bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Who Overreports Voting?
Authors: Silver Brian D. , Anderson Barbara A. , Abramson Paul R.
Published: May 2006

The effects of respondent characteristics with regard to the propensity of nonvoters to report that they voted are examined by analyzing the vote validation studies conducted by the University of Michigan Survey Research Center in 1964, 1976, and 1980. Previous research has suggested that vote overreporting derives from the respondent's wish to appear to engage in socially desirable behavior. This earlier research suggests that the only respondent characteristic that is strongly related to overreporting is race; measures of socioeconomic status and of general political attitudes are said to be at most weakly related to the tendency to exaggerate voting. These earlier conclusions are incorrect. We measure the extent of overreporting for the population “at risk” of overreporting voting: those who did not actually vote. Respondents most inclined to overreport their voting are those who are highly educated, those most supportive of the regime norm of voting, and those to whom the norm of voting is most salient—the same characteristics that are related to the probability that a person actually votes. Blacks are only slightly more likely to overreport voting than whites. The pattern of relations between education and vote overreporting is opposite what would be found if those who falsely reported voting fit the typical image of the uneducated, uninvolved, “acquiescent” respondent who is concerned primarily with pleasing the interviewer.
Creating Political Reality
Authors: Kariel Henry S.
Published: May 2006

“Suit yourself.”

—American colloquialism

Currently fashionable modes of political analysis deserve acclaim today for at least two reasons: they provide opportunities for participating in a pleasurable if strenuous activity (regardless of the value of the end results) and they effectively come to terms with the surface facts of political reality. Our posterity, too, may find it easy to esteem the contemporary products of the profession of political science should it ever look back and see how an affection for craftsmanship is combined with the ability to please. Moreover, the reward system of the profession should appear as having been nicely designed to promote the present display of talent, ingenuity, variety, and success. There is evidence, in any case, that the prevailing inclination to work hard and to develop ever more powerful analytical tools is welcomed and reinforced within the discipline. All would seem to be well.

Yet doubts continue to be expressed today even by those who govern the profession and engage in what Thomas Kuhn has called normal science. Partially, there is a petulant resentment among older practitioners, scholars who are made fretful and irritable by the entrepreneurial opportunism of the nouveau riche, by the feeling that mindless industriousness rather than scholarly contemplation is now rewarded by tenure as well as by space in journals, time on panels, positions on editorial boards, and cash for projects. It does not pain me, however, to disregard the indictment that comes from this source—not because I suspect its patrician origins but because I believe it is blind to the underlying impulse of empiricism, because it ignores the subversive, liberating thrust of empirical science.
Underdevelopment and the “Gap” Theory of International Conflict
Authors: Holsti K. J.
Published: May 2006

A common hypothesis about the sources of international conflict holds that war and turmoil will be an inevitable consequence of the widening “gap” between the developed and underdeveloped states. This view is based on a common Western image of underdeveloped countries which assumes that striving for economic betterment is universal in all underdeveloped countries, and is primarily a grass-roots phenomenon. This essay challenges the hypothesis and the assumptions upon which it is based. It argues that the images of underdevelopment generated by economists using aggregate data are in many cases incorrect or distorted. Studies by anthropologists which are based on micro- rather than macrodata produce quite different impressions of the underdeveloped society. The human costs involved are for the most part overlooked in development schemes, and the wholesale importation of Western economic development strategies has led in many cases not only to a poor allocation of resources, but also to many of the problems the developed societies are now facing, including urban congestion, rising crime rates, higher incidence of mental breakdown, and the like.

The paper concludes with a critical review of common liberal solutions to development problems, and suggests that one strategy possible for some developing countries is increased isolation from the international system. International conflict may result not only because the underdeveloped states wish to close the “gap,” but because some may choose deliberately to reduce their dependency on the West. Conflict may be generated through isolation as well as through increased interaction.
Alliance Behavior in Balance of Power Systems: Applying a Poisson Model to Nineteenth-Century Europe
Authors: McGowan Patrick J. , Rood Robert M.
Published: May 2006

This paper is a partial systematic test of Morton A. Kaplan's “theory” of alliance behavior in balance of power international systems first proposed in his well-known System and Process in International Politics (1957). Three hypotheses are inferred from Kaplan's writings predicting that in a stable balance of power system, (a) alliances will occur randomly with respect to time; (b) the time intervals between alliances will also be randomly distributed; and (c) a decline in systemic alliance formation rates precedes system changing events, such as general war. We check these hypotheses by applying probability theory, specifically a Poisson model, to the analysis of new data on fifty-five alliances among the five major European powers during the period 1814–1914. Because our research questions are so general, our findings should not be regarded as definitive; however, the data very strongly support our hypotheses. We conclude that Kaplan's verbal model of a balance of power international system has had its credibility enhanced as a result of this paper.
The Paradox of Not Voting: Comment
Authors: Stephens Stephen V.
Published: May 2006

