improving the measures used to gauge public opinion. Much attention has been devoted to developing indicators that control for group affect. Controls for activity affect have not been pursued as vigorously. Indeed, much of the progress has been along the lines of specifying tolerance for unpopular political minorities rather than tolerance for unorthodox or threatening political activities. More generally, tolerance research has not been sensitive to the variety of contextual factors that determine citizen attitudes in civil-liberties disputes.

A new approach to measuring political tolerance is presented in this article. The measures developed in this approach disaggregate the traditional measures of tolerance (such as Stouffer's (1955) support for “a communist making a speech in your community”). In particular, scales measuring support for freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of political association are presented. As multiple-indicator measures posing conflicts among values, these scales are related to traditional tolerance measures. However, because they reflect the complexity and conflict associated with actual civil-liberties disputes, they will no doubt serve as better predictors of opinions and behaviors in actual disputes.
Business Political Power: The Case of Taxation
Authors: Quinn Dennis P. , Shapiro Robert Y.
Published: May 2006

We examine contending views about the forms and mechanisms of business power in U.S. politics by estimating time series models explaining taxation and redistribution. Taxation and redistribution constitute strong cases for theories about business and class power, since all firms have an interest in reducing taxation. We find that changes in corporate taxation and in redistribution between capital gains income and earned income and between corporate taxation and individual taxation are strongly influenced by political partisanship, with Democratic administrations increasing the tax burden on firms and their owners. How far corporations engage in electoral financing—measured through the establishment of corporate political action committees—is also influential. The models show some evidence consistent with the understanding of class power conceptualized by Bowles, Gordon, and Weisskopf and the presence of election cycle effects but inconsistent with implications arising from the structural dependence of the state on capital and asset concentration in the largest corporations as a mechanism of class power.
Industrial Concentration, Country Size, and Trade Union Membership
Authors: Stephens John D. , Wallerstein Michael
Published: May 2006

In his article, “Union Organization in Advanced Industrial Democracies” in the June 1989 issue of theReview, Michael Wallerstein advocated a model to account for cross-national differences in trade union organization rates. He argued that the size of the labor force provided the most important determinant of variation in union density. In this controversy, John Stephens takes issue with the operationalization of a key variable in Wallerstein's model—industrial infrastructure. Stephens reanalyzes the data using an alternative measure of this variable. His reanalysis supports his claim that in fact, the two variables yield results that are statistically indistinguishable. Wallerstein responds.
Discontent and the Expected Utility of Rebellion: The Case of Peru
Authors: Muller Edward N. , Dietz Henry A. , Finkel Steven E.
Published: May 2006

Discontent theories of rebellion postulate that politicized discontent will have a strong independent effect on individuals' potential to participate in rebellious political action. Expected utility theories postulate that participation in rebellious action is motivated by expectation of reward and that discontent is relevant at most only insofar as individuals expect that collective action can be successful and that their participation is important to that end. We test these theories with data from a national sample and a sample of students at a protest-prone university in Peru, a country with significant objective conditions of discontent and a high incidence of rebellious political conflict. The results provide no evidence for the discontent models but strong support for the expected utility models. The potential for participation in rebellious political action proves to be a function primarily of discontentweightedby the expectancy of the action's success and the perceived importance of personal participation. Private social and normative rewards and costs also are relevant—but to a lesser extent—for the individual's calculation of the expected utility of participation.
Peasants or Bankers? The American Electorate and the U.S. Economy
Authors: MacKuen Michael B. , Erikson Robert S. , Stimson James A.
Published: May 2006

The usual model of electoral reaction to economic conditions assumes the “retrospective” economic voter who bases expectations solely on recent economic performance or personal economic experience (voter as “peasant”). A second model assumes a “sophisticated” economic voter who incorporates new information about the future into personal economic expectations (voter as “banker”). Using the components, both retrospective and prospective, of the Index of Consumer Sentiment (ICS) as intervening variables between economic conditions and approval, we find that the prospective component fully accounts for the presidential approval time series. With aggregate consumer expectations about long-term business conditions in the approval equation, neither the usual economic indicators not the other ICS components matter. Moreover, short-term changes in consumer expectations respond more to current forecasts than to the current economy. The qualitative result is a rational expectations outcome: the electorate anticipates the economic future and rewards or punishes the president for economic events before they happen.
Politics, Institutions, and Welfare Spending in Industrialized Democracies, 1960–82
Authors: Hicks Alexander M. , Swank Duane H.
Published: May 2006

We examine the roles of democratic politics and political institutions in shaping social welfare spending in 18 contemporary capitalist democracies. We explore the social spending consequences of government partisanship, electoral competition and turnout, and the self-interested behaviors of politicians and bureaucrats, as well as such relatively durable facets of political institutions as neocorporatism, state centralization, and traditionalist policy legacies. Pooled time series analyses of welfare effort in 18 nations during the 1960–82 period show that electoral turnout, as well as left and center governments increase welfare effort; that the welfare efforts of governments led by particular types of parties show significant differences and vary notably with the strength of oppositional (and junior coalitional) parties; and that relatively neocorporatist, centralized, and traditionalistic polities are high on welfare effort. Overall, our findings suggest that contrary to many claims, both partisan and nonpartisan facets of democratic politics and political institutions shape contemporary social welfare effort.
Protestant Thought and Republican Spirit: How Luther Enchanted the World
Authors: Mitchell Joshua
Published: May 2006

Arguments about the emergence of modern political theory often claim that Protestantism's significance was that it evacuated the political world, that a more properly political ethic took its place, a “disenchanted” one. I shall consider Luther's understanding of biblical history, thoughts on the Christian prince, and view of the “bonds of union” between Christians in order to understand the relationship between the political and spiritual realms. I suggest that even though Luther argues for the separation of the two realms, his political realm is by no means disenchanted. His politics can only be understood in light of his claims about the purview of God the Father and God the Son. “Political vacuum theories,” I suggest, misconstrue the relationship between politics and religion in Protestant thought.
Interests and Ethics in Politics
Authors: Stoker Laura
Published: May 2006

I examine the place of self-interest in political life as given by a conception of politics that invokes ethics. This conception portrays each citizen as an individual with unique hopes and desires who is at the same time joined with others—part of, and continually giving shape to, a shared social and political life. It sees in political diversity and controversy not just conflicting interests but also competing claims about what “we”—unique individuals, linked to particular others through social roles and relationships, and together forming a single citizenry—ought to do or seek. Research that simply adopts a broad conception of utility or interest to admit nonselfish preferences or that employs typologies contrasting self-interested with non-self-interested motives will reveal neither the significance nor the limits of self-interest in this politics. Rather, we must explore how citizens' interests are both championed and challenged by the understandings of “good” and “right” to which our politics gives voice.