bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Congressional Oversight of the Presidency
Authors: KAISER FREDERICK M.
Published: March 2007

Congressional oversight of the executive, including the presidency itself, has evidently increased over the past two decades. It relies upon a wide variety of techniques and occurs in a number of settings, not just select committee investigations or specialized subcommittee hearings labeled oversight. Other means range from hearings on authorizations and regular bills to informal meetings between legislators and executive officials; and from House impeachment proceedings to the use of offices outside Congress, such as inspectors general and independent counsels. Oversight does not exist in a political vacuum; the impetus behind it is often a conflict between the two branches over public policy or over competing institutional interests and powers. In addition, the apparent growth in the amount of oversight and the wide use of different means are the results of changes in Congress, including improved resources and incentives for members; changes in the presidency, especially the expanded operational role of its personnel; and changes in the polity, such as the rise of investigative journalism and electoral developments that have helped to divide party control of government.
Is the United States Losing Ground in Central and South America?
Authors: BENÍTEZ JAIME
Published: March 2007

The Spanish-American War made possible an important reorientation of the traditions of Spain, Latin America, and the United States. With the conclusion of the empire, Spain could forget its martial past, the nations of Latin America were obliged to find their own course, and the United States became engaged anew in European affairs. Over time, Latin America's early admiration for the democratic United States gave way to fear and concern for the violence to which they have been or are potentially subject. The present military involvement of the United States in the Central American nations is best seen in the light of this evolution. A crucial problem that is shared by both Latin America and the United States today is the traffic in drugs. If treated as an opportunity for positive cooperation and change, even for the restructuring of important aspects of our societies, this dire problem may serve to bring the two Americas together in mutual and genuine respect.
Employment and Marriage among Inner-city Fathers
Authors: TESTA MARK , ASTONE NAN MARIE , KROGH MARILYN , NECKERMAN KATHRYN M.
Published: March 2007

This article uses data from the Urban Poverty and Family Structure Survey of inner-city residents in Chicago to examine the effect of employment on the likelihood that single fathers marry. Our results show that employed fathers are twice as likely as nonemployed fathers to marry the mother of their first child. These results run contrary to Charles Murray's argument that welfare discourages employed, low-income men from marrying. They are consistent with William Julius Wilson's hypothesis that the rise in male joblessness is linked to the rise in never-married parenthood in the inner city. Our analysis also shows that couples are more likely to marry when the woman is a high school graduate. In this population, the enhanced earnings potential of a woman increases, not decreases, the likelihood of marriage. This result is inconsistent with the hypothesis that the closer a woman's earnings potential is to a man's, the less likely the couple is to marry. Neither employment nor education fully accounts for the racial and ethnic differences we observe in the marriage rates of fathers in inner-city Chicago.
Changing Intergenerational Family Relations in East Asia
Authors: MARTIN LINDA G.
Published: March 2007

Intergenerational family relations in China, Japan, and South Korea are changing. Multigenerational coresidence and dominance of patrilineal relations are declining. In some ways, the diffusion of so-called Western values and practices that are in conflict with Confucian ideals parallels the earlier process of the Confucianization of Japan and Korea. The demographic changes that are influencing families are new, however, and East Asians of the future will have fewer but longer-lasting kinship relations. At the same time, population aging and the expected declining role of the family in elder care are causing growing concern among policymakers.
German by Satellite
Authors: WOHLERT HARRY S.
Published: March 2007

Oklahoma State University's German by Satellite program employs a telecommunications satellite as a conduit to provide equal access to an educational opportunity primarily for rural and economically disadvantaged schools. This cost-effective German-language program differs from conventional language instruction via radio or television because every student uses a personal computer as a major pedagogical tool. Since coordinating teachers at the receiving sites generally do not know the German language, the computer assists the teacher in involving each student in the instructional process. Every student is presented with goal-oriented tasks that require inventing German sentences, solving language problems, and responding to cultural and political aspects of German-speaking countries. In all of its facets, the German by Satellite program is a complex design by which a university professor in cooperation with a high school teacher can guide students to be actively and successfully involved in attaining a basic level of global language proficiency in German.
China and Post-Cambodia Southeast Asia: Coping with Success
Authors: ROSS ROBERT S.
Published: March 2007