It is continually demonstrated in the pages of the Review that formal theorists in political science have great difficulty in communicating with one another, in reaching consensus, e.g., on the rationality of minimal winning coalitions and the effects of vote-trading. It has always puzzled me how such confusion and controversy could surround simple arguments which are—or at least appear to be—mathematical. Reading the extraordinarily clear contribution of Ferejohn and Fiorina (“The Paradox of Not Voting: A Decision Theoretic Analysis,” APSR 68 [June, 1974], 525–536), I am led to the conjecture that a sort of natural selection is involved, that the more lucid papers are so patently silly that many of them fail to achieve publication, leaving the field to papers in which the nonsense is at least obscure.
The Ethical Voter
Authors: Goodin R. E. , Roberts K. W. S.
Published: May 2006

No rational egoist should bother voting because, as Skinner's Dr. Frazier notices, the probability of any one man casting the decisive ballot “is less than the chance he will be killed on the way to the polls.” No matter how deeply he cares about the electoral outcome, a man must realize that his vote is only one among very many. The larger the electorate, the smaller the probability of any one vote's changing the outcome, so in most modern polities the politically rational thing to do is to conserve on shoe leather.

Real-world voters, of course, do flock to the polls, which is usually explained in terms of a feeling of “civic duty.” The fact that men get some satisfaction from discharging their civic duty by voting might answer the question of why it is rational for them to go to the polls. Unfortunately, it leaves another—how do they vote once they get there? Presumably, they go ahead and vote according to the dictates of their egoistic interests.
Budgetary Strategies and Success at Multiple Decision Levels in the Norwegian Urban Setting
Authors: Cowart Andrew T. , Hansen Tore , Brofoss Karl-Erik
Published: May 2006

The purpose of this article is to test a series of propositions about budgetary decision making, in the form of linear decision models, for the municipal government of Oslo, Norway, and to assess the consequences of such strategic choices for the long-term growth of agency activities. Budgetary decisions for forty-seven agencies at each of the four principal decision-making levels over a nineteen-year period serve as the basis for analysis. Results indicate that while the complexity of strategic choice is not related to long-term agency growth, the acquisitiveness of the agency strategy is an important determinant of growth. Intermediate budgetary reviewers are only partially successful in reducing the relationship between acquisitiveness and growth. Reference to a set of systematic interview materials in these same agencies, relevant to the cognitive assumptions of the models, suggests some reservations about model validity, at least in a minority of cases.
Rejoinder to “Comments” by Philip Converse and Jerrold Rusk
Authors: Burnham Walter Dean
Published: May 2006

Professors Converse and Rusk have replied to my present paper in two different ways: the former by a short, sharp rejoinder and the latter by a longer and more diffuse article. For space reasons alone, my commentary on their remarks must be concise; and while there is much which I should like to discuss further, there comes a time when the case must be sent to the jury.

It is best, I think, to confine most of my comments on Philip Converse's Note to the last half of it. We begin with The American Voter and the SRC “paradigm” as I see them. Having also reread this book, I will go even further in my praise of it than Converse has. It is not only a meticulous piece of scholarship; it is also truly a classic, a seminal work which justly gives permanent professional honor to those who wrote it. A seminal work is one which not only contributes to knowledge but permanently reorganizes the shape of a scholarly field. This can be done only by providing a conceptual framework for the myriad nonseminal but essential scholarly activities which take place in that field thereafter. As a meticulous piece of work, The American Voter was indeed qualified and judicious in its statements and generalizations. It also had at least as much sensitivity to the time dimension as could be expected for 1960.
Bases of Budgetary Incrementalism
Authors: Wanat John
Published: May 2006

This essay analyses the explanatory power of Davis, Dempster, and Wildavsky's theory of budgetary incrementalism. By means of sensitivity testing, it demonstrates that inferences to “gaming” or strategic explanations of budgetary incrementalism are not warranted on the basis of correlational analysis.

