bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Two-Party System in British Politics
Authors: Lipson Leslie
Published: May 2006

Britain may fairly be called the classic home of two-party government. This claim is justifiable because of some characteristics for which the system, as employed in Britain, is distinctive. Chief among these is its long duration. Although there is room for disagreement among historians about the time and circumstances of its birth, it would be difficult to deny that two-party government was established earlier, has lasted longer, and at the present time is probably more firmly rooted there than in any contemporary state. Indeed, the practice of simplifying the complexities of politics into a contest for office between a pair of major claimants has endured in Britain through a catalogue of changes which would assuredly have wrecked a less effective system. In that country it has survived the evolution from an oligarchy of aristocrats to a democracy of the whole people; the transfer of power from monarchy to parliament and then from parliament to cabinet; the rise of large-scale industry with its social aftermath; the switch in economic policy from mercantilism to laissez faire and from this to state planning; and withal, the expansion and subsequent shrinkage of Britain's international might.
The Insulation of Local Politics Under the Nonpartisan Ballot
Authors: Williams Oliver P. , Adrian Charles R.
Published: May 2006

The purpose of this article is to analyze the relationships between partisan and nonpartisan voting patterns in four cities using nonpartisan municipal elections. It is part of a larger comparative study on the process of policy formation in middle-sized cities. The data have been used to test the nonpartisan rationale which states that the removal of party labels from the ballot insulates local elections from state and national political party influences.

The “insulation” argument states that national political parties do not and cannot adequately serve the needs of the local political unit. Their intrusion into the local scene invariably represents the introduction of irrelevancies which confuse the voters and prevent them from dwelling on local issues in city elections. Thus, the nonpartisan idea is partially based on the belief that local democracy will be improved through rationalizing its political universe. Citizens will choose well if specific, pertinent, and familiar questions are posed to them.
Conservatism as an Ideology
Authors: Huntington Samuel P.
Published: May 2006

Does conservative political thought have a place in America today? The answer to this question depends upon the general nature of conservatism as an ideology: its distinguishing characteristics, its substance, and the conditions under which it arises. By ideology I mean a system of ideas concerned with the distribution of political and social values and acquiesced in by a significant social group. Interpretations of the role and relevance of conservative thought on the contemporary scene vary greatly. Underlying the debate, however, are three broad and conflicting conceptions of the nature of conservatism as an ideology. This essay deals with the relative merits of these concepts.
Revolutionary Ideology: The Case of the Marian Exiles
Authors: Walzer Michael
Published: May 2006

In the history of political thought, revolution is a relatively new idea. Rebellion, insurrection, tyrannicide, civil war, resistance: all these have been discussed and debated since the very beginnings of speculation about politics. But the idea that a select group of men might wilfully and systematically employ political violence to effect the moral and social transformation of an established order was literally not conceived until early modern times and did not become a matter of self-conscious speculation until quite recently. The purpose of this essay is to analyze and, in part, to explain one of the earliest appearances of revolutionary thought—among a group of exiled English and Scottish writers in the sixteenth century. It is a case study in the origins (rather than a description of the origin) of a new intellectual style and a new mode of perceiving and responding to the political world. But a new style and a new set of perceptions and responses suggests a new man: the religious exile of the sixteenth century was such a man, an intellectual suddenly set loose from conventional and corporate ties and radicalized, so to speak, by his experience. Hence the nature of the exile and the social character of the exiles must be studied before the new ideas can be fully understood.

The writings of the Marian exiles have rarely been accorded such importance as will be attributed to them in this essay. Their work has more often been treated as a minor part of monarchomach literature; more especially, as an anticipation of, or a footnote to, the more important work of the French Huguenots.
The Selection of Federal Political Executives
Authors: Mann Dean E.
Published: May 2006

Central to the problem of obtaining intelligent and effective management and policy direction in the federal government are the sources and procedures used in the selection of federal political executives. These executives, occupying positions usually subject to presidential appointment and senatorial confirmation, constitute the “key group in making representative government work within the executive branch.” Through them the President directs and controls his administration, creates political support, and establishes lines of defense for his political program. Increasing attention has been paid to the selection process in recent years because of frequent reports of extreme difficulty in recruiting able people, inability to retain their services, and allegations that those who have served have proven less than adequate. The problem as broadly stated by the (Jackson) subcommittee on National Policy Machinery of the Senate Committee on Government Operations is: “how to make the quality of appointments of private citizens to national services keep pace with the spiraling complexity and difficulty of foreign policy and defense problems.”
Power and Violence
Authors: Walter E. V.
Published: May 2006