Throughout the 1980s China's Asia policy aimed to roll back Vietnamese expansionism in Cambodia. Due to the complementarity of Beijing's objective with the interests of the non-Communist Southeast Asian states, it was relatively easy for Beijing to develop cooperative relations with these states. Yet the very success of Chinese diplomacy in the 1980s has undermined Beijing's ability to maintain its regional influence in the 1990s. Now that the strategic aspects of the Cambodia issue have been resolved, the region is concentrating on economic issues, yet China has little economic influence in Southeast Asia and is thus likely to be excluded from the most significant regional negotiations. In this context, China's military capabilities could assume heightened salience, stimulating increased suspicions of Chinese intentions and thus further undermining Beijing's effort to foster a peaceful environment in which to modernize its economy in preparation for the more competitive twenty-first century.
Domestic Factors of Chinese Foreign Policy: From Vertical to Horizontal Authoritarianism
Authors: QUANSHENG ZHAO
Published: March 2007

Foreign policy decision making in China is no longer the domain of a paramount leader acting through a vertical command channel with a fundamentally unified policy. Foreign policy decisions are now made by several discrete power bases coordinated at the center, with multiple command channels reflecting different interests and policies. Bureaucratic interests, agendas of policy issues, localcentral authority relations, intellectual and think-tank influences, and the domestic political-economic environment differentially affect policy input and output. The change from vertical to horizontal authoritarianism parallels that which occurred in South Korea and Taiwan, but whether it evolves similarly toward democratic pluralism remains to be seen.
The Future of American-Japanese Trade
Authors: CHOATE PAT
Published: March 2007

With the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the conflicts between nations will increasingly be economic rather than military, but the existing international instruments for dealing with trade conflicts are antiquated and inadequate. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), as a foundation for global trade, is fundamentally flawed. Japan has ignored its GATT obligations, taking advantage of open markets wherever it can while keeping its markets closed through a variety of formal and informal barriers. In contrast to Europe, the United States' response has been passive, resulting in a long history of failed process-oriented bilateral negotiations with Japan. In the final analysis, the difficulty lies not with Japan but with the United States. The solution is a result-oriented agreement with Japan. While this can be achieved through a variety of means, the guiding principle is results. That means an agreement that concentrates on outcomes, timetables and mutual responsibilities, levels of permissible trade imbalances, the composition of trade, allowable market shares, investment in both countries, and practices like dumping in third markets.
Technology, Development, and Hemispheric Free Trade
Authors: STOLP CHANDLER
Published: March 2007

Technology and its transfer take many forms, a fact that contributes to the difficulty of accounting for them in international trade agreements. This situation has been rendered even more complex by dramatic changes taking place in the organization of global manufacturing, the so-called Third Industrial Revolution, which itself rests on advances in telecommunications and informatics. Too much attention in Latin America has been directed toward expensive high-technology and turnkey operations and not enough on infrastructure and softer, but ultimately more important, questions of operational technology. Much of the success that Latin American and Caribbean countries can expect to enjoy under liberalized trade depends on each nation's ability to find niches and to promote quality, efficiency, and flexibility in domestic manufacturing.
Entry and Exit: Canadian Immigration Policy in Context
Authors: THOMPSON JOHN HERD , WEINFELD MORTON
Published: March 2007

Immigration and the multicultural population that results from it are contentious issues in contemporary Canada. Canada accepts more than twice as many immigrants per capita as does the United States, and a majority of immigrants now comes from nontraditional sources in Asia, the Caribbean, and Central America. Critics of a liberal immigration policy charge that these newcomers threaten Canada's social harmony and challenge its cultural identity and that the country faces unprecedented economic and security problems because of uncontrolled immigration. Historical and contemporary evidence suggests, however, that the situation is neither unprecedented nor a crisis. Canada needs immigrants for the compelling reasons it has always sought them: for economic growth and to replace population lost by emigration to the United States. By any comparative yardstick, the Canadian experiments in immigration and multiculturalism have been a resounding success.
Crime and the Racial Fears of White Americans
Authors: SKOGAN WESLEY G.
Published: March 2007

This article examines the linkages between fear of crime, residential integration, and racial prejudice among whites. Survey studies confirm that residential proximity to black people is related to whites' fear of crime. In addition, whites who are prejudiced (in this case, who disapprove of school and neighborhood integration) are more fearful. The fear-provoking effects of proximity and prejudice are independent and, in fact, whites currently living closer to blacks register lower levels of prejudice than do those who live farther away. This is probably due to their ability to use housing markets to distance themselves from minority neighborhoods. Despite the political salience of white fear, blacks are more fearful of crime, due in large measure to the concentration around them of factors that make everyone more fearful. These include neighborhood-level differences in victimization, social disorder, and physical decay. In a highly segregated society, these factors are highly associated with race, so it is difficult to specify which aspects of this bundle—including racial proximity—are affecting white fear as well.
The Social Amplification and Attenuation of Risk
Authors: KASPERSON ROGER E. , KASPERSON JEANNE X.
Published: March 2007

