bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Constituency Influence in Congress
Authors: Miller Warren E. , Stokes Donald E. 
Published: May 2006

Substantial constituency influence over the lower house of Congress is commonly thought to be both a normative principle and a factual truth of American government. From their draft constitution we may assume the Founding Fathers expected it, and many political scientists feel, regretfully, that the Framers' wish has come all too true. Nevertheless, much of the evidence of constituency control rests on inference. The fact that our House of Representatives, especially by comparison with the House of Commons, has irregular party voting does not of itself indicate that Congressmen deviate from party in response to local pressure. And even more, the fact that many Congressmen feel pressure from home does not of itself establish that the local constituency is performing any of the acts that a reasonable definition of control would imply.Control by the local constituency is at one pole of both the great normative controversies about representation that have arisen in modern times. It is generally recognized that constituency control is opposite to the conception of representation associated with Edmund Burke. Burke wanted the representative to serve the constituency's interest but not its will, and the extent to which the representative should be compelled by electoral sanctions to follow the “mandate” of his constituents has been at the heart of the ensuing controversy as it has continued for a century and a half.
The Independent Voter in 1952: A Study of Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Authors: Hastings Philip K. 
Published: May 2006

A challenging problem for both the student of political behavior and the practical politician is the self-labeled independent voter. Much of the research on what appears to be an increasingly larger segment of the American electorate has been either historically or sociologically oriented in the sense that it has focused on trend studies of the voting pattern of this group or has attempted to describe it in terms of its objective characteristics. Frequently, by inference at least, we are led to believe that the future political behavior of the independent can be anticipated if we have information of the above nature. The central purpose of this article is to present evidence favoring the hypothesis that the political behavior of the independent is more closely related to relevant psychological variables, such as his political perceptions, than to his past voting habits or his objective attributes.During the period from April through November of 1952, the author directed a detailed study of the political opinions and behavior of the residents of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, a city of approximately 53,000 people. The research methods employed in the project included a systematic historic analysis of the community, a series of four public opinion surveys, content analysis of some of the mass media of communication, and a panel study. The first poll took place late in the spring of 1952, the second in August, and the third and fourth were carried out just prior to and immediately following the November elections. The panel members, coming from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds, were interviewed periodically throughout the course of the project.
Conservatism and Personality
Authors: McClosky Herbert 
Published: May 2006

If justification were needed for taking notice once again of the liberal-conservative distinction, it would be sufficient, I suppose, merely to observe that this division has been injected into the politics of Western nations for at least two centuries and, depending on the nature of one's criteria, perhaps longer.The distinction between the two camps has not always been sharply drawn, of course, for both have been compelled, as a condition for survival, to hold important beliefs in common. Moreover, each has reversed itself on certain issues, such as government regulation of the economy, casting off old views in favor of beliefs previously cherished by the other. Competing for popular support in elections, and succeeding one another in office, the two camps have, of necessity, taken on many values in common, tempering their programs and adjusting their courses to the practical requirements of political contest. In a system like ours, where the parties have functioned less as ideological movements than as brokerage organizations hoping to attract majority support from almost every segment of the electorate, the distinction has tended to be dulled even further, until, at the actual scenes of daily political struggle, it has often faded entirely.
A Model for Study of Soviet Foreign Policy
Authors: Triska Jan F. 
Published: May 2006

Soviet foreign policy has been a subject of extensive and intensive study ever since the painful birth of the Soviet state. All the writings and investigations, except for the purely descriptive, are based in some degree on one or several key premises and assumptions of authors who used them to explain and interpret Soviet foreign policy. This is understandable and probably inevitable in view of the enormous significance of the subject matter, the vastness of observed behavior in time and in space, and the lack of available information on policy making. Consequently, scientific, intuitive, and even merely hopeful thinking has been applied to the evidences of Soviet foreign policy in an effort to find a method of analysis, a frame of reference, a tool of orientation which might permit some systematization of the whole subject.Clearly, a single seemingly well-constructed theory of Soviet foreign policy which purports to offer a key to broad analysis is too attractive for an analyst to ignore. But however plausible it may seem, it cannot possibly offer the whole answer. Some elements of Soviet foreign policy may be isolated, focalized, dissected, and examined, but others cannot be subject to even speculative, crude estimates.
Cumulative Voting: Patterns of Party Allegiance and Rational Choice in Illinois State Legislative Contests
Authors: Blair George S. 
Published: May 2006