The ancient Greeks rarely fail us when we turn to them in a receptive but cautious spirit for conceptual clarity, and their treatment of the abstraction “power” and terms related to it is relevant and suggestive. In Greek, a root contained in several words associated with political power has two meanings. The verbarcheinmeans both “to rule” and “to start”; the nounarchémeans both “sovereignty” and “beginning.” J. L. Myres, in his analysis of Greek political ideas, suggests:

It is now clear that in compounds the prefixarkhé(as in our words “architect” and “archbishop”) describes not merely the first or chief man of a company or organization, but the initiatory function of him who “starts” the others to work, and originates the design which they are to complete. And this appeal to Greek practical life confirms the view that what is essential in the notion ofarkhéis just this initiatory “push” or “drive” with which the gifted man imposes his will-and-pleasure on the rest.
Measuring the Concentration of Power in Political Systems
Authors: Brams Steven J.
Published: May 2006

The unequal distribution of power among the members of a political system is one of the most pervasive facts of political life. Yet, while many studies have confirmed the fact that a few members exercise disproportionate control over many others in most systems, the configurations of power relations that occur among the few have generally not been subjected to systematic comparative analysis. In a few notable empirical studies, attempts have been made to compare the exercise of power in different issue-areas and across different decisions. Comparative analyses have suffered, however, from the lack of any means to make tractable and compare, except in a qualitative way, schematic representations of power relations either in different political systems or over different issue-areas in the same system. When diagrams of power structures become complex and unwieldy, it is easiest to forget about making precise comparisons about the way power is distributed among decision-makers somehow identified as being influential in the political process.
Inter-Nation Simulation and Contemporary Theories of International Relations
Authors: Coplin William D.
Published: May 2006

The purpose of this article is to compare the Inter-Nation Simulation (INS)—developed by Harold Guetzkow and his colleagues at North-western University and now employed in a number of universities throughout the country—to verbal theories of international relations. It will not be a discussion of the methodological foundations of the simulation but an analytical comparison, primarily on the level of middle-range theory, of the substantive assumptions contained in INS with contemporary international relations theory.

Although the primary purpose of this article is to compare the two bodies of theory, it will inevitably raise questions concerning the validity of the Inter-Nation Simulation model and the value of simulation as a general approach to theory. In terms of the former question, it is necessary to remember that the simulators themselves are theorists, albeit a special type. Consequently, the comparison is more a reliability check on simulation and verbal theorists than a validity check on either. The lack of congruence between the assumptions of the simulation and the assumptions of the verbal theorists does not necessarily indicate that the simulation model lacks validity, since the verbal theorist has no monopoly on valid hypotheses.

If the author's assumption that simulation is a way of theorizing about international relations is correct, the following comparison should yield some idea about the value of simulation in building a firm theoretical basis for a science of international relations. Forced to be abstract as well as explicit and parsimonious, those using simulation must approach the task of theorizing with a different operational code than the verbal theorists.
Recruitment Patterns Among Local Party Officials: A Model and Some Preliminary Findings in Selected Locales
Authors: Bowman Lewis , Boynton G. R.
Published: May 2006

An ongoing political system requires a continuing process of recruitment in order to maintain the small but active cadre of citizens who assume the primary responsibility for the operation of the system. These political activists are involved in recruiting the official leadership, campaigning for their election, and sometimes serve as governors of the system themselves. In American politics, the recruitment of political activists is effected through processes which political scientists have only recently begun to investigate in depth. Most of the studies of recruitment to positions of political activism have investigated the social backgrounds and the patterns of recruitment of public officials. Not as much attention has been directed toward the personnel who operate the local political party organizations, and the processes of their recruitment. Our data add to the literature about political party activists at the lower echelons of the party organizations by reporting the findings of research conducted among local party officials in selected locales in North Carolina and Massachusetts. These local party officials constitute the lowest level of party officialdom in their respective party organizations. We have investigated the process of their recruitment to their party positions, and have used the data to test a model of political recruitment. Several questions guiding our research included: What are the social correlates of recruitment to local party positions? What are the patterns and channels of recruitment? What triggers political party activism—is there an identifiable “threshold” or “political opportunity structure” which serves as an indicator of political party activism? Are recruitment patterns and channels related to role definitions? We have also examined the relationship between the recruitment pattern of the party worker and his orientation to his job as party worker.
Electoral Myth and Reality: The 1964 Election
Authors: Converse Philip E. , Clausen Aage R. , Miller Warren E.
Published: May 2006

On Election Day, 1964, the aspirations of Senator Barry Goldwater and the conservative wing of the Republican Party were buried under an avalanche of votes cast for incumbent President Lyndon Johnson. The margin of victory, approaching 16 million votes, was unprecedented. Historical comparisons with other presidential landslides are left somewhat indeterminate by the intrusion of third parties. However, it is safe to observe that Johnson's 61.3 percent of the two-party popular vote put him in the same general range as the striking victories of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1936, Harding in 1920, and Theodore Roosevelt in 1904.