Risk is a complex phenomenon that involves both biophysical attributes and social dimensions. Existing assessment and management approaches often fail to consider risk in its full complexity and its social context. The concept of the social amplification and attenuation of risk provides an approach that recognizes that how social institutions and structures process a risk will shape greatly its effects upon society and the responses of management institutions and people. Examples of both amplification and attenuation are provided from recent risk experience.
Hazard Communication: Warnings and Risk
Authors: VISCUSI W. KIP , ZECKHAUSER RICHARD J.
Published: March 2007

Risk information can alter risk judgments and promote sound risk decisions. Hazard warnings are critical in providing such information. Both right-to-know and duty-to-warn obligations reflect this. Evidence suggests that warnings can significantly affect risk-taking decisions, but care is needed in interpreting whether their influence leads to successful outcomes. Hazard warnings must accommodate individuals' cognitive limitations. Salient problems include recipients who suffer information overload or are unable to grasp adequately the level of risk communicated.
Mexico and NAFTA: The Case of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs
Authors: VILLICANA ROMAN LOPEZ
Published: March 2007

Mexico's controversial entrance into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has had an important impact on its foreign policy. Long considered a fortress of nationalism, Mexico's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has now been taken over by the neoliberal elite. José Angel Gurría is a technocrat through and through, a specialist in financial affairs with almost no real experience in the traditions of Mexican foreign policy. This would seem to be the future of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the post-NAFTA era.
Supplement: Children and Television: A Conference Summary
Authors: JORDAN AMY B.
Published: March 2007

In June 1996, the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, in cooperation with the Children's Television Workshop, hosted its first annual Conference on Children and Television. The conference was organized around four discussions: (1) the elements that characterize quality children's television; (2) the problems that producers confront in creating, producing, and selling quality programming; (3) the dilemmas confronting advertisers; and (4) the dilemmas confronting buyers and distributors. Conference participants included representatives from public and commercial broadcast and cable television industries, producers of children's programming, media buyers from advertising agencies, and advocates and researchers of children's television. Overall, the participants agreed that under the right conditions it is possible to create high-quality, educational programming that children will watch. (The Federal Communications Commission's three-hour rule was seen as a positive step toward achieving that goal.) However, most also recognized the hurdles educational programs must clear to gain an audience and be seen as successful in the eyes of advertisers and broadcasters.
The Road to Now
Authors: GODDARD STEPHEN B.
Published: March 2007

A century ago, hard-topped roads leading outward from the industrial downtowns of America stopped at the city line. Amid weeds and cornfields, dirt paths snaked outward, routes that were often impassable in rainy seasons. But smoky locomotives and electric interurban trains streaked by on iron rails, carrying passengers and produce into the bustling depots. In the early twentieth century, bicycles and automobiles changed all that and caused a national clamor for good roads. Railroad depredations had poisoned the well of public opinion, and rail owners returned government's contempt. But the motor industry, which the public embraced as an alternative to the hated rails, viewed government as a partner in progress. This contrast spelled doom for the iron horse and untold prosperity for the horseless carriage. The American highway-motor complex, by fostering the myth that driving is cheap and an inalienable right, created a national policy of subsidizing the roads while starving the rails. Its legacy is a nation with clogged superhighways and underused railroads existing side by side.
Two Transport Visions
Authors: MacKENZIE JAMES J.
Published: March 2007

For all the economic and social benefits that it confers, the U.S. ground transportation system is not sustainable. This nonsustainability derives from both the fuel (oil) used to power transportation and from the ever increasing congestion that threatens ever worsening gridlock. Oil is a finite resource whose consumption leads to air pollution, the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, and increasing threats to national security from growing imports. Congestion stems from the confluence of three factors: urban designs that are nearly totally dependent on motor vehicles; a growing population that is resulting in an increasing number of drivers; and a fixed supply of major urban roadways. A continuation of current trends would result in a society ever more locked in congestion and burdened with increased emissions of greenhouse gases and growing threats to national security. An alternative vision is offered, one where vehicles run off renewable energy sources and have no pollution or greenhouse gas emissions and where alternative transportation modes meet a much larger fraction of mobility needs.
NGOs and Civil Society: (Un)stated Contradictions
Authors: FELDMAN SHELLEY
Published: March 2007

While nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are recognized for the important role they play in development planning, particularly as sites for democratic change, little attention is given to how they prefigure the economic and social reorganization of everyday life and provide a venue for privatization and the liberalization of previously nationalized economies. This article examines the transformation of NGOs in Bangladesh since independence against the backdrop of struggles between NGOs and the conservative religious party, Jama'at-I-Islami. Highlighting the competing interests of the donor community and a heterogeneous cadre of development workers, the contradictory interests and outcomes of NGO activities are identified in the context of the neoliberal agenda of contemporary development assistance. As women mark the politics of both the Jama'at-I-Islami and the NGOs, they provide a crucial empirical referent for observing the transformation of civil society, or the space “between the state and its citizens,” in contemporary Bangladesh.
Reshaping the Map of Israel: A New National Planning Doctrine
Authors: SHACHAR ARIE
Published: March 2007

The planning doctrine that guided Israel's planning policy for the first forty years of its existence is being replaced by a new planning doctrine, prompted largely by the great wave of immigration from the Soviet Union starting in 1989. New approaches to housing, employment, and physical and social infrastructure were needed to meet the demands of the sudden influx of some 700,000 new immigrants. In addition to Soviet immigration, two other important factors influenced planning policy: the peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan, which changed the geostrategic importance of the peripheral regions of the country, and the development of the Israeli economy into an economy based on high-technology industry and producer services. The globalization of Israel's economy has reduced the capacity of public policy to influence the location of economic activity. The new planning doctrine is highly sensitive to the scarcity of land and is based on a view of the future map of Israel as an agglomeration of four metropolitan regions, strongly interconnected and sharply delineated by the open spaces and green areas between them.
Gambling as Stigmatized Behavior: Regional Relabeling and the Law
Authors: PRESTON FREDERICK W. , BERNHARD BO J. , HUNTER ROBERT E. , BYBEE SHANNON L.
Published: March 2007

The history of gambling, both internationally and in the United States, is that of a stigmatized behavior having passed through numerous cycles of guarded acceptance and prohibition. The recent spread of gambling in the United States has been characterized by very specific attempts to neutralize the stigma associated with the behavior. Though apparently not the sufficient variable in such campaigns of acceptance, reducing the stigma has been necessary. As part of such campaigns, the successful regulation and control model of Nevada has been utilized widely. Yet an examination of control and regulation experiences suggests that regional differences are a crucial factor in the success or failure of the gaming enterprise.
The Internet, 1995-2000
Authors: KATZ JAMES E. , RICE RONALD E. , ASPDEN PHILIP
Published: March 2007

This research, which began fielding surveys in 1995 (and thereafter with variation in 1996, 1997, and 2000), was apparently the first to use national random telephone survey methods to track social and community aspects of Internet use and compare users and nonusers. The program has explored the Internet in terms of trends in access, political and civic involvement, and social interaction. The authors uncovered serendipitously what they call the Internet dropout phenomenon. The findings have found a decline in some aspects of the digital divide, especially once awareness has been achieved and when the year of adoption is considered. Contrary to the pessimistic assertions of many, no loss was discerned in terms of the indicators of political or community involvement. The findings support a more positive interpretation of the Internet's impact, at least in terms of interpersonal communication, where Internet use was associated with greater levels of telephone use (although not of correspondence by mail) and social interaction (although this was more widely dispersed). It also led to many face-to-face friendships that were judged by respondents as a positive experience. Thus, some of the earliest research on the social consequences of the Internet, confirmed during a half-decade of additional surveys, finds a decreasing but still significant digital divide, few negative effects on civic involvement and social interaction, and some positive consequences.
Two Cases of Survey Research: 1776-1785
Authors: Gurr Ted R.
Published: March 2007

Nearly two centuries ago, something resembling modern surveying, with modern problems of questionnaire, returns, and applications, was generated in the English Parliament. The poor and their care were the objects of attention.
The Human Relations Area Files
Authors: White Gladys W.
Published: March 2007

The HRAF material is available in duplicate form at 16 university libraries and consists of scientific material on human relations, reproduced, organized in 707 categories, and filed. This article, a description of the files' organization and uses, originally appeared in somewhat lengthier form in the American Library Association's journal, College and Research Libraries, XIX ( March, 1958), 111-117.
Civil Defense, Democracy, and The Self-Destroying Prophecy
Authors: Waskow Arthur I.
Published: March 2007

Arthur I. Waskow, member of the Senior Staff of the Peace Research Institute and author of The Limits of Defense, examines some hypotheses on the effects a large, civil defense program might have upon democratic institutions. He sets forth some pos sibilities for research on these hypotheses and points out that the hypothesizing and research itself may affect policy.
General Education: The Mirror of Culture
Authors: Tagliacozzo Giorgio
Published: March 2007

