bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Environment, Process and Policy: A Reconsideration
Authors: Clarke James W. 
Published: May 2006

In recent years a growing body of research has used multivariate statistical techniques to examine the relationship between aggregate environmental characteristics and the public policies of state and local governments. This research has been concerned primarily with isolating or demonstrating the social, economic, and political correlates of either public policies (e.g., expenditures, revenues and referenda issues) or governmental structures (viz., form of government, size of election districts and type of ballot).One advantage of the aggregate approach, beyond the relative accessibility of data, is that it permits a systematic, comparative study of states or cities. On the local level this comparative approach provides a convenient supplement to the earlier case study approach which was concerned with the political processes and issues of particular cities.A number of hypotheses have been suggested by studies employing either the case study or aggregate approaches. In those observations dealing with government structure, attention is usually directed to the council-manager plan as an example of progressive government. That is, city governments which are reform-oriented are likely to be found in more affluent, better educated, homogeneous, middle-class cities. The notion is that the middle class prefers a more efficient, professional city administration. Conversely, the mayor-council plan is usually associated with older, machine-type politics which allegedly reflects the preferences of the less affluent, less-educated, working class and ethnic minorities who are most concerned about political representation.
“Ecological” Inference: The Use of Aggregate Data to Study Individuals
Authors: Shively W. Phillips 
Published: May 2006

Because they are inexpensive and easy to obtain, because they may be available under circumstances in which survey data are unavailable, and because they eliminate many of the measurement problems of survey research, data on geographic units such as counties or census tracts are often used by political scientists to measure individual behavior. This has involved us in the long-standing problem of inferring individual-level relationships from aggregate data, which was first raised by W. S. Robinson in the early nineteen fifties.In this paper, I shall first discuss the problem raised by Robinson. I shall then review three partial solutions to the problem—the Duncan-Davis method of setting limits, Blalock's version of ecological regression, and Goodman's version of ecological regression. Finally, I shall propose some ways in which Goodman's method may be used so as to reduce the problem of bias in its estimates, and make it a more reasonable tool for reserch.Our difficulty, as Robinson showed, is that we cannot necessarily infer the correlation between variables, taking people as the unit of analysis, on the basis of correlations between the same variables based on groups of people as units. For example, the “ecological” correlation between per cent black and per cent illiterate is +0.946, whereas the correlation between color and illiteracy among individuals is only+0.203.
Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method
Authors: Lijphart Arend 
Published: May 2006

This paper is a systematic analysis of the comparative method. Its emphasis is on both the limitations of the method and the ways in which, despite these limitations, it can be used to maximum advantage.The comparative method is defined and analyzed in terms of its similarities and differences vis-à-vis the experimental and statistical methods. The principal difficulty facing the comparative method is that it must generalize on the basis of relatively few empirical cases. Four specific ways in which this difficulty may be resolved are discussed and illustrated: (1) increasing the number of cases as much as possible by means of longitudinal extension and a global range of analysis, (2) reducing the property space of the analysis, (3) focusing the comparative analysis on “comparable” cases (e.g., by means of area, diachronic, or intranation comparisons), and (4) focusing on the key variables.It is argued that the case study method is closely related to the comparative method. Six types of case studies (the atheoretical, interpretative, hypothesis-generating, theory-confirming, theory-infirming, and deviant case analyses) are distinguished, and their theoretical value is analyzed.
Opinion Leaders and the Mass Media in Rural Egypt: A Reconsideration of the Two-Step Flow of Communications Hypothesis
Authors: Harik Iliya F. 
Published: May 2006

This study is based on a survey conducted by the author in a rural community in Egypt (a) to determine how mass media messages reach the population, (b) to identify opinion leaders, and (c) to assess the relation between mass media exposure and political awareness.The data from this survey were used to test the two-step flow of communications hypothesis of Lazarsfeld and colleagues and to compare the effects of the mass media and opinion leaders on the public. Analysis of the data did not support the two-step flow of communications hypothesis; instead it was noted that the greater the exposure to the mass media, the more direct is the flow of communications.Opinion leaders reached a smaller and less educated section of the population and were found to be the elected and official representatives of the village organizations rather than shopkeepers, teachers, and clergy. Finally, it was found that opinion leaders were specialized, each conveying policy information relevant to his role in the community. The flow of communications was found to be functional and organized rather than casual and haphazard as is usually the case in transmitting non-functional information.The last part of this article deals with the relation between exposure to the mass media and political awareness. Indices were constructed to give each respondent a score on the degree of exposure to the mass media and another on his level of political awareness. Analysis showed that mass media exposure and political awareness are directly related (r = .53). It was also found that those who had direct access to the mass media were more sensitized to political news than those who had no such access, thus underlining the politicization role of the mass media.Finally, the article compares the degree of correlation between mass media exposure and political awareness with similar correlations obtained in rural areas in Latin America.
Rational Behavior in Politics: Evidence from a Three Person Game
Authors: Riker William H. , Zavoina William James 
Published: May 2006