Before the fact, the election was also expected to be the most intensely ideological campaign since 1936, in no small measure because of Goldwater's reputation as a “pure” conservative. After the fact, doubts existed as to whether this expectation had been fulfilled. Goldwater supporters, in particular, expressed disappointment that President Johnson had refused to join battle on any of the fundamental ideological alternatives that were motivating the Goldwater camp.
A Scale Analysis of the Voting Records of Senators Kennedy, Johnson and Goldwater, 1957–1960
Authors: Gray Charles H.
Published: May 2006

This article reports the results of a scale analysis of the votes cast by three prominent senators, two Democrats and a Republican, on legislative measures pending during the second term of the Eisenhower administration. My method employed the Guttman scaling technique to identify the ideological issues presented in the roll calls and to rank the senators according to the positions they took on these issues, looking separately at their records in the 85th and the 86th Congresses. My purpose was twofold: first, to distinguish objectively the differences in the public postures the three men assumed as they voted; and second, to look for movement in the stance of each as the 1960 campaign approached.
Registration and Voting: Putting First Things First
Authors: Kelley Stanley , Ayres Richard E. , Bowen William G.
Published: May 2006

In their book Non-Voting, published in 1924, Charles E. Merriam and Harold F. Gosnell reported that many persons otherwise eligible to vote had been disfranchised by Chicago's registration requirements. Their data showed that “there were three times as many adult citizens who could not vote because they had failed to register as there were registered voters who had failed to vote in the particular election” and that “entirely different reasons [for not voting] were emphasized by those who were not registered than by those who were registered but did not vote …” Their observation can hardly be said to have been influential. Until very recently most students of voting have paid little attention to the temporally prior act of registration.

Failure to do so has had important consequences. It has made it easy to discount unduly the significance of political influences on the size and composition of electorates; easy to argue unrealistically about the value of efforts to increase the turnout of voters; and easy to be puzzled about some aspects of the behavior of voters.
An Attempt to Simulate the Outbreak of World War I
Authors: Hermann Charles F. , Hermann Margaret G.
Published: May 2006

Political games and simulations are models or representations of particular political systems and their associated processes. They are techniques for reproducing in a simplified form selected aspects of one system, A, in some independent system, A′. Games and simulations have a dynamic quality produced by the complex interaction of properties in the model. This feature enables them to generate states of the system that differ radically from those present originally. The kinds of transformations that may occur between the initial and final states of a simulation or game are difficult to represent by other means, despite a diversity in modeling procedures ranging from verbal descriptions to differential equations. Because of their apparent applicability to many problems of politics, as well as their novelty, games and simulations have been developed in a variety of areas in political science. They have been used in research, instruction, and policy formation. Although the application of these techniques has been increasing, systematic evaluation of their performance is only now beginning. This essay reports one type of evaluation.

The researchers sought to structure a simulation of international politics so it would reproduce features of the political crisis that preceded the beginning of the First World War. Two separate trials or runs of the simulation were performed as a pilot project. With two runs, the data are sufficient only to illustrate what might be done in an expanded research program.
Further Reflections on “The Elitist Theory of Democracy”
Authors: Dahl Robert A.
Published: May 2006

An interest in the roles, functions, contributions, and dangers of leadership in popular regimes is not, of course, new among observers of political life. This has, in fact, been an ancient and enduring interest of political theorists. It is possible, however, to distinguish—at least in a rough way—two different streams of thought: one consisting of writers sympathetic to popular rule, the other consisting of anti-democratic writers.

It has always been obvious to practical and theoretical observers alike that even where leaders are chosen by the people, they might convert a democracy into an oligarchy or a despotism. From ancient times, as everyone knows, anti-democratic writers have contended that popular governments were unlikely to provide leaders with wisdom and virtue, and insisted on the natural affinity between the people and the despot. These ancient challenges by anti-democratic writers were, I think, made more formidable in the course of the last hundred years by critics—sometimes ex-democrats turned authoritarian when their Utopian hopes encountered the ugly realities of political life—who, like Pareto, Michels, and Mosca, contended that popular rule is not only undesirable but also, as they tried to show, impossible. The failure of popular regimes to emerge, or, if they did emerge to survive, in Russia, Italy, Germany, and Spain could not be met merely by frequent assertions of democratic rhetoric.