Cumulative voting is a rough method of proportional representation perhaps more familiar to more Americans as a device for choosing corporate boards of directors, such as Montgomery Ward's, than as a means of choosing legislative representatives. Among American state electoral systems it is unique to Illinois, where it has been in operation since 1870. Like the one-house legislature in Nebraska, it has been admired there but not copied elsewhere. As used in Illinois it retains the district system of representation, but each district is the unit for choosing three representatives, and each voter is allowed three votes. Thus, in contrast with a single-member district system, it aims to secure representation for a substantial minority without jeopardizing the principle of majority rule; and it has done so. If this were all, the Illinois example might remain as a museum piece to be observed by students of comparative electoral methods, or by constitution drafters considering a change in systems.As it happens, however, Illinois superimposed on this cumulative voting scheme for the lower house a conventional single-member district system for the choice of state senators, and providentially for students of voting behavior, from 1870 through the election of 1954 it used the same district boundaries for both purposes.
A Note on Legislative Research: Labor Representation in Rhode Island
Authors: Goodman Jay S. 
Published: May 2006

In the last ten years, an extensive and useful literature has developed on state legislative behavior. This paper reports on an exploratory study of three questions about state legislative processes: (1) What is the relationship between labor representation and legislative outcomes? (2) Are there measurable connections between a legislative role and perceptions of political events and relationships? (3) Does simultaneous individual association with labor and a legislative party result in measurable crosspressures? The responses of sixty-two Rhode Island activists provide the data. The research was designed to provide an empirical basis for comparisons of the perceptions of various participants.The study utilized differentiated sets of legislators plus a set of interest group leaders. Labor legislators were Democratic legislators serving between 1952 and 1962 who, in their Rhode Island Manual biographies (for which they personally provided all the information), listed one of these associations with labor: official union position, union membership, or a source of livelihood in manual or crafts work. Fifteen of a universe of thirty were interviewed; the sample was weighted for legislative tenure. Rank and file Democratic legislators were legislators who served one or more terms in the General Assembly between 1952 and 1962, listed no association with labor in their biographies, and were not elected party leaders. Fifteen were sampled from a universe of one hundred twenty-three; the survey was weighted for legislative tenure. In addition, seven elected leaders, Democratic legislative leaders, were interviewed from a universe of ten. Labor executive board members were local union leaders between 1952 and 1962 who sat on the executive board of the Rhode Island AFL, CIO, or AFL-CIO (the product of a 1958 merger). Twenty-five were interviewed of a universe of sixty-one; the sample was weighted for terms on the board as well as to obtain the proper proportion from each group's pre-1958 governing structure. None served in the Assembly.
The Transmission of Political Values from Parent to Child
Authors: Jennings M. Kent , Niemi Richard G. 
Published: May 2006

In understanding the political development of the pre-adult one of the central questions hinges on the relative and differentiated contributions of various socializing agents. The question undoubtedly proves more difficult as one traverses a range of polities from those where life and learning are almost completely wrapped up in the immediate and extended family to those which are highly complex social organisms and in which the socialization agents are extremely varied. To gain some purchase on the role of one socializing agent in our own complex society, this paper will take up the specific question of the transmission of certain values from parent to child as observed in late adolescence. After noting parent-child relationships for a variety of political values, attention will be turned to some aspects of family structure which conceivably affect the transmission flows.I. Assessing the Family's Impact: “Foremost among agencies of socialization into politics is the family.” So begins Herbert Hyman's discussion of the sources of political learning.1 Hyman explicitly recognized the importance of other agents, but he was neither the first nor the last observer to stress the preeminent position of the family. This viewpoint relies heavily on both the direct and indirect role of the family in shaping the basic orientations of offspring. Whether the child is conscious or unaware of the impact, whether the process is role-modelling or overt transmission, whether the values are political and directly usable or “nonpolitical” but transferable, and whether what is passed on lies in the cognitive or affective realm, it has been argued that the family is of paramount importance.
A Measure of the Population Quality of Legislative Apportionment*
Authors: Kaiser Henry F. 
Published: May 2006