Our ideal reader is likely to have a long-term interest in the unity of knowledge and the harmony of education and culture. He is also likely to be im mediately concerned with classification problems emerging from the newly abundant supply of data and documents. He is interdisciplinary and methodological of mind, and therefore receptive to the idea that the flow and flux of the fields of knowledge through time can help locate us in our own time and in the future. Therefore, we begin here a series of articles that will be written for our magazine by Dr. Tagliacozzo, who starts by sorting out the snarl of meanings in the words education and culture, today and in ancient Greece.
Barriers to Survey Research in Asia and Latin America
Authors: Mitchell Robert Edward
Published: March 2007

Dr. Mitchell explores organizational, methodological, and ideological obstacles to the healthy development of survey research in Asia and Latin America. He notes a one-sided emphasis on teaching, various obsolete habits of French-type universities, the absence of administrative and political autonomy on the part of university research institutes, the lack of methodological concern and sophistication on the part of those who conduct survey research, and the often irrelevant intrusion of ideo logical concerns into the research situation. The author is Coordinator of International Research at the Survey Research Center of the Uni versity of California at Berkeley.
A Way to Achieve National Health Insurance in the United States
Authors: INTRILIGATOR MICHAEL D.
Published: March 2007

The current crisis in the health care system in the United States, including constantly escalating costs and ever more limited access, calls for fundamental reform. Current reform proposals, including managed competition, would not solve the basic problems of cost and access as they continue to rely on employer-provided health insurance, which is the source of these problems. Rather, what is needed is radical reform, replacing current coverage by a system of national health insurance. The Medicare expansion plan represents a simple and workable way to obtain such a system, via a phased change in the age of eligibility for the Medicare program. It would start by enrolling children up to age 5 and pregnant women and then expand coverage by adding 5 more years of age for eligibility in both the younger and the older population each year until, eventually, by the year 2000 everyone would be enrolled. Medicare expansion offers a viable alternative to the current system of employer-provided health insurance, with a single payer/single collector system for basic care and with reliance on increased Social Security taxes for funding. The private health insurance industry would have a role as providers of supplemental coverage and as subcontractors for the expanded Medicare program.
Troubling Families
Authors: ROSSI PETER H.
Published: March 2007

Reviewing empirical studies of homeless families and the shelters provided for them, this article summarizes the social and demographic characteristics of the families and the organizational features of the shelters. Homeless families are composed largely of young female single parents and their minor children and are drawn heavily from among Blacks and other minorities. The rise in the number of homeless families in the 1980s is attributed to the decline in the real dollar value of transfer payments against a background of a decline in traditional two-parent families, in turn driven by the decline in employment opportunities for minorities. Shelters provided mainly by private charities tend to accentuate the social and demographic features of the homeless family population by their admission practices and rules of residence. A set of public policies is proposed to ameliorate family homelessness, including the restoration of adequate welfare payments, the expansion of housing subsidies, and the enlargement of employment opportunities for minority young people.
The Bell Curve
Authors: NEWBY ROBERT G. , NEWBY DIANE E.
Published: March 2007

As a critique of The Bell Curve, this article briefly explores ideas about intelligence, “race,” and the relationship of those ideas to the place of Blacks in America's political economy. The analysis examines the role of intellectuals in their respective periods in shaping knowledge about intelligence and race. The eugenics movement, including its leaders, and the relationship of their ideas to the political economy in the early 1900s will be explored as being particularly relevant for our understanding The Bell Curve in the present context. A sociology of knowledge framework will be employed to examine the changing roles of African Americans in the labor force and the ideas that seek to legitimize their changing roles, including their increasing “obsolescence” and declining need for their labor. Finally, the developments in our political economy that set the stage for a Charles Murray will be explored; this will include pointing out the direct relationship between The Bell Curve and current politics and policy.
Social Capital and Political Culture
Authors: WOOD RICHARD L.
Published: March 2007

Among the most successful recent efforts at political engagement among low-income Americans have been those led by church-based community organizations (CCOs). This article discusses the strengths and limitations of Putnam's social capital framework for understanding the CCO success. A brief case study of community organizing among low-income, ethnically diverse residents of Oakland, California, shows how participants build a culture of political engagement. Three years of participant observation in Oakland and 65 interviews there and in 5 other U.S. cities generated the primary data. The article argues that social capital, as conceptualized by Putnam, contributes substantially toward explaining how CCOs project power into the political arena. However, understanding the success requires broader insight into political capacity. Attention must be paid to a “second face of culture”: shared values, symbol systems, and assumptions about the world. Here, political and religious culture cannot be reduced to social capital.
Jacques Lacan and the Theory of the Human Subject
Authors: McSWITE O. C.
Published: March 2007