Fortunately, alongside this stream of anti-democratic thought and experience there has always been the other. Aware both of their critics and of the real life problems of popular rule, writers sympathetic to democracy have emphasized the need for wisdom, virtue, and self-restraint not only among the general body of citizens but among leaders as well.
Discovering Voting Groups in the United Nations
Authors: Russett Bruce M.
Published: May 2006

The discussion of voting groups or blocs within the United Nations General Assembly has long been a popular pastime. It is, of course, merely a special case of a wider concern with groups and coalitions in all aspects of international politics. With the apparent loosening of the early postwar bipolarity it is increasingly important to discern the number, composition, and relative strength of whatever coalitions of nations may emerge from the present seemingly transitional period.

Voting groups in the General Assembly provide a relevant datum, though hardly the only one, for an effort to identify these groups. The United Nations gives no perfect image of broader international politics; due to the one-nation one-vote principle and to the fact that it is not a world government with authority to enforce its decisions, power relationships within the Assembly are not the same as in other arenas, such as functional or geographic ones. It might well be argued that because of the majority-rule principle the smaller and poorer states have an incentive to band together in the UN that they do not have elsewhere. Thus the discovery of a “bloc” of underdeveloped countries in the UN proves nothing about the cohesion of that “bloc” in other contexts. Yet votes in the General Assembly do provide a unique set of data where many national governments commit themselves simultaneously and publicly on a wide variety of major issues.
Teaching with Inter-Nation Simulation and Case Studies
Authors: Robinson James A. , Anderson Lee F. , Hermann Margaret G. , Snyder Richard C.
Published: May 2006

“Simulation” and “case studies” are supplementary teaching aids available for university courses in political science and international relations. The newer technique, simulation, has been used at several universities to augment instruction in international relations, foreign policy making, national security policy, urban politics, and political parties and elections. In fields other than political science, similar techniques abound. The number of business games or simulations exceeds 100, and less numerous games exist for educational administration, legislatures, career choices, and diplomacy, to name a few. Case studies also supplement a wide range of politics courses, including introduction to American government, public administration, party organization, legislative processes, and public law. The case method is the hallmark of schools of law and schools of business, and it is now emulated in teaching the history of science and in training in research methodology in sociology.

Different types of simulations and cases and their uses have been described and discussed elsewhere. Evaluation of games and cases as supplementary instructional aids has almost invariably been impressionistic. The consumers of these teaching methods have reported their personal experiences with them and have advanced claims for and criticisms of them, but they have undertaken little empirical research to determine whether the claims for particular simulations or cases are valid or to compare the actual effects of alternative methods. Moreover, the Ford Foundation expended thousands of dollars to induce business schools to try business games, but their investment in evaluating the success or failure of this innovation extended to convening a conference to discuss the subject, not to carrying out research on it.
Emotional Experiences in Political Groups: The Case of the McCarthy Phenomenon
Authors: Brown Steven R. , Ellithorp John D.
Published: May 2006

In many ways the study of political groups from a theoretical point of view can be said not to have progressed much beyond the conceptions of Arthur F. Bentley. There have been countless studies of political groups, to be sure, but it seems most have been little more than the collection and presentation ofad hocfacts obtained from the testing ofad hoc hypotheses, the concepts of “group” and of “group behavior” having been little altered in the process.

Much of the difficulty no doubt stems from Bentley's strict empiricism and the interpretation given his position by most social scientists who have aspired to translate him. When Bentley said that we know nothing of ideas and feelings but only of activity, he was merely reminding the social scientist to remain close to the operations of the phenomena he was studying. Activity, or behavior, can be worked with and studied directly, but it is questionable whether or not the same can be said of ideas and feelings. Scientific progress, Bentley would say, can be made only if one deals with what is visible and replicable. Critics as well as followers of Bentley, however, have interpreted him to mean that such matters as subjectivity are outside the pale of science, since subjectivity is presumed to be private, idiosyncratic, and nonreplicable.
Bar Politics, Judicial Selection and the Representation of Social Interests
Authors: Watson Richard A. , Downing Rondal G. , Spiegel Frederick C.
Published: May 2006