To explain budgetary incrementalism more satisfactorily, recourse is made to concepts and variables explicit in the vocabulary of the budget process participants. When mandatory requests are distinguished from programmatic requests, the differential treatment of the two by Congress is observed to allow good explanation of budgetary relations. In particular, the inexorable but small mandatory request, which is almost automatically granted, is adequate by itself to explain why requests always increase and why one year's appropriation surpasses the previous one.
Industrial Conflict in Advanced Industrial Societies
Authors: Hibbs Douglas A.
Published: May 2006

This study focuses on strike activity during the 1950–1969 period in ten industrial societies, The first section of the paper deals with issues of strike measurement and introduces a three-dimensional characterization of strike activity which forms the basis of the subsequent statistical analyses. The next section examines postwar trends in industrial conflict in order to evaluate the argument that strike activity is “withering away” in advanced industrial societies. Time plots of the aggregate volume of industrial conflict show that there has been no general downward movement in strike activity during the postwar period.

The third part of the paper develops a number of theoretically plausible statistical models to explain year-to-year fluctuations in the volume of strikes. The empirical results of this section indicate that (1) there is a pronounced inverse relationship between strike activity and the level of unemployment, which suggests that on the whole strikes are timed to capitalize on the strategic advantages of a tight labor market; (2) industrial conflict responds to movements in real wages rather than money wages, which indicates that labor is not misled by a “money illusion”; (3) Labor and Socialist parties are not able to deter strike activity in the short-run despite their strong electoral incentive to do so; and (4) the volume of strikes does seem to be influenced by the relative size of Communist parties, which suggests that such parties remain important agencies for the mobilization of discontent and the crystallization of labor-capital cleavages.
Political Compliance and U.S. Trade Dominance
Authors: Richardson Neil R.
Published: May 2006

This study examines influence relations between the United States and countries that are dependent upon their foreign trade with it. The hypotheses are concerned with political compliance expected of these dependencies as a consequence of their economic vulnerabilities to pressure from the U.S. Informed by trade-related variables and U.N. General Assembly voting behavior of the mid-1960s, the hypotheses find some support. The evidence shows that its dependencies, especially those in the western hemisphere, agree with the U.S. in General Assembly roll calls to a greater degree than do other countries. This compliant behavior, however, is confined to votes that pit the United States against the Soviet Union; when the superpowers are in partial or complete agreement, U.S. dependencies are no more in accord with the U.S. than are other countries. Throughout the study, dependencies are proposed to be vulnerable along four dimensions of their economic circumstances. Interestingly, the respective effects of these four factors are not as hypothesized. Their relative weights in contributing to compliance are largely as expected, but the nature of their partial associations is not. Finally, it happens that most of the dependencies turn out to be Latin American and Caribbean countries, a fact that complicates the interpretation of the statistical results.
Hollow Victory: The Minimum Winning Coalition
Authors: Hardin Russell
Published: May 2006

The proof of Riker's size principle is inadequate for the general class of zero-sum bargaining games (whether symmetric or asymmetric), and the principle is valid only for a very restricted class of games—the supersymmetric games and their asymmetric counterparts. Butterworth's modification of the size principle (the maximum number of positive gainers principle) can be extended to cover games which are only approximately symmetric. Roll-call voting in the United States House of Representatives overwhelmingly violates the size principle; hence, the House does not generally play a supersymmetric zero-sum bargaining game. More generally, both Butterworth's and Riker's principles seem inapplicable to large bodies.
Middle-Class Voters and Progressive Reform: The Conflict of Class and Culture
Authors: Wyman Roger E.
Published: May 2006

The middle-class character of the leadership of American reform movements has been well established. While leaders of the progressive movement in early twentieth-century America also conform to this pattern, the nature of the voting base of support for progressivism has not yet been established. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to examine whether or not middle-class voters supported progressive candidates at the polls; and secondarily, to test the relative strength of cultural factors (i.e., ethnicity and religion) versus class considerations as determinants of voting behavior in the early twentieth century. The results demonstrate that, at least in the key progressive state of Wisconsin, middle-class voters failed to support progressive candidates in either general or primary elections; to the contrary, they provided the bulwark of support for conservative opponents of reform. Using bi-variate and partial correlational analysis, the paper also shows that ethnocultural factors remained as the most powerful determinant of voter choice among urban voters in general elections, but that class considerations often proved more influential in motivating voters in primary election contests.
The Paradox of Not Voting: A Decision Theoretic Analysis
Authors: Ferejohn John A. , Fiorina Morris P.
Published: May 2006

Various analysts have noted that the decision to vote in mass elections is difficult to justify from the standpoint of an expected utility maximization model. Put simply, the probability that a citizen's vote will affect the outcome is so small that the expected gains from voting are outweighed by the costs in time and effort. Such analyses treat rational behavior as synonymous with expected utility maximization. In this paper we show that an alternative criterion for decision making under uncertainty, minimax regret, specifies voting under quite general conditions. Both two and three candidate plurality elections are considered. Interestingly, a minimax regret decision maker never votes for his second choice in a three candidate election, whereas expected utility maximizers clearly may. Thus, the model proposed has implications for candidate choice as well as turnout.
Paradoxes of Voting
Authors: Fishburn Peter C.
Published: May 2006

Five voting paradoxes are examined under procedures which determine social choice from voters' preference rankings. The most extreme forms of each paradox are identified, and their potential practical significance is assessed using randomly generated voter preference profiles.