Theoretical development in the field of public administration is impaired by its implicit, unacknowledged commitment to the incompatible ontology of economics. This ontological commitment restricts the possibility for defining the role of the public bureaucrat to that of being no more than a technically proficient of services, a definition that the field has long sought to escape. A psychoanalytic perspective, especially the one formulated by the French theorist Jacques Lacan, can help this problem. The aspects of Lacan's psychoanalytic model relevant to this issue are explicated. It is then argued that the model holds major implications for public administration, among which are (a) a radical change in its epistemology, (b) a complete reassessment of the function of the human ego in social life, (c) an ontological rationale for moving beyond the instrumental goal attainment schema for administrative action, and (d) a venue for public administration to move past its anachronistic modernist conceptual framework and into a more appropriate postmodern manner of thinking about its identity.
Leveling Tenure
Authors: TIERNEY WILLIAM G.
Published: March 2007

This article delineates the four most significant areas of potential tenure reform. The author offers the strengths and weaknesses of each proposal and provides examples of why such suggestions have been made and what has occurred. The article concludes with an alternative suggestion about how to solve some of the problems that currently exist in the academy that does not necessitate changing tenure.
Using State Information Systems for Drug Abuse Services Research
Authors: McCARTY DENNIS , McGUIRE THOMAS G. , HARWOOD HENRICK J. , FIELD TIMOTHY
Published: March 2007

Political and social demands for effective and cost-effective treatments for drug and alcohol dependence challenge public policy makers and services researchers to assess provider performance, monitor client outcomes, and document effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of care. The information systems built and maintained by the public authorities that fund substance abuse treatment services are an underused source of information on provider performance, client characteristics, treatment completion, readmission rates, treatment outcomes, and costs of care. An overview of performance measurement and state substance abuse databases sets the context for the article. The authors' work with the Maine, Massachusetts, and Ohio substance abuse information systems demonstrates ways services researchers can investigate the organization, use, costs, and cost-effectiveness of publicly funded substance abuse treatment services. Finally, challenges of working with state databases—they are hard to access, must be handled carefully, can be difficult to interpret, and require collaboration with policy makers and treatment providers—are addressed.
The Nazi Party and the German New Middle Class, 1925-1933
Authors: BRUSTEIN WILLIAM
Published: March 2007

In studies of the social origins of the German Nazi Party, the new middle class of white-collar employees and civil servants has received scant attention. This inattention is surprising given that the German new middle class was the fastest growing segment of the German population during Weimar. This article applies an interest-based model of political behavior to the German new middle class between 1925 and 1933 to assess the model's ability to explain the appeal of the German Nazi Party to joiners from the new middle class. The data for this study come from the Brustein-Falter sample drawn from the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) master file of 42,004 individuals who joined the Nazi Party between 1925 and 1933.
The Politics and Problematics of Survey Research
Authors: ORKIN MARK
Published: March 2007

The Althusserian notion of a problematic refers to the underlying connections among the elements of a body of thought that shape its orientation. It is employed to examine the relationship between the practical decisions governing the actual conduct of attitude surveys and their sociopolitical context. Two sets of surveys, on preferences for political leaders and constitutional arrangements and on Black attitudes to sanctions against apartheid, are analyzed that featured in the transition to democracy in South Africa. Decisions regarding the phases of questionnaire design, fieldwork, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination are more or less explicit. It is found that in conjunction, they may predispose the survey to confirming specific presuppositions. Such a problematic is considered to be ideological. Based on further concrete examples of alternative survey practice, regulative commitments are proposed for each phase to ensure that the problematic of attitude surveys, even in such polarized contexts, may instead be scientific.
Mediation of Conflicts
Authors: RAIFFA HOWARD
Published: March 2007

Finding a mutually acceptable outcome in a dispute often poses a complex problem that needs hard systematic analysis and the sharing of much private information. An analytically oriented intervenor can help find such agreeable outcomes working jointly and privately with the protagonists.
Thick as Thieves: A Social Embeddedness Model of Rule Breaking in Organizations
Authors: MacLean Tammy L.
Published: March 2007

This qualitative study examines rule breaking in organizations by analyzing how deceptive sales practices became widespread at a major life insurance company. Using grounded theory techniques, a theoretical model is developed that illustrates the persistence and proliferation of rule breaking in organizations. Findings suggest the utility of adopting a social embeddedness perspective on rule breaking, as the mechanisms of diffusion and facilitation embedded in relationships between managers and employees enable the process whereby rule breaking becomes widespread.
Regulatory Pressure and Environmental Management Infrastructure and Practices
Authors: Davidson Wallace N. , Worrell Dan L.
Published: March 2007