This paper attempts to examine carefully the problem of determining a numerical measure which reflects the quality of the population apportionment in a legislative body. We desire a single index, an index which takes advantage of the available population data, and an index which is readily understood. It should be said that we are not concerned with the much more difficult problem of legislative districting—actually drawing district boundaries on a map—but concentrate our attention only on the quality of apportionment in the particular, but important, sense of population equality.In order to accomplish this purpose I review a number of increasingly complex possibilities and eventually arrive at a measure which superficially seems somewhat esoteric, but which turns out ultimately to be easily interpretable.It will be convenient to proceed heuristically with the development by carrying along a small concrete example. For this purpose, consider the six congressional districts of Connecticut.
A Critique of the Elitist Theory of Democracy
Authors: Walker Jack L. 
Published: May 2006

During the last thirty years, there have been numerous attempts to revise or reconstitute the “classical” theory of democracy: the familiar doctrine of popular rule, patterned after the New England town meeting, which asserts that public policy should result from extensive, informed discussion and debate. By extending general participation in decision-making the classical theorists hoped to increase the citizen's awareness of his moral and social responsibilities, reduce the danger of tyranny, and improve the quality of government. Public officials, acting as agents of the public at large, would then carry out the broad policies decided upon by majority vote in popular assemblies.Although it is seldom made clear just which of the classical democratic theorists is being referred to, contemporary criticism has focused primarily on the descriptive elements of the theory, on its basic conceptions of citizenship, representation and decision-making. The concept of an active, informed, democratic citizenry, the most distinctive feature of the traditional theory, is the principal object of attack. On empirical grounds it is argued that very few such people can be found in Western societies. Public policy is not the expression of the common good as conceived of by the citizenry after widespread discussion and compromise. This description of policy making is held to be dangerously naive because it overlooks the role of demagogic leadership, mass psychology, group coercion, and the influence of those who control concentrated economic power. In short, classical democratic theory is held to be unrealistic; first because it employs conceptions of the nature of man and the operation of society which are Utopian, and second because it does not provide adequate, operational definitions of its key concepts.
Dimensions of Modernization in the American States
Authors: Crittenden John 
Published: May 2006

Among the crucial facts of our time are the profound differences in “modernization” or “development” that characterize contemporary nation-states. Despite a lack of complete agreement about the nature of these differences, it seems clear that variations in incomes, literacy levels, and rates of human reproduction are intimately involved. Development also affects so many other social characteristics that it has become a major preoccupation of social science in all of its branches.The purpose of this paper is to specify modernization levels of states in the American federal system, and to relate variations in development to other aspects of the state political systems. The quest is a natural one in view of the evident concern for development shown by political activists in the states, the emphasis placed upon it in many textbooks and monographs that deal with problems of state government, and the potential relevance for more general theories about all political systems. Problems of development are undoubtedly more pressing in poor nations, but it is not inappropriate to study modernization in an advanced setting. As Siegfried has noted, modernization tends to be an American phenomenon: it is the United States “which is presiding at a general reorganization of the ways of living throughout the entire world.”Questions and answers about development have been formulated in a variety of ways, reflecting a variety of analytic concerns. Scholars concerned with poverty, for example, tend to ask (not unnaturally) “What produces economic growth?” The answers have frequently consisted essentially of single causes: e.g.—technological innovation (Adam Smith), population growth (Smith and Ricardo), the Protestant ethic (Weber), the achieving motive (McClelland), empathy (Lerner). The question can, of course, be phrased more broadly: “What causes a civilization to flower?” This query elicits some of the same answers, but others in addition: climate (Huntington), leaders or luck (Muller), cultural diffusion via trade (Buchanan and Ellis), race (Wax), challenge of the environment (Toynbee).
Some Conditions of Democracy
Authors: Neubauer Deane E. 
Published: May 2006