A fundamental controversy in political theory from ancient times until the present concerns the rationality of political actors, what it is, if it exists at all, and whether or not humans display it in politics. Many political scientists are impatient with this controversy because it remains open after so much (apparently futile) discussion. But they ought not be. The problem of rationality is necessarily imbedded in even the simplest kinds of political research, where, if overlooked, it can occasion misinterpretation and even outright error.Suppose, for example, in an investigation of legislators one uses the notion of party loyalty as an independent variable to explain behavior. This notion seems simple and straightforward enough and not, therefore, likely to involve one in philosophical controversy. But in fact party loyalty can be interpreted in a variety of ways and the choice among them necessarily involves a choice on one side of the controversy over rationality. Loyalty can be thought of, for example, as a truly independent variable, as a product of political socialization, as an expression of affect, and hence as an essentially irrational motive. On the other hand, it may be thought of as itself dependent on bargains rationally satisfying the preferences of legislators. Such bargains may be either short term or long term so that a legislator's manifest party loyalty may result from a series of advantageous bargains with party leaders on particular bills or from an implied bargain with them on career advantage.
A Note on Overseas Chinese Political Participation in Urban Malaya
Authors: Rabushka Alvin 
Published: May 2006

The object of this note is to demonstrate that generalizations about political participation may be invalid when applied to “developing” or “transitional” societies. Specifically, the relationship between rates of voter turnout and levels of education for urban Chinese in Malaya is not consistent with results reported for Western societies.A geographical classification of bibliographic entries in Lester Milbrath's Political Participation discloses a very interesting statistic: only 3 of the 288 listed entries concern the transitional societies of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The lack of data on developing areas may, in large measure, explain the emphasis placed on studies of political participation in North America and Western Europe. Although there is more research on transitional societies today, most studies still focus on advanced industrial societies. The validity of the generalizations presented in Political Participation, therefore, is restricted to North America and Western Europe.Using data collected in Malaya (1957), I examine four of Milbrath's hypotheses. These include:(1) higher education increases participation (p.122);(2) middle-aged persons participate more than young or old persons (p. 134);(3) men are more likely to participate than women (p. 133); and(4) religion affects participation (p. 137).
Voting, or a Price System in a Competitive Market Structure
Authors: Shubik Martin 
Published: May 2006

In this brief note it is demonstrated that if all the conditions for the existence of a competitive equilibrium are satisfied, then simple majority voting to determine the distribution of goods may be less efficient than a price system.The argument here may be somewhat cryptic for those not familiar with the work of Anthony Downs. A considerably more discursive presentation of the background material is given in “A Two Party System, General Equilibrium and the Voters' Paradox.” The tax and public goods aspect of the voting problem have been discussed elsewhere in “Notes on the Taxonomy of Problems Concerning Public Goods.” The result presented here, nevertheless, stands by itself, hence is presented in this brief form.The political system is modeled at its simplest. We assume the existence of two players called “political parties.” The goal of each player is to win an election by as large a vote as possible. A strategy for each player is to name a policy that it will carry out if it is elected. A policy is any point in the set of feasible distributions of final product. It follows immediately that, although any policy may be considered as a strategy, any non-Pareto optimal policies are dominated by some policy that is optimal. A discussion of the reasons for modeling a party in this simple manner is given in detail elsewhere. It is assumed that all voters are passive or “mechanistic,” i.e., they do not form groups but merely vote individually, selecting optimally between the two policies offered.
The Minimal Contributing Set as a Solution to Public Goods Problems
Authors: van de Kragt Alphons J. C. , Orbell John M. , Dawes Robyn M. 
Published: May 2006