The first paradox arises when the winner under sequential-elimination simple-majority voting is less preferred by every voter than some other alternative. The fifth paradox occurs when one alternative has a simple majority over every other alternative and one or more of the simple-majority losers beats the winner on the basis of every point-total method that assigns more points to a first-place vote than to a second-place vote, more points to a second-place vote than to a third-place vote, and so forth.

The other three paradoxes are solely concerned with point-total procedures. They include cases in which the standard point-total winner becomes a loser when original losers are removed, and in which different truncated point-total procedures (which count only first-place votes, or only first-place and second-place votes, and so forth) yield different winners.

The computer simulation data suggest that the more extreme forms of the paradoxes are exceedingly unlikely to arise in practice.
Nonattitudes and American Public Opinion: The Examination of a Thesis
Authors: Pierce John C. , Rose Douglas D.
Published: May 2006

This paper utilizes the 1956–58–60 SRC panel study to examine the degree to which Americans hold attitudes on issues of public policy. The conclusions reject the thesis that only 20 to 30 per cent of the American public have true attitudes and that the remainder either refuse to take a position or respond randomly. The nonattitude thesis is rejected on the basis of: (1) a conceptualization of attitudes which allows for variation in responses through time without necessarily indicating the absence of attitudes or their random fluctuation; (2) an evaluation of the major statement of the nonattitude thesis; (3) a probability model for measuring attitudes in a panel study based on the assumption of twin samples, i.e., a sample of the population at one point in time, and a sample of the individual's attitude through time; and (4) the application of the probability model, leading to the conclusion that the number of individuals with attitudes has been severely underestimated. The implications of that finding are drawn for the relation of responses to attitudes and for democratic elitism.
Mobilization of Liberal Strength in the House, 1955–1970: The Democratic Study Group
Authors: Stevens Arthur G. , Miller Arthur H. , Mann Thomas E.
Published: May 2006

In 1959 a number of progressive Democratic congressmen organized the Democratic Study Group (DSG) as a vehicle for countering certain conservative biases then present in the decision-making process in the House of Representatives. This paper presents brief descriptions of the difficulties faced by these congressmen in their efforts to pass more “liberal” legislation and of the organization and activities of the DSG. The analytical focus is on an assessment of DSG success in developing an effective communication network as a means of achieving its policy goals. The central hypothesis is that this communication network has had an impact on the voting behavior of DSG members. Roll-call data from the 84th through the 91st Congress are examined to ascertain whether longitudinal patterns in the voting of DSG members, non-southern non-DSG Democrats, southern Democrats, and Republicans tend to confirm or deny this hypothesis.
Toward a Model of Soviet Decision Making: A Research Note
Authors: Kelley Donald R.
Published: May 2006

This research note offers a partial model of decision making in the Soviet Union cast in terms of the level of conflict intensity within the political system, the identity of the major participants, and the corresponding mode of decision-making behavior. It also deals with the rationalization of decision making in the post-Stalin era and the role of interest groups in policy formation.

Recognizing the multifunctional nature of decisions made within politicized bureaucratic structures, the model outlines three levels of conflict intensity and decision-making behavior:

(1) Analytic conflict occurs over maximizing (technical) decisions and elicits a decision-making style described as research and persuasion. The most influential actors are specialists and technicians.

(2) Organizational conflict occurs over mixed maximizing and integrative decisions and calls forth a combination of analytic and bargaining techniques. Key actors are institutionalized interest groups.

(3) Systemic political conflict is associated with integrative (political) decisions reached either through informal high-level bargaining or voting within higher party bodies. The most important actors are leadership factions and interest groups with political resources.
Provision of Collective Goods As a Function of Group Size
Authors: Chamberlin John
Published: May 2006

In The Logic of Collective Action, Mancur Olson shows how the activities of various political organizations can be fruitfully analyzed using the theory of collective goods. Several of Olson's major conclusions concern the relationship between the size of a group and its ability to provide its members with collective benefits. He concludes that as group size increases, the amount of collective benefits provided will become increasingly suboptimal, and that the absolute amount of collective benefits provided will decrease. This paper shows that Olson's conclusion concerning the relationship between group size and the absolute amount of collective benefits provided is not generally true. Within the framework of analysis used by Olson, it is demonstrated that the relationship is determined by the interaction between two effects, an “income” effect which may cause the level of benefits provided to increase as group size increases, and a “congestion” effect which may cause the level of benefits to decrease as group size increases. The final result is that for “inclusive” collective goods the relationship is an increasing one, while for “exclusive” goods it is a decreasing one. Some implications of this result for the use of the theory of collective goods in studying political processes are discussed.
Diplomacy for the 70's: An Afterview and Appraisal
Authors: Bacchus William I.
Published: May 2006