In modern political systems, parties undertake the prime responsibility for nominating public office holders, while interest groups attempt to influence public policy by seeking access to the centers of governmental power. Yet recent developments in the selection of state judges have given a private interest group, the Bar, a role in choosing members of the Bench which, in essence, parallels that of traditional party organizations. A Plan developed by the American Bar Association and the American Judicature Society, first adopted by Missouri in 1940, grants the legal profession a direct, formal role in the selection process; under its provisions, commissions, composed of lawyers, judges and laymen, nominate panels of names from which the governor of the state makes his judicial appointments. As the system works in actual operation, the Bar becomes the key group in the nomination process, since the lawyers and judges on the commissions possess superior knowledge about potential candidates for judgeships, and also outnumber the lay members of these bodies. Beyond this, the Plan restricts the discretion of the governor, who must make the ultimate appointment from among the three nominees. It also protects judges from ordinary political forces once they are in office, because subsequent judicial elections are in reality plebiscites in which appointees run “on their records” with no opponents.
Inducements versus Constraints: Disaggregating “Corporatism”
Authors: Collier Ruth Berins , Collier David
Published: May 2006

The concept of “corporatism” has usefully called attention to the importance of systems of interest representation based on non-competing groups that are officially sanctioned, subsidized, and supervised by the state. Yet these patterns have appeared in such a remarkable variety of political contexts that this concept may be too broad to be useful. On the basis of an analysis of the relationship between the state and organized labor in Latin America, this article argues that the concept of corporatism can be disaggregated so that it sheds light on rather than obscures the different power relationships and political contexts with which it is associated. The analysis focuses on the distinction between “inducements” extended by the state to win the cooperation of groups and “constraints” through which the state directly controls groups. This disaggregated approach enables one to distinguish more subtly among systems of group representation, to conceive of state-group relations in more interactive terms, and to gain insights into the larger political context.
Systemic Power in Community Decision Making: A Restatement of Stratification Theory
Authors: Stone Clarence N.
Published: May 2006

In their continued considerations of political inequality, urban scholars are especially concerned with less visible influences surrounding community decision making, and have employed such concepts as potential power, nondecision making, and anticipated reactions. However, these concepts leave some patterns of influence unexplained. There is also a dimension of power in which durable features of the socioeconomic system confer advantages and disadvantages on groups in ways that predispose public officials to favor some interests at the expense of others. Public officials make their decisions in a context in which strategically important resources are hierarchically arranged. Because this system of stratification leaves public officials situationally dependent on upper-strata interests, it is a factor in all that they do. Consequently, system features lower the opportunity costs of exerting influence for some groups and raise them for others. Thus socioeconomic inequalities put various strata on different political footings.
Machiavelli's Unchristian Charity
Authors: Orwin Clifford
Published: May 2006

The central theoretical chapters of thePrince(chapters 15 ff.) yield forgotten justifications of the road the West has traveled. Machiavelli relieves us of our qualms; in chapter 16, over dangling the carrot; in chapter 17, over brandishing the stick. He thereby lays the moral foundations for societies based, as all modem societies have been, on collective aggrandizement recognizing no limits in principle, and on justice understood as the enforcement of “equal (but otherwise boundless) opportunity.”
The Stochastic Process of Alliance Formation Behavior
Authors: Li Richard P. Y. , Thompson William R.
Published: May 2006

This article attempts to examine alliance formation behavior as a stochastic process amenable to systems interpretation. We test two hypotheses linking the systems characteristics of bipolar distribution/tightly knit bloc structure to serial dependence and stability of alliance formation behavior and multipolar distribution/loosely knit bloc structure to randomness and process instability.

For testing these hypotheses, we have introduced a modeling strategy whereby identification of serial dependence and parameter estimation are accomplished by means of stochastic difference equations and time series autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation functions, and systems interpretation is facilitated by employing its continuous analogue in differential equation form.

We analyze data on three sets of observations corresponding to three distinct periods of international relations: 1815–1914, 1919–1939, 1945–1965. The results do confirm the proposed hypotheses revealing randomness and instability of alliance formation behavior in the multipolar/loosely knit periods of 1815–1914 and 1919–1939 and serial dependence and stability in the bipolar/tightly knit 1945–1965 period. Finally, we consider the implications of these results for the earlier findings, the balance of power model, and the probability of war.
Whites' Opposition to “Busing”: Self-interest or Symbolic Politics?
Authors: Sears David O. , Hensler Carl P. , Speer Leslie K.
Published: May 2006