In this article, we hypothesize that the level of environmentally oriented noncompliance regulatory fines and penalties levied on companies and on their industry counterparts will be associated with the development of an environmental infrastructure and practices within these companies. We find that the presence of these regulatory actions is associated with the likelihood of companies reporting environmental policies and activities and with the presence of a separate board of directors’ committee that monitors company environmental concerns. Our findings suggest that environmental regulatory pressure may serve as a driver of environmental action but is not its only determinant.
Toward a Substantive Definition of the Corporate Issue Construct
Authors: Wartick Steven L. , Mahon John F.
Published: March 2007

This article works toward a more meaningful answer to the question, What is a corporate issue? The article builds from existing literature in business strategy, public policy, and business and society. It synthesizes and integrates this literature and then expands the major points. The result is a reformulated definition of the corporate issue construct that enhances theory building and research activities in the area of issues management.
Missing the Forest for the Trees
Authors: Jones Marc T.
Published: March 2007

This article critiques the concept and discourse of social responsibility in terms of theoretical coherence, empirical salience, normative viability, and power/knowledge implications from a Marxist-institutionalist perspective. The social responsibility concept and discourse is found to be problematic along each of the above dimensions. The basic point can be stated succinctly: The concept and discourse of social responsibility are viable only in the absence of a historically grounded understanding of capitalist political economy. At the same time, however, the article argues that social responsibility constitutes an influential ideology with material implications for stakeholder groups.
Opening Narrow, Routinized Schemata to Ethical Stakeholder Consciousness and Action
Authors: Nielsen Richard P. , Bartunek Jean M.
Published: March 2007

Ethical problems with stakeholder relationships sometimes occur because organizational members are operating out of narrowly scripted organizational routines that do not include an explicit ethical component. In this article we describe methods of single-loop, double-loop, and triple-loop action learning that aim at helping organizational members develop understandings that incorporate conscious ethical considerations in stakeholder relationships. We describe the extent to which these methods achieve "second-order" change in the direction of ethical stakeholder relationships, give examples of the use of each of the methods, and we consider their strengths and limitations for achieving the desired change.
Painting a Portrait
Authors: Mahon John F. , Griffin Jennifer J.
Published: March 2007

This is a reply to the Research Note by Roman, Hayibor, and Agle in this issue. In this reply, the authors offer some constructive criticism of their analysis in an attempt to continue and further the debate on the relationship between corporate financial and social performance.
Representation, Electoral Reform, and Democracy
Authors: HAZAN REUVEN Y. , RAHAT GIDEON
Published: March 2007

This article argues that researchers must broaden their definition of representation if they are to expand their understanding of electoral reform. The authors use the 1996 case of inter- and intraparty electoral reform in Israel to illustrate their claim. These reforms were designed either to enhance the circle of participation or to improve governability, without damaging representation. However, the type of representation that was supposed to be maintained by the reforms was different in each case. Party primaries were supposed to preserve representation as presence, whereas direct election of the prime minister was supposed to uphold the representation of ideas. The reformers did not perceive this distinction and felt that representation (defined as proportionality) would not be affected by both reforms. The result of the 1996 elections in Israel was that both reforms damaged representation, and both missed their targets.
Duverger's Law is Working in Italy
Authors: REED STEVEN R.
Published: March 2007

In 1993, Italy adopted an electoral system based largely on single-member districts (SMD) based, at least in part, on the hope that SMDs would lead to a two-party system and alternation in government. That idea is known in political science as Duverger's law. The overwhelming consensus among specialists in Italian politics would appear to be that Duverger's law is not working very well in Italy. I will argue, to the contrary, that Duverger's law is working exactly as should have been expected. Although one may see little evidence of movement toward a two-party system at the national level, between the 1994 and 1996 elections, more than 80% of electoral districts moved closer to bipolar competition between two candidates. A dynamic analysis of electoral districts confirms the powerful operation of Duverger's law in Italy.
Russia's Passive Army
Authors: TAYLOR BRIAN D.
Published: March 2007

Military coups are considered most likely when state political capacity is low and the army's corporate interests are threatened. However, these conditions are also frequently present in situations in which the military remains politically passive, weakening the explanatory power of these propositions. In Russia, an extremely weak state coexists with an army whose corporate interests have been threatened over the past decade, yet the military has not intervened in high politics. Two alternative explanations for this behavior are examined, one based on internal cleavages in the army (organizational structure) and the second on officer corps norms (organizational culture). Although both accounts are plausible, organizational culture provides the best explanation for Russian military passivity. The importance of this variable is demonstrated in a study of Russian military behavior from 1992 to 1999. Studying nonevents, and moving beyond the coup/noncoup dichotomy, provides a more complete picture of military behavior in domestic politics.
The Structure of Voter Preferences
Authors: DUTTER LEE E.
Published: March 2007