Numerous attempts have been made since World War II to reform U.S. government structure and procedures for managing foreign affairs, but success has been distinctly limited. In evaluating the procedures, proposals, accomplishments, and failures of the most recent State Department reform program, this review suggests some reasons why rationalization of foreign affairs organization has been so difficult to achieve. Unless fundamental questions of the Department of State's appropriate relationship to the rest of government are confronted directly, it is impossible to deal effectively with internal organization, operations, and staffing. Yet because of a restricted mandate, Diplomacy for the 70's did not address itself to these prior questions. And for a number of reasons, including a misplaced belief in the efficacy of management reforms as contrasted with political initiatives, lack of aggressive senior level support, ineffective followup, and budgetary restrictions, it fared no better than previous reform programs, even taken on its own limited terms. Unless such basic problems are dealt with, future reform attempts are likely to be no more successful.
On the Origins of Interest-Group Theory: A Critique of a Process
Authors: Garson G. David
Published: May 2006

Starting with nineteenth-century jurisprudence, this essay traces the changing perceptions of the nature and role of groups in politics as affected in turn by scientific reformism, classic pluralism, and descriptive science orientations to the study of politics. The work of Laski and Bentley is highlighted.

The essay contends that political science has not grown by scientific study laid upon scientific study, but rather by a process of gradual encroachment of ideas in which basic premises, questions, and terms shifted without adequate examination. It is argued that this change is not properly portrayed as a trend from abstract legal metaphysics to ever more sophisticated approximations of reality. The forgotten contributions of past orientations are stressed, and the reasons that Bentley was ignored in his day discussed.

More specifically, the study concludes that the process of accretion of ideas was of some benefit to political science as a discipline, but the heritage left by this process was negative in two important respects: the neglect of a dynamic in favor of a static perspective, and the divorce of normative theory from empirical research on American politics.
Equality and Human Need
Authors: Zetterbaum Marvin
Published: May 2006

This paper has the twofold purpose of exploring how and whether it may be said that value arises from human need and, in particular, how the value of equality may arise from an alleged human need for recognition. It traces two opposite dispositions toward recognition, one seeing it as destructive of the minimum conditions for political life, the other viewing it as the principal agency through which men achieve their humanity. The concept of a basic human need is then exposed to the criticism of “social apperception,” which apparently renders meaningless the concept altogether. Nevertheless, two “faces” of recognition are explored – one affirming that common human nature in virtue of which all men are said to be equal, and the other, affirming the concrete specificity of each individual. The paper concludes by arguing that this second aspect of the drive for recognition, which is viewed by some as the primary political obligation, is actually not a legitimate aspiration of political life.
Demographic, Social-Psychological, and Political Factors in the Politics of Aging: A Foundation for Research in “Political Gerontology”
Authors: Cutler Neal E.
Published: May 2006

“Political gerontology” is the study of the political aspects of aging and the aged. Although psychology and sociology have research subfields concerning aging, this interest is just beginning to develop systematically within political science. Consequently, this article describes theory and research from several disciplines which together provide a foundation for research in “political gerontology.” Demographic analysis suggests that old people constitute a continuously growing component of the American population. Social-psychological analysis indicates that the aged are likely to engage in substantial political activity. Political analysis suggests that old people are likely to make increasing demands upon the political system. This multidisciplinary knowledge base, combined with the predicted increasing political salience of the aging population, suggests the contours of a research agenda for “political gerontology.”
On Social Psychological Handy Work: An Interpretive Review of The Handbook of Social Psychology, Second Edition
Authors: Merelman Richard M.
Published: May 2006

This paper reviews the new Handbook of Social Psychology, with a special eye towards its utility for political scientists. The review focuses on theory, methodology, substantive areas of social psychological research, and political applications of social psychological findings. Special attention is paid to Handbook articles of particular merit and application to political science. These include articles on cognitive theory, experimentation, observational analyses and sociometry, as well as articles which add to our knowledge of such politically important problems as reasoning, compliance, and decision making. Throughout, important findings relevant to the operations of politics are spotlighted. These include, inter alia, cognitive biases towards the perception of unequal influence, the “risky shift,” constraints on selective perception, and characteristics of leadership behavior. Omissions, theoretical flaws, and errors due to the “datedness” of findings are also discussed.
Primary Rules, Political Power, and Social Change
Authors: Lengle James I. , Shafer Byron
Published: May 2006