This article reports small group experiments in which subjects may choose to contribute a fixed amount of money toward a monetary public good, and in which the good itself is supplied only if a specified number of contributions (or more) are made. Given the opportunity to communicate, our subjects organized themselves by specifying precisely the number of required contributors and who they would be. This organization, which we call designation of aminimal contributing set,always resulted in provision of the public good, and provision in a nearly optimal manner. In contrast, groups presented with the identical problem but not allowed to communicate failed to generate a sufficient number of contributions 35 percent of the time, and in slightly over half of the successful groups, overprovision produced inefficiency.We present hypotheses about why designating a minimal contributing set works, and data indicating that the mechanism results in reduced normative conflict and felt risk, as well as increased efficiency. The essential property of the minimal contributing set, we hypothesize, iscriticalness:the contributions of the members of the minimal contributing set are each critical to obtaining the public good the members desire, and they know it. It is reasonable (albeit not a dominant strategy) to contribute because reasonable behavior can be expected from other minimal contributing set members who are in the same situation. Unreasonableness is a problem that increases with the size of groups, but adaptations exist that, we argue, can reduce its seriousness.
A Directional Theory of Issue Voting
Authors: Rabinowitz George , Macdonald Stuart Elaine 
Published: May 2006

From Stokes's (1963) early critique on, it has been clear to empirical researchers that the traditional spatial theory of elections is seriously flawed. Yet fully a quarter century later, that theory remains the dominant paradigm for understanding mass-elite linkage in politics. We present an alternative spatial theory of elections that we argue has greater empirical verisimilitude.Based on the ideas of symbolic politics, the directional theory assumes that most people have a diffuse preference for a certain direction of policy-making and that people vary in the intensity with which they hold those preferences. We test the two competing theories at the individual level with National Election Study data and find the directional theory more strongly supported than the traditional spatial theory. We then develop the implications of the directional theory for candidate behavior and assess the predictions in light of evidence from the U.S. Congress.
Minority Electoral Politics in a North Indian State: Aggregate Data Analysis and the Muslim Community in Bihar, 1952–1972
Authors: Blair Harry W. 
Published: May 2006

Frequent elections and a long tradition of census taking in India should combine to provide excellent scope for aggregate data analysis, but so far they have not, largely because the electoral constituencies and the census tracts do not match. A number of ways have been devised to surmount the problem, none of them very satisfactory. This paper offers a new solution in the form of isoplethic mapping, a method that avoids the shortcomings of other approaches and permits use of demographic and voting data at the level of the state legislative assembly constituency.Substantively the paper traces patterns of voting for Muslim candidates to the Bihar Legislative Assembly and the relationship between Muslim population distribution and vote polled by different political parties over six elections. Instead of becoming more integrated over time within the general body politic, it appears that the Muslim minority group has become more politically cohesive and better able to elect Muslims to office where their numbers are strong. At the same time, Muslims have become less able to win elections where they are fewer in numbers. This tendency has not reached a state of political polarization between the Hindu and Muslim communities, however.
An Adaptive Model of Bureaucratic Politics
Authors: Bendor Jonathan , Moe Terry M. 
Published: May 2006

In this article we outline a new framework for the formal analysis of bureaucratic politics. It departs from standard neoclassical approaches, notably those of Niskanen (1971) and Peltzman (1976), in several important respects. First our approach explicitly models a system of three-way interaction among bureaus, politicians, and interest groups. Second, it allows for institutional features of each type of participant. Third, it is a model of dynamic process. Fourth, participants make choices adoptively rather than optimizing. Fifth, participants are only minimally informed.The result is a dynamic model of adaptive behavior, very much in the spirit of Simon's (1947) behavioral tradition, that offers a new perspective on political control, bureaucratic power, and the “intelligence of democracy.”
Thought Reform and Cultural Revolution: An Analysis of the Symbolism of Chinese Polemics
Authors: Dittmer Lowell 
Published: May 2006

Although the major purpose of the Cultural Revolution was to transform Chinese political culture, the way in which this transformation took place has remained unclear. This paper attempts to understand cultural transformation as a process of interaction within a semiological system, consisting of a network of communicators and a lexicon of political symbols. The pragmatic aspect of this process is the outcome of an interplay among the intentions of the elites, the masses, and the target of criticism: political circumstances during the Cultural Revolution were more benign to the cathartic and hortatory intentions of the masses and elites than to the expiatory needs of the target. The syntactic aspect of the system concerns the relationship among symbols: These were found to form a dichotomous structure divided by a taboo barrier, which elicited strong but ambivalent desires to achieve a revolutionary breakthrough. The semantic aspect of the symbolism refers to problematic dimensions of experience in Chinese political culture–the psychological repression imposed by a system of rigid social censorship, the political discrimination practiced against certain social categories, the persistence of differences in income or educational achievement in a socialist system–and suggests that these “contradictions” may be resolved by bold frontal assault.The symbolism of Cultural Revolution polemics has now become part of Chinese political culture. Its impact seems to have been to inhibit social differentiation (particularly hierarchical), to encourage greater mass participation, and to foster more frequent and irreconcilable conflict among elites.
Party Identification, Party Choice, and Voting Stability: The Weimar Case
Authors: Shively W. Phillips 
Published: May 2006