This article contrasts the “self-interest” and “symbolic politics” explanations for the formation of mass policy preferences and voting behavior. Self-interested attitudes are defined as those supporting policies that would maximize benefits and minimize costs to the individual's private material well-being. The “symbolic politics” model emphasizes pressures to make adulthood attitudes consistent with the residues of preadult socialization. We compare the two models in terms of their ability to account for whites' opposition to busing school children for racial integration of the public schools, and the role of the busing issue in presidential voting decisions, using the 1972 Center for Political Studies election study. Regression analysis shows strong effects of symbolic attitudes (racial intolerance and political conservatism) on opposition to busing, and of the busing issue on presidential voting decisions. Self-interest (e.g., having children susceptible to busing) had no significant effect upon either. It is concluded that self-interest is often overestimated as a determinant of public opinion and voting behavior because it is too rarely directly assessed empirically.
Stability, Coalitions and Schisms in Proportional Representation Systems
Authors: Balinski M. L. , Young H. P.
Published: May 2006

Methods to allocate seats in proportional representation systems are investigated in terms of underlying common-sense properties. Important among these are concepts of stability, coalition encouragement and schism encouragement. In addition, a new concept of uniformity is introduced which seems inherent in the very idea of the word “method, ” and it is shown that this concept is essentially equivalent to a previously investigated property called consistency. These and other criteria are shown to uniquely determine certain methods. In particular, the Jefferson method (incorrectly credited to d'Hondt) and the Quota method are given characterizations which commend them as the principal candidates for use in PR systems.
Participation, Political Structure, and Concurrence
Authors: Hansen Susan Blackall
Published: May 2006

Under what circumstances do citizens in a democracy influence their leaders? This paper uses an index of citizen-leader agreement on community problems to examine the effects of political factors on linkage. This index, termed concurrence, was based on parallel questions on community problems asked of citizens, government heads, and other local leaders sampled in sixty-four smaller American communities.

Concurrence was significantly higher in communities with high levels of citizen participation, contested elections, partisan ballots, and active political parties. Regression analysis showed that while voting rates had the largest direct impact on concurrence, participation had more impact when salient electoral alternatives were available. Partisan, contested elections also were associated with higher concurrence between leaders and persons of low socioeconomic status. Political factors also affected concurrence rates in both consensual and nonconsensual communities.

Alternative explanations for these findings (popular control of leaders, leaders' efforts to influence citizens or manipulate participation) are considered. Since concurrence scores of nonelected local leaders were also higher in participant communities with contested elections, it is suggested that political factors may affect citizen-leader agreement by facilitating communication between leaders and citizens, as well as by aiding electoral accountability.
Blacks and Hispanics in Urban Politics
Authors: Mladenka Kenneth R.
Published: May 2006

Are local political institutions responsive to the demands of racial minorities for a more equitable share of scarce public resources? Does an enhanced political presence improve black and Hispanic prospects in the struggle for public jobs? Based upon data for 1200 cities, my analysis reveals that while minority council members make a substantial contribution to employment success, minority mayors do not. For blacks, an interactive effect was also discovered for the relationship between the level of political representation, governmental structure, and employment outcomes. This research reveals that the political process does work. However, its effectiveness for minorities is mediated by a complex of factors that includes an interaction between political power, racial polarization, and the nature of local political institutions.
The Paradox of Vote Trading
Authors: Riker William H. , Brams Steven J.
Published: May 2006

Although, conventionally, vote trading in legislatures has been condemned as socially undesirable by both scholars and lay citizens, a recently popular school of scholarship has argued that vote trading improves the traders' welfare in the direction of Pareto-optimal allocations. This essay is an attempt to reconcile the disagreement by showing formally that vote trading does improve the position of the traders but that at the same time trading may impose an external cost on nontraders. In sum, it turns out that sporadic and occasional trading is probably socially beneficial but that systematic trading may engender a paradox of vote trading. This paradox has the property that, while trading is immediately advantageous for the traders, still, when everybody trades, everybody is worse off. Furthermore, vote trading may not produce a stable equilibrium that is Pareto-optimal either for individual members or for coalitions of members.
Partisan Intentions and Election Day Realities in the Congressional Redistricting Process
Authors: Born Richard
Published: May 2006

Political scientists have done little to resolve the question of whether or not a state party's command of congressional redistricting leads to payoffs in its share of delegation seats. Studies on the topic differ in their conclusions while being marred by methodological shortcomings. In analyzing districting plans from 1952 to 1982, one finds that partisan control of redistricting does have the expected effect on seat outcomes, but only modestly. This relationship, though, has become even more tenuous over time. Since the imposition of the Supreme Court's “one man, one vote” mandates, the partisan gains intended by redistricting schemes have come to depend less heavily on the identity of the controlling party. And regardless of what is intended by redistricting architects, the electorate has become less willing to conform to their expectations, quite plausibly because of incumbents' growing ability to add residents of the new areas to their supporting coalition by election day.
Promise and Performance: A Dynamic Model of Presidential Popularity
Authors: Ostrom Charles W. , Simon Dennis M.
Published: May 2006

The growth of public opinion measurement in the last 40 years has added a new dimension to the study of presidential behavior. Not only have public evaluations become more newsworthy, but the importance of public support as a resource and determinant of political survival has been enhanced. Recent scholarship on the presidency has documented the value of public support, attempted to identify its major determinants, and speculated about the manner in which presidents might influence these evaluations.