This paper examines the relationship between the kinds of delegate allocation rules used in Democratic presidential primaries (Winner-Take-All, Districted, and Proportional) and the power of various states within the national Democratic party. It demonstrates that these rules are often, in the short run, more important than a state's voters in determining the fate of particular candidates. It shows, in the middle run, that different types of states are clearly favored by different sets of primary regulations. It closes with some speculation about the long-run impact of these tendencies.
Elections and Public Policy
Authors: Ginsberg Benjamin
Published: May 2006

In the absence of historical opinion survey data, studies of the linkage between popular voting and American public policy have been confined to relatively recent time periods. Questions about these linkages, however, necessarily have a temporal dimension—what is the relationship between voting and policy over time?

This paper establishes criteria for citizen policy choice that do not depend on opinion surveys. Data drawn from national party platforms and U.S. statutes, and aggregate voting data are compared to determine the extent to which majority choices are translated into national policy over time. Analysis of these data suggests that whether or not voters are completely aware of all of the implications of their actions, over time, popular majorities appear to govern.
Beyond Dogma and Despair: Toward a Critical Theory of Politics
Authors: Dallmayr Fred R.
Published: May 2006

In contradistinction both to positivist empiricism and to the essentialism of “traditional” political thought, the paper delineates an approach to political study and theory stressing the critical interrogation between inquirer or participant and the experienced world. The approach—which relies chiefly on existential phenomenology and recent writings of the Frankfurt School— is illustrated and explicated in three contexts: those of philosophical anthropology, of epistemology, and of ethics and political action. With regard to the conception of “human nature,” critical theory refuses to equate man either with a reactive mechanism or with pure consciousness, preferring to treat him as an embodied creature concerned (in Heidegger's terms) with the sense of his existence. In the domain of epistemology, the sketched outlook deviates from simple “mirror” doctrines by emphasizing the experiential underpinnings of cognition and the need for continuous symbolic articulation. Concerning ethics, the perspective opposes both cognitivist and noncognitivist formulas in favor of the critical reconstruction of standards implicit in everyday life. The concluding portion of the paper indicates the relevance of such standards for practical politics and contemporary democratic theory.
Presidential Influence in the House: Presidential Prestige as a Source of Presidential Power
Authors: Edwards George C.
Published: May 2006

Presidential prestige or popularity has often been cited as an important source of presidential influence in Congress. It has not been empirically and systematically demonstrated, however, that such a relationship exists. This study examines a variety of relationships between presidential prestige and presidential support in the U.S. House of Representatives. The relationships between overall national presidential popularity on the one hand and overall, domestic, and foreign policy presidential support in the House as a whole and among various groups of congressmen on the other are generally weak. Consistently strong relationships are found between presidential prestige among Democratic party identifiers and presidential support among Democratic congressmen. Similar relationships are found between presidential prestige among the more partisan Republican party identifiers and the presidential support by Republican congressmen. Explanations for these findings are presented, and the findings are related to broader questions of American politics.
Political Innovation of the West German Federal Constitutional Court: The State of Discussion on Judicial Review
Authors: Nova Fritz
Published: May 2006

The Watergate controversies and especially the recent decision in Richard M. Nixon versus the United States on July 24, 1974 have again raised in the United States the problem of the political limits to judicial policy making and the need to strike a new balance among the three branches of government for preserving and maintaining a democratic policy. In this paper, which is based on largely primary judicial, political, and academic German sources up to the year 1972, the development of jurisprudence of the West German Federal Constitutional Court is analyzed and discussed, particularly the Court's experience with judicial review. The article is geared toward the student of comparative constitutionalism and comparative government, offering possible lessons to the United States and other Common Law constitutional courts. Less concerned with the practical work of the Court, except for brief comments on actual performance, the paper focuses on such problems as past and present German approval and disapproval of the notion of judicial review, the often erudite disputation on the merits of constitutional—especially “creative”—jurisprudence; the discussion on the political limits of judicial review; and trends in particular philosophical positions of the Court in contemporary West Germany.
Bonding Word and Polity: The Logic of American Constitutionalism
Authors: Harris William F.
Published: May 2006