The stability of voting for subsets of the Weimar population distinguished by sex, religion, and urban-rural residence is estimated: (1) by means of ecological regression, for the period 1924–1928; (2) by an examination of net changes, for the period 1928–1933.The major conclusion is that party identification was not an important factor in the Weimar Republic. Instead, voting seems to have been channeled largely by social and economic structures. Subsidiary conclusions are that uneven distribution of information affected the stability of voting and that most of the Nazi gains from 1928 to 1933 apparently did not come disproportionately from among previous nonvoters.
Legal Mobilization: The Neglected Role of the Law in the Political System
Authors: Zemans Frances Kahn 
Published: May 2006

This article argues thai the role of the law in the political system has been construed much too narrowly. A review of the political science literature demonstrates an interest in the law that is largely confined to the making of new laws, social change, and social control. That view implies an acceptance of the legal profession's distinction between public and private law as a reasonable guide for political scientists in the study of law.A more interactive view of the law is presented, characterizing legal mobilization (invoking legal norms) as a form of political activity by which the citizenry uses public authority on its own behalf. Further, the legal system, structured to consider cases and controversies on an individual basis, provides access to government authority unencumbered by the limits of collective action. This form of public power, although contingent, is widely dispersed.Consideration of the factors that influence legal mobilization is important not only to understanding who uses the law, but also as predictors to the implementation of public policy; with very few exceptions, the enforcement of the laws depends upon individual citizens to initiate the legal process. By virtue of this dependence, an aggregation of individual citizens acting largely in their own interests strongly influences the form and extent of the implementation of public policy and thereby the allocation of power and authority.
Freshman Committee Assignments and Re-election in the United States House of Representatives
Authors: Bullock Charles S. 
Published: May 2006

Two students of the committee assignment process, Nicholas Masters and Charles Clapp, as well as some congressmen, assert that the most crucial factor in filling committee vacancies is whether the appointment will enhance the recipient's chance of re-election. This statement is tested using data for Republican and Northern Democratic freshmen elected to the House between 1947 and 1967.The freshmen are grouped on the basis of assumptions about which assignment or assignments should help them win re-election. When narrowly elected and safe freshmen are compared, there is no evidence that the former more frequently receive assignments likely to facilitate re-election. Thus there is no support for the Masters-Clapp proposition.Investigation further reveals that even those freshmen from marginal districts who are awarded “good” appointments are not re-elected significantly more often than are comparable newcomers having less favorable assignments. Committee assignments therefore seem relatively unimportant in determining whether a congressman wins a sophomore term. Indeed, more than 70 per cent of the freshmen who triumphed in hotly contested races to reach the House are returned. When these incumbents are defeated it is typically as a result of nation-wide forces over which they exercise little if any control.The implications of this research are that congressmen have a greater range of alternatives than is often thought. Even the narrowly elected novice is relatively free to seek appointment to committees for reasons other than constituency service or promotion. Largely symbolic activities are available through which concern for the district and its problems and needs can be demonstrated, thereby freeing much of the congressman's time and attention to pursue other less parochial goals.
Popular Control of Public Policy: A Normal Vote Analysis of the 1968 Election
Authors: Boyd Richard W. 
Published: May 2006

The importance of issues in deciding elections changes from one election to the next. As Key has shown, the issues of the role of the federal government in social life helped create the New Deal Democratic majority. In contrast, issues had only a marginal impact on the apolitical elections of the 1950s. Converse's technique of normal vote analysis reveals that issues were again highly related to the vote in 1968. This was particularly true of attitudes toward Vietnam, urban unrest and race, social welfare, and Johnson's performance as president.Yet, even in an election in which issues appear important, some can have very different consequences for popular control of policy than others. On some issues, the electorate exercises no effective constraints on leaders' policy choices. On others (e.g., the escalation in Vietnam), the electorate permits leaders a wide array of options when a policy is adopted and passes a retrospective judgment on such choices in subsequent elections. Finally, on still other issues, the public may limit the options of leaders at the time a policy is adopted. The paper suggests the stringent conditions necessary for this type of popular control to exist.