This research is designed to integrate these concerns into a single model and thereby to examine the interdependence between public support as a product of citizen decisions and as a political resource. First, a characterization of the citizen as an evaluator of the president is developed and used to construct an equation of presidential approval. Next, we develop an equation that explains presidential effectiveness in the legislative arena and illustrates the operation of public support as a presidential resource. The public support and legislative effectiveness equations are specified as a simultaneous equation system, estimated, and evaluated. The results of the model are then used to expand the conventional wisdom about the determinants of public support, to examine the consequences of the reciprocal relationship between public support and legislative success, and to generate ex post forecasts of President Reagan's support from 1981 through 1983.
Observation, Context, and Sequence in the Study of Politics
Authors: Fenno Richard F.
Published: May 2006

Observation is at the heart of political analysis. Observing the behavior of U.S. senators involves watching them in two contexts—at home and in the capital city. It also entails sensitivity to the sequences of events or contexts which impinge upon senatorial behavior. Contexts and sequences of legislative life have not been observed in the rich detail they deserve, because not enough political scientists are presently engaged in observation.
American Voter Turnout in Comparative Perspective
Authors: Powell G. Bingham
Published: May 2006

Despite relatively favorable citizen attitudes, voter turnout in American national elections is far below the average of 80% of the eligible electorate that votes in other industrialized democracies. The American institutional setting—particularly the party system and the registration laws—severely inhibits voter turnout, and probably also accounts for the unusual degree to which education and other socioeconomic resources are directly linked to voting participation in the United States.

Using a combination of aggregate and comparative survey data, the present analysis suggests that in comparative perspective, turnout in the United States is advantaged about 5% by political attitudes, but disadvantaged 13% by the party system and institutional factors, and up to 14% by the registration laws. The experience of other democracies suggests that encouraging voter participation would contribute to channeling discontent through the electoral process. Even a significantly expanded American electorate would be more interested and involved in political activity than are present voters in most other democracies.
The Impact of Taxes in Developed Capitalist Countries
Authors: King Ronald F. , Jackson Steven I. , Katz Claudio J. , Mahler Vincent A. , Franz Michael G.
Published: May 2006

A research question of perennial interest is, “What are the exogenous variables which best account for the differential distribution of income across nations?” Better understanding of the causes of inequalities in income distribution has been sought by investigating the effects of tax policies on income allocation and growth in capitalist countries. The quantitative analyses of these matters have engendered some debate about the adequacy of data, and the sufficiency of measurement. A preliminary foray into this research vineyard by Claudio Katz, Vincent Mahler, and Michael Franz is criticized here by Ronald King and Steven Jackson. In turn, Katz, Mahler, and Franz respond.
Voter Turnout Among the American States: Systemic and Individual Components
Authors: Kim Jae-On , Petrocik John R. , Enokson Stephen N.
Published: May 2006

Traditional studies of voter turnout in the United States have identified three factors which are presumed to explain most of the differences between the states in voter turnout: socio-demographic differences, electoral competitiveness, and differences in the rules under which elections are conducted. These studies have not, however, clearly distinguished the three factors largely because of their exclusive reliance on aggregate data to analyze the differences. The purpose of this paper is to 1) distinguish between individual and systemic components of turnout and 2) to attempt to partition the variation in turnout between the components. Unlike previous research, this study used both survey and aggregate data to decompose the variation in turnout among the states into first two components—individual and systemic, and then the latter into political (electoral competitiveness) and legal.
Self-Interest vs. Symbolic Politics in Policy Attitudes and Presidential Voting
Authors: Sears David O. , Lau Richard R. , Tyler Tom R. , Allen Harris M.
Published: May 2006