Fundamental to the logic of American constitutionalism is the bonding of language and politics, the equivocal linkage of two quite different orders of composition. Unabashedly, the constitutional enterprise purports to infuse writing with power and to shape power with the written word. Such a theory of what it means to organize a political order according to a written design should systematically regulate the ongoing processes of constitutional interpretation. The result is a two-text framework of interpretive methods which is justified by the nature of the American constitutional enterprise, a system of signification that coordinates constitutive language, the authoritative modeling of the polity in words, and political legibility, the readability of the resulting scheme of government in operation. The Interpretable Constitution, as such a construct, reflects in its divisions the interconnection between document and polity and demonstrates the bond and tension between the Constitution as a linguistic artifact and the constitution as a political product.
Organizational Involvement and Representative Bureaucracy: Can We Have It Both Ways?
Authors: Romzek Barbara S. , Hendricks J. Stephen
Published: May 2006

This article addresses an important issue of democratic theory and administration: the potential conflict between bureaucrats' allegiance to their agencies and to specific publics' interests. Representative bureaucracy, which emphasizes substantive interest representation in the administrative arena, embodies this potential for conflict. Empirical survey results which probe integration of substantive representation and employee allegiance among federal employees in four major agencies are presented. Evidence documents a different level of organizational involvement in an agency with a substantive representation mandate compared to employee involvement in agencies without a mandate for representation. While the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights' mandate affords considerable potential for integrating substantive representation and employee allegiance, its employees do not rank highly in organizational involvement. Even more surprising, CCR minority employees are lowest in involvement. These findings imply an important hypothesis: effectiveness in achieving an agency mandate is crucial to successful integration of organizational involvement and substantive representation.
Citizen-Initiated Contacting of Government Officials and Socioeconomic Status: Determining the Relationship and Accounting for It
Authors: Sharp Elaine B.
Published: May 2006

The topic of citizen-initiated contacting of government officials has received increasing attention, but research has yielded conflicting findings on the relationship of socioeconomic status to contacting behavior. Various studies find that the two are negatively, positively, parabolically, or negligibly related. Data are presented supporting the claim of a positive relationship, and reasons for the conflicting findings are explored. The need-awareness model, associated with the finding of a parabolic relationship between socioeconomic status and contacting at the aggregate level, is tested at the individual level of analysis. While the importance of the need and awareness factors is affirmed, the overall model is not supported. As with other modes of political participation, sense of efficacy is found to be an important predictor of contracting, but the positive relationship between socioeconomic status and contacting remains when efficacy is controlled.
The Growth of Democratic Legitimacy in Spain
Authors: McDonough Peter , Barnes Samuel H. , Pina Antonio López
Published: May 2006

The political transition in Spain provides a rare opportunity to monitor popular attitudes toward alternative regimes. Through the analysis of national surveys conducted in 1978, 1979–80, and 1984, we first establish that the Spanish public distinguishes not only between successive governments—the Franquist and the center-right and socialist governments of the post-Franco period—but also between Francoism and democracy as political systems. Second, we show that during the post-Franco era the criteria of legitimacy have begun to shift from formal political to social democratic values. These analytical results are achieved by comparing standard with less orthodox measures of political legitimacy and performance, and by revising conventional theories of system support. Third, we estimate the determinants of support for and opposition to the two regimes. The Franquist system remains more polarizing than does the democratic system; the constituencies of the democratic regime are considerably broader and more heterogeneous. However, while the new democratic state is comparatively inclusive and autonomous, low rates of political participation and changes in traditional socialist ideology have made the institutional bases of legitimacy ambiguous.
Democratic Politics and the Culture of American Education
Authors: Merelman Richard M.
Published: May 2006

This article argues that weaknesses in the school's socialization of democratic values can be traced to culturally patterned strains in American education. Such strains are cultural adaptations to a conflict between educational knowledge and order, on the one hand, and egalitarian politics in America, on the other. After treating a defective explanation for the school's weakness as a democratic socialization agent–the “hidden curriculum” approach–the article outlines the conflict between democratic politics and “the basic shape of schooling.” The article concludes by tracing the deleterious effect of this conflict on teachers, curricula, and students.
An Evolutionary Approach to Norms
Authors: Axelrod Robert
Published: May 2006

Norms provide a powerful mechanism for regulating conflict in groups, even when there are more than two people and no central authority. This paper investigates the emergence and stability of behavioral norms in the context of a game played by people of limited rationality. The dynamics of this new norms game are analyzed with a computer simulation based upon the evolutionary principle that strategies shown to be relatively effective will be used more in the future than less effective strategies. The results show the conditions under which norms can evolve and prove stable. One interesting possibility is the employment ofmetanorms,the willingness to punish someone who did not enforce a norm. Many historical examples of domestic and international norms are used to illustrate the wide variety of mechanisms that can support norms, including metanorms, dominance, internalization, deterrence, social proof, membership in groups, law, and reputation.
A Spatial Model of International Conflict
Authors: Morrow James D.
Published: May 2006