It has been argued that political democracy in nation-states is dependent upon certain levels of social and economic development. Some authors (Lipset and Cutright) argue that a particular complex of social and economic requisites appears necessary for the institutionalization and maintenance of democracy. Others (Lerner and Pye) suggest that national political development of any form is predicated upon the development of a system of communications sufficiently sophisticated to overcome the parochialism of traditional society. Still others (Almond and Verba) find social factors such as education crucial for the development of those attitudes deemed adequate for active citizens of democratic polities.By definition, political democracy in nationstates requires some minimal level of citizen participation in decision making. Historically the most effective method of institutionalizing such participation is through some form of representative government. This mechanism permits groups of citizens with common preferences to support representatives who will, in turn, attempt to schedule those preferences for decision by the government. Groups of representatives will form coalitions in an attempt to insure that their common preferences will be enacted into public policy. Because preferences in society are likely to vary in direction and intensity, the successful implementation of political democracy imposes two requirements. One, communication of preferences among competing groups, must be widespread. If they are not, it will be difficult for groups with shared preferences to combine their resources such that “majority” preferences can be successfully implemented. Indeed at a more basic level, communication is necessary for the identification and articulation of common preferences. Second, groups within the citizenry holding competing preferences must be socialized into the procedural norms of the system. Most important is the acceptance of the norms of compliance so that groups which “lose” on any given issue (enactment of a preference set) do not withdraw from the decision system or opt to overthrow it. In short, two primary conditions for the maintenance of any system of political democracy are, (1) communication among members of the political system and, (2) socialization into the “rules of the game.”
Government Expenditures and Public Services in the American States
Authors: Sharkansky Ira 
Published: May 2006

Much recent policy analysis is based on the assumption that the amount of money spent in a jurisdiction indicates the nature of services provided. This study seeks to test this assumption as it applies to the American states.Among the studies that have attempted to explain the “outputs” of state and local governments by reference to political and economic characteristics, several have identified expenditures with services implicitly by mixing indicators of spending with indicators of services as the “outputs” to be explained. Other studies have claimed explicitly that government expenditures reflect the “scope and character” or “calibre” or the “alpha and the omega” of public services. A contrary argument is that “money is not everything.” Such nonmonetary factors as the quality of personnel or the nature of the political environment may exert the greatest influences upon the quality or quantity of public services within a jurisdiction.In assessing the relationship between spending and services, this study first defines static relationships between measures of spending and measures of public services. Secondly, it examines relationships over time in an attempt to discern if increases in government expenditures are likely to bring about increases in the quality or quantity of public services.
Voting Turnout in American Cities
Authors: Alford Robert R. , Lee Eugene C. 
Published: May 2006

Writing about local elections in 1968, Charles R. Adrian and Charles Press report that, “It is not known whether … state and national voting-population characteristics fit municipal voting, too.” Although a number of important studies of politics and elections in individual communities have emerged in recent years, the data are far from sufficient to permit more than the most speculative generalizations about the nature of the local electorate. This study draws back the curtain, albeit only a bit, on one aspect of local political participation—voting turnout. The data presented constitute, so far as we know, the first attempt at a comprehensive comparison among American cities with respect to turnout. As will be suggested and become obvious, the breadth of the data is not matched by their depth; data were received from only 80 percent of the 729 cities above 25,000 population in 1962, and we were able to utilize comparative turnout figures from only 282 of these. While relationships are suggested between turnout, political and governmental structure, and characteristics of the population, these relationships must be regarded more as leads to future research, than as clear and unambiguous findings.Previous work by the present authors has pointed to the importance of the political and social variables included in this analysis of American cities. Lee suggested in a study of nonpartisan elections and politics in California cities that nonpartisanship might tend to reduce voter participation. In a study of American cities, this hypothesis was confirmed in a preliminary analysis of the same data used in this article.
The Role of the M.P. in Tanzania
Authors: Hopkins Raymond F. 
Published: May 2006

The study of politics in “developing” countries has tended to focus on the less formal organs of government, such as political parties, the military, the bureaucracy, and even the educational system. National legislatures have often been ignored or rated of little significance in the political processes of these states. This practice contrasts markedly with the attention paid to legislatures in Western states. The most obvious explanation for it is that legislatures in new states tend to have little influence. Important decisions and shifts in power are usually made or recorded elsewhere in the political system.The Bunge, or National Assembly, of Tanzania is no exception to this general phenomenon. Nevertheless, an examination of the role of M.P.'s in Tanzania can be illuminating. The Bunge contains most of the major political leaders and has, at least constitutionally, broad authority. As a consequence, if the Assembly is to be only a weak political body, then informal norms limiting the powers of the M.P.'s role must exist. Moreover, these norms should prescribe authority relationships between the legislature and other policy shaping bodies in the political system, particularly the Party. Thus, an analysis of the roles of these men can provide important insights not only into the functions of the Bunge, but also into the elite political culture of Tanzania and the pattern of politics which this culture supports.