This article contrasts short-term self-interest and longstanding symbolic attitudes as determinants of (1) voters' attitudes toward government policy on four controversial issues (unemployment, national health insurance, busing, and law and order), and (2) issue voting concerning those policy areas. In general, we found the various self-interest measures to have very little effect in determining either policy preferences or voting behavior. In contrast, symbolic attitudes (liberal or conservative ideology, party identification, and racial prejudice) had major effects. Nor did self-interest play much of a role in creating “issue publics” that were particularly attentive to, informed about, or constrained in their attitudes about these specific policy issues. Conditions that might facilitate more self-interested political attitudes, specifically having privatistic (rather than public-regarding) personal values, perceiving the policy area as a major national problem, being high in political sophistication, perceiving the government as responsive, or having a sense of political efficacy, were also explored, but had no effect. The possibility that some long-term self-interest might be reflected in either group membership or in symbolic attitudes themselves is examined. While such possibilities cannot be definitively rejected, problems with interpreting standard demographic findings as self-interest effects are discussed.
Can Government Regulate Safety? The Coal Mine Example
Authors: Lewis-Beck Michael S. , Alford John R.
Published: May 2006

With the 1970 passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), federal regulation reached the American workplace. Given the newness of the legislation, any firm conclusion on its effectiveness seems premature. However, there is ample evidence on federal safety regulation of a specific workplace: the coal mine. The federal government has been directly involved in coal mining safety for over 35 years, operating under three major pieces of legislation, enacted in 1941, 1952, and 1969. Opposing opinions regarding the effect of this legislation can be grouped into three categories: radical, reactionary, and reformer. A multiple interrupted time-series analysis indicates that, in fact, the 1941 and 1969 regulations significantly reduced the fatality rate in coal mining. Certain conditions seem related to the effectiveness of this safety legislation: birth order, provisions, enforcement, target population, and goals. The first two conditions would appear to work for the success of the OSHA, the latter three conditions to work against it.
Strategic Politicians and Unresponsive Voters
Authors: Born Richard
Published: May 2006

To resolve the paradoxical finding that economic conditions and presidential popularity powerfully relate to quadrennial movement in the House vote, but explain little individual voting variation, Jacobson and Kernell have advanced their “strategic politicians” model of midterm elections. Purportedly, the early-year political environment helps determine how many of a party's strong potential contenders risk challenging incumbents; voters in turn respond to the quality of candidates before them in November, and thus indirectly reward the party favored by this early-year environment. Despite its current prominence, however, the theory does not stand up to empirical investigation. A time-series equation of midterm outcomes regressed on early-year national conditions does not fare particularly well when contrasted with comparable equations assuming direct-effects voting. Furthermore, challenger quality has only a weak influence on individual voters—subordinate, in fact, to the effects of economic attitudes and presidential evaluations.
The Paradox of Not Voting for Oneself
Authors: Tullock Gordon
Published: May 2006

In most states it is permitted to write in the names on the ballot, and these write-in candidates can win if they assemble enough votes. Thus, in all elections in which I might conceivably participate, there are at least three candidates: the Republicans, the Democrats, and my own favorite candidate for president—Gordon Tullock. Indeed, using the notation of the Ferejohn and Fiorina article, assuming that we are talking about 1972, I would find k having a value of about .001. Under the circumstances, if I understand the article correctly, I should always vote, and the vote should always take the form of writing in my own name. Further, as far as I can see, this advice can be generalized. Everyone who would really like to be president should vote and write in his own name, because the minimum regret that they produce for three-candidate elections is also correct for the elections in which there are 30 million candidates. The only problem here is that it would, of course, amount to participating in a lottery, and my possible gain from writing in my own name might turn out to be less than the cost of writing it in. Granted that people are willing to buy lottery tickets, even when the various states offering them take very substantial rakeoffs, I do not imagine this would be much of a disadvantage.

This same conclusion could have been deduced from the Casstevens article, which Ferejohn and Fiorina quite properly criticize as being mathematically incorrect.
Parties as Utility Maximizers
Authors: Wittman Donald A.
Published: May 2006

The article introduces two models of political party decision making. Both models assume that the parties are solely interested in policy and that winning the election is just a means to that end. In one, the parties are competitive, while in the other the parties collude. The main result, in either case, is that the parties tend to be unresponsive to the interests of the voters.

The models are analyzed in an intransitive case (an election concerned only with income distribution) and a transitive one (an election where all political attitudes can be put on a left-right continuum), and under the assumptions of perfect and imperfect information.

With perfect information the intransitive case results in the parties ending up with all the income; while in the single peaked case neither party will have a position to the left (right) of the left (right) party's most preferred position whatever the attitudes of the voters.

Finally it is shown that it is rational for the parties to collude and present similar platforms.