The model presented here assumes that nations initiate conflict to change the international status quo across one or more issues to an outcome they prefer. Their preferences for different issue outcomes are represented by a classical spatial utility function. International coalitions are formed both to enhance the chance of a successful challenge and to counter existing challenges. Disputes are modeled as periods of competition between two coalitions through the recruitment of additional members, erosion of support for the opposing coalition and escalation of the crisis. The two-nation model is analyzed in detail, and the existence of the core for the resulting game is proved. The two main conclusions of the two-nation model are that nations have a general incentive to exaggerate their issue positions in disputes and that the possibility of issue trades enhances the likelihood of compromise.
Liberalism and World Politics
Authors: Doyle Michael W.
Published: May 2006

Building on a growing literature in international political science, I reexamine the traditional liberal claim that governments founded on a respect for individual liberty exercise “restraint” and “peaceful intentions” in their foreign policy. I look at three distinct theoretical traditions of liberalism, attributable to three theorists: Schumpeter, a democratic capitalist whose explanation of liberal pacifism we often invoke; Machiavelli, a classical republican whose glory is an imperialism we often practice; and Kant, a liberal republican whose theory of internationalism best accounts for what we are. Despite the contradictions of liberal pacifism and liberal imperialism, I find, with Kant and other democratic republicans, that liberalism does leave a coherent legacy on foreign affairs. Liberal states are different. They are indeed peaceful. They are also prone to make war. Liberal states have created a separate peace, as Kant argued they would, and have also discovered liberal reasons for aggression, as he feared they might. I conclude by arguing that the differences among liberal pacifism, liberal imperialism, and Kant's internationalism are not arbitrary. They are rooted in differing conceptions of the citizen and the state.
Agenda Control, Committee Capture, and the Dynamics of Institutional Politics
Authors: Bendor Jonathan , Moe Terry M.
Published: May 2006

Most models of agenda control examine dyadic relations—for example, those between a committee and the floor of a legislature. Such relations, however, are always embedded in a larger context, namely, a political environment composed of voters and interest groups. In this paper we model agenda setters (a legislative committee) as decision makers with limited cognitive abilities who adjust over time to their larger political environment. The legislators' policy positions are endogenous, reflecting the relative strengths of voters wielding the district-specific resource of votes and of interest groups wielding the transferable resource of money. The resulting outcomes indicate that neoclassical models of voting and pluralist models of group influence have each told part of the story. When only votes matter, our boundedly rational agents grope toward equilibria close to those of neoclassical models; however, when mobile resources matter as well, the outcomes depart systematically from those of previous models. In particular, interest groups can make themselves worse off by capturing the committee. The results suggest that agenda control is less powerful than conventionally believed and point toward conditions shaping its effectiveness—conditions highlighting the distinctive contributions of pluralist and neoclassical thinking to a broader theory of political institutions.
Neither the Purse Nor the Sword: Dynamics of Public Confidence in the Supreme Court
Authors: Caldeira Gregory A.
Published: May 2006

Systematic study of changes in support for the U.S. Supreme Court across time has not been undertaken. Armed with a time series of observations from 1966 through 1984, I provide a description of the ebb and flow of public esteem for the Court. Then I outline and test several plausible propositions about the dynamics of support. Statistical analyses compel the conclusion that apart from a relatively constant core of support, increases in judicial activism, inflation, and solicitude for the rights of the accused decreased confidence in the Court; the events surrounding Watergate and increases in presidential popularity and the public salience of the Court brought about increased popular esteem for the high bench. Previous scholars, based on cross-sections of individuals, have emphasized the public's ignorance of and disinterest in the Supreme Court and judicial policy making. The responsiveness of public support for the Court in the aggregate to political events and shifts in the behavior of the justices stands in stark contrast to the conventional image of United States citizenry as singularly out of touch with and unmoved by the Supreme Court.
Does Heavy Turnout Help Democrats in Presidential Elections?
Authors: Tucker Harvey J. , Arnold Vedlitz  , DeNardo James
Published: May 2006

There is conventional political wisdom that high voter turnout in a U.S. presidential election advantages the majority party. Because the Democratic party has been the dominant party in recent decades, this turnout advantage is often believed to accrue to Democratic presidential candidates. In an article in the June 1980 issue of the Review, James DeNardo challenged this conventional view. Indeed, he claimed that the majority party was likely to suffer with increased turnout when the behavior of core and peripheral voters is taken into account. Harvey J. Tucker and Arnold Vedlitz take issue with DeNardo's reasoning and evidence, and DeNardo embellishes and underscores his original case.