This article applies preference assumptions derived from the axioms of lexicographic utility to four of Northern Ireland's parliamentary elections. The results are compared to those obtained from application of analogous spatial assumptions. The principal findings are that rational-choice-based voting models are relevant to the Northern Irish electorate, and that voters there display patterns of behavior consistent with both lexicographic and spatial preference assumptions.
Efficacy, Mistrust, and Political Mobilization
Authors: SIGELMAN LEE , FELDMAN STANLEY
Published: March 2007

Using data from the eight-nation Political Action opinion survey undertaken during the mid-1970s, this article tests the mistrustful-efficacious hypothesis outlined by William Gamson—the idea that a combination of high political efficacy and low political trust is the optimum combination for political mobilization. Several different versions of the hypothesis are tested and several different combinations of control variables are included in the analysis, but no matter how the hypothesis is tested, the results are consistently weak. The concluding discussion centers on the reasons for this poor performance and its implications.
Leaders and Leadership in Japanese Politics
Authors: FELDMAN OFER , KAWAKAMI KAZUHISA
Published: March 2007

This article attempts to observe Japanese students' perceptions of political figures during an election time, and to examine the factors that most dominantly contribute to such images. Employing a sample collected from more than 1,100 students at four universities in Japan, the discussion focuses on measuring the extent to which the respondents evaluated each of the political figures who were candidates for the premiership, the way they structured their evaluations, and the effects of variables such as political involvement and media exposure on this process. The findings show that, although there were no significant differences in the leadership style of the political figures, negative evaluations as a whole were expressed toward the candidate with the most potential ability to become the premier. Moreover, the respondents clustered their perceptions according to five clear dimensions, most notably in regard to the leaders' performance and contact with others. In addition, it was found that-more than any other factor-the mass media played a crucial role in determining the way the leaders were evaluated.
Privatization and the Logic of Coalition Building
Authors: ÖNIŞ ZIYA
Published: March 2007

Privatization has emerged as a global phenomenon during the 1980s. Rather paradoxically, however, the extent of privatization, both in terms of the scale of divestitures as well as the pace of implementation, has with notable exceptions remained quite restricted. This article seeks to develop a framework for explaining the pattern of limited privatization. The central argument is that the possibilities for utilizing privatization as an instrument for mobilizing an electoral coalition and establishing a form of “popular capitalism” are rather remote in the context of most developing countries. Alternative forms of privatization, involving direct sale to domestic or foreign corporations, are either not feasible or politically unattractive. The U.K. experiment is, in many ways, unique. The conditions that facilitated extensive privatization in the United Kingdom are not likely to be reproduced in other national contexts in the Third World. The author attempts to demonstrate the validity of this argument via a comparative analysis of the British and Turkish experiments in state divestiture.
Interstate Conflicts in West Africa
Authors: AGYEMAN-DUAH BAFFOUR , OJO OLATUNDE B. J.
Published: March 2007

Making a methodological shift from European-based to African-based reference groups, this article examines interstate conflicts in West Africa against the backdrop of reference group theory. The main thesis is that as a subsystem with implicit aim for stability, the Economic Community of West African States and the West African Heads of State Club constitute reference groups with rights and privileges for memberstates. It is hypothesized that conflicts occur when a regime is perceived by others to have violated group norms and values and is pressured to observe the subregional code of conduct. Evidently, the groups act collectively to maintain system equilibrium and promote integration by bringing recalcitrant members in line. The main cases of Ghana, Togo, and Burkina Faso suggest a strong interrelationship among radical politics, domestic disorder, and interstate conflicts as well as the influential role of a “reference group” in the dynamics of West African conflicts.
Anti-U.S. Foreign Policy of Dependent States
Authors: HEY JEANNE A.K. , KUZMA LYNN M.
Published: March 2007

Literature on the foreign policy behavior of economically dependent states holds that they will comply with the foreign policy preferences of the United States, particularly on cold war issues. Regional foreign policies of Mexico and Costa Rica defy this view. Despite significant economic dependence on U.S. aid and trade, both Miguel de la Madrid and Oscar Arias developed peace plans for Central America that directly countered the objectives of the Reagan policy for the area. Pressures resulting from (a) regional security threats, (b) the flow of refugees into Costa Rica and Mexico, (c) the foreign policy traditions of each country, and (d) the need to counteract the effects of dependence guided these presidents to accept the risks of a defiant foreign policy in order to satisfy local demands. Even though heavily dependent and under pressure from the U.S. government to comply with its regional foreign policy, Mexico and Costa Rica implemented policies that served their own national interests and defied Washington.